October 31, 2013, 03:02:09 am
Hi GerardN
Thanks for your interest in Lumion.
.. What is the best way of importing these to Lumion, and having each file position itself correctly? I have not found an answer to this, ...
To correctly position separate imported objects in Lumion do either:
1. use the position properties dialogue to set X,Y,Z (access this in Build Mode --> Pencil (properties) Tool --> click on object icon.
2. use the Context Menu to Align objects to each other (Context Menu --> Transform --> Align).
Note the Lumion total world size is 42 km radius, which means the whole scene could be done in one Lumion scene file. However, I would not recommend that if the outer extents of the highway include intersections that you need to include in views. Reason is at those extremes from world centre there can be issues with camera, rendering aspects and placement of objects. Up to 20km is probably optimal, just depends on what is needed at the extremes.
You might find that you can do say two parts side by side, where camera views don't include the other part (depends also on camera heights you need), or split the project in to multiple scene files.
As it's what the user is given to see, then it does not matter that the whole highway is not one continuous object. Unless it has to also be presented in real-time.
I would suggest, and this is just my opinion, that animating a camera along a 40km stretch of highway is not a preferred view (it's a bit like doing a complete walk-through of a house; nice idea but it does not work that well), it's best to have strong, sharp, feature focused camera views that give added messages, than some (yawn) ride down the road

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If you have Max, try importing from AutoCAD using FBX then to Max, do some tidy-up as needed, set materials based on layers, then export as FBX or Collada.