FAQ

1. Load VRML file into the input file list
2. Click tickbox to the right of the filename, enabling Options to specify the “Coin Interface”
3. Go to Interface Settings tab
4. On top menu (“Apply Settings to”) use drop-down to specify input file only (not “Default Settings”)
5. Scroll to bottom, in Coin Interface parameter group
4. Enable “ANSYS FEA Filter”
5. Convert

Please see extended FAQ on our community forum for further details.

If the PDF created from an STL file appears as a pure saturated white surface without shading, try the following steps:

1. Add File or Drag & Drop the STL file into the Input Files box
2. Select the STL file row, enable the Options checkbox, select the STL interface.
3. Then go to the Interface Settings tab, and select STL from the “Preferred Interface” drop down list.
4. Near the top of the panel is a file selector (“Apply Settings to”), pull down to pick one of the STL files at a time.
5. Then near the bottom of the panel there should be an STL Interface sub-menu.
6. The color selector can be set to the color for the individual file.
7. If more than one STL is being merged, select another STL, and set color as before.

Please see extended FAQ on our community forum for further details.

Using ReportGen there are color material menus which could be used to alter colors during conversion, creating a new PDF from the same input file.

If adding custom JavaScript into the PDF, events or buttons could perform actions including setColor() to change the highlight color of an object dynamically.

1. Load GeoTIFF file and set output file name.
2. Set “Extended Log” (in “General Conversion Settings” panel on the Conversion tab) to watch out for any errors or warnings.
3. Set Subsampling Parameters and Tin Parameters options (on Gridding tab) – especially helpful for larger grids.
4. Assign elevation colormap file (in “Color Mapping” panel on “Visual Effects” tab), set its range, assign the GeoTIFF channel to control elevation in 3D surface, set null-data (“No Data Value”) flag value.
5. Convert.

3D TIFF format is not supported for stack of images mode, for Volumetric or VOXEL display. Adobe Reader 3D PDF display only supports 3D geometry, without any direct volumetric rendering. Alternatives are to use level-set isosurfaces, or a series of slice planes with per-pixel transparency.

If the input mesh has colors (RGB three-channel color values) on each vertex of the mesh, sometimes new color bands are introduced giving incorrect representation.

In this case try going to the Advanced tab, and turning off the “Enable VCT” setting in the “Color Options” panel. This may have a side effect of disabling lighting effects due to default Adobe behavior.

An alternative method is to adjust advanced XML settings using “Color to Texture” options – please email for assistance of this approach.

Withing PDF3D ReportGen and pdf3d.io geospatial co-ordinates can be applied to a PNG file in three ways:

a) create a .pgw world file with the same name as your PNG,
b) create a .proj projection file containing well-known-text (WKT) coordinates, such as EPSG code,
c) assign it manually using the Geospatial tab menus in ReportGen, but this is mostly about the 3D model, so if draping onto a surface the image should come in already georeferenced.

Try enabling Diffuse, Specular, Ambient, and Shininess.

Then set their values to:
diffuse = dark grey
specular = black
ambient = full white
shininess = zero

Please see extended FAQ on our community forum for further details.

One possible way to reduce the size of the generated PDF file created by PDF3D ReportGen is to enable “Simplification Options” and adjust the parameters in this panel under the “Advanced” tab.

This refactors the 3D model geometry (via re-meshing) to create smaller versions of the model with fewer triangles, lines or points.

With large point clouds containing many millions or 100s of millions of points, the shear size is too much for the Adobe Reader and the 3D PDF format to handle. So some reduction, decimation or simplification is required to get a reasonable result. A good rule of thumb is to aim for 1 million points in the PDF. For example if the input .pts, .las or other point cloud format contains 50 million point, a 50:1 reduction should be applied. On the “Gridding” tab of ReportGen, set the “subsample” parameter to 50. Also be sure to change the “Interpolation” mode to “Point Cloud”. A further more sophisticated technique is to use the Advanced tab Simplification options. See the manual chapter on this for a full explanation.

Please see extended FAQ on our community forum for further details.

1. First, create a compelling layout and graphic design using your favourite
authoring tool such as Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Microsoft WORD or PowerPoint.
This can include words, photos, graphics without restrictions. Just one more thing – leave an area where a 3D view could be dropped in.
2. Use your authoring tool to write a PDF file version of your design.
3. Identify a suitable 3D model file, from CAD – such as AutoCAD DWG, or 3D Studio Max 3DS, or similar.
Check the file format list.
4. With PDF3D ReportGen started up, on the Input/Output page,
– use Add File or drag and drop your 3D file into the input file list.
– use Template PDF File Pathname to your brochure design file from step 2.
– use Output Path filename to set your final brochure filename.
5. Measure the margin distance from edge of the design to the 3D view area,
and set this information using the Page Layout menu.
6. Click Convert and see your new 3D brochure!
7. Save your settings for next time using the Export State button. For more help, watch the video demo Getting Started – Using Templates.

Using ReportGen, these steps show how to create Basic Side-by-Side views on same page.
1. Start ReportGen
2. Load 3D File “A”
3. On Page Layout tab, adjust Right margin to about half page size
4. On security table remove check for security options.
5. Set output filename to “A-Temporary.pdf”
6. Convert, check layout of PDF view.
7. Delete file “A” from input list.
8. Load 3D File “B”
9. On Page Layout tab, adjust Right margin back to 50, set Left to half page size
10. Set output filename to “side-by-side.pdf”
11. Set Template PDF to “A-Temporary.pdf” using file browser.
12. On 3D Template Update mode dialog, do not accept “Replace” mode,
13. Push Adjust Merge Mode button to bring up additional menu
14. Set Merge mode to “MERGE 3: At Page”,
15. Click check-box for write onto existing page, click OK
16. Re-enable security selection.
17. Click Convert Button
18. Check new PDF, see that both 3D views are working.
19. For Adding View SynchronizationAt step 6 above, export state file to part1.pdf3dsettings.
20. Edit file with XML friendly editor, copy and paste section from states/side_by_side_part1.pdf3dsettings
21. Save edits, import back into ReportGen and convert.
22. Continue and repeat steps 7 through 18. Create Side-by-Side example using batch script
23. Locate states folder where is located side_by_side_part1.pdf3dsettings, side_by_side_part1.pdf3dsettings and SIDE-BY-SIDE.bat.
24. Double click on SIDE-BY-SIDE.bat, which loads each in turn creating 2-view PDF

Shininess can be controlled from the materials menu in ReportGen, or by Assembly Properties in XML.
1. Start ReportGen.
2. Load a simple object 3D file such as samples/stl/teapot.stl
3. Enable the options setting toggle next to the filename, select Interface (in this case set to “STL interface” to match file type)
4. Go to “Visual Effects” tab. At top of menu panel change Apply Settings to: change selection from “Default Settings” to “te4apot.stl”. Now all our changes will be specific to only that object.
5. At bottom of panel open “Material” group.
6. Enable the tick boxes [x] “Specular Color” and [x] “Shininess”
7. For very dull, flat surface effect, set specular color to mid-level gray, and shininess to zero. For a sparkly metallic shiny surface, set specular color to strong golden color, set shininess to 25.0.
8. Convert and compare results.
If you have a 3D model with a texture, and you wish to see the texture image with minimal distortion due to lighting effects, then: the controls that should work to show the best texture are to specify overrides for all of ambient, diffuse and specular. Set Ambient to full white, and drop diffuse and specular to black.

Please see extended FAQ on our community forum for further details.

Regarding lighting/normals, sometimes it may be preferred to have constant normal vector within surface of single triangle, resulting in “flat” lighting. If this is the case then there is no need to store normals in PRC stream explicitly, they could be auto-generated implicitly. There is special parameter to control how normals will be auto-generated. By using PDF3DIntermediateModel::SetCreaseAngle(), this is threshold angle in degrees between planes of adjacent triangles for averaging shared normals. Set it to ZERO and each triangle will have normals based only on it’s plane resulting in “flat” lighting. (setting it to value like 45 degrees would result in “smooth” lighting).

The 3D viewport can be arbitrarily specified to be placed in any rectangular area on the page. PDF3D-SDK also includes a full API for generating 2D text, line and area graphics, and full JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP images. Using the injection mode, a 3D view can also be placed in an existing 2D PDF document generated by another system.

PDF3D systems allow for merging multiple files at the same time into the same view, and each file can be a different format. As long as the world coordinate systems match, LiDAR, PTS, XYZ point geospatial cloud files can be merged with CAD 3D models such as DWG, DWF, DXF or STL models, where the result is merged as layers in the 3D PDF.

Using PDF3D ReportGen that can be converted, with some care and adjustment. By simply taking default settings, a may be converted and contain millions of triangles.This is often unstable or unusable in the Adobe reader because of the model size. A number of adjustments can be made for the conversion to create a more practical PDF.

The DWG loader can be adjusted to convert only 2 levels of hierarchy without layers. See Interface Settings, Teigha Interface parameters. On these parameters the tesselation tolerance can be increased. Lines can be suppressed for a much smaller file.

The Advanced tab VCT should be disabled, and by enabling the simplification options to reduce the triangle count to perhaps to 1 million or 500k. At 800k triangles without lines, the PDF generated is 3 Mb, far smaller than the 73Mb DWG.

Please see extended FAQ on our community forum for further details.

Try these steps in the menus of PDF3D ReportGen to create multiple 3D floating images:
1. Load all images into input file list (JPEG, PNG, TIFF…)
2. on Animation tab, enable [x] Exploded
3. on Interface Sttings – Common Parameters tab, select each individual image from drop-down menu and “Create Options”.
4. For each image selected, enable position and rotation options and set values.
5. On converting, select “STL Interface” from dialog menu.

ReportGen has a list of interfaces responsible for file conversion. Open the “About” panel to see this list. Each interface may support more than one format. Some formats are possible in more than one interface – i.e. they are not unique disjoint sets. Leaving ReportGen without ticking the options box, so interface is just “Default Interface”, means that if there is only one interface possible for that format, it will go ahead automatically without any further user settings needed. This means that general default settings will be used for all parts. However, if more than one interface is possible, in “Default Interface” case, a dialog appears showing a list of possible interfaces, normally the first one is selected if you push OK. Now, maybe this part has not been clear: We have the idea of setting options for each part by ticking the checkbox next to the file name. For instance if you have two input files, you might want different settings for each part. You can also specify the interface using the drop-down menu which replaces “Default Interface”. After enabling options, then settings can be applied at two levels: (a) general default settings for all parts, and (b) individual settings for a particular part. As an example, when loading a point-cloud input file, type .PTS, there is only GRD Interface available. So leaving Default Interface or selecting options and setting GRD Interface will both cause identical operations. On the Gridding tab, these points can be treated by interpolation in “Point Cloud” or “IDW” methods. Because options are selected, use the object selector pull-down menu to select the specific point cloud file. Now change the interpolation mode. If you only change it for all parts as a general setting, it may have no effect because the file specific setting will override it.

Adding a 3D comment into a 3D viewport can be performed by attaching the comment to a view. It is often a good practice to create a special view to hold the desired orientation and comment. Only when this view is selected is the 3D comment visible. The PDF can be viewed, commented saved and reloaded by someone else.
The order of operations is:
a) Create a 3D PDF without security – to allow commenting, editing and saving
b) Open model tree menu on the left side
c) Add a new camera view, name it to something meaningful
d) In Adobe Reader, right-mouse click in 3D view, expose tools sub-menu, click Add 3D Comment
e) In Acrobat, Using 3D toolbar – click Add a 3D comment button, select 3D position and message
f) Save the edited PDF
g) Reload in a new session, go to new view to see the 3D comment

Please see extended FAQ on our community forum for further details.

To get a two separate views using the WORD plugin:
– In WORD, push Add 3D View a second time, so the document has two different 3D view areas identified.
– Export to 3D PDF template using the PDF3D toolbar button.
– In ReportGen specify the template just generated
– Turn off security
– Load your first 3D model file.
– Convert and save to a temp filename, say “G1.pdf”
– load 2nd 3D model file,
– replace the original template filename with G1.pdf
– on Conversion tab export parameters block, set the merge mode to Placeholder layout (it may have switched to replace…)
– specify annotation number 2 (as opposed to the first one which is already present).
– Convert, should now see both 3D models in separate views.

PDF3D software has a built-in facility to insert into the current PDF page or append new pages into existing PDF documents without using any external tools. Views with 3D can be placed precisely into existing page layouts. Alternatively, the PDF3DMerge utility can be used to combine pages. In addition PDF3D can output a U3D or PRC file which can be loaded into Adobe Acrobat Pro or LaTeX. Further, there is a template replacement system, where an existing 3D PDF file with a dummy 3D view containing a simple place-holder object can be replaced with an actual 3D model for a final PDF result.

By enabling a simple toggle control, PDF3D can produce PDF/E compliant files. These files follow the current guidelines in the draft ISO specifications. Since the PRC specification is currently published, however with PDF/E ISO 24517-­2 is still in committee, the generated files assert compliance to a provisional draft standard. The Adobe Acrobat Preflight analysis tools have not yet been updated to recognize PRC encoding, so only U3D encodings will currently show validation. In both U3D and PRC cases, the Adobe Reader will show the assertion of PDF/E standards compliance. Note that if you create PDFs containing other unrelated elements, custom page javascripts, these may break PDF/E compliance. Visual Technology Services is not responsible for any content generated using PDF3D tools.