Visual Effects

Various 3D object visual effects can be specified in this panel, such as applying color mapping to elevation or attribute data, selecting data to be mapped, and surface characteristics.

Color Mapping

Texturing - Colormap File

Set Colormap Range

Binding to Attributes or Elevation

Channel Selection for Color, Attributes and Elevation Data

Raster image formats such as GeoTIFF and IMG may contain RGB color images, or some multi-channel attribute data, or even elevation terrain data. This tab enables selection to pick out the most appropriate channels for conversion.

Binding Mode

To use an elevation colormap file on typical elevation data, change Binding Mode to "Along Z" If displaying RGB color directly from the file, normally the correct colormap channels will be selected. However, if needed these can be specified manually as zero-based channel number in a multi-channel file (such as .IMG).

Elevation Mode

Normally images are used as 2D quads or as textures. In the case the image such as GeoTIFF or IMG contain elevation data, this Elevation mode parameter should be set to enable Elevation mode. In this way the raster data will be interpreted as a 3D elevation terrain grid. Where there is misssing data, the missing data flag value can be specified.

Material Surface Shading Effects

  • This section lets you to select a color for diffuse, specular, ambient and emission. As well as shininess and crease angle. Note that enabling this options will override the original parameter (ambient color, shininess, etc.) on the scene.
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  • Note the Shininess parameter controls the shape (width-area) of the specular highlight. If there is no Specular or very dark Specular term, this will have no visible effect. The Shininess parameter range is from 0.0 to 1.0, with the higher value creating a tight small spot for the highlight. Any values above 1.0 will be treated as if they are 1.0. In the following example, Diffuse and Ambient are set very dark, Specular color set to bright yellow. Three different settings of Shininess are shown. This term is sometimes implemented as an exponential power in the Phong shading model.