Table of Contents

This page describes the V-Ray Mesh Viewer and its usage.

 

Overview

The V-Ray Mesh Viewer is a simple tool that previews V-Ray mesh and alembic files. It can display both static and animated meshes.

 

 

UI Path

||V-Ray|| > Tools > External > VRMesh Viewer

 

 

Installation

This tool comes with the V-Ray for Rhino installation. You can start the vrmesh_viewer executable from C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\V-Ray for Rhinoceros\vrayappsdk\bin.

 

 

Usage

After the tool is loaded, the tool will ask for the .vrmesh or .abc file to preview. Click Open to view the mesh.

Navigate around the mesh by holding Alt and then using the Left mouse button to Rotate, the Middle mouse button to Pan and the Right mouse button to Zoom.

 

 

Menu Commands

File menu

Open – Allows you to load another .vrmesh or .abc file.
 Exit – Exits V-Ray mesh viewer.

Rendering Menu – The options here allow you to control how the mesh is previewed in the work area.

Use mesh preview – Shows a simplified version of the mesh. The same preview is used inside the 3d Application.
 Wireframe – The mesh is previewed as a wire frame.
 Backface culling – When enabled, faces with normals facing away from the camera are displayed as transparent.
 Reverse normals – Reverses the normals of all faces.

Colors

Gray – The whole mesh is gray.
 Per-voxel color – Voxels are assigned a predefined color.
 Unique voxel color – Each separate mesh is displayed with a unique color.
 Map channel – Each mesh is displayed based on the map channel it was unwrapped at.

View

Show Axis – Hides or shows the XYZ axis.
 Show Grid – Hides or shows the Grid.
 Center Mesh – Aligns the center of the mesh with the center of the XYZ axis.
 Flip Y/Z axes – Flips the Y and Z axes.


General Options

Map Channel – Allows you to change the map channel.

Scene Objects – A list of all objects in the scene. You can use it to select objects by their names.

Selection Mode – Allows you to switch between selecting objects or voxels.


Alembic Mesh Options

These options govern the displaying of alembic meshes.

Subdivide all meshes – When enabled, all alembic meshes are subdivided.

Subdiv level – Allows you to control the level of subdivision.

Preserve geometry borders – When enabled, the subdivided geometry falls within the borders of the original mesh.

Subdivide UVs – When enabled, the UVs of the object are also subdivided.

Particle size – Allows you to control the preview size of particles.


Animation Options

These options allow you to view different frames of the mesh when it is animated. You can use the timeline and drag the slider to move through the animation.

Enter frame – Allows you to manually enter a frame number that you wish to preview.