3D Views

What is a 3D View?

A 3D View:

  • Is a document in your project that contains a defined volume of 3D space, in order to display geospatial datasets.

  • Has defined extents; these can be automatically determined by the datasets that are in the 3D space, or can be manually set by the user.

  • Can have a defined coordinate system, or an unknown (local, Cartesian) coordinate system.

  • May contain a variety of drawing planes and/or 3D geospatial objects.

Organization of Datasets in 3D Views

Geosoft 3D Views use two main groupings to organize and display information; all spatial objects within a 3D View are separated into two categories of similar data types:

  • The first grouping, Planes & Surfaces, contains all horizontal and vertically oriented planes, raster datasets, and relief surfaces (planes that have defined elevations coming from a DEM).
  • The second grouping, 3D Objects, contains all other datasets that contain true 3D coordinates included in the format. This includes voxels, geostrings, geosurfaces, 3D symbols & drillholes.
  • You can control the visibility of multiple datasets by organizing them into folders and sub-folders. Check the 3D View Layers section to learn more about datasets folder structure and hierarchy.

    • Coordinates in 3D Views

    All spatial objects within a 3D View are drawn in a single coordinate system – that is the coordinate system of the view. Any datasets that were not natively in that coordinate system are re-projected “on-the-fly” to the coordinate system of the view. The 3D View coordinate system can represent a projected (or geographic, though not recommended) coordinate system on the earth, or simply an arbitrary X,Y,Z (Cartesian) coordinate system.

    Create a 3D View

    A 3D View can be created by selecting the New option from the 3D View menu, or by right-clicking on the Project Explorer > 3D Views section and choosing New 3D View. When creating 3D Views, Oasis montaj creates a "*.geosoft_3dv" file and adds a new 3D View window to your project. Since v9.2, 3D Views are created and treated as separate, independent documents inside Oasis montaj; in previous versions, 3D Views were created as a view object inside a 2D map.

    All 3D Views that are contained in a project are listed in the Project Explorer. This allows you to easily locate and open a specific 3D View that you are looking for. From the Project Explorer, you can also:

    • Create New 3D Views or Open existing 3D Views from right mouse button menu

    • Double click on a 3D View name to open it

    • Drag-and-Drop the 3D View file from the Project Explorer list, to open it

    • And you can also Drag-and-Drop a *.geosoft_3dv file from Windows Explorer to quickly add it to the Project!

    Add Data

    Using the Add to 3D menu in the 3D Viewer, you can add a wide variety of data types: planes, relief surfaces, grids, voxels, vector voxels, geosurfaces, geostrings, isosurfaces, drillholes, 3D symbols, 2D map groups, and import a variety of third party 3D file formats.

    In the Planes & Surfaces section, a 3D View may contain any number of 2D drawing planes, each with its own name, elevation and orientation. A Plane in a 3D View may be flat, or it may have relief (elevation) defined by a grid file. Flat planes have a constant Z value representing the vertical location (elevation) of the plane. A flat plane may be placed in any orientation in 3D space, in order to represent sections. A relief surface in a 3D View cannot be oriented; the axis of the relief is always in the Z direction of the plane. If you would like the drawing plane to have relief, specify the name of a grid file that defines the surface relief. Note that if you do specify a relief grid for the plane, all objects drawn on the plane will only appear where the relief grid has data (non-dummy).

    3D Navigation Tools

    You can move around in the 3D View using the interactive navigation tools provided in the 3D Viewer.

    When viewing the 3D View, you can interactively change the point of view by rotating horizontally and vertically, you can zoom and pan into the view.

    Learn more about the navigation tools by clicking on this topic: 3D Viewer Toolbar.

    3D Manager

    The 3D Manager shows you a list of all the datasets in the 3D View and their current visibility status (on/off). Clicking on any object in the list allows you to see more detailed information about that object in the Attributes tab, and to modify certain features of the objects. You are able to modify various visual display attributes, such as transparency and colour settings for each object; you can add or delete planes, surfaces and other 3D objects. The 3D Manager tool also includes tools for modifying and controlling visual clipping of the 3D View (Clipping tab).

    Learn more about the 3D Manager tools by clicking on this topic: 3D Manager.

    3D Object Identification

    When clicking or hovering the mouse over an object in the Viewer window, you will notice that:

    • The name of the object beneath the cursor and the (X,Y,Z) location of the cursor as you move it on the selected object are reported in the Viewer status bar.
      If the view is in motion (e.g., spinning, rotating, panning, zooming), the object identification and reporting of cursor coordinates are paused, and the status bar section will simply display "None". The information is reported back once the view is no longer in motion and you move the mouse over the visible object.
    • The object is highlighted in the 3D Manager, and the scroll bar is automatically repositioned in the list to reveal the selected item.
    • The object's properties are updated in the relevant tabs in the 3D Manager (i.e., Attributes, Clipping, Legend).

    Rendering in 3D

    3D Views are sometimes rendered more coarsely when interactively rotating, or changing the orientation of the view. When you release the mouse in any of these modes, the objects will be redrawn in a higher resolution for the new point of view. The time it takes to refine the picture depends on processor speed, your 3D Graphics capabilities, the complexity of the 3D object being drawn (number of planes, number of groups, relief resolution, etc.), and the amount of RAM on your system. The rendering options can be changed in the 3D Settings dialog.

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