Introduction
Igloo Setup is used to generate configuration files for an Igloo installation, also known as a projection scene.
A projection scene specifies the geometry and properties of a set of screens in a given space.
The application starts up with the initial view shown below.
The user interface consists of four tabs - Screen, Canvas, Projectors and Export, which are intended to be used sequentially. These represent the stages in the Igloo Setup modelling pipeline. The workflow begins by defining the geometry of the Screen. The Canvas tab uses the screen dimensions to determine the pixel resolution of the space. Likewise, the Projectors tab uses the canvas to specify the projector regions and other attributes. Finally, the configuration files are generated in the Export tab.
Screen
The Screen tab specifies the geometry of the projection scene.
The geometry is specified as a Screen Type with the following types supported: Immersive Room, Cylinder and Dome.
Note than the screen dimensions should reflect the the area covered by the projection system.
The Screen starts with a text box entry specifying the Eye position. It is followed by a dropdown menu used to specify the Screen Type - Immersive Room, Cylinder, and Dome. The Show Screens checkbox shows the dimensions of individual screens.
Immersive Room
Create a box with specified Width Left/Right, Depth Front/Back, and Height Top/Bottom.
The Left-Front-Right-Back-Top-Bottom listbox enable the corresponding views in the scene. The coordinates of these views are automatically updated from the dimensions of the box.
Cylinder
Create a cylinder scene with a given Radius, Height, Angle Range, and Angle Offset. The Wall-Floor items in the listbox enable the corresponding wall and disk (floor) views in the scene.
Again, the coordinates of the each screen are automatically updated from the cylinder parameters.
Dome
Create a dome scene with a given Radius, Height, Angle Range, and Angle Offset. The Wall-Floor items in the listbox enable the corresponding wall and disk (floor) views in the scene.
Again, the coordinates of the each screen are automatically updated from the dome parameters.
Canvas
The Canvas tab displays a planar layout of the screens generated in the projection scene. The screenshots below illustrate examples of canvas layout for a box and a cylinder projection scene respectively.
The canvas region is a composition of all screens in the projection scene with empty space in between. The canvas border is an axis aligned bounding box whose purpose is to give a visual cue of the canvas region and is drawn as thick yellow line.
Canvas Resolution (px) this is the overall canvas resolution in pixels specified in width and height respectively. The canvas resolution is calculated using the resolution of one of the width and height parameters together with the aspect ratio of the screen. Enter the known value of one of the parameters, based on the immersive space design drawings. The other dimension will then be automatically calculated and updated.
The height and width values of each of the views which make up the projection scene are also calculated automatically. These are displayed below the Canvas Resolution as width, height pairs and labelled Left Resolution, Front Resolution, Right Resolution etc.
Projectors
The Projectors tab presents settings which control the appearance of the test cards. It also defines how many projectors are used in the immersive space, which in turn, provides settings for a multi-window setup of ICE.
Grid Spaces, Grid Thickness and Font scale are purely visual changes. A test card preview is at the bottom of the screen to help visualise the effects of changes.
Each Screen can also be edited to increase the number of projectors. To add a second projector to the left screen, for instance, we’d change the number of columns to 2:
Export
Allows the exporting of the files generated. Export will produce the TruePerspective.xml file which should be placed in the Igloo Capture and IglooWeb folders, and will also produce the AppSettings.xml file and the test card image.
The output of Igloo Settings Tool is a camera settings configuration file, which can be used within the Igloo Software Suite. The following snippet contains an example of a camera settings file.
TruePerspective.xml File
The generated configuration file can be further edited and used to model and validate the geometry of the projection scene.
It is composed by a top section section specifying the dimensions of the camera texture and the camera eye position. The viewers section contains a list of cameras in the scene.
<version>1</version>
<dimensions>
<width>6144.000000000</width>
<height>1024.000000000</height>
</dimensions>
<eye>
<X>0.000000000</X>
<Y>0.000000000</Y>
<Z>0.000000000</Z>
</eye>
<viewers>
<camera>
<type>Cylinder</type>
<roi>
<W>0.500000000</W>
<H>1.000000000</H>
<X>0.500000000</X>
<Y>0.000000000</Y>
</roi>
<radius>2.500000000</radius>
<height_lo>-1.100000024</height_lo>
<height_hi>1.100000024</height_hi>
<theta_lo>-180.000000000</theta_lo>
<theta_hi>180.000000000</theta_hi>
</camera>
<camera>
<type>Disk</type>
<roi>
<W>0.500000000</W>
<H>1.000000000</H>
<X>0.000000000</X>
<Y>0.000000000</Y>
</roi>
<pa>
<X>-2.500000000</X>
<Y>-2.500000000</Y>
<Z>-1.100000024</Z>
</pa>
<pb>
<X>2.500000000</X>
<Y>-2.500000000</Y>
<Z>-1.100000024</Z>
</pb>
<pc>
<X>-2.500000000</X>
<Y>2.500000000</Y>
<Z>-1.100000024</Z>
</pc>
<radius_lo>0.000000000</radius_lo>
<radius_hi>2.500000000</radius_hi>
<theta_lo>-180.000000000</theta_lo>
<theta_hi>180.000000000</theta_hi>
</camera>
</viewers>