Advanced Settings

The advanced settings section allows you to define special values, normally OK to leave as default settings, which may be adjusted for special considerations.

Adjusting 3D Label Dynamic Controls

  1. Click on the Advanced tab.
  2. The first section under this tab is the Labels Dynamic Controls section. Using the options available in this section you can enable/disable the dynamic controls. Click here to learn how enable the dynamic controls and disable them when required.
  3. Go to the Labels Dynamic Controls section which is the first section under this tab.

 

  1. Select the Enable Dynamic labels checkbox. If the conversion scene contains 3D text labels, these will be represented by small rectangular text strings anchored to fixed 3D locations. When this checkbox is selected, the orientation will by dynamically adjusted inside the PDF viewer such that the labels remain aligned to the viewer. Dynamic labels are enabled by default. De-select the checkbox to disable dynamic labels.
  2. Select the Label Scale With Depth checkbox to represent 3D Text labels as small rectangular text strings anchored to fixed 3D locations. When this checkbox is selected along with the Enable Dynamic Labels checkbox,the orientation will be dynamically adjusted inside the PDF viewer such that the labels remain approximately a fixed size invariant to distance from the viewer.
  3. Select the Continuous Update checkbox to enable continuous dynamic update on labels. There are two ways in which this happens. First, (the default), the labels are refreshed with dynamic orientation control as the user drags the mouse and rotates or zooms the 3D cene. If this checkbox is not selected, the update is deferred until the user lifts up the mouse at the end of a drag gesture. This is useful if the scene is large and update speed is slow.

Adjusting 3D Processing Options

Using the options available in this section you can enable/disable VCT mode, enable/disable image black masking, set navigation tool and constraint default values, etc.

 

  1. Select the Use Original Normals checkbox to pass normals through and use them in the 3D PDF model. If not selected, normals are ignored and normals are auto-generated within the PDF3D system. This option should only be needed in rare conditions.
  2. Select Image Black Masking mode, for special cases such as Coin3D VRML file processing, where JPEG images are referenced with RGB values, and the special colour black should be replaced by transparent, invisible pixels. Where such texture images are used on 3D geometry, black areas will be hidden.
  3. Selecting Navigation Constraint will generate a PDF where mouse interaction in the 3D viewport has 3D rotation turned off, or 2D pan-zoom, or all interaction, according to this control.
  4. Z-Fighting Prevention adds a dynamic scene management component in the PDF, whereby models with co-incident surfaces are moved slightly apart, and lines and surfaces at the same depth are moved slightly apart so that the lines do not become buried and hidden by the surface. The separation is dynamically calculated along the viewing direction. It may introduce small artefacts in perspective views.
  5. Perform Scene Normalization provides an overall scene numerical normalization such that large dynamic range numerical transformations are improved to reduce jitter or mis-alignments.

Color Options

This section of the menu allows users to adjust the way that Vertex Color data is processed. The default is with VCT on and Color To Texture off.

For VCT, select the Enable VCT checkbox to enable the VCT (Vertex Colored Texture) color processor. When you select this checkbox, PDF3D will supply a default colored texture, you can change it to grayscale or other color scheme in the dropdown list next to this checkbox. This option has a simple rigid color substitution scheme assuming simple rainbow saturated colors only. It can sometimes introduce artificial new colors or banding on some models, however is fast and efficient. Disable to allow the original untouched vertex color through. However note that typically the Adobe Reader 3D display may disable all lighting and shading in this case.

For more advanced color processing, disable VCT and enable Color To Texture Options. This option maps an arbitrary input vertex color palette in RGB (a 3D Color Cube) to a texture image (2D plane). It packs fragments containing portions of the input colors into small regions within the texture then assigns mesh references. As an approximation, this method using color threshold values to control how fine or course the palette mapping process creates the generated texture image. The size of each texture fragment is controlled by the min-max parameters. In general, this method will be more faithful to the original vertex colors than VCT, allow full lighting and shading, may take longer to process the conversion, and will somewhat increase the size of the output file due to the introduction of a large texture.

The PNG option generally gives the best quality. If disabled, JPEG encoding is used, which can reduce file size but may introduce artefacts.

Optimized Output Model Mode is a special technique to improve efficiency. This can be helpful when models are structured with:

1) Different object representing vertex array. So, vertex array could be also shared between different models.

I.e. referencing could be done not only on model's level but also on vertex array level

2) Different object representing triangle array. So, triangle index array could be shared between different models.

3) Different object representing color array. So, color arrays could be shared between different models.

Please note, Optimized Output Model Mode is not designed to be used with Simplification Options. When Simplification Options are enabled, Optimized Output Model Mode is unable to be selected.

 

The Morph Axes mode is experimental, undocumented.

The number of separate color planes (sampling the 3D Color Cube) can be limited. If this number is exceeded, samples will be found in the nearest match within an existing plane. Limiting the plane count will increase processing speed but may reduce quality.

How to use VCT and Color to Texture Options

The two VCT and Color To Texture options are provided to perform vertex color to texture processing using two alternative algorithms, appropriate in individual circumstances. Both of these options allow shading and lighting effects in Adobe Acrobat 3D views.

In principle these processing options can be available in both global default scene settings or with per-assembly options. VCT and ColorToTexture can be both enabled, however only one method will be applied to any particular assembly.

ColorToTexture may be global to the scene and set per assembly, while VCT is only available for global scene and not per assembly. VCT is global only and is potentially applied to all models if enabled. In the processing work-flow, ColorToTexture performs processing on applicable models before VCT. Then VCT ignores models already processed by ColorToTexture (because those no longer have vertex colors).

Also VCT is used only if output format exporter supports it and might be applied on other assembly types than meshes. ColorToTexture is used for all output formats and works only for mesh models. This means using both options globally is valid, with ColorToTexture working on meshes and VCT on other applicable models. ColorToTexture may leave some models unprocessed (non-meshes) and those remaining may be processed with VCT (depending on actual format exporter).

Assembly properties are loaded by ReportGen from XML (.pdf3dsettings) and can have ColorToTexture enabled. This is not shown in the ReportGen menus with global controls. If all assemblies have ColorToTExture set (including via DefaultAssemblyProperties) then VCT is in same situation as with global setting being present and should be disabled. However there will be no control over ColorToTexture in the ReportGen menus because global settings are applied after assemblies are done.

Simplification Processing of 3D Model Data

Simplification is the process of reducing total triangle count whenever possible preserving features of the model. Simplified models may increase interactive performance speed, and reduce storage requirements for output file. Each model node, mesh is simplified individually, the total number of nodes remains unchanged, unless some very small node has all triangles removed. The simplification process preserves boundary edges for overall shape, processes non-manifold mesh topology, and includes attribute preserving methods (color or texture). Processing of TriangleSets, LineSegmentSets and PointSets is supported.

Threshold Triangles Count specifies approximate triangle count of the simplified model. For single-model scenes, this is an exact threshold for output triangle count. For multi-model scenes, it is an approximate threshold. Per-model Triangle Count Threshold is calculated based on this parameter, average triangles per model diagonal, and total triangles count.

Threshold Lines Count specifies approximate line count of the simplified model. For single-model scenes, this is an exact threshold for output line count. For multi-model scenes, it is an approximate threshold. Per-model Line Count Threshold is calculated based on this parameter, average lines per model diagonal, and total lines count.

Threshold Points Count specifies approximate point count of the simplified model. For single-model scenes, this is an exact threshold for output point count. For multi-model scenes, it is an approximate threshold. Per-model Point Count Threshold is calculated based on this parameter, average points per model diagonal, and total point count.

Only Subset Placement enabled selects each simplified model vertex only from existing vertex positions. Default method (when OFF) computes optimal new vertex position, with less distortion error.

Boundary Weight is a weight factor specifically for boundary faces (face with only one adjacent simplex) in the simplification error measure. The high default value has the normally desireable effect of preserving details at boundary faces where possible. When simplex is triangle - face is edge, when line segment - face is endpoint.

Point Weight is a specific weight factor for point positions in the simplification error measure. For well-conditioned models simplification process is driven by model planes formed by it's triangles (or by model lines formed by it's line segments), and such small default value for position weight does not affect overall process much. However, for degenerate models, like ones with all points lie on same plane or line, even small contribution from point positions improves overall robustness. This weight is not used during simplification of PointSets.

UV Weight is a specific weight factor of significance applied for Texture UV parameters in multi-dimensional simplification space. Weight 1.0 means that UV error vector with magnitude 1.0 equivalent to XYZ error vector with magnitude of scene diagonal. Note this is a measure based on the texture coordinate mapping, not the actual texture image color. This measure is applied only when Texture UV coordinates are present on the model.

RGB Weight is a specific weight factor of significance for Color RGB values in multi-dimensional simplification space. Weight 1.0 means that RGB error vector with magnitude 1.0 equivalent to XYZ error vector with magnitude of scene diagonal. This measure is used only where vertex RGB color values are present on the model.

 

Simplification Process Description

Internally Simplification works by iteratively contracting two model points into one until stop criteria is not met. Simplexes (triangles or line segments) which were adjacent to both points are removed from model, as they become degenerate.

Each point has an implicit set of "affiliated" simplexes (triangles, line segments, points). Initially each point has only adjacent simplexes in the affiliated set. When two points A and B are merged, their affiliated sets are merged and are associated with new point C (which is result of the contraction). The computed Error of this contraction is sum of squared distances between all simplexes in affiliated set and point C, i.e. Error = ∑(Xi-C)2 where Xi is simplex in affiliated set.

Initially Error is zero, because point lies on each of hyperplanes formed by adjacent simplexes (point lies on each plane of it's adjacent triangles, on each line of adjacent line segments). But during simplification process error is increased, because affiliated set would contain simplexes which were not adjacent originally, and which may do not share common intersection point with original simplexes.

Distances are measured in n-dimensional space, which respects model attributes. I.e. if both colors and texture coordinates are available then space components are (x,y,z,r,g,b,u,v).

On each iteration contraction pair with smallest result error is selected from candidate set.

In case of line segments and triangle sets - candidate contraction pairs are line segments of original model (triangle edges in case of triangle sets and line segments itself in case of line segments set). Point Cloud Simplification differs only in a way how candidate contraction pairs are selected - they are deduced from spatial hierarchical tree which spans all points, allowing us to accurately approach target threshold value without user parameter attention, while producing a faithful approximation of original model.

Attachments

This section of the menu allows users to embed files within their generated 3D PDF. It may only be used with the Output Format, specified in the 'Conversion' tab is set to 2D or 3D PDF. For more information on how to use attachments, refer to How-To Embed Files as Attachments.