Forums >> Revit Structure >> Tips & Tricks >> Free camera matching workaround for Revit using Mk 1 Eyeball.

jfmonod

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Joined: Mon, Apr 23, 2007
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 Hi,

 Here's little workaround I use for camera matching a scene in revit with a background image.  As you know you can't dispaly a background image in a camera view. That's where "Chaos Crystal" comes in:

http://www.elgorithms.com/downloads/chaoscrystal.php

 Note : This is a "good enough" solution. In my experience, eyeballing it is good enough 9 out of 10 times.

 Open your background image in Photoshop or whatever and maximize the screen, open your camera view in Revit and maximize that too. Have Revit in the foreground "over" Photoshop and use Chaos Crystal to make the Revit screen transparent. The handy little slider allows you to dial in the transparency just right depending on the contrast between your scene and the background.

 Voila. Manipulate your camera with the wheel until your scene is displayed the way you want it over the background image and hit the render button. Untransparentize your Revit window, save the alpha as .png and overlay in Photoshop. Finalize Photoshop file, save and exit, kick back for coffee and kudos, shut down machine, call it a day, head out to jam session with other extremely cool people who are nonetheless not quite as awesome as yourself, reconvene at local watering hole and make like a Bacardi commercial.

 JF

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itsmyalterego

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Joined: Thu, May 28, 2009
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But you CAN use images as the background for renders, now :D 

But I find that it's too difficult to manipulate.  Photoshoping in backgrounds is still the preferred method, here... so thanks for the tip.  Now, I just need to weigh how much of a hassle it'll be to explain an 88kb .exe file with "chaos" in the name to the office techno-germo-phobes.

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jfmonod

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Joined: Mon, Apr 23, 2007
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 Indeed you are right  itsmyalterego , you can set a custom image as the background for your rendering, if you are willing to dig for the appropriate setting which is hidden in the bowels of the render dialogue. (Ok, not so hidden, but still not immediately obvious).

But note that I still stand correct in my declaration that you cannot display said image in the background. It does not appear in the background until the scene is rendered, thus making the aligment of your view with said image pure guesswork without multiple test renders.

 As for the name and filesize problem, yeah not the PR coup of the year. But meanwhile, developpment of this thing seems to have stopped at Windows XP and yet I'm using it on 7 x64 with no problems. Some things just can't be improved

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