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Author Topic: 3D viewer to be like any 3D program with rotate ball aligned to object ?  (Read 2568 times)

Steve003

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Hi,
metashape 1.7.4
I am totally perplexed with the 3D viewport. I have a wheel, I rotate it until the grass its on is at its base and the wheel is upright. I then need the rotate ball gizmo red green blue lines to be reset to suit the wheel, as it is the red line is angled as are the other two and using it the wheel goes over on an angle, one cannot use the coloured lines to rotate the object as one would in a normal 3D ortho viewport set, If I want to rotate around the wheel as one might walk around it on the grass from front to back admiring it, instead it goes off on a silly angle as if there is no gravity. I need the grid to be the grassed area. I need a top view , a front view and a side view, then I can rotate the region and bring it in to hug the wheel. One needs an ortho view in three directions to best rotate and rescale the region.
I could do this in Rhino3D in seconds. There is only ortho view, but which ortho, is that top or front or side ? I want my vehicle wheel to be front for its face with hub, side showing tyre view fwd, top for a view down on its top.
The whole thing is highly unsettling, almost brings me to tears !   :'(

This is a 3D prog yet its basic 3D navigation is a killer, or is there a way, as I wish it was obvious.
Rhino3D has 4 viewports top, left, front, perspective. The left can be made right, the top bottom, the front back. double click one of the names and it takes up the space all 4 did, double click the name again and we are back to all four.
This is what we need here.

Help !

Steve

CheeseAndJamSandwich

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Re: 3D viewer to be like any 3D program with rotate ball aligned to object ?
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2021, 12:12:20 AM »
The issue is, that unless you have the Professional version, we can't enter references, control points, markers, so MS can't know which way is up for whatever object you scan...  Tho i think if your imagagery is from a drone, i think it does takes its orientations info from the pics?  Correct???

Anyhoo...
I've made a Feature Request asking for a very basic referencing system that'll allow us to place at least 3 markers, control points down, which then allows us to correctly set the orientation and scale of the model.  There's so much to MS Pro's referencing system it seems, that the subset i'm requesting shouldn't tread on the toes of the Pro version, and it's use in the industries that demand very high level of georeferencing, etc...
Having 3 or 4 basic xyz control points would just make everything really easy...

All i do after alignment is to rotate the model relative to the grid, in ortho view (5), pressing 1, 3, 7 to get the views from the top front and sides (ignore the left/right, they're actually the other way around, but it doesn't matter really).
I then scale it to the grid (set grid to 5m in Prefs), using features i know the distance of.
Then rotate and resize the region to match the model.  The ball, etc then aligns with the z-up of the model.
For me, the trackball is just waaay to small, so it makes rotating the model around really twitchy and cumbersome, compared to what i was use to with good ol' CATIA V4, that i once used a lot.

So yeah, Metashape could do with some work on the 3D navigation...  And if we had a choice of styles in the Preferences, with a parameter or two when required, it'd just keep everyone happy, and each user would get that bit more out of MS...  Helping MS sell more copies.

Steve003

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Re: 3D viewer to be like any 3D program with rotate ball aligned to object ?
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2021, 07:10:38 PM »
Hi, I do align my model as best I can, trouble is there is no grid to do this to, except in numpad 7 top when 5 ortho is first clicked, we need at least a rgid in 1 and 3 orthos as well.

I end up moving it to screen edge, bit primary but its the only way.

I export as an obj and the online viewer (https://viewer.autodesk.com )  for measuring says undimensioned, there is no way of indicating a size to the model, surely a click between two places in ortho and enter a dimension would be good, pro is a vast price difference (cannot afford it) just to be able to indicate a size and orientation.

The navigation rotation ball gizmo needs a reset button so that its red green blue lines are aligned when the model is in ortho view. I try to rotate the model in ortho and you think all is going well then it tumbles, if one can select the edge line of that little sphere it would rotate and keep its planar aspect the same, as such I then have to revisit the other two orthos and fix the alignment all over again., as there is no undo for any tumbling or rotation.

Its too primitive.

and we need a grid in all orthos to align to.

One good thing, selecting move model sees the region box move with it, so moving it up until its base (grass in my case) sits on the thin black line (grid edge)  seen in numpad 1 and 3 sees no need for redoing the region.

Steve

Bzuco

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Re: 3D viewer to be like any 3D program with rotate ball aligned to object ?
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2021, 12:04:36 PM »
Steve:
You can switch grid plane XY/XZ/YZ in preferences - appearance. Also transparency, color and "density"(just how many lines each meter, not how many lines per meter  :-\)
The rotation ball gizmo is not perfect, but you can manipulate with mouse even outside of the gizmo and with better sensitivity, so then orientation of RGB circles are not so important.
It is good also set keyboard shortcuts for object move, scale, rotation, ...for speed things up.

With these tips you should be able to set the scale, origin[0,0,0] and proper orientation of your model, but not with 100% precision. In the past I was able to set orientation of house with precision under 0.5 degree. I was also using edges of my screen  ;D . Grid and it's plane settings I discovered only yesterday reading latest posts here  ::)

So yeah, the ability to set precise scale and orientation of model is missing in standard version, therefor after creating dense cloud I am leaving metashape and rest of my work is done in other softwares, but for it's price it is still amazing for my purposes.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2021, 12:07:36 PM by Bzuco »

CheeseAndJamSandwich

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Re: 3D viewer to be like any 3D program with rotate ball aligned to object ?
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2021, 12:18:39 AM »
The navigation rotation ball gizmo needs a reset button so that its red green blue lines are aligned when the model is in ortho view. I try to rotate the model in ortho and you think all is going well then it tumbles, if one can select the edge line of that little sphere it would rotate and keep its planar aspect the same, as such I then have to revisit the other two orthos and fix the alignment all over again., as there is no undo for any tumbling or rotation.
Again, rotating/resizing/moving the region rotates/moves the gizmo...
Align your grass with the grid, then align the region with the grid too, using 1 and 3... then align the region with the x and y with top view, 7.  You can then resize the region to place the gizmo in the middle of the object. Now the gizmo is will allow you to rotate is about the 3 axis.

I scale my model to a grid, as i know a distance between two rocks is 10 metres...  So i just set the grid to 10m...  then do the scaling first, placing the two rocks touching the grid, rotate to align them both with the grid, then scale, move, scale, move, scale, move, until you have the grid lines crossing on each rock...  then i reorientate the model to where it actually needs to be, and the same with the region.
Sadly the grid size is only in whole metres, or pixels... so a bit of a bummer if you're doing smaller stuff...

We really need the basic referencing sytem feature in the Standard version, as i've requested.
As this is a PITA.