Best practices for recording a video of a 3D model

Whether you are an educator, a health care provider, a student, or a patient, video is likely an essential part of your day-to-day life. Even though BioDigital's 3D models are meant to be interacted with, there are plenty of situations that might require you to record a video of your models:

  • You are a professor who wants to insert a video explaining the flow of blood through the heart valves into your lecture slides using a tour you created in Human Studio.
  • You are a student who wants to send a question to your teacher about the difference between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system and you need a visual aid.
  • You are a doctor who wants to send a short video to your patient explaining the coronary stent procedure they will be undergoing.

 

If you would like to record a video of 3D model*, we recommend following a few best practices to ensure a high-quality end result:

  1. Record in fullscreen mode
  2. Use keyboard shortcuts to minimize mouse clicks
  3. Interact with the model while you record
  4. Review our other best practices

 

1. Record in fullscreen mode

Whether you choose to record your video within our web app or in a separate browser window or tab, opening it in fullscreen mode before recording will remove the address bar and any other screen elements, producing a less cluttered video.

Tips:

  • If you want to customize the appearance of the user interface (UI) for your video, e.g., you want to disable the information panel, we recommend the second option below ("Record in a separate window or tab").
  • Most screen recording software offers the option to capture only a selected portion of your screen. This is an effective alternative to recording in fullscreen mode.

Take the following steps to enter fullscreen mode within the app itself or in a separate browser window or tab:

    1. Find the model you want to use for your video in Explore or My Library.
    2. Hover over the model's tile and click View or View Tour to open it in View mode.
      view tour button_oct23.png
    3. Click the    enter fullscreen icon in the lower-right corner of the page to enter fullscreen mode. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl and Enter on your keyboard.
    4. With your model now in fullscreen mode, you can start recording your screen.

      Note: If you are unable to initiate screen recording while in fullscreen mode, you can start recording between steps 5 and 6 instead.

    1. If you have not already, save your model to My Library first so you will be able to publish it.
    2. Find the model in My Library.
    3. Hover over the model and click    Publish at the bottom of the model's tile.
    4. Modify your publishing preferences in the Publish window that appears. If you would like to clear the Viewer of all of the user interface (UI) elements, click the Hide All UI button toward the bottom of the publishing settings.
      hide all ui_nov22.png
    5. Click Copy Link and paste your copied URL into a new window or tab.
    6. Click the    enter fullscreen icon in the lower-right corner of the page to enter fullscreen mode. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl and Enter on your keyboard.
    7. With your model now in fullscreen mode, you can start recording your screen.

      Note: If you are unable to initiate screen recording while in fullscreen mode, you can start recording between steps 5 and 6 instead.

 

2. Use keyboard shortcuts to minimize mouse clicks.

When you are recording your screen, use keyboard shortcuts instead of your mouse to navigate more seamlessly through the chapters and the 3D space. A comprehensive list of available keyboard shortcuts can be found here, but these are a few we recommend for screen recording:

 

Previous chapter

, or Pg-Down

Next chapter

. or Pg-Down

Enter fullscreen

Ctrl + Enter

Reset chapter

Shift + R

Zoom in

C or =

Zoom out

E or -

Rotate up

Rotate down

Rotate left

Rotate right

Pan up

W

Pan down

S

Pan left

A

Pan right

D

 

3. Interact with the model while you record

Even if a model or chapter in a tour is animated, interact with the model and change your viewing angle while the animation plays to help the viewer understand the spatial relationships between different aspects of the model.

Tip: Let the entire animation play through completely before advancing to the next chapter to ensure no information gets lost.

If your model contains interactive labels, use your mouse to click on the labels to zoom in closer to key structures. If your labels do not currently zoom in or you would like to adjust the zoom position, you can make these changes in Human Studio. See Edit a label in my model for more information and Labeling models in Human Studio for a step-by-step video tutorial (jump to 3:28 for instructions on how to adjust your label "actions").

 

4. Review our other best practices

Check out our other best practice guides to make sure your models and presentation style are the best they can be:

 

*The BioDigital Human does not currently offer an in-app video or screen recording feature, but any screen recording software should work well, such as QuickTime (preinstalled on Macs, download on Windows here), Loom, Camtasia, and Screencast-O-Matic.