3D View

[paul60]

It would be great to be able to view roads, buildings etc in the 3D view to get a rough idea what your layout is looking like.

[Bob Bryce]

It would be great, but it would also be a TON of work, not just on David's side, but on yours.  If you wanted a building to look good, it would have to be drawn in 3D.  This would include not only 3D drawings of the building itself, but 3D drawings for the doors, windows, roof overhangs, porches, railings, steps, chimneys etc.

My CAD program does all of this for buildings, but all of those features including automobiles, benches, tables, couches, sinks, appliances and such are available for purchase or included with the program, drawn by someone else.

I'm not opposed to the idea, it actually sounds good, but if David was to provide the ability to do 3D structures, we would then have to develop all the structures ourselves, and I don't think that would occur overnight.

[David]

I'm currently looking at the 3D functionality to add least add a way to create hills where you want them, and make surfaces appear properly. But with existing plans, it often looks awful to just display any surface and line in the 3D view.

Bob is right: trees can be 'generated' quite easily, but buildings, signals, trains, vehicles and any other objects need to be created individually.

[Tom Springer]

David,

Are you looking at CAD concepts and a new means of designing objects for 3D, or are you considering the 2D->3D "conversion" aspect and using the existing 2D tools and concepts to define an object that AR can then represent in 3D?  2D->3D for example: the concept of representing a "box" as it's 2D components, a "cylinder" the same way, a "pyramid" the same way, etc.

[David]

Well, flat objects such as roads can be transformed quite easily, but if a house is drawn just as a rooftop in 2D, there's just not enough information to make it look like what was expected.

We have been looking at importing 2D (svg-format) items for the 2D design, and that looks promising.
However, a 3D representation would be needed to make it work in 3D as well.

Many customers have indicated that they are more interested in a technical 3D view than a realistic view though, to check clearances, and to get a better idea of the required benchwork.
At the same time, others would like to make a virtual tour on their layout from the 'cockpit'.
First priority concerning this matter is now to get the current kinks out. Sometimes the 3D view generator is just not working well.


Still other subjects such as wiring and modules are higher on the list right now!

[Tom Springer]

David, thanks.

I don't use the current 3D view because what I want to see in a 3D view at this point is the "clearances" aspect, not the "cockpit" aspect.  For me, if a 2D object simply had "height" as well as "elevation", a box drawn as a simple 3D box would be sufficient.  When I do a 2D object for placement on a layout, I make cure the "base" has the location of windows and doors, sized correctly, primarily so that I get the correct orientation in placing it.  I don't need for the basic 3D view for those elements to appear to check clearances and things.  I'd be happy with a basic even primitive 3D object view that just shows a box that presumed the bottom and top were identical, so that AR could create a 3D version from a simple 2D rectangle, a cylinder from a basic 2d circle, etc.  I'd be happy to have an elementary 3D Object View version 0.1 for now, and wait for some time for something more.  Then the 3D viewer would be of interest to me.

I'm not dismissing wiring and modules, both are important, it's just that 3D viewer doesn't have much value for me without some basic, even crude, ability to see objects even in a primitive way.  I know others may have a different view.


If you are moving to an import of SVG designs,will that require uses to learn other software to make those designs?  Will they have to go to learning and buying CAD software, or something like the free Inkscape type of drawing program?  I'm an Inkscape user so I would know how to build the SVG file you'd want, but I'd worry about how much of the AR user base would want to learn that?  Is there any possibility that an AR user could make multiple 2D "shapes" and somehow defined them via AR as the parts of a 3D object so that AR drew the object from the component parts the AR user created?  I know that in our local schools, students are taught about 3D by first learning how to see a 3D object in 2D, and then to make 2D shapes and convert them to 3D.  One of my teacher neighbors pointed me to a site that sells "lesson plans" and student guides, and there was an interesting PPT document there that discussed 2D views of a 3D object and how to explain it to young students so they could do just that.

[Dragonfly]

Personally, I'd like to use the 3D view to check the "feel" of the plan, as what might look fine in 2D can look too crowded, too short, or just not right in practice.
So for me, just the ability (as described by Tom Springer above) to add a height to an object, and the 3D engine simply making a 3D flat-topped "box", with the 2D object's outline, and in the colour of the 3D object, would be sufficient. Combination objects (such as the user-made buildings) of objects with different heights would make for half-decent representations of the real thing, this way, good enough to gauge the feel of a layout anyway.

[Mike from CT]

I'm happy with the ever improving ability to see if the layout looks like I envision it looking that we have now, so adding objects isn't a high priority of mine but, that said.....

If the terminology for surfaces were to change so "Height" became "Elevation" and a new "Height" represented the 3rd "D" of a surface, I wouldn't complain a bit.  (I know.  That doesn't work for conical objects but baby steps, folks.  Baby steps....)