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Geomantics - 3D, GIS, Landscape Visualization, Graphics and Business
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GenesisIV 101: Getting Started |
| This short tutorial shows you precisely which buttons to click to render your first photorealistic landscape. We also demonstrate how to change project, and display image overlays - a popular tool in an educational setting. | ||
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The GenesisIV (no shaders) item should only be used if you experience problems running the program. It runs GenesisIV without shader support, which reduces quality of photorealistic images. GenesisIV launches the Flash Filer database server before running. This icon will apear in your system tray. You can manually close it after you close GenesisIV, or simply leave it (it consumes very little resources) so that it does not have to be restarted if you relaunch GenesisIV. |
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After the splash screens have been displayed during startup, the main GenesisIV window appears. This image shows GenesisIV displaying the default project - Ayres Rock. The left hand side of the window displays a detailed 2D representation of the landscape, and a smaller overview image. On the right hand side a 3D view of same landscape is shown. Click and drag in this window to move the camera around. Click on the Take Photo icon to open the photorealistic renderer window. |
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This is the initial view of the photorealistic renderer window after opening. The landscape is displayed using the same quick render as in 3D panel of the main window. Click on Full Photo Render to start the renderer. Note that on some graphics cards obscuring the window whilst drawing can cause artifacts. |
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Once completed, which may take anywhere from under a minute to a few minutes depending upon your system, the finished image should look similar to this. To return to the main screen click the top right window icon as normal, or the Close button. |
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We'll now demonstrate how to change projects. From the main screen click the Project Editor button. This brings up the Project dialog, which lists all projects in the database. Click on the Peak District Project from the project list as shown. The project parameters are displayed here (if you installed GenesisIV to a different directory from the default then it is advisable to reset the project paths before proceeding) Click OK to return to the main screen. |
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The main screen for this project differs from our first project because we have several image overlays available. Initially the default map image is displayed for the 2D map (a 1920 topographic map), and none for the 3D preview. You can change this very simply from the drop down Surface Map list above the two images. Incidentally the blank light green area to the right of the 2D map in this image is because our source map doesn't quite cover the area we have height data for. |
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Here we're changed the 2D map to show another image - a 1906 topographic map, and the 3D map to show our 1920 topographic map we previously used for the 2D image. The landscape viewpoint has also been moved using the mouse. We've also unchecked the User Surface Colors box so our overlay is shown with simple shading and no height-related coloration. Click on the Take Photo icon to open the photorealistic renderer. |
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| The photorealistic renderer preview is a good way to view landscapes with image overlays. You can change the light position by clicking on the Atmosphere button and opening the atmosphere dialog. Click Redraw Simple Render after doing so to redraw the image with the new settings. |  |
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| Finally close the renderer window, check the Use Surface Colors box above the 3D preview, and reopen the photorealistic renderer. The combination of height coloring, shading, and topographic image overlay greatly emphasises the 3D nature of our landscape. |  |
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