2.5.1. CAMERA COMPONENT

Cameras are used by the simulation components to take images of a scene. Although the simulation components are capable of creating their own cameras based on the active Rhino viewport, using the Camera component offers more options and greater control.

Camera component (left) connected to Glare component (right).

INPUTS

• [N] Name

  string

  An optional camera name. If you set up a visualization with more than one camera, the camera names will be appended to the image file names. (Otherwise they will be called "Camera 1", "Camera 2", etc.)

• [V] View

  string

  You may choose one of the following modes for constructing a camera view:

  • Use active Rhino viewport
    In this mode, the component will gather the camera location, direction, and up vectors from the active Rhino viewport. Note that two-point perspectives are not supported in Radiance, and will be converted to one-point perspectives by DIVA.

    When a camera is created in active view mode, it will remain active for the rest of its life. So as you move around in the active viewport, the camera will respond. To fix the view, use one of the two modes below.

  • Use a saved Rhino view
    In Rhino, you can save views using the dropdown menu in the upper left hand corner of the viewport:

    Any views saved in this fashion will subsequently appear in the Camera component's View menu. To convert the view to a daylight camera, simply select it from the dropdown, or input the view name as text from an external source.

  • Manual (create from scratch)
    If you want to control a camera algorithmically, you should choose manual mode. When this option is selected from the dropdown menu, four additional inputs will appear on the Camera component (if previously hidden). These are the inputs you should use to specify the view type, position, direction, up vectors of your camera. The default values of these parameters produce an upward looking fish-eye lens, which is a convenient means of visualizing the sky environment. Make sure your Up and Direction vectors (VU and VD) are orthogonal.

• [VT] View Type

  string

  When the camera component is in active or saved view mode, its default behavior is to deduce view type from the referenced Rhino view. This is referred to in the VT menu as "Default (based on selected view)".
  

  You can, however, override this behavior by selecting one of the view types below it. (The result will be a view taken from the vantage point of the active or saved view, but with a different type of lens.) When the camera component is in manual mode, there is no Rhino view to defer to, so you must select a type explicitly.

  • Perspective
    In this

  • Parallel
    In this