LDD Field of View.

[Alcom1]

The field of view of LEGO Digital Designer is... drumroll please...

27.2 degrees.

That is not a good thing. That is a bad thing. All my LDD screenshots look like they're taken through a pair of binoculars, or a camera with the zoom stuck at maximum. I can't get good interior screenshots, or any screenshots with good width and depth, and I do not like that!

It shouldn't be that hard to fix either.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Alcom1

[DLuders]

@ Alcom1: Welcome to Eurobricks! You should use LDD's arrow tools to change the default field of view. You can right-click on a brick of interest, and zoom into that brick by using your mouse wheel. Perhaps you should consider doing LDD2Povray renders if you're unhappy with LDD screenshots....

[jamesster]

@ Alcom1: Welcome to Eurobricks! You should use LDD's arrow tools to change the default field of view. You can right-click on a brick of interest, and zoom into that brick by using your mouse wheel. Perhaps you should consider doing LDD2Povray renders if you're unhappy with LDD screenshots....

That changes the camera position and rotation, but not the field of view.

Edit: Here, perhaps this random picture plucked off of Google Images will help show what the FOV is: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/electronics/binoculars/nikon/ApparentField_of_View._V202987062_.jpg

Edited January 27, 2013 by jamesster

[Alcom1]

That changes the camera position and rotation, but not the field of view.

Jamesster's right. There's a difference between zooming the camera (which changes the FoV), and moving backwards (which doesn't change the FoV).

Edited January 27, 2013 by Alcom1

[jamesster]

And "zooming out" in LDD simply makes the distance at which the camera orbits the target point greater, it doesn't affect the FOV as far as I can tell.

Here's some quick examples I threw together in a 3D engine of what happens when you change the FOV. Notice what happens in the "Camera Preview" window as the FOV increases...

FOV of 10°

FOV of 30°

FOV of 60°

FOV of 90°

FOV of 140°

So yes, the FOV for LDD is strangely quite small and awkward - as Alcom said, almost like building through binoculars.

Edited January 27, 2013 by jamesster

[DLuders]

So what can anybody do about it? Probably nothing.

[jamesster]

That's what we're asking - is there a way to change it? Often times, games and such will store the FOV value in some sort of configuration file somewhere, which can be altered to the user's liking. If LDD does this as well, then fixing it should be fairly simple.

[Flipz]

Huh. I never noticed this before. I wonder if it's affected the way I build my models?

I seem to recall people messing about with custom camera settings (including FOV) back in the day of the original versions (i.e. the days when FACTORY was brand new), but I have NO idea if it's still possible now.

[jamesster]

Found some old posts on the subject...

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=58396&st=25#entry1073211

11. Camera option FOV (old LDD 1.x 2.x function) and depth of field (render).

So, did old LDD versions allow for the user to select the FOV?

Also:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=35736&st=100#entry782585

For the handy, there is actually a way to exactly control the camera. Since the last camera position is saved in the LXF-file, you could theoretically edit the LXF-file, open in LDD, take screenshot, edit LXF (move camera slightly) and so on (naturally done programmatically). Here's how the camera control looks in a typical LXF-file:

 <Cameras>
   <Camera refID="0" fieldOfView="80" distance="45.073841094970703" transformation="-0.97664004564285278,0,0.21488156914710999,0.095206424593925476,0.89648967981338501,0.43271464109420776,-0.19263909757137299,0.44306463003158569,-0.87554770708084106,-3.8829848766326904,20.219125747680664,-33.864303588867188"/>
 </Cameras>

However, if anyone want's to give it a go, I say: Good Luck

... So, now the FOV is stored in the model file itself?

Edit: Ok, as far as I can tell, that fieldOfView="x" bit doesn't do anything - I changed it to all sorts of values, and wasn't able to tell any difference when I loaded the altered model.

Edited January 27, 2013 by jamesster

[Calabar]

Try to add the request to the "LDD 5, what do YOU want?" topic, maybe the LDD Team will decide to add it in the next release.

Anyway remember that hight FOV would distort the image, Maybe the FOV of LDD is regulated so that the image is less deformed as possible.

When I played Quake, I used FOV 110°, and the image was surely a bit deformed.

About your tests with the lxf file, try with a file as simple as possible, looking inside the lxfml file if there are other camera parameters you didn't seen.

[Superkalle]

As far as I know, there is no way to change the FOV inside the LDD GUI. If you want to get a "screenshot" in a different FOV, your best bet is to use LDD2PovRay and generate an image that way.

Oddly enough however, I found that if you edit a LXFML file and change the FOV to something, for example "fieldOfView="30"", and then SaveAs to some file name, the preview PNG-file inside the LXF will have the FOV you stated. Off couse, that small PNG can't be used for much, but still an odd little quirk, see below