The Simple UI includes the Scene module, which contains all scene elements, like geometry, materials, environments, cameras, lights, and render settings on different tabs at the top of the window.
1 Tabs
2 Search field
3 Scene tree
4 Properties element with tabs
5 Scene module slider
6 Properties element with tabs
7 Width adjustment
8 Second scene tree (meta tags)
9 Window splitting adjustment
Use the vertical dotted line (7) to resize window width. Use the dotted line over the Properties window (9) to resize the windows splitting size. Use a second dotted line over the icons bar and slider (8) to open a second scenegraph. These features are helpful for arranging scene objects within large scene trees.
If NURBS data within the scene there is the possibility to show/edit scene tags. Above the middle window and above the search field a drop-down field (10) appears to chose which window should show tags and/ or scene tree.
The search field provides live-search capabilities for scenegraph objects. Search is helpful for quickly identifying known components in complex scenes without browsing the scenegraph structure. The search field is located below the module tabs. Only single search terms are supported.
Paste your search term from clipboard to avoid live check on search.
All scene relevant objects that have been set up or imported are present and accessible within the scene tree. The usage is familiar to file browsers - a plus in front of a node indicates that something is located below. Either a click onto the plus or a double click with left mouse button onto the node toggles the extension of the hierarchy up to the next level. The slider located underneath enables a fast way to extend substructure of selection or multiselection.
When the checkbox in front of a node is selected the object is visible in render view. Objects not selected are grayed.
Click selects an item; right-click opens the context menu. Clicking a selected item enables renaming.
Multiselection of nodes could be done in two different ways by scenegraph interaction.
The minimized context menu from simple UI continues the thread of simplification. Common usual features like create or edit are directly available, uncommon features are stripped off to keep it clear. A switch back to the standard UI brings them back whenever required. Right mouse click inside the scene tree opens the context menu.
Clicking the top of the context menu (dotted line) releases it to an independent window. This works also on sub menus.
The create sub menu provides functionality to generate and add nodes to the scene. Newly created nodes appear under the group node selected on creation. If a node without grouping characteristics is selected on creation, then the node appears besides the selection. If nothing is selected on creation then the root group node is used as parent node.
Scenegraph icons for line and polygonal shapes (active and inactive)
VRED supports creation of the following geometric standard primitives. The layout of numerical input dialog box depends on the use case.
All object creation except Line feature results in triangulated polygonal shapes nodes.
A line is the connection of two points. Every point has X, Y, and Z coordinates for it's positioning in 3D space. The representation of a line object in render view depends on the active render engine. This means that in OpenGL mode a line is represented as a line, but in Raytracing mode it is represented as a tube capped with half spheres on both ends. The radius of the representation in that case is controlled by the material setting Line Tube Radius, accessible within the standard UI.
A plane is a flat quadratic face often used to place object shadows onto the ground below. It has X and Y dimensions and it requires input for the number of sub-divisions for both axes.
A box describes a quadratic, 3D room also known as cube. It has X, Y, and Z dimensions and it requires input for the number of sub-divisions for all axes.
A cylinder is an object that has two circular ends with same radius parallel to each other. A cover wrapped around the distance between (height) builts the outer skin of the primitive. Increasing the number of sides makes the object look less faceted. Faces for top, bottom or side are only created when related checkboxes are selected on creation.
A cone is similar to a cylinder. It has also a circular base at the bottom but its top end is a single point instead of a circular face. Faces for bottom or side are only created when related checkboxes are selected on creation.
Sphere is the distinguishing name for a 3D primitive in the form of a ball. Every point on the surface has the same distance to the center point. This distance is adjusted within the dialog box by the radius value. The values for latitude and longitude resolution results in amount of horizontal and vertical sub-divisions.
A torus is an object that's shape equals a donut. A section cut would show a circular profile limited by the inner and outer radius. Imagine on creation that the profile is rotated around the perpendicular axis in the center of the object. The value for rings controls the number of subdivisions along that rotation, sides controls the number of horizontal sub-divisions.
A dome has a flat circular surface at the bottom and a half sphere on the top, also known as hemisphere. The border edge to the bottom surface is chamfered. The Base Radius value on creation dialog box controls the dimension of the half sphere, Ground Radius controls chamfer creation. Setting for Latres results in number of perpendicularly sub-divisions, Longres controls number of sub-divisions around the perpendicular axis.
VRED supports creation of the following light sources as nodes.
Directional light rays are parallel, like sun light. Directional light generates a clean-cut shadow. If the light source is set near by an object it creates a clear, hard shadow. Rather further away, the shadow becomes softer.
Point light rays start at a single point and emit radially. Point light generates rather diffuse shadows.
Spot light rays follow a beam cone. They start at a single point and spot in a circled area on the object. It is often used to emphasize an object or surface.
Spherical light rays beam like from a glowing ball. Spherical light generates diffuse light and soft shadows. It is an indirect lighting and more atmospheric than point light.
The disk or rectangular light rays are created a light source appearing like from a dropped ceiling - either like from a circle (disk) or from a square (rectangular)
Ray Files contain the simulated spatial and angular distribution as well as photometric or spectral information of emitted light from a complex light source.
VRED supports creation of the following cameras.
Setting this node creates a camera with a perspective view. Perspective View: A view similar to the view of human eyes: Objects further away seem smaller than objects right in front. Original parallel lines appear centric to a single point a long distance off. This view is the default for file output (s.a. Render Settings)
Setting this node creates a camera with an orthographic view. Orthographic View: A view where all objects have the same size irrespective of distance. Each object's actual height and width is shown and parallel lines remain parallel.
This function creates a new fixed point of view from the actual distance and angle to a scene or object.
A group node helps you structure everything scene related that is present within the tree. Grouping of nodes has no influence to the graphical representation within the render view.
A clone node duplicates and references all child nodes of the node that is dropped onto it. All nodes contained at that moment are considered. Referenced means that any change on that objects (for example, transforming, assigning material) also affect the duplicated instance and vice versa. Referenced nodes are underlined within the scenegraph.
The shadows generated by more than one light source on an object add up where they overlap. Similar to a new geometry, the newly created light source is at (0,0,0) by default, no matter whether an object is selected or not. Location, size, angle, and so on, can be modified by using the Transform Manipulator
An Environment node provides a textured surrounding with shadow plane on its ground. It's texture affects the representation of all scene-related materials. The creation dialog box asks for this texture. It generates the dome and shadow plane automatically.
A switch node groups different child nodes and it switches the visibility of them within the render view. Only one of the child nodes is visible at the same time. When a checkbox is selected, the visibility checkboxes of all other child nodes are unselected automatically.
Geometrical object properties, transformations, and animations are accessible and customizable within the edit sub menu. Place the mouse pointer above an editable node on opening the context menu. All following instructions are affecting that node.
VRED's trueNURBS concept provides the usage of CAD NURBS data directly within the scene. Features for editing geometrical properties of NURBS objects or their polygonal representation are available here.
CAD generated construction data is mathematically precise; exact defined by a technique called Bézier curves. VRED's directNURBS Raytracing mode is able to represent NURBS data without any preparation.
OpenGL mode requires generating a polygonal representation before. This process is called tessellation. It enables changing the complexity/amount of polygons of an object at anytime. NURBS data coexists besides polygonal data (same node object within scenegraph); this enables re-tesselation without reloading the files before.
A polygonal representation is never as precise as the source NURBS data. The higher the precision the more polygons are generated.
Coarse | Low | Medium | High | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chord deviation |
1.00 |
0.15 |
0.075 |
0.037 |
Normal tolerance |
30.00 |
20.00 |
10.00 |
7.5 |
Max chord length |
400.00 |
300.00 |
200.00 |
100.0 |
Enable stitching |
yes |
yes |
yes |
yes |
Stitching tolerance |
0.10 |
0.10 |
0.10 |
0.1 |
Combines selected NURBS components to one contiguous NURBS shell. The discontiguous condition is furthermore accessible at anytime through the standard UI of VRED.
Deletes the NURBS information that is stored beside the tessellated object. Due to this, memory consumption of the scene is reduced but re-tesselation of that object is not possible anymore.
Undo for this action is not available.
Features for editing geometrical properties of polygonal objects are available here. This is useful for splitting or merging objects
Merges polygonal objects with same material to one contiguous object. Group objects that should be combined this way and use feature on group node. This works also when NURBS data exists besides the polygonal representation.
Undo for this action is not available.
Splits selected polygonal object into fragments. The dialog box asks for a value that determines the maximum number of triangles a split object should contain. For example, you have an object with 1000 polygons and you split it into fragments with a maximum amount about 100 polygons you will get 10 objects.
Undo for this action is not available.
Execution converts object to a group node that is named like the object before. The group node contains single triangles for every polygon of the source object.
Undo for this action is not available.
Unsplit Geometry with One Triangle (Ctrl + Shift + T)
Merges single triangles to one object. Group polygons that should be combined this way and use feature on group node. Material from the first node below the parent group is applied to the merged object.
Undo for this action is not available.
Subdivide Geometry
Subdivides existing polygon mesh into smaller triangles. Ambient occlusion calculation for example requires a fine mesh resolution for shadowed areas to avoid ragged edges on shadow illustration. This feature is helpful when NURBS data for re-tesselation is not available but a refined mesh is required.
Two different subdivide methods are present:
Standard: Each polygon is subdivided until each edge length is below the maximum edge length threshold entered on creation.
Phong Interpolation: Each polygon is subdivided into a specific number of triangles depending on the selected iteration value selected on creation (see table).
Iteration | Triangles/Polygon |
---|---|
1 | 4 |
2 | 16 |
3 | 64 |
4 | 256 |
Undo for this action is not available.
This menu contains a feature to create turntable animations quickly. Furthermore it provides commands to handle already created animations for duplication or cloning purposes.
An already created and saved transformation animation could be loaded and assigned to the selected node.
An already created and saved material animation could be loaded and assigned to the selected node.
This dialog box supports the user on creation of turntable animations. The object is rotated 360° around the perpendicular axis. These kinds of animations are for example, used for product presentation within virtual showrooms.
Rotation Pivot: Set to Center moves the rotation center of the object to the center of its bounding box. This is helpful if the animated object had custom pivot point settings that affect in side motion on object rotation.
The animation can be copied to the clipboard by selecting an already animated object and executing this command.
Pastes animation from clipboard to the selected node.
Pastes animation from clipboard to the selected node in a referenced way. This means that any change on animation affects the cloned instance and vice versa.
The asset management module supports the user on the usage of external file references. These files are imported to the scenegraph and present within its structure. Sub menu provides commands to edit such references.
Saves selection within the asset manager.
Select related asset within the asset manager.
Updates the selected asset from the asset manager.
Removes the reference connection to the asset manager. The asset itself is not deleted this way.
Renames selected node; same behavior as clicking selection.
Deletes selected nodes.
Copies selected nodes and structure to clipboard.
Cuts selection and stores it to clipboard.
Pastes clipboard contained nodes to an independent instance within the scenegraph.
Pastes clipboard contained nodes to an automatically created group node in a referenced way. Referenced nodes are underlined within the scenegraph.
Groups the edit menu commands copy and paste clone to a single action. Take one of the mirror commands to create a references and mirrored instance from source object or structure.
Clone (Ctrl + Shift +D): Creates a cloned instance of the source selection at same position in 3D.
Clone Mirror X/Y/Z: Creates a cloned instance of the source selection mirrored on related axis.
Groups the edit menu commands copy and paste to a single action. The duplicated instance here are not referenced to source object and structure.
Removes the reference connection between source and cloned instance. Referenced nodes are underlined within the scenegraph. A later change on them doesn't affect the other instance anymore.
A transformation contains information about the position and the orientation of an object within 3D space. It also provides information about the position and orientation of the objects coordination system. This command copies all this information from the selected node to clipboard.
Adopts transformations from clipboard to a selection.
Creates a group node and moves all selected nodes into it.
Opens the module that provides further operations for example, geometrical optimizations, sharing, and so on. Default activates a recommended selection that could increase render performance; Clear unselects all selected modules; Optimize executes selected optimization commands. All operations are applied recursively. Multiselection is supported on execution. Undo for all these types of actions is not available.
Remove B-Side Nodes: B-Sides definition is comparable with no show feature from CAD software. Execution removes shapes and components that have been set as a B-Side.
Object transformation could be realized in two different ways within the scenegraph. Either the transformation is stored within the object itself (flushed) or the related information is stored within group nodes on a higher hierarchy level above (unflushed). Nodes that contain transformations got a symbol of an axis in front of its icon. Several transformations in different levels are accumulated.
Sharing improves OpenGL render and Raytracing performance because required objects are not present several times within system memory. Shared instances are indicated by an underlined node description inside the scene tree. Any change on a shared object affects the cloned instance and vice versa.
Contains commands to convert a group node into a switch node (Switch) and vice versa (Group).
Asset management module supports the user on the usage of external file references. These files are imported to the scenegraph and present within its structure. Any change on an external file reference will be present within the scene after reloading affected file. Sub menu provides features to reload such file references.
Hides/shows selection within render view. An unselected box in front of a node and an uncolored icon indicates that the nodes are hidden. (Hotkeys Ctrl + H / Ctrl + J)
Hides/shows all scene objects within render view. (Hotkeys Ctrl + Shift + H / Ctrl Shift + J)
Hides/shows everything unselected. The visibility of Environments is not affected. This feature was known from previous releases by dragging a node from scenegraph into render view - both works. (Hotkey I)
Moves the Camera to a position that fits the bounding box dimensions from selection into the field of view. (Hotkey F)
Selects all nodes contained within scenegraph exclude root node. (Ctrl + A)
Deselects everything. (Ctrl + Shift + A)
Selects all unselected nodes and vice versa. (Ctrl + I)
Often required commands are accessible by an icon located directly below the scene tree.
Opens sub menu that contains all node types that could be generated within VRED: Create Geometry, Create Light, Create Camera, Group, Clone, Environment, Switch.
Creates an independent instance from selection (Hotkey Ctrl +D).
Creates a group node and moves all selected nodes into it (Hotkey Ctrl + Shift + G).
Copies all transform information (translation, rotation, scale, pivot) from the selected node to system clipboard.
Pastes all transform information from system clipboard to transform properties of the selected node.
Deletes selected nodes and its child nodes (Hotkey Del).
Extends or folds substructure of selection or multiselection on its usage.
Object properties like position, precalculated shadows, and normal settings (affects shading within OpenGL render view) are available at tabs on the bottom of the scenegraph module.
A transformation contains information about the position and the orientation of an object within 3D space. It provides also information about the position and orientation of the objects coordination system.
Moves selection depending on threshold and unit setting (mm, cm, m). Move to Camera moves the selection to the same position in 3D space where the camera is located; Move to Origin moves the selection to the position of its pivot point; Put on Ground makes selection move to environment floor height.
Rotates selection in on related axis about threshold in degrees. The Center Pivot button on the right moves objects local rotation axis to the center of its bounding box.
Scales selection on related axis depending on threshold and unit setting. Enabling checkbox for Uniform Scaling restricts execution to set new value also on other related axes. The Center Pivot button on the right moves objects local scale pivot to the center of its bounding box.
Ambient occlusion calculation - is also known as soft global illumination. It generates shadows on gaps and corners; this makes scene illustration become more realistic within OpenGL render mode.
The scene is illuminated on calculation by the HDR file from the environment node; it works without any other light source within the scene. All objects that are hidden in the moment of calculation are darkened.
The Ambient Occlusion calculation is a preprocess and takes place during data preparation. Calculated Ambient Occlusion results are baked on the geometry's vertices - stored within texture coordinates #7 and #8.
The smoothness of the calculated shadow depends on the polygon mesh resolution. Therefore VRED offers several ways to increase the quality on low quality models, like subdividing, and predefined quality presets.
Presets are containing all shadow calculation-related settings within one setting. The drop-down menu provides quick access to all available calculation presets that were saved from the Ambient Occlusion module within standard UI.
Ambient Occlusion is a specific not-physically-accurate rendering trick. It basically samples a hemisphere around each point on the face, sees what proportion of a hemisphere is occluded by other geometry and shades the pixel accordingly.
Defines the minimum distance (mm) between objects that to should be taken into account for the calculation of Ambient Occlusion shadows. This value defines total black areas where full occlusion takes place.
Defines the maximum distance (mm) between objects that to should be taken into account for the calculation of Ambient Occlusion shadows. This value defines areas where no occlusion takes place.
Subdivides existing polygon mesh into smaller triangles. This option should be turned on to avoid ragged edges on shadow illustration. This feature is helpful when NURBS data for re-tesselation is not available but a refined mesh is required. Subdividing generates more complex objects - it should only be used when required. Subdivide Geometry (edit menu from context menu of scenegraph) provides more settings to control this process.
Important: Only shadows for selected objects are calculated on execution. All visible objects in the scene are taken into account on calculation!
The Geometry editor from simple UI contains commands to turn polygon normals, vertex normals, and operations that affect the shaded illustration of the object within the OpenGL render mode.
Polygons got a font-face and a back-face; the face normal is located centered and in right angle to the font-face. For Ambient occlusion calculation it is required to have polygons turned to the right direction. Otherwise calculation provides undesirable darkening effects where normals are turned. Every polygons vertex also has a normal that affects shading. Face/Surface turns all face normals of selection into the other direction. Face and Vertex turns both kinds of normals from selection. Vertex affects only normals from polygons vertices.
Vertex/Face Normal Rendering mode available on settings tab of scene module from simple UI gives visual feedback about the orientation and it enables the adjustment of objects that contain inconsistent normals.
Threshold defines an angle that is considered on shading illustration; all object edges that got a lower angle to the face beside are drawn smooth. Object edges with a higher angle than threshold display faceted. A value of 45 degrees let objects appear smooth.
Defines the angle between the vertex normals. Needed in case of merged objects for example.
On 3D data preparation sometimes it is not clear if the part of an object is required for the scene or if it is hiddent by another object. To avoid reloading the file, define regarding shapes and components as B-Sides. These elements are not visible within the render view; the scene tree icons are illustrated slightly more dark than the standard icons.
Scenegraph icons for B-Side line and polygonal shapes (active and inactive)