3D Scene Properties

Scene Properties control the overall appearance of your scene, such as background, camera behavior, and mouseover color. All scene properties are stored in two locations: logical properties found in the rules tab, and visual properties found in the scene tab, under the scene node itself. This page lists all scene properties together for convenience.

Adjusting Scene Logical Properties

To adjust the scene's logical properties, first open a 3D scene. Once the scene is open,

1. Click Rules to see the rules tree view.

2. Click the bottom-most node in the rules tree. It represents the scene itself (that node will have the same name as the scene, shown at the top of the screen).

3. Click the expanders on the right to see the properties you can adjust.

Scene Logical Properties

Property	Options
Basic
Name	The name of the scene.
Description	Add an optional description of the scene.
Scene Behavior
Allow Orbit	Allow the user to move the camera only around the surface of a sphere centered on the origin. This is useful to see meshes placed near the origin from any angle, like walking around a sculpture.
Allow Pan	Allow the user to move the camera left and right. Th
Allow Zoom	Allow the user to move the camera forwards and backwards, towards and away from any direction the camera is currently pointed.
Constrain Camera to Radius	If enabled, this helps prevent your user from getting lost in the scene. Specifically, this constrains the camera position to a sphere around the center of the scene. Users will not be able to rotate, pan, zoom, or otherwise move the camera into a position where they no longer see meshes in the scene. Use 'Camera Radius' property to set what the radius of the sphere should be.
Camera Radius	When 'Constrain Camera to Radius' is enabled, this controls the radius the sphere the camera will be contained within.
Add Mouse-Over Effects	If the user's mouse is placed onto an object, should that object's borders be highlighted? This can help your user find objects in complex scenes.
Mouse-Over Color	If mouse-over effects are active, you can select the color of the border.
Default Viewpoint	When the scene first renders for your customer, which viewpoint will they be looking through? (If you have no viewpoints defined in the scene, this option is not shown.)
Layout
	The layout expander appears only if the scene is standalone.
Layout Name	Lists both the built-in layouts (Classic, Dream, and Modern 3D) and any custom layouts designed in your environment.
Layout Options	Depending on the layout selected, various layout options are shown.

Adjusting Scene Node Visual Properties

To adjust the scene's visual properties, first open a 3D scene. Once the scene is open,

1. Click Sceneto see the scene visual editor.

2. Click the top-most node in the object tree. It represents the scene itself, and has the same name as shown at the top of the screen).

3. Click the Properties expander to show or hide the different sections of properties.
   

Scene Node Visual Properties

Property	Options
Properties
Name	The name of the scene.
Background	Color The space between meshes is a background color you specify. Transparent The space between meshes is transparent. Environment The space between meshes shows an environment map: a series of images in the distance that can give context to your meshes, and pre-defined light sources to illuminate your meshes. If you don't select "environment" as your background, then your scene has no ambient lighting. To see any meshes within your scene, you can set the ambient color below, create mesh lights / global lights, or use materials with an emissive color.
Environment	(Appears if background property is "Environment") A set of images that seamlessly stitch together into an "environment map" to give the appearance of a world around your meshes. Environments also contain light sources that match the images, so light seems to come from the light sources (e.g., lightbulbs or sun or fireplace) visible in the map. Pick from one of the pre-defined environments available, or upload your own environment.
Environment Lighting Intensity	(Appears if background property is "Environment") Control how brightly the light sources of the selected environment illuminate your meshes.
Environment Rotation	(Appears if background property is "Environment") Turn the environment map left or right (without moving any objects within the scene). This parameter is in degrees: it expects a number ranging from 0-360, but numbers outside that range are accepted and interpreted.
Environment Blur	(Appears if background property is "Background") Control how sharply the environment appears behind your meshes. Usually the environment has some blur applied to guide the viewer's attention to your product.
Ambient Color	Specify the color of ambient light in the scene, regardless of background.
Visual Options
Optimize Scene	On (the default) ensures the scene runs smoothly with a high frame rate, which may sacrifice texture quality on some slower machines. Turning off this feature maintains higher-quality textures, which could result in low frame rates and jerky animations for some users on slower devices.
Enable Multithreaded Updates	By default, we allow more powerful devices displaying 3D scenes to multi-thread their scene updates, making for a better user experience. Turn off to prevent this, which encourages processor cycle conservation on local devices.
Enable Hover Effects	When the user's cursor is over any interactive mesh, should that mesh be highlighted with a hover effect? A mesh is considered interactive when it has an interaction Snap block applied, such as "On click" or "add draggable". A hover effect is a colored edge that surrounds the mesh, customizable by the edge parameters below.
Enable Entering Fullscreen	Show the fullscreen icon to users. When clicked, the scene can fill the screen. This is useful for kiosks or presentations. Tap again (or press the ESC key) to restore the screen.
Texture Sampling Mode	Select from different ways textures are applied to meshes, ranging from faster rendering to more realistic textures. Nearest offers the fastest renders, and highest FPS (frames per second) Bilinear is a compromise between fast renders and realistic textures. Trilinear offers the most realistic textures, but may slow the FPS on some devices.
	Post-Processing Effects Post-processing effects are optional enhancements applied after the meshes are calculated and the scene is about to be shown to the user.
FXAA Post in Viewer	FXAA smooths sharp, high-contrast edges with anti-aliasing.
Lens Effects Post in Viewer	Lens Effects show lens flare and other effects when a light source is near or within the frame.
Ambient Occlusion Post in Viewer	Ambient Occlusion highlights shadows to make objects easier to identify. Two ways to manage ambient occlusion Adjust ambient occlusion in a material's texture properties for less control and efficiency, but consistency across all meshes that use the same material. Adjust ambient occlusion in the mesh's feature stack to control the effect more precisely, to apply it to a mesh independing of the material applied to that mesh, and to improve scene performance by using the effect only where needed.
Render Mode
Render Mode in Viewer	How will your customer view the scene? Shaded Display the mesh as realistically as possible, with effects from materials and lighting. Wireframe Display the mesh as a collection of vertices (points) and lines in space. A useful mode to reveal complexity of meshes, like X-ray vision. Edges (with mesh) Like the shaded mode, with additional highlighting on the visible the edges of the object. Helpful to highlight edges which may be hard to discern. (Compare with ambient occlusion, which can offer similar help in finding edges in a more subtle way.) Edges with Hidden Mesh Like the edge mode, only the mesh is invisible. Hidden Edges Like the edges with hidden mesh mode, but all edges that would not appear in real life are drawn with a dotted line. These are the same render modes shown in the scene toolbar, so they're easy to preview.
Display Edge Color Display Edge Width Display Edge Tolerance	If hover effects are enabled above, or the render mode is one of the "Edges" modes, these settings control that edge highlighting effect. What is the color of the edge around a highlighted object? How wide is that edge? How sharp an angle difference must that edge have to be highlighted? (Values usually range from 0 to 1). If too many or too few edges are being rendered in edge mode, adjust the “display edge tolerance” slider unil the desired visual effect is achieved.
Grid Options
Display Grid in Viewer	Show your customer a 2D grid, similar to the one you see in the scene designer.
Display Axes in Viewer	Show your customer the same three-color X, Y, and Z axes that you see in the scene designer.
Grid Size	Adjust the overall size of the grid.
Grid Size	Adjust the overall size of the grid.
Grid Major Step Interval	If your grid is large, define a major step to highlight every 5th line, or every 10th line. By default, this is zero (no major steps are shown).
Grid Normal	When "display grid in viewer" is on, this describes which axis would point away from the grid plane.The other two axes would define the grid plane.
Dimensions
Scalar per scene unit	A scene unit is one square shown in the grid. This defaults to 1. Specify any multiplier here to adjust the scale of the grid.
Unit	Add a text description of the scene units. The default is "m".
Loading Experience
Progressively Load Textures	If your scene includes many textures, you can speed your customer's loading time by turning this on. This first loads low-resolution textures, so the scene is ready for user interaction faster. Once all assets are loaded, then high-resolution textures are loaded in the background and applied when ready. Experiment with this setting, to see if faster loading times that can initially appear grainy are appropriate. See also the "Optimize Scene" property above.
Experience	As the scene loads, what visual indicator should be used to give your customer a sense of activity and progress? None - no progress indicator. The viewport is empty until the loaded scene suddenly appears. Fade - no progress indicator. The loaded scene fades subtly into view. Spinner (default) - a circular progress indicator is shown, then the loaded scene fades subtly into view. Image - an image from the media folder is shown, then the loaded scene fades subtly into view. "None" is appropriate only in some integration situations. Usually, providing no visual indicator of progress can cause your customers to think something is wrong and they may refresh the page after a few seconds, slowing their experience even more.
XR Augmented Reality
Enable XR	Some devices, like cell phones with cameras, support augmented reality or virtual reality (AR or VR, often referred to by the general term XR). If you would like to offer your product to your customer in augmented reality, leave this box checked. When enabled... An icon appears in the corner of the scene. When your user clicks that icon, the device's AR or VR mode will launch. Your customer can see your configured product in the room where they are standing, gaining a sense of realism and the ability to visualize how the item will fit into their context when they buy it.
Allow Scaling	Some devices can determine the size and distance of real-world objects, like tables or rooms, in AR mode. These devices can automatically scale the scene so your product appears life-size.
Units per Meter	How many scene units (defined above) fit into one meter in XR reality? By default, since scene units are themselves 1m, this defaults to 1. If your scene units are in inches, you could try 39.37 scene units per meter.
Add Shadows Estimate Lighting	Some devices can determine the location of real-world light sources. If your scene is being displayed by such a device, you can: add shadows so scene objects cast shadows onto real-world objects. estimate lighting so scene objects are lit from a similar angle and with similar colored light as the real world.
Metadata
	Metadata is a flexible key/value dictionary you can add to the scene object. Once items are in the dictionary, gather and use them in your scene Snap rules.
Connectors
	Connectors can be applied not only to any mesh in a scene, but also to the entire scene itself. This is useful when nesting scenes. A nested scene with a connector can be dragged and dropped in the parent scene, with the connector defining how the meshes in the nested scene are positioned and rotated within the parent scene. Learn more about connectors.