cadvilla Support Team

3D Visualisation with the help of a background picture

In this Video-Tutorial we show you, how you can create a 3D-visualisation with a photorealistic background. In the course of this tutorial we explain all the important steps, from the calibration of the project into the background to the complete 3D rendering.

The basic workflow:

  • To adjust the thickness of the terrain, we select the terrain. After that  we make a right mouse click (the layer terrain is selected) and we select “Properties” – We deactivate the point “enable automatic thickness” – and we enter at the point “Thickness” the required thickness.
  • To change the background of the project we press 3-4 times ESC and then me make a right mouse click on our 3D view  – we select “Properties” – “Appearance” – “Background”. To select a picture we click on the field “Image File”. We select a picture and we press “OK”.
  • Methods how to position the project:
    • We have 2 points of known length in our background-picture. On the terrain of our project we have also 2 points of the same length, for example the distance between 2 edges.
    • Now we move these 2 points on our terrain, on the same position as the 2 points on our background picture.
  • After positioning our project we can deselect the layer “environment” or we adjust the texture of the terrain to our background-picture.
  • To adjust the terrain we use the function “3D Functions” – “Edit Material”.
  • In the end we define the internal light sources. Therefore we make a right mouse click on the point “Internal Light Sources” (3D Functions). The “point calculate sun position” has to be selected, and now we can change the light color and the light intensity of the sun and the environment light.
  • In the last step we raytrace (render) the project. We make a right mouse click on the function “raytrace” (3D Functions) and we select at the field “antialiasing” the function “strong antialiasing”. After it we make a right mouse click on the “raytrace” Now the project is raytraced (rendered).

This post is also available in: German