Creating High Quality Images

Unfortunately, Reflectiveness and Transparency dramatically increase the computational demands of RTFact.
To be able to interact with BALLView and to further improve your picture, however, you can The Downsampling factor can be set in the Preferences dialog. Click the menu entry
"Edit->Preferences".
Highlight Display->Main in the Entries list on the left side.
Move the slider in the Downsampling factor box and set the downsampling factor to 2. Then, activate your choice by clicking the Apply button.
Now the resolution is decreased, and thus allows faster interaction.
Next, change the camera position to find a nice viewpoint for your scene.
For the final picture we need to increase the resolution again.
Set the Downsampling factor back to 1.

Antialiasing

Have a closer look at the boundaries of the SES surface. The artefacts at the edges can be removed using Antialiasing.
Start the Antialiasing by pressing the space key and watch the scene closely for the next 15 seconds.
The renderer will now render continously and the scene will converge to a much nicer image. This is particularly important when using reflections!
To stop the Antialiasing press again the space key.

Exporting Pictures

After our efforts to create a nice scene, let's export the scene into a picture.
The current content of BALLView's scene can be exported into a PNG file by clicking the menu entry
"File->Export Image->PNG...".

Specify the file's name and location in the upcoming dialog and Save.

Offscreen Rendering

For publications or even posters one might need higher resolution than the one provided by the computer screen. For those cases, BALLView offers Offscreen rendering. The offscreen resolution factor can be increased in the Preferences dialog. Click the menu entry
"Edit->Preferences".
Highlight Display->Main in the Entries list on the left hand. Activate the Use offscreen rendering for PNG's box and increase the resolution factorto 4. Confirm your choice by pressing the OK button.
Now, export the scene again as a PNG-file (as shown above) and compare both images.

Projects

After our efforts to create a nice scene, one might want to store the molecule(s) and the renderer's settings together. For this purpose, BALLView offers storing Projects.
Projects can be stored by clicking the menu entry
"File->Save Project".
This completes our interactive tutorial of BALLView with RTFact.
Additional information and features can be found in BALLView's manual, which is available in the program itself and at www.ballview.org.



Press Cancel to close the tutorial.