3.1. Reference: The main toolbar

This toolbar is used to perform all major operations on the 3DSOM Pro project. You can toggle whether it is displayed from the View > Toolbar menu item.

Project operations

The New project... button closes the current project and start a new one, prompting you to select the images to use for the new project. You can select more than one image using the Ctrl key and clicking on or dragging round the additional filenames. All the images should be in the same directory, but can be saved in different formats. You can always add more images later from the Images > Add Images... menu item.

The Open project... button closes the current project and open a previously saved project. 3DSOM Pro will try to find the images used in the project from the folder they were in when you last saved the project. If they are not there, it will look in the same directory as the project file in case you have moved the project around. If they still can't be found you will be prompted to locate the images.

The Save project button saves the current state of the project. If you haven't already saved the project, you will be prompted for a filename. Note that the undo information is not saved with the project and neither are the original images. Unless you do not wish to edit the project further, the original images should be kept in order to continue working with the project later.

The Print mat... button is used to print out the calibration target(s). This will open a print dialog so you can choose the printer to use. You can change the size of the mat from the page setup dialog by choosing File > Page Setup... menu item first.

The Change settings... button opens the 3DSOM Pro Settings Window where you can alter various settings associated with the application and current project. The current settings are saved when you close 3DSOM Pro and reloaded next time you start. Most settings are also saved with and loaded from the 3DSOM Project file.

Editing operations

The Undo model or mask change button returns either the current mask (when the Edit Masks Window is active) or the model (when the View Model Window is active) to its state before the previous operation. All operations on the mask can be undone as can any operation that modifies the model geometry or texture map. Note that operations on the images in the project such as changing their type or deleting them are not kept in the history.

The Redo model or mask change button re-applies the last operation that has been undone straight after doing Edit Model > Undo Model Edit menu item, either to the currently loaded mask or the model depending on whether the Edit Masks Window or the View Model Window is active.

View operations

The View as icons button switches the Thumbnail Window to displaying thumbnails for each image.

The View image details button switches the Thumbnail Window to a list displaying details for each image in columns.

Processing operations

The Mask all images... button opens the Mask Wizard to guide you through automatically creating masks for all the images. See the Masking the images section for more details.

The Generate surface... button opens the Surface Wizard to guide you through creating the surface shape for the object and optimising the current surface. See the Building the wireframe model section for more details.

The Generate texture maps... button opens the Texture Wizard to guide you through generating a new texture for the model. See the Adding the surface texture section for more details.

The Generate Point Cloud button opens the Point Cloud Wizard to guide you through generating a point cloud from the images. Points are generated my matching image structure across pairs of images ("multi-stereo matching"). The resulting cloud can be used in the surface optimisation step. See the Generating a Point Cloud section for more details.

The Make all button can be used to build a complete model automatically. If you haven't started a new project already, it will create a new project, prompting you for images. It then proceeds to open and run the three main wizards, the Mask Wizard, the Surface Wizard and the Texture Wizard and then opens the Export Window ready for you to choose how to save your finished model. You can interrupt this process at any point by interacting with one of the wizards.

The Export model... button opens the Export Window for exporting the finished model. The Exporting the finished model section describes the options available.

Help

The User Guide... button opens the help browser displaying the manual.