Shape Manager with flexible angles and offsets
3D Visioner has for long time had the way to make any Visio shape to be represented as a 3D model of user’s choice. “Shape Manager” feature allows importing 3D models from OBJ files and assigning them to chosen Visio master shapes. In the new 2017 version, 3D Visioner enhances this capability further. There is now a visual aid in the “Assign Model” dialog: a shape thumbnail is displayed as a base surface at the bottom of the imported 3D model. This helps positioning 3D model precisely in relation of the shape, if needed adjusting horizontal offsets. It is also possible to scale model along all 3 aces X, Y, Z, altering its width, lengths and height. 3D model alignment can be changed even further with rotation angles along all X, Y, Z aces. This helps to counter situations when a 3D model downloaded from a public source has different orientation than desired.
Also note that the near the target shape image now there are “Width (X)” and “Height (Y)” dimensions are displayed, with color labels, indicating their corresponding aces. Below that “Aspect W/H” value is shown. This is a very helpful information for designing 3D models for target shapes: making 3D model with the same or similar aspect ratio of the floor projection will make it look exactly as intended in 3D without distortion due to unequal scaling. Otherwise “Scale to the size of shape” button will try to extend or decrease 3D model dimensions as needed to match its target shape floor projection. Here is the image of the new “Assign Model” dialog, showing target shape thumbnail base and offset/rotation fields.
This feature was made possible thanks to enhanced support of shape offsets and rotation angles in the 3D Visioner code. Every shape on the drawing is not only associated to a 3D model, but also its placement into 3D scene is carried on with the offset/rotation modification parameters of that shape assignment made in that “Assign Model” dialog.
The flow of assigning custom models is very simple: Invoke “Shape Manager” dialog, select the target shape (it must be present on the current drawing), click “Add” and select your 3D model’s OBJ file, then click “Scale to the size of shape” and adjust offsets, rotation angles and scale factors as needed. Click OK when done. After this you will see your 3D model in the 3D scene in place where there was a flat shape before. This is easy!
To exchange custom models with shapes association between 3D Visioner installations, you can use “Models Import/Export” button on the Ribbon menu — this will export selected shapes/models as a single file, which can be imported on any other 3D Visioner.
