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?

ReCap Photo 3D Model Viewer Online

For those of you who read my last post about my ReCap Photo experience, I have included the online viewer link of the model so you can experience it yourself.

Keep in mind that you can only view this link with Chrome browser or browser that supports WebGL.

Click here to view

Enjoy!

Reality Power Captured with ReCap Photo

ReCap Photo is the new and improved online image based modeling tool from Autodesk. It used to be called Photofly and later transitioned it to 123D Catch (still in service) as part of 123D family. I have played with it on and off for the last two years.
The concept is simple, you use your digital camera and take a series of pictures around an object or a building, upload it to the ReCap Photo site, then the images will be stitched together via the cloud computing service; as a result, the images are converted it to a 3D object for you.

ReCap Photo home page

I was yet again playing with this technology last week. Since my office is in downtown, I am surrounded by many historical buildings in the area. So I thought to try it with some classical ornament to see what result I get this time.

I found a flagpole with an interesting wrought iron ornament base near my office.

Using nothing but my Samsung S3 phone camera and took a series of pictures; uploaded it to the ReCap Photo site, and waited (depending on the scale and complexity of the object) for about 20-30 minutes. It turned the images into a 3D model and it was ready to view it online.

Series of snapshots with my phone camera

Prior to this experiment, I did go through some trial and errors in the past and learned a better way to take the pictures that the program recommended. The result? Very impressive!




3D view of the flag pole base with high level of detail on the surface

3D mesh of flag pole base

View from the bottom of the 3D model

In order to use this "model" (the online viewer mode is nothing but a composite images stitched together) for further study, ReCap Photo made the conversion from the online format to multiple different (obj., ecm., fbx., ipm and rcs.) formats that can be downloaded via Autodesk 360. There is one file format that I am particularly interested, which is (rcs.) format. (rcs) is a type of indexed point cloud file format that is compatible with ReCap Pro. If you are familiar with ReCap Pro, which came out as a trial version few weeks ago. You can now import your rcs. file in there, clean it up and import it to Revit for reference.

rcs. file (very large file) can be downloaded via Autodesk 360

rcs. file after clean up in ReCap Pro

Inset point cloud file as rcs. format



Point cloud file of the flag pole base in Revit



Once I imported the point cloud to Revit, it seemed like there was a scaling issue with the file. I remembered there was a way to scale properly when it was in 123D catch. I hadn't found it in ReCap Pro yet, perhaps I was missing something. However, I did find a way to scale this point cloud file directly in Revit. Under the type properties of the imported point cloud object, there is a scale parameter you can change it to the appropriate scale.

Scale Factor under type properties (Another way to scale something natively in Revit!?)

I think this could be an awesome addition tool for the Revit users. I could see using this tool as an alternative and yet affordable way to capture the existing building/structure; and one could incorporate this data back to Revit for design as well as documentation. However, I don't think they can be imported into Revit family environment yet. (I wish it can). I have come across and read some online resource about a workaround using AutoCad as a media to bring the point cloud file into Revit family though.

My next step is to try to use this tool for more studies on other Architectural elements. So stay tuned for the future post!