3D Viewer - Home Tab

The 3D view is partially controlled by the options in the Home Category of the ribbon bar.

Display Overrides

The Display Panel provides six checkboxes to turn items on or off.

• Triangles: This checkbox allows you to turn the display of the triangles or grid cells on or off.  If this button is checked, the 3D viewer will use the settings for that model in the property pane to determine how the triangles or cells are to be displayed.
  
  
• Points: This checkbox allows you to turn the display of survey Points on or off. The size of which can be controlled via the Point Size box provided. The colour of the points will come from the n4ce code settings.
  
  
• Strings: This checkbox allows you to turn the display of line feature strings in triangular models on or off.  If this button is checked, line feature strings will be displayed as 3D solid lines using the colour defined in the n4ce code settings. 
  
  
• Contours: This checkbox allows you to turn the display of contours on or off.  If this button is checked, quick contours will be displayed using the same colour as the settings for the Normal contour interval for each model.
  
  
• Water: This check button allows you to turn on the display of a translucent plane representing a given water level.  If the button is checked, the extents of the models are calculated and a plane created.  The water level is defined in a field of the View Panel.
  
  
• Shading Keys: This check button allows you to turn on the display of a height shading key.  If the button is checked, the simple key is displayed in the view.  The height shading setting and the key are controlled from the property pan.
  
  
• Model Properties: This check button allows you to turn the property pane to the left of the window on or off.  Once you are happy with your view settings, this check button can be used to maximise the area of the models that can be viewed.
  
  
• Tool Properties: This check button allows you to turn the property pane to the right of the main 3d window on or off.  The Tools pane is only active though when a tool is active, so it will auto hide when no tool is in use. 
  
  
• Auto Update: Ensures any changes are passed from the Model view to the 3D view without having to update manually. This regular update may slow the system down though on some larger models.

View Controls

• Refresh: If changes have been made in the model refresh will update the 3D view to reflect those changes. This function is unnecessary if Auto Update is enabled but can be beneficial on very large models allowing more control.
• Zoom Extents: Allows you to zoom right out so that the whole model is visible.  The centre of vision is changed to the centre of the model but the angle from which the model is being viewed is not altered.
• Set Views: Allows for quick navigation to 6 preset camera positions; Above, Below, North, East, South, West.
• Vertical Scale: Used to add vertical scale factor to the model, useful when finding spikes in a DTM. Either type the value into the % text box or use the slider. Make sure to snap to the part of the surface to scale about first though. Otherwise, the model can disappear off screen.
• Water Level: Sets the water level for the water object turned on with the display override described above.
• Point size: Size in pixels of survey points displayed in the 3D viewer, as controlled by the Points display override. Note, this does not affect the point size for point clouds.
• Line Thickness: Width of feature lines in pixels.
• Anti Aliasing: Controls the level of Anti Aliasing(AA) applied to the view, AA helps to create visually smoother lines, this will not change your data and is just a function of the graphics rendering. Higher levels of AA may not improve smoothness enough to be worth the detriment on speed.
• Hardware Info: Displays a window highlighting the current GPU n4ce is able to use. Check that this is your most powerful GPU in your system.

Colour Overrides

• Background: Sets the background colour of the 3D viewer, useful for increasing contrast against your data.
• Wireframe Overlay: When changing the display mode of a DTM to wireframe this colour is used.
• Grid Overlay: When changing the display mode of a DTM to wireframe this colour is used.