CAD & 3D

Review: Google SketchUp for Game Design

2012-02-10T17:19:00.002+01:00

Disclaimer: I was asked by Packt publishing if I was interested in reviewing this book. I immediately accepted, as such a book would fit within some of the themes we handle in our classroom and many students and architects are interested in discovering the world of realtime interactive architecture. The coupling of SketchUp and Unity3D is quite accessible and can be completely free, if you use the basic licenses. Packt provided a free review copy of the book and if you buy it through the provided link, there is a small commission. But the review is my personal opinion only.

Book info on the Packt-Publishing website

Google SketchUp for Game Design is a quite recent book, focusing on delivering a reasonable low-entry into the world of Game Design. When you think about presenting architecture to others, an interactive game-like environment is very compelling. Tied to the ubiquity of SketchUp for quick modeling and the Unity3D Game Engine, you can publish interactive models as standalone applications for Windows and OSX, but also on webpages. With an additional license, you can also publish your model to an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) or an Android device.

The book is, like most books I read from Packt, reasonably priced and paper and print quality is good. While some of the earlier books I have, tended to have quiet dark screenshots, this seems to be avoided with this one, which is a sign that they are improving their publishing quality. While I'm not too fond of the quite heavy black title backgrounds and the very beginner-oriented style, this is a nice book to read through.It is well structured, with clear goals and promises of what will be delivered in each chapter. But be warned that this is primarily a Beginner's Guide (which is marked on the cover), so I sometimes felt that it focused quite a bit on a step-by-step approach. For me, personally, this is a bit distracting, especially as I seldom read books behind the screen of my computer. Just too much chance of distraction…

Review

The first few chapters present a general outlook on developing (modeling and texturing) "props" or "assets" for a Game. Translated for architects, this usually means modeling objects, buildings and the site that become the environment with all its detail. This is not a book about creating walking animated characters or to develop the scripts for a First Person Shooter or a Massive Multi-player Online Environment. There are other books that explore these topics.

First warning: this book tends to be a bit naive, but I assume it is deliberate, as to appeal to a beginner audience, that wants to get started but doesn't know how to.

It does sound a bit too harsh on other books, that are said to be skipping too much steps or tend to promise unrealistic expectations. There is also the claim that game and movies are getting closer together, but I feel that the current game quality is more up the the level of movies of a decade ago. Nice, spectacular, realistic for sure, but the armies of professional Special Effects houses is not standing still either. That said, you can reach a very acceptable graphic quality with reasonable efforts today, even when working alone.

Second warning: I think the writer has chosen the right content for the book, but maybe not the right title…

Only at page 55, you will open SketchUp for the first time, to model a wooden pallet. The first three chapters are looking at "other tools" and "other resources" mostly: stock model and texture websites, some utility software and a full chapter on preparing a texture for the wooden pallet we will develop.

Contrary to the habits of architectural modelers to create complex models with simple colors, game modeling is quite the reverse: creating simple geometry, but heavily relying on textures. This is an important distinction to make when you come from an architectural background. We tend to focus mostly on the building with all its glorious detail, while visualization and game artists focus on the noisy, gritty details through the textures and map this onto the geometry. That said, this is good skill to master, even as an architect, so I advice you to apply it more often in your work. The Photo Match and texturing tools of SketchUp are very adequate and can lead you to very compelling results.

Third warning: this book tends to present what you need to do step-by-step firstly, and only talks about why you would do so afterwards, whereas I would do it the opposite way.

But at least, after you made something, there is usually a paragraph that reflects on it, which has good educational values, even when you eventually use other tools and software.

Fourth warning: while Adobe Photoshop is widely used by artists worldwide, this book explains all texturing work using the GIMP, the Open Source photo manipulation software.

The end result is quite the same, but architects typically are not used to this software. But my advice is to just follow along in whatever software you prefer.There are quite some interesting workflow tips and techniques explained in this book. One particular example makes a simple colored model that is translated into GIMP, where it serves as flat colors to easy the selection process and the creation of masks.Back in SketchUp, the Sandbox tools are discussed, which I never used before. And then the process of getting your SketchUp model inside the free version of Unity3D is described. They specifically mention how to get models from the free version of SketchUp into Unity, which is more involved by the lack of an FBX-export in the Pro-version. While Unity can read Collada files (*.dae), it gives problems with the free version of SketchUp. Here, it is advised to use the FBX Conversion software from Autodesk, who controls the FBX format.Then it is shown how easy it is to load the model, position it, add colliders, so you don't fall through and than how to add a First Person Controller, which is included with Unity3D, that you can use to walk around freely. If you do this for the very first time, this is very rewarding moment and might be all you need to do when you are mainly interested in game modeling to present your design to others.

Fifth warning: Architects like to make clean (and even sterile) models, whereas game artists tend to mimic the more realistic, everyday world around is, with all its grime and grit and all the rubbish that is lying around. So they tend to go for a worn-out look. Be warned.

Almost at the end, and this is very interesting for other use cases too, there is a chapter on how to model a full car, starting from a few blueprints and some pictures. The model is not perfect, but very usable and not too heavy. I do recall how my students often add trees and cars as stock models into their scenes, only to discover that they slow everything down considerably and to discover that they contain more polygons that the actual architectural model they tend to enliven.

After the car, one chapter will elaborate one building into more detail, but this is simply too simplistic for architects, who would use a completely different approach. But a valuable lesson to learn is that you need to think in volumes rather than in planes.

Last warning: avoid single planes! In SketchUp, you see front and back faces, but only the front faces become visible in other software (typically rendering applications or, in this case, Unity3D). Avoiding this demands more attention during modeling, but will lead to cleaner and better behaving models, so it is best to stick to this advice. Only for single glass planes and fences, it might be good to export 2-sided faces.

Appendix A talks about MakeHuman to generate a life-like mesh of a human body and also explains how it can be optimized in Meshlab to limit the amount of polygons, but as it is not used in the rest of the book, I don't see its point here. The character will not be animated (as this would take a whole new book).

Conclusion

Overall, this is an interesting book, primarily for a beginner audience, but only half of it is actually working inside SketchUp. But the results you obtain are relevant and are reachable for everybody, which is not always the case in more advanced modeling or visualization books.

Book info on the Packt-Publishing website

DAZ 3D gives away their Pro software for free

2012-02-03T15:34:00.002+01:00

In an unusual (or panic?) move, 3D software developer DAZ 3D gives away its three major content creation and rendering software for free for a limited time (29th of February 2012). These are unlimited and complete software applications, which used to be commercial before. All software is available for Windows and OSX.

Check http://www.daz3d.com

Which programs are available?

DAZ Studio Pro 4 (used to be $430)

This is a program to load, pose, animate and render 3D characters. You can load models (free and non-free content is available). One of the novel features is the "Genesis" character model, which can be adapted parametrically, so a single basic model can be tweaked and reshaped in different variations.

Character modeling is beyond the reach of the average 3D modeler, so being able to use a dedicated software might make it more feasible.

What's the catch? Well, most models, accessories, poses and bundles will not be free. E.g. the Victoria 5 bundle is about $150. Just to give you an idea.

Bryce Pro 7 (used to be $250)

Bryce has been an original, albeit alternative, program to create mostly fantasy landscapes. It changed ownership a few times, but is still around.

What's the catch? Additional content, materials, rendering options are not free.

Hexagon 2.5 (used to be $150)

This is a modeling application which can be used to create models, sculpt them into finer detail, set up the texturing layout and prepare them for rendering (which has to be done in external software).

What's the catch? Only till 29/2/2012.

So this is a good deal, but you have to take advantage of it quite soon.

Autodesk ForceEffect for iOS : Interactive force diagrams

2012-02-02T09:52:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I installed a new (and currently free) app from Autodesk onto my iPhone, called Autodesk ForceEffect (check it out in the App Store).

With this app, you can draw a 2D schematic of beams, nodes and forces. It will allow you to quickly assess the reacting forces into a structure. The examples included with the app also show you that a photograph can be used as an underlay, to sketch on top of them, e.g. to check a structure in the field.

Gallery showing diagram over photo background

While the iPhone screen is quite small for my not-too-small fingers, it works quite handy: there are automatic guidelines that constrain the direction and alignment of nodes you draw. You can switch units between metric and imperial and use gestures for scaling (pinch), panning (two finger swipe) and editing (single touch). Moreover, while it is hard to sketch an exact size for a truss, you can fix the length be entering the exact value on the dimension line and this will be enforces, even when you start moving nodes around.

Draw nodes and forces with your fingers

Click on a truss, and you get the acting forces (in color, with direction to show pressure or tension).

You can generate a report, which could be used to help you enter the exact nodes and sizes and forces in a FEA software afterwards, when you want to go a step further.

Automatic Report

This is exactly the type of app I would have loved while being an architectural engineering student, quite some years ago. It's intuitive, interactive and free (for the moment?). You'll need an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to be able to use the software, but I wouldn't be surprised if they will port it to other devices in the near future as well.

Additional content for your BIM software

2012-02-01T08:44:00.000+01:00

While most BIM applications present the user with a fairly large collection of objects (furniture, building elements, drawing details), they don't have everything. Although you can create your own symbols, library objects or families in the software, this is beyond the reach of the average user.

This is where content libraries step in. While there have been CAD-drawings available for many manufacturers since quite some time, they are usually DWG or DXF drawings in 2D and do not integrate as well in a BIM software as actual library content.

BIMstop is an example of a recent content library, that provides objects in multiple formats.

BIMstop presents the users with freely downloadable objects
in ArchiCAD, Revit, SketchUp and VectorWorks formats
http://www.bimstop.com

The following links are some of the pages of the software manufacturers for content libraries. Not all of it is free and the quality may vary, but it can be cheaper to buy a library than to develop objects from scratch. That said, a custom and optimized object that you make for your own context, might be all you need.

For ArchiCAD specific content (in GDL), check ArchiCAD Wiki: http://www.archicadwiki.com/LinkCollection/GDLObjectDownloads

For Revit specific content (families), try Autodesk Seek:
http://seek.autodesk.com

For VectorWorks specific content (symbols):
http://www.vectorworks.net/architect/content-libraries.php

And for SketchUp (which is far from being a BIM software), there is the Google 3D Warehouse:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse

2012 will be more mobile and synced

2012-01-10T10:51:00.001+01:00

This is a short post talking about mobile CAD. Posted from my new phone.

This year I want to take a look at BIM, model viewing and sharing on mobile devices, hopefully on different platforms. So far I'm impressed by BIMx and Magicplan, but there is much more.

123D apps from Autodesk > Create, Make and Play

2011-11-08T11:04:00.001+01:00

Autodesk is hard at work trying to stimulate the creator in all of us. They are re-branding some of their previous applications into a suite of tools aimed at the creator and maker.

123D Catch : turn images into 3D objects

Previously known as "Project Photofly" on the Autodesk Labs and discussed in http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2011/06/project-photofly-20-available-from.html this is a Windows application to turn a series of photographs, taken with a regular digital camera, into a 3D model, automatically. It requires an online connection, as the processing of the images happens on the Autodesk servers.

Beware: I have installed it in a virtual Windows XP on Parallels, but I had to take care to use a local path (e.g. C:\Temp) to ensure proper uploading. The My Documents folder which was linked to my actual Documents folder in OSX was not usable as such.

You can export the 3D model in e.g. FBX format for use in other applications.

123D Make : turn 3D objects into 2D Slices

This is a new Mac-only application (for now) that turns a 3D model into 2D slices that can be directly printed on a Laser cutter. You load an included model or one of your own and can quite easily create a series of cutout contours that are directly layed out on one or more sheets. While the included templates are US-based (inches, Letter format), you can switch to cm or mm and set your own sheet size (e.g. 600x300mm is what we have available in our local Fablab).

123D Make (Mac-only)

Beware that it only runs on Mac OSX (intel CPU) and expires on 31/1/2012!

The app can import STL files or OBJ files only. For proper smooth objects, both can be used. You can create these in most 3D modeling software.

The example I tried was a Rhino model, exported into STL. When trying the OBJ format, it did not read the NURBS version and could not properly import the polygon mesh version. STL seemed more reliable.

Interlocked slices from Rhino STL file

The end result can be exported into EPS or PDF format, which can be used directly (e.g. to send to the Lasercutter or to edit in Illustrator or Inkscape if needed).

123D Sculpt : an iPad Sculpting application

The final app is only available for iPad in the App Store. I could not try this myself, but it seems to be a nice app so definitely check it out if you have an iPad.

What I don't fully get is what you can do with the results... You can share it online as a movie or on social media sites, but it is unclear if you can get your 3D model into a usable form outside of this app.

Final Conclusions

While the apps shown here are interesting and are presented as a suite of tools, you need at least two machine to run them: a Mac, a PC (or at least Windows on your Mac) and an iPad.

They are all free, but are still partially in beta-version, so there are some smaller issues and problems.

That said, they are oriented towards a larger audience, who don't necessarily have all the knowledge and experience for full CAD software.

But as always, with more experience you get better results. So when you use this in combination with e.g. Rhino or AutoCAD or SketchUp, you might have better results in the end.

PythonOCC : Open Source interactive CAD shell (and how to run it on OSX)

2011-10-12T17:29:00.002+02:00

What is PythonOCC?

PythonOCC is an Open Source (LGPL) Python-wrapper for OpenCASCADE.

So what is OpenCASCADE (OCC)?

This is an advanced Open Source (custom license) modeling kernel, comparable to commercial engines, such as ACIS or Parasolid, which are used in quite some commercial CAD programs. When you want to develop CAD software, you could use OCC and write programs in C++.

And why using Python?

With this wrapper, you can create CAD and geometry scripts in Python, which is an interpreted Object-oriented scripting language. You can write almost "on-the-fly" and seriously reduce the implementation effort, by skipping the compiling-phase. You can even interact with a running program in the Python interpreter.

Want to read more about this?

The OpenCASCADE official website (currently Linux and Windows are officially supported)
The PythonOCC website/blog (beware that the core of the actions happen in the development repositories).

So far so good. Now the nasty, technical stuff... I want to have it running on my Macbook Pro. Don't even attempt to do this if you lack the Developer extensions (XCode needs to be installed and X11, which provides most of what you need). I'm using Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6.8) and XCode 3.2.6, which are not the latest versions, now Lion has been released.

The rest of this post is quite detailed, but I'm putting this out for others to comment on and learn from. It is quite a long story, sadly. Not a download, install, accept EULA and run type of software installation.

1. Install OpenCASCADE through OCE

While OpenCASCADE and Python are both cross-platform, OpenCASCADE is not natively supported on OSX. There is a team of volunteers that have done a tremendous effort to get OpenCASCADE re-organized and more tweaked for current compilers and platforms. This is the OpenCASCADE Community Edition (Google OCE-dev Group and Github OCE source Repsitory).

So I downloaded the binary installer from Github for OSX, currently at release "OCE 0.6.0". This will be installed in /Library/OCE/0.6.0 although the installer doesn't inform you about this!

Then you have to ensure the X11.app is available (the XWindowing system, which is quite alien from the native Aqua interface from OSX).

xterm > terminal program in X11

If all goes well, you can test to see if OpenCASCADE (in the OCE version) is properly installed when you can launch DRAWEXE, a graphical, command-line utility to interact with OCE, which is available in the bin folder. There is a menu-window and a prompt in the terminal. This is old school ;)

Then you can follow the DRAWEXE-example from the OpenCASCADE website.

Beware, I've had to manage a few things to get this far:

Install Developer tools from Apple (XCode, X11)
The binary installer for OCE is precompiled for OSX Snow Leopard (10.6) in 64-bit. If you use a different platform, you should probably compile from sources. This is made easier with the OCE distribution.
I've had to install 'ftgl', which is the OpenGL Font Rendering Library. To be able to use that, I had to go to the downloaded ftgl compressed archive, unpack it, open Terminal.app and "cd" into the folder and type:

./configure
make
make install

2. Install PythonOCC from sources

While the PythonOCC team provided binary installers, they are currently outdated, so I started from the most recent source files. The sources are hosted on github and use the git version control system. This is a tool to work on a local copy, with the possibility to update from the github site, create your own local branches, merge them etc... If you don't know what this all means, you can also download a compressed archive if you want.

I've installed git from Macports or fink, IIRC. Fink and Macports are both ways to install typical Linux-applications, similar in approach to the package manager tools found in Linux (e.g. apt-get). This takes care of getting all dependencies included, without destroying your OSX system too much...

Create a folder somewhere, go into it from the Terminal and type:

git pull git://github.com/tpaviot/pythonocc.git

PythonOCC comes with two embedded libraries, which are not trivial to install.

Come to think of it, I had to also install the CMake build system from Kitware... This is an Open Source build system, which makes it easier to write makefiles (the text files to tell your compiler how sources are turned into executable programs). This cmake-file can be written platform-independently (up to a certain level) and be used in Linux, Windows, OSX.

SMESH is used for advanced control over meshing and tesselation. Since it is quite hard to install and requires a fortran compiler, they are trying to remove it as a separate module to install.
GEOM is a parametric framework, based on SalomeGeometry. The sources are included in PythonOCC (/src/contrib/GEOM-5.1.5.9).

Before I could compile, I had to comment out a few lines in the CMakeFiles.txt file, which is the input for CMake. That was because the queried environment variables have changed in OCE 0.6.0 and are to a large extent not required anymore. I placed a # sign before some of the lines:

#FIND_PATH(OCC_INCLUDE_PATH Standard_Real.hxx $ENV{CASROOT}/inc)
#SET(OCC_LIB_PATH "$ENV{CASROOT}/lib")
#FIND_LIBRARY(OCC_LIB_PATH TKernel PATHS $ENV{CASROOT}/lib)
#MESSAGE(${OCC_LIB_PATH})

Then I started compilation, using CMake in the GEOM folder (but build in a sub-folder to not mess up the source folder):

mkdir _MyBuild
cmake -DOCC_INCLUDE_PATH=/Library/OCE/0.6.0/include/oce -DOCC_LIB_PATH=/Library/OCE/0.6.0/lib ..
make
make install

If all goes well, the GEOM modules are installed on your system. In my case, the libraries arrived in /usr/local/lib/GEOM-5.1.5.9 and the header files in /usr/local/include/GEOM-5.1.5.9

Now PythonOCC itself... Not fully there, yet... by far.

I went back to the main pythonocc folder, downloaded from github. The process takes two steps:

python setup.py build --disable-SMESH --with-occ-include=/Library/OCE/0.6.0/include/oce --with-occ-lib=/Library/OCE/0.6.0/lib --with-geom-lib=/usr/local/lib/GEOM-5.1.5.9
python setup.py install --disable-SMESH --with-occ-include=/Library/OCE/0.6.0/include/oce --with-occ-lib=/Library/OCE/0.6.0/lib --with-geom-lib=/usr/local/lib/GEOM-5.1.5.9

So this is a two-step process: building and installing. If all goes well, you will have an additional OCC folder inside your main site-packages of Python: /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages

To check that OCC is actually available inside Python, go (again) to the Terminal.app and type:

python

to launch the current default python (the one installed from Apple) and load the OCC libraries:

from OCC import *

This will take a while, but as long as you don't see errors, you are good to go.

3. Graphical User Interface and windows?

While you can start writing command-line python-scripts directly, there is a caveat! There is no GUI.

And while I would like to say that there is an easy, cross-platform solution, alas it is convoluted on OSX. Last time I tried to install PythonOCC on Windows, all was up and running in maybe 20 minutes: python, OpenCASCADE, PythonOCC, Qt, PyQt4.

The PythonOCC team have come up with three "backends" for GUI's and one wrapper class around it that frees the user from too much GUI-stuff.

wx : a wxWidgets based backed (which is a cross-platform GUI system, for Windows, Linux, OSX).
qt : the Nokia Qt frameworks, including GUI stuff, running on most systems (Windows, Linux, OSX, embedded Linux, some smartphones).
python-xlib : an XWindow based simpler layer.

For OSX, the wx option is, well, broken. Don't attempt it, unless you "really" know what you are doing. I'm not. I tried in the past and gave up. It is a mixture of X11, OSX and hacking.

And to use Qt in python, you need a wrapper. There is PyQt from Riverbank software (which has some license limitations) and more recently PySide which has a more liberal license. All instructions point to PyQt so that is what I will use.

If you have installed Qt4 before, beware! On OSX, there are two version: qt4-mac and qt4-x11. The first is native, using Cocoa and the Aqua interface. Really good integration in OSX and very usable. While this is totally recommended for any cross-platform development. However... not for OpenCASCADE, at the moment. So I uninstalled Qt4-mac, alas.

sudo /Developer/Tools/uninstall-qt.py

Then you need to install the qt4-x11 version, which is far from easy. I used Fink. This is only the bare summary:

install fink and update it so it is current:

fink selfupdate
fink update-all

This can take quite a while... and comes with a large amount of software: cmake, python, qt4-mac... However, everything resides in /sw that does not hinder the rest of OSX.
Now you are ready to install qt4-x11:

fink install qt4-base-x11

This comes with a few hundred dependencies and can take quite long (a few hours on my machine). I had to answer a few questions and avoided some "aes" options, as described in my comments on the PythonOCC blog.
check that the Fink version of qt4-x11 is installed. Type "qmake -v" into a terminal. It should point to qt4-x11 inside the /sw folder.

Before you can use PyQt4, you need to install another library, called sip from Riverbank Software (who also make PyQt4).

Download the installer. I've had an API conflict between the precompile PyQt4 form the PythonOCC.org site, so I have to use an older version.

SIP-4.12.3 complained: "RuntimeError: the sip module implements API v8.0 to v8.1 but the PyQt4.QtCore module requires API v7.0"
SIP-4.10 worked fine.

python configure.py
make
sudo make install

Now you can use the pre-compiled PyQt4 provided on the PythonOCC.org website. There are pre-compiled released for OpenCASCADE and PythonOCC too, but they are for older versions (OCC 6.3.0, while OCE 0.6.0 is using OCC 6.5.1). The number difference is small, but is about two years older.
--- EDIT ---- I've had to hack one line in the OCCViewer.py file (installed inside your Python site-packages folder: the first line was included, but gave an error when running a script using the GUI. I've had to replace the modules call with the expected result string:

comment out v3d_module_library = sys.modules['_V3d'].__file__
replace with v3d_module_library = '/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/OCC/_V3d.so'

Finally something that works

Now some picture of a running system...

Double-clicked a python script in the PythonOCC Examples/Level1/Geometry folder, called "Geometrydemos.py". X11 should be started and the python script runs inside a Terminal.

This is an interactive view: you can zoom, pan, orbit, select items and call some commands in the menu. It uses X11 for display (see the X-cross in the window), but other than that, it runs directly inside OSX.

My personal thought: installing XCode, X11, fink (with hundreds of programs that are already inside OSX), OpenCASCADE, qt4-x11, SIP, PyQt4 and finally PythonOCC to make small scripts is quite a contradiction... But it is open, flexible, cross-platform and can be the basis to prototype a new CAD system that innovates.

Revit: Project Spark – quick overview

2011-09-06T16:54:00.000+02:00

Revit: Project Spark – quick overview: So what is Project Spark? Essentially Spark, is a cut down version of Revit, a sort of Revit LT or beginner’s version. Some probably though...

I was hoping to talk a bit about Project Spark, but found the review in the autodesk-revit blog to be complete and quite detailed, so I advice to read it there first (and then come back to comment if you want).

Autodesk is quite active in providing new Lab projects and also launched several new products recently in the Mac App Store and in the iTunes App Store (for iOS devices).

This product is a free, limited version, based on Revit 2012. It provides a subset of what you can do inside Revit, while having enough limitations that it won't interfere with license sales of Revit.

You can use it for modeling, but not for rendering or analysis.

FBX export does allow you to link it to external rendering software
DWG import/export is also good to have. Could it replace AutoCAD in some offices?

No massing nor in-place families, nor view filters or grouping could pose problems for more advanced usage. The other limitations seem fair.

There is Family editing, however, so you can do quite advanced Revit-stuff.

And you can not use it to freely add some Revit seats to your company as Spark-files will not open in Revit. You can however load Revit files as a reference. That said, it can be a nice tool for other people in the design team.

I wonder if you could somehow combine it with Project Vasari, which is also free and also based on Revit, but which provides analysis tools.

And, as always, only on Windows.

Working in the cloud with free software

2011-09-05T14:28:00.000+02:00

This post comments briefly on some of the "cloud"-enabled software utilities that I have started to use more and more. Short definition: these apps will allow you to work from different computers or devices on your data, yet are more optimized and user-friendly than a web page, despite the javascript goodness that seems to flood many new "organizer" and "authoring" and "managing" projects.

I'll discuss Dropbox, Evernote, Skitch and Mendeley Desktop. Not CAD this time, but usable and free utilities that I have start to rely on, almost every day.

Dropbox
(register using this link to give you and me some more space)

This one is quite popular. You want to access your files from different places and possibly share them with others. Dropbox provides a free 2GB (with some more to obtain when referring others) to host your files.

Files are synced, you can work offline, you can have a local folder on your computer (Windows, OSX, Linux) or on one of your devices (Android, iOS etc...).

Just do what you usually do: open and edit files and save them. But rest assured that you will be able to access them on another device as well.

For me, it replaces to a large extent other means of sharing (e.g. ftp) or sending large files (e.g. YouSendit). And when installed as an app, compared to the web-interface, you get notifications for updates and an additional bonus space.

Evernote
http://www.evernote.com/

At my latest conference, someone pointed me to Evernote. This is a note-taking application, where you can start taking notes. By tagging them and organizing them into notebooks, you can structure them at will. E.g. I have personal projects, research, teaching and general computing notebooks, where I edit stuff. You can even add audio or webcam notes alongside HTML-based text-nodes. Images can be included as well and there are some helper tools to snap websites or part thereof.

It also integrated with a wide variety of other tools, so you can e.g. take and annotate a screenshot inside Skitch and have it added to Evernote as well.

Works on almost any device and also through a browser.

I would like to also have an integrated mindmapper (e.g. such as Freemind) and also a simple vectorial drawing tool supporting links (e.g. VUE) so all my note-taking can be merged and synced.

Skitch
http://skitch.com

This is a free Mac screenshot application, but nicely done: it integrates well, includes annotation with ease and also allows easy dragging of any screenshot to an image file or share online with Skitch or to Evernote (they are part of Evernote now).

Now available in the Mac App Store, but also on Android and (soon) iOS.

I've used it for all screenshots on this blog post.

Mendeley Desktop
http://www.mendeley.com/

This is a bibliography organizer for scientists. You can use it to collect, tag and annotate PDFs of publications (articles, books, conference proceedings). It will be synced online and can be used to share publications as well.

There are some lookup features e.g. retrieve from the title using Google Scholar (hit-and-miss) or from the doi-code.

It also integrates with Word or OpenOffice to insert citations and a bibliography and several reference-styles are supported.

While you can use it for non-PDF based documents, this is somehow less convenient. I've started from the BibTex file from my PhD, to insert most of the references I collected and also pointed to a folder where I store most Articles and digital copies of proceedings. That said, it'll take a while to properly organize, tag and correct the entries, but the software is quite helpful.

Not sure why it is free, as the similarly oriented EndNote is not. It is a good alternative. And works on Windows, Linux and OSX and there are iOS versions too to access your references on location. You also receive 1 GB of webspace (500 MB personal and 500 MB for sharing), but more space is not free.

I've had it crash occasionally on certain PDF files, but no harm was done. And sometimes the automatic lookups give false results, but you have to be quite attentive to correctness anyway. Good thing: automatic imports are classified as "to review" and you have to explicitly mark them as "correct" before they are included in the regular database.

Open IFC Tools : Open Source IFC Libraries and software

2011-08-25T12:35:00.003+02:00

Open IFC Tools (http://www.openifctools.org)

This is a set of Open Source (for non-commercial use) libraries written in Java. It should work on Windows, Linux and OSX.

They follow a modular approach, where different packages are being released in order:

Open IFC Java Toolbox
Boolean Modeller
IFC-loader for Java3D
4D Scheduling Assistant

Currently, only the Toolbox is available, together with a Java Webstart demonstration to launch the software directly from a browser. This automatically installs the necessary extensions for Java3D, OpenGL, GlueGen.

I tried the web-demo but first had to update Java3D on my Mac (as mentioned on http://www.openifctools.org/Open_IFC_Tools/mac_java3d.html).

This viewer loaded the ArchiCAD file without problems and displayed it adequately. You get a view on the actual IFC code, a 3D visualization, the hierarchic object tree of the Spatial structure and the particular attributes of selected entities, which is exactly what you need from a viewer.

The yellow color is the highlight color of the wall I selected, on the ground floor ("Gelijkvloers" in Dutch). It displays the wall information, the ID (unique), the Name (as named inside ArchiCAD) and the connectivity with other objects.

This is quite comparable to what is provided by Solibri Viewer, so the implementation is fairly complete.

For an end user, you might be a bit scared away with all the nitty-details from the IFC files and indeed, a literal display of what is inside an IFC file can be pretty daunting, when you are accustomed to a more user-friendly display from e.g. ArchiCAD or Revit.

IFC-SDK : Open Source IFC 2x3 Library

2011-08-25T12:35:00.002+02:00

IFC-SDK
Formerly: http://www.osor.eu/projects/ifc-sdk
Moved in Dec 2011 to https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/software/ifc-sdk/home

This is an Open Source C++ library for reading and writing IFC files. It does not depend on any external libraries and can be compiled on most modern compilers. It was tested on Windows (g++ and VC++ 2003+2005) and on Linux (g++ 3 and 4).
I had no problem compiling it on OSX Snow Leopard, using XCode 3.2.5.

It contains a STEP library and an IFC library, alongside a quite large list of example programs, including tests, to explain the features of the library.

Using CMake it could compile the full library without problems and the example programs seem to work fine. They are all command-line, so no GUI problems, but nothing fancy to see either.

However, there are some caveats...

I see very little actual information (project homepage, author and licensing details).

however, inside the source code, it is "copyrighted 2009 CSTB" and released under the LGPL 2.1 license, which is Open Source, but with the possibility to link it in a commercial software.

Last update was in October 2009, which is a bad sign... as it seems to not be (publicly) maintained. It is numbered 1.0-beta.
The library is made for IFC 2x3 which is not the current version of the IFC standard.
Most of the included examples focus on the geometric aspects and not the building information

ifcRevolvedAreaSolid_app (see above)
ifcVector_app
ifcShellBasedSurfaceModel_app etc...

So if anybody has more details about it and if a more recent version is available, then please comment.

ifcGears : Open Source IFC Library/Framework & Viewer

2011-08-25T12:35:00.001+02:00

ifcGears (http://www.ifcgears.com)

This is a C++ Open Source library, providing a framework to generate IFC reader/writer classes from the Express files.

In addition, there is an IFC Viewer program, using OpenSceneGraph or OSG (http://openscenegraph.org) and Nokia Qt SDK (http://qt.nokia.com).

Compilation Issues

I was able (after some serious struggle) to compile the ifcGears library and the ifcGearsViewer on OSX.
It uses the CMake build system (http://cmake.org) which has support for OSG. But the GUI-version of CMake on OSX does not properly generate all settings, as it seems to miss the environment variables somehow. When generating the XCode project or the Makefiles using cmake from the command line, things run smoother.

Anyway, if you use the graphical CMake, you have to ensure that all libraries are found. I have only used the release-versions.

With the OPT_VIEWER you can optionally enable the generation of the IFC Viewer too, but you need OpenSceneGraph installed properly (which was also a bit of a problem on OSX, but I'll skip that in this post). I used version 3.0.1. In addition, you also need Qt available (qmake etc...). I used version 4.7.

All was compiled for 64-bit (x86_64) for Intel and using Cocoa (native) instead of Carbon (deprecated), but it should be possible to make 32-bit versions for PPC and Intel too.

With all of that into place, I was able to compile the library and the viewer.

The red commands are probably due to the IFC-version used when exporting the model from ArchiCAD. I am not worrying too much here, as I have to test more.

I see no Windows or Doors and some walls are apparently not visible. When trying a single wall with a door and a window, the openings got hidden beneath the closed wall geometry, so more work seems to be required.

ifcOpenShell : Open Source IFC Library/Framework & Geometry Conversion

2011-08-25T12:35:00.000+02:00

ifcOpenShell (http://ifcopenshell.org)

This is an Open Source projects, written in C++ and which uses the Open Source OpenCASCADE or OCC libraries for all geometric work (info on http://www.opencascade.org). It is currently available as Source code and some basic programs are written:

a 3ds Max IFC Importer (as a max plugin), compiled into a DLL (but renamed for max);
a Blender IFC Import script (in Python);
a standalone convertor to translate IFC geometry into a Wavefront OBJ file.

They use a common parser library and the OCC libraries.

I was mostly interested to the approach of both the setup of IFC classes and the integration with the geometry kernel. Currently, the focus seems to be on extracting the geometric objects from IFC files, to use in other software, e.g. for 3D Visualization.

For me, the more interesting aspect would be the other way around: having complex, freeform geometry and convert this into valid IFC models for analysis purposes.

Compilation Problems

It is currently working fine in Windows and should compile on Linux, but I had problems with OSX compilation. From my (limited) understanding, this is due to the use of an outdated GCC version in OSX, when compared to Linux distributions. However, switching to a compiler not provided by Apple is not trivial. Moreover, during compilation, my whole system is getting really slow and memory is eaten quickly. So I have not been able to use it in OSX (yet).

Open Source IFC Frameworks : some experiences

2011-08-25T11:34:00.001+02:00

I have been looking at programming Frameworks for IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), the open standard to exchange Building Information Models. I assume you are at least aware of what they are and what they contain...

While most commercial BIM software currently exports and opens IFC documents, I was interested to learn about actually doing something directly with these files, e.g. analyzing and visualizing or even generating them.

There are a few free IFC viewers available. Tekla BIMsight and Solibri Viewer are both recommended (the latter even cross-platform). But they are closed and can not be adapted for other purposes. However, I also read about a few interesting Open Source projects for creating and opening IFC files.

BIMserver : http://bimserver.org
ifcOpenShell : http://ifcopenshell.org
ifcGears : http://ifcgears.com
IFC-SDK : http://www.osor.eu/projects/ifc-sdk
Open IFC Tools : http://www.openifctools.org

In the next posts, I will discuss some of them into more detail and try to have them running/compiled on my computer. I discussed BIMserver in an older post.

But first some overall thoughts.

Large class libraries: IFC contains a large list of classes. Most frameworks generate C++ or Java classes from the IFC schema files, which is obviously the smart thing to do. Certainly when things do not work well, as you can alter the generation procedure and 500+ classes are updated.
Viewers: in most cases, people start with viewing (or parsing) IFC files, to visualize them as lists or 3D models. However, when thinking about generative architecture and procedural design, it would be nice to have model generators too. Open Toolkits might be a way to start supporting them.
Cross-platform or not? The examples I found are either C++ or Java. The Java libraries should work on all platforms, whereas for the C++ libraries it depends. The class libraries themselves are commonly platform agnostic, although many use recent libraries or even newer language constructs that are not always supported everywhere. The viewers are commonly using external libraries and they are not always cross-platform (although many are). As most BIM development seems to occur on Windows machines, I am particularly wary about having it supported on OSX as well. Usually, when Windows is supported, the next platform that is attempted is Linux, and in many cases this is available. But compilation on OSX is usually left at volunteers. So I will try to see if I can help a bit.

CryENGINE 3 : free SDK for non-commercial work

2011-08-19T09:31:00.000+02:00

The CryENGINE is a professional Game Development system, in which you can fully author interactive content, games, simulations. The Software Developers Kit (SDK) was already free for schools, but now individual students can also freely use the 3D engine.

It is a powerful platform, but it requires fairly up to date hardware and Windows.

I have not had the chance to use it, nor play any of the CryENGINE powered games, but it is one of the more famous ones (apart from the Unreal Engine and the Unity3D engine which both are also freely available under certain limitations).

Info on http://www.crydev.net/dm_eds/download_detail.php?id=4

Free IES-Gaia for education

2011-08-03T10:07:00.000+02:00

IES (or Integrated Environmental Solutions) has a range of tools for sustainable design analysis.

They now offer free 12-month academic licenses to VE-Gaia for educational institutes (contact enquiries at iesve.com). They already offer £50 licenses for students (per year) so I'm not sure what is provided with this academic offer. The software seems to be Windows-only.

Announcement: http://www.iesve.com/news/pressrelease/IES-OFFERS-FREE-ARCHITECTURAL-SOFTWARE-TO-SUPPORT-FUTURE-OF-SUSTAINABLE-DESIGN_2009

The VE-Gaia software

Info on http://www.iesve.com/software/ve-gaia

This is a standalone application focusing on building performance simulation with included visual and text-based reporting. It looks at following criteria:

building characteristics: area/volume ratio, solar loads, thermal mass, material usage
climate exploration
energy/carbon (including temperatures, humidity and comfort at room level)
lighting (daylighting and solar shading)
use of natural resources (solar energy, wind, rain, water reduction)

You can model inside the software, but it can also be integrated with SketchUp and Revit (using plug-ins) or you can import DXF and gbXML files (which e.g. ArchiCAD can generate using a free add-on for educational users).

OS X Lion : to upgrade or not?

2011-08-02T11:18:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago, the new release of OS X (without the "Mac" now) called Lion, was made available in the Apple App Store (no DVD or boxes to buy!) for the small sum of $29.99. If you are using a Mac and have the hardware to run it (intel, recent processor), you can easily upgrade.

However, having "some" experience with upgrading Operating Systems (from Windows 3.1 till 7, from MacOS 7 till 9, from OSX 10.3 till 10.6, from several Ubuntu and other Linux distros), I know that thing can and will go wrong. Not with the core software from the manufacturer (e.g. Microsoft Office when upgrading Windows or iLife when upgrading OSX). So I started to look around a bit. Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6) still took a while before some of my hardware was supported (some still isn't).

I compiled a list of some of the expected problems for some of the applications I use. I advice you to do the same. Beware, running on the new OS does not imply that applications will support the new features of it (e.g. full screen apps, automatic saving and resuming, new gestures).

There is a nice site that collects user experiences: http://roaringapps.com

What is expected to work without much problems

The Mac-version of Rhino3D is regularly updated and has been announced to work for the most part without problems. As this is a pre-beta version, you can not expect full compatibility until it is officially released, but they are working quite well on it.
Cinema4D r12 should work fine. I don't expect any problems with the new r13 when it becomes available in September.
iStuff from Apple : don't expect too much problems, unless you use really old versions.
Screenium screen recording software should work.
Unity3D is fine, when you upgrade to the newly released r3.4 (free update).

But then we get into more troublesome areas...

Parallels (the software to run Windows or Linux inside OSX) requires a non-free upgrade to release 6. As a free alternative, you could try VirtualBox, which seems to be running well in Lion.

I still need MS Windows for Rhino + Grasshopper, for Revit, for Ecotect, for Tekla BIMSight and for Trackmania. Well, I can live without most of that, but prefer to have Grasshopper still available, until it becomes available for the Mac-version of Rhino, which can still take some time.

ArchiCAD has problems with Lion (e.g. with slow font rendering). There are some known troubles and you are suggested to wait until they get fixed. Don't count on older versions than 14 to work fine. http://www.archicadwiki.com/MacOSXLion

No PPC versions will run. Only ArchiCAD 10 for Intel and newer releases.
Slow font drawing (http://www.archicadwiki.com/Bugs/SlowTextDrawingOnLion)
Virtual Building Explorer crashing
BIM Server issues
No Java runtime installed by default (but available)

SketchUp appears to have some problems still: http://roaringapps.com/app:31

Previews with Background images
Syncing scenes when there is only 1 photomatch scene
using the 3D Warehouse
some of the pins to set phototextures
different scroll behavior
the snapping of dialog boxes
loading previous scenes behind the welcome screen

Ableton Live (I use this for all my music) needs a new upgrade, which is not ready yet. This is software that requires realtime performance and thus speak well to the underlying system.
Adobe CS 4 (which I still use) is said to have some problems. I assume CS5 and 5.5 will have updates to run on Lion.
MS Office for Mac? As long as you upgrade an existing installation, it should work fine. But Lion removed Rosetta, which is the PowerPC emulator required to run older software. The Office Installer uses that and thus stops working. Some people also had serious problems with Excel (which I use quite a bit) and Entourage (which I stopped using). I guess 2008 and 2011 will both be made compatible with new service packs.
AutoCAD for Mac is NOT compatible, but they are working on it. The update is now in beta on the Autodesk Labs, as announced on http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2011/07/autocad-for-mac-2011-update-beta-for-os-x-lion.html

Things I don't know, but which causes serious problems in the past when upgrading to Snow Leopard:

I have an older Canon Scanner (Lidescan 30 or 50 IIRC), which never worked well on Snow Leopard. I don't expect Canon to update their drivers... Damn. And I already stopped buying HP Scanners as they don't update their drivers for older hardware.
My POD X3 Live is a floor board with Guitar FX and Amp Emulations, which you can also connect to the computer. It took quite some time for drivers to be available for Snow Leopard, so I expect some delay for Lion as well.

So all in all, while the new release is promising and is probably required when iCloud gets released, I'm waiting a bit for the major problems to get solved. I guess I'm getting a bit older, as I used to be very quick on migrating to new releases in the past and live with the problems that caused.

New release : Cinema4D r13

2011-08-02T10:45:00.000+02:00

While I haven't had the chance to try it out, now is a good time to check out the improvements announced for Cinema4D release 13, which is said to be available in September.

Right... So when we start the new semester, suddenly we will have to upgrade our software: Cinema4D r13, ArchiCAD 15, maybe Rhino3D 5? This is quite inconvenient as we need some time to learn the new features, see if it makes sense to incorporate them into our learning material and maybe update a few of the screenshots or text in our learning material. I just finished the text for release 12... (see http://caad.asro.kuleuven.be/Manuals/VIZ/Cinema4D/ ).

Anyway, there are some interesting new features. The full detail can be read on different places, e.g. http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/topic/61697-maxon-announces-r13/ which has screenshots and movies linked. The downloadable tutorials are free for a short while without registration! Hurry up!

The "executive summary", with the new or improved features that matter most for architectural modeling and visualization:

Physical Renderer: an additional rendering engine which supports physical properties for rendering, such as more integrated and accurate motion blur, depth-of-field, lens distortion.
Stereoscopic Workflow: 3D movies are "hot" (well, still have to see one to be convinced) and this is quite convenient if you are already working in 3D. Still, without the proper hardware, you can not see anything of it.
Character Animation enhancements: not directly the focus in architectural visualization, but if the setup of a character rig is improved and you can generate walk-cycles more easily, this might be usable by non-specialists. Using motion-capture or manually key-framing a character is only something that the specialists are able to do convincingly.
Improved viewport navigation: orbiting and zooming relative to the point you click on will be very welcomed.
New XRefs: this is something that will be important when you want to visualize large architectural scenes (e.g. a site with several separate buildings).

Some remarkable "details":

No new modeling enhancements.
Backwards Compatible: you can open r13 scenes in r12 (!)

So will everybody start upgrading? It seems a good feature set and if the software is still freely available for students, I guess that we will try to stay with the newest release, if it is available in time.

Sculptris : a free 3D sculpting software

2011-06-29T12:38:00.000+02:00

Scultpris is a free, cross-platform (Win+OSX) 3D modeling and texturing software, from Pixologic, famous for their ZBrush sculpturing top software. It allows you to work with e.g. Wacom tablets and can handle both 3D meshes and the texturing, although you can combine this with Photoshop and other 3D software.

After some minutes dabbling with a small Wacom tablet

Info on http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/ (current version is Alpha 6, indicating it is not fully finished)

Real example from Sculptris website (artist: Barry Croucher)

While the ZBrush software is seen as the logical "next" step, when you outgrow Sculptris, it is already quite complete:

dynamic tesselation (refinement of the mesh when sculpting) to support details in the regions which require it, without having to overwhelm the rest of the model with more smooth, flat surfaces.
painterly-like interface, dark color scheme, icons, lots of rounded edges. If you use this only occasionally, this might be a disadvantage, though.
several brushes and modeling aids (e.g. symmetry mode).
custom brushes, based on patterns with alpha channels.
masking support, to protect areas of your model.
automatic UV creation, which ensures that the model has a well-structured set of texture coordinates, to assist the texturing on a usable texture map. This will also help with imports in other 3D software, e.g. for rendering or animation.
support for texture projecting and bump-map painting.

This kind of software (Pixologic Sculptris and ZBrush, Autodesk MudBox) is mostly used in organic character modeling and design, but nothing prevents you from trying to find a use for it in architectural modeling and visualization. BodyPaint (as included with Maxon Cinema4D) is different, as it is a "paint-on-model" software, allowing you to work as if you where in Photoshop but on the texture map and live on the 3D model. ZBrush and the like will actually model and modify the geometry as well (the mesh).

New release of Tekla BIMsight

2011-06-21T01:00:00.000+02:00

I was informed by people from Tekla (they did a Webinar preview on 16th of June) that the new version of Tekla BIMsight 1.2 will be released on June 21st. Here is a sneak peek. More info on http://www.teklabimsight.com soon.

BIMsight is a standalone and free application (windows-only) to load, compare and view BIM models. It is focused on IFC documents, but can load DWG and DGN (from AutoCAD-compatible and MicroStation compatible) applications as well.

The highlights of the original release still stand (I discussed it earlier in this blog : Tekla Bimsight), but the new version adds some nice features:

red lining in 3D = making annotations to the model, to give feedback to the model owner;
re-locating the model, which I read as being able to position different models (from different files/programs) to be properly aligned;
improved management, through grouping and linking (multi-files?)

So far, my biggest gripe is that it is Windows-only, but I intend to use it for a project in which we will have students collaborate using BIM models (together with BIMserver.org for IFC sharing). I was trying to install it in a virtual windows, but I completely trashed this system and had to start all over again.

The software avoids the Desktop-style interface (no Ribbon, less dialogs, tabbed, web-like GUI). Not sure if that suits the target audience, though (architects, engineers, many of them familiar with Windows-based CAD software).

Tekla BIMsight 1.2 Screenshot (with included demo-model)

Performance inside a Virtual machine was not too well, but don't think I can blame Tekla for that. After all, loading several large IFC models simultaneously is not that trivial. While I like the fact you get a fair sight on what is in the model, the biggest problem I see is that you have to know quite well what you are doing to generate IFC's in a particular structure. Having large lists of "WallStandardCase" (all named identically) does not help you that much if you want to look for a particular one. This is something I also noticed in the BIMserver ModelBrowser.

Not sure if the original model or the IFC export or the IFC import is to blame here. But whenever models get large (and don't all architectural/building models have this tendency), there are countless objects with the same name and it becomes hard to keep track of which object is where. Luckily, you have a fully interactive 3D window here, which is a huge benefit.

The biggest comparable software I see, is Solibri Model Viewer, the free Java-based and cross-platform viewer for (single) IFC files. I assume Autodesk NavisWorks is another candidate, although I have never tried it.

Project Photofly 2.0 available from Autodesk

2011-06-17T15:20:00.001+02:00

A free application to turn images into 3D models.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/

The new release of Project Photofly, from Autodesk, is now available in the "labs" and expires at the end of 2011. It is currently free and runs on all recent Windows PC's (Core2Duo recommended, XP or 7 in both 32- and 64-bit).

Beware that to use it, the software uploads pictures to an Autodesk server for processing, so if that does not suit you, then do not use it.

Funny: the software is available only in English, but the End User License Agreement (EULA) is made in 15 different languages.

Announce: Virtual Design World Cup

2011-06-10T11:10:00.000+02:00

Check out http://virtualdesignworldcup.org/2011/

This is a sponsored competition for students to combining BIM and Virtual Reality models. The participants can win large prices, but they have to use the software proposed by the organization (being Allplan and UC-win/Road).

Welcome! This student competition utilizes Building Information Models (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology to aid in the design of an innovative pedestrian bridge. Participate for your chance to win the $12,000 Grand Prize!
Two pieces of software will be used and are provided to contestants for free (for the duration of the competition): BIM software Allplan by Nemetschek and VR software UC-win/Road by Forum8.

The request is not so simple:

The concept for this competition is based on the design of Shibuya bridge – a new way of imagining Tokyo’s most famous intersection. The criteria includes architectural design and visualization of a pedestrian bridge/deck in, around, or above the context of this landmark. Participants must complete the design with a wide range of technologies in architecture and civil engineering, including the mandatory software packages UC-win/Road and Allplan. Judging is performed on the basis of various design aspects including architectural/landscape design, structural design, pedestrian/traffic control, wind analysis, internal landscape evaluation with walk-though, and eco-friendly design.

Comments on the BIMserver.org Breakfast 2011

2011-06-10T11:05:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, I was at the BIMserver Breakfast, in Amsterdam (which is not too far from Leuven by train). At this event, people could download, install and run the Open Source BIM server, to collaboratively host building projects using IFC files.

The BIM Server software

The free, java-based server is easy to install, as it is completely self-contained (even includes a small http-server) and cross-platform. As admin, you can set up some project and define users.

BIM Server (left) and Web administration interface (right)

Currently, this is mostly a specialized, domain-specific, content-management system:

Projects contain name, description, sub-projects and geo-location;
IFC files can be uploaded and downloaded;
people can make revisions (new versions);
sub-projects define user roles, e.g. architect, structural engineer, MEP;
there is a modelbrowser, which shows the IFC model structure and can be used to make queries (request for particular objects to inspect);
RSS feeds allow you to subscribe to revisions;
There is a compare option, but only version 1.1 will allow you to compare using the IFC name;
You can "tag" certain revisions, e.g. for particular milestones in the project;
You can branch a project revision, to make it into an independent, new alternative project.

ModelBrowser

This is Open Source software and is under active development. There was even a particular event to create add-ons during the OpenBIMweek, from which this event was a part.

Query on the BIM Server

Some notable features, which are more domain-specific:

Exporting IFC models to e.g. Google Earth is possible, but this generates a simplified version of the model (only walls, roofs and floor slabs, IIRC);
There is an optional WebGL viewer included (which works best using e.g. Google Chrome browser);
External viewers are being developed, which connect directly to the BIM server, allowing users to load and view a particular revision;
Connections to Alfresco and Sharepoint are being developed;
You can merge sub-projects (a simple merge and a smart merge are available, the latter avoiding any double and overlapping items). This takes quite some time as models can become very large;
Editing the IFC model is not possible. I assume that it could technically be possible by writing an add-on that interacts with the database, but the question is if that is really what you want to enable.

All in all, a very promising software and we intend to use it throughout a new project where we ask students from different schools to collaborate and communicate, using 'any' BIM software that is compatible with IFC (and probably also use BIM viewers).

The BIM Server Breakfast Event

The event itself was very informal. In the style of "Sit down, plug-in your earphones and start doing something." Luckily, the people from BIMserver.org where available for questions and explanations. I would have preferred a bit more structure and guidance. After all, when going all the way to Amsterdam to follow web-movies which can also be followed at home, you need some additional incentive.

Luckily, I also had a few nice talks about BIM, IFC, integration with ArchiCAD, possible solutions for workflows, integration in education etc... which all made the trip to Amsterdam worthwhile. And I had a meeting in Rotterdam the same day, which was also quite productive.

Karamba : I'm slowly getting started

2011-06-06T16:46:00.002+02:00

In my recent quest to discover possible tools for design analysis, I already noticed Karamba, which is a free (for now?) Grasshopper-plugin for integrated structural calculation.

It means you can define a structural system, with beams and loads and with control over connectivity, support conditions (degrees of freedom of nodes) and analyze it directly within Grasshopper. Real-time if possible. Nice.

So I launched Parallels Desktop and stepped through the manual (which is well-written!) and tried to create a basic learning example. Don't shoot me if there are glaring mistakes in this, as I have to re-learn some of the things that have been kept under a rock for the last 10 years (Finite Element Analysis, Building Mechanics).

The following screenshot displays a small example with three nodes, two beams and a single force. The nice thing is that, once this is setup, you can interactively play with it, e.g. move nodes, adjust the force, with the simulation running alongside.

With some preparation and list-juggling, you can make quite complex structural systems. Just not right now for me, as I have to ensure I do some side-by-side comparisons (running existing examples through different systems).

--- edit ---

Just playing a bit and adding a second example. Here I used a freeform curve and using the Divide and Shatter components in Grasshopper turned them into a range of different curves, fed into the Karamba calculation. Being able to tweak in real-time the position of the load (onto any of the nodes) has a huge didactic potential for students and designers.

3dtin : modeling and sharing inside (modern) browsers

2011-05-26T17:12:00.000+02:00

At http://www.3dtin.com you can use your gmail-account to login and freely create 3D models, using a small set of modeling tools (cubes, some primitives and basic color). It resembles a basic paint program, but with all pixels being 3D boxes.

There is even a "smooth" option to make a subdivision surface.

The application runs directly inside the browser, so ensure you have a very recent one, such as an up-to-date version of Chrome, as it needs WebGL support and JavaScript to let the magic work.

Nothing to install, nothing to launch, just open the site and start creating.

However, beware that everything you create on this site is automatically licensed under a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to make adjustments, without royalty fees, but with reference to you as the original author.

Archmedium Student Competition : Rethinking Mallorca’s Seafront

2011-05-23T17:03:00.000+02:00

Proposal

Tourism is without a doubt one of the largest economical activities in the world.
This development has in many ways damaged seafronts to an almost irreparable point. There are many cities that can serve as an example for this; such as Benidorm in the coast of Spain, Playa del Carmen in Mexico or Cartagena in Colombia. Ironically many of these destinations lose their charm when they become too crowded even for the same tourists who flock to them.
Architecture is definitely one of the main responsible for all this process, but at the same time has the opportunity to remake and correct its errors.
We propose a redesign of the seafront of Cala Millor while taking advantage of the fact that the city council has decided to push back the automobile accessible area away from the seafront, making more space for pedestrian walkways and public spaces.
This investigation is at the same time based on the pilot plan for the zone that is being promoted by the “Consell Insular de Mallorca” to accomplish the “European treaty for landscape preservation”.

The call is public and is open to all of the undergraduate architectural students as well as related careers: Engineering, Urbanism, Design, etc. that can prove by the means of an official document (registration receipt, student id., etc.) their condition as a student at the moment the inscription process is opened, as well as postgraduate students who have a degree that is no more than 3 years old (this way we consider it to be a continuing student). Participation can be individual or in groups, with a maximum of 6 contestants per group. Groups of different nationalities as well as different
universities are welcomed.

Jury:

The Jury will be formed by:

Jury's President Carlos Ferrater
Architect and Urban Planner: Biel Horrach
Architect and Landscape: Maria Goula
Architect and Urban Planner: Ricard Pie
Geographer and a PhD in Earth Sciences: Luís Gómez
Hotel Asociation of Cala Millor: José Marcial

Prizes:

4000 Euros in Chash
Publication of the project in the TC Cuadernos magazine, Future Arquitecturas and WA+wettbewerbeaktuell
1 year subscription to the ON Diseño magazine.
Exhibition at the Architecture University of Barcelona (ETSAB) and Buenos Aires (UBA)

Calendar:

May 15th 2011 : Registration period begins
November 4th 2011 : Submision deadline

You can find the complete rules of the contest at the following link:
http://es.archmedium.com/Concursos/RMS/Descargas/EN_Bases_RMS.pdf

Graphic Material:

Poster: http://archmedium.com/mediakit/Concursos/images/RMS_Poster.jpg
Flyer Front: http://archmedium.com/mediakit/Concursos/images/RMS_Flyer_Front.jpg
Flyer Back: http://archmedium.com/mediakit/Concursos/images/RMS_Flyer_Back.jpg

More Info at: http://www.archmedium.com/

AxisVM LT : freeware version of Structural Analysis software

2011-05-20T10:44:00.000+02:00

While AxisVM has been around for quite a while, they are not as known as other programs. They do present a friendly approach to educational users, by providing both a free 6-month license of their full software and a permanent "LT" version.

The LT version is functionally identical to the full version, but is limited to 40 beams or trusses, 400 surface elements, 20 load cases and 10 mode shapes. For teaching and learning this might suffice, but probably not for freeform roof shapes generated in other software, where the amount of trusses will be too limited.

It is Windows-only, so I had to fall back on Parallels desktop to try it out, but it performs well. I followed one of the step-by-step examples to learn how to input nodes, beams, assign sections and materials, define Degrees-Of-Freedom (DOF) for nodes, add loads and perform the analysis.

Once I get the hang of a few of these applications, I will try to do a more complete comparison and then see how I can automate model generation from another application. In real-time? I hope so. Not sure, though if this will work.

iRhino V5 contains PanelingTools (without GUI)

2011-05-19T16:10:00.001+02:00

With all the attention that the Grasshopper plugin receives for Rhino, it is understandable that people look less at other approaches. However, I was pleased to understand that the current test-version of iRhino (the Mac OSX port of Rhino), which is now more or less in sync with Rhino V5, contains the PanelingTools.

The Paneling Tools are a plugin for Rhino v4 or v5 and are already included in the latest builds for the OSX version. These commands add the creation of grids and panels and patterns to Rhino. You can generate independent grids or add grids based on surfaces, curve/surface intersections or projections in the first step and then use the generated grid of points to generate paneling.

Paneling can follow patterns (pre-set or custom created) allowing you for quite elaborate translations of freeform geometry into something more rationalized for construction and/or fabrication.

The tools can be controlled with a series of "pt" commands, and also through RhinoScript or Grasshopper.

The OSX version lacks one important detail: a GUI! There are no toolbars to call the commands so you have to type the commands yourself. That said, this is not as bad as it sounds. Just start to type "pt" and a popup window presents you with an autocomplete list of valid commands.

While these tools have been in the Rhino Labs for quite some time, I only realized recently that the Mac-version has received them as well.

Populate for 3ds Max : architectural parametric modeling

2011-05-10T09:57:00.000+02:00

Some years ago, I was working with ArchiCAD and 3ds Max on a Dell Workstation. I started using the plugins from Marc Lorenz (http://plugins.angstraum.at) to help with it. Now I received a mail (funny how long your "old" registrations survive) announcing Populate (http://populate-3dsmax.com)

Please check it out and try the public beta of Populate, it is a plugin for paneling free form surfaces. I worked on it for over 1 year, I think it turned out quite nice.

Regarding my older plugin scripts, here is a quick status update:

Tree Shop: This one is very popular, but also very old. I plan rewriting it from scratch, using new technology from Populate.

Vray Ambient Occlusion: I'm not sure if it's still useful, and if there is a point in improving it, but I get much feedback on this.

Cubic VR: I started working on a fully featured Pano-tour system for 3dsmax,which would replace this.

The new site looks modern, has nice examples and is titled to focus on "architectural parametric modeling solution for 3ds max".

While I stopped using Max, when I migrated to OSX, in favor of Cinema4D, I still believe 3ds max has the edge considering the large community around it writing scripts, plugins, extensions (not unlike AutoCAD, if you ask me).

The software is in Public beta, comes as an "exe" file to install it and will expire, when a new version is released.

Z88 Aurora : Open Source FEA

2011-05-09T22:15:00.002+02:00

When reviewing papers for a conference, someone referenced Z88 Aurora (http://www.z88.org) which is an Open Source, cross-platform (Linux, Windows, OSX) Finite Element Analysis software. It is quite extensive and comes with examples and documentation. There is also Z88 (without the Aurora) which is also Open Source. I'm not fully sure about the difference between both... but AFAIK, Aurora contains the more user-friendly GUI with more interactivity, whereas Z88 is more limited in scope.

It contains a pre-processor (load geometry and FEA files, meshing, materials), FE-solver (calculates displacements, stresses and node forces) and a post-processor (visualization of results, export to CSV).

For once, this software is (quite) easy to use on OSX as well, provided you have the X11 system installed, which usually comes with installing the Apple Developers packages, which are included with your OS system disk. It relies on a few external libraries, but even those are embedded or included as a separate download. I had little problem to launch it. But getting something calculated requires more effort ;)

There are even video tutorials included and the read-me PDFs are of quite good quality (even explaining how to configure your trackpad and magic mouse for Mac users).

Screenshot borrowed from Z88 homepage

Edit: after I tested a bit more, I tried to recreate an existing example from another software tutorial to this software, reading alongside with the main userguide, which is quite extensive. Having two screens or at least one large helps a lot (I have a 25 inch + the 15 inch laptop screen).

I started manually defining the nodes (x,y,z), the elements/trusses (from/to node), add a material form the extensive included database, apply the different constraints (fixed nodes, forces) and then run the solver (which was finished before I even noticed something happening). The following screenshot shows onf of the results from the post-processor.

Post-processor results

DebunkTheBIM: Dear building owners: we will let you know what you need to know when and how WE think you should get to know it!

2011-05-09T14:02:00.001+02:00

DebunkTheBIM: Dear building owners: we will let you know what you need to know when and how WE think you should get to know it!

As a reaction to this post and venting some ideas on my own blog, I'd like to add some comments here.

I agree that most model viewers are very limited and only focus on 3D mesh + textures/color.

E.g. the Virtual Building Explorer (VBE) from Graphisoft (add-on for ArchiCAD) goes some way to make the design "viewable" by a user but don't expect the actual bulding information to be intact. It has gravity and collision detection (you can't walk through walls and you fall down when you pass an edge).

However, if you want, you can do a lot of that but you have to do it yourself... I happen to like Unity3D as a 3D realtime platform (and the free version goes a long way to do almost anything, apart from realtime shadows). But my remarks are not (too) software specific. Just that I will focus on things I know will work.

if you need north angles etc.. add some mesh objects to visualize that. This is possible with any software. In e.g. ArchiCAD, the quite flexible GDL library objects can be programmed so they orient themselves to north automatically. In an interactive environment, you could even program a small "HUD" (heads-up-display) which will draw the north angle as an overlay over your view, like the "radar" image in many shooting games does.
levels and spaces/zones are indeed mostly part of the 2D workflow. However, in e.g. ArchiCAD you have the option to render the spaces as 3D objects, which will enable them in any 3D model export you perform. The trick is now to ensure you can toggle spaces on and off in the viewer. In a out-of-the-box solution this is a problem, unless layers are user-togglable, but in a programmable environment you have control over this. You can even toggle an info dialog when users enter a space.
grids are also 2D, but with some clever 3D object, it might be viewable in 3D as well. But you have to take your audience into account, as this is not always useful information for them.
As far as visualizing design intent, I assume that you can get some way by making design variants and make separate visualizations or merge them in a single scene if you can toggle their visibility from within the viewer.
Tagging > as a flexible way to attach "any" info to "any" object, you can attach meaning to design objects. Now if viewers would have custom filters to display or hide objects based on their tags, you can get quite advanced additional visualization. I know that ArchiCAD supports markup highlights (color coding) on objects and you can create different views based on that info, but the same as with the previous remark: you have to find a way to provide this visibility to end users.

Understand that all these gripes are correct and to the point. I only wanted to point out some approaches to tackle at least some of them with current software.

I hope I can illustrate some of these points myself later on, with an interactive example...

Paracloud GEM : now also on Mac OSX

2011-05-06T13:45:00.002+02:00

Paracloud GEM (http://paraclouding.com/GEM) is a generative modeling system, which can be used to generate patterns on other mesh-based geometry. It can be used standalone or in collaboration with other software (e.g. SketchUp, Rhino, Maya, Cinema4D).

You can freely download the trial, but to use it fully, you need a license. You can buy a temporary one-month license or a full license (commercial and academic pricing is available).

At first, it can be puzzling to get started, as many of the icons in the interface are not self explanatory. But there is a tutorial which should get you going in about an hour or two, which is reasonably fast.

Try the online documentation.

Remember that Grasshopper and Generative Components, which are the most popular generative modeling approaches for parametric architecture, are both Windows-only solutions, although there is a slight chance that Grasshopper will eventually be ported over. This way, Paracloud has the OSX market for this kind of design almost exclusively for itself. Other solutions for Mac? AutoCAD with scripting (not visual), Rhino OSX with scripting (not visual), Houdini (visual programming), ArchiCAD GDL Objects (pure code).

Example

edit: I made a quick loft model in Cinema4D, exported as OBJ and loaded it into GEM. This was offset and populated with an X-cross.

GEM design from a Cinema4D mesh

What is the Autodesk 123D app?

2011-05-05T09:37:00.001+02:00

Autodesk announced, with quite some vagueness, 123D, as an entry-level, free design tool with links to "make" things (reading: fabrication).

It's unclear what it is, precisely, so no clue if this is Windows, OSX, iOS, Android compatible. It is said to be free and also to be some kind of entry into the range of Autodesk software solutions.

I hope it is easy to use, yet sophisticated enough. There are so many complex CAD applications and even SketchUp is now quite extensive and overly crowded with tools, toolbars and add-ons.

--- edited ---

Currently, it has become clear that 123D is a free, Windows-only version of Autodesk Fusion, which in itself is based on Inventor, their MCAD offering and is also included with AutoCAD 2012.

It aims to provide an Autodesk alternative against SketchUp (and maybe Bonzai3D) for advanced, yet simple to use modeling.

LibAster Structural and Thermomechanical analysis in Python

2011-05-04T09:55:00.000+02:00

Based on CodeAster, LibAster is an Open Source Python-library for structural and thermomechanical analysis. Using Python, it should be quite portable between platforms.

While this is not as user-friendly to get started, e.g. when comparing with full Desktop applications, having a library or command line tool makes it easier to connect into a workflow.

Right now, I would like to reach a point where I can launch energy, cost and structural analysis from BIM models, where, in addition, the generation of the BIM model would be generated parametrically. Translated into software names, this could mean something like steering a design from Grasshopper, transferring it into ArchiCAD or Revit or (preferably) IFC and launching different analysis calculations in parallel from there.

ArchiCAD 15 announced

2011-05-03T15:50:00.000+02:00

Graphisoft announced the official release of ArchiCAD 15 this month.
http://www.graphisoft.com/community/press_zone/ac15.html

The focus is on several aspects, but I'd like to focus on some particular improvements:

fully 64-bit now also on Mac OS (after the Windows and the BIM Server versions);
improved organic modeling with the new Shell tool;
additional better 3D modeling with Guide Lines in 3D and Work Planes, which opens up the hope to stay more in the 3D Window than in the past;
many improvements on the IFC level, which can only be applauded. IFC and Open information sharing is very important for the future of Design Collaboration.

There are other things, but not sure of they are all disclosed yet.

Beta testing

On a personal note, I have been a beta-tester for release 8 till 12, but have never found enough time afterwards. I had access to the documentation and early test versions, but since I don't have a hardware lock for releases after r12, I could not properly use newer releases (always in demo). Anyway, I do have mixed feelings (as I have with each new release):

some old standing problems are not tackled anymore (floor-wall connections, corner windows instabilities, incomplete rendering engine);
the former big new modeling tool (the Curtain wall) is still a very strange behaving ArchiCAD tool and does not follow modeling and manipulation paradigms of the other tools.

Teaching

Anyway, when the educational version is released, I'll have to upgrade our classroom and our educational material again (sigh, I was just ready with the material for r14, which was a big step for us, as the local distributor was changed and we now have a proper Dutch/Flemish main library).

New releases are almost always "too soon" when you have to support it or teach it... but are welcomed as a user.

Shaderlight : free & pro rendering for SketchUp

2011-05-03T09:11:00.001+02:00

At http://www.artvps.com/index.php/downloads/try_shaderlight you can download a free or a pro version of Shaderlight, an integrated rendering plugin for Google SketchUp, now available for Windows and OSX.

The Pro version starts as a free trial and than falls back on the free version, unless you buy a license. At first sight, the most glaring omission from the free version is Global Illumination... which is, alas, incredibly useful for anything but the most basic renderings in architecture.

Below is a small example. A SketchUp scene with the settings from the free version of Shaderlight (Exterior, 640x480, halfway between speed and quality). I had to activate the Shadows in SketchUp to have them in the rendering. The Shaderlight rendering appears inside a separate window (actually a separate application) and amount of control inside SketchUp is rather limited. But it is easy to use and has reasonable results.

Screenshot of SketchUp with Shaderlight

This is not a realtime solution, although it can be set as a continuously updating rendering window (unless you activate the higher quality settings).

FermaNext : Open Source structural Analysis (and failed attempt to compile it on OSX)

2011-04-28T12:00:00.000+02:00

FermaNext (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ferma) is an Open Source stuctural Analysis software for Windows and Linux.

Ferma is a free educational CAD software for truss units analysis. It is grounded on the construction conception and designed for finite element calculation and optimization of 2D truss structural units.

Struggling with OSX compilation

After re-installing the Qt SDK (Qt 4.7.2 for Mac) recently, I made an attempt to recompile this software from the provided sources, as there was only a Windows and a Linux version prepared. Unfortunately, this is quite complex because of dependencies and non up-to-date packages... I failed. But got reasonably close.

Qt Creator read the Pro-files and created a full project structure. But the dependencies were harder:

expat (sources for this XML parser are included) did not compile, as it only contained some hints for Mac OS Classic. I added an "__APPLE__" directive to at least get through with it.
Anti-Grain-Geometry (AGG) was also there but also gave some linking problems.
this software apparently uses Java plugins (which was a surprise for me for a C++ application). I downloaded Apache Ant and added an environment variable to find it. Launching Qt Creator from the bash-promt helped to pick it up at compilation time.
it uses a deprecated and non-documented "QAtomic" class, which has been replaced with QAtomicInt and QAtomicPtr since Qt 4.4. As I didn't have a clue on what was going on (well, it was about shared pointers and reference counting), I had problems replacing the call to QAtomic with similar calls to these new classes.
I had to remove a linking instruction "-enable-dynamic" wich is not required on OSX.

Most of the software seemed to compile, but still not all of it. Anyone on OSX made an attempt? Would be nice to have as an additional tool. But I did get a chance to see how a Qt project can be prepared to include different libraries and how a more complex project is set up.

SolidThinking Design Competition

2011-04-28T11:48:00.000+02:00

As read in a tweet from Architosh, SolidThinking is launching a design competition for students. You get a temporary free license if you participate (expires end of November 2011, Windows & OSX).

You can design "any" object that solves a problem. Quite open, but good for creative people.

Information on http://www.solidthinking.com/Navigation.aspx?top_nav_name=Academic&item_name=design_competition

Finite Element Analysis? Any hints?

2011-04-15T10:10:00.002+02:00

While I have taken a course on the Finite Element Method during my "master of engineering: architecture", I have never used this in practice, so it has faded considerably over the years. Since performance simulation and Building Information Modeling go hand in hand, I want to reload some of that knowledge. So I have been looking for some software tools to connect to a digital design workflow.

So far, it is cloudy... but I want to share some of it here.

There are as many approaches as there are engineering problems... structural mechanics, acoustics, heat transfer and energy, ... They all can apply these methods. Most software seems to focus on one approach.
It's a Windows world. Face it, most engineers work on Windows. Some of them use Linux. Most of them ignore Macs. So most engineering software is Windows-only.
Most systems are commercial. Some Open Source systems are really open in the sense that they can be used as libraries to create a custom solution. This takes effort and requires experience and knowledge, which makes it less likely to lead to a finished usable product that even an architect can use.

That said, there are some solutions I'd like to mention here.

OpenFoam: Open Source CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), to be used to solve fluid flows, chemical reactions, turbulence, heat transfer. Linux only.
JCAE : Java based Computer Aided Engineering, with volumes and finite elements modeler. Based on OpenCASCADE and cross-platform (currently supports Windows and Linux). No analysis, but can be used to prepare a mesh for analysis.
Geometry Gym: a series of modules for Rhino Grasshopper (thus Windows-only) to link Grasshopper with a solver to assist interactive form-finding with engineering analysis.
Karamba : a module for Rhino Grasshopper, where a direct analysis can be linked to an interactive Grasshopper construct. There are real limitations, e.g. rods are fixed to steel, have fixed profile, nodes are fixed etc... This makes it faster, but requires separate analysis if this does not fit your design. Made in collaboration with Bollinger-Grohmann-Schneider.
Load Design : work-in-progress of a FEA software made specifically for OSX. While still a bit rough at the edges, it is already quite complete and usable. Input is text-based, which is not uncommon. Output is graphical, although import- and export are mostly non-existant right now. Free to use while under development.
Salome is an Open Source platofrm for pre- and post-processing numerical simulations. It builds on OpenCASCADE and can be used as standalone software. Focus is on Linux (but binaries for Windows are available). Some parts it have been ported to OSX within the efforts around the Python wrappers for OpenCASCADE.
FEAPpv : personal edition of a FEA toolset, as part of a course book. This is a free and open source edition that can be used for learning. You need a Fortran compiler. Available for Windows and Linux.
Code Aster : series of tools for structural and thermodynamic simulations. Open Source and using Python (but also Tcl/Tk, GMSH). Can be used in combination with Salome.
CAELinux : full Linux distribution packed with engineering tools, including Salome, Code_Aster, OpenFOAM...

Even though, many engineers will still rely on the well-known commercial solutions primarily, e.g.

Ansys
Scia products
BuildSoft products
Nastran
Abaqus

---- Added Section ---

miniFEA : another nice link, with a FEA program running inside a Web Browser (Java or Flash versions are available). This is targeted at education (students, instructors).

From tenlinks: Autodesk Offers UK BIM Survey Report

2011-04-15T09:33:00.000+02:00

Apr 14 - Autodesk Offers UK BIM Survey Report

While reports on a topic such as BIM by Autodesk can seem not entirely neutral, it is interesting nonetheless to read how BIM is evolving and is getting more and more accepted as the way of working in the future. This time, more than 50% of people reported to be using BIM, which is quite high, when comparing to numbers I hear from local resellers in our Flemish region (where the number looks more like 15 to 20%).

"Over 100 delegates were surveyed at Autodesk BIM conferences in London, Munich and Milan towards the end of last year."

Well, speaking about statistics, if you are asking amongst people already interested and involved with BIM, this high number is to be expected.

"Interestingly, across all three, “resistance to change in culture” was cited as the biggest barrier to BIM adoption"

That is also logical. Changing old habits is hard and takes a long time.

Slingshot for Grasshopper

2011-04-11T11:22:00.000+02:00

As a reader of the blog/tweets from Andrea Graziano, I was informed about "Slingshot". This is an approach to model and coordinate design information in different software environments. In this case, MySQL and Grasshopper are linked, which could be really useful when put in a wider perspective.

So far, I haven't dived too deep into Grasshopper, but there are reasons for that:

it's a moving target (it is still in continuous update mode);
it does not work in OSX. Booting Windows 7 in Parallels is feasible, but I'm avoiding it more and more;
it is disconnected from work done in BIM software (ArchiCAD in my case);
I don't see it perform into a complete design product, more like sub-parts of it.
I could be wrong.

At least, this shows that people are exploring ways to go beyond a single application/implementation.

Capturing design intent into a readable, reusable and explorable way is what really makes computing and software a part of the design process, rather than the representation process.

Amiproject : creating MS Project files directly in a browser?

2011-04-11T11:15:00.000+02:00

I got a nice link as a comment on one of my twitter posts (about GanttProject Open Source software, with which I was struggling).

AmiProject (http://www.amiproject.com) is quite similar to MS Project for creating project planning. It works directly inside a browser and can save the result as an MS Project file. I don't have MS Project (anymore) so I haven't tried to load the result.

The Gantt-view is read-only, so you have to edit all in the table on the left.

One thing that bother me a bit is that is often not trivial or even impossible to configure this to e.g. European date-notation (e.g. 16/3/2011 instead of 3/16/2011). Not sure if I could change this here.

Blog about GDL in ArchiCAD

2011-04-01T09:28:00.000+02:00

The Rabbit Hole (http://web.me.com/karpenglish/RabbitHole/BLOG/BLOG.html) is a recent blog sharing tips and examples on GDL scripting for ArchiCAD.

Educational License terms from McNeel

2011-03-24T13:35:00.000+01:00

When you go through the Educational License terms of McNeel products (e.g. Rhinoceros 3D) you might be surprised. This company has a complete unique take on licensing pricing and terms.

Summarized:

you pay an educational price (yes, it is not as cheap as free AutoCAD or ArchiCAD);

e.g. about €200 for Rhino compared to €1000 for the commercial version

there are no limitations;
you are allowed to use it for commercial work;
when you graduate, it automatically becomes a commercial version that you are allowed to keep using;
when the time comes to upgrade, you pay the suitable upgrade price (educational when you still qualify, otherwise commercial).

Does anybody knows about a firm that presents similar flexibility? Good investment for a student for later.

Parametric Architecture with Grasshopper (upcoming book)

2011-03-24T13:29:00.000+01:00

Register at http://www.edizionilepenseur.it/edizioni/en/in-press.html to get informed when the English translation of this book on Parametric Architectural Modeling with Grasshopper will be available.

As an old-fashioned book-reader, I still like to learn from books. I can pause and rewind at any time and through diagonal reading find it easier to retrieve certain info, when compared to video tutorials. That said, video tutorials are nice when you are doing something else along that only requires your hands, but only a small part of your brain, like doing the dishes or ironing.

Playmaker : visual scripting for Unity3D

2011-03-24T13:14:00.001+01:00

Playmaker is a visual scripting editor that you can install inside Unity3D, the well-known game authoring environment. Within Playmaker, you can create the logic of your interactions visually, without needing to script.

Playmaker screenshot

Remembering the power of scripting and the sometimes cumbersome approach of visual programming, I just wonder in how far they manage to let you mix both: that is, use custom scripts (or re-use existing ones) and then combine this or even integrate this with Playmaker. Cause if this is hard to do, you are obliged to do everything inside this tool.

But it is an interesting approach.

Playmaker is not free (about $100) and works in all versions of Unity (free, commercial, iPhone) with Android in preparation. It can be bought from the Unity Assets store.

Must have Ruby Plugins for SketchUp

2011-03-15T09:10:00.000+01:00

On the SketchUcation forum there is a nice visual overview of some usable Ruby scripts to extend SketchUp: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=16909

RhinoBIM getting closer to release

2011-03-14T10:55:00.000+01:00

RhinoBIM (at http://rhinobim.com/) is an approach to connect the freeform modeling power of Rhino with the richer model description in BIM, using IFC format. They focus mostly on construction aspects, but the methodology seems more widely applicable.

This is how parametric and advanced design methods, which are commonly focusing on geometry and Building Information Modeling, which is mostly concerned with semantics and usable information can benefit from each other.

NeoAxis Game Engine

2011-03-14T10:40:00.002+01:00

NeoAxis is a recent Game Engine, built on top of the OGRE Open Source Game engine.

While OGRE can be used as such, the NeoAxis group is wrapping it inside a more complete authoring system, not unlike Unity3D, which is a real advantage for artists, who are not always interested in the hard-core coding that goes on in the background. I believe that this pertains for most architects as well, hence the success of Unity3D and SketchUp.

NeoAxis runs on Windows and can create both standalone games and web applets. You can use the free non-commercial version or buy a cheap $100 Indie license.

There are people working on a plugin for SketchUp to get models into NeoAxis more easily: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=32412

From SketchUp free to Unity3D

2011-03-14T10:17:00.000+01:00

While there are many ways to go from SketchUp to Unity3D Game engine, having the free version poses serious limits.

In the Pro version, FBX and Collada export are intergrated and work fine. However, the free version has problems. While there is Collada export in the Free version, Unity3D fails to properly import the geometry.
One approach is to use conversion software. The Open Source Blender is known to be able to import DAE files from SketchUp and export them into an FBX file that Unity3D understands.
Another approach is with the LightUp plugin for SketchUp. This is not free, but is a good approach to do shadow and light baking and has an integrated FBX exporter that works fine in Unity3D.

But you can also extend SketchUp with ruby scripts.

On http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=33448 you can download an OBJ exporter script (the old Alias Wavefront format) which Unity3D understands. It is best to export into a separate folder, as depending on how you textured your model, multiple materials could be generated.

Free XFrog Samples available in multiple formats

2011-02-15T14:43:00.000+01:00

To promote the use of the XFrog plant libraries, they are giving free samples for most of their libraries. These are downloadable models in multiple formats: the native XFR format is only usable with the XFrog software but enables parametric editing. The other formats are meshes for various applications, e.g. Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema4D, Vue and generic formats such as 3ds and obj.

Beware that many of these models are quite heavy and are to be avoided in regular CAD drawings, as the hidden line renderings will take ages. They are better used in DCC software (e.g. the above applications) which can render large scenes.

http://www.xfrog.com/2011/01/130-free-xfrogplants-now-available/

A Primer on Bézier Curves (interactive web page)

2011-02-15T11:30:00.000+01:00

At http://processingjs.nihongoresources.com/bezierinfo/ you can read a quite detailed text about Bézier curves and the math behind them. Interestingly, most graphics are dynamic and you can interact with them, when you have a recent browser with good Javascript support.

Nice and informative.

Results from Fabbing Exercise

2011-02-14T16:44:00.001+01:00

One of the exercises our students had to elaborate last semester, was an introduction to Fabbing, in collaboration with our local and new Fab-Lab (http://www.fablab-leuven.be).

They had to design a module inside a placeholder rack, made in plexi. Each student had a cube of 75x75x75mm in which they had to design a trajectory for a 30mm marble (in theory) that was able to pass. Different places had different connections, but they were combinations of an L and T-shape. Not all the places have been filled in (yet?).

They had to combine two techniques, chosen from 3D Printing, Lasercutting, Milling and 3D Scanning. We sponsored a small amount of money to cover a part of the 3D printing cost, so each student could, with some caution, work cheap or even free.

Info on the assignment and exercise (in Dutch):

http://caad.asro.kuleuven.be/Modules/ArchComp2/Fabbing/assignment.php

Here is the resulting sculpture/closet/rack/whatever as it is sitting in our labroom.

Nice things they learned:

collaboration : on the connection of boxes, they could with some communication with their neighbors agree on partial passage.
feedback : making a model from a digital file presents several chances of feedback on your design (e.g. tolerances, material and technology limitations)
free form : since almost all of the architectural projects being designed in our school are quite orthogonal, it was refreshing to be able to diverge from flat faces and straight corners.
materiality : fabbing comes at a cost and this dimension is highly important in real life. Having to make adjustments to tweak the budget is a good skill to have as an architect.

Tekla Bimsight

2011-02-14T16:08:00.000+01:00

Tekla released a free BIM software that you can use to load and inspect BIM models, in IFC, DWG and DGN formats. This indicates that it is not strictly BIM, but as you can do clash checking and inspect models, this seems a nice tool. They claim that you can use it to combine models from different disciplines and assist with information sharing.

It is only available for Windows.

http://www.teklabimsight.com

Getting from SketchUp to Unity with shadows and lighting

2011-01-26T17:06:00.000+01:00

The following short (and silent - for now) videos present a full overview of getting a model from SketchUp into Unity3D. It uses the demo-version of the LightUp plug-in for SketchUp, which is fully functional (for a while). This works with the free and the Pro versions of Unity and SketchUp, on Windows and OSX.

The model in SketchUp and lighting it with LightUp

LightUp 4 SketchUp (1) Inside SketchUp from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
This video describes how to lighten a SketchUp model with the LightUp plugin. I'm using the demo version of LightUp (v1.1) inside SketchUp 8 Pro for OSX.

Transferring the SketchUp model into Unity using FBX format

LightUp 4 SketchUp (2) Export FBX for Unity from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
To get a SketchUp model, baked with Lightup, into Unity3D, you can use the integrated FBX exporter. This also works in the free version of SketchUp, which does not support FBX.

The integrated FBX exporter includes the baked lightmap and the secondary UV coordinates that are required in Unity, to have the two textures correctly mapped.

You should also install the Lightup support scripts in an "Editor" folder that you can create in your assets folder of your Unity project, as this will automatically assign the Lightmap shaders and load the lightmap textures.

Updating the SketchUp model and reloading it in Unity

LightUp 4 SketchUp (3) Modify and Update from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
Even after we placed the SketchUp model inside Unity, we can continue working on it. After the scene was prepared in Unity with a default 3d person controller, we modified the geometry inside SketchUp, recalled LightUp and exported the model over the existing one, inside the Unity project Assets folder, to replace it.
Unity then reloads the whole scene, leaving all interaction in place.

Archmedium Design Competition

2011-01-25T11:55:00.000+01:00

While I don't usually blog about events, sometimes people just ask, politely, if their event can be announced on the blog. If you think it is inappropriate, please tell me...

To the responsible of CAD & 3D,

My name is Guillermo Carone and I’m getting in touch with you as the responsible of the architecture website www.archmedium.com. ArchMedium is a venture dedicated to the organization of architecture competitions for students with the collaboration of the Polytechnic University of Catalunya and the Architecture School of Barcelona. Our goal is to offer future architects the opportunity to get familiar with these kind of events and create at the same time an international meeting point were students from different countries and cultures can show their projects, enriching the learning process of all the community.
We have recently launched a new competition called “New York Theater City” and we will like to ask for your collaboration in promoting the event.
We believe that this event can be of great interest for a good part of your public and we will be very thankful if you could show your support by publishing a post, link, or any other way of promotion that you may think of.
This is a very resumed summary of the contest rules, prizes and jury. We gladly invite you to visit our website www.archmedium.com to find all the details of the contest (complete rules, pictures, drawings, etc.)

Proposal

New York is, without a doubt, one of the main contemporary capitals of the world. Nowadays, Broadway has become a tourist attraction that brings people from all over the world. It is very hard to find new plays in Broadway authentic theatres, and it’s shows are basically based in the British musical theatre and have famous Hollywood stars in the main roles just to captivate the audience.
ArchMedium wants to propose the design of the New York Theatre City It is an urban theatre campus where smaller companies can dispose of rehearsal spaces, and the new spectacles can show themselves to the world offering an always young, new and different cultural activity.

Jury

•President of the jury Willy Müller
•Projects Josep Ferrando
•Architect especialist in NY María Rubert
•Architect especialist in theatres Antoni Ramón
•Architect and Director of “ESMUC” Pau Monterde

Prizes
1st Prize

2500 Euros. Project publication on “WA”+”TC Cuadernos” + “Future magazine”. One-year subscription to ON Diseño magazine. Exposition at the Architecture School of Barcelona ETSAB/UP and Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires.

2nd Prize

1000 Euros. Project publication on TC Cuadernos magazine. One-year subscription to ON Diseño magazine. Exposition at the Architecture School of Barcelona ETSAB/UPC and Buenos Aires.

3rd Prize

500 Euros. Project publication on “WA”+”TC Cuadernos” + “Future magazine”.. One year subscription to ON Diseño magazine Exposition at the Architecture School of Barcelona ETSAB/UPC and and Buenos Aires.

10 Honorable mentions

Project publication on “WA”+”TC Cuadernos” + “Future magazine”. Exposition at the Architecture School of Barcelona ETSAB/UPC and Buenos Aires

Thank you in advance for your time and please don’t hesitate in answering to this e-mail if you have any comment, doubt or feedback.
Sincerely,
Guillermo Carone.

Zonematic : ArchiCAD add-on for generating zones

2011-01-25T11:31:00.000+01:00

The M.A.D. Zonematic add-on for ArchiCAD, allows you to generate a series of ArchiCAD Zone objects from a text input file.

This is something you could use in the preparing phase for an architectural project, where the required building program is being translated in spaces with certain dimensions. The add-on generates color-coded zone objects, with which you can start to assemble a first building layout.

FormFinder

2011-01-25T11:25:00.000+01:00

At http://www.formfinder.at/main/software/ you can download a structural design software which you can use for the creation of "form-active" structures. There is a free Light version and a non-free professional version. Both are only supported on Windows.

Additionally, they software also presents a project-search system, where you can look for other designs that people have shared.

iStructural : web based structural engineering software

2011-01-25T11:21:00.000+01:00

At http://www.istructural.com you can check out a structural engineering software that is completely web-based and runs on most computers and operating systems. It has free and non-free account types and provides different systems. Check out the demo to see if this fits your needs (which can not save and has fixed values). Beware that most examples use US units, but you can define a project with SI if you want.

The demo has two main example calculations with which you can play around.

Design Patterns for Parametric Modeling

2011-01-25T11:09:00.001+01:00

While you might have heard about the "Design Patterns" for software programming, as made famous by the book "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software", that have been inspired by the work from Christopher Alexander on the Pattern Language, there is other related work that might be interesting for architectural designers using digital tools.

At first we have the "Elements of Parametric Design", which has Design Patterns for parametric modeling on the designpatterns.ca site, lead by Prof. Woodburry, where the patterns are illustrated with implementations using Bentley Generative Components.

This is a tremendous and free resource for the 14 patterns that have been identified.

More recently, at http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/org/tsunghsw-design/ they have been mostly translated for Grasshopper.

And based on the previous sites, the Buildz blog mentions the porting of a subset of these patterns implemented using Revit and Project Vasari.

Anyone familiar with ports to other platforms?

Panda3D : free Open Source game engine

2011-01-25T11:00:00.000+01:00

The Open Source Panda3D game engine can be used to create C++ and Python games. The latest version has support to generate a webplayer and some advanced shader techniques (shadows, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion and geometry shaders).

Disney uses this engine for the Pirates of the Caribbean web games, so I guess that it has more then enough features if you push it hard enough.

Some interesting Unity3D packages from Forest Johnson

2011-01-25T10:49:00.000+01:00

At http://forestjohnson.blogspot.com/search/label/unity%20packages you can find some (older) Unity Packages by Forest Johnson for Unity3D, the cross-platform game engine.

I did manage to get the following examples to run on my free version on OSX:

the lightmapper. With some effort and slight adjustments to the scripts, the demo ran. It creates a shadow map as a texture which is calculated when the game starts. While the new Unity3D 3.x has the Autodesk BEAST lightmapper included, this approach might come in handy as it shows an approach to avoid the lack of "Render to texture" from the Pro version.

The real time raytracer did actually work quite well, although the image is rather crude. Imagine real-time raytraced reflections in your model. Might require some hacking to have it work more easily in custom projects, but the source is remarkably short as the lion's share of work is using the built-in raycast feature from Unity itself.

Real-time SSAO or "screen space ambient occlusion" > this technique is currently available as part of Unity Pro only, so I was hoping to have this script work in the free version, but alas, I could not run it due to some error I could not immediately solve.

Rhino SDK goes Open Source : OpenNURBS, RhinoCommon and RhinoPython

2011-01-25T10:33:00.001+01:00

If you are interested in McNeel Rhino, than you might like the following announcement:

Rhino SDK goes open source (as read on http://blog.rhino3d.com/2011/01/rhino-sdk-goes-open-source.html)

While Rhino itself is a closed-source commercial application, the SDK are getting more open and provide flexible options to turn Rhino into your own customized CAD environment.

OpenNURBS is the toolkit to read and write native Rhino 3DM files. If you want to exchange NURBS-based models, this is a good possibility. It is not a 3D engine or a graphical system in itself, but can be used as a part of such an application.
RhinoCommon is the cross-platform SDK to extend Rhino. This allows you to extend the Rhino software with new features.
RhinoPython is a Python scripting support layer to extend Rhino with Python scripts. It is quite similar as the older RhinoScript layer, which uses VBscript, but this Python layer does work on OSX as well.
and then there is the .NET UI, Windows.Forms and MonoMac stuff, which gives hope that someday, Grasshopper will run on the OSX version of Rhino. I am waiting patiently for it, as running Rhino in Parallels is not an optimal solution when you do anything "for real".

iCADMac : OSX version of progeCAD

2011-01-25T10:24:00.001+01:00

As announced on http://news.progesoft.com/?eng&p=123, the Italian developer progeSOFT released iCADMac, which is a version of progeCAD to OSX.

According to http://www.deelip.com/?p=5389, this is a branded version of ARES from Graebert.

I don't really like the name of the product, but do try it out if you are looking for an alternative drawing software on OSX.

I don't fully agree with their wordings of it being the "first real AutoCAD alternative for the Apple Mac OSX", since I already talked about other offerings, such as DraftSight, CADUntu and ARES and even AutoCAD itself.

That said, competition is welcomed and while VectorWorks and ArchiCAD and AutoCAD are the "big" applications on OSX to beat, there is room for more.

(edited: with link to deelip.com for more info)

Qt SDK 1.1

2011-01-25T10:16:00.000+01:00

While working on my PhD, I got to know the Qt software developers kit from (then) Trolltech. Nowadays, the Qt SDK is property of Nokia and is available under both a commercial and a LGPL license. The older free GPL license did not allow people to develop non-free software using the free version of the libraries.

The idea is still the same: in an abstracted fashion, you can develop applications, by writing them once and compiling them on different platforms. At the time I used it, I did manage to compile my proof-of-concept on Windows, Linux and OSX, with very little platform-specific lines of code.

The newest release of the SDK is a merger of the former desktop-oriented and the mobile SDK's, meaning that a single SDK allows you to target Windows, OSX and Linux computers, but also a wide range of mobile devices.

http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/01/20/qt-sdk-1-1-technology-preview-released/

The released version is a technology preview, which means it is deemed rather complete, but is still undergoing further testing before it is officially called a released product.

My main reasons to go for something like Qt:

abstract platform-specific (and nasty) things into a logical and consistent API

networking
reading/writing files
User Interface (very important > GUI behaves as "native" as possible, e.g. you get the real OSX menu on Mac, while the same code gives a typical Windows menu running on Windows)
lots more: OpenGL, utility classes, XML, SQL

They are working hard on responsive interfaces, supporting multi-touch
Good use of design patterns: abstraction, model/view framework, graphics framework...
Mostly C++ but can be used from other languages: java, Python...
liberate license: free to use
well documented

If you do, I suggest to buy a good book. I can recommend:

C++ GUI Programming with Qt4, Second Edition which is a full overview for Qt4 and still quite accurate today.
Practical Qt (although it is getting dated now; as it was mainly written for Qt3)

I recently bought "Advanced Qt Programming: Creating Great Software with C++ and Qt4", but haven't found the time to read it yet.

And if you are curious, it does not support the iPhone/iPad or Android, but some clever people seem to get away with it anyway: http://www.qt-iphone.com, http://code.google.com/p/android-lighthouse

Yorik's Site

2011-01-25T09:47:00.000+01:00

At "Yorik's Site" you can read more about the architectural works of Yorik. Apart from professional services, information is shared, such as models, renderings and some techniques.

Many projects can be downloaded as PDF files and as Blender models, "for your remixing pleasure", as stated on the site. Nice touch and quite uncommon for architects.

E.g. see following picture from http://yorik.uncreated.net/guestblog.php?2009=209

First post in the new year

2011-01-25T09:41:00.002+01:00

While I have been busy, this blog was suffering a bit. Now I can honestly say that between writing papers, project proposals and preparing classes for the next semester, while still having to grade the submissions from last semester, little time was left for spreading news.

Well, there will be some more news in the coming days and weeks.

Too many rendering engines for SketchUp?

2010-12-16T14:58:00.000+01:00

While many people complain about the lack of integrated rendering inside SketchUp, there is no lack of options... From free till expensive, from simple to advanced (not necessarily in that order).

So which rendering engines are available for SketchUp? Let's see... I think I have talked about it already.

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2010/12/renderin-radiosity-rendering-for.html > about Render[in]

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2010/10/octane-render-gpu-based-rendering.html > about Octave

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2010/09/numenus-rendergin-gpu-rendering-free.html > about Rendergin

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2010/06/from-sketchup-to-radiance-su2rad-with.html > about Radiance

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2008/08/free-rendering-plugin-for-sketchup.html > about IDX

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2008/06/rendering-for-sketchup.html > about Podium, IDX, Vue, Piranesi, Atlantis, VRay, Maxwell, FryRender, Indigo, Kerkythea, POV-Ray, LuxRender, Sunflow, iClone

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2008/06/accurender-nxt.html > about Accurender nXt

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2008/06/free-but-last-nvidia-gelato-gpu.html > about nVidia Gelato (retired)

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-getting-sketchup-model-into.html > about Blender

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2007/04/free-indigo-renderer.html > about Indigo

http://cad-3d.blogspot.com/2006/12/su-podium-rendering-for-sketchup.html > about Podium

I will quit now, as this is getting to much back in time... and I haven't even mentioned the regular rendering software, such as 3ds Max, Lightwave, Maya, Cinema4D...

Render[in] : Radiosity rendering for SketchUp

2010-12-16T14:50:00.000+01:00

Render[in] is currently in beta-testing till the end of December 2010 and during that time, you can freely request a serial number to test it. It works on Windows and OSX.

Specifics:

fully integrated (using native SketchUp features)
radiosity in real-time (!)
additional control

advanced material settings
sky & clouds & environment
artificial light

Info on http://www.renderin.com

Netfabb Studio Basic and Pro, now also cross-platform

2010-12-16T14:34:00.001+01:00

While I already mentioned Netfabb in an older post I recently started using the Studio Basic free version for our Fabbing exercise.

The Studio Basic version is limited but free.
It is cross-platform, which wasn't the case when I first mentioned this software, IIRC.

While I assume that Magics from Materialise is still the software king for STL repair, it comes at a cost and only works on Windows, so maybe you can give this software a try.

The video below gives a very simple example of viewing and automatically repairing a 3D STL model from SketchUp, exported using a free script, from http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=8447

Simple STL repair using NetFabb Studio Basic from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
A fairly simple model, made in SketchUp 8 Pro using the Solid Tools and exported to STL using the su2stl.rb ruby-script. As you will see, this model has some (minor) issues; such as missing face and some open edges. The free version of NetFabb Studio Basic is able to automatically repair them.
Oh, this works on Windows and on Mac, which is quite uncommon for such software. (There is no audio with this video)

Tgi3D : software for modeling from photographs

2010-12-16T14:17:00.000+01:00

The software from Tgi3D (http://www.tgi3d.com) allows you to use photographs, taken with regular cameras, to be used for the creation of 3D models.

There are two products, each in two flavors:

Tgi3D SU AMORPH is mainly a set of tools for advanced modeling in SketchUp.

view locking > lock vertices in one view and still adjust them in other views
generate mesh surfaces from points
Bézier curves and generating surfaces from curves
Smoothing of surfaces, to make them clean and naturally flowing
Remeshing and upsampling, usable to make higher-resolution meshes from low-resolution models
Model from cross-sections
"Idealize" shapes, e.g. making near flat surfaces fully flat
There is a free "Training Version" and a non-free full version.

Tgi3D SU PHOTOSCAN adds photogrammetry tools to this.

It is a standalone software, comparable to Photomodeller, where you mark points on different photographs, that are then used to calibrate camera settings and positions and 3D coordinates.
You can then export the model into SketchUp (or VRML and DXF) and use the native PhotoMatch functionality, but already fully prepared from PHOTOSCAN.
Inside SketcUP, you get additional tools for matching lines and curves between photographs, using a tool to lock the vertices and still adapt them in other photographs.
There is a free 30 day trial and a commercial version.

Tgi3D Calibration and Metrology Tool from Tgi3D on Vimeo.

Currently, only on Windows, but OSX is marked as "soon", whatever that implies.

Flattery Papercraft Tools

2010-12-01T11:09:00.000+01:00

When you want to translate your 3D Design into something flat, you can do it manually (selecting faces and rotating them step by step), or rely on automatic routines.

This can be very useful for making a foldable form on paper or cardboard but also to prepare a 3D model for a lasercutter.

Flattery Papercraft Tools is a plugin for Google SketchUp that promises to automate this.
http://www.pumpkinpirate.info/flattery/

The video below gives a demonstration on the use of this script. While it is perfectly possible to do this without any plugin whatsoever, it is more convenient, as the plugin remembers edge connections (useful when adjusting the layout afterwards) and can do this with less clicks and with some visual feedback.

Unfold SketchUp Model with Flattery script from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
This is a video-only demonstration of unfolding a SketchUp model with the free Flattery ruby-script (from http://www.pumpkinpirate.info/flattery). You have to think forward to avoid overlapping faces. The tools do offer some additional help to correct the model afterwards, but anything but straight cubes can be complex. As always, 3D insight does help a lot with this.

An alternative add-on for SketchUp is Waybe, as illustrated at http://waybe.weebly.com/learn-waybe.html
(but this is not a free add-on).

Manual unfolding?

If you don't have a plugin or want to do it the hard way, remember to group faces before rotating to ensure the edges are unconnected from the neighbours. To group a single face, first double-click it, so its edges are selected with it. This grouping is necessary to avoid seriously deforming the model, since the neighbouring faces stay connected.

Win Falling Water...

2010-11-18T16:42:00.000+01:00

Well, in Lego that is. If you make a funny (and successful) fan-movie about ArchiCAD, you can win a hammock chair (hangstoel?) and a box of classic architecture in Lego.

Project Vasari : standalone Energy Simulation from Autodesk

2010-11-17T22:16:00.001+01:00

On the Autodesk Labs, you can download Project Vasari, a standalone energy simulation software, which can be integrated with Revit (reading: it is Windows-only - vasari.exe is a Windows executable and it produces Revit 2011 files).

It can be used for design analysis.

Autodesk^® Project Vasari is an easy-to-use, expressive design tool for creating building concepts. Vasari goes further, with integrated analysis for energy and carbon, providing design insight where the most important design decisions are made. And, when it’s time to move the design to production, simply bring your Vasari design data into the Autodesk^® Revit^®platform for BIM, ensuring clear execution of design intent.
Project Vasari is focused on conceptual building design using both geometric and parametric modeling. It supports performance-based design via integrated energy modeling and analysis features. This new technology preview is now available as a free download and trial on Autodesk Labs.

This is a temporary Technology Preview, which will cease to function on May 15, 2011

Graphisoft Virtual Building Explorer available for students

2010-11-16T09:03:00.000+01:00

The Virtual Building Explorer (originally born as the Zermatt plugin) is an add-on to ArchiCAD to export the 3D Building Model into a realtime model to send to others, without requiring ArchiCAD.

You can export the 3D Geometry into a standalone PC or Mac application and include a radiosity-like graphics style, which is not available in ArchiCAD itself.

This software was recently updated to version 2 and from now on, educational users (students, teachers, schools) can use the software under the same conditions as the free educational version of ArchiCAD.

From Grasshopper to IFC -- or parametric control on BIM?

2010-11-14T13:51:00.000+01:00

In line with some of my wishes on this blog, there is a nice plugin for Grasshopper to enable IFC export.

Let me rephrase that, as I think it is quite significant.

On the one hand, parametric and visual control over a design is increasingly being used in advanced design exploration.
On the other hand, Building Information Modeling promises integrated management of information in a building project, beyond mere 3D geometry or drawing synchronization.

And to be able to combine this into a single workflow is something big. This is indeed the beginning of exploring the full potential of IFC. Analysis tools focusing on getting the most out of IFC, while "parametricism" or generative/procedural/parametric/programmatic design can be used to embed design intentions and to enable design variations.

Would this lead to architects creating series of designs? And to automatically connect them to both the full design documentation and design analysis? I do hope so.

I assume the focus should lie on the analysis for the early design phase (check energy performance, cost, accessibility, ecological footprint), to make better informed design decisions. And then being able to smoothly transition to ArchiCAD or Revit or similar BIM software to fully elaborate the design.

Fix Reversed Faces in SketchUp

2010-11-10T10:38:00.000+01:00

So what is the problem?

When you make a model inside SketchUp, each face has a front and a back side. When you have the default material or no material applied, the front is beige and the back is light-blue. You should avoid to see any blue faces ever.

While this doesn't present any problem inside SketchUp itself, it leads to seemingly missing faces in other software. E.g. when you export your SketchUp model into Artlantis, Cinema4D or Unity, they will ignore the back faces.

How to solve it manually?

Set the Face Style to "monochromatic", so colors and textures are hidden. Then you select any offensive blue face, right-click and reverse it.

If there were materials applied, you have to switch them (front and back).

How to solve it automatically?

You can try a nice plugin for SketchUp to partially automate the reversed-faces problem you can easily get when using SketchUp.

Info and download: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=30107 (free registration is required to download files).

Instant Scripts Architectural Tools for SketchUp

2010-11-09T09:14:00.000+01:00

Instant Scripts are free scripts (with pro-versions available, moderately priced) for architectural modeling inside SketchUp, created by Vali Architects. Nice story too: after a long time working in AutoCAD and writing scripts in AutoLisp he currently has more fun in SketchUp, yet still tries to be productive.

Instant Roof
Instant Road
Instant Site Grader

Example of what you could create with the Instant Roof script:

BlendME : Blender Modeling Environment

2010-11-08T09:19:00.000+01:00

BlendME (The Blender Modeling Environment) is an add-on for the Open Source Blender animation software, focusing on analysis software connectivity. You can use software such as Radiance or Energyplus from within Blender to perform daylight or energy analysis.

The software is not available yet, but when it does it will be either commercial, either donation-ware.

Some more info about BlendME on Blender3Darchitect and on BlenderNation.

Daylight Analysis with Radiance:

Energy Analysis with EnergyPlus:

The future of CAAD? Or at least my personal take on it

2010-10-29T09:52:00.000+02:00

CAAD is not dead. But the word "Computer Aided Architectural Design" has been used for so many things, that it is hard to not have some kind of preoccupation with the meaning of it. While BIM is currently one of the most interesting approaches, it still is only a subpart of CAAD. Just like parametric design or semantic web can fit into it. But what I really wanted to share with you is a wish list for the future of CAAD.

Let us choose any modeling approach and mix them in the amount we want

Direct modeling, such as in SketchUp
Parametric Modeling, with support for coding and graphical creation/editing, such as in Grasshopper or (to some extent) in Revit
Start from measurements, e.g. pointclouds, surveyors data, geo-information, photographs...
2D drafting if you want

Let us work on ANY design phase and on ANY scale level in the order we want

in short (well, I did a PhD on that): we want to be able to elaborate rough models, but at the same time to be able to look at technical details and go back to the Master plan when we want. Ensure all information is tied and synchronized on all levels.
proper approach to define design variants, design phases (programming-sketch-preliminary-construction-management-end-of-life), building phases (existing-demolish-new phases)

Everything fits into a BIM workflow

objects have semantical meaning

a wall is not a scaled Cube with a Boolean subtracted void
space are real design objects, not just some attribute or fill. You can model a whole design just with spaces and define enclosing physical elements later, if you want
don't limit is to only vertical walls and only horizontal floors. If I want freeform geometry, still ensure that I can embed semantical meaning to it

design intent is captured and kept, e.g. relationships between elements are embedded
all partners can collaborate on the project model, e.g. with BIM servers
No need to ever create a 2D drawing by hand anymore
all calculations, simulations, evaluations can be done directly from the information in the building model

work directly in Open formats, such as IFC

make a DWG or PDF only as output for people needing that
reference other formats as underlay/overlay - always up-to-date

Beware, I'm not saying that all of this should be part of a single application or run by a single developer. Let competition exist, give us choice but make everything fit into our workflow. E.g. let people chose a modeling system and combine it with another rendering system and tie it to another simulation system and still collaborate with others who made different choices.

Utopic? Probably. But I'm allowed to dream.

CREO : new vision for MCAD?

2010-10-29T09:44:00.000+02:00

While I don't often discuss Mechanical CAD (MCAD) software, as I'm mostly focusing on Architectural CAD, I want to share the link to CREO and the discussion/description about it on Deelip.com.

PTC owns Pro/Engineer and CoCreate (among others). Pro/Engineer once took the CAD world by force, by introducing several key concepts for CAD that are now common among the major players (e.g. feature based parametric modeling). And with the acquisition of CoCreate, they also had a direct-modeling approach available. If you have difficulties to understand the difference between feature-based and direct modeling, read my older post about it. What they now claim is a new vision that is as revolutionary as was the introduction of Pro/Engineer at the time. In short:

they have a more modular approach to everything:

choose your modeling concept (2D, 3D direct, 3D Parametric)
a rendering module if you need one
simulation module
...

The former separate products do not exist anymore, they are all modules of the same creo-system
They claim to support ANY modeling approach, with ANY CAD data

While this might not shake the Architectural CAD world today, it is no secret that what is getting so much attention today in CAAD (Grasshopper, Generative Components, Revit, amongst others) is closely tied to the approaches in MCAD software. In fact, much of what we now see as "new" in CAAD was in MCAD for some time.

Some freebies for video from Zach Poff

2010-10-25T09:09:00.001+02:00

If you work with video, from webcams, video cameras or rendered, there are several complex manipulations that can be made a bit easier with some of the free utilities for realtime video editing. The website of artist and developer Zach Poff has some free applications for download. They are Open Source, but are made in MAX/MSP, which is the commercial counterpart of Puredata. And the applications are only compiled for Mac OSX.

Some of the things he presents:

Live Video Delay: view your video frames with a delay
Chroma Key Live: see a rough estimate of the effect of filming against green (or blue or purple) screen, live
Multiscreener: synchronize the playback of movies on different computers
Video Trigger: trigger sounds when something happens on certain parts of a video capture
...

Some of these functionality could be done in other systems, obviously, but having it in a precompiled utility will make it easier if one of his programs already does what you need. E.g. video installation reacting in realtime to visitors.

The blog of Daniel Shiffman

2010-10-25T09:03:00.003+02:00

As I have been introducing my students to Processing last week, I thought it would be nice to present the blog of Daniel Shiffman, who has created an abundance of learning material and libraries for Processing.

He is also the author of Learning Processing:

Insight3D : Open Source modeling from photographs

2010-10-25T09:01:00.000+02:00

Insight3D is an Open Source (Windows+Linux) photogrammetry application. It allows you to generate points from a series of photographs of the same object.

The software generates a point cloud from coordinates that are found to be matching between the images. It also includes basis modeling tools to create polygons on which the images can be projected.

(with thanks to http://andreagraziano.blogspot.com)

AutoCAD for Mac available (for students)

2010-10-15T15:14:00.000+02:00

Today, I got a notice that the Mac version of AutoCAD is available from Autodesk Educational Community > Mac4students. Downloaded, installed and activated in about 5 minutes. It does give a special feeling to not have to launch Parallels to open and edit DWG files with AutoCAD in Windows.

And it works nice and smooth, which (unfortunately) was not the case with some competing CAD packages making the switch to OSX.

Sintel : the Durian Open Movie Project is released

2010-10-14T14:58:00.001+02:00

“Sintel” is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film.
This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. In addition to that, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world.

After "Elephants Dream" and "Big Buck Bunny", this is the third Open Movie, organized around the promotion and further technological improvement of the full Open Source workflow around the creation of a movie project. The main animation software, Blender, is Open Source, cross-platform and more and more up the same level of functionality as much more expensive software, such as 3ds Max, Maya, Lightwave or Cinema4D.

Edit: While the movie is high-definition and has intricate attention to detail, the story is a bit cynic. Without spoiling the plot, I have watched it to see if my kids would love it (like they loved Big Buck Bunny), but the ending is quite sad (even though there is a spark of hope left). But then again, at times I do complain about too many CGI movies trying so hard to mimic Pixar and drown the ending with moral lessons, like most US blockbuster movies. I do like to see some more 'alternative' themed quality CGI short movies arise. Good examples include Akryls (http://akryls.free.fr/), The Cathedral (http://www.platige.com/index.php?tu=27) or Pica Towers Pizza Sangre (found no 'original' link but you can find it on YouTube). They are all made with software such as LightWave, Maya or 3ds Max, but there are good results coming from Blender. The biggest problem: we are so used to see top-quality character animation, that anything that is only slightly less articulated is being criticized.

Open BIM Roadshow : some thoughts on collaboration with BIM

2010-10-13T09:56:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, I went to the Open BIM Roadshow seminar, organized by Kubus (ArchiCAD dealer for The Netherlands and the Flemish part of Belgium) in collaboration with local ArchiCAD dealer FocusIT and Construsoft (Tekla dealer).

At this event, we first saw a general overview of ArchiCAD (Building Information Modeling for Architectural Design) and Tekla Structures ("BIM" for construction design). While I assume the audience of this blog to know what ArchiCAD is about, they might not be familiar with Tekla Structures. At least, I wasn't and it was good to see how this system is targeting the design of Steel and Concrete structures using similar methods as what we are used to in Architectural BIM software, such as ArchiCAD or Revit.

Tekla - Construction Modeling for engineers

In Tekla, you create a full 3D model of beams, columns, foundations, floor slabs up to the details of connections and fastenings. Everything is parametric and stays editable. While the interface is literally bursting with dialog boxes and buttons to click, it seemed to be a very efficient system in the hands of somebody who knows what they are doing. More info on the Finnish Tekla...

Tekla is not a structural analysis software, yet can integrate with most common analysis software, such as Scia Engineer, Buildsoft Diamonds, Robot Analysis and others.

In this software, you also don't draw anything in 2D. All production drawings are fully generated from the 3D model. This is not completely true for regular architectural BIM software, where many annotations, dimensions, detailing and other parts are still drawn on top of the generated plans and sections from the 3D model.

BIM Server.org

The last part of the show was the most interesting: how can you effectively collaborate between different parties using BIM software. They demonstrated this using ArchiCAD and Tekla Structures and the Open Source BIM Server from TNO.

You can basically set up your own BIM server locally with no effort, as it can be used as a standalone Java-application. Run it and point your browser to the correct address (localhost and port). If on a network, clients have to know your address first.

And now the workflow.

They started by having an architect create (or load) a model inside ArchiCAD. Instead of simply dumping everything into one gigantic IFC file, it was more efficient to prepare a part of the project to be exchanged. In this case, it was the entrance atrium, which was a glass-steel construction. Only the core structure (load-bearing walls, floors, columns and beams) were exported.

> Guideline 1 : work with subsets of a project

Then this part was exported into an IFC file and uploaded to the BIM server, running in the local network. The other party downloaded the IFC file on his local machine and used it as a reference model inside Tekla. With some (essential) communication you can synchronize project main origin and some basic information about the project.

Inside Tekla, the referenced geometry could be either used as a 3D underlay to model Tekla objects on or (using a macro) could be used to be translated into native Tekla objects. Some (but not all) information about these elements was passed on, such as the profile name (IPE200) and the main material (steel). However, to be used correctly, many other settings had to be improved.

The structural engineer could model a more appropriate version of the structure, possibly sending the model back and forth to analysis software in the run.

> Guideline 2 : use reference geometry

The Tekla model was translated into IFC format again (only a few beams and columns, not the full building) and uploaded to the BIM server as a new revision. This was loaded inside ArchiCAD using IFC Merge, possible filtering out some of the non-essential objects, such as bolts. All the model came in on separate and locked layers, without interfering with the rest of the project data in the architectural model.

The architect then revised the design, using the structural model to check correct beam profiles and sizes. And the bi-directional journey continues.

> Guideline 3 : communicate and go back and forth, everybody staying inside his or her own native system

When the structural engineer loaded the second iteration of the IFC model, he could set up particular views to compare before and after the revision of the architect and could visualize what is new, what was removed and what was modified. However, this requires some thoughtful planning of the architect. E.g. when you want to change four columns into another type, you could adjust one, remove the others and copy the revised one over. But that would have a different meaning then revising the four columns and have them all as modified rather than as new elements. Inside ArchiCAD you might want to use the pipet and syringe to extract and inject properties from one element to the other, ensuring the internal ID stays the same (the "GUID").

> Guideline 4 : be wary of how to manage changes

This went on. When the second IFC version of the engineer was available, the architect could use the option inside ArchiCAD to visualize the model changes between IFC files, using markup coloring.

Be warned that this technology is rather new and thus the actual workflow between different parties has to be laid out thoughtfully. You have to ensure that you agree on reference positions, floor levels to respect and know where the problems areas are.

But all in all, this is what BIM is all about: using the information inside the building model to better manage and communicate about the project with different involved parties. And this is much more than merely using a 3D model to generate drawings.

Babel3D : free online model translation process

2010-10-13T09:03:00.000+02:00

At http://www.babel3d.com you can upload 3D models to be translated into a few (selected) other formats. Online and free.

Babel3D is an online 3D file translation service. The input for translation to Babel3D can be an Autodesk 3DS, DXF, DWG, Rhino 3DM, SketchUp SKP, STEP, IGES or OBJ file. These files can be translated into the 3DS, OBJ and XAML 3D formats. Additionally, Babel3D also allows you to convert DXF and DWG files to 2D PDF format.

Beware that no info is given on the precise version numbers of the formats, so it is not clear if the systems handles DWG 2010-format files (created in AutoCAD 2010 or 2011). SketchUp format is release 7, not 8.

Octane Render (GPU based rendering)

2010-10-11T17:29:00.000+02:00

The Belgian/New Zealand team at Refractive Software created the "Octane Render" system. This is a GPU (graphics card) based rendering system, using physically based algorithms for realistic and fast lighting calculation. It relies on CUDA support, which requires a fairly recent nVidia card to be installed in your computer. It is not-free, but cross-platform and the current beta-license is reasonably cheap (€99).

There are already plugins for Maya, 3ds Max and Blender and support for SketchUp and Cinema4D is in preparation. You can load Wavefront *.obj models or RenderMan *.rib scenes.

I've tried using it on my Macbook Pro. You need to first install the nVidia CUDA drivers and CUDA toolkit and then the Octane software. I actually did it in reverse order, but managed to get it running. Then you can load one of the example scenes or try to load one of your own models (e.g. export an OBJ file from your modeling software).

As it did seem to work, the speed was not that good and this is due to the hardware in the Macbook Pro. It has two GPUs: a modest integrate Geforce 9400M one and a better 9600M GT (more memory, faster CPU, more cores). You can even enable Octane to use both, but the truth is that they are only modest (if not slow) compared to current GPU cards. This is one of those cases where a Desktop PC would allow you to buy a €100 card and insert it. Not with laptops. The Device manager allows you to see the specs of the GPU and even add all of the available cards in your system to the GPU pool (alas, the whole system froze when I activated both GPU cards).

So it worked more or less for me, but not with the advantages that you would use such an application for.

netfabb Studio Basic - free software for fabrication

2010-10-11T10:31:00.000+02:00

netfabb Studio Basic is a free version of netfabb Studio Professional, which offers support for fabrication from digital files, focusing on mesh reparation and analysis. It can work with STL files and has a basic set of features. The full Professional version has more advanced repair and manipulation options available.

A comparison of the features between both applications is found on http://netfabb.com/comparison.php

Technically Advanced Construction course in Milano (Italy)

2010-10-11T10:25:00.002+02:00

I was notified about an interesting course in Italy which focuses on "Multi-Performative Skin".

TAC Technically Advanced Construction is a new postgraduate course for graduates and professionals established by the Department of Building Environment Science and Technology (BEST), Politecnico di Milano. It will run for three months and will allow participants to achieve high levels of knowledge in the design-to-production process through the use of advanced digital tools for design and machines for the creation of physical models.

Some practical details (due to schedule adjustments, the course dates have been changed!):

The course will start on April 4, 2011 and will end on July 9, 2011 (daily attendance).
Registration are open until March 14, 2011.

Info on the TAC homepage at POLIMI.

Comments about the schedule adjustment:

The features of the course will remain unchanged, except for the introduction of some post-course internships: at the end of the course, the best students will have the possibility to undertake a 3-6 months internship experience in some design offices proposed by the course commission and by the tutors.
[...]Best regards,Elena Scripelliti
TAC Staff

Sculptris free modeller

2010-09-30T12:31:00.000+02:00

One of the employees of Pixologic, makers of ZBrush sculptural modeling software, has released a personal project of his for free. Sculptris is a small, Windows-only modelling application which you can use for free. Not sure how he sees the future of it, but nothing prevents you from trying it out.

Unity3 is released - some thoughts on architectural realtime visualization

2010-09-30T12:28:00.000+02:00

The new release of Unity3D is available now. Unity3D is a full game-creation system which you can combine with (almost) any modeling software. You use it as your main game management system, where you import models and textures (assets), create scripts for all interaction and directly assemble game scenes or levels.

It is cross-platform (Windows and OSX) and allows you to make games for Windows, OSX (even if you have the "other" platform only), for a web-browser and with separate licenses for the creation of games for Android, Wii, XBox and iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad), if I'm not mistaken.

Some thoughts about Unity3D in general

Nice highlights for me:

realtime physics
prefabs for basic camera navigation
easy environment skies
directly interact with your game in the Unity editor
reasonably straightforward scripting (although I have learned a few things from the Game Development Essentials book as well).

We have used it last year in our CAAD classes to learn (something) about realtime architecture and had reasonably good results importing models from SketchUp and Cinema4D. ArchiCAD models were also attempted, but they passed through Cinema4D as well for best results.

Some thoughts and tips about lights and shadows

There is a free version and a pro-version with more features. For architecture students, the free version is nice, although the pro-version has some better material shaders and support for realtime shadows and occlusion culling. Lightbaking (rendering shadows onto the materials) is quite some process if you're new at it and it took me quite some time to get reasonable results due to some minor Cinema4D limitations, but I documented my process as a screen movie in Vimeo. This was done in Unity 2.x.
Step 1

SKUP2UNITY 5 : Cinema4D Light Baking (1) from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
While the non-free Unity3D Pro has some options for realtime shadows and lighting, it is often quite computationally expensive (takes a lot of CPU cycles for calculations).

The last step(s) are more involved and you can not do this with SketchUp alone... You could use 3ds Max or the LightUp SketchUp plugin or other tools. But as a student you can get a free license for Cinema4D, which can help you with baking the lighting into a texture map. This will render the scene, but instead of showing it on the screen it will be rendered onto a texture map which is wrapped around (a copy of) the model.

Step 1: getting the SketchUp model into Cinema4D (using the FBX file). Set units to Meters in C4D and ensure that all texture maps are properly found. You could rename the textures folder into "tex".

Step 2

SKUP2UNITY 6 : Cinema4D Light Baking (2) from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
Step 2: preparing a Sky, Ambient Occlusion and Global Illumination in Cinema4D. Then start baking the single mesh into an object (include AO and Illuminate and Single Texture). Photoshop file format is fine.

Step 3

SKUP2UNITY 7 : Cinema4D Light Baking (3) from Stefan Boeykens on Vimeo.
Step 3: the baked model is renamed (for clarity in the Unity3D editor) and the model saved. In the background, Unity3D will let Cinema4D generate a proper FBX file for import and load all. Hide the non-baked mesh and only display the baked one. Switch to a Lightmapped Diffuse material and point to the right texture maps for the material.

Beware, there are some minor issues:
* be sure to hide the original mesh in Unity3D
* if you include illumination into the baking process in Cinema4D, be sure to copy the texture map also in the Diffuse channel, to have proper UV-coordinates for the mesh in Unity. Otherwise, you end up with a black mesh.
* Inside Unity3D, hide what you don't need and make sure the correct baked textures are used by the materials.

Release 3 has some support for lightbaking built-in, but as the realtime shadows are not supported in the free version, you would still need a Pro license for full shadow baking (or bake in external rendering software).

students.autodesk.com : watch out if you manage a classroom

2010-09-30T10:13:00.000+02:00

As reported earlier, the Autodesk Education Community provides free licenses for students. However, if you are a school which uses Autodesk software for teaching, you have to buy a classroom license, which is not free, but, considering the amount of software you got, is priced fairly low (about €1.000 for 10 licenses for a suite with most Autodesk software included).

So far, nothing special, you would think. Unless you start to mix things. The EULA for the student version only allows (apart from the obvious non-commercial) this for work at home only and not for the classroom sessions. It is primarily meant to ensure classrooms will buy a lab-license on their computers.

We had a rather heavy discussion in a meeting with CAD teachers yesterday, where this seemed really problematic. Everybody assumed that they had bought a sufficient amount of licenses, while the educational responsible for Autodesk seemed to suggest we needed to buy additional licenses. Why am I not surprised?

Let me explain this with an example. We have currently 50 Autodesk licenses for our classrooms, which allows us to install the software we want (e.g. AutoCAD Architecture, Revit, Ecotect and 3ds Max Design) on all our PC's. But there is a problem when students bring their laptop to the classroom. For any student following classes, the school should have a corresponding license.

Another teacher at another school has no lab computers available, as all students have a school laptop. They assumed (with the agreement of the dealer) that all students could use the student-version from the Autodesk Education Community without problem. But the license implies that you have to buy additional licenses for any student following classes. So that teacher has no computers, yet still he has to buy a lab-license for all his students, which the students won't even install, as they have the student version with their own registration already loaded on their laptop. The problem is that the student license is invalid the moment a student enters a classroom.

What to do if you manage a classroom? What do you do?

Do you need to buy a license for all concurrent students following classes? Or for the total amount of students? And what about the students using this in the design studio, who don't have CAD classes?

The answer from Autodesk: describe your situation and they will provide a specific proposal for your classroom. I actually hoped that Autodesk would have informed their own dealers from where we bought our software on beforehand.

Free image library from 3DTotal.com

2010-09-30T09:45:00.000+02:00

The team at 3DTotal.com has worked on a royalty-free Image Library, which you can freely use in your projects. As long as you respect the end user license (e.g. not redistributing the images themselves nor mass-downloading nor blocking the advertisements), you can use them in your creative work.

Info at http://freetextures.3dtotal.com.

Free 2D CAD : some (updated) options

2010-09-24T09:50:00.005+02:00

DraftSight, on which I already reported, has now been released for OSX as well as Windows. And a Linux version should be coming. This is free 2D CAD, but not Open Source.

http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/draftsight-overview/

It's based on the ARES Commander software from Graebert, but only 2D. I loaded an old AutoCAD drawing and found the interface not too snappy. And frankly, while AutoCAD r13 or r14 was a good program, it has evolved. As a "copy" of an old AutoCAD 2D CAD program, I wonder why they don't try to do something original themselves.

Draftsight reads DWG files, uses them as native format, and allows export of a drawing into SVG, PDF, bitmaps and, wait, STL? What? A 3D format to be exported from a 2D file? What were they thinking? Well, the STL export did not work due to missing components. And exporting the drawing into SVG crashed the application... Damn. Well, the SVG could be loaded into Inkscape, luckily, but then it was slow as hell. And the DXF export from Inkscape did not work either. So much for open formats and file exchange.

Some minor remarks from the EULA:

The Non-Commercial Release Period will continue until release of the commercially released version of the Product.

Another 2D CAD option is CADuntu, which is a Qt4 port of QCAD. This is Open Source and while it aims at being an alternative for AutoCAD, it also tries hard to do everything in its own way, including the way commands are entered. I applaud the original QCAD team for at least attempting to do something that is not simply trying to mimic a really old AutoCAD LT version.

Info on http://www.caduntu.org

It should be available on ALL platforms, but right now, focus is on Windows and a basic OSX version. But as QCAD and Qt are both cross-platform, I assume that it can be ported if not already done.

It is less polished than DraftSight (or ARES) but I don't think this should bother anyone trying to use it. The biggest issue might be that CADuntu only reads DXF files (and assumably, only in their older forms). This is to be expected, as the DWG libraries used by ARES Commander and DraftSight (and BricsCAD and ArchiCAD and VectorWorks etc...) are developed by the Open Design Alliance, which does not allow providing the libraries for Open Source applications. You can, as a developer, use them, but not with sources. If full DWG-compatibility is important, there is NO OPEN SOURCE alternative available.

I managed to transfer the model into CADunty by exporting a DXF r12 from VectorWorks, but if you have VectorWorks, there is no need for DraftSight or QCAD/CADuntu anyway. And the application almost froze because of the quite complex drawing. 15 seconds to refresh a drawing after zooming. Sigh...

Some interesting (German) VectorWorks video-tutorials

2010-09-22T14:12:00.002+02:00

From the Design Express Website (the VectorWorks & Cinema4D dealer for Belgium & the Netherlands) we found a nice list of 7 video-tutorials for VectorWorks. They are in German, but were clear to understand.

http://www.vectorworks.be/nieuws/vectorworks-tutorials/modelleren-met-vectorworks-zeven-interessante-tutorials/

Panton Chair
BIM & Freeform modeling
Tower based on Gehry Design
Niche from a partial sphere
Thiais Bus Center (Paris)
Meier's Jubilee church (Rome)
Freeform bench

ArchiCAD educational portal updated

2010-09-22T12:16:00.002+02:00

When you go to https://myarchicad.com/ you can register for a free download of ArchiCAD (as a trial, as a student, as a teacher and as a classroom version). The software is the "real" thing, but with banners on the output for the educational versions.

Apart from ArchiCAD, you also get access to additional add-ons, such as EcoDesigner, MEP Modeller and many of the popular plugins.

You can also register for Artlantis from there and there is a large collection of learning material as well.

Autodesk Student portal updated

2010-09-22T12:14:00.003+02:00

The recently updated Autodesk Student Portal (http://students.autodesk.com) now hosts more software then ever (e.g. Revit, AutoCAD, 3ds Max, Maya, Ecotext and many others) and the license terms have been extended from 13 months to 3 years for most of the applications.

AutoCAD displays a banner on all printed material, but is otherwise complete and compatible. The Mac version should also become available "soon".

You can also try other of their flagship software, such as Inventor, Softimage, MotionBuilder or Mudbox if you are interested.

VectorWorks for students

2010-09-22T12:09:00.004+02:00

If you register (and qualify as as student) at http://student.myvectorworks.net/ you can download and activate VectorWorks as an educational version.

The student version is always the "previous" version. Will very soon be r2010 when r2011 is released. Now only r2009 is available. (edit: according to the comments, it seems that the most recent 2011 version should be available for students soon)
It is free and available for OSX and Windows.
The student version has a visible banner on all output. When your school has a lab-license, this allows you to print without banners.
The software is fully functional and additional modules such as RenderWorks are included.

The software has come a long way since the old "MiniCAD" I used in architectural practice. But despite that, I'm not still not fully convinced on the 3D interface. But even then, I did create some very usable 3D scenes even with the "first" VectorWorks version, so it can only be better than what it was.

What I still don't get is in how far this really is "2D, 3D & BIM" whenever you want. It does not go as far as ArchiCAD or Revit on the BIM side, but it gets closer with every release.