Omniverse

Enter the Omniverse

Nvidia’s new platform technology brings together architects and other stakeholders in a visually rich, real-time collaborative environment that has live links to the leading CAD and BIM tools, writes Greg Corke

Afew years ago, Nvidia wowed its AEC and manufacturing customers with Holodeck, an experiment in using virtual environments for collaborative workflows. The platform was designed to bring together architects, designers and stakeholders from anywhere in the world to build and explore projects in a highly realistic, collaborative, and physically simulated VR environment.

The visual quality of the demonstration cars and buildings was stunning, but the 3D models represented a snapshot of a project in time. With distributed teams using many different tools, designs are constantly evolving, and a linear stepped process of import and export wasn’t going to solve the real workflow challenges faced by global AEC firms. What was needed was a dynamic way for data to be shared and Nvidia looked to the visual effects industry for inspiration.

Around the same time, Pixar brought out USD (Universal Scene Description), an open framework for the interchange of 3D computer graphics data, specifically focused on collaboration. As Richard Kerris, Industry GM for M&E at Nvidia, told AEC Magazine, USD “standardises toolsets and environments and models and all of the things that go into creating an object or an environment.”

USD was originally designed for visual effects and animation, but it immediately started to gain traction in other industries. It provided a means of transferring files without importing or exporting, but having it happen live between applications. “That was when the team looked at what was working and was not working with Holodeck and decided that, if they standardised around USD, they could take that same approach, but now have an environment of collaboration that comes through this open standard,” explains Kerris.

Holodeck was very focused on VR, but laid the foundations for a new, much broader, collaboration platform called Omniverse, which Kerris describes as “Google Docs for your world.”

Omniverse essentially allows teams to work together, interactively using their 3D design tools of choice. Data from multiple applications can be seamlessly streamed into the Omniverse and the resulting asset, be it a building, product or VFX scene, can be interacted with live in a real-time, ray-traced viewport accelerated by Nvidia Quadro RTX GPUs.

The AEC experience Omniverse can serve multiple industries, including Media and Entertainment and manufacturing, but it’s the AEC market that’s getting the most attention, as Kerris explains. “AEC, in particular, really gravitated towards us because they’ve always had this strong need to collaborate,

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because sometimes the architectural firm is in London and the building is in Beijing, and some of the landscapers are in Shanghai and you know there’s all this stuff that goes back and forth.

“And so we started talking with all of the major players from Foster + Partners to KPF to Woods Bagot and we’ve made them into ‘lighthouse’ accounts, meaning that they’re in, and we work with them on a fairly regular basis, about how our development is going, what is important to them, how customers would use things.”

All of this has led to the development of the Omniverse AEC Experience, which provides firms with a collection of tools designed to improve the conceptual design process. “Multiple designers can work on one design at the same time and reviewers can ask for changes in real time,” explains Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. There are live links or ‘Portal connections’ to the major 3D design tools, including SketchUp, Revit, and Rhino, and viz tools 3ds Max and Unreal Engine. As one would expect, there’s a big emphasis on high fidelity, ray traced models and the use of photorealistic visualisation much earlier on in the design process.

Kerris is keen to point out that Nvidia is not looking to make a product out of Omniverse. He explains that one of the guiding principles is for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to add, embellish and do whatever they want to do with it as a platform. In the AEC 1 Real-time collaboration: Sketchup tools including Revit, space, Nvidia has been Revit, Rhino and Omniverse View Rhino, SketchUp and 3ds working very closely with 2 Image courtesy of Woods Bagot Max to work collaboraAutodesk, McNeel, 3 Rhino (left) and Revit (right), both tively on a building in Trimble and Epic Games streaming data in real time into 4 Omniverse. Images courtesy of China designed by KPF. but is also talking to oth- Woods Bagot Participants make changers. An SDK called es to materials, windows Omniverse Kit is available to help ISVs and lights and various configurations give their products a real-time, ray-traced within the scene. All of this is being manapplication viewport. aged in real time, across the globe.

According to Andrew Rink, who leads “For the first time they’re really able to global marketing strategy for AEC and collaboratively work on an environment, manufacturing at Nvidia, one of the key not just like ‘OK you do this come back breakthroughs Omniverse achieves is tomorrow when we’ve got that,’” says the ability to move among Revit, Rhino Kerris. “What’s really amazing is that in or SketchUp with just one click, “There’s that platform you will see the object to no need for data preparation or decima- build and you will see the environment, tion to view huge models with supported sunshine, clouds, etc. You will see photophotorealistic rendering software. This realistic finishing and materials on the eliminates costly delays in translation building, you’ll be able to come inside to and errors between software tools, the interiors and all of this will be taking which results in substantial time sav- place in real time.” ings,” he says. To support collaboration, users can leave

“For instance, a team iterating on con- notes, annotations and highlight objects. cepts might have an architect making These are persistent within Omniverse. changes to the building model using “We’re looking at what other ways are Revit, while a designer in another office best,” says Kerris. “If you highlight somesimultaneously adds or modifies design thing can it pop open a video of somebody elements using Rhino or Trimble that may not be dynamically connected at SketchUp. All team members, and even that time, but left you a Post-it Note, if you their client, can view these changes in will, to say, ‘hey move this wall.’” real time in Omniverse as they work together and exchange feedback.” Omniverse broken down

Kerris describes an example workflow Omniverse features several key modules. where a global team is using a range of Omniverse ‘nucleus’ coordinates all of the

USD elements across the various applica- but with Nvidia Quadro Virtual Data Kerris, but Omniverse isn’t just for the tions, feeding into the rest of the platform. Center Workstation (Quadro vDWS) soft- larger practices, “We’ve got all sizes there Any changes made in Revit, Rhino or ware users can access the Omniverse actually, there’s an architect working on another authoring tool are continually fed platform using GPU-accelerated virtual [Nvidia CEO] Jensen’s house, and he got into Omniverse via ‘Connector plug-ins’ machines. It means all collaborators, him enlisted. And then we have archiwhich create a live link. The Nucleus can including clients, can view projects in tects that are working on 70 storey buildrun on a standard server or a VM within full interactive ray traced quality on low ings that are going to be iconic,” he says. an Nvidia RTX Server. powered hardware - laptop, tablet or Now with the launch of Ominiverse

Omniverse ‘View’ provides a real time phone. AEC firms can also run their 3D AEC Experience, Nvidia is opening view into the Omniverse world that is design tools directly off RTX Server. things up to more firms through an Early being worked on. It uses Quadro RTX Access program. Kerris expects the numGPUs to provide high-quality photoreal- Getting immersive ber of firms to rise significantly, and not istic output of the aggregated USD model Omniverse is not just for static displays - just architects. Nvidia is also starting to and offers basic scene and material edit- XR has a massive role to play. For exam- talk to other disciplines including strucing capabilities as well as industry-spe- ple, an iPad can be used to window into tural engineers and MEP engineers. cific features like light studies. All team an AR-based view of the building that’s members, even clients, can view changes sitting on a dining room table, “We not Conclusion in real time – the idea being that every- only support the streaming out of it, we AEC firms are well served by real-time one can work together and exchange support AR kit and things that allow you viz applications – Enscape, Twinmotion feedback. By being able to pan, zoom and to have location based information so and Lumion all offer live links to the rotate a photorealistic model in the view- that you can use the viewer for more than major CAD and BIM tools and some also port anyone can quickly see how light just a portal, but actually something to have support for RTX ‘real-time’ ray tracmight reflect off a surface or a physically interact with,” says Kerris. “The things ing. They do a great job of putting visualbased material, such as wood or concrete, we’re doing with AR are much higher isation tools into the hands of architects might look under various lighting condi- fidelity than people have ever seen before but are very much personal tools for the tions. “This is a tremendous help in and the feedback has been phenomenal.” creation of viz assets or for giving real accelerating design decisions, which VR pixel streaming is on the roadmap time feedback on design decisions. leads to more time for ideating on innovative concepts and faster bid prepa‘‘ A team iterating on concepts might have an With Omniverse, Nvidia has much bigger ambitions — to bring together ration,” says Rink. architect making changes to the building model design teams in a visually Omniverse View is not the only way to view photoreal content generated using Revit, while a designer in another office simultaneously adds or modifies design rich collaborative environment where industry-standard 3D tools can be used on the platform, as Kerris elements using Rhino or Trimble SketchUp concurrently to drive the explains, “If you want to stay in Rhino, you can feed the viewport back into the application, so and there will be support through its ’’ design and all stakeholders, including clients get to see the impact of those decisions, instantwe’ve really created it in a way that the CloudXR platform, but Kerris believes ly. And all of this is done in a photorealisISVs can take it and extend it.” AR has a more important role to play, tic environment where the impact of light

Viz asset generation isn’t limited to the “From a collaborative standpoint, the and materials can be explored from a Omniverse rendering engine. The plat- feedback has been much more positive. If very early stage. form is also designed to support commer- you and I are collaborating on something Nvidia says the initial focus is on cial game engines and offline renderers, as we don’t need to have our headsets on, enhancing conceptual design, which Kerris explains. “We’re not changing we’re literally working on a window and implies that in the future the platform workflows, we’re enhancing it, so if they we can interact with it.” could be used further downstream. How go out to Unreal’s Twinmotion or they go this would work in practice remains to to Chaos [Group], things like that, all of The cloud be seen, as when AEC projects evolve those things are built to be supported by The current focus for Omniverse is for and details become more important, Omniverse - they’re all partners.” AEC firms to use on premise hardware clashes and constructability issues need but there are plans to add a cloud service. to be resolved. Powering the Omniverse “We certainly have that capability, but This looks a step too far for Omniverse Omniverse View can run on a Quadro we’re still working on how to implement itself but something that could be hanRTX desktop or mobile workstation that so that it’s in the best experience for dled by tight integration with a third-parallowing users to get an interactive view- the customers,” says Kerris. “One of the ty product like Revizto, Navisworks or port into the shared scene. However, the biggest points of feedback we’ve had from Unity Reflect, which can handle BIM real power of the platform comes into a lot of architectural firms is ‘we’re not big metadata. play when using Nvidia RTX Server, a IT firms, we are architects, and so we want It’s still very early days for Omniverse reference design available for a range of to use cloud services like we use Netflix.’” and there’s a lot we don’t yet know, but OEMs with up to eight or ten Nvidia we’re excited to see where this technoloQuadro RTX 6000 or 8000 GPUs. Open access gy goes and, more importantly, how the

RTX Server can perform multiple Omniverse is currently being trialled by AEC firms who are helping shape its roles. It not only provides buckets of pro- about 35 ‘lighthouse’ accounts. About a direction are getting on. cessing power for real time ray tracing, third are major architectural firms, says ■ tinyurl.com/omniverse-AEC