CAD, BIM & 3D

As you may know, I have published my official Unity tutorials as a book and video with Packt Publishing. If you want to order any of them (or any other book or video from the Packt Catalog for that matter), now is a good time. Till the 6th of January 2015 , every single item in the catalog is $5 only! Here are the direct links to my own publications... Unity video-tutorial for interactive architectural visualisation https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and-creative/building-architectural-walkthrough-using-unity-video Translating CAD or BIM models into a real-time application can seem a tiresome ordeal. Luckily, Unity is very accessible for architects with some 3D experience and it makes importing and presenting models a fun task to do. Architectural visualization through Unity will help you analyze designs and make related decisions even before the actual building is built. Starting from 3D models in common architectural software, we will discuss the workflow to load the mode...

This week, for the first time, BricsCAD is released for the three major Operating Systems available: Windows, Linux and now also OSX. After getting rid of its IntelliCAD legacy, the Belgian company Bricsys retargeted BricsCAD as a DWG-compatible development platform for all kind of CAD uses: 2D drafting, 3D modelling and rendering, custom development, Mechanical Design and (a long time since the demise of the “Architecturals” module) now also for BIM Functionality. Let’s start with that first: How does BricsCAD approach BIM? From the Release notes: “Instead of creating a set of dedicated BIM primitives like walls, slabs, columns, etc..., each with their own restricted behavior and properties, we opted for offering maximum flexibility. Any 3D Solid can be used in a BIM model” This is interesting and in line with the way freeform and modelling software approaches BIM: define any geometry and classify it afterwards (e.g. SketchUp, Rhinoceros). BricsCAD is DWG based, but supports IFC impor...

I recently got a chance to take a few online courses on the Udemy platform. This is an online market-place for courses, which are mainly video-based. It serves both as a teacher and student platform and is (deliberately) not meant as an academic platform. When approved, you can become an instructor too and publish your courses and put a price on them. When you put a price on your course, it takes an additional approval step for the teacher, but after that, the system does everything: registrations, payments (using Paypal) and even entering into promotions and discount offers. As a teacher you can generate discount/coupon codes, so you can give selected audiences free or cheaper access to your course. I plan on making my future tutorials available in English on this system and maybe have a discount code for my students, but that depends a bit on my employment situation… The course system is well structured, with sections, lectures and quizes, with the possibility to add accompanying ma...

This is a loaded topic. Every time people start to compare Mac and PCs or ArchiCAD and Revit, they start arguing. My point is merely making a neutral overview over the most important new features from both applications and how they compare to what is missing in the other or what has been available already. As an ArchiCAD user, I have to admit I’m more experienced with ArchiCAD but I have used Revit, took classes and know a thing or two (three… four) about CAD and BIM software from my years of experience. So I don’t apologise, but rather feel that I have something to say about it. By the way, this post has also been included with CAD Digest Selection. Autodesk Revit 2015 Graphisoft ArchiCAD 18 Existing/ Updated : Integration of Mental Ray rendering and Cloud-based external rendering New : CineRender Rendering engine based on Cinema4D After the old Accurender was replaced with Mental Ray, Revit gained the same rendering quality and materials as AutoCAD, 3ds Max and M...

While the Unity Game Engine has an integrated Lightmapping system (Beast, now from Autodesk), you need a Pro-license for Bounced Lighting. There are cases where it makes sense to import pre-rendered lighting from an external software. This blogpost is an overview of the process to bake lighting on a model in CINEMA 4D and ensure that it survives the conversion into Unity. Goal A model with two sets of textures: the regular tiled textures (bricks, tiles…) that are seamlessly repeated over the geometry (using the regular UV coordinates) and a second texture, containing the baked lighting using a second set of UV coordinates. References Several people have developed their own routines to get this done, but I'd like to refer to two posts, where a user name "Artzfx" posted some details on his workflow. http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/165691-Cinema-4D-Textured-Model-to-Unity-Best-Practices http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/topic/69750-baking-gi-and-textures-for-unity3d/ ...

My (first) book on Unity for Architectural Visualization is ready. All files and texts are with the publisher (Packt Publishing) and they will make it available any day now. The cover image is a photograph by an external photographer, as is custom for Packt, but the bridge into the clouds is a nice metaphorical image on virtual and imaginary worlds. I've dragged the whole text through Wordle to come up with a text-based summary of the book: Despite the fact the only the 7th chapter goes specifically into scripting, I was a bit surprised that the term "script" is quite big, next to more obvious terms, such as model, objects, image or software. Who can spot the CAD and 3D applications mentioned? If any of you read the book, it would really please me to receive some feedback. Who knows what the future will bring.

I am currently in the writing stage of a "mini" book on Unity for Architectural Visualization. There is not much   I can publicly share, at the moment, but I do hope it will be worth it. So if anybody has some ideas of what should absolutely be included in such a book, let me know and I'll see if I can fit it in somehow. But good, practical tips are also very welcome.

Last year, Unity gave away free licenses for the Basic iOS and Android add-ons. This was, back then, a temporary promotion. I reported about it as well . Apparently, they want to attract even more mobile developers and decided to release these add-ons for everybody, without cost. So you can now have a free license of Unity, which supports Mac, Windows, Linux, web player, iOS and Android . Other platforms are in beta: Blackberry, Windows Store apps. Read some more and look at the announcement from Unity's CEO David Helgason at the Pocketgamer blog/site . You might have to wait a bit, since the Store-page is temporarily off-line at the moment. There is still the non-free Pro-license of Unity and the non-free Pro-license of the iOS and Android add-ons, which present quite some additional functionality. The most 'missed' features, at least according to me, are realtime shadows, bounced lights for baking and the performance features of LOD, static batching, Occlus...

In a surprising but understandable move, you can temporarily register for a free (basic) license for Unity3D and add the iOS and Android Basic licenses without cost. While the Pro version of Unity3D and the additional licenses of the mobile addons are still about $1500 each, the creation of smartphone and tablet apps has finally been more accessible than ever. For Android apps you need only the additional Java and Android SDK, but it runs on Windows and OSX. Linux is supported for these SDKs but not Unity3D (yet?). For iOS apps (iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch), you need a Mac with OSX and an Intel CPU. While you can prototype a full app and remote control it using your iDevice, you need a non-free iOS developer license, which is $99/year for individual developers. What's the catch? This offer is only till 8th of April and the basic versions lack some of the features of the pro versions, but they are very complete and can be used commercially! Choose your license (and cur...

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 ...

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.cryengine.com/community/downloads.php?view=detail&category=125&df_id=5310 (Edit: Feb 2015 > updated the above link)

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 imp...

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...

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 r...

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/

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 c...

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.

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 " scr...

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

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, Sunfl...