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Renderworks Camera Projection


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In terms of the projection settings in Renderworks Camera, the options are limited to 'perspective' or 'orthographic'. 

 

Which of the two would be the most reflective of the projection of a photograph taken from a standard 50mm fixed focal lens camera, if I wanted to overlay my model onto this? (without using the camera match feature?) 

 

Professional guidance on visualisation of developments refers to both 'cylindrical' projection, which maintains vertical lines and scale across the image; and also 'planar' projection, which is that as captured in a single frame camera image.

 

Am I right to assume cylindrical would be best suited to an orthographic setting in Vectorworks, and planar would be best suited to the perspective setting? 

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32 minutes ago, lisagravy said:

Which of the two would be the most reflective of the projection of a photograph taken from a standard 50mm fixed focal lens camera, if I wanted to overlay my model onto this? (without using the camera match feature?) 

 

Sorry but, a 50 mm fixed focal lens from a camera generate a perspective view. There are a lot of settings inside the renderworks camera on the OIP, included the perspective control from a ratio or from focal.

 

What kind of goal do you have with the 50 mm image?

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@Zeno- I need to be able to use a 50mm focal length camera to take a photograph, with an exact horizontal angle of view, to use as the base image for a photomontage - so basically I want to take a model from Vectorworks and overlay the exported render image from the Renderworks camera onto the 50mm photograph in Photoshop? I can't edit the perspective of the photograph at all, so I want to make sure the model to be in the same perspective as the photograph?

 

Does that make sense? 

Edited by lisagravy
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@Zeno

 

This is similar to my workflow: 

 

- create a model in Vectorworks

- set a renderworks camera on position, 50mm FL, angle of view etc. (I wasn't sure whether to use perspective or orthographic projection.)

- render a viewport from the camera (is there a setting to turn camera effect on? Where is this?)

- export the image for external work, to overlay the image onto the original photograph.

 

BUT, when I overlay the resulting model on the photo, it needs a fair bit of rescaling and skewing / warping to fit properly over the image. I wasn't sure if I was missing settings somewhere to make the model export from the camera more reflective of a real 50mm camera photograph in terms of scale and perspective. 

Edited by lisagravy
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11 minutes ago, lisagravy said:

@Zeno

 

This is similar to my workflow: 

 

- create a model in Vectorworks

- set a renderworks camera on position, 50mm FL, angle of view etc. (I wasn't sure whether to use perspective or orthographic projection.)

- render a viewport from the camera (is there a setting to turn camera effect on? Where is this?)

- export the image for external work, to overlay the image onto the original photograph.

 

BUT, when I overlay the resulting model on the photo, it needs a fair bit of rescaling and skewing / warping to fit properly over the image. I wasn't sure if I was missing settings somewhere to make the model export from the camera more reflective of a real 50mm camera photograph in terms of scale and perspective. 

 

First of all, I think that reality and life is on perspective view, so don't think about the othografic.

 

You have to set all on rendtrworks camera object, from OIP. Then create a viewport. Than render it with a render style who have the rendtrworks camera set to on.

 

There are some video on gorgeous playlist on vectorworks channel 

 

 

 

watch the video 2 and 3, and search something about camera match tool

Edited by Zeno
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2 minutes ago, Zeno said:

You have to set all on rendtrworks camera object, from OIP. Then create a viewport. Than render it with a render style who have the rendtrworks camera set to on.

 

@Zeno Thanks, will have a watch.

 

When you say render with a style with renderworks camera set to on, does this just mean use a renderworks-style render setting, rather than OpenGL?

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So I found the camera effects tick box. It's in View > Rendering > Custom Renderworks Options, which is only an option when the camera object is selected.

I found this Vectorworks link to be more directly helpful than the series of 37 youtube videos detailing the full rendering process! Thanks anyway though.

 

Looks like without this setting enabled, the majority of the camera settings aren't incorporated into the render, which is maybe why I'm having issues replicating a 50mm scale with angle of view etc! Will give it a go.

 

Screenshot 2019-11-18 at 17.58.47.png

Edited by lisagravy
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I've had a look at camera match before... and it does look fab for illustrative purposes! It's just that I need to be able to work to a stringent methodology in terms of demonstrating no skewing etc has been applied to the model to make it fit the photo? And also as we're not always working with buildings / urban settings, it can be difficult to define the lines of each plane in landscape photographs.

 

The idea I was trying to work with was that if you take a photo from a particular co-ordinate point and height in the real world, with a set camera lens / angle of view / other definable camera settings, you can then replicate these settings within a Vectorworks camera, and the rendered export should be at the same scale / orientation as the photo? Which could then be combined in photoshop / another software? 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Yes, after I posted last night, I was thinking the same thing - you won't necessarily have easily definable verticals and horizontals on a landscape photograph with which to line things up.

So, your idea of using a Renderworks camera is a sound thought, worth exploration... but I am just not sure how accurate it would be for you. The Renderworks camera does indeed have settings that match those on a real-world camera. But I am not sure how much this could be relied on to produce your image. Presumably this is for LVIA? I will ask our engineering friends and see what they say.

Note: If using these camera "effects", you will need to turn on camera effects in the Renderworks style for them to take effect.

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More advanced renderers like C4D have the ability to input lens information from the manufacturer that correct the perspective distortion from a specific lens, allowing you to get a better "camera match."  In my experience vw creates a rather generic perspective, akin to the kind created from a manual, drafted perspective. 

 

You can set the view from your vantage point, uncheck the "cropped view" and shift the view around a bit up/down/left/right to do a sort of manual lens shift to see if that helps.

 

I frequently bring in a photo and do a manual overlay in VW to use as a guide when doing a camera match.  Since I am usually rendering a theater stage which more closely resembles 1 point perspective, the camera match function in VW is practically useless.   

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