THE GRID - First Semester Thesis Book by Yuriy Sountsov

Thesis Website http://the--grid.tumblr.com CMU SoArch Thesis Website http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/48-509/ CMU SoArch Home http://www.cmu.edu/architecture/ Contact Yuriy Sountsov yuriys@andrew.cmu.edu

Find me on LinkedIn!

Revision 9 - 12/13/2013

Real Time 3d Visualization Table

Fig. 0.1 QR code for the thesis website.

Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Interest and Architecture Moving Forward

Advisors and Primary Contacts

Project Brief

Project Methods and Timeline

Research 17 Precedents

Literary Research

Interviews and Reviews

Software Research

Hardware Research

Deliverables 53 Applications

Moving Forward - Software Package

Moving Forward - Benefits and Death

Moving Forward - Imagination and Experience

Appendix 67

Sources

Terms

67 76

I n tr o d u ct i o n

Interest and A rc h i t e ct u r e M o v i n g F o r w a r d I, Yuriy Sountsov, am interested in this project because I have the opportunity to give something to the field of architecture that it has struggled to have. During my last year here at Carnegie Mellon University I have the time, resources, and commitment necessary to put forth a complete, developed, and forwardthinking project that others can take and use in their lives as designers and practitioners of architectural theory and thought. In the four years and going that I have spent studying architecture at Carnegie Mellon University...I have seen the future. And it is a strange future, indeed. The world, reader, is on the brink of new and terrifying possibilities. But what was made available in my education was severely lacking. Architects spend too long learning tools that are obsolete by the time they find ways to teach those tools to new architects. What if the world could see inside the mind of the architect? What if the architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ideas did not travel a maze before becoming visible? Architects are ready to learn. One of the major aspects of an architectural thinker is that they are open to new ideas, new

societies of thought. Over the centuries, it has taken radical

Fig. 1.1 The eye provides the most powerful sense humans have: vision. Architecture is often a primarily visual profession - while many architects argue the tactile and auditory aspects of architecture are also very important, the experience always comes back to the appearance of a building. Therefore it should be of paramount importance to architects how they communicate the visuality of their designs, yet one of the most powerful tools in an architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arsenal, the computer, remains wholly unused.

thinking of the likes of Brunelleschi, Gaudi, and Candela to advance the field of architecture in great leaps and bounds, but it was not because they created things that had never been seen before but that they knew what was available and created what could be possible. The digital world is only the latest arena which is thus untapped. It has been exponentially growing for decades and the time is nigh for architects to seize the tools that await them...on THE GRID.

Fig. 1.2 Brunelleschiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dome, a single combination of previously disparate concepts that allowed architecture to take a great leap forward.

Advisors

and

P r i m a r y C o n t a ct s

Yuriy Sountsov - Yuriy Sountsov is a fifth year architecture student at Carnegie Mellon University. He is dissatisfied with the digital backwardness of the program he has been exposed to and wonders sometimes whether architects have become so desensitized to the creative world around them that they think they are on the cutting edge when in fact they are on the cutting block. He has experience with various digital design software, various video game engines, has seen many films and has explored film technology. He sees a problem in architectural practice and wishes to contribute his time and energy for free to fix it. Arthur Lubetz - Arthur Lubetz is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Architecture. He brings a theoretical mindset, a creative Fig. 1.3 My Fall 2010 studio project that Art Lubetz critiqued and reviewed.

framework, and a rigorous approach. He is also the fall semester instructor. I have not collaborated with Arthur before though he once taught a parallel studio. One of Arthurâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key driving principles is the inclusion of the body in architecture. This relates closely to my thesis.

Dale Clifford - Dale Clifford is an is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture. He has significant background finding simple solutions to complex problems using media not native to the problem. I have had Dale in two previous classes, Materials and Assembly and BioLogic, both of which involved combining disparate systems of assembly to achieve a goal not easily or impossibly reached by any constituent system. Dale may also provide many connections into digital fabrication practices. Joshua Bard - Joshua Bard is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture. He should contribute some digital and media expertise. He will be the spring semester instructor. Joshua is co-teaching a fall course, Parametric Modeling (the other instructor being Ramesh Krishnamurti) that focuses on integrating a software with Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, although that software is built inside Rhinoceros as a plugin. Joshua may help with adapting other software. Ramesh Krishnamurti - Ramesh Krishnamurti is a Professor in the School of Architecture. He should contextualize my thesis due to his background studying computer visualization and vision. He is teaching a course I am currently taking, Parametric Modeling. I have worked as a Teaching Assistant with him for the class Descriptive Geometry for a few years. He is also a great thinker - he may help me work out the nature of my thesis and any kinks it might have.

Fig. 1.4 Samples of work made in Materials and Assembly (MnA), BioLogic, and Parametric Modeling. Top to bottom: The MnA enclosure made with zip ties; A responsive wall using nitinol; Parametrically defined surfaces.

Varvara Toulkeridou - Varvara Toulkeridou is a graduate student in the School of Architecture. I have worked with her while being a Teaching Assistant for Descriptive Geometry under Ramesh. As she has a similar background and knowledge to Ramesh, she may be another useful source of advice and critique. She is also currently a Teaching Assistant in the Parametric Modeling course that I am taking, making her available weekly should I have specific questions I need to ask her. Kai Gutschow - Kai Gutschow is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and is the thesis coordinator. He is developing the program as it runs, and manages all of the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; time and projects.

P r o j e ct B r i e f The architectural render has long been the pinnacle of drawn design - a constructed image that shows the viewer an idealized view of an architectural project from a specific location within the project at a specific time of day. Traditionally, the architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s primary tool for image-making was a drafting board. Some time in the last few decades architects have adopted the computer to serve the same role yet advance it in many ways, making the digital render an evolution over what was possible with drafting. Yet, despite the apparent approach towards a visual quality near

Fig. 1.5 The complete toolset in Rhinoceros for animations.

that of human sight, the digital render failed to fully use the full power of a computer. The digital render took a horse cart and made it into an automobile but failed to then also make a van, a truck, or even a race car. The allure of a digital world has fascinated people ever since computers were able to create early vector and later raster graphics. The idea has been explored in such films as Tron (1982) and The Matrix (1999) and more recently in Avatar (2009), where over half of the film was photorealistic computer effects, as well as hundreds of student or collegiate art projects. It has led to the development of hardware to augment the human frame, extending what the human mind is limited to by the body. Digitally

Fig. 1.6 Diagram created by a developer of Brigade 3, a cutting edge path renderer, made by OTOY, the same people behind Octane. It posits that, after a certain amount of geometric detail, ray tracing always beats raster meshes.

fabricated films have gradually replaced hand-drawn films and have even entered the mainstream as a respected category of film. Architectural designers have tapped this field, but not as fully as they could have. Another way the digital world has entered the social consciousness is through video games. While not all video games involve a 3D virtual environment, the ones that do often go for a highly photorealistic portrayal of a digital environment. The tools video game designers use are often made specifically to quickly develop virtual environments. Students have often tried to use such tools in their projects, but although they tended to gain success architectural firms have rarely followed suit. It is true that video game designers create objects that are Fig. 1.7. Three approaches to my thesis. Top to bottom: taking a render, creating many renders from it, then showing them together as an animated sequence under the control of the viewer, faster than just a series of renders; The render and the model are combined into a visual system whereby the user can explore the model in a virtual world, allowing her or him to share the model with anyone; With a real time render the concept of presence comes into play, since a moving realistic image allows the viewer to inhabit the image.

meant for mass production, and film companies make objects meant for mass exposure. This kind of thinking dodges the aim of my thesis though, because I am not proposing architecture become video game-like or film-like. I am proposing it use the tools they use maximize digital communication. ++++++++++ The thesis is a field produced by two axes - the vertical axis is that of architectural image-making: how have designers evolved their tools to match current technological advances; the

horizontal axis is that of digital interfaces and interaction: more

and more society is finding ways to interconnect with itself - such

How can

interaction in architecture, a field entirely involved in the business

Model > Render > Edit > Review > Improve >>

of being around others, seems largely absent or unused.

Become

The first axis, visualization:

Model

Virtual

While many designers in the field have advanced the static render into something more dynamic, making videos or flythroughs

Review

Improve

? Fig. 1.8 Is there a possibility here?

or virtual habitats, more often than not these cases were onetime gimmicks and have not established as a versatile aspect of architectural design. The second axis, interaction: The concept of digital interaction has often been explored by delivering an architectural project with extra-sensory exposure does not seem to have gained traction among architectural designers, even though technology exists to allow interaction beyond that which is seen or heard. The project, therefore, is to explore and define the extent of such efforts in both directions, identify what was tried, what failed, and how those attempts could be improved, identify the

visualization

artists trying to cope with the digital frontier yet the possibility of

interaction

Fig. 1.9 The GRID. Neither interaction nor visualization alone will achieve any greatness; it is through the collaboration of the two axes that a far greater advancement can evolve.

best candidates (by an evolving criteria as the project develops) for a concentrated push into versatility, and produce a working example of the next evolution of drafting.

The primary deliverable will be a software package which parallels or replaces the point in design when a designer of architecture would make a static render and, instead of producing a mere digital render, would create an interactive simulation serving as proof of experience much like an architectural model is a proof of assembly. A distinction has to be made between a pre-rendered animation and a real time interactive environment. While prerendered animation is a side-effect of this under-utilized function of computers, it is absolutely a rut of possibility. It is a linear Fig. 1.10 An example of a virtual environment that can be explored. It is both dynamic and interactive - it goes beyond what a set of renders could have done and also gives the user something a render could never have - a sense of presence in the project.

evolution of a digital render - why stop there when a render can evolve planarly? ++++++++++ A breakdown of the thesis into one sentence, three short sentences, and a short paragraph is a useful tool for understanding the thesis: 1: To Seek a Means and the Benefits of a System to Interact in Rendered Real Time With Digital Models. 3: Such a system would provide architects and clients a preview of the visual and aural aspects of a building in their entirety before the building is built. Much like how a physical

model is a proof of assembly this would be a proof of experience. So what?

9: Architects traditionally make analog products - visual stimuli that mimic the rays of light that true sight gives. For presentations (renders) and data analysis (orthographics), these products are nearly always static images. Yet, much of architectural design requires the input of a userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s movement to activate. No static image will ever describe to the designer the experience of natural movement within a project. Without an interactive experience to iterate from, the final, built, experience cannot be prototyped. Interpreting a static image requires a skill called mental rotation that is learned through studies of descriptive geometry, long exposure to architectural orthographics, and CAD. Mental rotation is a skill not every client has and not every architect develops fully. Without this skill static images become severely lacking because too much of the design process relies on interpreting these images with the aim of improving the design. Opportunities exist to replace or compliment static images with real time renders that closely resemble the built design both experientially and conceptually, which would allow a more indepth design pipeline.

P r o j e ct M e t h o d s

September

October

Sep. 3 - Version 2 of Thesis

R R R R R R R

Sep. 9 - Version 3 of Thesis, focus on methods

D D D D D E D E

Sep. 16 - Version 4 of Thesis, expand on all sections

Sep. 18 - Version 5 of Thesis, presented as a poster

Oct. 21 - Version 6, review

Timeline

Research - the first step of the thesis is to generate a foundation of knowledge in the field of visualization and architectural visualization in particular. The thesis combines several schools of thought - Representation, Automation through Technology, Simulation, Video Gaming, Interfaces, and, naturally, Architecture. Each field would contain several informative areas: History, Technology, Application or Practice. These areas would inform what is available in the field as well as dictate possible constraints. For a broad spectrum I would expect at least six established literary sources and six other collateral sources (videos, talks, examples of work). Definition - in the meantime, I would continue to refine the

Oct. 4 - List of deliverables

Oct. 18 - Midsemester break

and

grounds of my thesis - the product, the deliverable, is a tool. The means is often more important than the end because the means is inherently repeatable. The research would mold the form and function of the thesis and its ultimate deliverable, a visualization tool.

October

Experimentation and Evaluation - the second step is an exhaustive analysis of existing visualization software (or hardware, if it is available through CMU) for the purpose of design (NOT making a final product but as another step, or a better step, in an iterative process). This would involve its own research on what tools architecture firms have used in the past

tool takes to render (from hours per frame to frames per second)

November

(and documented) for time-based deliverables and subjectively

is crucial, I will also look for other design features, keeping the

evaluate them based on those deliverables. Following research on what tools practicing architects use, I would perform research on tools students have used, what artists of various caliber have used, and video game engines. While the time each visualization

root of my thesis in mind - the possibility for the digital real time. Theoretically this research will come across examples of work, but the focus would be on how those were made, not what they

December

are.

R R R R R R R R R

D D D D D D D D

E E E E E E E E E

Nov. 28 - Thanksgiving

Dec. 8 - Review of thesis development

Dec. 13 - Submittal of thesis book Dec. 16 - Last day of first semester

January

February

rch

E D E C D E C D C D C C C C

Jan. 13 - First day of second semester

Jan. 20 - MLK Day, no classes

Mar. 5 - Midsemester thesis review Mar. 7 - Spring Break starts

Compilation - the two threads of research will combine. At this point I would have a steel-hard definition of my thesis. There may be at least two deliverables, one for each body of research. The literary deliverable will be an opinion piece drawing from all the sources I compiled that projects the possibility (that I believe is the case) of what architects could embrace in the field of visualization given the power of computers and what effect it would have on current design paradigms. This opinion piece should predict the possibility of the second deliverable. The software deliverable will be a proof of concept or a redistributable software package (depending on if the software I end up choosing is licensed for educational use or distribution). This software package would support the opinion in the first deliverable, ultimately proving architects can evolve the render into something that interacts on a level above the visual or tactile. The software package will address the range of interactivity that is missing in architectural delivery. Depending on what software I use, there will be a way that is for both the client and the designer to enrich their communication. The software package will be, necessarily, an all digital item, as having a video or a screenshot of it defeats the point of interaction.

March

Beyond - if there is yet more time I may develop more deliverables to parallel the two main deliverables in the Compilation step. One would be a documentation on the use tutorials smoothening the learning curve would already be part of the software deliverable, but, like any software, much of the tool would be difficult to approach for a new user. If there is time I could develop detailed explanations of various functions within the software package. Importantly, this would heavily depend on

Apr. 10 - No classes for Carnival Apr. 13 - Carnival ends

April

of the software package and tool. A certain amount of basic

the nature of the software package. If it is a video game engine editor then it may grow to have dozens of tutorials. If it is a small

May

utility (perhaps an architectural firm has developed one), then there may only be a small handful.

C C C C CB

Mar. 17 - Spring Break ends

May. 2 - Last day of classes

May. 5 - Thesis due

B B

R e s e a rc h Precedents Precedents are difficult to find because the bulk of professional architectural animation focuses on pre-rendered scenes. The videos that are produced by companies that focus on this kind of animation are often flythoughs or disembodied gliding camera views moving through completed designs, either as part of a submission to a competition or after the design was built. The short Wikipedia page on architectural animation mentions how difficult it is to render animations and how firms rarely have access to the hardware or tools to assemble such Fig. 2.1 Arch Virtualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s web version of one of their projects.

products. However it also mentions that, more and more, firms are recognizing that animations are better at conveying the ideas of a project than design diagrams. Otherwise, there seems to be little effort anywhere to document the most effective animations or even any attempts at real time interaction with animation. Two companies exist that have begun using game-like software to create virtual versions of architectural projects. Both focus on Unity3D and create services ranging from training simulations to marketing packages. Both companies have

harnessed Unity3Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to work cross-platform as well as its ability to efficiently handle a complex scene with pre-computed

shadows and materials. The first company, Real Visual, focuses on a high quality of delivery in simulations, training, marketing, and outsourced Fig. 2.2 Real Visual’s logo.

design work. They cover work in various multi-national sectors aside from architecture - energy, transport, and defense. This displays flexibility and expandability, and shows how such technology and its application are quickly burgeoning in the wider world. They work closely with the developers of Unity3D to ensure the software is as cutting edge as possible. If architects could learn from the technical expertise of this company then the

Fig. 2.4 A deliverable from Real Visual on a mobile platform.

field would only be enriched. The second company, Arch Virtual, focuses more on cutting Fig. 2.3 Arch Virtual’s logo.

edge hardware and integrating it with Unity3D. They have worked with the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset currently in development, bringing in projects developed in Unity3D, that are also configured to work on mobile platforms like those of Real Visual, and setting them up to work with the headset. They also have an ebooklet detailing the steps required to create an architectural project within Unity3D. This booklet is a step in the right direction for the profession, but it is by far not enough, as

Fig. 2.5 Arch Virtual’s Unity3D booklet and their application of the Oculus RIft virtual reality headset.

at 65 pages it is only a set of guidelines rather than thorough educational materials. Autodesk also has software designed for the purpose of accelerating architectural animation. I mention this not because

it is an effective precedent for my thesis but because it is exactly the wrong approach - it does not use a human viewpoint, it does not offer a high level of realism in its graphics, and it favors presentation over interaction. This software, Autodesk Showcase, takes models and allows the user to dress them up, applying materials and environments to the scene. It offers various alternate rendering types, like cartoon or sketched, as well as options for sets of materials to be shown by themselves. The workflow is one of setting up renders or animations with a preview viewport and then rendering them, akin to what a full screen Vray would look like. The biggest drawback that I perceive in this software is, Fig. 2.6 Autodesk Showcase screenshots. Clockwise from top left: Regular preview view; Cartoon preview; Different material sets; Publishing, or rendering, an image.

despite its effort to offer architects a more intuitive rendering solution, that it fails to advance the field. It is an example of stagnation: nothing in it is radically new over what is already possible in AutoCAD, Maya, 3DSMax, or Rhinoceros with Vray. It is a horizontal advancement and fails to use advanced rendering methods, new interaction methods, or take advantage of newer hardware. ++++++++++ It is also important to note video game graphics precedents. There is a stigma within the commercial culture today that

video games and their technology are beneath professionals

Fig. 2.7 Autodesk Showcase logo.

and their interests. While it is true that the gameplay aspects of video games have little bearing in most professional fields, the technology and simulation aspects behind video games are, by now, entirely applicable in other fields. (There are also such Fig. 2.8 QR code for a demo video of CryEngine.

things as GWAPs, games with a purpose, video games designed specifically to be training materials and high-fidelity simulations of real-world scenarios). For the purposes of my thesis I will argue that the graphics advancements of video games have, over the past several years, reached such high levels of realism, among the video games that

Fig. 2.9 QR code for a demo video of the Fox Engine.

use cutting edge engines, that they contend with professional

Fig. 2.10 Super Mario 64, not an example of a contemporary video game.

rendering software in terms of speed, quality, and production value. Modern video game engines generate lighting and shadows dynamically, meaning there is no pre-computation except that which is necessary to place the geometry into the scene. For materiality many games still use shaders, simplifying computation and sacrificing some real time effects, but some engines have begun developing real time shader effects, namely refraction and reflection. As for simulation, all video games with a first person perspective already have immersive interaction and exploration, key features for visualization that are lacking in professional software packages.

Fig. 2.11 Crysis 2, an example of a contemporary video game using realistic graphics.

L i t e r a r y R e s e a rc h The literature took up the bulk of the work during the first half of the first semester after the thesis program got started. The literature review pulled from over 30 sources more than a third that provided valuable insight into the context of my thesis. This proved to peers that this is an academic subject and bears worth in the field of architecture. The very shadowy nature of the subject of my thesis is exactly why I am proposing my thesis - to raise awareness of what can be done with modern tools. I also created a mind map, open to my advisors to flesh out,

Specialized keys

as I continue to insert data siblings and children. The mind map Mental rotation

charts everything in the field of computing that could relate to my thesis - it is an attempt to contextualize my work, to bring it from computer science to a position that is understandable by

Collaboration

Fig. 2.12 Mind Map as of October 21st, 2013. My thesis subject area is in the top left corner.

architects. The semantics of my thesis automatically raise various stigmas in readers or reviewers, so having a way to visually place my thesis among other academic subjects is important. Ideally, any interaction with computers that architects could have should have a spot on this mind map and right now my thesis only occupies a small portion of it. But one of the points of my

thesis is that this should not be so. Interactive visualization can be a powerful ally in developing a design, and by expanding that field

Fig. 2.13 QR code for the mind map.

architects could learn more powerful, more flexible tools. Following is literature research, a review of several sources that bring up important points for visuality and rendering as they apply to architecture:

This is significant as a historical precedent on the type of interactive software that my thesis belongs to. Sketchpad, Ivan

Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play

Sutherland’s own thesis, was the grandfather of CAD modeling.

and Spectacle in New Media Genres

While it crucially combined hardware and software, within the

This book by Andrew Darley explored visuality and spectacle in digital media. I drew parallels in it with architecture with how early digital modeling was show-driven - digital rendering is Fig. 2.14 Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres cover.

used in the design of car bodies - a precursor of current CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacture) systems. And by 1963, computer generated wire-frame animation films -visual simulations of scientific and technical ideas -were being produced using the early vector display technique.” - pg. 12

often about what a project could be like and not what it is. The greater definition of model, to simulate, comes into context, showing how lacking static renders are. It also showed how video game software could be photorealistic, an important point that I must continually clarify. The illusion and wanting to be fooled, repetition and customization, the sense of occupancy and a comparison between video games and virtual environments rounds out the content of the book. Relevant quotes in textual order: “A key example of such research was that into real-time interactive computer graphics. This came to practical fruition in 1963 in a system called Sketchpad, which allowed a user to draw directly on to a cathode display screen with a ‘light-pen’ and then to modify or ‘tidy-up’ the geometrical image possibilities so obtained with a keyboard. Though extremely primitive by today’s standards, Sketchpad is viewed as a crucial breakthrough from which have sprung most of the later technical developments in the areas of socalled ‘paint’ and interactive graphics systems. By the mid -1960s, a similar system involving computer image modification was being

realm of modern software and interface systems my thesis does not have to have the same intertwined nature. Ideally my thesis should be able to do everything with a keyboard and mouse, however exploration into alternative hardware input is possible. The point is to separate the tangential, relatively, development of software like REVIT and AutoCAD from this original thread. “The desire on the part of scientists to model or simulate physical processes and events in space (and time) was a central impulse in the production of the earliest computer graphics and films. Whilst concurrent with the initiation of applied forms, work was under way on computer produced figurative imagery as a research activity in its own right. Even the work conducted in collaboration with artists had a decided leaning towards more figurative kinds of imagery. At the end of the 1960s experimentation began into the production of algorithms for the production and manipulation of still, line-based figurative images.” - pg. 14

The notion that early computer graphics were, in a way, show-driven, relates well to how architects do things with technology. Architects often use computers and rendering to show what a project could be like, as opposed to showing what it actually is. The original scientific drive to model, however, encompasses more than just showing the project itself, but also showing what the project could do. Here the greater definition

of ‘model’ applies, in that ‘to model’ means ‘to simulate’, where find an upper bound in software capabilities. various possibilities enter the game and a static representation becomes lacking. “The one that came to discursive prominence within computer image research and practice is perhaps the one with which we are all most familiar. Quite simply it turns upon the notion of the proximate or accurate image: the ‘realisticness’ or resemblance of an image to the phenomenal everyday world that we perceive and experience (partially) through sight. For the majority of those involved with digital imaging at the time, the yardstick of such verisimilitude was photographic and cinematographic imagery.” - pg. 17

“A technical problem - the concrete possibility of achieving ‘photography’ by digital means - begins to take over, and to determine the aesthetics of certain modes of contemporary visual culture. Attempts - such as those focused upon here - to imitate and simulate, are at the farthest remove from traditional notions of representation. They displace and demote questions of reference and meaning (or signification) substituting instead a preoccupation with means and the image (the signifier itself) as a site or object of fascination: a kind of collapsing of aesthetic concerns into the search for a solution to a technical problem.” pg. 88

This is the other side of the problem. Attempting to focus

This is another thing to keep in mind, while my thesis may too much on the signified versus the signifier may break the include video game software an important benchmark is that I relation of the image to the model or what it is modeling. The do not sacrifice photorealism. I am mentioning this because one effort to produce a visually realistic image moves too far from the aspect of my thesis is that it takes several steps forward, and very ideal that the task of creating the image in the first place started few, if any, back. “In this case, of course, the set is virtual or latent - itself a simulation created and existing in the program of a computer. Such programs are now able to simulate three dimensional spatial and temporal conditions, natural and artificial lighting conditions and effects, surface textures, the full spectrum of colours, solidity and weight, the movement of objects and, as well, the complete range of movements of a camera within and around their virtual space. When cartoon characters - and, just as important, cartoon tropes such as anthropomorphism - are imaged through this studio simulacrum, then new registers of mimetic imagery are achieved within the cartoon: a consequence of this peculiar crossing or fusing of traditionally distinct forms of film.” - pg. 85

what the virtual environment looks like, and in architecture and my thesis that ideal is to show a model experientially - through space and time.

design because the digital in architecture is merely a step in the

“This involves surface or descriptive accuracy: naturalism. At the same time as distinguishing itself as other (alien) in relation to the human characters and the fictional world, the pseudopod must appear as indistinguishable at the level of representation, that is to say in its representational effect. It had to appear to occupy - to be ontologically coextensive with - the same profilmic space as the human actors. This involved the seamless combining of two differently realised sets of realistic imagery: of which one is properly analogical, i.e. photographic, the other seemingly photographic, i.e. digital simulation. Additionally however, it must also integrate, again in a perfectly seamless manner, into the diegetic dimension: the story space. In order for this to occur an exceptional amount of pre-planning had to enter into the carefully orchestrated decoupage that eventually stitches the shots together. Here, finally, surface accuracy is subordinated to the rather different codes of narrative illusionism.” - pg. 108

development, seeing what is possible in the field will allow me to

Here the author was analyzing a scene from the film The

A parallel discipline to my thesis is digital film animation. With digital film animation, the software technology is, by necessity, highly configurable and allows total control of a virtual scene. While such control is not applicable to architectural

off from - in visual representation that ideal is to show truthfully

Abyss (1989) where a computer generated tentacle is made to

are aesthetic bounds - software cannot be so focused on being

coexist within the filmic space with the real characters and setting

realistic that the realism gets in the way of the representation.

and also within the presentational space, where the story as shot

“It is both the bizarre and impossible nature of that which is represented and its thoroughly analogical character (simulation of the photographic), that fascinates, produces in the viewer a ‘double-take’ and makes him or her want to see it again, both to wonder at its portrayal and to wonder about ‘just how it was done’.” - pg. 115

has to make room for this element which will be added later in the production of the film. The importance of this is again that the purpose of a render, or real time interaction, is not the pretty image itself but what the image does, its performative element. The quality and the believability of the frame in a film example has to kneel to the frame as a narrative element - this tentacle in The Abyss has to make sense as a tentacle first, the image of a tentacle later. Likewise in architectural representation, an image of a project has to come after what the image will do, which is a proof of experience. “The contradiction - ever present in special effects - between knowing that one is being tricked and still submitting to the illusory effect is operative here. Yet, particularly (though certainly not solely) in those scenes involving computer imaging discussed here, the more photographically perfect or convincing the images, the more - paradoxically - does their sutured and suturing aspect seem to recede and their fabricated character come to the fore.” - pg. 113

This pertains to the effect of illusion and wanting to be fooled. Sometimes a fabricated image, a computer generated mosaic, becomes too artificial. This is important to note because it is possible that so much effort can be spent on making an architectural image perfect photographically that its photorealism eclipses its narrative - its experiential conduit. Just like there are technological functionality bounds - software exists that can do many, perhaps too many, things in a virtual environment - there

This, on the other hand, produces a lower bound on the aesthetics of the image. It is likewise cautionary to make an image too experiential, too generative of wonder. The combination of seemingly impossible imagery rendered (by computer) with accurate realism, so to say, produces a kind of inquisitiveness that places the generation of the image itself before what the image represents. The way the image was made becomes more interesting than what the image is about. “Thus the fact that we can make many identical copies (prints) of a particular film, means not only that more people get to see it but also that as a work it is thereby made less precious.” - pg. 125

This passage refers to Walter Benjamin’s theories on mechanical reproduction. It is always a good idea to keep in mind the fact that quantity, even if it maintains quality, does not necessarily increase the popularity of a work. Since a part of my thesis is to explore if architectural simulations can become portable, it will be important to see what effects such mobile qualities have on architectural design. “today it is not what is repeated between given tokens of a series that counts for spectators, so much as the increasingly minimal differences in the way this is achieved. Burgeoning ‘replication’, the repetition at the heart of commodity culture, forestalls the threat of saturation and exhaustion by nurturing a homeopathic-

like principle of formal variation (i.e. based on infinitesimal modifications and changes).” - pg. 127

The issue of repetition versus customization further explores what architectural representation could become in a mass mobile environment. This particular passage refers to the phenomenon of television shows, comic strips, and serial novels where only small changes are made between versions, only enough so that a new installment is different from the last. Theoretically the proliferation of architectural representation into the mainstream could go this way - an architectural firm produces an interactive architectural simulation or a few, and a client modifies it only slightly. Perhaps that is an unideal future. “Even fields such as computer games and simulation rides, which are the most recent and appear to depend more on the novelty of the technology itself, are - as we shall see in coming pages- just as much subject to this aesthetic of repetition. They may involve new formal elements - the much vaunted ‘interactivity’ and ‘immersion’, for example - and these may well affect their individual aesthetics. However, just as much as the more established forms, they also seem destined to operate within the logic of self-referentiality and the preponderance of the ‘depthless image’. All are manifestations of an altogether new dimension of formal concerns that established itself within the mass cultural domain of the late twentieth century, helping to constitute both cultural forms and practices of production and aesthetic sensibilities.” - pg. 129

Here the author combined the two threads of thought repetition of the image in culture and a focus on the image itself over the substance of the image. The idea here is that as an image spreads it does not necessarily mean that people see it more, or see through it more. The proliferation of an image may shift the

audience’s concern towards the formal quality of the image, put another way, more people see less. Being able to have a large

audience for an image may be a large factor - in an architectural firm and with a client only a small number of people see the image and can control it - once such limitations are lifted, if they can be lifted, the image may be diluted even if it gains other properties, like interactivity. “Living in cultures in which we are surrounded on all sides by moving images, we are now particularly accustomed to the kind of montage that strives to hide its artifice.” - pg. 131

Architecture is, independent of what some architects think, part of the global digital stage and as such has to compete with other visual fields. The more graphically advanced the rest of our culture becomes, the more certain qualities will be expected of the visual elements of architecture. This means that fleshing out this aspect of architecture, or at least exploring it in my thesis, will also require me to know what is expected of real time interaction as well as what it can do. “The sheer sense of presence, however, conveyed in the best of them - and here Quake is a key example - compensates for such defeats. In other words, it is the experience of vicarious kinaesthesia itself that counts here: the impression of controlling events that are taking place in the present.” - pg. 157

Here the author brings in the experience of video games, saying how, in the interaction with the game, the fact that the player may sometimes need to repeat areas in a video game is overshadowed by the fundamental fact that the player is actually controlling something in the virtual realm. This is an aspect of real time interactive simulations that needs to be put in the forefront because it simply does not exist in renders or even CAD programs.

There is no sense of time in Revit or Sketchup, and watching an animation gives the user no control. While substance is key in the image, presence is important outside it. “interactive representation involves a mode of representing that is ‘inside the time of the situation being described’. That is to say, time is represented as viewed from a first person perspective - literally as if one were really there, thereby, producing the impression that things are continually open to any possibility... Indeed, it becomes difficult to untangle space from time in this respect so intimate is their relation. We might say that the illusion of experiencing events as if they are taking place in present time in computer games is largely dependent upon visual simulation.” - pg. 158

a conceptual framework is important for the field of my thesis. “However, such ‘active participation’ should not be confused with increased semantic engagement. On the contrary, the kinds of mental processes that games solicit are largely instrumental and/ or reactive in character. As I suggest above, the space for reading or meaning-making in the traditional sense is radically reduced in computer games and simulation rides.” - pg. 164

Here the author steps back and concedes that the actual interaction with a video game is not the same thing as interaction with the virtual environment. The user is still fundamentally looking at an image. This is also very important to keep in mind

Here the author points out that the mere introduction of because my thesis does not seek to redefine how architecture time to a virtual environment already creates the impression of is made - it seeks to augment or improve only the computer interaction by the simple virtue of providing limitless possibilities representation aspect of architecture. on ‘what could happen next.’ In video games, the visual alone can do this. Likewise in my thesis, establishing this effect by the photorealistic representation of architectural models could already be a huge step towards interaction.

Fig. 2.15 Generating Three-dimensional Building Models From Two-dimensional Architectural Plans cover.

“given the increasing surface realism of the moving imagery, the sophistication of real-time graphic representation and the use of first-person perspective, the impression of actual occupancy and agency within the space of the game’s fictional world can be extremely convincing.” - pg. 163

Another aspect of video games that can be transferred to interactive architectural simulation is the sense of occupancy. Through a combination of realistic imagery, realistic depth (material effects and believability of presence), and a simulation of what it would be like as if one was there, occupancy can be achieved. Since occupancy is a major aspect of experience, such

Generating Three-dimensional Building Models From Two-dimensional Architectural Plans The only relevant quote: “The building model used to develop and demonstrate the system was produced by iteratively applying “clean-up” algorithms and user interaction to convert a grossly inadequate 3D AutoCAD wire-frame model of Soda Hall (then in the design stages) into a complete polyhedral model with correct face intersections and orientations. The Berkeley UniGrafix format was used to describe the geometry of the building, because of its compatibility with the modeling and rendering tools available within the group. The interior of the building, including furniture and light fixtures, was modeled by hand, through instancing of 3D models of those objects. In all, the creation of the detailed Soda Hall model required two person-years of effort. It became clear that better modeling systems were needed.” - pg. 3

While the research report, by Rick Lewis, was written in 1996, before significant advances in CAD had taken root among the designing audience, the general gist of what this quote refers

to remains true today. With my thesis this argument would more need to open their mind to the notion that architecture is not pertain to having to customize every render for a flawless end narrative by default. result (presumably), the notion that accurately modeling an entire building in a computer is manually labor intensive is true - partly because many designs are so unique, there are no tools for efficiently spreading geometric complexity within a model without resorting to grids or simple patterns. With rendering and interaction, the manual difficulty lies in preparing a render scene and then setting lighting and material properties, all of which take a large percentage of the total time it takes to develop a render. Perhaps there is a way to develop a pipeline where materials and lighting can be more easily established without thinking of it as a necessary preparation for each render scene. Visuality for Architects: Architectural Creativity and Modern Theories of Perception and Imagination This book by Branko Mitrović introduced an idea to my thesis: mental rotation, the ability to rotate a 2D representation in the mind. It bashed architects for blindly relying on narrative as the prime way of communicating projects and designs. It proposes that architecture evolve into a visual profession. Generally, it noted a behavior in architects to avoid or ignore architecture’s purely visual aspects. The idea of ideological bias versus the opportunity to see architecture visually is critical to expanding

the use of interactive media in architecture, yet architects first

Relevant quotes in textual order: “What psychologists describe as mental rotation is the same kind of task that is performed by computers in modern architectural practice.” - pg. 6

This book argued that what CAD does is not fundamentally different from what a human brain does when it views a plan or a perspectival image - though the separation of conceptual thinking from visual thinking becomes easier in a computer. Thus relying on creating static images just so the brain can be forced to have visual and conceptual thinking near each other, forcing connections, is a fairly outdated concept - the process can be separated, CAD can give the full visual stimulus that real experience provides with a real building and the brain can be fully used for conceptual thinking. “The same tendency to base design on stories that can be told about architectural works is common in contemporary architectural practice as well. Here it is strengthened by the fact that in order to get commissions, architects often have to explain in words their design decisions to their clients. Sometimes they (are expected to) invent stories about what the building represents.” - pg. 11

Another key theme the book brought up was the stubborn reliance of contemporary architects on narrative and having, or thinking that it is the only way to, describe a building’s ‘concept.’ Why rely on speaking about an almost inherently visual idea (granted, tactility and sound matter) when you can communicate it visually?

Fig. 2.16 Visuality for Architects: Architectural Creativity and Modern Theories of Perception and Imagination cover.

“In fact, much bigger issues are at stake. Architecture does not live in isolation from its intellectual and cultural environment. If antivisual biases are going to be credible among architects, architectural academics, or theorists, this can happen only if such views are based on and derive from assumptions that are credible in the society in which they live.” - pg. 13

almost exclusively visually: computer screens, smartphones,

“If we are going to talk about the aesthetic qualities of architectural works, we need to be aware that these works are going to be thought about not only as perceived from a single point in space but as three-dimensional objects. We perceive a building from one side, from another, from inside, we observe the composition of spaces, and after some time we have formed a comprehensive understanding of the building’s three-dimensionality. Or, we don’t have to be dealing with a built building at all; we can grasp its spatial qualities by studying its plans, sections, and elevations. By analogy with 3-D computer modeling, one could say that we have formulated a 3-D mental model of the building in our minds” - pg. 71-72

tablets, even printouts of web content are visual objects. Film,

Again with mental rotation. Much of architectural experience

video games, advertising, it is all visual. Perhaps even literature

revolves around understanding the visual composition and

Socially, one can argue that the visual has grown faster and faster in developed society. Take the internet - experienced

financially is falling behind visual storytelling through film, relationships of a design or building. This is possible from a human TV, Netflix, and so on. Therefore architecture must develop, vantage point with a built building, but with design products, the somehow paradoxically, into a visual profession. That is nearly at observer has to effectively rebuild the model inside their mind. the core of my thesis. “Applied to architecture, this means that there are no visual properties of architectural works that are not ultimately derived from the ideas we associate with these works. Visual perception of buildings is merely a result of the knowledge and beliefs we already have about them.” - pg. 14

It would only accelerate the understanding if the observer could interpret something only a step away from actual experience, an interactive render.

a single image of a piece of architecture, the more the brain will

“In a situation where it is recognized that architectural works can be perceived, imagined, thought about, mentally rotated, and that their geometries can be studied, their colors discussed, and so on, independently of any concepts or meanings we associate with these works, only an ideologically biased professor can insist on evaluating the work exclusively on the basis of the story that can be told about it.” - pg. 85

generalize to the archetype. The brain, when it has to make up

This pertains to the general issue where architects are not

A bit of theory here. The more the brain is forced to draw from its reservoir of constructible memories, when exposed to

information, will just use what it already knows. Thus it is in fact grasping the full breadth of the tools that are available to them. detrimental to the review or design of architecture if people view

The somewhat hesitant reliance of architectural reviews to

it in a reduced manner, that is, in a manner far from the actual

generalize renders to drawings paired with a reliance on printed

experience of architecture. I propose that a greater reliance

material is stifling architectural design flexibility. Thus, in an effort

on interactive visualizations, being that those are closer to said to justify their views (ironic), review boards pretend that they are experience, would promote a truer review of architecture.

in fact not interested in the visual and are looking for (inescapable

irony) a more narrative description of the project. The idea

Relevant quotes in textual order:

of ideological bias versus the opportunity to see architecture

“Recent advances in multimedia contents generation and distribution have led to the creation and widespread deployment of more realistic and immersive display technologies. A central theme of these advances is the eagerness of consumers to experience engrossing contents capable of blurring the boundaries between the synthetic contents and reality; they actively seek an engaging feeling of ‘being there,’ usually referred to as presence.” - pg. 29:2

visually is critical to expanding the use of interactive media in architecture. One Approach for Creation of Images and Video

International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies - CompSysTech’10

One Approach for Creation of Images and Video for a Multiview Autostereoscopic 3D Display Emiliyan Petkov

for a Multiview Autostereoscopic 3D Display This research report by Emiliyan Petkov outlines a method for creating images for 3D screens, useful to know for my thesis. A relevant quote:

In the entertainment industry, displays are getting larger and larger, with more accurate color rendition and higher contrast ratios - this is driven by consumers, so people are buying what they like more and natural selection kills off the TVs in the population set that are not selected. Part of that drive is, naturally, the need

Abstract: Nowadays computer 3D technologies are topic of present and are field of state-of-the-art research and dynamical development. Their main goal is to provide the observers of computer simulated environments with 3D perception. 3D computer display technologies play base role in this three-dimensional visualization. This report presents the results from the investigations into a multiview autostereoscopic 3D display technology developed by Philips 3D Solutions with the purpose of creating images and video for these kind devices. This paper is financed by project: Creative Development Support of Doctoral Students, Post-Doctoral and Young Researches in the Field of Computer Science, BG 051PO001-3.3.04/13, European Social Fund 2007–2013, Operational Programme “Human Resources Development”. Keywords: 3D, graphics, display, autostereoscopic, multiview, images, video, WOWvx, 2D-plusDepth, Declipse.

INTRODUCTION 3D displays are the devices capable of conveying three-dimensional images to the viewers. There are generally four types of 3D displays: stereoscopic, autostereoscopic, computer-generated holography and volumetric displays [8]. These devices together with the methods for creation of three-dimensional scenes allow the reproduction of a virtual reality under the observer’s eyes. This vastly enriches the experience and contributes to the best perception of the presented reality. Each of these display technologies has comparatively great cost. Even though stereoscopic and autostereoscopic 3D displays have lower prices than the displays developed under the other two technologies. This allows investigations over the stereoscopic and autostereoscopic displays to be made from wider circle of researches.

Figure 1. Philips Multiview Autostereoscopic 3D display. The set task in this research is a part of a bigger project of the University of Veliko Turnovo, titled «Virtual Reality in Education». The project aims to investigate the application of virtual reality technologies, in particular 3D displays, in the process of teaching students at university and to equip a laboratory for 3D technologies. In the last few years a number of companies among which Philips 3D Solutions [10] have introduced multiview autostereoscopic 3D displays. A multiview autostereoscopic 3D display from Philips 3D Solutions (fig. 1) has been chosen for the equipment of an auditorium. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. CompSysTech'10, June 17–18, 2010, Sofia, Bulgaria. Copyright©2010 ACM 978-1-4503-0243-2/10/06...$10.00.

“A matter of interest is exploring the possibility for developing interactive applications for 3D displays. This kind of applications gives users the opportunity to interact with objects in a computer simulated world in real time. Thus the time for remaining in this virtual environment is not limited and decisions what to do and where to go are made by the user. These applications will offer an opportunity for creation of virtual worlds through the multiview autostereoscopic 3D displays.” - pg. 322

Somewhat tangential, part of my thesis is exploring possible hardware for interaction, one of which would be 3D Displays

to be entertained, but another part of it is that the more powerful the display the more data it can deliver. This can and should be harnessed by architects. “When viewers have the ability to naturally interact with an environment, or are able to affect and be affected by environmental stimuli, they tend to become more immersed and engaged in that environment.” - pg. 29:2

317

Fig. 2.17 One Approach for Creation of Images and Video for a Multiview Autostereoscopic 3D Display cover.

There is an argument for critical distance - maintaining a

or Monitors or Screens. A strong aspect of that would be, not distance from a design being reviewed so that the design does just review of the design using this hardware, but also creation, not influence the review itself. However, architecture cannot be potentially collaborative. Touchable 3D Video System

reduced to a set of images as it often is in design reviews. When a film production team looks at a cut of a film they do so in a dark room - much like the audience would view the film when it comes

Touchable 3D Video System JONGEUN CHA, MOHAMAD EID, and ABDULMOTALEB EL SADDIK University of Ottawa Multimedia technologies are reaching the limits of providing audio-visual media that viewers consume passively. An important factor, which will ultimately enhance the user’s experience in terms of impressiveness and immersion, is interaction. Among daily life interactions, haptic interaction plays a prominent role in enhancing the quality of experience of users, and in promoting physical and emotional development. Therefore, a critical step in multimedia research is expected to bring the sense of touch, or haptics, into multimedia systems and applications. This article proposes a touchable 3D video system where viewers can actively touch a video scene through a force-feedback device, and presents the underlying technologies in three functional components: (1) contents generation, (2) contents transmission, and (3) viewing and interaction. First of all, we introduce a depth image-based haptic representation (DIBHR) method that adds haptic and heightmap images, in addition to the traditional depth imagebased representation (DIBR), to encode the haptic surface properties of the video media. In this representation, the haptic image contains the stiffness, static friction, and dynamic friction, whereas the heightmap image contains roughness of the video contents. Based on this representation method, we discuss how to generate synthetic and natural (real) video media through a 3D modeling tool and a depth camera, respectively. Next, we introduce a transmission mechanism based on the MPEG-4 framework where new MPEG-4 BIFS nodes are designed to describe the haptic scene. Finally, a haptic rendering algorithm to compute the interaction force between the scene and the viewer is described. As a result, the performance of the haptic rendering algorithm is evaluated in terms of computational time and smooth contact force. It operates marginally within a 1 kHz update rate that is required to provide stable interaction force and provide smoother contact force with the depth image that has high frequency geometrical noise using a median filter. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Multimedia Information Systems— Video; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces—Haptic I/O; I.4.10 [Image Processing and Computer Vision]: Image Representation—Multidimensional General Terms: Design, Algorithms Additional Key Words and Phrases: Haptic surface properties, haptic rendering algorithm, video representation ACM Reference Format: Cha, J., Eid, M., and El Saddik, A. 2009. Touchable 3D video system. ACM Trans. Multimedia Comput. Commun. Appl. 5, 4, Article 29 (October 2009), 25 pages. DOI = 10.1145/1596990.1596993 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1596990.1596993

This research report by Jongeun Cha, Mohamad Eid, and out. Likewise in architecture, being able to experience a design Abdulmotaleb El Saddik introduces the idea of presence - the while it is being made like it would be experienced by its users

immersive feeling of being inside a virtual environment.

after it is built seems like a useful ability to have.

INTRODUCTION

Recent advances in multimedia contents generation and distribution have led to the creation and widespread deployment of more realistic and immersive display technologies. A central theme of these advances is the eagerness of consumers to experience engrossing contents capable of blurring the

Authors’ address: Multimedia Communications Research Lab., School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward, Ottawa, CA, KIN 6N5. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies show this notice on the first page or initial screen of a display along with the full citation. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, to redistribute to lists, or to use any component of this work in other works requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Permissions may be requested from Publications Dept., ACM, Inc., 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, New York, NY 10121-0701 USA, fax +1 (212) 869-0481, or permissions@acm.org. c 2009 ACM 1551-6857/2009/10-ART29 $10.00 DOI 10.1145/1596990.1596993 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1596990.1596993 ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications, Vol. 5, No. 4, Article 29, Publication date: October 2009.

Fig. 2.18 Touchable 3D Video System cover.

Computer Games and Scientific Visualization This article by Theresa-Marie Rhyne examines the use and impact of video game technology in scientific visualization. Relevant quotes in textual order:

Fig. 2.19 Computer Games and Scientific Visualization cover.

moments in design where data is crucial, but in those moments making the design interactive in real time gains little for the designer. At that point one has to be a little professional on when to use a certain tool and when not to.

“The market dynamics of computer game applications are thus influencing computer architectures historically associated with scientific visualization.” - pg. 42

“Games now represent the leading force in the market for interactive consumer graphics. Not surprisingly, the graphics hardware vendors tend to anticipate the needs of game developers first, expecting scientific visualization requirements to be addressed in the process.” - pg. 43

While scientific visualization does not sound like it relates to

Here is an interesting observation - hardware development

architectural visualization, one can make poignant comparisons. occurs for the lucrative business - video games - first, and the Both are data-driven. Both are group-reviewed. Both develop

data analysis, less popular, business, second, even though

diagrammatic visual products. Both require iterative or prototype the data analysis business should have a closer contact with design stages. Both are model-based, forgoing an exhaustive hardware development as they have more specific requirements translation of the entire product, instead focusing on a simplified for hardware. This is to point out that architecture should still representation. If scientific visualization can learn from video piggy-back on something else when it comes to visualization and games, architecture can too. “Shortcuts in the rendering software to produce a more engaging experience tor the user might work well in a game, but geologists using the same digital terrain data in a visual simulation of fault structures are unlikely to trust what they’re seeing or be able to apply it on a real-life scientific mission.” - pg. 42

Component-Based Modeling of Complete Buildings Luc Leblanc ∗

Jocelyn Houle

Pierre Poulin

´ LIGUM, Dept. I.R.O., Universite´ de Montreal

A point against interactive visualization - sometimes

Figure 1: Variations on a building. Top: Random variations on the distribution of apartments, secondary corridors, rooms, and furniture for one randomly generated configuration of wings in a multi-storey building. Bottom: Random variations on the wing shapes and their content.

A BSTRACT We present a system to procedurally generate complex models with interdependent elements. Our system relies on the concept of components to spatially and semantically define various elements. Through a series of successive statements executed on a subset of components selected with queries, we grow a tree of components ultimately defining a model. We apply our concept and representation of components to the generation of complete buildings, with coherent interior and exterior. It proves general and well adapted to support subdivision of volumes, insertion of openings, embedding of staircases, decoration of fac¸ades and walls, layout of furniture, and various other operations required when constructing a complete building. Keywords: Procedural Modeling, Architecture, Shape Grammar, Boolean Operation Index Terms: Computer Graphics [I.3.5]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling 1

I NTRODUCTION

Buildings host a great deal of modern human activity. As such, every immersive computer graphics (CG) project, whether it be movie special effects, virtual reality systems, or video games, is bound to eventually require buildings. Our familiarity with buildings mandates a high degree of fidelity, and therefore, many adopted solutions rely mainly on manual labor from artists. Consequently, creating an entire building, or worse, all the buildings of a city, quickly becomes a daunting endeavor. Procedural modeling is an excellent method to tackle the complexity of reality. Instead of relying on long and sustained human ∗ e-mail: { leblanc, houlejo, poulin } @iro.umontreal.ca Graphics Interface Conference 2011 25-27 May, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada Copyright held by authors. Permission granted to CHCCS/SCDHM to publish in print form, and ACM to publish electronically.

involvement, arbitrarily complex objects can be generated with little input from a user. This approach forgoes defining every little manual detail in favor of a succinct set of automatic rules able to satisfy most cases reasonably well. Various procedural techniques have been fairly popular in specialized modeling domains of CG, such as fractals for landscapes, L-systems for plants, particle systems for fluids, and shape grammars for building exteriors. Shape grammars constitute the state-of-the-art in procedural modeling of building exteriors, and have produced high-quality results [4]. However, even though modeling building interiors and exteriors appears similar, shape grammars have not yet proven to be a good solution for modeling complete buildings. In fact, since their creation, only a small number of grammars, such as the palladian [30], have been produced for 2D floor plan generation, and better solutions have been provided by optimization techniques. Moreover, despite 10 years of development, shape grammars have seemingly yet to be used to model complete buildings. This paper presents our solution to generate procedural buildings with coherent interiors and exteriors. We introduce a system capable of simulating split grammars and executing CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) operations within a unified context. Our technique consists of executing a series of operations (i.e., a program) on a set of shapes selected by a query mechanism. These operations and queries are implemented as a programming language, and consequently, our system retains the flexibility and generality of programming languages, which is an asset in procedural modeling. The language is devoted to modeling with components, which is different than a library of tools on top of a regular programming language. Our system is currently not intended for general artists, but rather for designers with some programming skills. Moreover, our goal is to generate believable and coherent buildings for game and special effects environments, similar to those from recent CG shape grammars. While we hope to explore more advanced architectural issues in the future, we are not architects, and our system first addresses the basic needs for building design. It provides tools, but intelligence is still in the designer’s hands. However, with careful design, the procedural modeling aspect in our system allows for

2011

Fig. 2.20 ComponentBased Modeling of Complete Buildings cover.

interaction tools - until, or if ever, it is a powerful business, tools will not be made for it. It will have to find them itself. Component-Based Modeling of Complete Buildings

This research report by Luc Leblanc, Jocelyn Houle,

simplification of data renders it too unreliable. This works in and Pierre Poulin examines another system for automatically a purely scientific framework. However in architecture, the generating architecture. While this is not fully near my thesis, it simplification happens from an impossible ideal - no architectural is important to be aware of what else computer technology is 87

render has ever become reality. Ever. Thus simplifying from capable of that architects have not harnessed yet. a pretty picture to a less pretty picture but gaining real time interaction works in architecture. At the same time, there are still

The only relevant quote: “Shape grammars constitute the state-of-the-art in procedural

modeling of building exteriors, and have produced high-quality results. However, even though modeling building interiors and exteriors appears similar, shape grammars have not yet proven to be a good solution for modeling complete buildings. In fact, since their creation, only a small number of grammars, such as the palladian, have been produced for 2D floor plan generation, and better solutions have been provided by optimization techniques. Moreover, despite 10 years of development, shape grammars have seemingly yet to be used to model complete buildings. ” - pg. 87

One more reason to look to video games for cutting-edge visualization in a field that is almost primarily...visual. Architects can spend all the time they want making window schedules but at the end of the day the product will be something that is seen.

otherwise surfaces, those tools are not being applied to spaces or

“Some features of this engine are realistic glass with reflection and refraction, correct mirrors, per-pixel shadows, colored lights, fogging, and Bézier patches with high tessellation. All of these effects are simple to implement with rudimentary ray tracing techniques” - pg. 45

are otherwise only being applied in a limited manner. Architects

This quote is useful because, on the off chance that I attempt

While tools exist to parametrically generate exteriors, or

spend too long marginalizing their own trailblazers - this report to develop a visualization software, I know that it may not require claims over a decade has been spent on developing procedural a high-end graphics engine with hundreds of shaders and visual shape grammars, yet none of those years yielded a complete tricks - it all can be done with one system. procedural building. Is this an unimportant field in architecture? Perhaps, but why has it been in development for so long, if so? Exploring the Use of Ray Tracing for Future Games

“Because ray tracing computes visibility and simulates lighting on the fly the pre-computed data structures needed for rasterization are unnecessary. Thus dynamic ray tracing would most likely allow for simulation-based games with fully dynamic environments as sketched above, leading to a new level of immersion and game experience.” - pg. 47

Exploring the Use of Ray Tracing for Future Games Heiko Friedrich∗

Johannes G¨unther†

Andreas Dietrich∗

Michael Scherbaum‡

Hans-Peter Seidel†

Philipp Slusallek∗

Saarland University

MPI Informatik

Saarland University

inTrace GmbH

MPI Informatik

Saarland University

Figure 1: Screenshots from fully interactive, ray traced game prototypes featuring highly realistic images together with richness in scene details. Ray tracing greatly simplifies the creation of games with advanced shading effects including accurate shadows and reflections even for complex geometry and realistic material appearance in combination with sophisticated illumination. Interactive ray tracing performance is already possible using software-only solutions (left three images) but dedicated hardware support is also becoming available (right).

Abstract

Rasterization hardware and computer games have always been tightly connected: The hardware implementation of rasterization has made complex interactive 3D games possible while requirements for future games drive the development of increasingly parallel GPUs and CPUs. Interestingly, this development – together with important algorithmic improvements – also enabled ray tracing to achieve realtime performance recently.

Computer games are the single most important force pushing the development of parallel, faster, and more capable hardware. Some of the recent 3D games (e.g. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion [Bethesda Softworks LLC 2005]) require an enormous throughput of geometry, texture, and fragment data to achieve high realism. They increasingly use advanced and computationally costly graphics effects like shadows, reflections, multi-pass lighting, and complex shaders. However, these advanced effects become increasingly difficult to implement due to some fundamental limitations of the rasterization algorithm. One major limitation is its inability to perform recursive visibility queries from within the rendering pipeline, which results in a number of significant problems when trying to implement advanced rendering effects. We analyze these limitations in more detail in Section 2.

In this paper we explore the opportunities offered by ray tracing based game technology in the context of current and expected future performance levels. In particular, we are interested in simulationbased graphics that avoids pre-computations and thus enables the interactive production of advanced visual effects and increased realism necessary for future games. In this context we analyze the advantages of ray tracing and demonstrate first results from several ray tracing based game projects. We also discuss ray tracing API issues and present recent developments that support interactions and dynamic scene content. We end with an outlook on the different options for hardware acceleration of ray tracing.

Ray tracing, on the other hand, has several advantages and avoids many of these limitations (also discussed in Section 2). It is, for example, specifically designed to efficiently answer exactly these recursive visibility queries, which enables it to accurately simulate the light transport and the appearance of objects in a scene. However, ray tracing had been much too slow for interactive use in the past.

CR Categories: I.3.1 [Hardware Architecture]: Graphics processors— [I.3.4]: Graphics Utilities—Software support I.3.6 [Methodology and Techniques]: Graphics data structures and data types— [I.3.7]: Computer Graphics—Ray tracing

Due to significant research efforts in recent years, ray tracing has achieved tremendous progress in software ray tracing performance [Wald et al. 2001; Reshetov et al. 2005; Wald et al. 2006a; Wald et al. 2006b] to the point where realtime frame rates can already be achieved for non-trivial scenes on standard CPUs and at full screen resolution (see Table 1).

Keywords: Games development, realtime ray tracing, simulation, dynamic scenes, global illumination, graphics hardware ∗ e-mail: † e-mail: ‡ e-mail:

Introduction

{friedrich,dietrich,slusallek}@graphics.cs.uni-sb.de {guenther,hpseidel}@mpi-inf.mpg.de scherbaum@intrace.com

Table 1 compares the rendering performance of several realtime ray tracing implementations, namely the original OpenRT system [Wald et al. 2002a], multi level ray tracing (MLRT) [Reshetov et al. 2005] both using kd-trees as spatial index structures, and very recent implementations with Bounding Volume Hierarchies (BVH) [Wald et al. 2006a] and Grids [Wald et al. 2006b]. These numbers give an overview of the ray tracing performance that can be achieved in software, but it is important to note that these systems vary significantly in their feature set and thus are not directly comparable. Images of the used test scenes are shown in Figure 2.

Copyright © 2006 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions Dept, ACM Inc., fax +1 (212) 869-0481 or e-mail permissions@acm.org. Sandbox Symposium 2006, Boston, Massachusetts, July 29–30, 2006. © 2006 ACM 1-59593-386-7/06/0007 $5.00

This research report by Heiko Friedrich, Johannes Günther, Andreas Dietrich, Michael Scherbaum, Hans-Peter Seidel, and Philipp Slusallek introduces a software technique called ray tracing and applies it to full virtual scene generation, including shadows, reflection, refraction, caustics and other complex effects. The report proposes that computers are now powerful enough that this is possible at realistic hardware scales. Relevant quotes in textual order:

“Computer games are the single most important force pushing the development of parallel, faster, and more capable hardware.” - pg. 41

Here the technology of ray tracing is advertised on the fact that, since it does not need pre-computation (like having to wait

Fig. 2.21 Exploring the Use of Ray Tracing for Future Games cover.

for a render), it would provide the opportunity for immersive Adding a Fourth Dimension to Three Dimensional Virtual Spaces

interaction. This makes sense, as the faster the experience is accessed from when it was designed the more responsive the user would be as the conceptual thread in the mind would simply continue from one medium to another. Adding a Fourth Dimension to Three Dimensional Virtual Spaces The only relevant quote (on facing page):

John P Scott University College Chester j.scott@chester.ac.uk

Robina E Hetherington Liverpool Hope University College hetherr@hope.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

The development of new standards for distributed data offer new possibilities to combine and display multiple types of information. This paper is concerned with an architectural and historical application of X3D and XML to objects, such as buildings, which have an organic quality and tend to evolve over time. The display of a 3D computer model does not always adequately describe the building or artifact and additional data are often required.

The last decade has seen a phenomenal growth in the use of the World Wide Web as a communications medium. This has been mainly through the use of HTML, an open source mark up language. However, the limitations of HTML have led to the development of eXtensible Markup Language (XML), which is a data formatting specification language based on the Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML). XML is a markup language, like HTML, but the tags in XML are not predefined. Authors have to define their own through either a Document Type Definition (DTD) or an XML Schema. XML was created to store, structure and to exchange information. HTML may well be used for many years to come and it will work with XML to display data in Webpages. However, with an XML data file, the same information will be available for display on many other platforms. Because an XML document is a plain text file, it provides a software and platform independent way of sharing data.

This paper describes and evaluates techniques for the integration of three-dimensional data in the form of X3D and other data contained in XML format, such as temporal data. The capabilities of X3D to display a model with associated temporal data in different states or times are outlined. The relationship of X3D to XML is considered and methods described to enable 3D models and temporal data to be meaningfully combined. The use of XML to represent temporal data is outlined along with the use of XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) and DOM (Document Object Method) to filter both model and temporal data. The use of an API (Application Programming Interface) to alter the state of an X3D model is described. These methods are applied to a simple model and data file to display temporal data along with a 3D model at different points in time. Conclusions are drawn as to the appropriate method to employ for client-side manipulation of different types of 3D models and related data.

INTRODUCTION

In parallel with the development of the World Wide Web there has been a growth in the ability to model three-dimensional objects on computers. In the main this has been using propriety software, both to develop and to display the three-dimensional models. Exchange of data relating to models produced using modelling software has typically involved the use of DXF files. In the early 1990s the Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) was developed to enable three-dimensional models to be displayed over the WWW, with the first official version released in May 1995. However, it has not seen comparable uptake to that of HTML and a new standard has been proposed, in the form of X3D (eXtensible 3D), which is an XML application.

CR Categories: C.2.4 [Distributed Systems] Distributed Systems – Client/Server, H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation] Group and Organization Interfaces – Web-based interaction, I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism – Virtual Reality.

Technological problems such as slow connections and the limited power of computers have, until recently, inhibited the widespread use of Web3D. (Web3D is a generic term for the delivery of any 3D model over the World Wide Web). The growth of broadband Internet connections and a significant rise in the number of relatively low-priced computers readily available, which can handle both the file size and rendering requirements of 3D models, means that the time is now right for wider applications of Web3D graphics.

Keywords: Information Visualization, Interactive 3D Graphics, Architecture, X3D, XML, Cultural Heritage

Copyright © 2004 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions Dept, ACM Inc., fax +1 (212) 869-0481 or e-mail permissions@acm.org. © 2004 ACM 1-58113-845-8/04/0004 $5.00

Although there is a significant body of work on both VRML and XML, there is very little work in the application of X3D combined with XML. Polys (2003) has demonstrated how chemical structures can be displayed through a combination of CML (Chemical Modelling Language) and X3D. Kim and Fishwick (2002) have examined the concept of creating dynamic models with X3D. According to Polys (2003) the potential impact of convergence between W3D and XML has yet to be understood or explored.

163

Fig. 2.22 Adding a Fourth Dimension to Three Dimensional Virtual Spaces cover.

“This paper first outlines the capabilities of X3D to show buildings at different times or states. It then examines how temporal data can be stored within XML and combined with model data in the form of X3D. This data is then extracted and filtered on the client computer through the use of XML technologies. The way in which buildings can be displayed at different times or states along with associated descriptive text is demonstrated.” - pg. 164

make tools that are highly specific to one purpose or, worse, one project.

encoding time data into a model on the pseudocode level. That

“Until today only “monolithic” geovisualization systems can cope with all these challenges of providing high-quality, interactive 3D visualization of massive 3D city models, but still have a number of limitations. Such systems typically consist of a workstation that is equipped with large storage and processing capabilities, as well as specialized rendering hardware and software, and is controlled by an expert who controls the virtual camera and decides which information to integrate into the visualization through a graphical user interface.” - pg. 1

is, it is not fundamentally difficult to store temporal versions of

Generally, tools need to be general. A hammer that works on

The general gist of this research report, by Robina E.

Hetherington and John P. Scott, is the apparent simplicity of

a design within the files of the design. This is significant because, only one type of nail is not a very good hammer. A rendering setup again, it is so simple for architects to use these tools, or to develop that only works during day scenes is not very useful in the large them, that it boggles the mind that they have not used them yet, scheme of things. Likewise, a system for interactively visualizing or frown on their use. The ability to encode time data within the designs should remain flexible so that all architects can use it. design, separate from animation, could show clients, or a review

Service-Oriented Interactive 3D Visualization of Massive 3D City Models on Thin Clients

board, what the design would appear like during different times

“these systems mostly lack the emotional factor that is immanent to today’s presentation and interaction devices such as smartphones and tablets” - pg. 1

of the year, which sounds like a powerful tool.

This is an aspect I have strangely ignored - the emotional

Service-Oriented Interactive 3D Visualization of

Dieter Hildebrandt, Jan Klimke, Benjamin Hagedorn, Jürgen Döllner Hasso-Plattner-Institut University of Potsdam, Germany

factor of being immersed in a design. There is zero emotion, except despair, in an architectural review. Let the building speak

{dieter.hildebrandt|jan.klimke|benjamin.hagedorn|doellner}@hpi.uni-potsdam.de ABSTRACT Virtual 3D city models serve as integration platforms for complex geospatial and georeferenced information and as medium for eﬀective communication of spatial information. In this paper, we present a system architecture for serviceoriented, interactive 3D visualization of massive 3D city models on thin clients such as mobile phones and tablets. It is based on high performance, server-side 3D rendering of extended cube maps, which are interactively visualized by corresponding 3D thin clients. As key property, the complexity of the cube map data transmitted between server and client does not depend on the model’s complexity. In addition, the system allows the integration of thematic raster and vector geodata into the visualization process. Users have extensive control over the contents and styling of the visual representations. The approach provides a solution for safely, robustly distributing and interactively presenting massive 3D city models. A case study related to city marketing based on our prototype implementation shows the potentials of both server-side 3D rendering and fully interactive 3D thin clients on mobile phones.

Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.4 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems—Client/server, distributed applications; C.5.5 [Computer System Implementation]: Servers; D.2.11 [Software Engineering]: Software Architectures—Service-oriented architecture (SOA); D.2.1 [Software Engineering]: Requirements/Speciﬁcations; I.3.2 [Computer Graphics]: Graphics Systems—Distributed/network graphics

General Terms Algorithms, Design, Performance, Standardization

Keywords Service-oriented architecture, mobile device, distributed geovisualization, 3D geovirtual environment, virtual 3D city

model, 3D computer graphics

INTRODUCTION

3D geovirtual environments (3DGeoVEs) are a conceptual and technical framework for the integration, management, editing, analysis, and visualization of complex 3D geospatial information. Virtual 3D city models as a specialized and frequent type of 3DGeoVE serve as integration platforms for complex geospatial and georeferenced information. For application areas such as city planning and marketing, virtual 3D city models turned out to be effective means for the communication of planning related information, e.g., about land usage, transportation networks, public facilities, and real estate markets. Such systems have to provide up-to-date data, most efficient interaction capabilities, as well as effective, high-quality visual representations. Typically, the geodata required for representing virtual 3D city models in real world software applications have massive storage requirements. To give users interactive access to high-quality virtual 3D city models, the resources required by a 3D geovisualization system in terms of storage and computing capacity can be significant. This currently restricts the applicability of 3D geovisualization especially on mobile devices and for service-based and web-based systems. Until today only “monolithic” geovisualization systems can cope with all these challenges of providing high-quality, interactive 3D visualization of massive 3D city models, but still have a number of limitations. Such systems typically consist of a workstation that is equipped with large storage and processing capabilities, as well as specialized rendering hardware and software, and is controlled by an expert who controls the virtual camera and decides which information to integrate into the visualization through a graphical user interface. Typically, only a single view is available on a single screen or projection; multi-user access and collaboration is usually not supported; and these systems mostly lack the emotional factor that is immanent to today’s presentation and interaction devices such as smartphones and tablets. Often, such a system does not allow for easy and seamless integration of new or updated information, as data needs to be preprocessed to fit a specific internal format for enabling high-performance rendering. Furthermore, it may be difficult to adapt such an encapsulated visualization system to specific data and usages that require new, advanced visualization techniques. Even for today’s high-performance visualization systems, it is a challenging task to combine the visualization of massive, large-scale 3D data with the visu-

Fig. 2.23 ServiceOriented Interactive 3D Visualization of Massive 3D City Models on Thin Clients cover.

Massive 3D City Models on Thin Clients This research report, by Dieter Hildebrandt, Jan Klimke,

for itself, let it inspire, motivate, drive the review. Such are the fruits of an interactive visualization system.

Benjamin Hagedorn, and Jürgen Döllner, points out how cumbersome specialized hardware and software can become. In a system designed to visualize massive models of cities, specialized hardware was developed with specialized software and an expert was trained to operate all of that...just to make a moving picture of a city. This is a point against the tendency with architects to

I n t e rv i e w s

and

Reviews

On September 18th, I met with Thomas Cortina, Associate Teaching Professor in Computer Science at the Gates-Hillman Center. Below are important points from the meeting: • Thomas mentioned a number of names I could pursue for further inquiry: Jessica Hodgins, Kayvon Fatahalian (with whom I eventually had an interview), both of whom work in computer graphics, Alexey Efros, who is at Berkeley and works with computational photography, and Guy Blelloch, who was the lead on the design committee on the client side for the Gates Center while it was being built. Some of these ended up being unreachable. • He also mentioned several libraries that I could look into (and eventually did): the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and SIGGRAPH, both of which could have articles and research on graphics related to architecture. Fig. 2.22 The College of Fine Arts compared to the Gates-Hillman Center at CMU. Both reflect the style of their age: the College of Fine Arts is rigid, uniform, and measured, while the Gates-Hillman Center is open, dynamic, and constantly adapting.

• Yet a third line of inquiry he mentioned were the research branches of large tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Pixar, which often publish reports on cutting edge research and technology.

All of these paths helped me develop my literary research.

Fig. 2.25 Thomas Cortina.

On October 8th, I met with Kayvon Fatahalian, Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the Smith Hall. Below are important points from the meeting:

Fig. 2.26 Kayvon Fatahalian.

• Simple lighting can be done up to any arbitrary geometric complexity, but baking complex shadows becomes tricky, and is the area where graphics systems start taking shortcuts. • One aspect of thesis is making this statement: “I believe it is possible...” Where are the situations where existing tools do not meet the needs of architects; what is not good enough? • If I asked about what architects want, the deliverable

Fig. 2.27 Near-exhaustive computation brought up during the interview.

would be a proposed solution. Conducting a survey of the efficacy of visualization software in the field would be fruitful. • With an interactive render versus a static one, there is an aesthetic trade-off - the first looks worse, the second looks very good. What particular things do architects want to do? • The idea of how pre-rendered videos can account for every possible virtual scenario. That, or a mix of pre-rendered and real time. How does that apply to architecture? The biggest points I got from this meeting was to ask myself how would an architect approach such software and what would they need of it. This allowed me to move forward with software analysis.

During the first poster session, on September 18th, I got feedback from various professors in the School of Architecture as well as my advisors and other students. Below are points from that feedback: â&#x20AC;˘ A feasibility analysis would be useful, in the form of a flowchart with yes/no pathways that would narrow down the nature of the thesis. This idea I later incorporated into both the Mind Map and the software flowchart. â&#x20AC;˘ The architectural design process was suggested to be important to keep in mind. The problem had to be framed both from the point of view of the client (what does the client want to see?) and from the architect (what does the architect want to show?). From the first poster session I got ideas on what my midreview should include to explain and ground my thesis.

Fig. 2.28 Poster #1 shown at the first poster session.

The midreview, on October 21st, was when the greater ideas of how I was presenting my thesis came into play. The plot’s color scheme was designed as if one were staring at the world with one’s eyes closed. There were also brochures and my website available for perusal, which made its official debut on that day. The midreview had the following feedback: •What is the dimensionality of inquiry? What is too interactive? What is not visual enough? Where is this on a scale of realism to representation to abstraction? This pushes the nature of belief. •Every tool changes the field. Speculate on what this will kill. Find how it will negatively impact architectural practice. •In 1994 renders were made with 600 kHz processors that

Fig. 2.29 The midreview plot.

mimicked hand drawings. At some further point, firms began experimenting with realistic renderings, with no technical expertise. •Is technology pushed just so it can wow someone? Anything with technology or design has this eventuality, but is that the point? •There is a caveat - that I am not a technical designer. •Lastly, comments were made to the effect of “this is a thesis. Where is your project?”

Fig. 2.30 The midreview brochure, showing both the outside and the inside.

The second poster session, on October 25th, was the same week as the midreview so it featured little development from the work at the midreview. It was more of a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;coming attractionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; setup. As such I had a projector with a video setup in front of my poster showing a glimpse of things to come. The feedback from the midreview and the second poster session, due to its positivity, allowed me to continue in full swing with the software evaluations. However, I knew that, for many, getting a basic understanding of my thesis was important, and I had to focus on that as well.

Fig. 2.31 Highlights from the second poster session. The top right image shows the setup with projector.

Fig. 2.32 QR code for gif animations of the poster.

The final review was on December 8th. The review panel provided a number of new and interesting perspectives that I can use to move forward with my thesis: •I need to address how architects will use this, especially with BIM and delivering construction documents. My assumptions are far above the set of common assumptions of architects. I need to bridge this gap. I need to look again at other firms doing this consider why animation is paid for, not in-house. •With video games, there are other aspects than the visuals that can benefit architects, like pathing, AI simulation, etc. •When are beautiful sketches used compared to the GRID?

Fig. 2.33 The full final review plot, not including the projected video.

Is it detrimental to show this to a client, since they won’t use their imagination anymore? Different audiences will use it differently. •Different levels of information can be shown - maybe abstraction is a tool architects want: the GRID can still have motion, but does not have to be photorealistic. •Video games and films are made to be mass produced, very unlike architecture, and consider the social aspects.

Fig. 2.34 The projector and speaker setup in front of the final review plot. The projector was used to project a moving graphic and a video.

•This exists, so what is the question? Will it eventually become mainstream? Address the trend, and why accelerate it. •What is a tutorial? Develop demonstrations, show not why, but how - prove by example.

S o f t w a r e R e s e a rc h The second half of the semester focused on engaging software research with the literary research I did during the first half of the semester. That involved an extensive analysis of various software packages. These software packages are outlined in the following pages. The analysis will follow the same thorough path outlined on the facing page. The main purpose of this part of my thesis is, within the general context that my literary research created, to find a place for visualization software in architectural practice. This is a twopronged development: the first prong is to actually find a capable software package that can perform baseline photo-realistic rendering and is flexible enough for a variety of applications. The second prong is to approach the problem from the side of architects: if one of these software is capable of these basic tasks, what advanced, architecture-specific, techniques should they be able to do? For example, should this software be able to simulate people mingling in a project? Water collecting on roofs after a heavy rain? Structural fatigue?

Experimentation Experiment with all available software and/or hardware, benchmarking features, learning curve, and time per step of design.

Other Hardware Other hardware may be discovered. Is it available as an educational or free license?

Google Glass

3D Glasses and Monitor

Cave2

Oculus Rift

Is it available as an educational or free license?

Other Software

Lumion 3D

Other software may be discovered. Is it available as an educational or free license?

Is it available as an educational or free license?

UDK

CryEngine 3

Rhinoceros 5 3D

Blender

Is it available as an educational or free license?

Discard No

Yes

No Yes

Interface options?

Import options?

Editing?

Testing?

Is it capable of design?

How does it interact with software?

What ﬁletypes does it import? Does it support NURBS?

Does it allow visual and interactive editing?

What kind of visualization can it do?

Can the project be (re)designed within this software? Does it make plans as a step in design obsolete?

Does a middleman importer exist?

Proprietary?

Does it use proprietary software?

Yes

Does it use DVI or VGA ports?

Does it require a standard monitor?

Yes

Does this support a ﬁletype that can be exported through a third-party converter?

Wavefront (.OBJ)?

Does it support wavefront ﬁles?

Does it support Rhinoceros’ ﬁles?

Yes

Mesh?

Yes

Does it support editing the mesh?

Virtual Exploration?

Yes

Does it support virtual walkthroughs?

Yes

Can it generate near real time rendering?

Caution Yes

Materials?

Replace Monitor?

Discard

Require Monitor?

Require Other Hardware? Does it need other hardware?

Supporting one of these ﬁletypes is crucial for rapid development on a software platform.

Yes

No Caution

Yes

While supporting these formats is not a damnable issue, it may hamper moving from one design software to another.

Rhinoceros (.3dm)?

3D Studio (.3ds, .max)? Does it support 3D studio ﬁles?

COLLADA (.dae)? Does it support COLLADA ﬁles?

Yes

Texture or Material?

Does it import material data?

Does it support applying materials?

Lighting?

Yes

Not an Issue

Interactive?

Materials can be redeﬁned in-program.

Does it support adding interaction?

Does it support setting up lighting?

Not an Issue The presence of a monitor is given.

Caution The more extra hardware that is needed the more cumbersome the setup becomes. Ideally the hardware more than pays oﬀ the added expense.

No Not an Issue Most software simpliﬁes to a mesh.

SketchUp (.skp)? Does it support SketchUp ﬁles?

NURBS? Does it support NURBS geometry?

Yes

Does it allow many users to collaborate?

Yes

Does it allow export to a mobile platform?

Mobile Export?

One or the other of these is almost required for the software goal. However, neither in conjunction with specialized hardware may work.

Yes

Not an Issue This can be useful, but isn’t required.

While mesh editing within the program is not yet a major issue, having to reimport every time there is a change in geometry may become cumbersome.

?????????????

Multi User Experience?

Yes

This is the last step and may deﬁne the software’s true usefulness. It may not be enough that the software merely shows the project before it is complete.

Yes

Caution

This(ese) is(are) the hardware of choice for the thesis.

Rapid Animation?

While commercial software may still be viable, an important aspect of this thesis is that the software be available to students of architecture too.

Advanced Shaders? Does it support water, refraction, etc.?

Not an Issue

Yes

Caution

At this point interaction is not prioritized.

Advanced shaders go a long way towards making something virtual appear photo-realistic. Without them things look ﬂat and fake.

Discard Texture (or material) and lighting setup is crucial to delivering a photo-realistic appearance - and therefore immersive environment.

Not an Issue This can be useful, but isn’t required.

????????????? This(ese) is(are) the software of choice for the thesis.

Fig. 2.35 Software research path.

PROS

CONS

SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD

Octane for Rhinoceros

The software I reviewed were Octane as a plugin for Rhinoceros, Vray RT, which is part of Vray, Arauna2, a separate program, UDK and CryEngine, which are video game software suites, Blender Cycles and LuxRender, both experimental and the first built into Blender, Unity3D, a video game development

Lumion

suite, and Lumion, which was made specifically for architectural visualizations. On the left are comparisons for each software in

Arauna

each category on a scale of 0 to 10, subjectively. I thoroughly analyzed each software for its pros, useful

Vray (Vray RT)

features and benefits, its cons, where the software was hard to use or had drawbacks, its software context, how it related

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

to a default installation of Rhinoceros and Vray, its rendering features, what kind of rendering effects it could do, its rendering drawbacks, what kind of shortcuts did it take to achieve real time

CryEngine Sandbox

rendering, and its delay load, how much more time it would take to work with this software compared to a render in Vray.

Blender: Cycles

After considering everything, I found that none of the software achieved high points in all categories. The choices I think

Unity3D

I have are Arauna2, Octane, CryEngine, and Lumion. Ultimately it will be either Octane, given an interactive walking script is made for Rhinoceros, or CryEngine, if I can streamline its import

Blender: LuxRender

process. Arauna2 would be nice, but it is still in development. Lumion is almost there, but has too many interactive drawbacks

Fig. 2.36 Summary of the software evaluations.

and does not appear to support scripts.

Octane sets up very quickly once loaded in Rhinoceros. The default values are very good for an average Rhinoceros model. The controls and materials are easy to define. It also can sync

PROS

CONS

SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD

Octane for Rhinoceros

with Rhinocerosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; camera. While it includes its own sunlight and sky system, like Vray, it is built in, and needs to be reconfigured if Fig. 2.37 Octane render logo.

the scene already has a sun light. There are a lot of options - but

Lumion

not all of them have much visible effect. It is GPU based, so other programs are not heavily affected.

Arauna2

The biggest drawback is the renderer itself - path tracing appears very fuzzy until the camera stops, after which the view

Vray (Vray RT)

resolves within seconds. The camera can be set to only show the view after a few samples have been calculated. The rendering quality is fixed, so if it is slow then it will always be slow. Scene

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

complexity does affect it somewhat. Also, the viewport needs to be updated when new geometry is created. Other cons are that

CryEngine Sandbox

lights have to be set up as emitter surfaces and it does not appear to use bump maps to simulate detail. Otherwise, it can do all material types, depth of field, and has advanced camera controls: exposure, ISO, gamma, saturation, etc., and it can be networked. The delay load is marginal. Time might be spent on setting up materials, converting lights to emissive surfaces or trying to find features of Vray that are not present in Octane - such as the different renderers, animation controls, camera types, etc.

Fig. 2.38 Snapshots of Octaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s controls and render viewport in Rhinoceros. Clockwise from top left: Basic scene featuring sunlight and sky modeling, depth of Blender: Cycles field, and reflections; Another example of an imported scene, featuring materials; Complex scene rendered rapidly; Scene with millions of triangles with minimal mesh conversion into Octane; Comparison with Vray RT, with similar materials; Comparison with the regular Vray using the sample scene I created, and lighting matched as closely as possible. Unity3D

Blender: LuxRender

PROS

CONS

SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD

Octane for Rhinoceros PROS CONS SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD Octane for Rhinoceros Lumion

The workflow in Lumion, which is separate from Rhinoceros, is rapid and configurable. It definitely seems to come from a video game background, as it has easy quality controls (compared to CAD software, where preview controls are hard to access).

Lumion 2 Arauna

The import process is fast and intuitive, with a large library of models of people, trees, and objects. It features terrain sculpting and water bodies, with an ocean that has configurable waves.

Arauna Vray (Vray RT) 2

However, the full version is not free. The biggest drawback is that the aim is for pre-rendered

Vray-(Vray RT) UDK Unreal Development Kit

videos and images only. There is no walking mode and the camera is a standard flying camera, though it can switch to orbit

UDK - Unreal Development Kit CryEngine Sandbox

via a button press. Below the ‘high quality’ setting, the rendering looks very cheap. There are only a few fixed cloud arrangements, though that is understandable given the task of photographing

CryEngineCycles Sandbox Blender:

a variety of clouds. There is a compromising feature though the clouds can be adjusted in density (which seems to have no

Fig. 2.39 Snapshots of Lumion’s controls and viewport. The menus are all flyout, meaning that once a scene is loaded it takes up the whole screen except when Blender: Cycles Unity3D a menu is opened. Clockwise from top left: The sample scene with approximate shaders, note how water was used to approximate refraction; the same scene with materials and higher quality shadows, this was a performance hit on my laptop; The scene with the packaged elements included - a tree and a man, both affected by light and animated, though the man walks in place. Unity3D Blender: LuxRender

effect on the sun, and the clouds do not cast shadows). The water customization is nice, but it is fairly fixed in style. Otherwise, models can have any materials, but refraction is by normal map only. Since it imports .obj files well, UV mapping can be done in Rhinoceros.

Blender: LuxRender

Using it takes only several minutes. A scene can be set up with the library of objects quickly, and the camera and UI controls are fairly intuitive.

Fig. 2.40 Lumion logo.

PROS

CONS

SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD

Octane for Rhinoceros

Arauna2 is a new experimental rendered that recently revealed an evaluation version. So far it has many features: full Fig. 2.41 Arauna2 logo.

material support, including refractive, reflective, and specular,

Lumion PROS CONS

SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD

Octane 2for Rhinoceros Arauna

lights support, built-in post processing and full screen filtering, and a fixed sun model. It has a very easy to use UI, though the camera controls are somewhat unintuitive. Another useful feature

Lumion Vray (Vray RT)

it has that is rare to see are various extra rendering modes, such as normals, depth, pure GI, rendering cost, and others.

2 Arauna UDK - Unreal Development Kit

Aside from the lack of a walking camera, the only drawback is that it is still in development - there is no way to test how well

Vray (VraySandbox RT) CryEngine

it imports models, or if it will have any more advanced features. The camera does not collide with anything, but one can assume there will be some way to use model collision. The evaluation version uses a Unity scene as data, but that may be temporary. It is also unknown if it will even be released as a separate program for visualization - perhaps it will only be licensed for video game developers. It does use path tracing, which is as always grainy during motion. One minor point is that lights had hard shadows. The delay load is unknown, but most likely marginal to fractions of an hour, depending on the import process. This

UDK - Unreal Development Kit Blender: Cycles Fig. 2.42 Snapshots of Arauna2â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s controls and viewport. The menus are all overlays, meaningSandbox that once a scene is loaded it takes up the whole screen except CryEngine Unity3D where a menu is, and everything can be hidden via a button. Clockwise from top left: Pure GI shading with depth focus in the back; Path tracing with focus in the front showing light effects and simple specular; Example of full scene reflection, which had no impact on performance; Example of refraction, some caustics, and customizable Cycles Blender:light. LuxRender

Unity3D

renderer is very promising.

Blender: LuxRender

Octane for Rhinoceros

Lumion

Arauna2 PROS CONS

SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD

Octane for Rhinoceros Vray (Vray RT)

Vray RT is the narrowest transition from regular Vray use, though it lacks many features that the other renders have. Its main draw it that, simply, it is a different button to press to do a Vray render.

Lumion UDK - Unreal Development Kit

It appears to be a reduced renderer, and does not approach Vray’s usual quality, thus seeming to be only for preview purposes.

Arauna2 Sandbox CryEngine

Otherwise, ray-traced shadows and materials are rendered accurately. The sun and lights are still processed properly. The camera can be synced to Rhinoceros’ camera and does not

Vray (Vray RT) Blender: Cycles

feature any other camera controls, like walking. However, compared to more focused efforts like Octane or

UDK - Unreal Development Kit Unity3D

Arauna2, it is grainy and resolves fairly slowly. The delay load is minimal. It is only a different button away

CryEngineLuxRender Sandbox Blender:

from a regular Vray render. If nothing else can be done or used, it is an available alternative.

Blender: Cycles

Unity3D Fig. 2.43 Snapshots of Vray RT’s viewport in Rhinoceros. Top to bottom: The render viewport by itself; The renderer, left, compared to Octane.

Blender: LuxRender

Fig. 2.44 Vray logo.

Lumion

Arauna2

UDK (Unreal Development Kit) is a free software package specifically made to develop video games. It is a large download (1.9 GB) that features an extensive library of models and other

Vray (Vray RT) PROS CONS SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD Octane for Rhinoceros UDK - Unreal Development Kit

elements that can populate a scene and several rapid template setups with preset sky and sun arrangements. Fig. 2.45 UDK logo.

Lumion CryEngine Sandbox

The import process must use Blender to convert .obj files to a file format for UDK, .ase. Then, shadowmaps need to be baked fairly quickly fast, but must be done again after any change.

Arauna2 Cycles Blender:

Materials have to be set within UDK and are limited to simple shaders. Sky and sun can be changed, and UDK has various types

Vray (Vray RT) Unity3D

of lights. Collision is a matter of a toggle. The biggest drawback is that mesh import glitches at

UDK - Unreal Development Kit Blender: LuxRender

65535 triangles, limiting the detail of complex models, requiring them to be split into several chunks. It also takes around five minutes to start. Many features in UDK are totally unnecessary for the visualization itself. The sun light does not interact with the atmosphere, requiring manual adjustment. Lastly, UDK uses vertex lighting, causing shadows to appear off or inaccurate. Otherwise, UDK has interactive walking. The camera bobs to

CryEngine Sandbox Fig. 2.46 Snapshots of UDKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s controls and viewport. The viewport functions just like the oneCycles in Rhinoceros, where wireframe orthographic views can be set Blender: up. Clockwise from top left: The raw scene import with basic shadows calculated; The same scene with materials applied from the included library; The content browser, which shows the materials, objects, and other elements that come with the software.

Unity3D

the motion of moving legs and there is a slight motion blur. The delay load can be fractions of an hour, depending on any

Blender: LuxRender

issues with the import and basic materials exist or can be found.

Arauna2

Vray (Vray RT)

UDK - Unreal Development Kit PROS CONS SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD Octane forSandbox Rhinoceros CryEngine

CryEngine is another software suite for making video games. Even though it is newer than UDK it runs fairly smoothly (~20 fps) on low-end systems. It also comes with a large library of models that can populate a scene, like trees and rocks.

Lumion Cycles Blender:

The huge drawback I experienced was that the export process is long and arduous and requires either Blender

Arauna2 Unity3D

(unofficially) or 3DSMax (or Maya). The export process requires significant set up in Blender. 3DSMax export is faster, except material definition is faulty. In both very specific steps need to be

Vray (Vray RT) Blender: LuxRender

taken, with nearly any step prone to glitches, and a slip anywhere may mean improperly assigned materials or a lack of collision.

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

However, once the meshes are imported it is fairly simple to set up a scene, especially with a template file. All material effects

CryEngine Sandbox Fig. 2.47 Snapshots of CryEngineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s controls and viewport. The viewport only shows a 3D viewCycles of the scene, concordant with WYSIWYG. Clockwise from top left: Blender: The sample scene imported without any materials, featuring real time shadowing, sun, and sky; The same scene being tested, with materials, a shadow from the viewer, and the sky altered due to a lower sun angle; A view of the 3DSMax import pipeline, where materials are assigned.

Unity3D

can be simulated with shaders, the sky and sun are realistically modeled and an ocean or bodies of water can be made. There is interactive walking just like in UDK, with the addition of the walkerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shadow. The shadowmaps are entirely dynamically generated and approximate GI. Lighting is simple but effective. It may take multiples of an hour to bring a scene into CryEngine from Rhinoceros. Even with practice there is a lot of

Blender: LuxRender

preparation that has to happen and not all of it is intuitive.

Fig. 2.48 CryEngine logo.

Vray (Vray RT)

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

Blender comes with an experimental path tracing renderer Fig. 2.49 Blender’s logo. Cycles does not have a logo.

called Cycles. It has very few controls, which replace Blender’s default controls once it is activated, thus there is less to learn

CryEngine Sandbox PROS CONS SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD Octane for Rhinoceros Blender: Cycles

of the actual renderer once one has knowledge of how Blender works. The path tracing rendering is very fast - the scene resolves to an acceptable quality within seconds if the camera is still. Also,

Lumion Unity3D

since Blender is free Cycles is free as well. This also means there is a large DIY community of graphic modelers and designers.

Arauna2 LuxRender Blender:

Cycles supports Blender’s light objects and material definitions, with many presets including reflective, refractive,

Vray (Vray RT)

cartoon, and others. While moving the view is pixelated but is not choppy, which is a better solution than that used in Octane.

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

The biggest drawback is that it requires some knowledge of Blender, which has a steep learning curve. If geometry is imported from an .obj file, materials have to be reassigned. Blender’s sun, as it is handled by Cycles, does not have sunlight modeling - it is just a distant light at a given angle, though a modeled sky can be set up. Blender does not easily support walking. The delay load is fractions of an hour or more - added to how

CryEngine Sandbox Fig. 2.50 Snapshots of Blender’s controls and render viewport. The viewports in Blender: Blender can beCycles variously configured. Clockwise from top left: The sample scene with soft shadows and full materials; The same scene with harder shadows; The scene as it resolves with one sampling, showing the graininess it begins with.

Unity3D

much time it would take to learn Blender, setting up a project here compared to Vray takes more effort, including changing mouse controls, changing how objects are placed and moved, and more.

Blender: LuxRender

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

CryEngine Sandbox

Blender: Cycles PROS CONS SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD Octane for Rhinoceros Unity3D

Unity is similar to both the game suites and to Blender in that it is designed to make games but has its own modeling tools. Its UI is relatively straightforward. The free version has many features, enough to do basic visualizations. While it can import .obj directly,

Lumion LuxRender Blender:

Blender may be required for additional material or UV setup. A big drawback is that many advanced features present

Arauna2

in the other software are not included in the free version and the features that are present are fairly weak in quality. The sun and sky need to be faked to achieve various daytime lighting

Vray (Vray RT)

situations and the shadows seem to be fairly low quality and need to be calculated, a process that takes several minutes.

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

Otherwise it has material shaders, some kind of real time shadows and supports light objects. Walking is supported after

CryEngine Sandbox

some setup. Mesh collision can be easily set. The delay load is fairly small - fractions of an hour - any

Blender: Cycles

Unity3D Fig. 2.51 Snapshots of Unityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s controls and render viewport. The viewport switches to game mode when the walking is activated. Top to bottom: The sample scene with some basic materials showing dynamic shadows; Precomputed shadows, but at a low quality. Blender: LuxRender

extra setup in Blender and importing assets into Unity take time, although template scenes may be possible.

Fig. 2.52 Unity logo.

CryEngine Sandbox

Blender: Cycles

LuxRender is fairly fast and comes with a material library, but it does not provide any interactivity. It is a step backwards, using new software rendering but not using it advantageously.

Unity3D PROS CONS

SOFT FEATRS DRAW DELAY TOTAL CNTXT BACKS LOAD

Octane for Rhinoceros Blender: LuxRender

It is a plugin renderer for Blender and works on the same level as Fig. 2.53 LuxRender logo.

Cycles. It likewise changes various settings and generates a new viewport when the render is started. It renders a frame at a time, like Vray and due to the new viewport it is difficult to move back and forth between the design

Lumion

Arauna2

window and the render window. Its delay load can get to fractions of an hour. Material

Vray (Vray RT)

settings and assignments are nothing like those of Vray and are somewhat clunky, on top of learning the workflow of Blender.

UDK - Unreal Development Kit

Fig. 2.54 Snapshot of LuxRender’s controls and render viewport. There are more controls in Blender’s menus. This is highly similar to Vray’s viewport.

CryEngine Sandbox

Blender: Cycles

Unity3D

Blender: LuxRender

H a r d w a r e R e s e a rc h On November 18th I received a new graphics card I purchased a few days earlier. This card was a Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti, replacing an ATI HD 5770, and the reason was purely because it had hardware that enabled the use of or the faster application of Fig. 2.55 The new card, left, versus the old card, right.

several of the software packages I looked into. Nvidia graphics processors (GPUs) have a technology called CUDA that uses parallel processing to do graphics tasks. The software that uses this technology, Octane, Arauna2, and other path tracers, would not otherwise work with the ATI card that I had before. I was able to use Octane at reduced settings on my laptop, as it had an Nvidia card albeit one of lesser quality, but the others would not work with that card because it was too old. The laptop card was a GeForce 130M with compute capability (a property of CUDA technology) of 1.1, whereas the 660 Ti, by

Fig. 2.56 The new card inside the desktop tower.

comparison, has one of 3.0. The laptop card also has only 32 CUDA cores, whereas the new desktop card has 1344. Also, for the video game engines, the new card is roughly 50% stronger than the ATI card I had before, so I can push those engines further to achieve higher quality visualizations.

Buying the new card (a $259.99 value) was the best option for my thesis in terms of hardware because it was readily available,

Fig. 2.57 The old ATI card.

enabled the use of software for my thesis, and demonstrated that my thesis can exist without expensive or cutting edge hardware like virtual reality headsets, new means of interaction like the Fig. 2.58 The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset in action. This is an example of unattainable hardware.

hardware Adobe is developing, or immersive room-sized display setups. The initial limitation of the low-end hardware on my laptop and the unusable hardware on my desktop still played an important part in my thesis because it showed that this software could be used on existing, potentially old, hardware, though with

Fig. 2.59 Adobe Mighty and Napoleon. Mighty is the triangular pen, Napoleon is the ruler.

severe drawbacks and shortcuts.

Fig. 2.60 Unboxing the new card. It came with an instruction manual, a drivers disc, and extra cables. The card was distributed by ASUS, which also added the cooling system.

Deliverables A pp l i c a t i o n s

Fig. 3.1 Serious Editor 3.5 by Croteam. This kind of software is used by video game developers to create virtual worlds - much like architects do with CAD software, except with materiality and lighting as part of the toolset.

Fig. 3.2 CryEngine Sandbox by Crytek. This is a much more recent video game engine and favors dynamic shadow generation over the use of pre-computed shadowmaps.

Fig. 3.3 Unreal 4 by Epic Games. This is a future engine currently in development that, while it still uses shaders, simple lighting, and other standard methods, pushes them to their limits to achieve photorealism.

Fig. 3.4 Luminous Engine by Konami. This is also a future engine currently in development. Engines like this are at the forefront of video game engine technology, pushing what is possible with shaders and graphics software.

Fig. 3.5 Help files and documentation for various graphics software. Clockwise from top left: Unity; Blender; UDK; Rhinoceros. These range in quality and depth, with some featuring text and image descriptions and others even including video. Unity was the only one that read from an included file, the others either embedded or opened a browser page to an online database.

Fig. 3.6 Fallingwater in Half-Life 2 by Kasperg. This is a demonstration of modeling a real building in a video game environment.

Fig. 3.7 House in UDK by Luigi Russo. This student project, modeled in video game software, showed that the same goals that students use CAD software for can be applied to video game engines.

Fig. 3.8 City scenes in Brigade 3 by Otoy. This is the cutting edge of cutting edge path tracers.

Fig. 3.9 Fox Engine by Konami. One of the images in each set is the engine, the other is a comparative real life photograph. Which images are the engine?

Fig. 3.10 Euclideon Engine. This uses a method I did not explore - voxels as it is more about generating geometry rather than photorealism.

Fig. 3.11 Path tracing method, sample images. This shows an exhaustively detailed physical environment rendered with full lighting and materiality at interactive speeds. On the right, water effects are also simulated.

Fig. 3.12 Las Vegas Bellagio Comparison in CryEngine by IMAGTP. This is a photo-realistic demonstration of a real building compared to a photograph taken at the same location.

Moving Forward Software Package Me

Rhinoceros Octane

Depending on which software I move forward with, the next steps of my project will be either lightweight coding or heavyweight streamlining or coding. The Octane approach assumes that Octane is set up within

Users

Interactive Script

Rhinoceros and the only thing missing is an interactive control.

(Python or internal)

camera control by forward impetus and turning is much simpler

Output

The range and nature of this control will vary, as simple horizontal than also having camera bob, gravity, or collision detection. The CryEngine approach assumes that it is installed and a

Fig. 3.13 The Octane approach, where only an interactive script needs to be made.

Rhinoceros project is available and the only thing in the way is the cumbersome and complex import process. The range and nature of streamlining this process will vary from simply documenting

comprehensively and cleanly how to do it with the least mistakes,

Rhinocer

to attempting to enhance the plug-ins already existing to attempt to automate the process further.

CryEngine (Interaction built-in) Users

Output

Once one of the above is in place, the next steps are more or less identical. After both real time rendering and interaction are achieved I need to document further features such as material assignment, any way for collaboration or portability, streamlining

Fig. 3.14 The CryEngine approach, where the import path needs to be streamlined.

controls, general use principles or shortcuts, and the like.

After that, I would attempt to compile a software package. With Octane, that would involve everything but the software itself, as it is not free and would need to be purchased. Otherwise, there of plug-ins, help documents, videos, and so on. With CryEngine, the package will be more robust, as, at least theoretically, it may include all of CryEngine, which is hefty at 1.9 GB. Since there may be licensing issues I may also require that it be downloaded separately, but as it is free that is less of an issue. The software package, by its very existence, would be the

would be a zip file, or even a small self-installer that will consist

Zip package Help files, videos, tutorials Scripts, download info

Separate download Octane or CryEngine Output

proof of concept for my thesis. However, at this time it is of a very vague nature since there are too many variables in how I would and tutorials alone is a lot of documentation, and if I choose to do

approach developing it. Workload-wise, developing the help files s ser

some sort of scripting I would need time to familiarize myself with the scripting languages that I would need to use. Also, knowing my audience will be very important. As

Fig. 3.15 The breakdown of the software package.

different users will use it differently, I will need to frame it as such. For an architect looking to use it as a design tool, to rapidly view a project interactively with progressive visuals, it will be one thing and have a certain feature set. For a client wishing to explore a realistic simulation of a project, it will be another thing. For a contractor wishing to see the assembly of certain elements it will be yet something else.

Moving Forward Benefits and Death The software package foresees potentially great benefits in the field of architecture. To understand where these benefits come from, it is useful to review in a nutshell. The GRID is a tool meant to preclude the physicality of an architectural design via software and hardware that is currently available and immerse, by visual and other means, the client or architect in the design before it is built. Since architecture is experienced through both time and space, it is necessary that such a tool exist during some early stage of design before the design is finalized and converted into construction documents. That conversion is generally done with BIM, as BIM is accurate and collaborative. Once the BIM phase starts there need for the GRID lessens, as it can be assumed the design will not change dramatically at that point. Using construction documents, the architect and contractor collaborate to produce a built space, too late to make many changes. In the current design process, the real space and the real time are only reachable in snapshots or animations generated beforehand (animations could be understood as simply a series of snapshots). The problem with this is that, due to the way one experiences a still image versus a physical space, there will always

be experiential differences between what the design was before it was built and what the design becomes after the construction.

Benefit #1 - Reducing the Gap: The first benefit of the tool is that the experiential gap is narrowed or even removed. With the ability to see a building through the medium of a computer screen with realistic shadows, movement, light, and materiality, both the client and the architect are brought to the same level. The client probably has little experience working with CAD models and renders, or animations, and lacks the preparation that the CAD model, and working with that model, gives the architect. What the client lacks is an understanding of the space. This can be done by teaching the client how to understand

Fig. 3.16 The experiential gap between a still image and the physical space.

architectural orthographics, which is arduous and exacerbates the problem (by reducing experience rather than expanding it) or the client can have what they already understand, a visual substitute for the real thing. Sketches work, but ultimately the building will be something real, and this reality has to somehow manifest early on. Benefit #2 - Personalization: This allows the client to make the project their own. By using computer interfaces they can inhabit and explore the project. The power of the simulation is that it uses the userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own brain to their advantage by letting it translate the motion within the virtual world to motion of their physical self. The project becomes familiar and understandable. This assumes that the client was not already swayed with beautiful sketches, or other abstract representations of the

Fig. 3.17 The GRID allows a viewer to experientially inhabit the project.

project. Where these other representations used imagination to create the space, the GRID will use it to explore the space. Benefit #3 - Prototyping: Even before the client uses this tool, the architect her- or himself can use it to rapidly prototype the experience rather than the assembly or the totality alone. Architecture is far to big to be prototyped in full, and prototyping little chunks only goes so far. One can approach this by breaking down what architecture is - the memory of time and space. Memory is the passage of experience, time is a series of moments, and space is moment Fig. 3.18 Architecture is composed of the memory of time and space. Space can be prototyped with models, time can be prototyped by simply being around and examining the models, but memory is harder because it involves tricking the brain.

given shape. Space is the easiest to prototype because an architect can build a scale model - this will provide a sense of the space. Time is also easy to prototype, because the architect need only to hold the model for a while. Memory is a little harder because the brain is smart - it knows the model is just a small object. The architect needs to trick her or his brain, to get down near the model and pretend it was big and thus come close to a memory. The GRID does that and goes further. It also has the architect make a model, and spend time with it, and get down close to it. But it goes beyond - the architect can walk inside the model, the architect can change the lights and the time of day, the architect

can flood a room with water or place other people in the space. True creativity can flower then, when memory is achieved.

++++++++++ The thesis would also be malicious. As a tool it would contend with orthographics, renders, and physical models. Before construction documents and after things that can be called sketches these tools have come to be standard in the design pipeline. Death #1 - Orthographics: With orthographics, should the client be enamored with the GRID, they may not be interested in plans or sections, even though those tools still provide valuable insight into the spacial organization of a project and the interaction of the systems within or between the spaces. Likewise, if an architect is using an axonometric diagram to explain the order in a project but the client does not see that order in the GRID, the client may put less faith in the work the architect put

Fig. 3.19 A client may not care about orthographics if the GRID is compelling.

into the diagrams, demanding instead, perhaps unrealistically, that the diagrams match the experience found on the GRID. In an in-firm review the orthographics may be quickly cast aside as experiential conversations are brought up only visible on the

GRID, raising questions as to why the architect spent time on the orthographics over working on the GRID. Death #2 - Renders: With renders, the overlap is sharper. Given a regular pretty render and the GRID, the client may wonder why the architect bothered to take one picture when the GRID allows them to move around and take any and all the pictures

Fig. 3.20 Two architects, one waiting on a traditional render, the other already being group reviewed.

that they want, from any attainable angle. Back at the firm, the architect is spending many hours working on a few renders while another architect, working on the same project, in the same time finalized the GRID, rapidly creating countless renders and videos of the same project, all at an even high quality. Death #3 - Physical Models: Even physical models may feel the heat - much as with a render, one architect spends the whole night crafting a model while another has created the GRID, with full materiality, realistic sun shading, water bodies, and more. The only difference is, the physical model is twirled in the hands while the GRID is controlled by a keyboard and mouse. Even assuming advanced hardware exists, the physical model is 3D printed with full geometric detail...and the GRID architect uses an Oculus Rift Fig. 3.21 Prototyping small pieces of architecture with physical models takes time and does not give an accurate rendition of the built end result. With a digital substitute, the entire project can be prototyped and reviewed.

to create a virtual 3D display that delivers a near-real experience, complete with depth information. Sketching too may be impacted, though not killed - imagine a precedent study being not just looking at photos and drawings but exploring the GRID version of that building, perhaps modeled with LiDAR, and documenting the experience. Perhaps one step of design is quickly molding spaces on the GRID and experiencing them for inspiration. Construction documents can be reinforced by the GRID. An

architect can show a polished GRID on the construction site to the team, showing how the project would look like, materials,

shading, landscape elements and all, as one moved from one end of the building to the other. Since the GRID is intuitively understood, the contractor would not need to learn a new means of communication with the architect. Also during construction, the architect, perhaps if she or he now sends a floor plan to the tenements of a future apartment building so that they can mock up their furniture arrangements, can send the tenements the GRID, which they can use to explore

Fig. 3.22 A client customizing a house using a real time visualization to get the exact appearance they want.

and make their choices in a medium they can understand. No more need for the billboard proclaiming a future building - just go on the website of the firm and download that buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s GRID.

Moving Forward Imagination and Experience The thesis needs to find its audience, for its audience does not know the show is on. There are certain assumptions inherent in the GRID that are so far away from the common set of assumptions of architects and their connected fields that I attempted to break down, and I isolated a few and tried to address them, but many remain. One aspect that I overshadowed was the reality that the software implementation that my thesis is exploring is already present in some arenas - some firms have used this as a design tool and delivered it to clients as such. These unsung firms, however, do not themselves see the benefits of spreading this knowledge to the rest of the field. Perhaps because this is because they feel entitled to uniqueness, perhaps they do not see results or believe this delivery is more work than it is worth. Perhaps every person they use it with has desired different things from it. Different audiences will indeed react differently to the GRID. Well-entrenched firms will not allow for yet another software into their pipeline, while more open firms will see it as a design tool, perhaps devaluing the photorealism for the interaction and

layered data sets.

The data sets firms may choose could differ from the general one I focused on - that of photorealistic interaction by walking in real time. Some firms, or even the client and maybe the contractor may desire to explore the project while only focusing on the hierarchy of spaces, or perhaps while emphasizing the structure behind the walls. Their imagination could then be guided depending on the type of communication. The imagination of the recipient, be it client, contractor, or fellow architect, would nevertheless still be engaged. While abstract sketches or diagrams can communicate, nothing yet gives the user the element of choice, the choice of experience, over memory. The choice of what can be done, over what has been done. Would this lead to a death of the outdated cultural belief that architectural products are drawings, and instead herald an age where people see architects embracing the digital? What if an architect wanted to do something other than what his profession had intended for him or her? What if an architect dreamed of something more, some means of taking their understanding and making it the understanding of others? The GRID will give architects an ideal to strive towards. They will still render, still make animations, still rely on CAD. But in time, they will learn to use it, to make it shine as the sun. In time, it will help them accomplish wonders.

A pp e n d i x S o u rc e s BOOKS AND RESEARCH REPORTS Darley, Andrew. Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres. London ; New York: Routledge, 2000. Dieter Hildebrandt, Jan Klimke, Benjamin Hagedorn, and Jürgen Döllner. 2011. Service-oriented interactive 3D visualization of massive 3D city models on thin clients. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computing for Geospatial Research & Applications (COM.Geo ‘11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Article 6 , 1 pages. DOI=10.1145/1999320.1999326 http://doi.acm. org/10.1145/1999320.1999326 Emiliyan Petkov. 2010. One approach for creation of images and video for a multiview autostereoscopic 3D display. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies and Workshop for PhD Students in Computing on International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies (CompSysTech ‘10), Boris Rachev and Angel Smrikarov (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 317-322. DOI=10.1145/1839379.1839435 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1839379.1839435 Heiko Friedrich, Johannes Günther, Andreas Dietrich, Michael Scherbaum, Hans-Peter Seidel, and Philipp Slusallek. 2006. Exploring the use of ray tracing for future games. In Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on Videogames (Sandbox ‘06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 41-50. DOI=10.1145/1183316.1183323 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1183316.1183323 Jongeun Cha, Mohamad Eid, and Abdulmotaleb El Saddik. 2009. Touchable 3D video system. ACM Trans. Multimedia Comput. Commun. Appl. 5, 4, Article 29 (November 2009), 25 pages. DOI=10.1145/1596990.1596993 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1596990.1596993 Lewis, Rick. Generating Three-dimensional Building Models From Two-dimensional Architectural Plans. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, Berkeley, Computer Science Division, 1996.

Luc Leblanc, Jocelyn Houle, and Pierre Poulin. 2011. Component-based modeling of complete buildings. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2011 (GI ‘11). Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society, School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 87-94. Mitrovic, Branko. Visuality for Architects: Architectural Creativity and Modern Theories of Perception and Imagination. University of Virginia Press, 2013. Rhyne, Theresa-Marie. “Computer Games and Scientific Visualization.” Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM 45.7 (2002): 40-4. ProQuest. Web. 24 Sep. 2013. Robina E. Hetherington and John P. Scott. 2004. Adding a fourth dimension to three dimensional virtual spaces. In Proceedings of the ninth international conference on 3D Web technology (Web3D ‘04). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 163-172. DOI=10.1145/985040.985064 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/985040.985064 YOUTUBE AND VIMEO alvaroignc. (2010, March 17). Zumthor’s Thermae of Stone in Source SDK part 5: Props. [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=hh4nGEAKm4s

- Zumthor’s Therme Vals rendered in Source.

Archimmersion. (2010, June 25). UDK - Family House in Realtime 3D [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=AV802r_Pr0k&feature=youtu.be

- More UDK - again, note the cheap quality.

Autodesk. (2011, April 12). Autodesk Showcase 2012 for Architectural, Construction, and Engineering Users - YouTube [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioP0CVRJvUI#t=17 - This is for reference - this is a very bad implementation of the subject of my thesis as it provides no presence, no true interactivity and is not at all designed for the user.

bigkif. (2007, November 17). Ivan Sutherland : Sketchpad Demo (1/2) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=USyoT_Ha_bA

bigkif. (2007, November 17). Ivan Sutherland : Sketchpad Demo (2/2) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=BKM3CmRqK2o

- Ivan Sutherland’s 1963 Sketchpad thesis, archival footage.

EliteGamer. (2012, November 28). Luminous Engine - Live Edit Tech Demo “Agni’s Philosophy” [Video file]. Retrieved from http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHSGBh1z474

-Luminous Engine tech demo.

GameNewsOfficial. (2013, March 29). Metal Gear Solid 5 Fox Engine Tech Demo [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=_18nXt_WMF4

-Fox Engine tech demo.

gametrailers. (2012, June 7). Unreal Engine 4 - GT.TV Exclusive Development Walkthrough [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=MOvfn1p92_8

-Unreal 4 tech demo.

Hammack, David. [hammack710]. (2013 January 3). Unity 3D Simulation Project [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=EEA5_he3pRk

- A demo of Unity3D , looks very cheap and old.

HD, RajmanGaming. (2013, August 21). CryEngine Next Gen (PS4/Xbox One) Tech Demo [1080p] TRUE-HD QUALITY [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qGK5lUyCwI

-CryEngine demo reel.

Inc, Marketing Department Ideate. (2013, February 26). Autodesk Showcase 3D Visualization Software [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvBL2kX6CME

-Autodesk Showcase video.

lxiguis. (2012, August 28). Real time Architectural Visualization - After Image Studios [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=HPtQyBDpatg&feature=youtu.be

- UDK demonstration. It is not that great and a little old, but is a capable engine.

Lapere, Samuel. [SuperGastrocnemius]. (2012, April 6). Real-time photorealistic GPU path tracing: Streets of Asia [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZlCWLbwC-0 Lapere, Samuel. [SuperGastrocnemius]. (2013, August 13). Real-time path tracing: 4968 dancing dudes on Stanford bunny [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huvbQuQnlq8 Lapere, Samuel. [SuperGastrocnemius]. (2012, May 29). Real-time photorealistic GPU path tracing at 720p: street scene [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evfXAUm8D6k

-GPU path trace method demonstrations. This is a highly realistic rendering method, short of the grainy appearance.

Lumion3D. (2010, November 1). Architectural visualization: Lumion 3D software is easy to use [Video file]. Retrieved from http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLV8QIm02M

-Demonstration of Lumion 3D.

Naing, Yan. [MegaMedia9]. (2013, May 31). Realtime 3D Architectural Visualization With Game Engines [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXzy3V3N2uw

-CryEngine3 demonstration in a sandbox environment.

Skiz076. (2012, January 3). FallingWater in Realtime 3d (UDK) [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QdF4rvw64rg

- A model of Fallingwater in UDK.

spacexchannel. (2013, September 5). The Future of Design [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNqs_SzEBY#t=134

- Video showcasing tactile hardware interaction. This is the future, but we are not then yet.

Storus, Matt. (2011, February 9). Video Game Engine Architectural Visualization Test [Video File]. Retrieved from http://vimeo. com/19774547

-Another CryEngine3 demonstration.

T.V., Arocena. [arocenaTM]. (2011, February 17). Presenting Architecture through Video Game Engine [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8HUj85Cq1s

- Demo by Max Arocena with CryEngine showing interactive lighting.

Timeshroom. (2013, July 30). Architectural Visualisation - Oculus Rift Demo [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=gaFZH8Z70vk

-Oculus RIFT demo showing the views provided by the headset. Note how they are slightly offset, this would produce the illusion of 3D.

Visual, Real. [RealVisual3D]. (2012, October 23). iPad 4th Generation: Unity 3d Realtime Architectural Visualisation [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6eb4KB2k2U

-iPad demonstration of Unity3D and how it is cross platform.

ARTICLES (2013, August 20). Arch Virtual releases architectural visualization application built with Unity3D game engine, including Oculus Rift compatibility. Arch Virtual. Retrieved from http://archvirtual.com/2013/08/20/arch-virtual-releases-architectural-visualizationapplication-built-with-unity3d-game-engine-including-oculus-rift-compatibility/ (2013, August 20). Arch Virtual. Retrieved from http://www.archvirtual.com/Panoptic/2013-08-19-arch-virtual-panoptic.html - Premade realtime visualization demo by Arch Virtual. It is interactive within a web browser. This is a very good example of the subject of my thesis.

(2013, June 3). Arch Virtual. Retrieved from http://archvirtual.com/2013/06/03/tutorial-ebook-now-available-unity3d-andarchitectural-visualization-1-week-preview-edition-discount/

- Arch Virtualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ebooklet on architectural visualization in Unity3D.

Elkins, James. (2010, November 6). How Long Does it Take To Look at a Painting? Huffpost Arts & Culture. Retrieved from http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/james-elkins/how-long-does-it-take-to-_b_779946.html

- Article showing how Mona Lisa visitors spend 15 seconds looking at it.

Hudson-Smith, Andrew. digital urban. Retrieved September 2, 2013, from http://www.digitalurban.org/ (deprecated page: http:// www.digitalurban.blogspot.com/) - Blogging platform that publishes research about connecting digital modeling and the real world with an emphasis on the profession of architecture.

Jobson, Christopher. (2013 September 22). Full Turn: 3D Light Sculptures Created from Rotating Flat Screen Monitors at High Speed. Colossal. Retrieved from http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/09/full-turn-light-sculpture/?src=footer

- A project using alternate projection - this is useful because hardware exploration is part of my thesis, though here the technology is very artsy.

Kasperg. “Kaufmann House.” The Whole Half-Life. 1/23/2006, Retrieved September 2, 2013, from http://twhl.info/vault. php?map=3657

- Website of the Fallingwater digital recreation. This establishes a kind of benchmark for the possibilities of the area.

Russo, Luigi. Architectural Visualization. Unreal Engine. Retrieved September 3, 2013, from http://www.unrealengine.com/ showcase/visualization/architectural_visualization_1/

- Website of a project done in UDK. This is in place to be licensed (educational use included).

simulation. (n.d.) Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary. (2010). Retrieved October 20, 2013, from http://www. thefreedictionary.com/simulation

- Definition of simulation.

Varney, Allen. “London in Oblivion.” The Escapist. 7/8/2007, Retrieved September 2, 2013, from http://www.escapistmagazine. com/articles/view/issues/issue_109/1331-London-in-Oblivion - Article that mentions several attempts to visualize architectural work in video game engines. This could be a good springboard on collating past efforts in this area.

Vella, Matt. (2007, December 21). Unreal Architecture. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/ stories/2007-12-21/unreal-architecturebusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

- Article detailing the use of UDK for architectural purposes.

Wikipedia contributors, “Architectural Animation,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architectural_ animation (accessed November 29, 2013).

- Wikipedia article on architectural animation.

IMAGES Act-3D. 19 April 2012. Lumion logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://lumion3d.com/forum/general-discussion/lumion-logo/?action=dl attach;attach=8515

- Lumion logo.

alexglass. 11 October 2013. Ray Tracing vs Rasterized. [chart]. Retrieved from http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/generation-8starts-with-brigade-not-x1-ps4.453427233/

- Chart of raster vs. ray tracing technologies.

Blender Foundation, The. n. d. Blender logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://download.blender.org/institute/logos/blender-plain. png

- Blender logo.

Chaos group. n. d. Vray logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fa/a/a1/Vray_logo.png

- Vray logo.

CryEngine. n. d. CryEngine logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://www.n3rdabl3.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/logo_vertical_ black.jpg

-CryEngine logo.

Epic Games. n. d. UDK logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://epicgames.com/files/technologies/udk-logo.png

- UDK logo.

Euclideon. 22 November 2011. Euclideon Unlimited Detail. [screenshot]. Retrieved from http://media1.gameinformer.com/ imagefeed/featured/gameinformer/infdetail/infpower610.jpg

- Euclideon screenshot.

Fatahalian, Kayvon. n. d. Kayvon Fatahalian. [graph]. Retrieved from http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kayvonf/

- Photo of Kayvon Fatahalian.

Fatahalian, Kayvon, et al. July 2013. Visualization graph. [graph]. Retrieved from http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/ exhaustivecloth/

- Kayvonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhaustive graph.

History Blog, The. n. d. Dome design. [drawing]. Retrieved from http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ Dome-design.jpg

- Brunelleschiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dome image.

IGX Pro.com. n.d. Mario 64. [screenshot]. Retrieved from http://www.igxpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/mario64.jpg

-Mario64, an old 3D video game.

Jean-Philippe Grimaldi, et al. n. d. LuxRender logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/ Luxrender_logo_128px.png

- LuxRender logo.

Konami. 27 March 2013. Title. [logo]. Retrieved from http://babysoftmurderhands.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/FOX-EngineKojima-Productions-GDC-2.jpg

- Comparison of the Fox Engine to real life.

Mh. 10 March 2010. The Gates-Hillman Complex. [photo]. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/ CMU_Gates_Hillman_Complex.jpg

- Photo of the Gates-Hillman Center.

n. d. Tom Cortina. [photo]. Retrieved from http://sigcse2014.sigcse.org/authors/

- Photo of Thomas Cortina.

Otoy, Inc. 22 November 2012. Octane Render logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Octane_Render_logo. png

- Octane logo.

PcGamesHardware. n.d. Crysis 2 screenshot 5. [screenshot]. Retrieved from http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/ original/2010/03/crysis-2-screenshots-gdc-2010__5_.jpg

-Crysis 2 image.

Persage. 5 April 2007. Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts building. [photo]. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/CFA.JPG

- Photo of the College of Fine Arts.

Unity Technologies. n. d. Unity logo. [logo]. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/a/a3/Unity_Logo.png

- Unity logo.

MISCELLANEOUS Adobe & Touch. n. d. Projects Mighty & Napoleon. Retrieved from http://xd.adobe.com/mighty/notify.html

- Website of Adobe Mighty and Napoleon.

Autodesk. n. d. 3D visualization software brings design to life. Retrieved from http://www.autodesk.com/products/showcase/ overview

- Website of Autodesk showcase.

Crydev. (2013, October 18). CRYENGINE速 Free SDK (3.5.4) [Computer software]. Retrieved from http://www.crydev.net/dm_eds/ download_detail.php?id=4

- CryEngine3 SDK.

Lumion. (2013). Lumion 3D () [Computer software]. Retrieved from http://lumion3d.com/

- Lumion website, note how a new version is available, but the evaluation version of it is not yet.

NHTV University of Applied Sciences. (2013, November 11). ARAUNA2 demo. [Computer software]. Retrieved from http://ompf2. com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1887#p4233

- Arauna2 demo.

Schroeder, Scott A. (2011, January 1). Adopting Game Technology for Architectural Visualization. Purdue e-Pubs. Retrieved from http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=cgttheses

- Possible precedent thesis.

Terms 3D - A digital representation of three point perspective that approaches how the eyes interpret light. 3D is often mapped onto a planar screen, but newer technologies are using curved screens, or even a screen for each eye to even more closely replicate vision. ACM - Association for Computing Machinery. Animation - In the context of this thesis, refers to a disembodied flythrough that architects are so fond of - an unnatural movement that lacks artistic merit and generally does not approach human experience. Animations can and do exist that give the viewer an experience they can understand, but technology can go beyond that. AO - Ambient occlusion. A technique that replicates GI shading by determining where deep corners are and shading them accordingly. Combined with other effects, this is an efficient method to fake radiosity shading. Architecture - The study of the memory of time and space. Encompasses the thought, theory, tools, design, construction, evaluation, and history of buildings. Baking - Taking pre-computed data and turning it into a texture that can be applied in a material. BIM - Building Information Modeling. A type of modeling not necessarily visual that digitally covers architectural systems. Bump map - A bump map is either another name for a normal map or refers to a greyscale image that appears like the grain or small-scale detail of a material that is applied to a material in the scene to very efficiently fake said detail. A bump map is the simplest way to add complexity to a mesh on a small scale by only using a material. CAD - Computer Aided Design. Digital precision tools used in product, aviation, automotive, and architectural design. Compute capability - A ranking of CUDA technology, roughly the version number, that relates to how well the CUDA cores can

process their tasks. CUDA - A technology Nvidia developed for their graphics processors that uses parallel processing that developers can directly access for graphics purposes. CMU - Carnegie Mellon University. This is my university and where the School of Architecture is - where I am having my thesis. Delay load - a term I came up with that describes the relative time it would take to use one program or pipeline compared to another. For the purposes of the software evaluations, I compared a regular pipeline of modeling in Rhinoceros and rendering in Vray to each set of alternative software. DIY - Do it Yourself. A field of development not necessarily informed by professional practice where users attempt to find their own ways to achieve a task. These attempts are not always successful but the culture is one of sharing - the attempts that work are often documented and refined. Drivers - Software middle-men between hardware on a computer and other software that aims to use that hardware. Engine - A graphics software (that can also be embedded in other software) that is used to render virtual worlds. In video games, this is what makes the graphics work, though it is often also responsible for physics calculation, the menus and UI, and AI. Environment map - A single snapshot of the six cardinal directions around an object with a FOV of 90째 that are then composited to get a 360째 view completely around an object. This is used to fake reflections. Doing this in real time is very taxing on performance. FOV - Field of view. The geometric angle that is subsumed by the view cone of a viewer. Fps - Frames per second, also frame rate. A measure of the amount of frames a graphics processor can generate on a monitor every second to simulate fluid motion. Values between 30 and 60 are good goals for graphics-heavy software, as at lower values choppiness and stuttering become apparent and higher values may produce incompatibility with the monitor hardware (usually not

an issue with modern software). This can be measured as an average over the last few seconds or as a value every few seconds.

Gameplay - The actions a user performs in relation to the environment or other players within a game. People often fail to make the distinction between graphics and gameplay, as one or the other may define a video game more than the other. For this thesis, I am ignoring almost all aspects of gameplay except those involving interaction, walking, and other movement controls. GI - Global Illumination. This refers to an even distribution of light in a scene such that more exposed surfaces get more light and less exposed surfaces get less light. This ends up making corners darker and smoothly shading other geometry. This is useful as a step in generating realistic shadows. GPU - Graphics Processing Unit. The piece of hardware in a computer largely responsible for computing what is seen on a monitor. Over the years the GPU has grown in importance, not only for video games but for design number crunching as well. GWAP - Games With A Purpose. Video games designed or heavily repurposed for the aim of training real jobs. These video games are high fidelity and take into account nearly all aspects of a real world scenario. They often focus less on graphics, however. Mesh - A set of connected or related triangles in 3D space that combine to make a virtual shape or surface. The triangles are solid, however their appearance can change when an image, or a texture, is applied to the mesh via predefined operations, a material, using coordinates assigned to each point of the triangles. Meshes can have billions of triangles. Normals and normal map - A normal is the perpendicular direction from a plane; in meshes the planes are the triangles. A normal map is a purple and green image that replicates height data, which is projected along the normals of the mesh. This fake height data appears as ridges or other shapes, depending on the map, that receive lighting and shading but are only a visual effect on the geometry - it is clipped by the visible edges. A technique called parallax mapping or displacement mapping works around the clipping, appearing to make physical geometry on top of the original mesh. NURBS - Non Uniform Rational Basis Spline. A mathematical method for defining a curve that can also be used to define complex surfaces. Since the definition is mathematical, the surfaces are exact, though a given graphics program approximates the surface with a mesh for preview purposes. The mesh simply takes a small number of points on the surface and connects them, but the mesh is no longer the NURBS surface, it is just a very near approximation. Many methods exist to sample those points.

Path tracing - A method of ray tracing that determines where the photons that comprise a pixel most likely came from, taking into account all the light in a scene. Over enough samples, path tracing should generate an image indistinguishable from reality. Photo-realistic - A digital simulation that is visually very near or indistinguishable from a photo taken by a real camera. Pre-computed - Computed before hand, usually a process that takes many minutes or hours, but the results are reusable. Raster - Very general term for taking a mathematically perfect form and simplifying it for viewing. Raster can refer to precomputing shadows in a scene and baking them into the materials in the scene instead of having the shadows be dynamic. Ray tracing - A graphical technique where photons from lights are traced around a scene, taking into account all possible material properties, to determine how that scene is lit. Real time - A digital refresh, or frame, rate at which point the screen looks fluid, like a movie. Reality is in real time. Render - A technique where a graphical algorithm is applied to a scene that generates how that scene would look, usually, in real life. It is also a general term for creating a high quality image, so many realistic paintings could be understood as renders. Rhinoceros - NURBS modeling software developed by McNeel and Associates that is primarily used for nautical, product, and architectural design. It is fairly streamlined and includes hundreds of functions. Supports scripting and plug-ins. Scene - A set of geometry, lights, materials, effects, and other features that combine to be used for rendering or interaction. Design software either imports files to combine into a scene, or saves the scene as a file which references other files. Shader - A rapid computational process where visual effects like refraction, bumpy sufraces, and reflection are processed as materials that can be applied to geometry. Shaders are much cheaper than brute force methods but rely on environment maps and fairly complex material definitions to replicate how these effects appear in real life. Depending on the software, they allow behavior that would otherwise be difficult to replicate, for example a material can fade depending on how close the viewer is to it.

Shadow map - Precomputed shadows that are applied to all geometry. Shadow maps are stored as color image files, depending

on the lights in the scene, that are then used (usually automatically) in the material shaders of the scene geometry; this is called baking. Just like with other textures, they use object UV coordinates. SIGGRAPH - Special Interest Group on Graphics. An annual conference held by ACM that reviews and publishes research on computer graphics. Simplified lighting - The use of simple models of how light propagates in space. This ranges from a linear hotspot/falloff model, with 100% light in a small sphere of an arbitrary radius and 0% light in a larger sphere, and a linear gradient in between, to more complex models where certain shapes are achieved on surfaces that mimic how real lenses distribute light. Ultimatype - Direct opposite of prototype - what the object or space will eventually be. User interaction - The concept of a person using controls on a device to change how that device operates, often this feedback is displayed on a monitor or screen. Vector - A mathematically defined curve. Vector graphics have infinite resolution, but cannot exist in real life, so they have to be turned into a raster image. Likewise, digital photons are also vectors, but they have to be turned into bright spots and dark spots on surfaces for a user to understand them. Vertex lighting - An alternate method of generating shadows in a scene. Vertex lighting applies a color value to each vertex of a geometry that corresponds to the color of the shadow or the light at that spot. Geometry is sometimes subdivided for this purpose to have a more even distribution of points. The advantage this has over regular shadow maps is that it is not pixel based and will always have smooth shadows, but at the potential cost of detail. Vray - Rendering suite developed by Asgvis. Features a fast dual-renderer pipeline that incorporates material definitions, lights, a sun and sky, caustics, and has support for crude animation. Exists as a plugin for Rhinoceros and other modeling programs. WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get. A design concept where the visual development of something is exactly what that thing would look like once it is finished. Microsoft Word is a good example of a WYSIWYG program.

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