Image Rendering (PBR) & 360° Spins for Thumbnails

 
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Table of Contents

Since it can easily be installed on servers an does not require a GPU, RapidCompact CLI can also be conveniently used to generate images of 3D models. This is useful, for example, when you have a large set of meshes and want to create thumbnail images. You can also use RC to render a turntable-like image series, rotating around the up-axis of a given mesh. Such an image series can then be used to display a pseudo-3D view of a 3D model (for example, inside a Web page). Image generation (or rendering) commands share the following common settings:

Rendering Settings

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Rendering
Name Type Default Valid Range Quick Description
rendering:enableDropShadow Flag true {true, false} turns rendering of drop shadow on/off
rendering:showBackFaces Flag false {true, false} turns rendering of backfaces on/off
rendering:imageHeight Int 1024 {1 .. 16384} height to be used for rendered images
rendering:imageWidth Int 1024 {1 .. 16384} width to be used for rendered images
rendering:sampleCount Int 4 {1 .. inf} number of samples per pixel for image rendering
rendering:background String transparent {'transparent', 'white', 'black', 'gradientGray', 'vignette'} background to be used for rendered images
rendering:cameraPosition String auto auto camera position vector for rendering
rendering:cameraUpVector String 0 1 0 camera up direction for rendering
rendering:cameraViewVector String 0 0 -1 camera direction vector for rendering
rendering:shadingMode String pbr {'pbr', 'wireframe', 'flat', 'diffuse'} rendering method

Rendering Commands

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In the following, commands for generating images are shown:

Images generated with different backgrounds. Background names from left to right: "transparent", "white", "black", "gradientGray".
Command: render_image
Shorthand: none
Argument: filename of the resulting image file
Example: rpdx -i myMesh.ply --render_image mesh.png
Description: Renders an image of a mesh and stores it to the given image file. Supported image formats are PNG and JPEG.
Command: render_turntable
Argument 1: directory for images
Argument 2: number of views / images to render
Example: rpdx -i foo.obj --render_turntable meshTT 32
Description: Renders a turntable-like image series by centering the asset and rotating the view around the up-axis. The resulting images will be stored in PNG format.

If a model should be rendered using a certain camera position and orientation, the following command set_view_matrix can be used:

Command: set_view_matrix
Shorthand: v
Argument: matrix in format "m00 m01 m02 m03 m10 m11 m12 m13 m20 m21 m22 m23"
Example: rpdx -i foo.obj -v "1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 -1000" --render_image foo.png
Description: Sets the view matrix, used for rendering, to the given matrix. The 3x4 matrix in row major format must be specified as a single, whitespace-separated string, wrapped in quotes.

If no view matrix is explicitly set, the model is rendered with the camera fitting to the scene, looking along the negative z-axis (if the system was not rotated). The following settings set the camera Up and View vector in order to properly align the camer without usage of a view matrix:

Camera View Angles

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Name Type Default Valid Range Quick Description
rendering:cameraUpVector String 0 1 0 camera up direction for rendering
rendering:cameraViewVector String 0 0 -1 camera direction vector for rendering

The following examples show how the camera settings affect the rendered images.

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