topic Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through in Visualization

Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 13:10:46 GMT

Hi everyone

My firm recently purchased ZERMATT, which works effortlessly with ArchiCAD to generate interactive walk-throughs from a 3D model.

Apart from ZERMATT, does anyone know if there are similar softwares out there that does something like that, with greater realism in terms of image quality? Thanks!

Shawn

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 11:46:37 GMT

I don't think there is, it's hard for a computer too render great realism in 'realtime'. I think Zermatt use same technic that most computergame does.
And in ArchiCad - Zermatt combination, you use your ArchiCad materials in Zermatt and this material don't use latest shadertechnic that you've seen in computergames.
And to get greater realism in materials/lights you often have to do uv-unwraps of textures and use alot of layers of textures.

Do you need all this? greater realism -> more textures & alot of more work -> alot of time, time most don't have.

/Tobias

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 06:20:02 GMT

Hi Tobias

Hmm...in that case, do u happen to know any "computer-game" VR creators/render engines that work with ArchiCAD?

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 06:54:38 GMT

There are alot of opensource gameengines that you could use if you have a bit of C++ knowledge, there are also some gameengines that you could start without any cooding, maybe a little scripting, but scripting an VR for one modell are probably rather easy.

But a direct convert from ArchiCad to this engines are not give you that realism you are searching for so you have to convert your model to for example 3d Studio or Maya and use materials that support latest shadertechnics.

Search on gamedev forums, there is alot of them and there you could find most of the info you need.

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:36:18 GMT

for architectural walkthrough complex shaders are not necessary. shaders can be quite simple. the problem is lighting. and you cannot compute realistic lighting in realtime. most of what you see in games is precomputed. game engines just calculate direct diffuse lighting and specular. all GI is baked into the textures.
so unless you use an application that's capable of GI and render to texture (like 3dsmax) you vill never get even close to what you see in games. no matter what engine you use.

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:42:46 GMT

zucoc wrote:
for architectural walkthrough complex shaders are not necessary. shaders can be quite simple. the problem is lighting. and you cannot compute realistic lighting in realtime.

No, exactly, no computer have that capacity, there are gamelevels that takes over a week to compute lightmaps on fast computers.
Even Zermatt calculate lightmaps before you can walk around.
But Shingo wants better realism than Zermatt, and for that you'll need more complex shaders.
But self I think Zermatt is doing more than a great job, I like it alot.

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

stefan — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 09:04:50 GMT

Quest 3D is very capable, but hard to use, expensive and there is no ArchiCAD integration. Oh, and Windows only.

Half-Life2 is nice as well, if you model your scene in the Hammer editor... Windows only.

VRML browsers are fine (and freely available), but the lighting model in these browsers is soooo limited. Cortona is cross-platform.

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 02:53:14 GMT

Are there any fellow ZERMATT users out there who would like to share their opinions and experiences with using it?

Shawn

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:02:40 GMT

if u have any tutorials plz give me about lightong and render settings

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:42:55 GMT

Well check out blender3d game engine. If i remember corectly you prerender the scene with texture an then somehow you can walkthrough

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 11:30:02 GMT

www.turntool.com
plugin for archicad and cinema4d
trial version for download

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 03:58:21 GMT

Shawn

Just got Zermatt a couple of weeks ago.

I think it is brilliant.

How long have we been waiting for this!!!

And what a huge hit with the clients!

I have a colleague who has had it for 5 or so months and he enthused me.

I havn't figured out how to turn on the sun yet?

The instructions are few and incredibly cryptic!!!

And Zermatt havn't replied to my emails of two weeks ago! yet!

David

Shingo wrote:
Are there any fellow ZERMATT users out there who would like to share their opinions and experiences with using it?

Shawn

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:28:04 GMT

I though the Zermatt file would be perfect to pass on to the Structural Engineer, Storm Water Consultant, Landscape Designer, etc. so they can see the project more comprehensively, and refer back to the 3D model as much as they like, but not one of these guys has a computer that will run the Zermatt file!!

' System requirements
Support for DirectX 9 graphics, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0'

David

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 12:05:25 GMT

Shingo wrote:
Apart from ZERMATT, does anyone know if there are similar softwares out there that does something like that, with greater realism in terms of image quality? Thanks!

If you want to get realtime walk-through with good image quality + interactivity + realtime editability + web 3D navigation, without having to program ...try Vitruvian Studio 1.0. It is a professional tool which improves (one click process) the VRML generated by ArchiCAD (Graphisoft) and transforms ArchiCAD 3D scenes in optimum interactive Web 3D walk-through within minutes.
Examples and demo version are available at http://www.vitruvian-studio.com

(only for windows)

Giovanni Dragone

Re: Virtual Reality / Interactive Walk-through

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:30:36 GMT

David wrote:
I though the Zermatt file would be perfect to pass on to the Structural Engineer, Storm Water Consultant, Landscape Designer, etc. so they can see the project more comprehensively, and refer back to the 3D model as much as they like, but not one of these guys has a computer that will run the Zermatt file!!

No, but almost every kid has...
I don't know why alot of companies always buy the most expensive cad-graphiccard when a normal gamecard for £100 often is more than enough.