Model needed to test panaorma software

Al Hart

We are working on creating full 360 degree panoramas (to be viewed in flash) from SketchUp models.

We are looking for a good model to use for testing interior panoramas. I good interior panorama needs to be somewhat empty, so you can see lots of things as you spin around the 360 degrees.

a large area in a shopping mall,
the interior of a church, etc.

We couldn't find anything in the 3D warehouse.

Does anyone have something we could try (and we would appreciate it if we could show the panoramic images to others, although we would not release the model itself to anyone else)

Ditto on a good model for an exterior panorama. (an exterior should have lost of things to look at - like the inside of a courtyard, or a square in a city - not just a single building.

If you have something, you can upload in here, to the 3D warehouse, or use our upload site to send it to us: (include a comment that this is a model for testing panoramas)

[urlhttp://www.renderplus.com/htm/uploads.htm]Uploads [/url]

Paul Russam

Al,
Check your PM's

Al Hart

@unknownuser said:

PS
what would be really really useful would be an 'outie' panorama, where we could orbit around the outside of a model.

We're working on that too. So far the best technology is the 24 image "3D view" from 3D Warehouse.

It seems that with flightpath.rb you could create a movie which flys around the model. But you could not easily zoom and and out.
We are planning a dual 24-image JavaScript movie - like SketchUp Web Exporter - but with a button to raise and lower the camera.

We've looked at some apps which stitch images into an 'outie' panorama, but none of their samples were better then the SketchUp Web Exporter.

If anyone has seen any technology to create a good exterior view from images, let me know.

Of course we have RPS 3D PDF, and we are working on a Collada/O3D solution. We'll wee how they work out.

solo

Here is a quick 3d pdf of a tree, I guess this same technique could be used for panaramas too...no?

Winter Tree A13.pdf

Al Hart

@unknownuser said:

I have sent you a double floor model via yousendit with mezzaanine which should demonstrate process.If you render at saved view you should be able to pan around first floor and rotate view down to ground floor library area.

Thanks for the model boothy.

(This will give you an idea how this works. A single image is rendered from the camera sweeping through 360 degrees. Then we used product canned EasyPano to convert it to a flash movie)

Here is a link to the panorama: Panorama

Al Hart

@paul russam said:

Al,
Check your PM's

Thanks for the model Paul,

Here is the Panoramic image I created:

Now that I see the image, I am not sure if this was an example of an interior or an exterior (I see a lot of sky)

Here is a link to the Panorama

Al Hart

@unknownuser said:

Paul`s model looks like it has a section plane running through it (shadows are not uniform to model) Hope you get the resolution thing sorted

If there were a section plane, then most of the shadows would not be there at all.

The way our section planes work, the geometry sectioned out still effects lighting and shadows.

I suspect this is just the way the model works.But I did disable section planes to make sure that wasn't the problem.

(Actually this model is so large that it is painful to zoom around or look for things)

Al Hart

@solo said:

Here is a quick 3d pdf of a tree, I guess this same technique could be used for panaramas too...no?

There are advantages to the panoramas.

Both Interior and Exterior are image based, so they processing time for the client is not related to the model size. This is much more important for large models. If the 3D PDF starts to grow beyond 5 megabytes or so, then it takes too long for the client to view it on a web page.

(The same is true for the Web Dialog approach - if you create 24 small images, they can load fast. However if you create 24 1-meg images, then they will be too slow to provide the effect you want.)

The Exterior Panorama using the Javascript/multiple image method is relatively easy for casual web page developers to modify (set parameters, add controls, etc.) . It is harder to modify Flash movie settings, and much, much harder (but still possible) to modify 3D PDFs.

All that said, has anyone taken advantage of Web Export from SketchUp to add a 3D model to a web page?

Paul Russam

Al,
That was quick!

There appears to be a couple 'funnies' in the pano:
Shadows are being cast for objects that are not visible - see the trancept wall 90deg to the right of the altar area, you can see the shadow of the 3 windows in the wall but there're above the section cut.
Some of the textures/materials are missing - The column's, the column bases and the center isle (side isles are ok).

Other than that......Impressive.

Al Hart

@paul russam said:

Al,
but there're above the section cut.

Other than that......Impressive.

AHA - you did have a section cut.
During our rendering process, section cuts only make the geometry invisible to the eye, but things still cast shadows from the sun. This is handy when you want to slice into a room, but don't want the light from the sky to enter as if the roof were not there. It is not handy though, if you are using the section cut to hide geometry which, perhaps, should have been hidden by a layer.

For instance, in this image the lights in the ceiling are still illumination the room, but not the sky or sun.

Any material problems are probably related to reversed faces. Or to faces with the default material on one side and a real material on the other side. This is fairly easy to clean up (except in large models like this one )

Paul Russam

@unknownuser said:

AHA - you did have a section cut.

Oops
Its one I 'used' when I was working on the floor, I'd forgotten it was in the model as it was switched off, sorry.

Al Hart

If anyone wants to try the Panoramas, the latest versions of IRender nXt have the panorama feature. You can download a trial version from: http://www.renderplus.com/htm/download.htm

One of the IRender nXt users, Boothy, has posted a number of Panoramas on his web site.

(click image to start panorama)