How to Change the Sky Image in BIMx Desktop Viewer Legacy

[Judit Boros]

Important Note

The next-generation BIMx Desktop Viewer is already available here, and also included in the package of Archicad 25. This new version lets architects and their clients access the full content of a Hyper-model, including 3D models, 2D documentation and any embedded BIM data. Read more in this article. The below described trick can be applied in the legacy version of BIMx Desktop Viewer.

Thanks to Eric Batte and Emre Senoglu for describing this tip. Find the original conversation on: Archicad-Talk. The legacy version of BIMx desktop application offers more background options to explore your project design in a professionally rendered 3D environment. This article will show you the way of changing the BIMx Skybox (360 degree cube map). With few steps only you can achieve new sky in your project:

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Step 1: Find or Create a New Skybox Image

You can create by yourself or have several options to find a Skybox image on the internet. Choose the desired Skybox images and save them to your device.

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Step 2: Arrange the Skybox Images in any Photo Editing Application

After downloading the images of the Skybox, open the 6 square images in a photo editing application. To create a Skybox, choose the "cubemap" image instead of the panorama-looking image with medium size: 4095 x 683 pixels:

Select the squares one by one and place them onto separate layers. Now you can arrange them just like it is shown in the image below. Rename the layers.

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Step 3: Save the Images in .tga Format

The originally downloaded images might have .jpg, .bmp, or other image extension. Make sure you save the images in .tga format with the following names in order to be able to use them in BIMx properly.

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Step 4: Find the Skybox in the BIMx Folder

Go to the following location to find the default Skybox image of BIMx:

• Windows: C:\Program Files\Graphisoft\BIMx Desktop Viewer\Data\Textures\Skybox

• macOS: Applications\Graphisoft\BIMx Desktop Viewer\BIMx.app (Right Click - Show Package Contents)\Contents\Resources

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Step 5: Change the Skybox Images

The BIM Explorer application uses the images of this Skybox folder to display them as the background environment. To keep the original content of the default Skybox folder, rename it first. Place your new Skybox folder containing the 6 .tga images into the BIMx Textures folder and rename it to Skybox*.

After launching the BIMx desktop application, the modified sky images will be used automatically. The available backgrounds are listed in the Settings menu/ Background. *The Textures folder does not exist on macOS, make sure you back up the original .tga files before replacing by your customised files.