[Q] Editing an existing View thru Edit Cone of Vision

[Pobo]

OK, here is something I have never really understood: can I edit an existing View in the View Palette, so without having to save the new camera settings to a new View? I hope someone here can clarify.

This is my workflow:

I have a View saved in my View Palette which is almost right but not quite. So now I go into Edit Cone of Vision and tweak the camera settings a little. When I exit the Edit Cone of Vision mode, I have to save my new camera settings into a new view. To prevent my View Palette from getting cluttered with views, I end up manually deleting the old views.

I find this a hassle. Is there any way to edit a View in the View Palette without having to create a new View?

Any help greatly appreciated,

 

Tom

[Des]

I'm afraid not, you will always have to save a new view. You can double click the saved view and alter the numeric settings, but that's just guesswork.

Like you I end up with a load of views. If I have to make a small change to an existing saved view, I name it the same as the original with an "a". Then delete the original and rename the new by removing the "a". It is a little long winded but is solid. Also, when naming the view I use a system (as I have so many) like; "V3-4678-6000x4000-3pt" (ViewNo-PhotoNo-Size-PerpectiveType). The perspective type not with photo matching as they are always 3 point anyway.

A long time ago the image size could be set inside the view parameters of the saved view along with some other options, I miss that.

Tbh, it's not so bad so long as you have a good naming convention.

Des

[Pobo]

Hi Des,

Many thanks for sharing your flow and thoughts. I find it is always nice to know how other people tackle these things.

One more question: in the Edit Cone of Vision mode, when moving the eyepoint it wants to snap to the original position which makes it hard to makes fine adjustments. Is there a way to prevent the snapping?

 

// Tom

[allanjl]

HI Pobo.

I never use the cone of vision anymore. I find it awkward and time-consuming and also extremely slow.

Instead, I simply go to "view" on the menu. Go to 3 point perspective.  Then hit F11 which takes me to the view parameters palette. I change my focal length to 18 mm for wide angle or a larger number, never over 35 mm - personal preference. Then I orbit around until I am close to the view I want using the set view tool, left of the "eye" buttom on the top of the screen. Then I like to use the walkthrough tool (to the right of the eye) and set my camera to about 5' and make sure I hit the "look straight ahead" button on the tool options for walkthrough. That sets my camera completely horizontal so I get no distortion. From there I use the walkthrough and "eye" (swivel) tool to fine tune. This works mech faster than the edit cone of vision.

[Des]

16 hours ago, Pobo said:

Hi Des,

Many thanks for sharing your flow and thoughts. I find it is always nice to know how other people tackle these things.

One more question: in the Edit Cone of Vision mode, when moving the eyepoint it wants to snap to the original position which makes it hard to makes fine adjustments. Is there a way to prevent the snapping?

 

// Tom

Unfortunately no, it'll always try to snap to the line of view and the orbit. My way around it is to zoom right in with the mouse scroll into the eye point, even though it still snaps the movement in the 3d view is then minimal. It takes a while to get used to it but I find it works well.

I have to use edit cone of vision a lot because most of my work is matching perspective to photos and it's great for fine tuning. I use a similar technique (sort of) to allanjl when I don't have to match a photo.

[Pobo]

Allan, Des,

Many thanks for your workflows! I actually started using the ECoV only recently. I used to do something similar to Allan (though I did not know about the ‘look straight ahead’ function, thank you for that one, Allan).

The problem I ran into was that I couldn’t find a good way to control the centre of interest. As a consequence, my Maxwell renderings were out of focus. That’s why I switched to using the ECoV approach: accurate control over CoI.

@Des Talking about CoI, do you know whether it is the tip of arrow of the line of sight or the base of the arrow that defines the CoI? I expected it to be the tip but from the results I suspect it’s actually the base.

 

// Tom

[Pobo]

OK, that was a silly question, I can of course check myself 🙄

The Centre of Interest is indeed at the base of the arrowhead, not at the tip.

 

// Tom

 

 

 

 

[Des]

Hi Tom,

Regarding the focusing of the view for Maxwell, once I get out of Edit Cone of Vision and I'm back in the modelling window, I select a part of the model with which I want to be in focus and then go to Extensions>Maxwell Render>Focus Camera. The view doesn't change but the arrow is moved automatically to the object I want in focus.

Only after that do I save the view.

[Pobo]

Owwww... brilliant Des, thank you so much, this is new to me.

Does it then take the middle of the bounding box of the selected object?

[Des]

17 hours ago, Pobo said:

Does it then take the middle of the bounding box of the selected object?

That's right, if you select a large object (say a one piece encompassing wall), it will go to the middle as you say. So probably select a window for example on the wall you want in focus. It also works on faces (command select) as well.

For doing external architectural work, I usually have my maxwell camera set to F10 (depending on the sun). That gives very little depth of field so you should be good to go with that. The higher the F stop number, the less light is let in so you may have to increase the shutter exposure (smaller shutter number). But that can always be changed after in Maxwell Render at render stage even after the render is complete, just hit refresh and re-save the render image.

Edited July 5, 2021 by Des