Archicad and VRML (Realtime web 3D)

[Anonymous]

I would like to know your opinion about the possibility to walk through archicad 3D projects in realtime online. Would it be interesting for architects and designer? I mean to create with Archicad good quality interactive 3D scenes to publish as realtime web 3D walk through.
With "interactive" I mean the possibility for a web user to interact with 3d scenes (linked to each other) by clicking on different links to open web pages, documents, pictures, video, audio and so on ...
Could Archicad become interesting for web 3d worlds creators?

Giovanni Dragone

[stefan]

Not ArchiCAD alone. You can use ArchiCAD to produce the 3D Model and use other software, such as TurnTool, Wirefusion, Cult3D which use their own format or even 3ds max/VIZ and it's VRML helpers to prepare a VRML scene with interactivity to use in regular VRML browsers.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion for a good real time web 3D is important: good quality in short size, interactivity, easy and comfortable navigation modes (walk through, fly through, rotate, slide ...). In my experience VRML (open source standard 3D for the web) is much better than any other web 3D technology.
There are tools which allows you to get excellent interactive realtime web 3d scenes by starting from the VRML generated by Archicad.
As now hardware is ready ....what I would like to know is if realtime web 3D could be considered an opportunity for Architects, Estate agents, Building contractors ...

[stefan]

From my personal experience:

Cult3D VIZ Exporter is (almost) a one-click process, going from a 3D Studio scene (which could be an imported 3ds-file from ArchiCAD) to on online walkthrough. You need to install the Cult3D player which is available (free) on Windows and OSX. This is not based on VRML.

VRML files from ArchiCAD could be linked directly, but I had much better results importing a 3ds file from ArchiCAD into VIZ and add VRML navigation and other helper objects there. Specifically, when using the Blaxxun Contact navigator, the VRML file from ArchiCAD was oriented wrong (that is, Z is up in CAD but is frontal in the screen in most animation software).

Wirefusion can import VRML files and publish the scene as a Java-applet. Walkthrough and collision detection are available.

TurnTool has an ArchiCAD plugin (I tested the beta-version) which makes it a one-step process from ArchiCAD. This is not based on VRML.

[Anonymous]

Hi Stefan
thanks for your answer. Of course all the technology you indicate are useful and important, but I wanted to talk about online interactive architectural walk through. Cult 3D is optimum but you cannot walk through anything. I viewed same examples made with Wirefusion, but I was only able to rotate and zoom something. Anyway an easy and comfortable walkthrouh means mouse navigation (no keyboard), collision detection, gravity (possibility to go upstairs or downstairs) speed control.
When I talk about interactivity I mean the possibility to switch on/off lights, to open doors and drawers and I mean also the possibility for a web user to interact with 3d scenes (linked to each other) by clicking on different links to web pages, documents, pictures, video, audio and so on ... VRML gives me all these possibilities, but you are right when you say that is difficult to get good results, because at the moment there is not a one step process from ARCHICAD. May be in the very next future it will be.

The point is: there are not suitable tools because Architect are not interested in Realtime web 3D or ... Architect are not interested in Realtime web 3D because there not adequate tools ?

(sorry for my english... I'm italian)

[stefan]

Giovanni wrote:
Hi Stefan
thanks for your answer. Of course all the technology you indicate are useful and important, but I wanted to talk about online interactive architectural walk through. Cult 3D is optimum but you cannot walk through anything.

The Cult3D VIZ Exporter can create a fully walkable scene, with gravity, collision, but not with the editability of the regular Cult3D interactive scene.

Giovanni wrote:
I viewed same examples made with Wirefusion, but I was only able to rotate and zoom something.

When you load a 3D file into Wirefusion, you have the choice between 3D Object (rotate & zoom) or 3D World (walk around).
Check the example Art Gallery on the Demicron Site.
You can add interactivity to objects. I've linked a slider to a texture array which allows you to interactively change materials. You can add other interactivity, such as changing colors, opacity, reflection etc... whatever.

Giovanni wrote:
Anyway an easy and comfortable walkthrouh means mouse navigation (no keyboard), collision detection, gravity (possibility to go upstairs or downstairs) speed control.
When I talk about interactivity I mean the possibility to switch on/off lights, to open doors and drawers and I mean also the possibility for a web user to interact with 3d scenes (linked to each other) by clicking on different links to web pages, documents, pictures, video, audio and so on

You can do that in most of these tools.
But beware, lights do not cast shadows in most of these applications. I think Quest 3D has dynamic shadows. Zermatt had shadows.
They will come eventually with the better support for advanced shaders in hardware.
You can link to these online scenes with Javascript, in most cases. There is a lot that you can do with this out-of-the-box solutions.

And you can do many of that with just 3ds max and the VRML helpers.

Giovanni wrote:
... VRML gives me all these possibilities, but you are right when you say that is difficult to get good results, because at the moment there is not a one step process from ARCHICAD. May be in the very next future it will be.

The point is: there are not suitable tools because Architect are not interested in Realtime web 3D or ... Architect are not interested in Realtime web 3D because there not adequate tools ?

(sorry for my english... I'm italian)

Architects will be interested if they don't have to program. All these applications require programming, even though you don't have to write code.

I like programming, but I stopped being an architect 😉

[Anonymous]

Cult 3D is very famous, but not for realtime architectural walk through. Watch their online gallery, you cannot find one single example.
There must be a reason!!

On the site of demicron I found only one interior walk through, but believe me the best VRML is really something else.

Quest 3D and Zermatt engine are not tools for realtime Web 3D and they call small file a file of 20 MB.

At this site there is an example of VRML scene created with ARCHICAD.
http://www.int3d.com/3dscenes/house3d/house3d.html

If you live in a castle in Belgium it means that programming is much better than doing the Architect

[stefan]

I'm familiar with the VRML example. But it takes some serious preparation in an editing environment.

Cult3D:
http://www.divaconsult.net/leistungen/detail.asp?ID=1
--> go to 3D Walkthrough (walking in Cult3D has a funny bounce, no interactivity though)

Demicron:
http://www.demicron.com/gallery/cat_virtual.html
http://www.demicron.com/gallery/interior.html
(this last one has opening doors)

I most of this cases, getting a good shadow-quality requires texture baking (lightmap creation), a process that can be created in VIZ/3ds max, but also in other modern DCC applications, such as Maya, XSI and Cinema4D.

You could make each room a single unit and make two lightmaps for the whole: a dark one and a lighted one. Clicking light switches could switch the texturemap for that particular room.

But having actual projected shadows would make it a lot easier.

FWIW, this technique should work with all these technologies.

[Andy Thomson]

Giovanni, I am pretty confident you can get exactly what you are after with Turntool, as they even have a new plugin for AC10 - withy camera paths, walkthrough and tour capabilities, but why do you seem to be so hung up on VRML? Have you tried turntool yet? It is pretty easy to export right from ArchiCad....... and why start yet another thread on this? Frankly, the VRML I played with years ago looked extremely hokey in comparison. But there you are.

[Anonymous]

Andyro there are two similar thread because I didn’ta realize that the first one was moved to a different forum by the moderator . Anyway I'm not talking about me, I’m not interested in turntool or similar, because I work with vrml since many years and, in my opinion, I can get better results (talking about render quality, lightness, interactivity, navigation modes) with VRML which is free of charge, but I know very well that at the moment Vrml is not for everybody.

I was talking in general about Architects and Realtime web 3D.
My question was : now that hardware is ready and Internet is growing up day by day could Realtime web 3D become interesting for Architects, estate agents, building contractors ? why yes ... and why not.