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Artistic Environment
What’s needed is a means of bringing the full engineering model into the artistic environment, and a widely used program called CADVerter provides just that. Developed by Mathematica Inc. (Lakeland, FL) and now marketed by AT&T’s Graphics Software Labs (Indianapolis), CADVerter translates the widely supported .DXF CAD file format into a full-featured model than can be imported into a high-end TARGA- and ATVista-based rendering and animation package like GSL’s TOPAS or Crystal 3D from Time Arts (Santa Rosa, CA). Because the .DXF format is supported by virtually all PC-based CAD software, CADVerter is effective in spanning the two very different worlds. As Mathematica marketing manager Allen Downard puts it, “CADVerter bridges the gap so that something that’s dimensionally accurate can also look good.”
Bill Bottorff, a systems integrator who runs Austin Business Computers (Austin, TX), says that the conversion process is not as intimidating as many users first think. “With practically no effort at all, you can render an AutoCAD drawing in a TARGA environment,” Bottorff asserts. “Once users have done it a couple of times, they find that it’s trivial. The TARGA file format is what makes the images so easy to work with.”
This approach can provide stunning results. In the February issue of Computer Graphics World, for instance, Angela Torres Pate describes how Micron/Green, her Gainesville, Florida, building design service bureau, used CADVerter to bring a rough AutoShade rendering into Crystal 3D. Running a TARGA 32 on a ‘386-based AT compatible, Pate’s firm was able to selectively bring various layers of the AutoShade rendering into Crystal 3D. CADVerter will import only one layer of a .DXF file at a time, and while this may at first glance seem to be a disadvantage, it actually can provide the skilled operator with a helpful means of controlling file size and content.
Micron/Green’s finished rendering taps the power of Crystal 3D and the TARGA to achieve a degree of realism that was impossible in AutoShade. From the mullions in a large glass atrium to the stripes on the asphalt parking lot, details are rendered with striking realism. Glass shows an appropriate transparency (an effect made possible by the extra 8-bit channel on the TARGA 32), and aliminum panels appear to reflect light in a way that makes the image seem photographic. To enhance the effect, Pate created polygons behind the building, onto which she mapped captured video images of a sky filled with fluffy white clouds. All in all, it’s a rendering that would excite the most doubting client.
Architectural Design Online
Both Crystal 3D and GSL’s TOPAS can go even further. By tapping their animation capabilities, an artist can actually create a video that takes the client or customer on a tour, or “fly-through,” of the building. With details like office furniture put into place and realistic textures such as glass, metal, brick, and fabric dressing up surfaces, this sort of animated rendering is the closest you can get to a real building when all that actually exists is a set of plans.
Creating an animated fly-through of an architectural project may be just the ticket for a big-budget project, but a much more common use of the video capabilities provided by bringing a CAD file into the Truevision environment is simply to develop a presentation image that shows the fully rendered building in a video image of its intended site (or a proposed consumer product in a video image of its intended setting, for that matter. While many renderers will want to capture actual video imagery of the specific target site, they don’t have to capture images of office furniture and standard fixtures if they have a program like Archpaint, from Archsoft Corp. (Mill Valley, CA).
Video Clip Art Libraries
Archpaint is a library of TARGA-format video images on transparent black backgrounds. If the artist wants to fill the rendering of a restaurant with realistic fictures, for instance, he or she can use CADVerter to bring the CAD design of the room into the Truevision environment, use a program like TOPAS to map appropriate textures on surfaces and provide lighting effects, and then cut and paste tables and chairs, counters and sinks, kitchen appliances, and the like from the Archpaint library. As Rik Jadrnicek, director of R&D for Archsoft, puts it, “Real-world images add reality to what is otherwise a rather plain rendering.” Jadrnicek notes that the relatively low resolution of video “is a natural for architects because their renderings don’t have to be magazine quality, and besides, people are used to looking at TV.”
A similar approach is used by Eclat Inc. (San Leandro, CA), which offers a CD-ROM-based catalog of video images showing actual office furniture from various manufacturers. Designed to work on a TARGA platform with Versacad designs, Eclat’s system allows office managers to try out different models and configurations of furniture in a realistic rendering of the office space. Thanks to the dimensional accuracy of the Versacad design and the realism of the TARGA display, the interior designer can accurately represent the appearances of a wide array of available alternatives.
Getting Creative With Interior Space
In cases where the final rendering doesn’t need to be based on an actual CAD model, the designer can work entirely within the Truevision environment. For instance, Lumen-Micro, a package from Lighting Technologies Inc. (Boulder, CO), is aimed specifically at the task of selecting lighting for interior spaces. The designer keys in dimensional information that creates a basic rendering of the room and then tries out various lighting plans. Lumen-Micro draws on its own photometric database to automatically model the lighting effects you’ll get from different sources placed in different ways. “The thing that’s particularly appealing about the TARGA 16 board,” says Thomas Swanson, director of operations of Lighting Technologies, “is that you can get 32,000 colors. This allows for the very fine shadings that are needed to model subtle lighting effects.” Swanson notes that the company is working on an upgrade that will interface directly with AutoCAD Release 10, providing greater flexibility and accuracy in the basic model of the space to be lit.
Another modeling package that works entirely within the Truevision environment is Pro3D Photo Finish, to be released this month by Enabling Technologies (Chicago) for both TARGA-based PCs and NuVista-equipped Macintosh IIs. Melissa Taylor, vice president of operations at Enabling Technologies, explains that the product is aimed at industrial designers who work in the area where functional aspects of a design are wedded to aesthetic considerations. “Our products are designed for artists, not engineers,” says Taylor.
Several considerations led Enabling Technologies to design Pro3D Photo Finish for the TARGA and NuVista boards, according to Taylor. “For the most part, the customers who use our software already have targas,” she notes. “Also, we can’t get the type of renders we need from any other PC product.” The company “has really stressed file export,” says Taylor, which gives Pro3D users access to the wealth of artistic software tools that run on Truvision hardware.
Workstation Power on PCs
As all of this activity illustrates, the CAD engineer or architect can no longer dwell exclusively in a world of dimensions, vectors, and wireframes. As CAD becomes common the advantage goes to the designer who can portray the finished product accurately and artistically. On workstation-based CAD systems, styling and rendering tools are more and more often built into a complete software system. But PC- or Macintosh-based designers are finding that they can get the same sophisticated rendering techniques by taking their CAD creations into the strikingly real, visual world of videographics.