USER MANUAL
3. Calibry Nest Interface
Welcome Screen
When Calibry Nest is launched, a Welcome Screen appears. It shows a list of recently used files, a link to the Quick Guide and the latest news and blog posts. Links to our social media are also shown in the right bottom corner. Click outside of the Welcome Screen or press Escape to close it.
Calibry Nest Main Window
The main window of Calibry Nest consists of the following sections:
1) Main Toolbar is the primary panel of instruments used for processing scans;
2) Side Toolbar shows a combination of tools varying depending on the stage of processing and the type of data opened;
3) Files Panel (aka Project Panel) shows the scans and all results generated during post-processing;
4) Editing area shows the data of a currently selected project. Here the data can be edited;
5) Scanner panel shows scanner controls as well as a list of all scans stored on the current PC/laptop;
6) Status Bar shows the progress of any process, its level of completion and some additional status data;
7) Memory Monitor opens a small window where RAM and VRAM usage is shown.
Main Toolbar and Side Toolbar, their buttons and functions are described in more detail in Chapter 10: Tools and Toolbars.
Files Panel (Project Panel)
The panel on the left side of Calibry Nest main window is Files Panel. It is also often referred to as the Project Panel. It shows all the files and results being currently used.
If it is a scan, File panel shows a type of scanner used to make it, how many frames it contains and, if there are some results, they are shown below the Frames list.
Orange circles designates polygonal results. If the circle turns brown, it means that this result is no longer valid and cannot be used for alignment. It happens if the scan undergoes another registration, which changes the point cloud.
Green circle means that the marked result contains texture.
Golden frame around the scan label means that this scan is marked using Priority Mode.
If a frame is marked with a pink square — it means it also contains a texture frame.
If it is a combination of two or more scans, it is shown here with a green result label and the result name includes the names of all the scans used to make it.
If it is a model, it is shown with a file-type label.
More on these labels and designations in Chapter 8: Postprocessing a Scan.
Scanner Panel
The panel on the right side of Calibry Nest main window is the Scanner panel. It shows the list of all the scans made on a given computer (or copied there afterwards). It also contains the Scanner Toolbar that might be used as an alternative to the touchscreen of a scanner.
All scans are grouped in folders [1]. Scanning date is used as a default name (SCAN_yyyymmdd) and a new folder is created every day, but the name of each folder can be easily changed if need be both prior and after scanning.
Individual scans are represented as an image of the first frame of each scan. There is also a label that shows which type of tracking mode was used [2]. By default, scan names are comprised of date (yyyymmdd), time (hhmmss) and type of scanner used to make it, but can later be renamed if needed. Second row shows scan size and its timestamp (in case the file was renamed).
Double-click on any scan to open and process it in Nest. You can also double-click other files you want to open without waiting for the previous file to be fully loaded. Files will be added to the queue and will be loaded sequentially.
Starting from Nest 3.5.24 onwards, Scanner Toolbar [3] is placed vertically on the right side of the scanner panel, but can be easily detached and moved to a different location if needed. Scanner Panel itself can also be detached and placed on the other side of the main window.
Scanner Toolbar buttons and functions are described in Chapter 5: Scanner interface.
The name of a given folder can be easily changed by hovering a mouse over the right end of a name bar and pressing the pencil icon. After renaming is complete, press Enter to apply changes.
By clicking the name of any folder you can quickly select all scans in this folder. It might be useful if you want to open or delete all scans stored in the folder. Respective buttons are situated at the bottom of the panel.
Multiple scans can also be selected by holding Ctrl or Shift and selecting scans with a right click.
When deleting scans, keep in mind that files are deleted to the recycle bin by default. To delete a scan permanently, hold the shift while clicking the trash bin icon (in this case it will turn red in). The same logic works both for deleting individual scans as well as for groups of selected scans.
If you click any individual scan on the Scanner panel, the extended info panel will be displayed, showing additional data about the scan.
In addition to the tracking mode used, the number in the lower-left corner of the preview shows the amount of frames in the selected scan (1021 in this case).
This extended info panel also contains several pictograms, representing the setting used to make this scan. Their meaning is covered in Chapter 5: Scanner Interface.
Here you can rename, delete or open the scan. You can also press Open in folder button and the folder containing this scan will be opened (useful when scans have to be copied to an external drive or for online file sharing).
It is important to note that these are so-called raw (unprocessed) scans. These are original scans made with the scanner and they do not contain any edits made in Calibry Nest, unless they are deliberately overwritten with the edited scans (which is generally not recommended, unless the user is fully aware of what they are doing).
These files can be used to start anew if something went wrong during post-processing. It is also these files that are usually requested by Thor3D Tech Support in case a user has any difficulties and find themselves in need of assistance. Please keep these files intact until you are completely sure that you've finished with the project and no longer need them.
You can also access the folder containing all the scans by double-clicking the bird tray icon in the notification area.
Calibry Tray Icon
When Nest is running, Calibry Tray Icon is visible in the system tray (near the system clock).
Its color represents a scanner status. It duplicates the status shown in the lower left corner of the main window and might be a helpful visual clue when Nest window is minimized. More on the scanner status in Chapter 4: Scanner connection.
You can always access the unprocessed scans stored locally on a given computer by double-clicking this icon. Renaming any folders and files in the Calibry Scans folder will also be reflected on the scanner panel. Scans and scan folders copied here will also appear on the scanner panel.
Calibry Tray Icon has a context menu with several additional options:
— Scanner can be started and stopped from this menu;
— The scanner screen can be shown on the computer screen by using Show Scanner Screen option. It is useful during demos, trainings and presentations. Scanner can also be fully controlled from this screen, which may also be useful when scanner is used on a tripod and/or being controlled from a distance.
— Settings submenu contains starting options.
Start by connect starts the scanner right after it is plugged into a computer and boots up.
Start by button allows user to activate scanner with the hardware "PLAY" button after it was switched off.
Startup with system adds Calibry Tray Icon to Windows autoruns, so it becomes available right after a computer is restarted or boots up.
— Change scans Folder which allows user to pick any folder to be used as a scan storage folder (all new scans will be saved there, but old ones will not be moved to the new location).
— About shows the version of currently installed 3D Scanning Software module (scanner-shell.exe). This module version may differ from the currently installed version of Nest.
Language Menu
Select the language of Nest interface from the dropdown menu in View >> Language
Managing Toolbars
Window menu allows to temporarily switch on or off certain panels and processing buttons.
This can also be done by right-clicking the Main Toolbar.
All panels and process bars in Nest can be detached, moved, and attached to different parts of the window. To return to the default view — select Window >> Default.
Settings
Nest Settings can be accessed by clicking on the gear icon on the main toolbar. It contains two tabs, shown below side-by-side:
Processing [1] tab contains settings for scans post-processing. These settings are described in detail in Chapter 8: Post-processing a scan.
General [2] tab provides interface settings including the following:
— Theme and color settings allow users to change basic colors for 3D-data in Nest and to pick Light or Dark interface theme.
— Sounds settings allow to set a sound for successful completion of a task or to notify a user about an error.
— Keyboard hotkeys can be associated with and modified for almost every function and process in Calibry Nest.
— The sensitivity of a 3D mouse or Gamepad can also be changed here.
— Association of Nest with supported 3D formats can be enabled or disabled as needed.
Help, Hints and Guides
Help contains the option to display the Welcome Screen, as well as access the Manual.
Calibration can be updated and updates for Calibry Nest can be checked.
About Nest opens up a pop-up window showing details of the current Nest version used.
Plus, there are a couple of additional interface elements providing context help to a user: Quick Help and Quick Guide.
Quick Help is a question mark button in the upper left corner of the main window of Nest. It can be shown or removed using a context menu.
When pressed, it opens up an overlay showing mouse and keyboard controls that can be used in the current editing mode. This list of hints changes, depending on the processing stage or the tool used.
To close Quick Help overlay, simply click on it and it will minimize back into the question mark button until clicked again.
Quick Guide is an overlay that shows descriptions of the post-processing settings. Go to Settings and click the question mark button at the upper-right corner of the Settings window to activate the Quick Guide overlay. Use arrow buttons to move through the settings and descriptions. Use the overlay X button to close the Quick Guide.
Status Bar, Progress Bar and Logs Panel
At the bottom of the Calibry Nest window there is a line that combines Status Bar, Progress Bar and Logs Panel. This line shows information about recently loaded data (scans or models) and current task progress (opening/saving files, post-processing operations, etc.):
Clicking or pulling the bar up opens a Log Panel that shows the history of actions, timestamps, processing parameters and time passed since each operation:
Memory Monitor
To see how much PC/laptop RAM or Video Memory (VRAM) is being used during post-processing, select the Memory tab in the right bottom corner.
This window is also detachable and can be docked to any convenient location or can be left floating.
