Datamine Discover KB - Images/EGB's

3D Object Manager Tool

kbadmin — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 01:34:18 GMT

The Object Manager allows the 3D environment to be easily populated with multiple image objects.

Examples include displaying images of trees, vegetation, signposts, texturing walls and simple structures (e.g. buildings) and placing signboards on buildings.

The Object Manager can be used with both point and line objects.

This is a useful way of giving a 3D environment a sense of scale.

To add objects to the 3D environment:

1. Open the Discover 3D>Utilities>Object Manager tool.

2. Select a Table containing the objects to populate the 3D window.

3. Define an Output File name and location.

4. Adjust the following settings:

Picture

If ‘-- Use default --’ is selected define an image to use from the adjacent dropdown.

If a field is selected for each object an alternative image can be used by either defining the full path to an image file in that field, or by defining the image file name in the field if the image is located in the same folder as the table being used.

Shape

If ‘-- Use default --’ is selected, define the shape of the displayed image from the adjacent dropdown.

Select from Plane (a single image presented as a vertical plane), Cross (two perpendicular images crossing centrally, creating an illusion of a 3D image object from a distance) or Box (four images placed in a square around the object).

If ...

Draped image in 3D is grey scale or only see hillshade shadows

kbadmin — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:15:34 GMT

Occurrence

When you attempt load a large image draped over a grid file in 3D the image does not show. You only see a grey and white shadow effect.

Solution

This occurs when that raster exceeds the available GPU graphics memory. Note that the memory consumed will be larger than the original raster image file. You can approximately calculate the required graphics card memory by -

This usually not of a problem for the DEM/Topographic grid as this is resize to a low resolution when the mesh wireframe is created in-memory to drape on.

1. Save the image as a uncompressed bitmap .bmp file. As the image will be loaded uncompressed into graphics memory.

2. Multiply the size 2-3x as Discover3D is not optimised and will often load multiple copies in memory.

As a workaround either upgrade your graphics card or resample to image to a lower resolution using Windows Photos or other free image tools.

My raster aerial image or DEM surface grid is pixelated in 3D

kbadmin — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:10:13 GMT

Occurrence

When I load my Aerial raster imagery or DEM/DTM surface grid into Discover3D, it is only displayed at a low resolution and is pixelated when I zoom in.

It looks fine and full resolution in Mapinfo Professional.

Solution

Discover3D has limitation on the resolution of individual image branches (layers). These can be set under Tools>Options>Size, but they have practical limits even on high end 64bit computers

In practice these are -

Rasters Images - 4096 x 4096 pixels
Surface Grid - 10 000 x 10 000 cells.

To workaround this limitations multiple "tiles" of a larger dataset can be loaded easily.

How do I capture my 3D view as an raster image?

Josh Knight — Sun, 16 May 2010 23:06:27 GMT

There are three ways of saving the 3D view as an image:

1/. Select the Tools>Georeferenced Image Exporter and select either Cursor Plane or Drillhole cross section for the image location.

2/. Select the View>Send to MapInfo menu option. This will display the view as a (non-georeferenced) image in a mapper window in the MapInfo environment. This window could then be used to populate a
Frame Object in a MapInfo Layout window (e.g. a series of cross-sections in a layout window could have an insert of the 3D view of the same drillhole project to give it a visual reference).

3/. Select the File>Save View As menu option. This allows the user to export the view as a number of image formats (e.g. .BMP, .JPG, .TIF, etc) at a specified resolution. This image could then be inserted into a
Powerpoint presentation or similar.

How can I increase the resolution/quality of raster images displayed in 3D?

Josh Knight — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:40:29 GMT

There are various ways to display Images in 3D, the 3 most common ways are -

1) Right click on map and View Map in 3D or Discover3D>View Map - produces lowest resolution results.

2) Discover3D>3D Utilities>Overlay Image on Grid - this preserves full input resolution from the image.

3) Directly open an Image in 3D by using File>Open and select All Supported Image types.

If you are using the View Map In 3D option, by right clicking on the MapInfo Map Window, Discover 3D is essentially taking a screen-shot of this map window, so you need to maximise the size of this view.
This resolution can be improved by -

1/. Ensure that the map window is as large as possible (without being maximised), and that the mapper
view is zoomed to just the data to be displayed (rather than being surrounded by a 'buffer' of white/empty space).

2/. In the MapInfo/Discover 2D interface, select the Discover 3D>Options menu option. Switch to the
Display tab, and increase the 'Create Raster Images at' value. Obviously increasing this value
will increase not only the quality of the output image, but also its file size, which if applied to multiple
images in 3D may reduce the efficiency of working in the 3D environment.