I'm building a tool for architects to view their 3D models on virtual reality devices like the Oculus Rift or Google cardboard (with a smartphone) and then enable people to walk around and explore those models in virtual reality. Here is a demo: www.vrban.io/demos/bedroom
I wanted to show it to all of you and hopefully get some feedback on how easy / difficult it is to use from an architect / designer perspective.
It also be awesome if some of you uploaded your own models. The site is only accepting obj files right now. You can export these from Sketchup or most other popular 3D software suites. Sign up at my website www.vrban.io or email me and I can send you an access code.
I would really love feedback from you all. If you want to see the model with materials pleasssse email me at [email protected] and I can make you a custom link to your model with materials.
Also, if you don't own an oculus or google cardboard and live somewhere near the NYC area I can bring my Oculus to you to let you explore the model in virtual reality. I really think that VR will have a huge impact on Architecture and design and I can't freaking wait! haha.
P.S: You can open these on your smartphone too (iOS 8.0 or later for iPhone)
Russell Varriale
Oct 30, 14 3:58 pm
Also, if you guys know anyone who does 3D modeling, I would love to talk to them to ;)
x-jla
Oct 30, 14 4:32 pm
if we could do this, eventually where the model could render in real time (probably like 10 years out) it would destroy my life because i would never leave home again.
SneakyPete
Oct 30, 14 4:42 pm
jla-x, check out revizto.
Russell Varriale
Oct 30, 14 4:50 pm
jla-x - We're trying to do just that. The virtual reality industry is demanding higher standards for rendering since people get sick if there is any performance loss inside of the head mounted displays - like Oculus. Do you do a lot of 3D modeling?
SneakyPete - seems like revizto is a downloadable application - we're trying to do all rendering in the browser.
zonker
Oct 30, 14 4:52 pm
russellparker42
This is on the right track - before I go into architecture, I use to work for a video game company, where we created VR games, and then a VR experience of our new studio where all the artists and programmers would play the game, then give comments to our architect. I would take the architects Autocad drawings model everything in Maya for our game engine.
The tricky part is getting the textures to look right and not buzz at shallow angles of regard - esp. on Mobile devices.
Russell Varriale
Oct 30, 14 5:01 pm
Xenakis - thanks for the feedback! Mobile devices are tricky, but we've actually gotten our best feedback on our mobile viewer. Viewing the models on a virtual reality mobile headset like Google Cardboard is really fun.
Let me know if you want me to hook you up with an access code.
Have you tried an Oculus Rift yet? How long ago were you developing VR games?
zonker
Oct 30, 14 5:06 pm
Russel
Haven't tried Oculus rift yet, read a lot about it.
Video games? I last did that at Rockstar in 2006 - console stuff X-box and PS-3 and 4
russellparker42
Oct 30, 14 5:15 pm
Awesome, Rockstar makes some cool stuff. If you're ever in NYC let me know and I can show you the Oculus and some awesome VR stuff.
zonker
Oct 30, 14 5:27 pm
Cool - I interested in VR as also way for virtual construction to rehearse tricky operations working with cranes - as construction gets more complex, it increasingly necessary to combine BIM with VR to actually build things.
you may have heard of this: architecture in Neurosciences
Construction is a big player here. I've seen that article actually. I believe people refer to those as "VR Caves." We're hoping that the Oculus and other VR devices will be able to make those "Caves" completely obsolete. The Oculus Rift is only about $350, making it affordable for most people and businesses.
We've had people uploading construction sites, molecules, boats, playgrounds, buildings, animals, etc. It's amazing the kind of stuff people want to visualize in virtual reality.
zonker
Oct 30, 14 6:45 pm
that way, everyone in an architecture, engineering office and construction crew can have one to aid in coordination - the less confusion, the better.
Russell Varriale
Oct 31, 14 2:23 pm
Anyone in the New York Area who wants to try out virtual reality with the Oculus Rift?
I'll barter with you for research I could do with the Oculus Rift...shooting you an email.
Russell Varriale
Nov 6, 14 1:16 pm
Btw, thank you everyone for your feedback and thanks for uploading your models! I think I'm going to make some improvements this week, let me know what you think!
DTL DWG
Nov 6, 14 8:27 pm
Exciting stuff Russell, great meeting with you and Angel and good luck on everything.
Donhaven
May 9, 15 8:26 pm
Are you still looking for people who do 3D modeling? I have several sketchup models, with textures, for which I have wanted to use your android app to view them in VR but I need help with the instructions. I also need a way to convert the skp/skb files to obj.
DTL DWG
May 9, 15 10:10 pm
Russell and Angel any update?
Last i check you kids were rollin' into a business and doing well.
- Chris
ithink
May 10, 15 1:03 pm
just an observation,
im all for technology, but quite frankly, we have people doing this that have no idea how to build a building properly in a 3d environment. Its creating quite a mess.
KC1302
Dec 14, 15 3:19 pm
You guys rock. Well done with the app.
I see huge potential in this app for getting a sense of scale and proportion.
I know this is still BETA. Will there be support for
-lightmap UV generator and support for baked shadows or perhaps even pseudo indirect bounce light like Global Illumination.
Textures with proper material definition still have to manually painted and assigned per material right?
In a nutshell. Color, material definition, shadows, postprocessing might be to expensive will help you sell the design.
Back to your question. Yes I do alot of 3d modelling. But getting good results, unfortunately requires alot more then just a model.
archiwutm8
Dec 15, 15 3:10 am
Sigh...there is already IRISVR, which works fantastically. Drag and drop your sketchup or revit model and it does everything for you.....
KC1302
Dec 17, 15 5:58 pm
IRISVR : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIB-ydgg1-E looks like Unity engine straight out of the box even the procedural sky looks exactly the same. No shadows instead they used screen space ambient occlusion surrogate.
It isn't hard to do this yourself in Unity and get visually way better results. But building a app like vrban takes skills.
StarchitectAlpha
Dec 18, 15 9:38 am
So when will half the population emerge themselves into the oculus? I look forward to surfing without crowds and getting backpacking permits without bribing a forest ranger...
archiwutm8
Dec 18, 15 4:50 pm
KC1302, I've used IRISVR and the quality looks fine, it allows me to easily drag and drop sketchup and revit files and just get to work. Your accounts looks fake and looks like it was created to just advertise.
Dangermouse
Dec 18, 15 9:42 pm
Forget Oculus, Hololens is the future of 3D visualization for design professionals and engineers.
Dec 18, 15 11:03 pm
For a VR/AR app, you need fast realtime rendering not necessarily perfect photorealistic rendering that takes 3 weeks to render for 5 seconds of fly-through. Okay, it doesn't take quite that long these days but wasn't far off from the truth some years ago.
Aspects of the concept is something I am looking to implement with castAR. Of course, you want to keep polygon counts small and you want to render very fast on a mobile platform solution. This is part of a non-gaming application that I plan on working with.
This kind of rendering found in Unity for quick realtime rendering is sufficient for the kinds of visualization needs that we would have.
A target platform I plan to use is castAR. A simple box covered in retro-reflective material is exactly what I need for projecting the digital 'world' or 'building model' on to the material. Now, wouldn't that be humor for an architectural studio course.... LOL!
Come in with a silvery-grey box and some silvery grey sheets to the pinup and a pair of glasses. Finally an excuse to wear glasses.
KC1302
Dec 19, 15 12:18 am
archiwutm8. Fake account? Advertisement? I am endorsing Unity based on my development experience with Unity. I think the Unity is very user friendly to newcomers. It isn't rocket science to port a Revit scene to Unity with VR support.
Are you want to find a tool that can convert video to VR format or 360 video? I asked this question before in another forum and a tool was recommended. Video Converter Ultimate, I don't know if you ever heard of? But I tried it and it works not bad. At least it can convert the movie I like into VR format so that I can watch it with my Samsung Galaxy Gear. Here is what it looks like. It could be a VR Video Converter.
kristapskarnītis
Dec 20, 16 9:57 am
While this is great and certainly the way of the future, right now I much more prefer VR tours from 360 panoramas.
The quality is photo-realistic and it runs very smoothly on smartphones. In my experience, these full 3D CAD walkthroughs usually look primitive and run terrible...
I work with http://theViewer.co myself and I would recommend it to anybody looking to start presenting in VR at minimum cost for maximal quality..
Hi everyone!
I'm building a tool for architects to view their 3D models on virtual reality devices like the Oculus Rift or Google cardboard (with a smartphone) and then enable people to walk around and explore those models in virtual reality. Here is a demo: www.vrban.io/demos/bedroom
I wanted to show it to all of you and hopefully get some feedback on how easy / difficult it is to use from an architect / designer perspective.
It also be awesome if some of you uploaded your own models. The site is only accepting obj files right now. You can export these from Sketchup or most other popular 3D software suites. Sign up at my website www.vrban.io or email me and I can send you an access code.
I would really love feedback from you all. If you want to see the model with materials pleasssse email me at [email protected] and I can make you a custom link to your model with materials.
Also, if you don't own an oculus or google cardboard and live somewhere near the NYC area I can bring my Oculus to you to let you explore the model in virtual reality. I really think that VR will have a huge impact on Architecture and design and I can't freaking wait! haha.
I look forward to talking to you guys and gals!
More demos: www.vrban.io/demos/cabin, www.vrban.io/demos/trex, www.vrban.io/demos/scan
P.S: You can open these on your smartphone too (iOS 8.0 or later for iPhone)
Also, if you guys know anyone who does 3D modeling, I would love to talk to them to ;)
if we could do this, eventually where the model could render in real time (probably like 10 years out) it would destroy my life because i would never leave home again.
jla-x, check out revizto.
jla-x - We're trying to do just that. The virtual reality industry is demanding higher standards for rendering since people get sick if there is any performance loss inside of the head mounted displays - like Oculus. Do you do a lot of 3D modeling?
SneakyPete - seems like revizto is a downloadable application - we're trying to do all rendering in the browser.
russellparker42
This is on the right track - before I go into architecture, I use to work for a video game company, where we created VR games, and then a VR experience of our new studio where all the artists and programmers would play the game, then give comments to our architect. I would take the architects Autocad drawings model everything in Maya for our game engine.
The tricky part is getting the textures to look right and not buzz at shallow angles of regard - esp. on Mobile devices.
Xenakis - thanks for the feedback! Mobile devices are tricky, but we've actually gotten our best feedback on our mobile viewer. Viewing the models on a virtual reality mobile headset like Google Cardboard is really fun.
Let me know if you want me to hook you up with an access code.
Have you tried an Oculus Rift yet? How long ago were you developing VR games?
Russel
Haven't tried Oculus rift yet, read a lot about it.
Video games? I last did that at Rockstar in 2006 - console stuff X-box and PS-3 and 4
Awesome, Rockstar makes some cool stuff. If you're ever in NYC let me know and I can show you the Oculus and some awesome VR stuff.
Cool - I interested in VR as also way for virtual construction to rehearse tricky operations working with cranes - as construction gets more complex, it increasingly necessary to combine BIM with VR to actually build things.
you may have heard of this: architecture in Neurosciences
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/archive/newsrel/general/09-083DVirtualReality.asp
Construction is a big player here. I've seen that article actually. I believe people refer to those as "VR Caves." We're hoping that the Oculus and other VR devices will be able to make those "Caves" completely obsolete. The Oculus Rift is only about $350, making it affordable for most people and businesses.
We've had people uploading construction sites, molecules, boats, playgrounds, buildings, animals, etc. It's amazing the kind of stuff people want to visualize in virtual reality.
that way, everyone in an architecture, engineering office and construction crew can have one to aid in coordination - the less confusion, the better.
Anyone in the New York Area who wants to try out virtual reality with the Oculus Rift?
Just worth showing:
http://www.ronenbekerman.com/unreal-engine-4-and-archviz-by-koola/
I'll barter with you for research I could do with the Oculus Rift...shooting you an email.
Btw, thank you everyone for your feedback and thanks for uploading your models! I think I'm going to make some improvements this week, let me know what you think!
Exciting stuff Russell, great meeting with you and Angel and good luck on everything.
Are you still looking for people who do 3D modeling? I have several sketchup models, with textures, for which I have wanted to use your android app to view them in VR but I need help with the instructions. I also need a way to convert the skp/skb files to obj.
Russell and Angel any update?
Last i check you kids were rollin' into a business and doing well.
- Chris
just an observation,
im all for technology, but quite frankly, we have people doing this that have no idea how to build a building properly in a 3d environment. Its creating quite a mess.
You guys rock. Well done with the app.
I see huge potential in this app for getting a sense of scale and proportion.
I know this is still BETA. Will there be support for
-lightmap UV generator and support for baked shadows or perhaps even pseudo indirect bounce light like Global Illumination.
Textures with proper material definition still have to manually painted and assigned per material right?
In a nutshell. Color, material definition, shadows, postprocessing might be to expensive will help you sell the design.
Back to your question. Yes I do alot of 3d modelling. But getting good results, unfortunately requires alot more then just a model.
Sigh...there is already IRISVR, which works fantastically. Drag and drop your sketchup or revit model and it does everything for you.....
IRISVR : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIB-ydgg1-E looks like Unity engine straight out of the box even the procedural sky looks exactly the same. No shadows instead they used screen space ambient occlusion surrogate.
It isn't hard to do this yourself in Unity and get visually way better results. But building a app like vrban takes skills.
So when will half the population emerge themselves into the oculus? I look forward to surfing without crowds and getting backpacking permits without bribing a forest ranger...
KC1302, I've used IRISVR and the quality looks fine, it allows me to easily drag and drop sketchup and revit files and just get to work. Your accounts looks fake and looks like it was created to just advertise.
Forget Oculus, Hololens is the future of 3D visualization for design professionals and engineers.
For a VR/AR app, you need fast realtime rendering not necessarily perfect photorealistic rendering that takes 3 weeks to render for 5 seconds of fly-through. Okay, it doesn't take quite that long these days but wasn't far off from the truth some years ago.
Aspects of the concept is something I am looking to implement with castAR. Of course, you want to keep polygon counts small and you want to render very fast on a mobile platform solution. This is part of a non-gaming application that I plan on working with.
This kind of rendering found in Unity for quick realtime rendering is sufficient for the kinds of visualization needs that we would have.
A target platform I plan to use is castAR. A simple box covered in retro-reflective material is exactly what I need for projecting the digital 'world' or 'building model' on to the material. Now, wouldn't that be humor for an architectural studio course.... LOL!
Come in with a silvery-grey box and some silvery grey sheets to the pinup and a pair of glasses. Finally an excuse to wear glasses.
archiwutm8. Fake account? Advertisement? I am endorsing Unity based on my development experience with Unity. I think the Unity is very user friendly to newcomers. It isn't rocket science to port a Revit scene to Unity with VR support.
Sigh.....
www.stimuli.us does great work
.
Are you want to find a tool that can convert video to VR format or 360 video? I asked this question before in another forum and a tool was recommended. Video Converter Ultimate, I don't know if you ever heard of? But I tried it and it works not bad. At least it can convert the movie I like into VR format so that I can watch it with my Samsung Galaxy Gear. Here is what it looks like. It could be a VR Video Converter.
While this is great and certainly the way of the future, right now I much more prefer VR tours from 360 panoramas.
The quality is photo-realistic and it runs very smoothly on smartphones. In my experience, these full 3D CAD walkthroughs usually look primitive and run terrible...
I work with http://theViewer.co myself and I would recommend it to anybody looking to start presenting in VR at minimum cost for maximal quality..