How to create 360° Renders

[Szabolcs Miko]

In Archicad 22 the Cinerender engine introduced the Spherical Camera, making it possible to create 360° renders. What can you use it for?

As embedded pictures on websites, combined with BIMx Webviewer's functions, this can become a powerful tool of representation. Also, most of the social media portals can and will show 360° panoramas or pictures. E.g. see how Facebook does it here.

It is listed under the Detailed Render settings in the PhotoRendering Settings dialog (Document/Creative Imaging/PhotoRendering Settings). If we enable the Spherical Camera a number of available settings will appear:

FOV (Field Of View) Helper

We can decide if we want to render the entire sphere (Equirectangular) or just above the horizon (Dome)

Mapping

It describes how the 360° image will be handled

• The Lat-long mapping,  also know as latitude/longitude or equirectangualr is most commonly supported

• In some cases we might need to use Cube Map, is a method that uses the six faces of a cube as the map shape

Fit Frame and Use full range

By using Fit Frame the region to be rendered will be stretched so the entire bitmap is filled out. Use full range enabled will use the entire all-around view or, if disabled only a portion that is defined by the view angles below

For further details, check the CineRender - Spherical Camera tutorial in our Youtube channel  Also, don't forget to read Maxon Help's detailed article about 360° renders. See: Spherical Camera