Create 3D Fly-Through File
Exercise 14.1 Create 3D Fly-through Animation
1. Open a selection of 3D data into the 3D window including surfaces, images,
drillholes, etc. The Fly-Through Wizard can be accessed from the Utilities toolbar button or from the Utilities menu.
2. In the Fly-Through Creation Wizard: Step 1 – Input Type dialog choose to
create the fly-through Manually from the current Discover 3D view. This requires specifying a number of 3D map window views to use as Eye and
Look At points which are linked together to form the flight path
Fly-Through Wizard dialog and options to create a flight path script
This Fly-Through Wizard option is the simplest to use as the flight-path is
compiled from a list of Capture Points (Eye and Look At points) which are specified by rotating and zooming to different views in the current Discover 3D map window. The capture points are then displayed in the capture order to simulate the flight- path. There are no additional setup parameters for this option.
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General Playback Options
General playback and flight path options dialog
These options relate to Playback controls and Flight Path Creation. The following Playback controls are available:
• The Loop Style options control the way a script is re-played. Use the pull-
down list to select the desired option. A script can be set to:
Repeat - the fly-through script is played and then repeated from the start
continuously.
Repeat Reverse - replay the script continuously but in reverse.
Repeat Reverse Look - replay the script continuously and in reverse but
from the view looking back to the capture point.
• Smoothing – As each capture point is a location in three dimensional
space, the flight path joining these points can be a smoothed line (Bezier) or straight line (None) between each point. If smoothing is selected, a Bezier smoothing algorithm with Tension is applied. The higher the degree of tension, the more closely the replayed flight path will be to the direct path between capture points.
• Playback Speed - Actual speed the playback is performed. For example, a
playback speed of 1 is normal, a value of 0.5 would take twice as long as normal, a value of 2 would play twice as quickly as normal, etc. If a script takes 10 seconds playback then changing the Playback Speed to 0.5 would change the playback to 20 seconds. Similarly, if a value of 2 were assigned, the playback time would be 5 seconds.
• Frame Rate – Number of display captures in one second. The higher the
Frame Rate, the smoother the animation. Note the smoother the animation, the greater the amount of storage required, especially if outputting to an AVI movie.
• Flight Speed – Time taken to move between two capture points. Speed is
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that the time being calculated for movements is too large then increasing the flight speed shortens the movement times. All replay times get recalculated with new values when this property is altered.
The speed of the replay is set in Playback Speed.
• Create Eye and Look Path DXF Files – The flight path and capture points
of a script can be saved to 3D DXF files. Two DXF files get created, one for the Eye points and one for the Look At points. The DXF filenames are dependent on the name given to the fly-through file. The DXF files are created in the same directory as the fly-through file. For example, if the output fly-though file path is: C:\DATA\FLY1.FLY, then the DXF files created would be called:
C:\DATA\FLY1_EYE.DXF and C:\DATA\FLY1_LOOK.DXF
• Point Symbol Size – This parameter defines the size of a symbol to
represent the Eye and Look at points in the created DXF files.
3. For the purposes of this exercise leave the default general playback options.
Add capture points and event details
4. To create a new capture point, use the 3D Navigation Tools in the
Discover 3D map window to rotate and zoom to the flight-path starting point.
Click on the Camera button to capture the view. Rotate and zoom the view in the 3D map window until the next flight-through view is displayed and click on the Camera button to capture the point view. Continue to create and capture views to be used in the simulated flight-through path. To insert a new capture point view between two existing views check the Insert Mode box and click the Camera button to insert the current 3D view immediately after the highlighted record in the Capture Point List.
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This button causes the replay script to Pause for a specified duration of time. By default, the time is 1 second, but using the Duration entry field, you can modify this time. Note that a record of this type in the list uses the last Capture Point and then pauses for the required time with no movement.
The Rotate View button causes the replay script to halt at the last used Eye position (determined by the previous capture point record) and then rotate the display by an amount determined by an Azimuth and Inclination (looking from the top down). The time to complete the rotation is specified by the Duration.
The Rotate Around button causes the replay to rotate the 3D view around the last Look At position (determined by the previous capture point record).The time taken to complete a rotation (as defined by the Azimuth and Inclination settings) is defined by the Duration.
Event Details
The Event Details controls of the Fly-Through Wizard are concerned with the Capture Point records. Depending on the Capture Point record selected, the content of the Event Details may differ.
Delete the selected Capture Point from the flight path
Update the Eye and Look Positions for the current event with the current 3D view
The properties of each Capture Point Event are displayed here and can be manually edited:
• Look Position – The X, Y and Z location of the Look At point in Relative or
Absolute coordinates.
• Eye Position – The X, Y and Z location of the Eye point in Relative or Absolute coordinates.
• Duration – The time in seconds that it takes to move from one Capture
Point record to the next.
• Audio – Either a text entry or specification of a pre-recorded WAV file. Each entry in the Capture Point List contains two pairs of position points (the Eye Position and the Look At point which determines the direction the fly-through path will follow). The points can be in either Relative or Absolute coordinates.
Absolute values are used to display a capture point view in real world coordinates. Relative values are used to display a capture point view relative to the previous capture view coordinates. For example, if a point capture view has a relative
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coordinate of (10, 10, 10) then the view will be moved 10 units in the X, 10 units in the Y and 10 units in Z direction from the previous capture position. Units are map distance units eg. metres. If the previous capture position is in Absolute values then the new view will move in world coordinates by 10 m in the X, Y and Z directions.
5. Add a number of capture points using the Pause, Rotate View and Rotate
Around options.
6. To replay fly-through at any stage click the Play button to activate the fly-
through. The replay uses the Capture Points according to the Loop Style setting and the various speed and event controls. To halt the replay, use the Stop button. Use the button shown bottom left to display selected captures points in the fly-through replay. Only the capture points highlighted in the list will be included in the replay. This is useful for editing long fly- through without having to view the entire flight path every time.
The script fly-through (FLY) file can also be run from the pop-up menu which is activated by a right-mouse click in the Discover3D map window. The pop-up menu provides the options of Display Fly-Through or Stop Fly-Through.
Output Formats
Two output formats are available in the Fly-through Creation Wizard: Step 5 – Output dialog:
• Save the Capture Points and settings of the fly-through script by assigning
a file name and location in an Output File. The settings are saved as a FLY file and can be restored for later use with the same project dataset. A FLY file can be activated via the Display Fly-through option on the Discover 3D map window right-mouse click pop-up menu.
• Save the fly-through as an AVI Output movie file. Movie files allow replay of
a fly-through animation completely separated from Discover 3D and are therefore useful for management and overview of a project.
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7. Save the fly-through as an FLY file. Once the fly has been created it can
then be edited by selecting the Edit Existing Fly-through File option in the Fly-through Creation Wizard Step 1 – Input Type dialog.
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