About Helicon 3D Viewer

Helicon 3D Viewer is a standalone and free utility which is included into Helicon Focus installation.
The program is designed to visualize 3D models generated by Helicon Focus application.

Only Pro version of Helicon Focus can produce 3D models. Lite version produces demo 3D models with promotional text.

Parameters tab

Surface approximation select lets you choose the resolution of the mesh used to visualize surface of the model. Highest resolution is 512x512, high resolution is 256x256 and so on. Normally 'normal quality' selection gives the best combination of performance and image quality.

Object navigator - this set of controls is designed to rotate the object and obtain the projection from any angle. Click on the icon resets all angles to predefined values.
Shortcuts: Shift+Up, Shift+Down, Shift+Right, Shift+Left, Shift+Home, Shift+End.
If control panel is hidden you can also use the same keys without Shift.

Light navigator lets you move light source aroung the object. Use these controls to create shadows stressing 3D relief of the surface.

Zoom slider changes the distance from the object.
Shortcuts: Shift+Page Up, Shift+Page Down.

Rotation speed defines how fast the object moves. Rotation speed is reset to zero if you manually move the object.

Rotation angle defines the tilt of the object during automatic rotation. Set this value to zero to rotate object around vertical axis.

Invert surface checkbox makes concave surface convex and vice versa.

Relief amplifier defines factor for z-values of the surface. Zero value makes the surface completely flat.

Smoothing slider controls degree of relief smoothing.

Texture checkbox can be used to hide texture and view color-coded relief. Red means high zones and blue means low zones.

Draw bounding box is used to stress 3D relief and give more visual information about thickness of the object.

Background button lets you choose color for background. It is recommended to select the background similar to background of the image.

Discard changes button reset all parameters to values stored in h3d file.

Reset button sets parameters to default values.

Files tab

Load model button lets you find and open *.h3d file previously saved from Helicon 3D Viewer.

Save model button opens window to save current model as a *.h3d file.

Compact (view only) checkbox can be used to save simplified model. Compact model is recommended for viewing and presentation. It is not possible to change relief and lighting of the model saved with this option.

Save snap shot writes current model view as a JPEG, PNG or TIFF image with a given resolution.

Save stereo offers saving to many image formats described below.

Angle defines the difference between left and right views. Higher values give stronger 3D effect but may cause ghosting and difficulties to human visual system.

Stereo Type select defines how left and right views are represented  on the image. Please note that it is recommended to save anaglyphs as lossless png files. Jpeg images may cause ghosting effects due to compression artifacts.

Save web animation button lets you save a web page with an embedden java script. This is the simplest way to present moving 3D object on the web.

Save video button lets you export model rotation into video file. Several video formats are available but some of them requre codec to be installed (see http://www.heliconsoft.com/codecs.html). Free XviD codec gives very high compression rate. 

Frames per second slider defines quality of the video.  Higher values will result in smoother movement and larger file size.