VR Yourself with Autodesk Cloud Rendering

VR (Virtual Reality) is definitely the focus of the year more than 3D printing. Especially with DIY kit or the affordable Google Cardboard that you can immerse yourself into this technology, I finally got my hands on trying it myself in the recently days. I first learn about the new added feature from Revit Kid where Autodesk cloud rendering now offers the "Stereo Panorama" render service of your design and one can view them with one of the cardboard VR goggles.

Good news for me is I happened to have some previous projects that are still stored in the cloud. All I have to do is to log in to the site and select the project to be rendered. From the project, choose the down icon --> Render as --> Stereo Panorama. Click the "Start Rendering" icon and you are good to go. **This service is now offer for FREE until March 31.**

When it is finished, you can click to see the finished rendering but it doesn't do much for you. You have to select the image to open the preview. At the bottom of the image, there is a check box where it says "Preview on your phone" and it will generate a web link. Email the link to yourself and open it via the browser on your phone.

Since my phone (Samsung Galaxy S3) runs on Android OS, according to Autodesk, it said it only supports in Chrome browser. (iPhone will have to launch it with Safari) For some reasons, it doesn't even work on Chrome on my phone. I found this link where you have to enable the WebGL in order for it to work; However, it still didn't work for me. I finally was able to get it to work with Firefox browser for Android and it works beautifully.

Luckily my colleague had one of the cardboard goggles hanging around when he attended AU and got one for free last year so I just borrow it from him to test it.

I have to say the quality of the render is very impressive. Although controlling the view takes some practicing to navigate, I found it very easy to use. I have played with Samsung Gear VR version of the Oculus rift before and this affordable version is pretty awesome. 

Besides, Autodesk provided this link where there are a few samples of the finished "Stereo Panorama" images that are ready for viewing.

I could see this could be a good media for the designer to showcase their work to the clients.

I also test it on my randomized Curtain Panel with this feature and you can copy and paste this link to view it on your own.

Below are some of the projects that I tested with.

Go ahead and try it yourself now. Did I mention this service will be FREE until March 31st?

Randomize Color and Material in Revit - Dynamo Style!

I made a post almost a year ago about how to use a third party app to randomize color and material for curtain panel in Revit. I have been wanting to do more study on how to this in Dynamo. Dynamo has gained so much attention recently and there are always new builds coming out every other week or so. I saw a post from Zach Kron some time ago and haven't got time to look into that until recently. He even made a YouTube video to show his process. First of all, huge thanks to Zach and now I am able to make my own twist and use that on my Randomized Curtain Panel family and have some fun with it.

Below are some images that show by moving the Integer Slider back and forth to change the color of the curtain panels.

Check out this video to see how the slider works in action:

You can find the sample file in this link also.

Enjoy and more to come later!

AC Quirkiness Part 4 - Create Similar Command

There is a comment made recently about my previous post on another odd behavior about adaptive component. I thought I would share it on this post.

"Create Similar" is one of my favorite commands in Revit. It is also one command that I use almost every day. I could create a lot of things quickly by selecting an existing elements around the space and keep building it.

Create similar is accessible both in project environment as well as family environment. In a project, you could literally select anything 2D or 3D, then go to your option under "Modify" tab and click the icon "Create Similar"

Or you can access it via "right click" and choose from the pop-up.

How about in Family? You can pretty much do the same; however, it only applies to traditional family.

Select the geometry, go to the option, click "create similar".

Or just "right click" after you have selected the geometry. 

**The only thing I found in family that does not allow you to use "create similar" are model line and symbolic line. For some reasons, they just don't work with create similar.**

When it comes to adaptive component (or conceptual mass), once again, Revit just disable this nice feature from this type of family. If you "right click" by selecting the geometry, you actually get the same option from the pop-up window but it is grayed out. I suppose there is no time saving using "create similar" in adaptive component!?