Although many of the features in Visual3D can be accessed in multiple ways, the drop-down menus across the top of the Visual3D page offer a familiar method of program interaction that is common to Windows-based software.

This Visual3D Menus link provides details on the options available through these drop-down menus. Because we are constantly adding more features, the menus in Visual3D often change before this documentation can be updated. Please contact us if there are features on the menus that are not described here.

The File menu item is used to manage files opened or saved by Visual 3D.

The menu subitems are:

Closes all open files, leaving an empty workspace.

Opens a new motion document (C3D, CMZ, etc.)

Closes the currently active motion file(s) as indicated by the active file selection box.

Saves all open files to the current C-Motion (cmz) Document.

Prompts the user with the file save dialog in order to save all open files to a new or existing C-Motion (cmz) Document.

Exports an opened file to a C3D File (.c3d).

Pipeline Command

Export_Polygon_C3DFile

Exports the 3D animation to an AVI (.avi) file.

Exports the current animation viewer frame to an Image (.jpg, .png, .gif, .bmp).

CMO files do not typically contain the wireframe meshes used for animating the surfaces of the bones because this information is supplied with Visual3D (e.g. as .v3g files).

CMO files intended for the Free CMO viewer, however, must explicitly embed the graphics by selecting the export option to include the graphics.

Brings up a window to add/modify file tags

Allows mapping of video files (.mpg, .avi, etc) to motion files for synchronized playback.

Allows multiselection of C3D motion files and frame offsets for synchronized playback.

Allows modification of the active file(s) force platform C3D file parameters

Prints the current report

Previews the current report.

Change the printer and printer options.

Exits the Visual 3D application.

Modify the default folders and the default viewing options.

The view menu contains a miscellaneous set of commands related to the interface.

Toggles on/off the toolbar

Toggles the large or small toolbar

toggles the status bar at the bottom left of the window

Toggles the popup wizard

Toggles between the filename and the full path

Toggles the display of a banner at the top of the 3D view

Toggles between Black lines and Colored lines on the interactive graphs

Add a vertical line indicating the current frame in the animation window

View Synchronized Video

Set the camera view in the 3D Viewer

Displays the last set of Pipeline Processing Results

The model menu is dedicated to features related predominantly to a Link Model.

When no model is loaded in Visual3D only the option to create a model is available.

Creates a new model (Hybrid, 6DOF, Helen Hayes & Derived...) A static calibration file must be opened with the new model because there is a direct one-to-one link between the standing trial and the model.

See this tutorial.

When a model is loaded the following features are available

Brings up a window to create or modify model based calculations (such as joint angles, joint powers, etc.) The resulting data is created on the files specified in the file selection combo.

Allows the user to specify which model is to be applied to each movement trial.

Closes the current model

Convert a Visual3D Legacy model to a Hybrid Model

Opens a model template file (.mdh, .mod, .bsp) to be applied to the currently active model. All existing segments, landmarks, etc. are deleted prior to applying the new template

Saves the currently active model to a file (.mdh, .mod).

to current model Adds the segment, landmarks, etc in the template to the current model without deleting the current attributes

Modify the model properties. Note that these values are also subject metrics that can be edited in the Subject Data/Metrics property page

Modifies the frame range to use for the subject calibration file.

Modify the segment assignments

Allows the user to map signals to segments, and select color values to color a segment based upon the signal values.

Visual3D's Force menu contains an option to set a threshold for force platform/structure data.

Applying a threshold value to the force signals ensures that If the computed force is less than the minimum force, then the FORCE and FREEMOMENT are set to zero, the COFP is set to DATA_NOT_FOUND. This value can also be set using the pipeline command Set_Force_Platform_Threshold. This command is listed under the Force category of the pipeline commands. This threshold value is used to remove noise from the force signals. Often for instrumented treadmills this value must be set higher than for overground gait trials.

The Program Settings menu item is used to manage various properties of motion files and the Visual 3D environment.

Changes the X, Y and Z directions for the lab.

Allows the user to change the size of the displayed targets.

Specify whether the original or processed analog signals should be used for computing the Ground Reaction Force

Specify that processed FORCE, COFP, and FREEMOMENT signals should be used for determining the Force Assignments.

Specify whether the original or processed targets are to be used for determining model segment locations, model based computations, etc.

An explanation for Using Processed Signals is here

Biomechanics conventions refer to the meaning for medial/lateral, anterior/posterior, and axial for the left and right side segments.

Note that medial and lateral are defined with respect to the subject in the Anatomical Position, which is important to remember when defining the forearm and hand segments. If Biomechanics Conventions are not selected, all coordinate system use the right hand rule, and left and right side segments are created equivalently. The typical consequence is that the left side segments look like they are constructed backwards.

There are some unicode characters that Visual3D cannot recognize.

The pipeline menu contains the recent pipelines that were executed. Selecting a pipeline will cause it to be loaded and executed automatically.

Select View Pipeline is equivalent to selecting the View Pipeline icon on the Toolbar.