Topic: Import photo as real landscape

[OnkelPony]

I am planning to buy Lumion. One feature is quite crucial for me. I need to make visualisation pictures situated in real environment. For example I make several photos on the spot of the planned building, then import those pictures (bitmaps) to Lumion. Then I put the construction "in front" of the picture, so it looks "exactly" like the future building in its real environment. Is it possible with Lumion?

Thanks

[peterm]

Hi OnkelPony

Yes, that can be done.  You need to simply add either planes or cylinder to hold the photos (as a texture) at the back views for the scene, or add a semi-hemisphere (sky dome) with background textured.

The backgrounds may need editing to remove the sky part of the images and replaced with transparency so that the Lumion sky can be seen, or you may leave as is depending on needs.

Camera views would of course need to be controlled to avoid mis-matching the Lumion environment with any real environments.

There are some examples of how to by users in the forum topics.  Will try and hunt them out for you.


Edit: some topics of interest:
Integration betwen Background Image and Landscape.  See Nico's technique.

Custom backgrounds in Lumion

slightly OT but part of real environment techniques:
Project using Overlay Image

[IdeaImmagine]

Very interesting!

[WholeConstruction]

The links for this don't seem to work and I'd love to know how to do this.  Any idea where I can find these threads you reference?  Thanks!

[Morten]

Hi WholeConstruction, the links above have now been updated.

[dagab]

Nope, only the last link works

[Morten]

Hi dagab, welcome to the Lumion Support Forum.

Unlicensed users have only got access to a small part of the Lumion forum - the rest is hidden from view until you register a license. In other words, all of the links above work fine for licensed users.

Which version of Lumion are you using?

[dagab]

Ok,

Im not using any Lumion at all, im on a mac. But i´m trying to have my boss to get us a PC soon so we can start using Lumion. To be able to use images as background would almost be crucial for us, or at least be able to have to the scene rendered in a specific scene so we can add the background later in PS

Maybe this is a piece of cake to do in Lumion but I have never tried the program so im sorry if asking for something that is obvius. However, most of the images I´ve seen from Lumion are solitary buildings with a built up environment, not often placed in its real environment

I guess lumion 7 pro would be our choise

[peterm]

Hi dagab

OK.  Although it is possible to use Lumion on a Mac (with Bootcamp), Lumion is designed for Windows PC as the preferred platform.  Please make sure when looking at PC options that they meet at the very least minimum specifications, preferably recommended or above.  We can help with some advice in that area.

Here's some information to guide you:

1.  Which computer do you need for Lumion?.
2. Which graphics card do you need?
3.  Passmark: Videocard Benchmarks.

also:
Web site Guide: Hardware for Lumion.


Now, back to topic  .  Adding real place images for backgrounds is quite easy.  You have a few options depending on what camera views you are working with.  You can simply add a plane and apply the backdrop image to the plane, use a cut cylinder with your backdrop (you need to map that first in a 3d modelling application), or to block out the whole Lumion clouds and sky you can even add a semi-hemisphere model with it's own backdrop and images.  The cylinder technique is usually done by clearing any sky in the image so that Lumion's great sky/clouds can be used, and can be mapped so that the backdrop gives a full 360 surround.

Not a one step process as such, but they are straightforward and easy to incorporate in to workflows, plus the options are more flexible that way.

Note that when you are ready to evaluate Lumion you have two options to test Lumion.  Refer our Knowledge Base Article:Is there a Demo or Trial version of Lumion?.  We recommend the Trial version as it is the current release version.  Please ensure that, apart from meeting specifications, Windows and graphics drivers are up to date.