How to make Panoramic 360 3D PDF documents

Short guide to Panoramic 360 degree photography conversion to a 3D PDF Brochure or Report.

The steps in this work-flow are an outline of how to create a highly compelling 3D panoramic scene embedded inside a PDF brochure or report. The steps start with digital photography and end with the production of a secure, stand-alone PDF file.

ReportGen supports four types of panoramic image:

See below for examples of these layouts.

Panoramic Image File

To prepare for 3D PDF Brochure production, the resolution should be resampled down to a modest 10,000 by 5,000 pixels size. An additional constraint is that the Aspect Ratio should be as close to 2:1 as practical, in landscape layout orientation covering 360 x 180 degrees. The image resample adjustment can also be done on the fly using menu settings during conversion. The recommended File Format for this method is JPEG in full 24-bit colour depth. If the image covers less than full 180 degrees vertical, fill the top and bottom with a solid color to expand the image to 2:1. For larger images the "Divider" parameter can be increased. In the special case of a square 1:1 aspect image, the "FishEye" option can be enabled.

ReportGen Processing Steps

  1. Drag & Drop samples/states/Panoramic_Profile.pdf3dsettings, or use Import State button and browse. This is a generic profile, used to setup this type of conversion.
  2. Change template filename to your own brochure design template PDF if desired (optional)
  3. Set output filename to your own project PDF file
  4. Go to Geospatial Tab
  5. On Geospatial Image, click "Change" button, browse to select your own image file (i.e. JPEG)
  6. Click Convert

The Panoramic 360 image mode has adjustable parameters. Here is an overview of the key controls.

Rather than specifying the image file directly in the input file list (Input/Output tab), this special mode puts a special Panoramic 360 Image identifier as the input.

The actual panoramic JPEG image is specified using the Geospatial tab image menu and file browser by pushing "Change".

On the PDF 3D View tab, it is important to set the View Scheme to a special mode called "Panoramic", rather than CAD or other normal options. This will enable a sub-menu to appear below, showing details for the Panoramic mode.

Once the Panoramic view scheme is selected, the Panoramic 360 Options group becomes enabled. The various options presented in this sub-menu allow changing vertical tilt limit, the field of view (wide-angle lens equivalent) and automatic spin.

Maximum Pitch can be set between -90 and +90 degrees for full spherical viewing, or a narrower range of viewing range of 20 degrees for a horizontal wide-strip mode. The Initial Pitch Angle provides the initial view which will be seen on opening the 3D PDF.

The initial azimuth horizontal rotation angle can be specified, so when the document is first open the view is showing a specific place. If extra interactive buttons are added such as "home", this can reset the view to this initial angle.

By-default pitch angle is limited by [-90, 90] range and azimuth angle is not limited, enabling 360 rotations. If set, additional limits for azimuth and pitch angles are tested against viewport borders. This ensures that image areas outside the specified limits are never shown.

Please note that in Version V2.23, the definition of azimuth and pitch angles have changed. In previous versions, azimuth and pitch were defined from the perspective of the cameras and zoom was unconstrained. In the current version, these are now defined relative to the viewport borders (i.e. nothing outwith the limits set can be seen) and zoom is constrained.

This change means that saved state files created before V2.22, with limits on pitch angle and initial azimuth display, may need to be adjusted to recreate the same case.

In Panoramic 360 pre V2.22:

In Panoramic 360 >= V2.23:

Field of View is used to define the camera’s range of view, lower values will narrow the zoom range whilst high values may be used in wide-angle Fish Eye applications.

Note that if additional limits are set for azimuth or pitch angle, then the available span for those angles might additionally limit maximal Field of View value. This limit is determined in runtime and is dependent on the actual 3D annotation sizes (which can change in floating-window and full screen modes).

If the input image is a hemispherical projection with "up" zenith at the center of the image and wide angle edges of the image in a circular layout, and the image size is a square 1:1 aspect ratio, then the "Fish Eye" mode can be enabled. In this case the original camera lens field of view is required, typically 180, 215, 225 degrees or similar.

"Fish Eye" mode can be enabled. In this case, the original camera lens field of view is required, typically 180, 215, 225 degrees, or similar.

Automatic Spin may be used to enable rotation behaviour within the resultant Panoramic scene.

From versions V2.23 onwards, when working with the play/pause widget, it is now possible to store and save enabled spin states in Adobe Acrobat Viewer. No additional steps are required in PDF3D to achieve this, and when closing Acrobat Viewer, a prompt will appear to save state.

 

On the Conversion tab, we recommend to enable the Pentakis mode.

Enabling the Pentakis option for equal-area spherical tessellation improves image quality and reduces geometric distortion. This should not normally need to be changed, it has some affect on file size and geometric distortion quality. There may be some small distortions at the zenith and nadir. In this case higher values of subdivision such as 80 could be used to minimize these effects. To completely eliminate them, we recommend to use a Cube-Map projection type.

 

Back on the Geospatial tab, the typically large panoramic JPEG images often hit graphics limits or cause issues in the Adobe Reader. To mitigate these effects we strongly recommend enabling the Texture Split options (shown above) with 2k x 2k tiling. The optimal value may depend on your graphics display hardware. This also has an effect on file size.

 

Prepared Demo: Panoramic_Demo.pdf3dsetting can be loaded and immediately click Convert to see how it works.

 

Panoramic Profiles

The states/ folder contains a number of profiles for various panoramic mapping schemes.

1. Panoramic_Profile.pdf3dsetting sets some other internal detail settings that are not available via the ReportGen menus. This profile is for 2:1 horizontal panoramic images and for 1:1 hemisphere fish-eye images. This is an XML format file which can be externally reviewed and edited if required for special purposes. Typical 360 panoramic images in equal angle are similar to:

2. When Panoramic_Profile.pdf3dsetting is used, with the FishEye option enabled, a single hemispherical image can be used with the center of the image at the zenith, and the maximum angle specified, which can be greater than 180 degrees.

3. PanoramicCubic4x3_Profile.pdf3dsettings is for Cube-Maps with six separate sub-is for be used, using parts of a 4x3 arrangement. Letters are marked for North, South, Left, Right, Back, Front.

4. PanoramicCubic6x1_Profile.pdf3dsettings is for Cube-Maps with six separate sub-images, with all faces arranged side by side in a horizontal array.