The Fly Through tool is used to create a virtual flight over your project's elevation terrain, while passing through a number of positions that you have set up across your elevation terrain. Flythroughs can be used as a live presentation or to generate videos that you can use to present and promote your work. We'll show you how this tool works and how you can create flythroughs yourself.


Overview


Create a Flythrough

This section will help you understand how to create a complete flythrough. But you can also follow these steps to create a flythrough in its entirety if you want to just get it started and figure it out on your own:

  1. Go to the VIEW tab.
  2. Set the Viewport angles by creating positions of your flight with the Create tool.
    1. Create as many positions as desired to get the desired flight path and viewing pattern.
  3. Set the start position by selecting a position in the Layers panel.
  4. Set up the flight settings:
    1. Speed - Change how fast the flight moves to each position.
    2. Loop - Check this box to make the flight loop back to the beginning and repeat itself.
  5. Click Fly Through to start your flight.


Note: You can stop your flythrough at any time by pressing left-click anywhere in the Viewport.


1. Create Positions

Navigate the viewing angle in the Viewport to position a view of the terrain to where you want it. Then create a number of viewing angle positions across the terrain. It can help to visualize how you would want to fly over the terrain to present your work. 

  • Navigate the Viewport to a view of your project or a portion of the terrain.
  • In the View tab, click Create to create a Position in the Layers panel.
  • Double-click the position in the Layers panel to bring you back to the set position in the Viewport.
  • Continue creating more positions as your 'check points' for the flight to pass through.


2. Setup Flight Settings (Optional)

You can set up two options for the flythrough:

  1. Speed - how fast the view transitions between positional checkpoints
  2. Loop - check this box to have the view loop back to the first position and repeat the flight.


3. Select the Starting Position

Before clicking the Fly Through button, you'll need to select a position in the Layers panel to start your flight from.

  • Left click on the position to select it as the starting point for the flight.
  • The descriptor of the start position determines the other positions that are used in the fly-through.
    • I.e., if you use different descriptors, the Fly Through will only 'fly' to the selected descriptors that share the same name as the other descriptors.


4. Start the Fly Through

With the starting Position selected, click Fly Through to start the flight.

  • The flight pattern starts from the selected position in the Layers panel.
  • Then it goes to a position with the same descriptor and with the next available incremental number in a continuous movement.
  • In the example below, the flight path starts at Position #1 and goes through all 5 positions in order.
    • Note: The path will always start and end with the lowest and highest numbers of the Positions respectively, regardless of any numbers missing in between.


Do a Pattern Flight

Instead of a flythrough at set viewing Positions, you can use the Pattern tool instead. The Pattern tool has the view fly around the site in either a circle around a fixed view, or directly forward and backward in a straight line from a fixed view. You set the viewing angle you want to start from and choose either the Circular or Lined flight path pattern. This patterned flight path is good for demonstrations and/or presentations of a project site.


Create a Video with a Fly Through

If you want to record a video of your Fly Through, you can use a screen recording software while your flight is playing.

  • A good and affordable vid editing software is Camtasia.