Milestones in Architectural Visualisation

[cayling]

I have just begun an MA at Bournemouth University in England and am interested in milestones in the architectural visualisation industry, and wondered if anyone had any sources/people you would recommend me looking into.

 

I have been recommended to look at Kerlow's The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects but if anyone knows of any others it would be great.

Thanks

Chris

[alias_marks]

Haven't been the in the archviz industry that long to really assess any HUGE milestones. But off the cuff, I would say that the introduction of GI would be a big one.

 

One a side note, I think it would be a pretty interesting article/paper to see the top 10 archviz achievements/progressions over the last year/5 years/all time - similar to how cgtalk has the top 10 milestones in CG every year.

 

Would be interested when your finished to take a look if your willing to share.

 

Good luck.

 

Michael

[Devin Johnston]

I don't have any sources but these are the software packages that were on the cutting edge of Arch Viz.

 

-3D Studio Max (scanline)

-Light Scape (radiosity)

-Vray/Final Render (GI)

-Maxwell/Fry (MLT)

[cayling]

Thanks guys thats great.

 

I will definatly take these points on board. I have contacted cgtalk aswell so thanks for that lead Michael.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[shaneis]

I don't have any sources but these are the software packages that were on the cutting edge of Arch Viz.

 

-3D Studio Max (scanline)

-Light Scape (radiosity)

-Vray/Final Render (GI)

-Maxwell/Fry (MLT)

 

 

Surely Alias or mentalImages must fit in there somewhere? Not to mention affordable multicore computing

[PGD]

The step onto computers? As opposed to drawing boards and watercolours

[edub]

Frank Lloyd Wrights illustrations are milestones, in my mind... though I guess you're referring to computer visualisation?

 

Like the previous poster, I guess the computer itself is the main milestone.

 

It's more of a paradigm shift, I guess, as constructing perspective vanishing points is no longer needed in 3D software. The 3D component of a sucessfull visualisation is no longer a part of the mental construct, as it used to be when drawing everything by hand.

[Jeff Mottle]

I'll have more of a think about this, but I think some work that has helped pushed the industry forward are the works of Joe Kosinski who I think was one of the first people to bring cinematic treatments to arch viz.

 

Films like fifth element and day after tomorrow, King Kong definitely showed what could be done with arch viz as well. There are plenty other examples too.

 

If you look at publications, I think CGarchitect with this site and 3D world with their arch viz supplement brought legitimacy to the industry and helped bring an entire community together.

 

The 3DFestival (now defunct) I think was the first conference to have a dedicated arch viz track.

 

I'll think about some more later.

[vizwhiz]

hi There

 

here is a blank list from a google search result for 'milestones of cg evolution'

There may be other terms That might yield even better results for CG history

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=milestones+in+cg+evolution

 

Results 1 - 10 of about 163,000 for milestones in cg evolution.

 

hope This helps

 

randy

[Gus_Rayvus]

I have to agree with Jeff, if anyone made a leep in our field, KD Labs set the bar. They were doing stuff years ahead of their time. The real question is are you talking about people or technology? I think a milestone should not be the fact that people can make crappy renders look like a snapshot with a polaroid camera. It should be were someone makes something that you look at and think, what the @#$@ is that! And you wonder if you will ever be able to do that.

[Gus_Rayvus]

I have to agree with Jeff, if anyone made a leep in our field, KD Labs set the bar. They were doing stuff years ahead of their time. The real question is are you talking about people or technology? I think a milestone should not be the fact that people can make crappy renders look like a snapshot with a polaroid camera. It should be were someone makes something that you look at and think, what the @#$@ is that! And you wonder if you will ever be able to do that.

[Hazdaz]

Not really Arch-specific, but no list of milestones in CG (especially 3D) would be complete without mentioning the Commodore Amiga.

 

A huge number of the technologies/processes/workflows (in both hardware and software) that we use today were originated on a sub$1000 computer that blew away anything else on the market... and for years thereafter.

Hell, many current 3D apps can draw their lineage back to the Amiga days... Lightwave being probably the most famous.

[Jim Mann]

I have to agree with Jeff, if anyone made a leep in our field, KD Labs set the bar. They were doing stuff years ahead of their time.

 

KD Labs were weren't even a twinkle in their founders eyes when Hayes Davidson were setting the benchmark here in the UK in the mid to late nineties. And amazing stuff was coming out of Columbia University long before Kosinski and co were on the radar. They had an SGI suite there that tutors such as Neil Denari were getting amazing images from. In fact it was that work for Denari that really got me inspired back in 1995

 

As for software, What about Photoshops first version with layers (2?) or Accurender 2.0 c 1995 and all us thirty somethings must remember how quantum a leap it was when Lightscape went to version 3 and the price dropped dramatically into the affordable realm. Anybody remember the old Lightscape forum run by Chris Carter...the one that used to get e-mailed to you each day! I remember getting help from Ernest Burden III via that pre-forum, forum.

 

Ah the memories!

 

Edit: Just looked it up in an exhibition catalogue from 1995, Andrew Waisler did the Denari Images. Groundbreaking!

[Frosty]

I think design tools such as BIM and physics simulation should be included on that list as well.

[Jeff Mottle]

KD Labs were weren't even a twinkle in their founders eyes when Hayes Davidson were setting the benchmark here in the UK in the mid to late nineties.

 

I was not implying that KDLabs were the only good working being done, but I think their work was the first work widely recognized in the industry as pushing the bar in terms of a more cinematic approach. HD does not do many animations, that's not what they are know for. They mainly stick to still imagery.

[edub]

 

Edit: Just looked it up in an exhibition catalogue from 1995, Andrew Waisler did the Denari Images. Groundbreaking!

 

any chance of an online resource? I googled Waisler, but haven't filtered through the massive amounts of links.

 

this thread is getting interesting!

[ronll]

In the summer of 1991, I started experimenting with computer rendering for my own projects (I was an archtitect in private practice). About the only software available at the time was Autoshade. I wrote an autolisp program to translate models for a shareware raytracer and started producing renderings for other architects. I have posted a couple of these early efforts as http://www.ronlloyd.com/clients/HAR121991.jpg and http://www.ronlloyd.com/clients/LICENSE7.jpg

 

They aren't great, but they were milestones in 1991. At the time we had an Autocad users group and one of the people there was Roy Hirschkowitz. He developed a program similar to mine based on the same raytracer and later signed on with Robert McNeel and developed his program into Accurender. Another in the group was Michael Gibson who went on to develop Rhino.

 

I continued using my own software and by 1992 I was, and still am, working full time producing computer architectural renderings. A couple of my recent renderings can be seen at http://www.ronlloyd.com/clients/hlib4.jpg and http://www.ronlloyd.com/clients/curtr10.jpg I'm still using the same shareware raytracer and my own translator to produce all of my work (post processed with Photoshop). More of my work can be seen at http://www.ronlloyd.com

 

Sorry for butting in, but I just thought this appropriate to the thread's subject title of "milestones".

[Nils Norgren]

In most industries, I would still be considered young, but I think I qualify as an "Old timer" in this industry as I got into it in in 1992, and we started Neoscape in 1995, 12 years ago this august.

 

Milestones (in my opinion) should be broken into Technical, Creative, and "the Industry".

 

Techincal would be a summary of the software and hardware that makes arch viz the industry it is today, My father said 10 years ago that we have more computing power at my company than there was in the world when he went to school (MIT in the late 50's). In my opinion the most important breakthrough in this realm is Lightscape.

 

Creatively I think that Jeff has hit the nail on the head about the movies, being inspired by KDLab, as for stills I think there was a general maturing of the industry that happened gradually when computer generated imagery started to include an "Artistic" component that was inheritied from architectural photography and traditional illustrators. I don't know if any watershed moments can be pointed at. Although come to think of it there was a Hugh Ferris award that was given to Studio AMD many years ago, this may be the first time this honor was given to an image that was generated on the computer (this would need to be confirmed).

 

As for the industry of arch vis, this is also difficult to pinpoint, but the prevalence of computer generated visualization being used in design, client communication, marketing, and sales has to have reached levels that can be measured (I would think). There is also the number of firms, and size of the firms doing this type of work in the industry. Of the Arch viz firms on the bigger side, ones that I can think of off the top of my head are Crystal CG, 3d Win, Focus 360, RM design, Spine, Dbox, Io-Media, Studio AMD, Archimation, Swim, Uniform, Hayes Davidson, and Neoscape and there are more, I just cant remember them at the moment. It is said that crystal CG has many hundred employees, We are in the 55 - 65 ranges these days, It would be interesting to see how firms have grown in the last 10 years.

 

Any or all of these would make for interesting reads, I think that this would also fuel the discussions about the industry's future. There have been times when it's demise was predicted, however it seems that things are going as well as ever these days.

 

There may be other consideration I endorse choosing one of these (Or a subset), any would make a good topic.

 

-Nils

 

Neoscape, Inc.

http://www.neoscape.com

[Brian Cassil]

In the category of "industry" milestones, I think the launch and success of CGArchitect needs to be mentioned. And I'm NOT sucking up to Jeff.

[Jim Mann]

Hi Jeff,

 

I wasn't posting an argument against KDLabs, far from it, just extending the timeline back a few years to events that some won't necessarily know of or appreciate as being groundbreaking having not been "there" at the time. Stuff that might look a bit clunky now or has simply just become overlooked in time. Unless you were banging away at trying to produce images circa 1995 using Autocad 12 on a 90mhz pentium 1 with just 16MB RAM then you don't always get a true appreciation of context. Everything groundbreaking has in some inevitable way lead to the next groundbreaking events, standing on the shoulders of giants etc, etc.

 

I remember the first time I saw KDLabs stuff, it was a reconstruction of building in Tokyo it was pretty compelling though I can't remember there being much of it. The Desert House movie seemed to take those ideas even further and was probably the first animation I had seen that seemed to have a story and dispensed with the floaty fly-thro.

 

Jim

[Jim Mann]

any chance of an online resource? I googled Waisler, but haven't filtered through the massive amounts of links.

 

this thread is getting interesting!

 

Neil Denari has his site at: http://www.nmda-inc.com

 

Ther is an image of the Massey/Schnitt-Haus buried away in the archive but it doesn't really convey how groundbreaking they were. Best images are probably in Gyroscopic Horizons:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Gyroscopic-Horizons-Neil-Denari/dp/187827113X

 

As for Andrew Waisler, there is a linkedin page that lists an Andrew Waisler that was educated at Sci-Arc which is probably the most promising. Beyond that there are tons of links to articles about an Andrew/Andy Waisler who seems to have worked on visual efects in loads of movies:

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1234840/

 

Sounds promising but I really couldn't say if thats him and having been mistakenly commended on many occasions for the work of a James Mann (not me) its probably best to proceed tentatively.

 

Jim

[4DM]

Well, seeing as you asked for milestones in the architectural visualisation industry, rather than computer visualisation per se, I will bring up a couple of revolutionary pieces of early technology, now pretty much redundant, but which made life in the prehistoric days of freehand perspective rendering a lot easier.

 

The first was the Xerox 2080 large format photocopier - this allowed you to manually set up a perspective on tracing paper at a conveniently small size, say A4 or A3 - then take it to your nearest bureau and, for a few pounds, have it enlarged to A2, A1, or even A0, or anything in between, for transferring onto watercolour board. Prior to that, you'd have to draw your sketch at the precise size to begin with, re-draw with a pantograph (!!!), project it onto a wall, or use a very laborious and costly PMT process.

 

The second important piece of kit in those days was the humble fax machine. Before that, you'd go to a client to be briefed, go back and do your set-up drawing/s, travel back to meet your client, or , gulp, post (!) a copy of the sketch, for their approval, and do this perhaps more than once.

The amount of time and effort saved by the fax was tremendous.

 

The affordable desktop computer was no doubt the biggest milestone of all, of course...but that's been covered by other posters here.

 

Leading on from that, however, even the advent of online portfolio websites should not be forgotten as a really significant development, nor the use of e-mail, ftp, CD and DVD for delivery of final artwork material.

 

Chris, once you've written up this thesis/essay, would you be interested in giving a (very relaxed!) presentation on the subject to a meeting of the Society of Architectural Illustrators and Visualisers, possibly next spring at the RIBA?

 

I am sure it would be of great interest to younger members, and a source of heady nostalgia for the old timers too?

 

Contact me, Jim Mann or Dibbers if you would like to consider it.

 

Cheers.

 

D.

[andy shand]

vax prime and tektronix!! gds and wavefront ...in the late 80s you would laugh if you knew how much this stuff cost and how little it could do....but milestones? ..yes they were.

 

what about the old interact desks ..like something out of startrek.

 

a milestone for me was when you could acctually place a camera inside the architectural model rather than hover around it !!

[John Dollus]

On the creative side, I would also add David Munson from HOK to the list. He was adding foley-studio tracks to radiosity animations while most of us were watching AutoShade redraw on orange monochrome screens. A pioneer with high production values and quite the showman as well.

[cayling]

Thanks everyone,

 

These responses have really opened up a can of worms, so thanks for all your imput.

 

I response to Danny Meyer`s request regarding a presentation, I will be producing a (DVD stlye etc) presentation for my MA which may be useful for you. If you would like more details, or to discuss info further please contact me at chris.ayling@gmail.com.

 

Thanks again for everyones help

 

Chris