In this section, parameters which influence the import of 3D objects can be configured. There are three different formats:

• Wavefront

• AutoCAD

• 3D-Studio

  

• Unify Object Size: If enabled, all vertices are recalculated during import in a way that the object center is moved to the origin (0,0,0), and the size of the object is 100 cm in its largest extent. If disabled, all vertices retain their values as defined in the original file. An object could appear invisible in a Viz Artist scene because the object is translated a lot from the origin or is scaled up or down a lot. It could be necessary to deactivate the unification to be able to recombine several separately imported objects that must keep their size and relative position.

• Face Orientation: Polygonal 3D models often do not have a consistent face orientation, but for performance reasons, the Viz Artist renderer expects that all faces of an object point to the same direction. If enabling this function, Viz Artist tries to rearrange the orientation of the object faces during import.

• Shading Angle: If the 3D object has no normal vector information, Viz Artist automatically recalculates the normals from the geometry to make lighting possible. This recalculation is influenced by the shading angle, which acts as a threshold between sharp and soft edges.

  Note: A shading angle value of 60 means that an edge between two faces is considered to be a soft edge for angles below 60 and a sharp edge above this level. 60 is the default shading angle.