Creating 3D Fly-through Videos

3D Video Fly-Through

The Global Mapper Fly-Through feature creates videos where the viewer travels over the 3-D data. This can be done in 4 easy steps:

Import 3-D data
Define flight path
Preview
Save to video file

Defining a Fly-through Path

One or more line features may be used to define the flight path. These lines can be real-world flight path data, such as from GPS, or a line drawn using the digitizer tool. If drawing a line, add a vertex at each desired key frame location. These are points that the fly-through will hit. When rendering the fly-through, frames will be created between each key frame to provide a smooth transition between key frames at a specified frame rate.

Select a line and add fly-through view data. This is done using the Fly-Through Path Properties dialog (below), which can be brought up using the Edit Fly-through Path toolbar button in the Analysis toolbar, or by selecting the feature with the Digitizer tool and right-click to go to Vertex Editing > Add Fly through parameters to an already generated line feature (accessible in 2D or 3D view). It is also accessible from the Feature Info Tool andModify Feature Info dialogs.

The editor will show a list of line vertices. These will be the location of key frames. The fly-through view requires elevation, if not already defined in line feature, frame time, and camera heading and pitch. This data can be auto-generated. Once generated, individual key frames can be edited. For any point features or line vertices with recognized timestamp attributes, a 'Time' column will be generated.

Fly-through Values

X, Y, Z— Coordinates and elevation for the key frame. Z values may already exist for the line feature, or can be auto generated from terrain data using the Elevation Mode settings.

Time — Time in seconds at which the key frame will occur in the video. This may be auto calculated based on the video duration and distance along the line.

Velocity — Speed, in meters per second, at which the video progresses through the terrain. This may represent actual aircraft velocity, or can be automatically calculated based on a choosen video duration . Key frame velocity may be edited to speed up or slow down through parts of the terrain. When velocity of key frames is modified, the overall length of the video and subsequent key frame times will be changed to compensate. The velocity at a vertex must be greater than 0 m/s

Heading —Direction that the camera is pointing in Degrees relative to True North. Values may range from 0° to 360°, measured in the clockwise direction.

Pitch— The tilt of the camera up toward the sky or down to the ground.

Bank — Bank angle values will change the side to side tilt of the camera. The acceptable values are -180 to +180, with positive values measured in the counter clockwise direction, i.e. a positive angle rotates the camera with a dip in the left wing.

Camera Mode

To generate view data, first select the Camera Mode:

Straight Ahead —The camera will always point along the flight path.

Fixed Direction— The camera will always point at the given heading (degrees from north, positive eastward) and pitch
(degrees from the horizontal, positive up).

Fixed Point — The camera will always point at the given point in space. The point is listed in coordinates based on the display Projection. Choose the Select from Map button to calculate vertices from a clicked map location.

Compute bank angle from bearing changes

Checking this option will auto calculate the bank angle based on the flight path. The bank angle is calculated from the turn radius and velocity, up to +/-30 degrees.

There will be a warning generated if the bank angles have been clamped to the maximum (+/-30°).

Smooth Results

Check this option to smooth the results for Camera Heading and Bank Angles. Rather than strictly adhering to the calculated values, smoothing can reduce the jerkiness of resulting image. This setting is recommended for lines that have been created using the digitizer trace tool, or are otherwise jagged.

Elevation Mode

Next select the Elevation Mode:

Absolute — The camera elevation at each key frame will be the specified elevation value.

Relative to Ground — The camera elevation at each key frame will be the specified elevation value above the ground level at that point. When using this mode make sure there are
key frames at each peak along the path.

Use Existing — Use the elevations already defined for the line feature.

Elevation — height value to be calculated based on the Elevation Mode.

Duration

When rendered, the camera will move at a constant velocity such that the time to travel from first to last key-frame will take this number of seconds. Preview and Save options can be found among the Fly-through tools below.

Ave Velocity

Average Velocity is automatically calculated when a video / flight duration value is entered. Auto generated fly through data is calculated at a constant velocity, using the speed and distance along the flight path to calculate the time for each key-frame. See velocity for information about varying the velocity throughout the video.

Generate Fly-though Data

Based on the specified settings above the attributes for Time, Heading and Pitch will fill in for each frame along the line.

Clear Fly-through Data

Clear the attributes for Z, Time, Velocity, Heading, Pitch and Bank Angle.

Fly-through Tools

The Fly-through tools allow previewing, rendering and saving 3D Fly-though videos.

Preview Fly-through

Launch the 3D Viewer. Click on the 'Preview Fly-through' toolbar button. This will bring up a dialog that will step through each key frame. The view parameters for each frame can be altered.

Use the path drop down to select which fly through path to preview. If the fly through path has a feature name, that will be displayed following the number. Otherwise multiple paths will be numbered.

Use the slider or the arrows to step through each key frame in the video. Use the Edit Frame button to modify the attributes of the current frame. The video parameters will smoothly transition between the key frame values.

Edit Fly-through Path

Use this option to preview and edit Fly-through data and to generate Fly-through data from selected path. The path must be selected with the digitizer tool to enable this option.

In the 3D window, the fly through path may be hidden by the 3D view properties setting. Check the Show Fly Through Paths options in the 3D View settings, or select the path in 2D to enable the edit button.

Play Fly-through

To view the fly-through video, click on the 'Play Fly-through' toolbar button.

Select Path

If multiple fly through paths are defines, the fly through options dialog will display to select which path(s) to render. The all paths option will play the fly through paths sequentially.

Play as loop (automatic repeat)

Check this option to continually loop through the preview playback.

These dialog selections will be remembered if fly through is paused. Press the Cancel button to select a different fly through path to play, or to disable the loop option.

Pause Fly-through

Pauses a fly-through video currently in progress, this button replaces the Play Fly-through button when the video is playing.

Cancel Fly-through

Cancels the fly-through video currently in progress.

Save Fly-through

Saves the selected Fly-through path to a video file. The fly-through video will render at the export speed while saving. The rendering while exporting in 3D may be slowing or less smooth than the final video result. For video export settings, see more information below.

Saving a Fly-through video

To create a fly-through video file in AVI format, click on the 'Save Fly-through' toolbar button in the 3D Toolbar. (If is not necessary to 'Render' first.) This will show a dialog to specify the desired video output.

Resolution Choices include:

360p (640 x 360 pixels) 15, 24, 25 or 30 FPS
480p (854 x 480 pixels) 15, 24, 25 or 30 FPS
720p (1280 x 720 pixels) 15, 24, 25 or 30 FPS
1080p (1920, 1080 pixels) 15, 24, 25 or 30 FPS

Format

Specify the format to export the video to. Multiple formats can be generated at the same time. After clicking ok, there will be a prompt to specify the filepath(s).

Create MPEG-4 Movie

Enable this option to save an mp4 video file.

Create AVI Movie

Enable this option to save an AVI file. AVI files can become very large, so it is recommended to use the lowest resolution and frame rate acceptable for the application and data.

AVI Options

Compression Codec choices include:

Uncompressed

Cinepak Codec by Radius (CVID)

DivX (DIVX)

DivX (DIV3)

DivX (DIV4)

DivX (DX50)

FFMPEG Codec (FLV1)

Intel IYUV codec (I420)

Intel IYUV codec (IYUV)

Microsoft MPEG-4 (M4S2)

Microsoft MPEG-4 (MP43)

Microsoft Video 1 (MSVC)

Microsoft Windows Media Video 1 (WMV1)

Microsoft Windows Media Video 2 (WMV2)

Motion JPEG (MJPG)

MPEG (MPEG)

Sharp MPEG-4 (MP4S)

Xvid (XVID)

The available codecs in this list can depend on the machine. Cinepak codex are available in 32-bit Global Mapper only. The FourCC code is included in parenthesis. For more information see http://www.fourcc.org

Quality

Use slider to set between 0 and 100%.

Create Image File for Each Frame

Use the option to Create image file for each frame to save each frame of a fly-through to a separate image (BMP, JPG, or PNG). The image frames may be created in addition to the video file(s), or in place of a video. The image frames may be used for additional video editing and then compiled into a video using video editing software and exported to additional video formats.

For example, using MS Movie Maker:

Load all frames
Select all
Select edit and change duration to desired frame duration, such as 0.067 sec for 15 fps.
Add effects and captions if desired
Save video as an MP4 file (or other)

Creating a Time Synced Fly-Through

After saving the fly-though video to a video file, the Fly-Through Video can be synced with the defined flight path. A Time Synced Fly-Through video can be created from any point features with recognized timestamp attributes or line features with per-vertex times.

A Time Synced Fly-through video can be created from a saved Fly-through video using either the Feature Info tool in the 2D workspace, or the Digitizer tool in the regular 2D workspace. With a 3D line, the Time Synced Fly-through can also be accessed in the 3D View, using the Digitizer tool.

In either the 3D or 2D workspace, select the generated Flight Path with the Digitizer tool. Right-click and select the option to Play Video Associated with Feature...

To use the Feature Info Tool, activate the Feature Info Tool Right-click in the Feature Information window (below) for the selected flight path.

Choose the option to Select Layer Video File.. from the right-click menu. Navigate to where the video file is located on the machine and click Open. Then select the option to Show Movie File at Specified Time....

Once the Time Synced Fly-through video has been created, a cursor will follow along the selected flight path in the Global Mapper workspace, indicating the time-synced location displayed in the Video Playback window.