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Version 6.0 User Manual © Copyright Inivis Limited 2006

1. If a surface is flat shaded the color across the surface will be constant If it is shaded then the color will be graded depending on lighting conditions Vertices can be shared between surfaces i e one or more surfaces use the same vertex If these surface types are set to smooth the effect is of one continuous smooth surface The vertices MUST be shared for two surfaces to be smoothed together This method of shading allows smooth looking objects to be created from relatively simple shapes This is adjusted via the Tools gt Object Property Editor The crease angle is specified in degrees and is used to determine if adjacent surfaces in the object should be smoothed together by averaging the surface normals The angle between adjacent surfaces is measured and if this is larger than the crease angle the surfaces will be smoothed A crease angle of zero degrees forces all surfaces to be flat A crease angle of 180 degrees forces all surfaces to be drawn smooth Setting a surface type to flat forces the surfaces to remain flat shaded Setting a surface type to smooth allows it to be under control of the crease angle Example a cylinder with all surfaces set to Smooth crease angle 0 All surfaces appear flat crease angle 45 Crease angle 91 The cylinder edges are The cylinder sides are now smoothed together but the shaded along with the edges end is flat because the ang
2. Polygons should be 3 or more points Concave polygons are handled by AC3D They can be converted to triangles by using the Surface gt triangulate function It is possible to draw a line or poly in different windows creating a non planar surface This makes sense with lines but is not correct for a polygon which should have all of the points on the same plane Invalid polygons i e polygons that have less than three vertices are displayed in a cyan color Surfaces that have crossing edges are displayed ina red color This shows part of a sphere where This shows a four point polygon where the some vertices have been deleted vertices are positioned so that the edges Polygon surfaces with only 2 vertices overlap This is fixed by moving the vertices have been left These can be removed by using Object gt Optimize surfaces To draw shapes that have vertices in the same position as an existing shape use the nearsnap function the control for which appears under the draw mode section when line poly polyline mode is selected When Nearsnap is on the next point drawn will snap to the nearest existing vertex when there is a vertex within a certain range Spheres boxes etc Creating a 3D object by dragging the mouse in a window specifies two of the dimensions for the new object the third dimension is an average of the original two The location of the object in the third dimension is specified by the 3D cursor These obje
3. Version 6 0 User Manual Copyright Inivis Limited 2006 apiga elu egie p EAE NIEA DE Sen nn dt 4 Welcome to ACSD s ds none een sens nestte iia 4 ACSD Ie MINROIOQ Vetement aaa 4 O Gee ee EA E A A a E E A leu 4 SDL E EE AEA E T 4 UC OM a E E A o s 4 A RAN 4 E AA A O ET D nea 4 A O 5 Material o ele nette 5 TE LOU CE RO baht AE eects casa enna E E 5 Bounding OX estos oa Saran ales iG to ce e ed 5 Getting Ne Pia desnnnt ce a messe tenus A ne Red een ne 5 WIOICIOWSIVIEWS RAR 6 CONTO DM ace 6 LOAD n 6 VICWAWIN COW So A A A A A Na eine recense ce eue 6 Orthographic 2D VIEWS A e 8 Navigating in 2D VIENS Re ete A a AD SUR A ald a RDC EEEE 8 o Rd de nn Mit de ent at 8 USING BACK ON IMATESRE td MS ei en 8 SD VIEWS ii A A en me NS du anse AS EMEA 9 NEO thenenis een Nina naines armee ete aed aa e 9 TAKING a Snapshot IMaQ 2 nn A oda 10 HVS POO CE MOE seiis Se Rd CR uae bea tiene Eaa bes ea ee e aaae nae e sne nanana EASE REE 10 Creating ACID Object ita 11 ACID SIT ACeS A a ne en 11 TN led 11 One sided and Two sided surfaces elas a o ii enr eu dal tn ame uted 12 SUECO MONTA Sad isos ae ds idea a A 12 Creating new DES ie eee A as 12 FLOWS POWVINES HIRES x atan ocio debeis dra as te souaudeds 13 II CIC nue nier en doi edit A ne In 13 NET AAA MR a AS Rene Rare ne a cn nn nn cats 13 PON Sai mia Natal tas On Sion A DA ei dar A 14 Object Mode Lo o OOO saisine isamanneccecente een nina asencadontessenten sos casenn abs anna rente s
4. Flip new surfaces M Remove original To perform the extrusion the bounding box is dragged to the left in either the front or plan window holding down the Control key whilst dragging ensures that the new surfaces are square to the original This gives Front EY When extruding lines ensure that remove original is ticked and cap end is un ticked This ensures that no lines remain in the new surfaces 26 It is useful to switch on the display of normals when extruding to check that the resultant surfaces are facing in the correct direction Ifthey are not select the surfaces and use surface gt flip normal Flip normal This effectively reverses the list of the vertices in each selected surface This reverses the way that a poly faces A polygon is defined as facing if the vertices appear anti clockwise to the viewer If a polygon is set to be one sided by pressing the 1S button on the control panel then it will only be viewable from one direction the direction it is facing You can switch on the display of normals in the orth and 3D windows this can help determine if any surfaces are facing in undesired directions Change vertex order This changes the order that the vertices of a surface are drawn by moving the first vertex to the end of the vertex list This can be used to change the position of a break in a line It can also be used to fix bad a polygon which has the first three vertices in a non ant
5. J 1540 mua pa arpa Ci jy lens csp eo asn Selecting each plugin line brings up a description and any associated ee ee a ee instructions for the plugin oe eect NA AA te tapas _ a bp Tilt l EAP eagle Po re cent y dhan voue o EU al cages ra om lee malgre ria Car E EN ls aras mad a dp a pp Css Performance tips Rendering more polygons takes more time As a larger number and more detailed objects are edited the rendering will take longer Here are some tips to help edit larger models more effectively e Switch to wireframe viewing This is faster to render than filled graphics Use object hiding and locking This reduces the graphics load Edit in only one maximized view This prevents all views from being updated every time a change is made If surfaces can only be viewed from one side e g they are outer surfaces of a closed object such as a box set them to single sided This is slightly faster to draw e Switch on interactive wireframe in both the Orth and 3d menus This temporarily sets the view to wireframe when being panned or zoomed using the mouse Wireframe usually renders faster than filled polygons e The Interactive Wireframe switches on the main Orth and 3D menus will switch the views into wireframe for manipulations e When using surface subdivision for speed keep the subdivision preview level set to 1 or 2 when working on the object Switching off the display of subdivis
6. is based on their positions Choosing the right subdivision level to work in Subdividing an object by one level increases the number of surfaces in that object by a minimum of four times and each subsequent subdivision increases this number by a factor of four Each level of subdivision increases memory requirements and will have an effect on speed since there are many more polygons to be drawn and processed The number of vertices and surfaces in a aa subdivided object can be view from the S ppe T Model Info tool on the Tools menu Diigo haral v VHO 0 HO bidba Jr se TIO 0 1720 langbe 2 meer 100 a 1 Dome fe For general use level 2 gives a smooth appearance to objects whilst keeping polygon counts lower Obviously machines with large amounts of memory fast processors and fast graphics accelerators can work with larger models more easily Advanced users The default maximum subdivision level in AC3D is 3 This can be increased in the advanced settings You should be aware that any increase in subdivision levels increases the computational requirements 39 Texturing as a ee rom Be NUE ni mi FA UE mi y iris TE a Hga 1 Er faa fee Se ie DOSE JP La Each AC3D object can have one texture A texture is set from the object gt texture menu Setting a texture Teue bes ot ga pom pa bmp gb T a i a Each AC3D object can have one texture applied to its surfaces After selecting an o
7. 39 Choosing the right subdivision level to work in 39 AOVANRCEO US OS aee aN dt de nn a 39 UNUM dan eu O 40 Seting a TOXINA a 40 Changing the Mapping sisi srssn datesss sn aaaea eE on OE tan an actes t sans sa t s a nee nanas seat 40 Changing the texture repeat and offsets csiccinanino cnn aora Aaa 40 PO ONS ER a a Den he ta en ten te ae tt 42 MOdel INFORMATION ss ns ainia iia 42 Render o cs 42 A 63 1 FERRER Aa aE ao EO E 42 Object Property Editt aa 43 Texture Coordinate Editor raian ndn aea raaa Ea ete 44 Selecting and MAM PUlAUNG ii e a e a tad 45 Remapping the selection cor ib tod ne cd Re en Anna re 46 A ce a eo nn ee A a aaa aaa a aa Geaa ven 46 A A ET sscesccanaaran ts senusesvendrnaweteoawe uve sceasetadcatedcnceassceswarcae T E 48 IQ OD ET CR EE OO 48 POSITION SD CUrFSOF en een ere terre dada 48 Matera ia oda 49 The Pale Pie ne ene me iaa 49 Editing Palette entries encanta 49 Loading and saving files ooocconcccnniconaconcncnanccannnnanconcncnaronanrnnan cnn rrrnarrnanrnnan mnnn nnmnnn nnmnnn 50 Importing other formats sssusost cisco 50 E AA EAST E E E AA E E N E E T EEE A E E a measles 50 A E E a a ha a a AR e a disc a E e a a aaa dote EO flat le se 50 Exporting files ss en aan an ctas 50 3D Studio SOS Lia ne ann TN dal Re dt Ut aan Ta nm iia 50 AM A A A A ia 50 a RN eee 50 ANA E TOO dede aia 50 DUE EE N E ne Se ne rT ne E at Te 51 MAS SIN ER Re dt a de D AO 51 BENDE RMAN A SS E nt ee Os E IA a one 51 POVRAT SR
8. When something is selected the Bounding Box that appears can be dragged or resized directly affecting the points surfaces objects Vertex mode vertices can be selected by a single click on a single vertex or by dragging a box over a number of vertices area Object mode selecting any part of an object causes the whole object to be selected F Surface mode a single surface is selected by a click or single multiple by dragging a box over an Group mode a group of objects can be selected by highlighting any part of a single object that belongs to a group There is an important difference between a click select and a drag select Click selects are used for selecting single entities e g one object one surface one vertex A click select will select the nearest entity underneath the pointer A drag select will select everything within the drawn box that lies underneath the region Click select is useful for example when selecting a single surface of a sphere where a drag select will always select more than one surface Selections are preserved between changes of select modes Changing from vertex to surface select mode means that any surfaces that have all vertices selected will remain selected in surface mode Moving The green bounding box is dragged with the left mouse button to reposition the selection Holding the control key down whilst dragging constrains movement to up down or left right only In a 3D view AC3D displays green a
9. a nn a a OO D RC ae agit 51 A noi Moi den latines At ne A 51 Object LIDAR Vraiment Aia 51 a CR Le o A M 52 A POV Gay COX AMPOSTA 52 PAD DEN DCE SSD Mn NS atthe a oat eee x 54 PICA se TT ne Sn ne mn A ne ne nn nn de ne 54 Perliorm nce A O 54 Key pPresSSeS lo e e o a ad E 54 Preferences Settings 2 a a en en ne 55 Introduction Welcome to AC3D AC3D is designed to make the construction of 3D objects fast and easy lt is used to create 3D models for simulations games rendering ray traced images and for scientific and general data visualization En d pen F pa pa Pon D imr AC3D runs on a wide range of standard hardware and is available across a number of popular platforms AC3D terminology Vertex A vertex is a single point in 3d space It s specified by three coordinates x y and z More than one vertex can occupy the same position in 3d space A vertex is always owned by a single object they cannot be shared between objects A vertex is usually part of one or more Surfaces but need not be Surface A surface in AC3D is a sequence of vertices Surfaces are one of three types polygons lines or polygon outlines The type of a surface defines how the surface is drawn and this can be easily changed If a surface is set to be single sided it will only be visible from the front Two sided surfaces will be visible from both sides It is more efficient to draw single sided surfaces and makes more sense when used as part
10. a scanned image e g a plan map Background images are set and unset from the Orth menu at the top of an orthographic window All image formats that are supported by AC3D s texture loaders can be used as background images Background images will scale and move with the views By default the image will be centered on the origin The scale and position of the background image is by adjusted using alt and the cursor keys Alt and the cursor keys reposition the image whilst Alt Shift plus cursor up down scale the image Details of background images are currently not saved with models or when AC3D exits 3D views display the current model in a three dimensional perspective and change instantly when any modifications are made to the current model The main 3D menu at the top of the main AC3D window contains controls to switch visibility of many attributes within the 3D window Changing these control affects all 3D windows within the program A 3d grid is available toggle with g The grid lies on the XZ plane floor Press w to toggle between wireframe and filled drawing t toggles textures toggles the fixed light See the 3D menu for more viewing options Navigating in 3D Two navigation modes are available in this window spin and walk These can be switched from the view s own 3D menu or by pressing the 1 or 2 keys whilst the pointer is in the 3D window Spin mode Button controls at top
11. and some misc controls that are dependent on the whether the window is set to 2D or 3D The Camera angle can be changed at any time This is useful if for example you need to view or work on a model from the underside bottom view The icons on the right of each view menu allow you to use the mouse to navigate around the 3D space show a clean image and maximize the view window Spin 3D views only press and drag Move Pan view press and drag Zoom in out view press and drag Inspect Shows clean image switch display without all surfaces outlines grid controls etc and switches to simple navigation Maximize minimize view button The spin move pan and zoom button are special controls that are held down left mouse button whilst the mouse is dragged The views adjust their viewpoint as the mouse is dragged Additional views can be created from the menu Views gt New View Note that unlike in 2D CAD programs the space presented in the AC3D view windows is not finite like a piece of paper has a limit and edges You can move viewpoints just like a person moves around in real 3D space There are no real edges to the available space apart from reaching computational limits Orthographic 2D views When a view camera is set to Front Back Top Bottom Left or Right the view is non perspective orthographic 2D An orthographic view shows a view parallel to a single axis The items on the main Orth m
12. angle less than 180 degrees Spike This creates a spike in place of each surface selected The distance that the apex of the spike will be away from the original surface is specified Indent This function creates new surfaces around the edge of existing surfaces 28 If the select mode is Surface or Vertex the new centre surface or vertices of it is selected after the operation completes Bevel Beveling a surface does the same as Indent but the new centre surface is raised Two parameters are required one for the distance in from the edge the other is the distance to move the new inner surface forward If the select mode is Surface or Vertex the new centre surface is selected after the operation is complete Make hole This function creates a hole in each selected surface This image shows 4 objects that have had holes made in them An Ellipse set to poly surface type a sphere a cube and a disk Notice how the insides of the sphere and cube are not visible through the holes this is because the default surfaces for these objects are single sided and face outwards To see the insides though the holes these surfaces need to be made two sided by pressing 2S on the control panel Some concave polygons may have overlapping surfaces after making holes Vertices may need adjustment to prevent overlapping The size of the hole is specified as a percentage and can be adjusted in File gt settin
13. but for purposes of speed the surfaces are not sorted when they are rendered into the views If the real time update option is selected any 3D view windows are redrawn every time a change is made to the material 49 Loading and saving files An AC8D file usually named lt something gt ac is a text file describing the geometry of a model AC3D files retain all available information about a model built with AC3D e g textures surface settings materials object data etc Other file formats exported by AC3D may not retain all of this information Models should always be saved in this format to ensure that no detail is lost Developers can view a description of the file format on the AC3D home page AC3D files are loaded by selecting File gt Open This will replace the current model To load models in addition to the current model use File gt Merge A list of the most recently opened files appears on the File menu Selecting one of these causes it to be loaded Importing other formats See the File gt Import menu for a list of file types that AC3D can import Extra Import Export plugins allow AC3D to handle more file formats Check the AC3D website for details of additional plugins The following formats may be useful for importing your own model data Triangle files The format of triangle file is each line contains 9 floating point numbers and one hex value e g 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 Oxffffff represents
14. but scale them each time Extruding a horn shape from a single ellipse Create a single step for a spiral staircase by extruding a rectangle Using the replicator to duplicate the pattern steps in a spiral Transinhon a Fistahon ingens Fictate cos ET Cope Mode Tryin mi Figlia abaut Lise CARRE LE RL aa map fees iaa oe ma es han Lam Vs k tn s See i AT e A eu r Css puesi O Eds fb Rp ke po Daga C baion E runs faa et fo Go Cine C Duplcalo Extrude Tf do Pho C Digin Selection 30 Cuna Go Ce 47 Create Text The Create Text tool generates 2D and 3D objects from TrueType fonts This image shows the same text in Outline Solid Extruded and Bevelled type The font size specifies the maximum unit height of the text The font detail 1 to 10 controls the number of vertices per letter The higher the detail the more surfaces and vertices will be in the resultant AC3D objects Align Objects This allows objects to be repositioned relative to one object Select a single object and then shift select others On pressing Align the first object is used as the reference object Position 3D cursor The 3d cursor specifies a position in 3D space It is useful when creating objects since it specifies the missing axis e g when a sphere is being J Position cursor drawn in the front window the mouse movements specify
15. current selection When the mouse is being used to interact with models this area will also display current positions distances moved and other related information Toolbar This contains buttons for some of the most commonly used functions AI Mons Dupl Cut Copy Pastel Group tngo Flip 26 Y 2 Soc 200 10 410 Subdv e Subdw la e flip the section about this axis 200 50 10 10 scale the selection uniforml oe Maximize a single view or view ALL together View windows By default AC3D starts with three two dimensional 2D orthographic view windows and a single three dimensional 3D window The default view windows show Front Left Top and 3D camera angles onto the model space CORA EF EU EC ET TETE EN Fair The dividers between the 4 view windows can be dragged to resize the views Individual views are maximized by clicking on the view buttons at the top right of the main window alternately the F1 F5 keys can be pressed to switch between the different view configurations The main window size position and other settings are saved when AC3D exits The configuration of the views that AC3D starts up with can A Configure views easily changed from the menu Views gt configure views Apply Each view window has an individual menu at the Camera view 3D Dri M top This contains menu for the view angle SE Camera changing the viewpoint e g focusing on the currently selected area
16. it only be used when preparing images for a snapshot Inspect mode switches off the display of vertices surface outlines etc so that a clean image is displayed It also changes the way that you can navigate the view When inspect mode is on simply dragging the mouse navigates normally the alt key would be used Inspect mode is useful if you are performing a lot of work in the other views and using one view for previewing the changes It s also useful with additional monitors where one monitor has a single AC3D view Views gt New View and that is set to inspect Work can be performed on the main monitor and inspected quickly spin or walk on the other monitor 10 Creating AC3D objects AC3D Surfaces 00 Crease angles Each AC3D object has a crease angle property Objects in AC3D consist of a collection of vertices and a number of surfaces that reference those vertices A surface may be one of three types Polygon Polyline or Line A polygon is a filled area a Polyline is a wire frame outline of the polygon a loop that joins the start vertex to the end a line has a specific start and end Surface type is changed by pressing a button on the control panel The Surface type buttons are located at the bottom of the control panel Poly Polyline Line This panel also contains controls to set surfaces to be smooth or flat This determines the way that a polygon is drawn it has no effect on lines or polylines
17. lie in the same position Unweld This creates new vertices so that each surface will access a unique vertex in the same object New vertices will be created in the same location as the originals Insert Vertex This function inserts a new vertex between each selected pair of vertices Insert vertex is useful for adding extra points into a line If the two vertices selected are on an edge which is shared by two or more surfaces only one vertex will be created but it will be shared across the surfaces Divide triangle edge This function takes two selected vertices and divides the edge between two triangles This splits each triangle into two further triangles 31 two vertices selected after the edge was divided Extrude edges This function provides a quick way of performing a simple extrude on one or more surface edges i e between vertices Vertices selected After Vertex gt Extrude edges The selection 2 moved the new surfaces and vertices Upwards showing the new have been created but are not Surfaces fully visible until moved Slice surface This function is used to cut one or more surfaces across selected vertices Single surface with two After Vertex gt Slice vertices selected Surface now two surfaces A row of vertices around a After Vertex gt Slice cylinder selected Surface each surface cut into two Create convex surface object This function uses a technique called conv
18. object as well as the subdivisions This can sometimes be useful to see how the original object directly affects the subdivision Committing subdivisions To apply the subdivision permanently i e to create a new non subdivided object with the same polygons as the subdivision use Object gt Commit Subdivision Examples Subdivision works by dividing each surface and then smoothing the overall shape An example A simple box O subdivision level 1 subdivision level 2 subdivision level 37 3 subdivision level Note that the default surface type for a box is flat Setting this to Smooth and setting the object property for Crease angle to 180 ensures that the object is fully smoothed display of the surfaces has been switched off for this picture These images show a simple cup shape that was formed by using Object gt Revolve on a line The number of segments was setto 6 The image on the right shows this same object with the subdivision level set Hints and tips Although any polygon in AC3D can be subdivided subdivision works best with quads four point sided surfaces since they divide symmetrically Q A cube is a good starting point for many models since each face can be extruded and the vertices moved to form other shapes whilst retaining a single closed object with no holes The block object is also a good base for building subdivided objects Use Extrude to add detail Extrude is the best
19. of an object such as a sphere where you can t see the other side of the surfaces Surfaces have a material attribute which defines the color and quality for lighting purposes Each vertex referenced in a surface has an associated Texture Coordinate Vertices can be shared between surfaces in the same object Surface normal A surface normal specifies the direction a surface is facing Normals are used in lighting calculations Surface normals are automatically calculated by AC3D A surface is defined as facing the viewer if the vertices can be seen in an anti clockwise direction Object An AC3D object is a list of vertices and surfaces that use these vertices lt also has other attributes such as a name and texture Group A group is a special object that has no surfaces or vertices but has other objects as children Groups are created by selecting two or more objects and selecting Group from the edit menu or toolbar Use the Ungroup function to separate the objects Select mode The select mode allows control over the level of editing in AC3D In Vertex individual vertices can be selected and adjusted In Surface operations are performed on one or more selected surface In Object whole objects are selectable This allows manipulation of objects even if they are part of groups In Group selecting all or part of an object automatically selects the top level object Material A material
20. of view for spin pan and zoom From keyboard Spin up down left right keys or Alt left mouse button Zoom Control up down Walk mode Button controls at top of view for walk fly pan and tilt From keyboard Move forward up key Move backward down key Turn left right keys Move up down alt up down Holding down the shift key with the above combinations increases the distance of travel Taking a snapshot image Camera View 30 Front Back Left Right Top Bottom w 3D Copy Image to Windows Clipboard Inspect mode gt Pressing down the eye icon which is available on each view sets the view into Inspect mode Windows and Mac users can quickly copy the image shown in a view to the system clipboard by selecting the item on the Camera menu which is on each View window After selection of this menu item you may switch to another program e g an image editor or word processor program and then Edit gt Paste within that to insert the image The same function is also available on the Edit menu for the main 3D view Note that the Copy item on the Edit menu is used for the internal AC3D clipboard the item that copies the image to the system must be used to retried the image To increase the quality of the image anti aliasing can be switched on from the view s 3D menu This smooths the image Anti aliasing slows down rendering of the 3D image so it s recommended that
21. once subdivided has the same smooth profile as the original line path Front xy 23 Operations on surfaces Extruding Pressing the extrude button on the control panel or pressing the e key when there are one or more surfaces selected enables the function The actual extrude is done after the selection is dragged Extruding is a powerful function that can be used for a number of tasks It works by making new surfaces at the edges of the current selection The original selection can be removed and or copied to the end of the new surfaces UTTACE Selecting one of more surfaces and selecting the extrude button on the control panel brings up the extrude parameters Here the number of sections to produce is specified The end of the new object can be capped with a copy of the original selection New surfaces can have their normals reversed Removal of the original surfaces is also an option After setting these parameters the bounding box is dragged in the desired direction if the control key is held down movements of the mouse are constrained to either horizontal or vertical The extrude function is best demonstrated with some examples This star was made by creating a 10 sided disk selecting alternate vertices and shrinking the selection using the 10 toolbar button a few times The magenta lines shown here represent the normals Normals can be displayed by switching on Show normals from the
22. other powerful constructs See VRML 1 for a suitable browser plugin Output of normals and textures is switchable via Settings VRML2 Proto This form of VRML2 output exports objects into a VRML prototype This can be used when compositing larger models where each object may be stored in an individual file and a single file controls the locations of individual instances 50 DIVE Dive is a Virtual Reality system The Dive generation will include the object data if you have input any this is usually TCL code If an object has a URL then the object will be a dive gateway See http www sics se dive for more info about the Dive VR system MASSIVE Massive is a distributed VR tele conferencing system written by Chris Greenhalgh at Nottingham University in the UK It runs on SGI and Sun platforms For more details see http www crg cs nott ac uk csm massive html RENDERMAN These files are used in a raytracer This allows detail images with accurate lighting shadows and reflections to be created from a 3D model There are a number of Renderman compatible renderers available The eye viewpoint is defined by your view position in the primary 3D window approx Note that lines will not be output Any polygons that need triangulating breaking up into triangles will be triangulated POVRAY Povray is a very popular raytracer see www povray org for more information The eye viewpoint is defined by the view position in the 3D windo
23. two halves have been positioned together Notice that there is a visible seam along the top This is because the two halves are separate objects Once the two halves have been merged together into a single object Object gt merge the vertices need to be shared in order for this seam to disappear If Object gt optimize does not remove duplicate vertices then it means that the vertices are in very slightly different positions The solution is to select the vertices along the join and Vertex gt snap together by distance The Object gt optimize will remove the duplicate vertices and allow the surface to appear smooth Snap to grid This moves each selected vertex to the nearest grid position This may or may not be the visible grid The snap grid is defined by snap grid in settings and may be different to the draw grid which is the visible grid Snap objects by vertices This is for aligning two objects so that the one vertex from each object are both in the same place One vertex in each of two separate objects should be selected before executing this function The objects will be moved together so that the two selected vertices are in the same location Smooth Shape This function repositions the selected vertices in order to smooth the shape of the surfaces Align to axis This function moves all selected vertices so that they lie on the specified axis Weld Weld removes duplicate vertices where more than one vertices
24. way to add extra detail to a subdivided object These settings are recommended for Extrude parameters extruding 3D subdivided shapes Cap end Ww Flip new surfaces Remove original fW 38 A simple way to add stronger defined edges to a model is to extrude with zero movement This can be done by switching into extrude mode and simply clicking on the bounding box The extrusion will be performed but no movement takes place e g on a cube The left object is a cube with the top surface extruded The right object is a copy of this object but with no subdivision level set note that although it looks the same as a normal cube there are actually extra surfaces around the edge of the top surface Display or hide subdivisions This image shows a cube with the top surface selected Notice how the bounding box is not located directly over the selected surface as it would be with a non subdivided object This is normal since the bounding box surrounds the original non subdivided geometry Switching off the display of subdivisions press d shows why the actual surface selected in the original object is in a slightly different location because the subdivision causes the shape to change A similar effect can be seen in Vertex select mode Here two vertices are selected note how the selection shows around the area of the original vertices This is because it is the original vertices that are affected the subdivision
25. you need to extract a number of surfaces from an object it is recommended to use Surface gt Cut Away Object Merge This function places all of the surfaces from the selected objects into one single object This does not optimize the vertices so that they can be shared across the surfaces Use menu Object gt Optimize Vertices after merging to create a more efficient object and or get smooth shading across adjacent surfaces 22 Explode This is similar to fragment but each new object is moved forward in the direction the surface is facing by a specified amount This picture shows an exploded cube Extrude Along Path This function sweeps a profile along a specified path to create a 3D shape The operation works on two objects the profile and the path The order in which these objects are selected is important The profile should be selected first and the path second usually with shift select An example Front xy Ensuring that the select mode is Object select first the circle hold down the shift key and select the line After Object gt Extrude Along Path Front xy The shapes created by this function can easily be smoothed by using AC3D s subdivision In the following image the line has been subdivided twice smoothing the appearance lt is possible to reposition the vertices in this line to fine tune the desired shape After using Extrude Along Path the new object initially appears the same as before but
26. 3 vertices of a triangle hex value is OXRRGGBB col in this case white duplicate vertices are aggregated when loaded Vector files This is another simple format for importing 2D vector data Each line should consist of a number of vertices followed by the same number x y coordinate pairs e g 30 50 5 2525 105 This represents a line with 3 vertices 0 5 0 5 2 5 2 5 10 5 Exporting files AC3D can generate output files for many different formats Support for extra file formats can be added by installing additional AC3D plugins See File gt export for a list of the output files supported Several are mentioned here 3D Studio 3ds 3D studio files are used in 3D Studio Max 3D software http www discreet com This is a long established binary format which is supported by a lot of third party software Note that objects with gt 1 material will be split into separate meshes within the 3DS file VRML 1 VRML is an ASCII geometry file specification used for web graphics VRML files may be viewed from within any web browser that has an appropriate plugin installed e g Cortona http www parallelgraphics com products cortong AC3D Object URLs set from the object data dialog are used so that objects will be selectable in the appropriate browser The output of normals and textures can be switched on off in the File gt settings window VRML 2 VRML 2 is a geometry description web file format which also allows animation and some
27. A A E Ea EAA EAE TENARO 27 A I ANA AO BEA IEE AAI TEAN SIE TAE A AE EA EE E IA O 27 GONDE O E E ON 28 SRE EE EE A EEA A A A T 28 A E RO O EE 28 Bevel A O NO 29 Make TQM asset AA at lee A ER A A a A E 29 A AO 29 CUTE AV AY OG sales ire aaa ease acer EN io 30 Remove SUIMACE OV ee da hh ne Saas etl Aan berets erin gees ad a cn d Sl date Somme a 30 Cacao SUIT ACE AR EAS AE AA Crete ete eat ides ora named een 30 Operations on Verices sin ela 30 NAD OG CUICK neers nur A a nine 30 ONAD ODEN DI ANCES AA dan O A ne de ere dieu Rave tue ra te anne en 30 NAPO MEE Ei ria CR O 31 Snap 00 CCIS DVAVETICES vi AA AAA Ai a Eaa 31 O SA O ON 31 PUN OYTO AS A tai dedicado 31 WA tata in tata catre 31 A O O O O RAN 31 O O O A 31 Diviae triangle COTO IS A A A A E a da Siren Mees a 31 EXT LODOS A EIA EE EA ol 32 SEO SUN AOO oi Ge towne EEEE E a ete a E A E aes 32 create Convex SMAC 919 lt e arisa PEPINO aa ide a me aa edeel 32 GS EN ordered SUN A aig DOEA E AEE Gal a EES E A E A eA Aii E ai 34 COALS OMA a II E IA Se TO 34 create ED NO A EA 34 SUDGIVISION SUMACES arinin anona ae ar nc ia AOAN Eaa 36 Changing the subdivision level oi e a e E Ee aiae aaa ES aii 36 Switching display of SUDCIVISIONS A dis 36 Committing SUDAIVISIONS sra drame ani a aaia a een A ea ai 37 Example Siiri eieaa ri Sue 37 Hints and UDS A nn ne a 38 Us amp Extr de toada ela NA A oe galanin 38 Display or hide SU CIV ISI OVI Ct thal atta wee sp Rh il eA ee Ua alae D bad AA ER
28. Orth and 3D menus Displaying the normals is used here to help determine the direction to extrude the object In the extrusion if the selection is dragged in the same direction as the normals the resulting shape will hide the front of the original surfaces This is useful if one side of a box is being extended but in this case the original surfaces need to be facing outside of the final shape This means that the surfaces need to be dragged in the opposite direction to the normals Because we are doing this we need to flip new surfaces so that all the new surfaces face outwards This is what happens when the selection is dragged up in the plan window 24 If remove original was ticked then the star that that is being dragged will be deleted Here the original surfaces have been removed to leave a star shaped box without a lid If cap end had been unticked then it would have been possible to see right through the star shape This picture shows what happens when sections is set to 4 25 To extend an existing set of surfaces it may not be desirable to keep the existing surfaces inside the new object Here is a cube that has had a single Surface gt divide Two of the surfaces are selected These surfaces can be extended without keeping the original surfaces since they will not be visible because they are inside the shape These settings are used Estrude parameters Sections i M Cap end
29. bject or objects use the menu Object gt Texture gt Load Texture to set a texture AC3D loads a number of different picture file formats as textures These include gif jpeg etc To view which formats AC3D can load see the load texture dialog Note that some export formats or rather the programs that load the files do not support all the texture file types that AC3D supports You should ensure that you are using the correct format texture for the correct export file type e g jpg or gif for VRML Changing the mapping Texture coordinates determine how a texture is mapped onto the surfaces of an object All AC3D objects have default texture coordinates applied to them when they are created For example a cube has mapping set so that one instance of the texture will appear on each face Some external files have formats that do not contain texture coordinates and some AC3D operations may cause these coordinates to become disturbed in these cases it is necessary to remap the texture coordinates Changing the texture repeat and offsets The texture repeat and texture offset for an object can be modified in Object gt Texture gt set texture repeat offset The texture repeat indicates the number of times the texture is to be fitted into that dimension E g a cube with texture repeats set to 1 1 the default 40 Object gt texture gt set texture repeats offsets and repeats set to 2 2 The texture offset determin
30. cts can also be created with a single click in a view window This will create a regular object that fits into a 1 x 1 x 1 square The 3D cursor is shown in the orthographic views by across This is repositioned by using the tool Tools gt Position 3D Cursor Most people rarely use this because it is very easy to create an object and position it afterwards Some object types allow parameters to be set before creating the object For example spheres and Meshes i can be made from triangles or quads Cylinder Draw cylinder Controls for any available parameters appear in the x ee panel underneath the Mode box on the control panel Segments 2 Triangles ee a a Naming objects When created AC3D Objects are automatically named The object name box is at the bottom of the control panel and allows these names to be set 13 Object names can only be edited set in Group or Object select mode Object names need not be unique and can be the same across multiple objects This can be useful for selecting or finding particular objects with the Edit gt select by name function e g to select all objects named chair Object names are used in some of the file formats exported by AC3D If AC3D is being used to generate VRML or Dive files URLs and other text can be associated with objects This text is used in a number of the export file formats that AC3D generates The names text and urls are saved in the ac AC3D fil
31. defines the color of a surface and also the attributes that define the way it will react to light e g shininess Texture Graphical images can be mapped onto the surfaces of an object The images are usually from graphics files such as gif jpg bmp etc Texture coordinates When the vertex of a surface is drawn a texture coordinate specifies the position of a texture image to map to that point A texture coordinate is a two dimensional u v value which defines the point on the 2D image Bounding box When you make a selection of objects surfaces or vertices a green box outlines it You can drag resize or rotate this box to adjust the contents Getting help User interface components in AC3D have balloon help Small tooltip windows will popup when the mouse pointer rests over a button or field label This feature can be switched off from File gt Settings When browsing through the menu items the function on each item is described in the message text at the bottom of the AC3D window Windows Views AC3D has a control panel on the left plus 4 other view windows There s also the menu and toolbar at the top and an information bar along the bottom Control panel A This is where the main controls over the selection and draw modes are located It also 50009 contains the surface type controls the palette of materials and the object name field fo ra r The top of the control panel shows information about the
32. displayed information Render Output file type Povray z Output filename ac3dpovfile poy Render program C Program Files POV Ray for Windows v3 6 bin pyengine exe Browse Render parameters ET UL 40 2 FT32 s Result F Show Render button on toolbar Render Close This tool is used to start up an external renderer such as a Raytracer like PovRay or other linked program See the rendering section for more information on how this is configured Object Hierarchy This window shows the structure of the current model but also allows control over the structure of the hierarchy A Object Hierarchy Objects selected 4 aha world od le group car object body Dir group group object wheel O object wheel object wheel object wheel Close Clicking on one of the items in the list can select or unselect objects This selection is sensitive to the current select mode being used e g in Group select mode it is only possible to select top level groups To select individual objects switch to Object select mode using the main AC3D control panel The eye icon shows controls visibility similar to Hide Unhide on the main AC3D control panel The padlock controls shows if an object is locked A right click on an object item will reveal a popup menu 42 A Object Hierarchy Objects selected 4 world group car Oe object body Dir
33. ement EAEE AAE en tens se 14 Creating Other OD OCIS rite tre me nt s 14 Selecting resizing moving and rotatiNg coocccconnconnnccccnnconcanecannnnnnoncnnnnennnrrenannenanrrnannnas 15 A viiren ai RSR RE 15 MOV ca a 15 ROSH ZING issue ect 16 Extending Negating the Selection ccc nvoocioccniccioarcncteninn nia anna a adas edanda 16 Clearing the selections ireas ae aiai a lit 16 Hiding Objects 2e ee tee e were e Ee aa eu See ces a noires end me en ON ete ne sen eine 17 Locking ODI OCIS 52625 re en DC meteo lente etre dec inc cn daeuee die veneetsDdeneneencuendedeanes 17 Model manipulati OR cru ia 18 Operations On O0DIeCIS o A A mit ne net 18 PONT ts ne 18 HCV A Ar cree Pia RO ant kat TA SO PT RC e Re Matilda ra Dbaahaneas 18 MI O e RS D TE CT ee eT ETN DA DO OO PA AN eer eer AS M A ner re rm rere een 19 ODUMIZO WETUCO SAA A ETS AA AS AA A A 20 Optimize SUACO SAA A AA AAA AAA uch ticle AA Edi 20 ACUC o o eli 20 SHOWS FIs SUDO VAC A EEE AL ALA DA AA A 21 Commit SUDGIVISI A AAA SA A TA AA A dde Das 22 A O de td in une 22 A A A en ne au dde ial pce alt cab ll dde see 22 A net n Tia etes de HA NAT en JR Tee ri nee 22 US A A Rd eee MRS COLT O ere Nee EME ee eee ee AR ae ee er sr er 22 EXPO dida a a ici 23 EXI AIONO PA ones ere AED DE RA ERA AAA SARA A EEN AAA Ai Dining vanes es da AE te tne 23 Operations on SUMACOS oia iran 24 EXT CIA na aia 24 FIONOLA a poaa E E T E de ii anne Ne sey aaa ANR Sri eds 27 Change Venda a 27 Fip Tria ngle Ed
34. ensures that all objects are visible The Show Hidden toggle in the main 3D menu determines if the hidden objects are visible in 3d views Hiding is useful when access is needed to work on obscured objects Locking is useful for temporarily disabling objects that are obscuring others When objects are locked it s not possible to select them Locking also helps with the speed performance when editing large models It works in a similar way to hiding except that locked objects are drawn in grey wireframe Note that if objects are hidden or locked and the model is saved exported hidden and locked objects are included in the file 17 Model manipulation Operations on objects These operations are on the Object menu and act upon one or more selected objects Texture Each object can have one texture A texture is a 2D bitmap image such as a gif or jpg file which is drawn onto the surfaces of an object To set a texture on an object use Object gt texture gt Load Texture AC3D s default palette of objects predefine the way that the textures are mapped onto the object surface To adjust this or to define a custom mapping use AC3D s Texture Coordinate Editor Tools menu See the section on Texturing Revolve Revolving makes copies of the selected objects rotating each copy and then creating surfaces between the copies It s recommended that this function be used to revolve 2D outlines of shapes rather than
35. enu control how views set to these camera modes are drawn and what components are visible For these settings all Orth windows work together e g switching from filled to wireframe appearance in one Orth window causes all other Orth windows to also be set to wireframe Although it s useful sometimes to work in a single view seeing all the windows at once can be very helpful when positioning objects and laying out scenes Navigating in 2D views Use the mouse to pan or zoom an orth view The keyboard arrow keys pan and control up down zooms in and out Holding down a shift key increases the movement zoom distance The grids In the orthographic windows there are two grids the draw grid major lines and the snap grid minor lines Both can be set from File gt settings and their display can be toggled on off by selecting Grid from the Orth menu or pressing the g key when focused in an orth window The Snap grid is shown by thin visual guide lines the draw grid uses thicker lines If Gridsnap is switched on moving resizing creating mouse movements will be aligned to the nearest snap grid points The grids can be configured to display units of any size e g for eighths of an inch the major draw grid would be set to 1 0 and the snap grid set to 0 125 1 8th Using Background Images Any orthographic 2D window can display a background image This can be useful for tracing shapes or laying out objects in relation to
36. es Text attached to each object is entered into the field on the Tools gt Object property editor window Object names can also be set in the property editor Lights Lights have no associated geometry and represent a point light In the AC3D views lights are represented by this symbol Lights are fixed brightness white lights Lights are selected and repositioned in Group or Object select mode Lights are generated in exported files such as POV and RIB files The generated files can be edited to alter the lighting attributes This image shows a green sphere with two lights indicated by white spheres the main headlight is off The headlight in the 3D window is toggled on and off with the l key or from the main 3D menu If the headlight is on when POV or RIB files are generated a light will be added to information in the file Object mode lock Clicking twice on an object mode button causes the mode to lock This is indicated by the button changing to green When a mode is locked the mode does not revert to Move size after an object is created Pressing MoveSize Rotate or extrude releases the lock Creating other objects It is very easy to create other objects from these shapes For example to make a torus shape donut create an ellipse and select the Object gt revolve menu A cone can be made in a number of ways Create a cylinder select one end in vertex mode and select Vertex g
37. es how far across the texture the mapping should start Texture repeat set to 1 1 and Texture offsets set to 0 5 0 5 Testuve repeat JD a Teie pet TD 4 E Texture offset Li fos tede Ly fos Fe Beime update If more than one texture is required on a single object e g a different image on each side of a cube the object should be split up into parts e g use Surface gt cut away object and different texture mapped on to each of the sub objects Alternatively it is more efficient to create a single texture image i e a single picture file containing all the required images and use AC3D s Texture Coordinate Editor tool to map parts of the object 41 Tools This section describes AC3D s integrated tools Tools are accessed from the Tools menu Other tools can be added to this menu via software plugins Model Information This displays information about the current model Jh Model information Group WORLD v 0 0 kids 1 Object box v 8 6 kids 0 Total objects 2 surfaces 6 vetices 8 This shows the information for a single cube Note that the total number of objects shown is actually two This is because the World object is included in this count The internal world object is the top level container object This window can remain visible whilst other work continues but if any changes occur to the current AC3D model the refresh button must be pressed in order to update the
38. ex hull to create a new object that surrounds the vertices that are selected This is very useful for joining complex objects together or for simplifying the creation of some complex shapes 32 These two pictures show the function being used to join a cylinder to a cube Note that because this function makes a new object the vertices are not shared with the old objects If the whole shape i e the original objects plus the new part is required to be smooth then the objects must be merged together with Object gt Merge and then have the duplicate vertices removed with Object gt Optimize Vertices A second example uses a number of simple objects which are shrink wrapped by this function In this case we are creating the fuselage of an aircraft The objects are ellipses and a single red box Any AC3D objects can be used this way either lines or polygons To get a more accurate outline these shapes could have been made by placing background images of a real aircraft onto the views and building the shapes on top of those images Moira mite El UE EF Fr By Ra D dec F eros p SS After Surface gt Create Convex Surface Object menu function has been selected 33 This picture shows the fuselage object created from the simple shapes lt has been dragged to the side of the original objects which still remain in the scene It s important to note that the hull created is convex Thi
39. filled polygon objects Any revolved line objects are automatically removed after the revolution The axis to perform the revolution about can be altered To create a torus make a circle in the Front window Select Object gt Revolve J revolve E degrees 36d aris Too segments i 2 offset 0 0 Revolve Lancel Set the axis to Y and click Revolve You should see something like this Select the smooth surface type near the bottom of the control panel to make it appear rounded 18 The degrees of revolution can also be altered e g 270 degrees If there are points that need to be in the centre of the final revolved object e g the start and end points of the cup profile above then these points should lie exactly on the axis Drawing the line with gridsnap can ensure this Alternatively snapping the points to the grid Vertex gt snap to grid or by using the control panel Move to function to ensure that two of the values are zero If these points are not exactly on the axis a small hole or possibly overlapping surfaces will be created If this happens the Vertex gt snap together function and Object gt Optimize Vertices can be used to remove duplicate points Setting the revolve offset allows the profile to be moved along an axis for each revolution This is useful for making spiral pipes springs and screw threads Example creating a spring Example creating a thread Mi
40. group group 2730 RCE N View properties OS hide Qi Urhide Move to head Move to tail Edit object data Close This allows control over hiding a more detailed properties viewer editing object data and the option of moving an object to the head start or tail end of the children list Object Property Editor Objects have properties that can be adjusted using the Object Property Editor The crease angle and subdivision level are can be adjusted by moving a slider and pressing a set button Every AC3D object can have a url web link address and text data attached to it This is a string of text This data is saved in the AC3D file along with the object geometry information A AID Ob pect Properties Loc Fla 13 Loc 0 T Objects exported in VRML files will have a link generated around them if a URL is present and Povray objects can include object data text at the end of each object description allowing custom povray commands to be added The Loc point defines the position of the centre of the object This is the local origin of the object 43 Texture Coordinate Editor rm 30 Texture Coor dinate Editor Eding 472 sutaces el obesct idjenp Sudaces adeg 60 AC3D s integrated Texture Coordinate Editor TCE allows full control over the texture coordinates that are applied to all surfaces in AC3D objects To start the TCE select Tools gt Texture Coordinate Editor To edit the text
41. gs Triangulate This spits non triangles i e polygons with more than 3 sides into more surfaces each new surface being a triangle This operation can fail if it is given a bad polygon i e one that has overlapping edges or duplicate vertices Spline This is useful for smoothing out a line object and for rounding off polygons New points are interpolated between existing points 29 This function takes all of the selected surfaces and vertices and puts them into a new object This can be useful for extracting parts of objects e g splitting a sphere into two Remove surface only This deletes any whole surfaces selected The vertices will remain Calculate surface area This function calculates the total surface area of the selected surfaces Note that the total area accounts for one side of each surface Operations on Vertices The majority of functions on the Vertex menu are available when the Surface or Vertex select mode is active and one or more vertices are selected Snap together This sets all selected vertices to the same location The vertices can be in separate objects or the same object The point that they are snapped to is the average of all selected points Snap together by distance This function moves vertices together that lie within the specified distance This is useful for example to join two halves of an object together 30 e g This picture shows a close up of an object where
42. h surface is divided and then the shape of the overall object is smoothed Original object Single subdivision 21 Two subdivisions Three subdivisions without surfaces displayed Commit subdivision This function affects objects that have the subdivision preview level set to a value larger than zero The subdivision preview level is set from Tools gt Object Property Editor or by adjusting the subdivision level from Object gt Subdivide also from the toolbar controls It converts the subdivision preview into real polygons for the selected objects See the section on Subdivision surfaces for more information Re centre Object centres define the local origin of AC3D objects Object centres can be seen by switching on the button on the main Orth menu This function sets this origin at the centre of gravity This can be useful for specifying where the pivot points or local origin of an object are Minimum centre This function sets the object centre object s origin to the minimum xyz of the object Fragment Fragment creates one object per surface of the original object so that each object contains only one surface and the necessary vertices This image shows a sphere that has been fragmented The new objects have been moved apart Notice that the surfaces are no longer smoothed together this is because each surface is now a separate object and vertices cannot be shared across objects If
43. hat the object has zero value texture a Sider coordinates e g each surface vertex reference has vos 0 0 0 0 as a coordinate In a case like this a 3 Select all in the TCE would reveal that all of the Select coordinates are set to 0 0 aa Hire Fi In this case you will need to make sensible coordinates for your model probably in groups Do this by selecting a number of surfaces from within AC3D and using the remap buttons to assign a mapping to the texture coordinates You can then reposition and size the surfaces in the TCE and map them onto a texture Edin M miee of object cu ataca rectal 13 Replicator The Replicator allows multiple copies of the selection to be created Each copy can be moved rotated and scaled The Replicator also allows objects to be Copes extruded Mode Translation m Rotation degrees Rotate about O gn Scale fo fio io Go Ob Fat ACTO Replicator The replicator works by first duplicating or extruding the current selection Second it moves the new copy using the distances specified by Translation X Y Z coordinates Next if there is a rotation specified it rotates the object around the specified location Finally if the scale fields are set to anything other than 1 1 1 the copy is scaled Examples Creating an array of 5 objects 1 unit apart in the X dimension ax 5 uie O arado jo 0 E iign Selection O JD Comes 46 Creating four copies
44. his can cause surfaces to appear missing if they are one sided or the smoothing can appear uneven Viewing the normals is also useful for use with the extrude function and can help determine the extrude settings that ensure that new surfaces face in the correct direction This picture shows two spheres The sphere on the left shows correct normals i e all facing outwards The sphere on the right shows some surfaces facing in the wrong direction Notice how the shading is not consistent AC3D automatically calculates the normals both surface and vertex To flip the direction of a surface use Surface gt Flip normal This actually reverses the order of the vertices in the surface so that the automatically generated normal faces the opposite way Creating new objects The AC3D control panel contains a number of 2D and 3D object shapes that can be created New objects are created by selecting one of these buttons and clicking dragging in one of the view windows 12 Polys polylines lines To create a poly polyline line click to position each point and either double ax T lt click or press the middle or right mouse button to end The surface type can be altered later from the control panel if you need a different type These objects consist of a list of vertices and a single surface The surfaces from more than one of these objects can be collected together into a single object by using the Object gt Merge function
45. i clockwise order causing the normal used for lighting to be incorrectly calculated If a polygon appears all black this function may need executing possibly repeatedly until it appears correctly Flip Triangle Edge Given two adjacent triangles the joining edge is flipped Divide Divide create new surfaces by splitting each surface to make quads four point four sided surfaces Note that because this function splits surface edges it affects any surfaces that are adjacent to the surfaces being divided 27 This image shows a box that has had the top surface divided The red surfaces that are adjacent now have five points each because the division inserted an extra vertex Combine Combine takes two or more adjacent surfaces and creates a single surface The selected surface must share edges for this function to complete Select the menu item or press the c key to execute the function two surfaces selected after combine one surface It is possible to combine surfaces that do not lie on the same plane It is recommended that the vertices be flattened in order to make them lie on the same plane If after combining surfaces the new surface appears black from every angle this means that the first three vertices of the surface form an angle of more than 180 degrees To prevent this the vertex order must be changed Surface gt change vertex order so that the first three vertices of the surface form an
46. ices these may exist if vertices have been deleted from an object AC3D highlights invalid polygons by displaying them as cyan lines Reduce This function reduces the number of vertices and polygons whilst trying to retain as much of an objects original shape as possible This is useful for saving on storage space and for speeding up the rendering of complicated objects This function can be used to create different objects that will be shown at different distances LOD level of detail E g a car object should be viewed close up with all polygons but from a distance a more simple shape is adequate and can save drawing time Reduce a 3 Reduce number of vertices to EN keep original object s Reduce Close A target percentage specifies the proportion of vertices that are to remain E g If an object has 100 vertices and 80 is entered the final object will contain 80 vertices 20 The original object can remain in the model or it can be replaced with the new object If the original object is kept the new object will be created in the same position and will be selected An example 732 surfaces 376 vertices Reduced to 40 gives 276 surfaces 150 vertices A saving of 456 polygons The reduce window remains visible so that different reductions can be tried use Edit gt Undo to revert to the previous state Subdivide Subdivide Changes the subdivision level A surface subdivision is where eac
47. ions will also speed up interaction Use Object gt reduce to reduce the number of vertices polygons in an object Key presses Key shortcuts for menu items are shown on the menus Other keys can be used In orthographic 2D windows Key Function Cursor keys move view Shift Cursor move view faster Control up zoom in Control down zoom out Shift Control up zoom in with larger step Shift Control down zoom out with larger step Alt Cursor move background image Alt shift cursor up down Scale background image Backspace Delete delete current selection Space Maximize or minimize the current view 54 fT Toggle textures o set select mode to OBJECT v set select mode to VERTEX s Set select mode to SURFACE m set drag mode to MOVE R Set drag mode to ROTATE e set drag mode to EXTRUDE F ffit selection to window control ffit selection to all views 9 Toggle grid h hide selected objects z zoom in Space Maximize minimize view Some of the keys for the 3D window have equiv menu item in the 3D menu In 3D views Key Function w Wirefram e filled toggle i toggle textures lg toggle 3d grid F fit to window centre spin view around the selection Space Maxim ize minimize view In the 3D window the cursor keys spin the model in spin mode In Walk mode they control the viewpoint in a similar way to Quake and other similar games e g left right forward back alt up down move up down control
48. le between it and the edges is gt 45 11 One sided and Two sided surfaces The 1S and 2S buttons select how many sides a surface has one sided or two sided If a surface is single sided it will only be visible from one side The following pictures demonstrate this In this model there are three objects a green rectangle a red rectangle and a blue ellipse made by creating an ellipse object and setting the surface type to be Poly The red rectangle has been set to be single sided 1S This means that it is visible from the front but not from the back the second image shows the whole model rotated Objects such as spheres and cubes which do not have any interior surfaces visible benefit from a speed optimization when being drawn with the surfaces single sided Surface normals The direction a surface is facing is determined by its Normal indicated by arrows in the above diagram This is a 3D graphics term for a line at right angles to the surface that indicates a direction Normals are used to calculate surface colors and shading when the objects in AC3D are drawn For smooth shading vertex normals are automatically calculated by averaging normals of all connected surfaces Normals can be visualized in both the orthographic and 3d views Normals on the orth and 3d menus This preview is useful for solving problems where for example some surfaces in an object are the wrong way around t
49. lected moved and size by manipulating individual surfaces Vertex select mode allows individual texture coordinates to be manipulated Der M maths el oleo tard a Surface select mode Vertex select mode Manipulation in the TCE is similar to the main AC3D 2D views After a selection is made the green bounding box can be moved the handles can be dragged to resize the selection and the selection can be extended and negated shift left mouse shift right mouse The selection can also be rotated using the mouse When the mouse pointer is over the edge of the bounding box the pointer changes to indicate that if the left mouse button is dragged the selection will be rotated irr amp 2 Resizing Movin Rotating The Flip buttons mirror the selection either horizontally or vertically e g flipped horizontally 45 Remapping the selection The remap buttons on the TCE perform the same function as the Surface gt remap texture coors menu items in AC3D The Front Side Top buttons project the texture onto the surfaces in the specified axis The bounding size of the selected surfaces determines the boundaries of the mapping The Spherical button cause the texture coordinates to be wrapped around selected surfaces Remap front ALSO Texture Coordnate Editos l It is possible that after starting the TCE and es EX oe selecting an object the window appears blank It is Pense likely t
50. nt is applied To make vertices specifically for this function create a line placing each point at the desired location Select the line and Surface gt remove surface only This removes the surface and leaves the vertices Note that this function works convexly 39 Subdivision Surfaces Modeling with subdivision surfaces makes it easy to create smooth objects using simple polygon objects In AC3D any polygon or line object can be subdivided This includes objects containing ordinary poly surfaces and also lines and polylines When an object is subdivided the original geometry is used as a base model Any changes to this base model are instantly reflected in the smoothed subdivision Changing the subdivision level The subdivision level can be quickly changed by using the Subdivide items on the Object menu or by using el Subdiv Subdiw E the toolbar buttons Subdiv Any whole or partly Oe Subdiv Subdiy Ei selected objects will have the subdivision level altered W 0 94 H 0 88 O 0 91 subject to the maximum and minimum subdivision level The subdivision level can also be altered by editing the object property from the Object Property Editor tool in the Tools menu Changing the subdivision level is not a permanent change to the geometry AC3D still maintains the original object and any changes to this original object affect the subdivision All of the functions that work on normal surface
51. ple these components may be electronic parts kitchen units molecule models etc Loading a single object from the library can be repeated to make multiple copies of the same object Note that the 3D position at which the object is saved will be its location when it is loaded again from the library To add an object to a library select it and press Store Take care when replacing objects that the object that is currently selected in AC3D will overwrite the file stored on the library 51 Rendering The Render tool in the tools menu can be configured to automatically launch an external renderer This allows generation of high resolution images with shadows reflections transparency and other effects The output file type is set from the Output file type pulldown menu The file types listed here are all of the file types that AC3D can export extra file types may have been added using plugins The Output filename specifies the name of a file that the model will be generated into The Render program specifies the program that will start after the file is written The Render Parameters are appended to the command line that it executed to start the render program Ifa s is specified in the render command it will be replaced by the render filename A POVray example Povray is a very popular ray tracer see www povray org This example shows a very simple model consisting of a me
52. rror The mirror function duplicates all object surfaces and vertices and flips the new surfaces and vertices around the specified axis Examples A hemisphere 19 Object gt Mirror gt X Front por Object gt Mirror gt X Front Y Object gt mirror gt X axis Front Pr Where possible Mirror will remove duplicate vertices If mirroring half of a shape use Vertex gt align to axis to align the inner edge vertices to an axis Alternatively select the inner vertices and resize one dimension to zero this flattens the selection aligning the vertices Mirror is useful after use of the AC3D real time Mirror function View menu where half of a symmetrical object has been worked on Optimize Vertices This function removes duplicate vertices from each selected object For vertices to be removed an object must own the vertices and they much match the same position exactly The function will share one vertex between each connected point This can make the object les complex and means that vertex normals can be calculated if smooth shading is required This function also removes duplicate vertex references from the surface something that might cause a bad polygon lf vertices do not match the same position Vertex gt snap together or Vertex gt snap together by distance can be used to move them to the same point Optimize Surfaces This function removes any duplicate surfaces and any polygons that consist of 1 or 2 vert
53. rrows on each side of the bounding box These can be dragged to move the selection 15 Resizing Dragging the handles at the corners of the bounding box using the left mouse button resizes the selection Holding down the control key down whilst dragging an edge handle resizes opposite edges On the corner handles holding down the control key scales the selection uniformly Resize selections of vertices and surfaces Extending Negating the selection Holding down the shift key whilst selecting with the left mouse button extends the selection adds new entities and pressing shift whilst selecting with the 2nd or 3rd mouse button negates subtracts items from the current selection Extend and negate selection work in all select modes This picture shows the top and bottom of a sphere selected This is done by first selecting the top vertices with a drag Holding down the shift key and dragging across the bottom of the sphere Clearing the selection Clicking the outside the area of the bounding box will cause everything to become unselected The selection can also be cleared by pressing the None button in the toolbar or from the menu Edit gt select nothing 16 Hiding objects Hide Unzel Locking objects Lock Uneel Hiding allows objects to be temporarily removed from the views The current selection or objects that are not selected can be hidden from view The unhide button
54. s are still functional Adjusting the original surfaces directly affects the subdivided object Objects retain the subdivision property when AC3D files are saved To export the model into another file format keeping the smoothed subdivided shape the objects can be transformed into full polygon objects by using Object gt Commit Subdivision A setting in File gt settings defines a maximum number of surfaces for a subdivided object Advanced gt Subdivision max surfaces If this maximum is exceeded when the subdivision level is changed a message is shown and the subdivision will not proceed The default value is chosen for average computers For faster machines the value can be increased Switching display of subdivisions The display of subdivisions is easily changed by pressing the d key Itis possible to have different settings for orth and 3d views e g orth views display the base non subdivided model and the 3D view shows the full subdivided model 36 Camera View Orth Pi 5 A Camera View Orth Front xy Left zy Camera View Orth Pi 5 E Camera View 3D Top xz Switching off the display of subdivisions in all views can be useful when working on large detailed models since AC3D will only calculate the subdivision when it is needed for display Working without displaying subdivisions can therefore speed up interaction with the 3D model The main 3D menu has an option to simultaneously display the original base
55. s are to edit a color select all surfaces with that material or add a new material a copy of the selected material will be added to the end of the list A Edit material 3 Pressing the colored button brings up a system color Diffuse MN chooser Ambient Ei 3 Pressing the button next to an item expands the item so that the numeric values of the Red Green and G r Blue components can be altered with sliders B Emissive En Specular E Shininess 16 EE Transparency 0 000 M Realtime update The material window allows various attributes of the material to be altered Diffuse This is essentially the main color of the material The exact shade shown on a model depends on the amount of light available to the surface Ambient Ambient color works with the diffuse to affect the overall color of a surface but is not sensitive to the amount of light on that surface Emissive Setting this can make a surface appear to be giving off light This may be use for example to give a light blue glow to a spaceship s engine No actual light is emitted from surfaces with an emissive color set Specular The specular quality defines the color and brightness of highlights This works in conjunction with Shininess Shininess A high value means that highlights will be smaller and less scattered across Transparency Transparency can be useful to for making a surface look like glass Transparency is supported in the palette
56. s means that if there had been any vertices that were totally inside the encompassing hull the new hull object would not have any vertices created at those points Fe BEN Ver Horn cables or ARTE seno ER FN ras s fon Mo fan see This function will also create 2 dimensional convex hulls provided all of the selected vertices lie on the same plane If they are not a 3d object will be AAA eee Create ordered surface This function creates a surface using the individual vertices that are selected The vertices should be selected in the correct order and in an anticlockwise direction This function works by creating a new surface and adding vertices in the order they were selected If vertices are not selected in exactly the correct order a bad surface crossing edges or non planar may be created Create Quad This function is used to create a four point four sided surface from three selected vertices Before Vertex gt Create quad After new surface was New vertex is positioned as created and new vertex is desired selected Create 2D mesh This function uses a technique called Delaunay Triangulation to calculate triangles between a set of points When this function is selected a plane is specified This treats the points as 2D so that a mesh can be laid out over the points e g here are a number of vertices in front window 34 After Vertex gt create 2D Mesh gt Fro
57. sh a sphere and a cube that has been divided a couple of times with Surface gt divide then had a Surface gt make hole operation There is also an extra light present in the model Fo Pr es Sms F K PE A A A B Sin _ The sphere has had a pov texture specified using the Tools gt edit object data the appearance of the object in AC3D will be unaffected by this 24 texture F_Glass10 The settings in File gt Settings were POV header Hinclude glass inc M Use object data for POW files Pressing the Render button in the Render Tool gives 52 The Povray exporter supports bitmap textured objects Ensure that the formats of the texture picture files used are compatible with POV ray 53 Appendix Plugins Plugins add extra functionality and additional file format support to AC3D Plugins files are usually name lt something gt p and reside in the Plugins folder within the AC3D installation Additional tcl files in the same folder may also provide user interfaces and scripting for use with some plugins Plugins are automatically loaded when AC3D starts The console displays the progress of loading plugins and will show any errors that occur It is important that plugins are designed to run with the correct version of AC3D otherwise the plugins may fail to load To find out more about the plugins that are currently installed use Help boni s gt About Plugins s Dera mi ro ps e ee
58. t snap together cone made this way will have the texture coordinates set correctly For a simpler cone fewer vertices optimize the vertices with Object Optimize vertices This means that the centre point of the cone will be a single vertex which is shared with all the sides Some other ways of making cones include making a disk and pulling the centre point up Using Object gt revolve to revolve a line around an axis To add a base to the cone select the bottom vertices and select the menu item Vertex gt Create surface object Extrude is used to add extra parts to objects or to give 2d shapes depth Objects can be cut into pieces and specific surfaces deleted 14 Selecting resizing moving and rotating In AC3D the manipulation of 3D objects works in a very similar way to a 2D drawing program e the selection is shown highlighted and handles can be moved to reshape the section Selected components surface vertices are shown in a different color and are surrounded by a bounding box usually green Selection is possible in mode size rotate and extrude modes The default mode is move size Selecting select 50099 The Select mode defines the granularity of selection e it determines if selections will affect objects groups or vertices To select in AC3D either click the left mouse button or use the left mouse button to drag a box over an area
59. the X and Y PES i E position of the sphere the Z position comes from the location of the 3D Get cursor Set Set to origin The default position of the 3D cursor is at the origin 0 0 O Close Many find that they never need to adjust this but can be useful change it s position when working on large models away from the origin 48 Materials The palette The scrolling window of buttons near the bottom of the control panel represents the palette of colors materials available The default color for an object is palette entry 1 usually white The colored buttons are pressed to change the material on the currently selected objects surfaces Setting the material of surfaces works in all selection modes but for a surface to change color in Vertex mode it must have all vertices selected Note that the color on the palette button represents the diffuse color for that material New palette buttons are appended to the list when a file containing extra materials is loaded When surfaces have a texture as well as a material that material can affect the way the texture appears To make a texture to appear as the original colored image then the surface color should be white To find the material index of an existing polygon select that surface and the message at the bottom of the AC3D window will display the material number Editing Palette entries HER MOTTE Pressing the right mouse button on a palette button pops up a menu The option
60. up down tilt Preferences settings The settings in File gt settings are saved automatically when you exit AC3D This automatic saving can be switched off from the settings window Settings must be saved with this set to off for the change to be remembered Under Mac Unix the settings are saved to HOME ac3dprefs Under Windows they are saved to the user s home directory as ac3dprefs txt 95 2006 Inivis Ltd All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying recording or storing in a retrieval system or translated into any language in any form without the prior written permission of Inivis Ltd Software license The software described in this document is furnished under a License Agreement which is included with the product This agreement specifies the permitted and prohibited uses of the product Licenses and trademarks Inivis ltd the Inivis logo AC3D and the AC3D logo are trademarks of Inivis ltd All other product names and any registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned in this manual are used for identification purposes only and remain the exclusive property of their respective owners AC3D www ac3d org Inivis www inivis com 56
61. ure coordinates of an object select a single object or surfaces from a single object should be first selected in the main AC3D windows The TCE runs in conjunction with the main AC3D program so you can switch between the windows selecting the surfaces and objects you wish to edit Note that if a group object is selected which has textured children then nothing will appear in the TCE In this case switch to Object select mode and select a single object The surfaces selected in AC3D will appear in the TCE according to their texture coordinates All AC3D primitive objects those created from the control panel have default texture coordinates e g bin e a e L a eee Y VIP dig A edem does sede mes ent Cylinder Sphere ew tH tee at ee pme eed F It s important to realize that the pictures here represent the coordinates that are attached to each vertex reference in each surface and have no relation to the layout of the actual object vertices 44 Note that the pictures above show the texture mapping for objects that have no textures applied If there is a texture it will be shown in the window Selecting and manipulating When surfaces are selected in AC3D and the TCE is visible the texture coordinates of those surfaces are all visualized The TCE allows editing of all or a subset of the texture coordinates The TCE has two modes of selection Surface and Vertex In Surface select mode the texture coordinates are se
62. w In Spin mode the viewpoint will be approximate for a more accurate viewpoint position switch to walk mode in the 3d window The color palette is output at the top of the file each entry has the same number as the AC3D material The properties can be altered easily to provide different surface types and textures Some includes can be added at the top of the file to get external definitions The light is output at the end of the file The light s position is the same as the viewers The POV Ray output is based on triangles lines will be ignored and polygons with more than three vertices will be triangulated automatically The Object data string which is specified in Tools gt Object Property Editor can be use to attach information to objects which is inserted into the povray file Use object data in POV files in the main AC3D File gt Settings must be ticked so that this text is inserted into the file A POVray include command in to the settings POV header e g include glass inc can also be defined in the settings See the Rendering section for an example of using Povray Triangle files see loading triangle files for a description of this format This format is very simple and is easy to parse Object Library A Object Ebrary The object library is accessed from the File menu and can help organize and maintain a structured set of model component objects Objects may be added and removed from the library For exam

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