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Digital Dreams - Visualization Software (Cadalyst Labs Review)
1 Aug, 2008 By: Ron LaFonMake Your Design Visions a Reality
Communicating design ideas and concepts — whatever they might be — seldom can be done better than by showing them to someone. Thanks to great software applications and ever-increasing computer horsepower, turning a product or building design into a visualization that mimics reality has become a standard way to communicate intent or troubleshoot, convince a client, or promote your company's capabilities.
 Combining photography and high-quality 3D rendering, illustrator Rodrigo Gelmi (São Paulo, Brazil) used Adobe Photoshop and Luxology's modo software for the complex modeling presented by Volkswagen's "Spider Machine," which depicts a Volkswagen easily outrunning a multiarmed, spider-like tractor. (Car photo by Hilton Ribeiro) |
Visualization is a rapidly growing segment of the software industry, and the accuracy and visual fidelity of these images has become so sophisticated that it's often difficult to believe that they're not photographs of a real-world product or home. This roundup review looks at some of the remarkable visualization applications currently available.
Increasingly Prevalent Technology
Computer-aided animation and visualization have managed to make ideas visible in ways that touch us all, in broad areas of our day-to-day lives. Look no further than this summer's early blockbuster movies — Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — to see how visualization has affected the entertainment industry. For the designer, it's remarkable to have these tools readily available, even if your aspirations don't reach quite as far as Hollywood's cinematic marvels.
Not everyone can look at a CAD drawing and make the leap in imagination to the finished design. Fortunately, today's software tools make it possible for nearly anyone to see and experience design ideas by transforming detailed and accurate CAD drawings into visualizations. Applications range from creating a virtual building walk-through to show a client that the design meets his or her specifications to preparing advertising campaigns to identifying design flaws early in the product-development process.
For this design visualization software roundup review, Cadalyst requested the latest software version from vendors that specialize in visualization applications, whether stand-alone products or applications designed to run within another design solution. Although some of the usual roundup participants didn't have products ready for public scrutiny this year, Cadalyst received a variety of programs that I'll overview here.
Keep in mind that this article is not a nuts-and-bolts examination of product details, but rather a survey of general features intended to provide an overview. Consult the table on Cadalyst.com (www.cadalyst.com/0808visualization-table) to compare software features side by side. As one might expect, the array of applications represents numerous approaches — and end results. The images they produce span the spectrum from hyper-realistic, abundantly detailed renderings that highlight every perfectly lit detail to traditional looks that mimic hand-drawn art.
Moving to 64-Bit Systems
The past year has seen more 64-bit versions of major visualization applications become available. The growing availability and popularity of these applications should come as no surprise, as design applications have been bumping into memory constraints for some time. This development is very good news for those whose work tends to make extreme demands on hardware and software, because 64-bit versions of their favored design applications offer access to larger stores of memory and more capable management of that memory. It appears that visualization software is becoming one of the driving forces in making 64-bit computing more mainstream. Wherever it goes, the growth and development in this segment of the industry is always interesting to watch, with end users being the ultimate beneficiaries.
Faster and more capable computer systems and improved software design helps speed the process somewhat, but a lot of time and effort typically are required for creating visualizations. But many design firms have found that a well-done visualization can be a deciding factor in whether a project ever reaches completion. Design visualization software is about compelling communication of ideas using visual media tools such as those described in this article.
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AutoCAD Tips!
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