LumenRT For ArchiCAD Coming Soon!

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone,

Dave Burdick, VP of Marketing @ e-on software here. Just a quick heads up that we will soon be introducing LumenRT 2015 in the next few weeks which contains a direct interface to AC 17 and AC 18. You can export all your ArchiCAD models and materials into LumenRT and produce very nice interactive 3D Visualizations in real-time, complete with plants, terrains, skies, clouds, water, people, etc.

Here's a link to one of the LumenRT 2015 teaser videos that shows Ivo Venkov's NHS concept building inside of LumenRT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ompuIsdwFKY

More about LumenRT here:

http://www.lumenrt.com/

[PB]

Hi Gerald,

I'm still getting to grips with LumenRT 2015, so I'm a long way from being even a pimple on a guru's backside....

So far, the software is working very well: The core LumenRT 2015 version allows one to morph the terrain inside the program, and add vegetation, vehicles, people (all animated, with wind effects, etc.).

Equally, there are 'proxy' elements that can be added inside ArchiCAD: There is no obligation to 'populate' your model inside ArchiCAD - my understanding is that it is a useful means of adding key elements to the ArchiCAD documentation that are important even in more 'technical' presentations (trees inside malls, vehicles in a car showroom, etc.).

The Geo version is for those working more in the fields of urban planning and engineering: The key element being the integration with appropriate software.

To re-cap, the process is very simple:

- Construct the building in ArchiCAD, including adjacent terrain if the building includes sunken pools, basements, etc.

- View the elements you wish to export in the 3D window, and export using the plugin menu command.

- Open LumenRT 2015: Your model will be arbitrarily placed on a patch of tarmac in your chosen landscape.

- Move the building to somewhere nicer in the landscape, and/or replace the tarmac with a different material.

- Change materials in the model to LumenRT 2015 materials where desired

- Morph the landscape, add vegetation, people, cars, etc....

........enjoy !

The following links explain much better than me...

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/wiki/LumenRT/index.php/Main_Page

http://www.lumenrt.com/

http://www.lumenrt.com/support/

[PB]

Oh, and a very useful tip: When working inside the 'Livecube' (the LumenRT scene) keep the quality parameters low unless you have a suitably powerful machine. Once the scene is created & populated as you wish, increase the quality of the scene rendering (real time rendering - lighting, materials, effects, etc.) for output of stills & video.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

I would be curious to know how to got a clean export out of ArchiCAD with that model since it seems relatively large and so far with my tests with the program I've been unable to export anything larger than a two-level single family house out of ArchiCAD as I always get a crash and the Graphisoft Bug reporter screen when I've tried.

I tried an 20 storey multi-unit residential and also a 5 storey multi-unit residential and both times the program just crashes mid-export and this happens in both ArchiCAD17 and 18.

I have a relatively powerful system (24 GB Ram, 8-core AMD CPU, a NVIDIA GTX GeForce 970 w/ 3GB Video memory and an older NVIDIA GTX GeForce 660 also w/3GB Video memory), so I don't really see what the issue could be.
I've been able to export the same models out of ArchiCAD to other render engines (Maxwell,) and also as standard 3D formats (3ds, obj.... etc)

From what I've seen with the single family houses I've been able to export out to LumenRT, it seems like a really great program with a very intuitive interface and really smooth interaction (for my system) and a nice fps feedback.
The quality is more or less what's to be expected from a GPU renderer, although there's really nice features such as with the changing seasons in real time, Sky, wind and sun positions also in real time and a nice library of trees and entourage objects (with animations) as well as cutting planes like we would have in ArchiCAD or Sketchup.

If the issue with the crashing on large models during export were fixed or resolved somehow, this could be a really nice quick representation tool to have at one's disposal.

It's just a shame that there seems to be no means for the program to import models in other formats (like 3ds, obj, fbx or whatnot) as then this crashing thing wouldn't be an issue and one could just re-import the models exported through other formats, but as it stands it seems you're stuck with either it working with your particular model or not.

EDIT: RE: importing models.

Never mind. I figured out how to do it (it's under "Add Misc" objects in the menu).

I also understand that the Eon people updated the trial version to resolve the crashing issues during export, so I'll try and re-download that and see if that fixes the problem.

[PB]

Hi Bricklyne,

Out of curiosity, I was wondering how you got on with LumenRT?

...its also interesting that eon have released an 'ArchViz' version of LumenRT: Features & price cropped to 'architects' requirements (!?)