Raising the rendering roof:
Win bids with visualization
Michael Lawson,
Posted
12/01/2009
Advances in
interactive rendering technology have expanded the design
possibilities for architects and their clients. Seeing the results
of even subtle changes in an instant gives them the freedom to
explore many more options to create that perfect design.
For most non-architects, it is hard to visualize what a building
will look like from elevations and floor plans alone, which can
make it difficult to sell ideas to clients. Traditionally,
architects have gotten around this problem by creating intricate
scale models and artists' impressions of what a finished building
might look like. These days, however, architects are relying more
and more on digital representations of their final design. A fully
rendered image makes it easier to communicate the architect's
vision and can really bring a project to life, transforming ideas
into reality and generating enthusiasm from the client.
Over the last 20 years computer-aided design has evolved from
simple 2-D drafting to sophisticated 3-D modelling. One of the
advantages of 3-D modelling is the ability to reuse 3-D data from
3-D CAD models to create photorealistic visualizations,
architectural walkthroughs and fly-by animations. These digital
representations use real-world textures, materials and lighting,
showing clients what a building will look like, from inside and
out, at different times of the day and from different angles. They
make it possible to make design-related decisions long before a
building is actually built and they can be used for presentations
and repurposed as marketing and sales collateral. Bids are won and
lost on the quality of these images and clients have come to expect
high-quality renders; it is easy to understand why visualization
has become such an important part of the workflow within
architectural firms.
The way 3-D
artists and visualization specialists go about creating
architectural visualizations is a time-consuming business involving
sophisticated 3-D modelling and ray-tracing software. Rendering
even a simple scene can take time because it involves calculating
the effect of every ray of light within the image. Even with
advances in computer processing technology, complex architectural
scenes can take hours to render. Any change to the image means
starting the entire rendering calculation again, a repetitive and
time-consuming process that eats into project timelines and can tie
up computing resources for days.
Ask any 3-D artist what the biggest cause of frustration and
inefficiency in their workflow is and they are likely to cite
rendering speed as their top pain issue. The market's response to
this has been to find ways to speed up the rendering process,
drawing on processing resources beyond the central processing unit
including the graphics processing unit. This is a logical
development. Ray-trace rendering is processer-hungry and it makes
sense to utilize whatever resources are available, but is faster
ray-tracing really enough in today's production environment? At
ArtVPS, Cambridge, England, we believe the real gains lie not just
in speeding up a time-consuming process, but in changing the
process itself: freeing the artist from the tedium of the
render-change-repeat workflow and giving them more time to be
creative. This is why we developed Shaderlight, an advanced
rendering plug-in for San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk's 3ds Max
modelling software that takes rendering to the next level.
Shaderlight delivers significant productivity and creativity
enhancements over traditional ray-trace rendering engines. It
renders intelligent pixels that understand where they fit in a 3-D
image-and what to do if something changes. This enables users to
change key attributes of a full-resolution image at any stage of
the rendering process without ever having to re-render. When
changes are made to materials, environments, lights or textures,
the information embedded in each pixel is used to update the image
without the need to re-render. We call these MELT changes and this
approach dramatically improves efficiency and project turnaround.
Users are not only able to see the progressive refinement of a
scene when objects or camera angles are altered, but can also make
interactive changes to the MELT elements on full quality rendered
images.
Additionally, a
new approach to global illumination-the specific algorithms that
add more realistic lighting to 3-D scenes-enables light colour and
intensity to be updated on screen without the need to re-render.
From a workflow perspective, the user is always working with a
fully rendered image.
Shaderlight stands to fundamentally change the way 3-D artists go
about generating images. Its simple tools and interactive workflow
mean you no longer have to be a rendering expert to create great
visualisations for a client.
Imagine being able to sit with a client and show them how
different lighting situations or a change of material will play out
in a building design. By making the process of rendering images
interactive, Shaderlight improves the workflow of architects and
architectural visualizers, allowing them to make changes and see
the results without restarting the render. Rather than factoring in
time for rendering final images, 3-D artists can use all their time
creating the kind of high-quality visualizations that win bids. For
architects working in the current economic climate, the time and
cost savings that this new approach can bring are invaluable in
terms of improving efficiency and project turnaround.
Michael Lawson is the chief technology officer at
ArtVPS, Cambridge, England. For more information, go to
www.shaderlight.com.
www.shaderlight.com