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Management

AccuRender 3.1, Rhino 3.0/Flamingo 1.1

31 Jul, 2003 By: Cadalyst Staff

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Robert McNeel & Associates

It seems as if Robert McNeel’s AccuRender has been around forever, comfortably running inside whatever is the current version of AutoCAD and providing facilities for producing photorealistic renderings within the parent application. AccuRender requires no special

Jewelry, designed by Marko Osala, goldsmith and designer, was modeled in Rhino and then rendered in Flamingo.

hardware beyond what’s needed for AutoCAD and Rhino. AccuRender technology is also included with Autodesk’s parametric building modeler, Revit.

AccuRender technology offers the ability to render photometrically accurate images with reflections, refraction, diffusion, translucency, transparency, color bleeding, shadows, depth of field and depth attenuation, and indirect lighting. ClearFinish is a late addition to surfaces that you can apply to objects such as automobiles.

The technology supports viewport animation for walk-throughs and flybys, and sunlight animation for shadow studies. It also supports lighting analysis, with the ability to walk through a pseudocolor display that shows illuminance and luminance contours. You can use your cursor as a light meter to measure the values on any surface. Finally, you can render panoramas using iMove and Live Picture technology.

AccuRender is available for AutoCAD 2000–2004 as well as Architectural Desktop, Mechanical Desktop, and, as mentioned above, Revit. Not content to rest on its laurels, Robert McNeel & Associates also offers an extremely capable and reasonably priced NURBS modeler, Rhino, now at v3. Flamingo 3D successfully combines AccuRender and Rhino.

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the avid user support network that has grown up around these products. This extends from the remarkable exchange of information, critiques, and sharing of tips and materials that takes place on the McNeel newsgroups to the AccuStudio Web site, where a broad array of materials, textures, and models is available.