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Set display options

You can customize the drawing of the globe in ArcGIS Reality Studio. Display options control how the globe is rendered and affect the quality and performance of drawing. You can modify these settings on the Display tab on the Options dialog box. Click the Project tab and click Options to open the Options dialog box.

Antialiasing mode

The Antialiasing mode option makes jagged edges in the globe look smooth. The amount of smoothing depends on the speed you set.

By default, Antialiasing mode is set to Fast. You can set antialiasing to Best, which will result in more smoothing in 2D rendering, but it may result in lower drawing performance. You can set antialiasing to Normal, which will lessen the amount of smoothing but increase performance compared to Fast or Best. You can disable antialiasing by choosing None.

Text antialiasing mode

The Text antialiasing mode option controls how text is smoothed or rendered. Fonts can have capabilities to improve appearance at small sizes without making the font overly blurry, and parameters that specify at which sizes these rendering improvements take effect.

By default, Text antialiasing mode is set to Force because the font's antialiasing instructions are meant for horizontal text only, and it is common for text to be rotated in a GIS application. You can set Text antialiasing mode to Normal, in which antialiasing is directed by the font file, or None, in which antialiasing is disabled.

Stereoscopic mode

Stereoscopic mode is unavailable in ArcGIS Reality Studio.

Rendering quality

The Rendering quality slider controls 3D rendering to optimize display for speed or quality. Depending on the capabilities of your computer and graphics card as well as the number and resolution of alignments and reconstructions in the globe, higher details may result in lower performance due to the volume of content being displayed.

By default, the slider is set to High rendering quality. If you experience problems with performance, you can move the slider toward Low to reduce the amount of data being displayed without having to modify the map and layer properties. This is useful when high-quality 3D content is displayed on a computer with suboptimal specifications or when you are running a resource-constrained virtual machine instance.

Draw point clouds using squares to improve rendering performance

The Draw point clouds using squares to improve rendering performance option allows you to switch the shape in which points are being rendered from circles to squares to improve overall performance in the globe for point clouds. Depending on the capabilities of your computer and graphics card, the default shape, of circles can be slower to render when large amounts of point cloud data are being loaded into the globe. Consider switching to squares to render the point cloud faster.

Rendering engine

The Rendering engine setting determines the protocol used to control your graphics processing unit (GPU) when drawing the globe in ArcGIS Reality Studio. The engine drives your computer's graphics card from the application. You can set the Rendering engine to DirectX 11, DirectX 12, or OpenGL.

By default, DirectX 11 is the rendering engine for ArcGIS Reality Studio. DirectX 11 is the optimal setting in most cases, but a particular model or driver of a graphics card may perform better on OpenGL or DirectX 12 rendering. If your GPU is experiencing errors when using DirectX 11 rendering, consider choosing OpenGL or DirectX 12 rendering as troubleshooting options.

Regardless of which option you choose, ArcGIS Reality Studio attempts to determine whether your graphics card supports the required capabilities for any version of the DirectX or OpenGL rendering engine. It automatically chooses a supported version of DirectX or OpenGL for your graphics card, or switches to the slowest option (software rendering) if no graphics card is available to support the selected option.

Vertical synchronization

The Enable vertical synchronization option ties the output of the graphics engine to the vertical refresh rate of the monitor to prevent situations in which a portion of the screen isn't updated at the same time as another portion of the screen. This option is enabled by default and ensures that the screen only updates from top to bottom, which avoids creating a torn-edge effect between two regions of the screen.

Hardware antialiasing

The Enable hardware antialiasing option enables filtering directly on the graphics card hardware, rather than software-based filtering. Hardware antialiasing can greatly improve the rendering quality of 2D and 3D content, but this option is only supported in hardware on high-end graphics cards. This option is not enabled by default. It provides higher-quality rendering but may lower performance.

Local cache

The visualization cache improves rendering performance. The cache is stored at [install drive]:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ESRI\Local Caches by default, but you can specify a different local path or UNC path to store the cache. As you work, the cache can get quite large, so choose a path that is always accessible and can accommodate a large amount of data. If the location is invalid or inaccessible, no cache will be created, and draw performance will likely suffer.

To troubleshoot rendering issues, or otherwise free up disk space, you can delete the entire cache by clicking Clear Cache Now. You will be asked to confirm your choice. The cache will be deleted once you click OK to close the Options dialog box, and the project will close and reopen.

You can request a redraw of the view by pressing the F5 key. This will draw from the cache and not invalidate it. You can also request a full refresh of the drawing cache (invalidating it rather than deleting it) by pressing Ctrl+F5.

Check Clear Cache each time the application closes to automatically clear the display cache each time you close ArcGIS Reality Studio.