Tag: 3D model

This tutorial will show you how we use bevel in some of our 3D wayfinding maps.

There are 3 main options in Blender to get the beveled edge look.

First is the Bevel Tool

Select the object you want to bevel in Blender, go to edit mode then select the bevel tool from the left row (press T key to enable it if it’s hidden).

Select the edges you want to bevel and click and drag the yellow circle to adjust bevel amount. When satisfied you can further fine tune it in the toolbar that’s located on the left bottom side. Faster way to add the bevel tool is to use shortcut ctrl + B and adjust amount with mouse. Press right mouse button when you are done.

Second, Less Common Way is to Use Extrude & Scale

Select the object you want to bevel in Blender, go to edit mode then select the face(s) of which edges you want to Bevel. Extrude (press E key) the face(s) on z axis (press Z key) and move them up a bit. Then scale them down (press S key) until you have the desired look.

WHEN YOU ARE BEVELING MULTIPLE OBJECTS AT THE SAME TIME MAKE SURE TO CHANGE TRANSFORM PIVOT POINT TO INDIVIDUAL ORIGINS.

Final and Nondestructive way

Nondestructive meaning that the bevel doesn’t fundamentally change the mesh. This also means that you have to check the apply modifiers button when exporting mesh.

Go to modifier properties (blue wrench icon) and click add modifier then click bevel.
Leave segments to 1 and adjust the amount to your liking. If it doesn’t work right away then go to geometry tab under bevel and turn off clamp overlap and correct the amount.

To add bevel only to those edges that you want, change limit method to weight. Go to edit mode, select the edges you want to bevel then open right sidebar (press N key) under tab “item” change the mean bevel weight to 1.

Before Adding The Bevel Modifier it’s a Good Practice to do and Check The Following

1. Mesh needs to be clean and use only quads.

• Removing tris– select everything– go to edit mode– make sure everything is selected– then use ALT + J or on the top bar go to Face– “Tris to Quads”.
• If there are still some tris then have to manually merge them. Select the vertices and press M– “Collapse”. Second option is to just remake the whole box.

2. Make sure that normals are correct. Check this by going to “Show Overlays” and enabling “Face Orientation”. If Everything is blue then move on to step 3.

• Fixing normals– select everything– go to edit mode– make sure everything is selected– use ALT + N– “Recalculate Outside”.
• If some are still red then you have to manually select the red ones and use “Flip”. (ALT + N)

3. Make sure there are no Doubles.

• Select everything– go to edit mode– make sure everything is selected– press M then click “By Distance”– open the little box on the left corner of the screen– set merge value to 0.00001 m

4. Make sure Object scale is set to 1 on XYZ.

• Select 1 object– use shortcut CTRL + A– click on “All Transforms”. Do the same for every object.

Until now all the materials in 3D Wayfinder have been replaced with each 3D model update. Now it is possible to keep the materials and their attributes’ values. This will save a lot of time, when creating a nice-looking 3D wayfinding application. See how to separating materials from geometry.

We have added a small feature to our 3D model converter. That enables to replace the 3D models without overwriting the materials. This means, that all the changes that were made in 3D Wayfinder for the purpose of tuning materials, are not lost when replacing 3D models. See it in user manual.

3D modelling software packages are different and the way 3D models are exported also varies. In most cases you need to change the color of the materials (diffuse and ambient color). After the creation of the model to get good looking 3D floor plans. We are now supporting specular shader, transparency etc. that might not come directly from the converted models. All these material attributes can be changed in 3D Wayfinder, but these values were replaced each time the geometry was updated. Now there is the option to keep the materials and their values, when replacing the 3D model.

At the same time we have added ambient attributes to each material when uploading the 3D model for the first time or when replacing the model. So there is no need to enter the “ambient” attribute anymore, just change the color.

FRAK WebGL engine has now built in Cubemaps and reflection shader. This gives 3D Wayfinder access to use reflections of surrounding area.

We have added built in cubemaps and cubemap reflection shader to FRAK WebGL engine. In addition reflection with cubemaps is efficient way to create reflective surfaces like glass or mirrors.
Also cubemap reflection is a rendering method. It means that reflective surfaces reflect the cubemap textures.

It will be available for 3D Wayfinder in near future. This will be the effective way to create large glass walls or buildings. It make them more realistic. It might be used also for expensive shopping mall floors.

Next feature in FRAK will be specular map to mark efficiently reflective areas.

Cubemap demo can be found under FRAK repository.

CGTrader is organizing challenge called “CG Architecture Challenge”. More than 240 thousand 3D enthusiasts and designers have been invited to participate. 3D Wayfinder has set awards for each challenge subcategory. Award will be given for the best 3D CG model or visualization uploaded during the challenge period.

The challenge will take 3 months and there will be 3 individual winners in each architectural category. Categories are: Best Architectural Interior Model; Best Architectural Exterior Model; Best Architectural Details Model and Best Architectural portfolio. Read more from cgtrader.com. In addition winner in each category will get 3D Wayfinder Pro account for a year.

CGTrader is a 3D model marketplace for computer graphics and 3D printing. For example 3D artists and designers share and sell their models. Then they get valuable feedback, learn from peers, and interact in a designer-friendly environment.

Here are 2 winning works from last year challenge:

Currently we are developing features to insert external 3D models to floor plans. With this it would be possible to add these “little details” (like escalators, benches, trees or even cars). That make the floor-plans look realistic. The best thing is, that it doesn’t require any 3D modelling skills. So all our users can detail the floor plans by themselves.

3D object library can be opened in Editor window with object thumbnails:

Added objects appear on the 3D scene. The good part here is, that the same model can be used inside the scene many times. Therefore it doesn’t increase the downloadable model sizes as each model will be loaded only once.

3D models to floor plans can be resized and moved inside the 3D Wayfinder.

With external 3D models. We will definitely provide common library of models we are using to detail the floor plans. For example these will include trees, cars, different indoor plants, escalators, tables, stairs and so on. See our user manual.

Now the JSON 3D model formats are also implemented in 3D Wayfinder. This gives us better browser-side loading time as browsers’ native JSON parser is faster, than parsing binary models in Javascript. The average gain in loading time is 55%, which means that 3D Wayfinder is loading more than 2 as fast as before.

Below are testing results with 2 different project. It seems, that the improvement affects more larger projects.
We have made a minor change in loading logic also. Now the application will render the 3D models before all the textures are downloaded. Textures will appear as they are loaded. This allows to start using 3D wayfinder as soon as the 3D model files have been loaded.

Here are the initial test results for 2 projects:

1. Project: demo
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Project statistics:
Visible faces (opaque/transparent): 5653/646
Visible renderers (opaque/transparent): 10/24
Visible batches (opaque/transparent): 10/4

Total geometry loading time (measured by floors):
Binary format: 1666.570ms + 1941.258ms = 3607.828ms
JSON format: 846.446ms + 945.121ms = 1791.567ms

Loading times without network transfer time:
Binary format: 1211.667ms + 1149.466ms = 2361.133ms
JSON format: 46.198ms + 31.087ms = 77.285ms

2. Project: Large customer project
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Project statistics:
Visible faces (opaque/transparent): 229533/6459
Visible renderers (opaque/transparent): 629/13
Visible batches (opaque/transparent): 49/13

Total geometry loading time (measured by floors):
Binary format: 23673.256ms + 13435.160ms + 4924.420ms = 42032.836ms
JSON format: 10225.722ms + 2929.486ms + 3642.354ms = 16797.562ms

Loading times without network transfer time:
Binary format: 20016.574ms + 11549.349ms + 3087.721ms = 34653.644ms
JSON format: 226.997ms + 136.840ms + 70.465ms = 434.302

JSON model specifications can be found from FRAK Github repository.

We have released a new version of FRAK WebGL engine with support for JSON 3D model format. This decreases the browser-side loading time as browsers’ native JSON parser is faster, than parsing binary models in Javascript, as we used to do so far. Of course we will continue to support binary models also.

FRAK JSON model specifications can be found from FRAK Github repository.

Initial testing shows, that compressed JSON files are the same size as binary files, but browser side parsing is many times faster.

Here are testing results for parsing with different 3D geometry:

RGB box (12 poly)
With binary format: 250 ms
With JSON: 10-60 ms

Axis Test (3440 poly)
Binary: 300 ms
JSON: 36-60 ms

Wayfinding demo ground level (20069 poly)
Binary: 1265 ms
JSON: 50-70 ms

Browser side parsing time varies a bit, but even with larger models it should be less than 100 ms.

Support for JSON models will be available in 3D Wayfinder in near future. This will probably make the 3D Wayfinder application (with models) loading time smaller about 50%. Of course it will depend on the project size, textures, internet connection etc.

With new material management, we have added also normal maps. Normal mapping is a technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents in 3D models – an implementation of bump mapping.

It is used to add details without using more polygons. Which means you can create smaller and faster models for 3D Wayfinder. Normal maps will enhance the appearance and details of a low polygon model by generating a normal map from a high polygon model or height map.

Here is an old town model without normal map:

In following screenshot is the same model with normal maps applied:

The result will look like the stones are all modeled out in 3D.

Here is the texture and normal map added to this texture:

To use normal maps, you have to select “Normal-mapped” for the material from the shader column.

Then press “Edit” and you can upload texture and normal map image:

Recently we introduced improved transparency in 3D Wayfinder handling to FRAK engine. It can now be configured between three transparency rendering modes: sorted, blended and stochastic.

The sorted mode is what used to be the default earlier. There is mainly for backwards compatibility and fallback reasons. This can be used for decent transparency. But the geometry has to be modeled while keeping in mind that transparent meshes are compared by their centers.

Failure case for the old algorithm:

The first of the new modes is blended and it uses the weighted blended order-independent transparency algorithm. Also with a few modifications related to handling alpha-mapped surfaces. This mode is the new default for the engine. Since floating point textures seem to be supported by most browsers these days.

Weighted Blended Order-independent Transparency:

The second new mode is stochastic. It is still a work in progress. But a viable alternative for certain situations. Stochastic transparency in 3D Wayfinder works by using random noise to give each transparent surface a proportional probability of getting through to the camera. This provides slightly more physically correct results. Currently is a bit too noisy.

Stochastic Transparency: