XTviz Perth Demo User Manual. What we do

Transcription

1 XTviz Perth Demo User Manual What we do Simmersion Holdings Pty Ltd specialises in creating spatially accurate interactive 3D simulations of real world environments to assist our clients in communicating with stakeholders so that they can better see, analyse, and understand project outcomes. XTviz is our latest and best software to achieve this. Our clients Our clients include local and state government authorities, property developers, architects, urban infrastructure consultants, environmental impact consultants, and the mining and energy sectors. Minimum Recommended System Specifications An Intel Core i5 processor, 16 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 970 graphics card or any equivalent AMD computer running Windows 64-bit is recommended for best performance and experience. Getting Started To run the XTviz Perth Demo, double click the Perth Demo.exe file in the install folder or the XTviz Perth Demo shortcut located on your desktop. Once loaded you will be brought to the login screen. Here you will be required to enter your login details, if you don t have a login yet click the registration button. On the registration screen you ll be required to enter your details and then press the button to create your new login for XTviz. You may need to adjust the size of the window or maximise the window to insure you can view all elements properly. Key Features and their purpose XTviz incorporates shadow analysis tools to visualise the impact of shadows on a building or buildings at various times of the day, including the longest (summer solstice) and shortest (winter solstice) days of the year. XTviz allows users to fly to any position and accurately visualise the line of sight from that location e.g. the impact of a planned building from a specific window of another building. XTviz allows users to quickly create or import 3D models and position them precisely to assess the visual impact they would have on the surrounding environment. XTviz has measuring tools to help understand height and dimensions of imported models or buildings. They can also be used to help place models accurately within the 3D environment. XTviz allows users to create screenshots from any location to record the impact of changes to the build environment, such as line of sight obstructions and shadows. XTviz allows users to create videos showcasing any of the above features so that you can quickly share ideas directly or online. Page 1 of 21

2 Controls The controls are as simple as possible. You use W, S, A, D keys for forward, backward, left and right movement. The E key increases the height relative to the camera angle and the Q key will decrease the height. Holding down the right mouse button while moving the mouse will rotate the camera 360 degrees in any direction. The left mouse button lets you click menus and interact with tools and features. Main User Interface There are six menus and feature toggles along the top bar and two on the left and right corners of the bottom bar. Certain features bring up floating menus which can be docked anywhere on screen. Floating menus can be dragged using the top bar. There are a number of shortcut buttons along the bottom middle of the screen which relate to tools found in the Tools Menu and also in the Camera dropdown at the top of the screen. The two last shortcuts on the right hand side are the ones related to the Camera dropdown. They open the Camera Paths window and the Screenshots window. The other shortcuts match from left to right with the Tools Menu from top to bottom (Excluding Delete All Points and Delete Tape Measure). Mini map In the top right corner is the mini map. With the mini map you can quickly see what area of the simulation you are in. The mini map can by very useful when you have a simulation that encompasses a large area. Page 2 of 21

3 Main Menu The Main Menu consists of four options. The first option, Save and Load, will open a screen containing the saving and loading options. Graphics Settings will open a window to allow you to change the current graphics settings. Import Model opens a window where you can select the model you wish to import into the simulation. XTviz supports 3DS, FBX, DAE and OBJ file formats. Quit allows you to exit the simulation. Save and Load Save Saves imported models, anything created using the tools, and any settings applied. Enter a file name in the field at the bottom and press Save. Load After selecting an existing save file in the list, click the Load button and it will reload your saved file. Back While opening the Save and Load window it will default to a save folder in your my documents folder and we encourage you to save in this folder. We do however allow navigation using the back button to go back folders and navigate to a different save location on your computer. Graphic Settings The initial graphics settings should run well on most computers that meet the suggested minimum required specs as outlined at the beginning of this manual. If you need to, this window will allow you to adjust the graphic settings. If you find the simulation performance is too slow, you can lower some features and completely turn others off. On the other hand, if you find that your simulation performance is excellent, you can try increasing the sliders. Antialiasing On/Off This toggles antialiasing on/off. Antialiasing is a rendering technique that lowers pixilation on the edges of objects by blurring them. Page 3 of 21

4 Fog On/Off This toggles the fog on/off. This is useful as it gives a better sense of depth to a scene. LOD Draw Distance This adjusts the distance at which the different level of details is shown for objects. This mostly affects trees and at its lowest settings trees may not appear at all. We would suggest leaving this around the middle for good performance and tree visibility distance. Shadow Distance This adjusts the distance at which the shadow visibility changes. The default is a good starting point. If your system allows, you can increase the distance which means the shadows will be visible from a longer distance. Import Model Models of various formats can be imported into XTviz. It currently supports 3DS, OBJ, FBX, and DAE. The placement of the model will depend on where the middle of the camera is facing, the importer looks for a surface with collision (an attribute that makes an object physical) to place models. All terrain will have collision so we recommend aiming the viewport in that direction when importing models. In the above images you can see where the camera was facing (left) and where the model was placed (right). Textures that are applied to models will also be automatically imported as long as they re in the same folder as the file of the model you are importing. An imported model must have a single texture per object within the file. Page 4 of 21

5 Camera Menu Home Restores the camera to the initial viewpoint when the simulation first launches. Free Roam Camera Gives you full navigation functionality to fly anywhere you want within the scene. The controls are W, S, A, D for forward, backward, left and right movement and E to increase the camera height vertically and Q to decrease the height. Holding down the right mouse button will rotate the camera 360 degrees in any direction. The movement speed can be increased and decreased by scrolling forward or backward with the mouse scroll wheel. Top Down Camera Useful for conducting shadow analysis, it places you in a fixed camera orientation looking straight down. You can pan the camera (move forward, back, left and right with W, S, A, D), zoom in towards the ground with E and zoom back out with Q. The movement speed can be increased and decreased by scrolling forward or backward with the middle mouse button. First Person Drops the camera down to the ground at eye level from wherever you are. If you want to use First Person just hover over to where you want to be and press the button. Navigation is locked to a default speed and the controls are W, S, A, D for forward, backward, left and right movement and Space Bar to jump. Field of View Viewing angle of the camera, the default is 75. The value can be adjusted to a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 120 by inputting a value in the input field or by moving the slider. Near and Far Plane clipping Adjust what the camera renders. So imagine a plane close to the camera and one far away. The camera will only render what is in-between those two planes. For large areas with objects close together adjusting these values can help stop mismatching errors that can cause flickering between surfaces. Near Plane Adjusts near clipping for the camera. Use a value between 0.1 and 100. Far Plane Adjusts far clipping for the camera. Use a value between 100 and Page 5 of 21

6 Camera Paths Camera paths allow you to create paths that a camera can follow by using the playback and record controls. You can create paths with straight lines or curved lines by adjusting the Bezier handles at each camera point. When you have created one or more camera points, you can adjust various parameters such as speed, framerate, and resolution. In addition to being able to playback camera paths in real time, you can adjust recording settings to output a video. Each camera point is represented by a camera icon. There will be two squares near each icon and they can be clicked on and then dragged to adjust the curve between each camera point. Screenshots Window The Screenshots Window allows you to save screenshots to the designated directory. It s set to a default 1x resolution. This will save a PNG image based on the resolution of the currently running project. From the dropdown menu you can set it up to 4x resolution. This will save an image 4x the size of the projects current resolution. Page 6 of 21

7 Camera Path Controls Create Camera Path When you press Create Camera Path, you will be prompted to give the camera path a name. You will see the camera path you created in the list. You can create multiple camera paths. If you move the camera in the viewport you will see the first camera point has been created. From here you must create one or more camera points to be able to playback the path. Add Camera Point After the initial camera point has been created you must move to a new location and press Add Camera Point to create a new point. You can create as many points as you require. Prev/Next This allows you to move to the next camera point and to the previous camera point within the same path. You must cycle through the camera points with these buttons in order to adjust the camera point s position and rotation. Similar to Object Settings you can toggle the position and rotation for each camera point by pressing the cross for position and the circle with the arrow to adjust rotation. Delete Camera Point Deletes the active camera point. Playback Controls The playback controls allow you to play the path, pause, speed up/down, stop and replay path from the beginning. Also pressing the play button while playing will reset the speed. Set Camera Point Speed To adjust the speed of camera points, you must use the prev/next controls to move to the camera point you want to adjust, then you can set the new speed. Speed will increase or decrease between the distance of each point. This procedure must be done for each camera point. Recording Options In this section you can adjust the recording options to render out video. Set Framerate Sets the frames per second. The default is 25, you can set it to 30 and 60. Set Resolution Sets the resolution. The default is 1080p, you can set it to 720p and 360p. Enter File Name Specify a name for the recording. The text below this field will show you location of the saved video file. Page 7 of 21

8 Record Once all settings have been adjusted and you are ready to record, you will need to press the REC button. All of the user interface (UI) will be hidden while recording the video. Pressing space or allowing the video to reach the end of the camera path will stop the recording. It is recommended you have a machine with at least the minimum specs. Do not try and record video if the frame rate is lower than that shown in the stats window. The created video will be saved to the movies folder in the XTvizPerthDemo folder in your My Documents directory. When using camera paths we recommend having the required minimum specs, especially when rendering videos using the record feature. If when you play the path or record a video you begin to get jagged or jutting movement you may need to adjust the resolution or frame rate. If you still don t have smooth movement try lowering the speed for each point. Viewpoints Menu Viewpoints allow you to go to locations and save camera views which can be recalled later. This feature is excellent for quickly setting up multiple camera views and storing them. You can later recall the viewpoints without having to always fly to the desired locations. Viewpoints need to be saved using the Save and Load Window. There are two options to activate viewpoints, Jump to View and Go to View. Jump to View will quickly jump between stored viewpoints. Go to View will transition to the next viewpoint and ease into place with a smooth camera movement. Either option can be used to activate a view with shortcut keys, by default this feature is off. To create a shortcut, enter the desired keyboard key into the input field next to Shortcut. You can set any key except W, S, A, D as they are the camera navigation controls. Go to View works when you hold down the defined shortcut key and if you release the button it will Jump to View. Add Current Viewpoint To create a viewpoint press Add Current Viewpoint, this will bring up the Enter Viewpoint Name window and create a camera viewpoint of your current location and camera angle. You can create as many viewpoints as you would like. Page 8 of 21

9 View Menu Hide Building Layers Toggles on/off all the layer icons in the scene created by pressing New Layer from the Create Menu. (Refer to page 13 for information on Building Layers) Hide All Trees Toggles all the trees that exist in the scene on/off. Hide Labels Toggles labels on/off. (Refer to page 14 for information on Labels) Mini Map Toggles mini map on/off. Stats The Stats Button toggles on/off vital information regarding system performance and other important statistics. The information is grouped and positioned on the corners of the screen. The top left corner contains frame rate and memory stats. Here you will get information for frames per second (FPS), which is the actual frame rate. You are also given average frame rate (AVG) and minimum frame rate (MIN). These three values give you a picture of what you are currently getting and a history of what you got over the length of the simulation. The bottom left corner displays system information regarding operating system (OS), processor (CPU), graphics card (GPU), memory (RAM), and display resolution (SCR). The bottom right corner displays the Northing, Easting and Reduced Level (RL) for the camera. This is to give you an accurate readout for your current location. Page 9 of 21

10 Date and Time Menu The Date and Time menu lets you adjust the Hour, Day, Month and Year. Tools Menu This menu allows provides access to a set of scenario and impact analysis tools to obtain north and east measurements and RL heights for specific points and locations. You can also create and manipulate Block Models and Imported Models. There is a tool to help organize existing and imported/created models into layers so that you can hide, unhide and do shadow analysis. It also has a button to open the Screenshot Window to allow you take screenshots of imported models or create building envelopes and save them. Page 10 of 21

11 Worldspace Points Worldspace Points allow you to place points on the terrain or objects to obtain northing, easting and RL s. To activate, press the Worldspace Points button (it will turn red). You can place as many points as required. When you are done, you must click the button again to turn it off. If you want to delete the points you have created you can press Delete All Points below the Worldspace Points button. Page 11 of 21

12 Tape Measure The Tape Measure can be used on the terrain and models to measure the length between two or more points. To use the Tape Measure press the button. When it turns red you can begin clicking points to define a length. You can define a single length between two points by clicking a start point and end point, or you can create a longer tape measure by clicking multiple points. To finish the active tape measure you must click the Tape Measure button again (it will turn off). The button will turn black signaling that it has completed the measurement. You can create as many measurements as required, each time you want to create a new one you must turn on the tape measure by clicking on it, defining the points and clicking it off. If you want to delete the measurements you have created press the Delete Tape Measure button below the Tape Measure button. Be aware doing this will delete all the tape measure points you have created. The Tape Measure gives four important values, Northing, Easting and RL s for each point and the distance between two points. Quick Cut The quick cut tool has been added to quickly cut through pieces of terrain to few any subterranean infrastructure that may have been included in a project. It works by simply clicking in the view 3 times. The first click creates the initial point location of the cut the second will create the length and the third the depth of the cut. All of this is visually shown and based off your mouse position. This is important to make sure to obscure all the terrain within the chosen area. If the box doesn t go high or low enough to include all the terrain and parts outside will still be seen and you won t end up with a nice clean cut. Clicking a fourth time or clicking on another tool or shortcut will delete the currently created quick cut. New Layer Page 12 of 21

13 Press the New Layer button, the left mouse on the screen to place a new layer icon. Then click on the icon to open the layer window. Layers can be used to organize models into One Object or Multiple Objects layers. Once models are in layers they can be toggled on/off and you can use the Shadow Analysis feature. New Layer Window Add To assign a model to a One Object layer press Add to turn it on (turns red) and left mouse click a model. Press the eye icon in the newly created One Object layer to toggle visibility on/off. Add Multi To assign models to a Multiple Objects layer press Add Multi to create one in the layers list. Type a name for this layer if you want. Then press the forward arrow below the eye icon to expand the list. With the list expanded turn on Add Object (turns red) and select the models you want to include in the list. When you are done, click Add Object again to turn off (turns black). To toggle on/off visibility the layer must remain expanded. By clicking the eye icon everything in the group layer will turn on/off. Page 13 of 21

14 Cutting Tool The Cutting Tool has been added to make it possible to remove buildings quickly and easily from 3D models where buildings trees and roads may be connected within a single model. It does this by visually removing any part of an object that is inside any of the placeable primitive objects. Currently you are provided a cube and cylinder primitives that can be easily moved, rotated and scaled so that you can hide whatever part of an object is required. Shadow Analysis By default, pressing Shadow Analysis will toggle the shadows on/off for everything in the simulation. It s only when you start to assign models to the layer where this feature will work. If models are in a layer, toggling shadow analysis will disable shadows on all the models not included in the current selected layer. Allowing the shadows for specific models to be viewed clearly. Shadows for these models will appear coloured so they can be easily visible in screenshots or videos. Add Label Creates a label for the layer. They can be a good way of distinguishing between a number of layers in the scene. It does this by showing a visible text bubble connected to the layer. You can colour and change the text to make it more unique and easily distinguishable. Block Model Creator Window Page 14 of 21

15 Block Model Creator Window Pressing Block Model Creator Window will bring up another window containing all the controls to create block models. Here you will find the following options: New Block Model Allows you to set points to begin creating a block model. Settings Window Toggles on/off the Object Settings window. (Refer to page 18 for information on the Object Settings window) Delete Block Model Points Before pressing Finish Block Model you can press Delete Block Model Points to delete all of the points that have been created. This will allow you to restart and create a new block model. New Block Model Page 15 of 21

16 4 step process Click New Block Model (turns red), then click three or more points to define the shape. For example, to create a square/rectangular shape you will only need to place four points. The final shape will have an open edge but it will automatically close when you press Close Building Spline. This button will appear below New Block Model after three or more points have been placed. Page 16 of 21

17 Set Height and finish the Block Model After you press Close Building Spline a new option to Set Height will appear. You can set the height for your Block Model in 3 different ways. The first and default setting is to set the RL height of the building. The second and third are setting a height from ground level. If you wish to do this you firstly need to click Use AGL. Then chose either High BM point or Low BM point. The first uses the point with the highest elevation of the points you placed for the Block Model and the second uses the point with the lowest elevation. You just click on the box to the left of the text for each option. Then after you ve selected one of the three options just press the Set Height button. A new option to Finish Block Model will appear and you will need to press it to finish the block model. At any point before pressing Finish Block Model you can adjust the points by clicking on them and then using the Translate gizmo to move them. Block models can be created on top of each other to further define a shape and moving points make it possible to create things like roofs. Object Settings When a block model is complete click on it to highlight it and bring up the Object Settings window. The Object Settings window has a selection of tools to create, manipulate and assign colour properties to block models and imported models. Starting from the top, there's an input field to give models unique names. Next is the standard Move, Rotate and Scale gizmos. North (x), RL Height and East (y) shows the coordinates of the model currently selected. Duplicate will clone the selected model. To use it select the model you want to duplicate and press the Duplicate Object button. Then left mouse click on the new location you want to place the clone. The Deselect Object button will deselect the object which is currently active, shown with a pulsating red highlight. Delete Object button will delete the selected object. The bottom half of this window has tools to select, assign and store colours. There are three sliders for Hue, Saturation and Brightness. With the model selected you can press Apply Colour to assign the selected colour. You can store up to three colours to apply by adjusting the colour properties and pressing Add Colour Default. The tools in the Object Settings window also apply to models that are imported through the Main Menu. Page 17 of 21

18 Transform Gizmos Translate By clicking the translate icon in the Object Settings Window or by clicking on a model, a translate gizmo will appear in the viewport centered on the object selection. You can see the Translate Gizmo in the image. It allows you to move the object around the scene, its best practice to click on the outer pointers of the gizmo as they will move along a single axis. The blue pointer moves North and South, the red moves East and West and the green moves up and down. Clicking the coloured squares in the centre where all three arrows meet will enable movement in multiple axis at once. You can also enter specific values in the Object Settings Window. Rotate Page 18 of 21

19 By clicking the rotate icon in the Object Settings Window or by clicking on a model the Rotation Gizmo will appear in the viewport centered on the object selection. You can see the Rotate Gizmo in the image. It allows you to rotate the object around its pivot. The rotate gizmo functions similar to the translate gizmo. Clicking on any one of the coloured loops will allow you rotate round a certain axis. Clicking one of the grey loops isn t recommended as the behaviour is hard to control. The outer loop rotates the object in relation to the camera and the inner loop rotates in all directions. Using the same fields as with translate in the Object Settings Window you can now enter specific values for rotation. Page 19 of 21

20 Scale By clicking the scale icon in the Object Settings Window or by clicking on a model, a Rotation Gizmo will appear in the viewport centered on the object selection. You can see the Scale Gizmo in the image. It allows you to scale objects along a single axis or the whole object uniformly. To scale by a single axis click on one of the coloured cubes. To scale uniformly click on the grey cube in the centre. You can also enter specific values in the Object Settings Window. Tree Placement Tool Page 20 of 21

21 The Tree Placement Tool can be accessed through the Tool Menu. By default it is setup to allow you to place single trees. To begin placing trees select one from the list (background turns green) and left mouse click on the terrain or an object to place a tree. To delete trees press the Delete Trees On/Off toggle and it will switch from a cross to a tick signaling the delete function is active. Left mouse click on the trunk of a tree to delete it. You can set a range to randomise the size of the trees. By default it is set to the maximum range possible, 0.1 and 3. By placing the handles close together anywhere on the slider you limit the range of randomness in size. (A 1 value on the slider represents the tree at its full grown height). All trees will have random rotation applied when they are placed. To switch from single tree placement to multiple tree placement press the Multiple Trees On/Off toggle. Two new options will appear underneath each toggle, Tree Placement Area and Number of trees to be placed. Tree Placement Area specifies the area that trees will be placed. Number of trees to be placed specifies the number of trees to place within the area. It can be set from a minimum of 1 and maximum of 20. Multiple trees can only be placed on the terrain and can be done by clicking the left mouse button. If multiple tree placement is turned on you can also enable Delete Trees On/Off which will allow you to delete multiple trees by clicking the mouse button. The settings applied to Tree Placement Area and Number of trees to be placed will be taken into consideration to determine how many trees are deleted. As with placing trees, deleting multiple trees will be random. Contact Simmersion to get your next XTviz project If you would like your own XTviz project, please contact Simmersion via our website info@simmersionholdings.com or xtvizhelp@gmail.com Page 21 of 21