Orthogonal view in Second Life

[Tattooshop]

Hello! Is there any way to make an orthogonal view in Second Life for a picture? or at least how to get the most approximate effect? I know that you can attach the object as a hud, but what if the object is very large, it has small details and cannot be reduced to the size of the screen (like house etc). need to look it like a plan  or drawing.

[Madelaine McMasters]

The only way I know to approach an orthographic view is to use Firestorm's Phototools Cam pane to set the View angle to the minimum of 0.080 (Default is 1.048). This is still a 3D view, but it's pretty flat. For large objects, you'll have to cam very far away, which will require you to set a very high draw distance. This won't work, of course, if there are other objects in the light of sight, blocking your view.

Hopefully, if there's a better way, someone else will come along and reveal it.

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

3 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

The only way I know to approach an orthographic view is to use Firestorm's Phototools Cam pane to set the View angle to the minimum of 0.080 (Default is 1.048). This is still a 3D view, but it's pretty flat. For large objects, you'll have to cam very far away, which will require you to set a very high draw distance. This won't work, of course, if there are other objects in the light of sight, blocking your view.

Hopefully, if there's a better way, someone else will come along and reveal it.

   Firestorm also lets you selectively derender objects, which eliminates the line of sight issue. This is good information Maddy.

[Tattooshop]

16 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

The only way I know to approach an orthographic view is to use Firestorm's Phototools Cam pane to set the View angle to the minimum of 0.080 (Default is 1.048). This is still a 3D view, but it's pretty flat. For large objects, you'll have to cam very far away, which will require you to set a very high draw distance. This won't work, of course, if there are other objects in the light of sight, blocking your view.

Hopefully, if there's a better way, someone else will come along and reveal it.

 

12 hours ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

   Firestorm also lets you selectively derender objects, which eliminates the line of sight issue. This is good information Maddy.

Super! Thanks a lot! exactly what is needed! But could you tell me how to make a top view, from the side, etc. as accurate as possible? is it possible to?

[Alyona Su]

17 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

The only way I know to approach an orthographic view is to use Firestorm's Phototools Cam pane to set the View angle to the minimum of 0.080 (Default is 1.048). This is still a 3D view, but it's pretty flat. For large objects, you'll have to cam very far away, which will require you to set a very high draw distance. This won't work, of course, if there are other objects in the light of sight, blocking your view.

Hopefully, if there's a better way, someone else will come along and reveal it.

Just a heads-up for everyone: the "Phototools" feature mentioned above is a system feature. The way to acheove what the OP is asking if by changing the Field of View, rather than camera angle. To change the FOV in any viewer: CTRL+0 "flattens" the scene (narrows FOV, a.k.a. "zoom-in") and CTRL+8 "expands" the scene (widens the FOV, a.k.a. Zoom-out) and CTRL+9 reset to default. When modified with ALT+CTRL and ALT+CTRL+SHIFT the arrow keys will move the view angle in any direction you can think of.

Now for the useless trivia: With respect to "flatten" or "expand," we are really referring to "Depth of Field". I know, you're thinking "But Depth of field makes the background all blurry!" That's actually called defocussing, not blurring, and Linden Lab has it misnamed "depth of field" effect, that is actually "Focal Plane". Bahaha! So, in the real world, if you decide to speak pro-photographer, understand these terms.

[Whirly Fizzle]

If you want a birds eye view of the scene, you can make use of the CameraOffset debug setting.
You must have shadows enabled for this to work.
 

[Madelaine McMasters]

Thanks for mentioning that FOV is controllable via key commands, Alyona. I use Phototools because I can write down the numbers should I wish to take additional snapshots with similar characteristics. In the OP's case, simply zooming in to the max, then camming out to the DD limit would do the trick.

As for the meaning of "flat", in the OP's case I read it like a cartographer, or even a landscape photographer, where DOF is rarely an issue. He wants an orthographic view of an object, where everything appears to be equidistant from the camera and there is no spherical distortion. Simple lenses have a spherical focal plane (at both the subject and the film) and so cannot obtain orthographic views, unless infinitely far from the subject (zero FOV, infinite DOF). Landscape photographers use "flat" to describe images in which depth is compressed or eliminated, making everything seem at the same distance. They also use "flat" to indicate lack of spherical distortion, where horizons appear flat regardless of their position in the frame. In the extreme, that's an orthographic view. DOF is rarely an issue, as the subject distance is vast compared to the aperture size.

In astrophotography, where we get "infinite" distances (and DOF) to the subject for free, attention switches to reducing spherical distortion and focus problems in images caused by the film being close to the mirror/lens. As with the image plane, the film focal plane is curved, but it's a LOT closer to the optics, so that curvature is an issue. You can address this by designing optics to flatten the focal plane, curve the film to match it, fix the image in post, or a mix of those techniques. DOF is also not a concern in aerial cartography (ex: Google/Apple maps). Here again, "flat" refers to lack of spherical aberration in the images, making it easier to stitch them together accurately.

In macro photography, we get the worst of both worlds. There is distortion caused by the low subject focal and film distance to aperture ratio. This shows up primarily as short DOF, but there can also be significant spherical distortion. Because close up work exacerbates focus issues caused by the small subject distance to aperture ratio (resulting in short DOF), "flat" in this context refers more to obtaining good focus across the field of view than to obtaining a flat perspective. When both are desired, you use tele-macro lenses to increase DOF (for focus) and decrease FOV (for flatness).

As you move from macro through portrait, to landscape, to astrophotography, the meaning of "flat" changes. Even within those classes of photography, the meaning of "flat" depends on the goal.

ETA: I forgot to mention that "flat" can also refer to correcting intensity variations in images caused by vignetting and/or varying pixel sensitivities and noise in digital sensors. Astrophotographers (I'm an amateur) routinely take "flat" or "dark" frames with the telescope capped. Dark frames record the sensor noise and are taken just before, intermingled with, or just after an imaging session. Flat frames are taken of twilight/dawn bits of evenly illuminated sky, or of reference targets, to account for any vignetting in the optical train. Those frames are then used to correct the image frames. So there's yet another definition of "flat".

Edited February 12, 2020 by Madelaine McMasters

[Tattooshop]

Thank you all very much! Well, I think I can more or less get a top view. And for side view just have to rotate the model a bit. but if there are still some ways to get a top and side view with some hot keys for example, I will be glad to know!

[NiranV Dean]

On 2/12/2020 at 5:03 PM, Alyona Su said:

Now for the useless trivia: With respect to "flatten" or "expand," we are really referring to "Depth of Field". I know, you're thinking "But Depth of field makes the background all blurry!" That's actually called defocussing, not blurring, and Linden Lab has it misnamed "depth of field" effect, that is actually "Focal Plane". Bahaha! So, in the real world, if you decide to speak pro-photographer, understand these terms.

Useless-useless trivia. Depth of Field is the correct name for the blurriness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

Focal plane is something different.

 

The correct term you are looking for is Field of View because thats what you are changing, the actual Field of View, LL just falsely labels it as Camera Angle which could technically be the angle in which the camera is rotated.

[animats]

I wanted an orthogonal camera a year ago, because I was making images for billboard impostors. Those need to be orthogonal, or at least taken as if very far away and zoomed in.

When I was doing those "Above Second Life" images, using the regular SL map tiles, I could see a better way. Take orthogonal images of entire sims, looking straight down, but from a low altitude, to eliminate skybox and ad junk. Texture map them onto a sculpt made from elevation data. The result would look like Google Earth. That's what SL should show you beyond draw distance, rather than empty water.

Orthogonal cameras are thus useful as a building tool. You use them to make images for textures to be mapped onto other things.

Edited February 19, 2020 by animats