Site update - New preview rendering

Hi All,

You'll probably have noticed when you just uploaded a new model: we have changed the thumbnail rendering!

Peter announced it already 2 weeks ago at the blog and today we have released it to the live site.

New models will get the new rendering immediately, for the existing models we are running a background job (from newest to oldest model). With the number of models you all have already submitted it will take about a week to render all pictures
So, if your model is still showing the old thumb used, please have a bit of patience ...

Kind regards, Arno

It looks amazing, great work guys !

I have been watching the renderbot eating its way backwards trough the gallery, which is kinda fun !

Which axis system do you use and which orientation is rendered by default ?
It seems different now than before, or do you use some magic to determine which way is up ?

Looking good, I was going to ask the same question. I know mine always orient different than in my software when rendered before.

I also didn't think about this before, but I have specifically 2 models that are ment to be printed in transparent detail. Will it be possible to render them transparent, or will they be solid white? It'd be real nice if you could render it in your material of choice.

For VRML2 and X3D files, the Y-Axis is up (which is default for these file formats). For STL, the Z-Axis is up. I hope I did my homework right

If there are any issues with this, please let us know!

Cheers,

Bart

The new renderings look great!

I do think they'd be better cropped. A thumbnail must show feature detail to be usable. Most of the renderings are almost totally filled with white space, leaving only a small portion for the object, which is very difficult to see.

I'd much rather have edges cut off of oblong objects than a pixelated thumbnail, but they are still a huge improvement.

aeron203: Yes, we're still working on the framing/cropping. It's a rather hairy mathematical puzzle though!

49 pages down, only another 750 to go lol

The new renders look very classy!

The new renders are fantastic! A millions times better than the original ones!

...however i upload in STL, and while they always used to preview bottom-down, they now present their undersides to me... which actually makes them less useful that the previews before... :confused

I am certain tho that you'll ensure that this is not an issue in the near future tho! Great work guys!

@crisrose

Because we now also have versioning of models you can probably simply rotate you model, re-export, go to your model and select "update model", re-upload, and have it facing the correct way.
(I'm not 100% sure though, not a 3D guru)

90% of my models are belly up too, and so are the characters in the model portion of the site.. lol

I really like the new look of the default preview renders!

Could anyone with a little more experience/know-how please explain how to achieve that look (or atleast something very similar) with either Blender or MeshLab?

It would be nice to have more screenshots from various angles but still in that same style with the white-room background, soft shadows and possibly even the diffuse reflection on the groundplane.
Perhaps it could be set up as a Blender scene and all you had to do was insert your own object and rotate it to get new angles?

Patience.. more news in a few days

Because of the software i use, the datums and the assemblies (i print several pieces and assemble them myself), rotating every part isn't that easy and so it's not worth it just for a preview

Sounds like a solution is forthcoming tho!

Regardless, the new renders are ace, really really good! Well done!

A few points about the rendering :

1. The rendering is grey/white against a white background.
The lack of contrast with the background makes in difficult
to see the model, especially as thumbnails.
Sometimes the "white" parts of the model "merge" with the
white background. so you dont know which is the model
and which is the background.
A colored background like in Meshlab would be useful.

2. A "hazy" shadow is cast on the "ground". I wonder what
this shadow is for. It serves no purpose. In fact if the model
is "close" to the "ground", it looks weird with the bottom of the
model appearing as if it has been dissolved.

3. The "light" and other parts of the model
cast strange shadows on other parts of the
model. so some parts of the model look as if they are
"cracked".

I love the new renders relative to the old renders. They can still be improved.

1) The assignments of width, depth and height seem to be wrong relative to the render. My open scarab model shows dimensions of:

Height 9.8 cm
Width 6.7 cm
Depth 4.4 cm

Depth can mean anything, but height means distance from the ground. These dimensions, therefore, would indicate that the model is higher/taller than it is wide or deep. Yet it is quite obvious that the model is shorter in height than in any other dimension; the dimensions should be

Height 4.4 cm
Width 9.8 cm
Depth 6.7 cm

(width and depth could be switched).

2) Cropping is wildly off. For this same model, the render takes up a minority of the space, seriously impeding the customer's ability to get information about the model from the render. Whitespace is uninformative! This echoes comments of others.

3) With a pure white background -- which I agree is very attractive -- there is a tendency for the eye to get confused about what is a highlight/reflection and what is the background. Even a slight tint would make a big difference.

Overall, the purpose of the renders is twofold: look good (to attract people to Shapeways in general) and be informative (to attract people to this model in particular). Currently, the renders succeed on the former, and could be much more successful on the latter.

Thanks for listening...

Did the script break? I decided to track it down to see where it was, and it seems to have stopped on https://www.shapeways.com/model/38945/rocket_missile.html Sort by date, page 578, 2nd from last on the page.

Hi,

It is still running, but it is taking a lot more time as anticipated. We have lots of new uploads the last few weeks and these are ahead in the queue.

We started with the highest model IDs and are working backwards. Based on your link I browsed to a few older models and eg: https://www.shapeways.com/model/38941/ also has a new render now ....

So it is still going ... slow but steady

Kind regards, Arno

Yea, I looked at it again later and it was moving again. Poor script is getting a work out lol.