Reconstruction volume configuration

The reconstruction volume configuration setup screen, for a setup with two Azure Kinect cameras.

In this final setup step, the reconstruction volume can be configured.

Only those parts of the scene that are inside the reconstruction volume will be part of the final volumetric videos. Thus, make sure to exclude any background objects that should not be included in the results.

The red box in the 3D view shows the current reconstruction volume. Points outside of the volume are displayed in grayscale by default; this can be configured with the “Crop preview to volume” setting on the bottom left.

You can move, rotate, and resize the volume by clicking and dragging on the corresponding handles in the 3D view:

You can alternatively use the sliders on the left to change these properties.

There is one setting which can only be changed via a slider: The “height above floor”. This lets you lift the volume above the floor (with positive values) or move it downwards to intersect the floor (with negative values). This is useful to fine-tune the height at which the reconstruction starts, including or excluding the floor from the reconstruction as desired. We generally recommend to exclude the floor by using a small positive value here.

Note that the position and rotation of the reconstruction volume determines where the final volumetric videos will appear when you later use them, for example, in a game engine plugin:

• The center point, which is marked by the red cross on the reconstruction volume floor, will be placed at the position of the game engine object that you assign the video to.

• The direction marked by the red arrow will look forward. This is useful in case your videos have a clearly defined forward direction.

Once you are done, a click on the “Next” button brings you to the recording screen.

Note

If there are still unwanted background objects in the final reconstruction volume that you want to exclude, it might be an option to mask them out.

Hint

If you would like to disable the other elements in the 3D view to focus on the red box, you can do this by clicking the “View settings” button on the top right and changing the settings there as desired.

The view settings for example also allow to change the background color of the 3D view, among other things.

Furthermore, it can be useful to set the “Crop preview to volume” setting in the left sidebar to “Show inside points only” in case there are too many background points cluttering the 3D view.