Real 3D Info Kit


The purpose of this demonstation is to tell about the features of Real 3D
by showing pictures created with it. We also try to clarify the terminology
used in the related prochure.

Many of the images were originally rendered in higher resolution 
(e.g. 1280x1024) using 16.7 million colors. To make them fit on the
disks, the resolution has been reduced to 640x480 pixels and the number
of colors has been reduced to 256. Therefore the image quality of the
original pictures has been significantly better than that of this
presentation.

Real 3d is basically a 3D CAD program, where the user can define also
the physical properties for the 3D objects. Such properties are, among
others, surface quality, transparency, refraction factor, mass, color, etc.
When the properties of the object have been defined, the user defines
the position of a camera, and the program renders an image of the 
object by simulating the laws of physics. This results to an image
that as closely as possible resembles an image that a real camera could
have taken of an identical setting.




Tec1/Three ball bearings
------------------------
The ball bearings were created using quadric objects and Boolean
operations.

By using Boolean operations, the user can cut out a piece of any object
using another object as a tool. The holes, tracks and bevels have been
made by operating the two cylinders with objects of various shapes in a
fasfion similar to that used in real ball bearings factories.

The balls of the ball bearings were created by using the macro feature
of Real 3D in the following way: First one ball was created in the ball track.
Next a macro was recorded, where the ball was duplicated and rotated e.g.
10 degrees. By executing this macro 34 times, we get 34 new balls in the
track distributed exactly 10 degrees apart.

When one ball bearing is ready, the user can create other ballbearings
just by duplicating and repositioning the original.

Qadric objects are quadratic surfaces, like spheres, cylinders, cones,
hyperboloids and ellipsoids. Real 3D uses a mathematically exact
representation for these. Therefore they are perfectly 'round' no matter
how close you look. They are not constructed of a large number of planar
facets as in most other programs. Another great advantage is memory usage.
A PC with 16 MBytes of RAM can easily handle objecs consisting of, say, 
10,000 spheres.

Tec2 - Shaft
------------

The purpose of this image is to demonstrate one of the output modes of Real 3D,
the so called outline mode. It is much more than simply a hidden-line-removal
algorithm. The outline mode creates outlines even where any two objects
intersect.

The shaft was constructed of quadric surfaces using the Lathe tool. The 
Lathe tool automatically recreates an user defined shape by connecting spheres,
ellipsoids, hyperboloids, cones and cylinders seamlessly.

The grid feature makes it easy to precisely create and position mechanical
objects. In Real 3D it is possible to create a limitless number of
different named grids and then activate any grid just by clicking the 
mouse pointer over its name. 

Tec3 - gear wheel and shaft
--------------------------

The gear wheel was created by removing matter from the pitch cylinder by Boolean
operating it with a tooth shaped object,
The other teeth were created by copying the resulting dent using a macro.

The hole through the gear wheel was created by copying and scaling down the gear
wheel, and then using the copy to cut the hole.

The shaft that fits the hole of the gear wheel was easily created by fitting
the hole cutting tool to an end of a cylinder. The track around the shaft was
operated using a hyperboloid.

The Boolean operations are one of the benefits of a solid modeller, such as
Real 3D. In Real 3D the volume of an object is exactly defined. In other 
words, it is always possible to calculate whether a given point in space is
inside the object or not. For this reason the Boolean operations in Real
3D always work 100 percent.

The Boolean operations can also be reversed and freely animated.
For example, it is possible to create an animation, where a hole moves
along an object, changes in size, etc. By copying the hole, you get two
holes through the object etc.


Tec4 - Bolt ja washer
---------------------

The Boolean operations are very useful when creating mechanical objects.
The bolt and the washer are composed only of cylinder, hyperboloid, 
cone, ellipsoid and plane surfaces. The 'Real 3D V2' text at the base
of the bolt was created using the bump map feature. First a bitmap
containing the text was created using the Paintbrush program. Then the
image was attached to the bolt so that it represents the height fluctuations,
not the object color. The brighter the color the deeper the pit.

Bump mapping is one of the texture mapping methods offered by Real 3D.
Usually texture mapping means an ability to use 2D raster images to give
color to an object's surface. In Real 3D texture mapping can also be used
to define other properties of an object's surface, properties like 
reflectiveness, transparency and shadows. Real 3D supports brilliancy,
transparency, shadow, bump, environment, clip ja color mapping techniques.

Tec5 - Chain
------------

The chain is another example of a purely volumetric model. When one
piece of the chain was ready the rest of the chain was created by
copying the original and repositioning the copies using the macro feature.
The chain is made of a reflecting, smooth material. The materials handling
in Real 3D is one of the most versatile. The user can create an infinite
number of different materials by defining a set of physical properties
like surface quality, transparency and reflectiveness. These properties
match as closely as possible the laws of physics. Therefore any conceivable
material can be easily created, if a suitable material does not exist yet.


Tec6 - Acrylic ball bearings
----------------------------

The material of the ball bearings of picture Tec1 has been made transparent.
Since Real 3D represents the objects as volumes, the refractions of light
can be accurately tracked no matter how complex the object is.
The light ray knows all the time what object it is inside and therefore
reflects at the surface according to the laws of physics. A glass lens
in Real 3D magnifies just like a real lens in the world around us. It is even
possible to create optical devices like telescopes by fitting some lenses
on the same optical axis.

Tec7 - shaft
------------

The shaft is made of chromed steel. The backdrop is made of a color gradient
that changes from blue to black. The user can define the colors of the
gradient and the program creates a smooth gradient between the colors.
Naturally also a constant color backdrop as well as a separete backdrop image
can be use.

The picture also utilizes an environment gradient. Using an environment gradient
enables the user to define a color gradient for the void space surrounding the objects.
The color of the rays entering the space is dependent on this environment gradient.
We can use a blue to brown environment gradient so that the objects seem to
reflect the sky and the earth. The higher the ray is reflected, the more blue the
object. Likewise the lower the ray is reflected, the more brown the point on the
object's surface.

Glass1 - Glassware (a gray scale image)
---------------------------------------

The floor and the walls are semi-reflecting. The glassware have been made 
by rotating various B-spline curves to become rotational surfaces.
The nose of the pot was created by modifying the rotational surface with a
non-linear deformation, where the amount of modification is not constant
over the points of the mesh, but is defined by e.g. the distance between
the points and the mouse pointer: the closer the point the greater the
effect of the modification. The glassware were made of a material whose
transparency is 95 percent and refraction factor is is the same as that of
glass.

There is also some liquid in two of the glasses. The liquid was made so that part
of the inside surface of the glass was copied and used as the liquid's surface.
Thus the liquid precisely fits the glass.

Real 3D has dozens of tools for creating and modifying B-spline objects.

Glass2 - Glass people
---------------------

The picture has two people modelled of B-spline surfaces and made of glass.
In addition to extremely high image quality, using B-splines offers effective
memory handling. Because traditional polygon-based programs use tens of thousands
small polygons to represent freeform models (like humans), they can't handle
many detailed humans in e.g. 32 MBytes of RAM. Very simple polygon models may be 
faster to render, but as the model gets more complicated the B-sline models
are the clear winners. 
 
The people in the picture were created by first defining profile curves that
were then combined as a surface using the intersection tool.

Glass3 - Spilling brandy
------------------------

The glasses were created by rotating B-spline curves. This, as all the glass examples
shown, is a good example of superiority of the ray tracing technique when rendering
transparent and reflecting objects. When a ray of light hits a surface between air
and glass, part of it is refracted, part of it is reflected and part of it is
absorbed in the glass. The amounts depend on the material properties. Each reflected or
refracted ray will in turn be reflected and refracted on other surfaces causing
bright spots of light on the objects.

Glass4 - Glasses by a brick wall
--------------------------------

Here the glasses have been placed in a more complex setting.
The brick wall has a texture of one brick automatically repeated by the program
to fill the whole wall. The same texture was also used as a bump map, giving
some roughness to the bricks. This is possible because in Real 3D any object
can have as many textures and materials combined as needed.


Glass5 - Glass still life
-------------------------

The vase in the picture was also created by rotating, but an additional control
curve was given to define how the radius changes during the rotation.

The coctail glass with a helical stem was created by sweeping a circular
cross-section along a helical curve. The resulting stem was then connected
to the base and the cup.

In real life light rays reflect uncountable times inside the glass between the
surfaces. In Real 3D the user can set a limit to the number of reflection to
track. When the limit is reached the ray will no longer followed.
While rendering this image the limit was 7. The longer the ray is traced the
more realistic the image will be, but on the other hand, it will take a longer
time to render.

Another aspect that contributes to the realisticity of glass is the
number of light sources. In Real 3D the number of light sources is not 
limited in any way. In practice you can have even hundreds of light
sources in a scene. This picture uses three light sources.


PSys1 - Pins falling
--------------------

This picture demonstrates some of the advanced features of Real 3D. It is a
still image from an animation in which the user has created a set of pins
the bowling alley and the ball. All the user has to do is define an initial
velocity for the ball and play the animation. As the ball flies, it starts to
fall cue to gravity, and when it hits the floor it starts to roll due to the
friction between the ball and the floor. Finally the ball hits the pins,
making them collide with each other, the floor and the ball according to
the physical properties of the colliing objects. So this is a pure simulation
where the user had to define the objects and some forces like gravity effecting
the objects. Real 3D automatically creates the animation where the objects
obey the Newton's laws of gravitation and motion.

The picture is also a good example of motion blur. At will Real 3D
automatically calculates motion blur, making moving object appear blurred,
just like in a photograph of a fast moving object.

Another very advanced feature is soft shadows, that can be created by
using line and wall light sources instead of point light sources.
The shadows will have soft edges making the image much more realistic.

PSys2 - Particle head
---------------------

Real 3D has a sophisticated particle system. A particle system usually
means a system where a large number ob objects behaves according to
Newton's laws under the influence of some force fields. The user can thus
simulate physical phenomena like gravitation, centrifucal forces, etc.

The particle system in Real 3D is fully integrated with other parts of
the animation system and it can be used with all other animation
techniques. 

Thanks to the collision detection system the objects can collide
with each other and rebound like in the previous bowling example. 

Because particle systems usually contain numerous objects (like snow,
breaking glass window), Real 3D contains tools for creating tens of
thousands of particles in a moment. Any given volume can be filled with
a user defined number of copies of any object, or, as in this example,
particles can be created on the surface of another object. In this picture
tens of thousands of particles have been created on B-spline object
representing a human face. This can be utilized, for example, using 
collision detection hooks. A collision detection hook is a user-defined 
macro or procedure that can be attached to an object. When this object
collides with another object, the user-defined procedure is called.
The object can then be replaced by thousands of particles and blown apart.


PSys3 - Particle girl
---------------------

Here's another particle creation example. The human body has been transformed 
into 20,000 spheres. The user has only to select the object that will be
transformed (the human) and the object to which to transform (the sphere).
There are also some optional settings, like how the color of the particles
is derived and also the amount of randomness in the locations of the created
objects.

PSys4 -  Saturn
-----------------

This picture is of one of the most apparent applications of the particle
system; a planet whose gravitation tries to pull the particles in the rings
towards the planet. On the other hand the centrifucal force created by
speed of the particles created an opposite force, keeping the particles
on orbit.



Spline1 - Swimming suits
------------------------

In this picture three walking girls wear different swimming suits.
The cloth of the suits was created by projecting various textures on the
suits using B-spline mapping where the texture is defined in the
parameter space of the B-spline surface. This means that if the B-Spline object
is e.g. bent, the texture is automatically bent with the surface of the
object. When the surface is stretched, the texture stretches too. That
is just like the patterns printed of a cloth follow the cloth. This 
obvious feature is missing even from many expensive software.

This picture crearly illustrates the beharior of B-spline surfaces when
they are bent, like when the girls walk.

The girls were made to walk using skeletons and the inverse kinematics
feature. A skeleton can contain one or more joints and the user can,
by using the inverse kinematics tool, grab at any point of the skeleton
(e.g. at a finger tip) and move it to a new position. Real 3D calculates
how the other joints will be moved, taking into account the friction
of the joints and possible angular limits set to some of the joint.
Skeletons can be bound to more complex objects, like a human leg or hand.
When the skeleton is manipulated, Real 3D manipulates the object likewise.
It is possible to control how an object that has been attached to a skeleton
behaves near the joints. This controls the stength of a skin-like effect.

The smoothness of these girls corresponds 10 000 000 polygons. 


Spline2 - 3D scanned head
-------------------------

The modeller of Real 3D is fully user-configurable. It he picture there
are three windows two of which show ray traced output while one shows
wire frame output. The ray tracer is fully integrated with the modeller
enabling ray traced output on any window. It is also possible to
render images directly to a file in 24 or 32 bit per pixel formats.

The head was scanned using a manual 3D scanner and comprises of a B-sline
mesh of about 100 x 100 control points. The left window shows a bump map
attached to the head giving it a wrinkled appearance.

Spline3 - Fish
--------------

The fish in this picture is a 100 percent B-spline model. The color texture
is attached to the parameter space of the surface. As the shadows on the
floor show, soft shadows have also been activated. The membrane between
the spikes of the fins is translucent.

Spline4 - B-spline wire-frame girl
----------------------------------

This picture shows what a girl made of B-spline surfaces looks 
like as a wire-frame and when shaded. The user can decide how dense wireframe
is used in the modeller to draw the object.

In Real 3D each object can be composed of a group of sub objects.
Each of these sub objects can then be comprised of other sub objects,
and so on. For example, the girl in the picture comprises of a head,
upper and lower limbs. A lower limb is made of a thigh and a leg. 
A leg comprises of a foot and a shoe.
A shoe is made of a sole and a heel, and so on. The user can give
whatever name to any object and manipulate any hierarchical object
as easily as the post primitive object. E.g. to move the girl the user
selects 'girl' from the Select window, chooses an appropriate move method from the
menu and moves the girl on any View window to the desired position.
If the user wants to move the left leg, he/she selects the left leg and
moves it.


Art1 - Fractal landscape and tree generators
--------------------------------------------
The Tree and the bumpy ground were both made using the fractal generators
of Real 3D. The surface of the water is made of a plane and a bump map
creating the waves. In real 3D it is very easy to simulate waves by
creating an animated bump map, where the colors of the bitmap are 
appropriately modified as a function of time, thus creating the undulating
waves. Where the intensity of the color increases, there also the height 
of the wave rises.

The sun glow was created by placing an athmosphere around the sphere
depicting the sun.

Art2 - 3D fonts
---------------

The Real 3D text was created using the Extrude tool. The user can extrude
whatever shape, defining the extrusion depth and the size and shape of
the optional bevels. The tool can handle possible holes in the objects,
therefore being a perfect tool for creating logos and 3D fonts.

Real 3D also supports the Microsoft TrueType fonts. 3D font texts can be
created simply by selecting a TrueType font and font style, and entering 
the text. The font tool creates a set of B-spline curves that the
extrude tool uses to create a extruded, beveled font. These curves
can also be used for example to define animation paths.

Art3 - Coffee set with a candle
-------------------------------

The depth-of-field feature was utilized when rendering this image.
Like a real camera, the camera of Real 3D can be focused at a certain
distance, and the object in front of or behing the focusing distance
are rendered as unsharp (out of focus). The table cloth was created
by applying one color texture and one bump map texture to the
rectangle representing the cloth. The backgound has a gradient from
brown to blue. The flame of the candle is of a gaseous, glowing material
illuminated by the light source inside the flame. The coffee cup is 
a B-spline model with cylindrically projected textures. In Real 3D it is
possible to apply textures using parallel, cylindrical, spherical,
and disk projections. In addition to this, the texture can be bound
to the parameter space of the object's surface, as discussed before.



Art4 - Street and telephone box
-------------------------------

The pavement of the street was created using a bump map. The image 
has only 16 shades of gray, but the quality is good though, thanks to
the dithering made by Real 3D. Dithering means that the border between
two colored areas is faded by randomly mixing the colors near the border
so that from a distance the the colors seem to blend smoothly. You can
use many different dithering methods, whose stregth can be steplessly
controlled. The user can also select dithering on an object basis. 
Dithering makes it possible to fairly high quality images on a 256 color
Super VGA screen - images like the ones you can see in this presentation.


Art5 - Real-logo breaking through a brick wall
----------------------------------------------

Ihis picture is a still from an animation, where the Real logo breaks
through a brick wall. The wall breaks realistically thanks to the 
collision detection system. Real 3D automatically detects collisions
between objects, and handles them taking into account the physical
properties, like elasticity, mass and surface quality, of the objects.

A procedural texture was applied to the floor. A Procedural texture is
a user-defined procedure that defines the properties of a material.
Whenever a ray of the ray-tracing algorithm of Real 3D reaches a surface
having a procedural texture, the procedure is called to obtain information
on how the ray should behave at that point of the surface, possibly
reflecting. Real 3D has a built-in programming language, RPL, that
can be used for programming procedures. It is also possible to use
formulas, like 'Red=255*time'. Real 3D comes with a large selection
of ready-made procedures.

Art6 - A planetary athmosphere
------------------------------

This picture demonstrates non-homogenous materials. The athmospheres of
the star and the planet were made of a material, whose density is not
homogenous, but drops to zero as the distance from the surface gets
bigger. The light travelling through the gaseous matter makes the gas
glow the brighter the thicker the gas is. The foreground moon is a 
sphere with a bump map texture attached to it.

The background starscape was created by projecting a texture representing
the stars on the inside surface of a huge sphere.


Art7 - Tea pot, orange, candle and clothes pin
----------------------------------------------

The tea pot was constructed solely of quadric surfaces. The dents 
were created as a bump mapped texture. The flame of the candle
is of a gaseous, non-homogenous material. A light source inside the
flame makes it glow according to the density distribution. The irregular
surface of the orange is also a bump mapped texture.


