(1.0.0) Igloo Setup

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.

Initial view of Igloo Setup.

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 that the screen dimensions should reflect the area covered by the projection system only.

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. The Show Screens checkbox shows the dimensions of individual screens.

Note that the test pattern displayed to represent the screen type consists of 6 faces of a cube mapped on to the geometry of the screen. Each face is labelled with front, back, left, right, top or bottom and contains an igloo logo together with a grid pattern and solid circles in each corner.

Immersive Room

Create a box with specified Width (distance between Left screen and Right screen), Depth (distance between Front screen and Back screen), and Height (distance between Top screen and Bottom screen).

The Screens listbox enables the corresponding views (Left-Front-Right-Back-Top-Bottom) 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 (radius of the circle at the base of the cylinder), Height (distance from the base to the top of the cylinder), Angle Range (number of degrees in the circle e.g. 360 for complete closed cylinder) and Angle Offset (number of degrees to rotate the test pattern about the vertical axis).

The Wall-Floor items in the Screens listbox enable the corresponding wall and disk (floor) views in the scene. The coordinates of each screen are automatically updated from the cylinder parameters.

Dome

Create a dome scene with a given Radius (radius of the circle at the base of the dome), Angle Range (number of degrees in the circle e.g. 360 for complete closed dome) and Angle Offset (number of degrees to rotate the test pattern about the vertical axis).

The dome is modelled as a hemisphere and can be adjusted using the Lower Pitch and Upper Pitch parameters. Typically, an Igloo dome will use a front-facing projector setup with the projectors located at the top of the dome. In this case, the Upper Pitch value of 90 should be reduced so that the non-projected area where the projectors are located is defined. The Lower Pitch value of 0, represents the equator of the sphere. Adjusting this parameter allows for domes which have a bottom edge above or below the line of the sphere’s equator.

The coordinates of 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 an immersive room 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 Topology

The topology of the canvas can be adjusted to suit the installation. For a projection scene with no floor projection, the topology would typically be a horizontal row of screens. However, if the horizontal resolution is greater than 16k pixels, then moving some of the screens to form a grid instead of a row will allow the canvas to fit within the 16k x 16k limit.

For a projection scene with floor projection, it is common to have a grid arrangement, with the floor screens, positioned below the screens used for the walls. The advantage of this approach is that the width of the walls corresponds to the width of the canvas, and this has benefits when moving and scaling content. Also content can be moved from the walls to the floor with an intuitive ‘downward’ action. The illustration below shows how the floor screens can be repositioned using the left mouse button to drag them to a new location.

Canvas Resolution

The Canvas Resolution (px) values give 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 screens 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 image and defines how many projectors are used in the immersive space.

Grid Spaces, Grid Thickness and Font scale are parameters affecting the appearance of the test image. A test image preview is displayed to help visualise the effects of changes.

For Cylinder projection scenes with floor projection, Guide Lines, with a Guide Thickness parameter, can also be added to the test image to help with the warping alignment.

Each Screen can also be edited to modify 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

The Export tab enables the exporting of the generated configuration files.

An export folder can be selected which acts as the destination for the files when the Export button is pressed.

Export will produce the following files: AppSettings.xml, masks.png, ScreenModel.mtl, ScreenModel.obj, TestImage1.png, TruePerspective.xml.

AppSettings.xml

The contents of this file can be used in the Igloo Warper settings file (C:\ProgramData\Igloo Vision\IglooWarper\AppSettings.xml). Copy the relevant sections from this file into the Warper’s version of the file.

TIP - copy the AppSettings.xml file from C:\ProgramData\Igloo Vision\IglooWarper to the Igloo Setup export folder before clicking the Export button. This will modify the file with the relevant settings and it can then be copied back to its original location.

masks.png

This file is only relevant for Cylinder projection scenes with floor projection.

There are two destinations for the file:

Warper masks folder - C:\ProgramData\Igloo Vision\IglooWarper\masks).

ICE warping folder - C:\ProgramData\Igloo Vision\IglooCoreEngine\warping.

ScreenModel.mtl, ScreenModel.obj

These files should be copied to the ICE models folder (C:\ProgramData\Igloo Vision\IglooCoreEngine\models). They are used in ICE as preview tool to visualise the ICE canvas in the projection scene (see the Screen tab in the ICE Desktop UI).

TestImage1.png

This file can be shared with content creators and also used during the initial setup of the projection scene. It can be copied to the Warper test images folder (C:\ProgramData\Igloo Vision\IglooWarper\test images) and subsequently displayed on the Warper canvas to ensure the warping and blending settings are correct.

TruePerspective.xml

This file should be copied to the ICE settings folder (C:\ProgramData\Igloo Vision\IglooCoreEngine\settings). It is used to generate the perspectively correct views for each screen in the projection scene when displaying 360 degree content.