3ds

[only3d]

how do u import a 3ds file into archicad?

i know how 2 export but i dont know how 2 import.

tnx in advance

[bricklyne]

Check out the graphisoft (ArchiCAD) website forum pages. Under the visualisation or renderers topics. A guy there, Stefan posted a plugin made by a friend of his that imports 3ds files into ArchiCAD. He posted on for version 8.1 but had also previously posted some for versions 7 and 8.0.

[only3d]

Many thanks!

[stefkeB]

Check out the graphisoft (ArchiCAD) website forum pages. Under the visualisation or renderers topics. A guy there, Stefan posted a plugin made by a friend of his that imports 3ds files into ArchiCAD. He posted on for version 8.1 but had also previously posted some for versions 7 and 8.0.

Not exactly from a friend It's just a plugin (in German) I downloaded once, from another site and it seems that this is one of those well-kept secrets from Graphisoft (together with ArchiLumos). There are some nice add-ons, but Graphisoft and the dealers are not that active in making sure everybody knows about them...

[bricklyne]

Not exactly from a friend It's just a plugin (in German) I downloaded once, from another site and it seems that this is one of those well-kept secrets from Graphisoft (together with ArchiLumos). There are some nice add-ons, but Graphisoft and the dealers are not that active in making sure everybody knows about them...

 

That's sadly true, for the most part. One really has to be active and constantly up to speed in the user forums over at graphisoft just to be sure that you don't miss out on useful info like this. Archilumos, though, is out of the bag; there's a posting at the graphisoft user forum directing people to a site where they can download the demo version (version 1.5) and have also announced that version 2 will be released at around the same time as AC v9, which I suppose wil be in mid-September as well. I tried it and I have to say it seems to need a bit of work with regards to handling the file sizes and object complexities inherent and available with ArchiCAD. I'm hoping they fix this in version 2.0, because it is a really powerful renderer and does the radiosity directly from within ArchiCAD, which is really convenient.

 

But to give graphisoft some credit, the API open language feature in ArchiCAD that allows for all these third party plug-ins (ArchiForma,Archilumos, ArchiTerra, Plan2Model etc.), kind of like the third party renderers in 3D Max, is really a big plus for ArchiCAD particurlarly over other BIM solutions like Revit ( which is locked down in AutoDesk land) and Microstation. So while it allows practically anyone to create a plug-in to do anything from within ArchiCAD, I don't think graphisoft can be entirely blamed if they can't keep up to speed with all the plug-ins created; particurlarly those created by individuals as opposed to organizations like Cigraph. But they could try a bit harder.

 

In the case of ArchiLumos though, I believe the whole problem lay in the fact that the company that originally created it ( a Jaoanese firm called Express Tools, at the time) based on the powerful Shade rendering engine, had some ownership issues and was eventually bought out by Curious Labs ( creators and/or distributers of Poser, the human modelling and animation software). However, the division that worked on Archilumos, was not part of the deal and I suppose the guys in that division either started another firm called (or were taken over by a firm called) Optgraph ( also Japanese) which is now the official Archilumos creator and distributor. So the whole ownership thing was kind of murky for graphisoft Japan to comment on or deal with; which is why no one else outside Japan and Sweden(don't ask ) knew about archilumos for quite a while.

 

for those that don't know about archilumos, check out the following;

 

http://www.optgraph.com/archilumos/gallery.html

http://www.lasercad.se/produkter/add-ons/archilumos/lumos_int.htm

 

(...and for those who understand Japanese)

http://www.graphisoft.co.jp/products/productivity_tools/tools/al.html

 

 

As for the 3ds import plug-in, I believe that this was just an individual effort and not really an established firm; although I could be wrong. I just really hope that Archilumos 2.o is really much improved over the current version with regards to radiosity processing speed, material and texture handling ( right now they use archicad's lousy format) and antialiasing rendering speed. Even though Archicad 9 has now incorporated the Lightworks rendering engine, which is really cool ( and a huge improvement over the current joke that serves and the internal rendering engine), I personally have never really liked the lightworks radiosity work-around (it's not pure radiosity), and I like to have options. Particurlarly from within ArchiCAD itself and not having to export the model to more powerful renderers. If not, then I suppose we will just have to wait for Artlantis 5.0 which is supposed to have the fastest radiosity out there. With their already easy to use and master, user interface, that would really place Artlantis at the top of the list if the radiosity is as good and fast as they claim it will be. But remains to be seen.

 

In the meanwhile I will stick with my Carrara and VIZ2005 options.

 

(P.S.; I've always thought it would be really cool if Splutterfish ( the company that makes Brazil r/s rendering plugin for Max and VIZ, could do a third pary plugin for ArchiCAD the way they are doing for the next version of Rhino3D. Of all the 3rd party plugins for MAX I think it is the best or at least the most accurate with not as steep a learning curve as Mental Ray for example. A stand-alone like Vray is doing for their next version, would also be pretty cool)

[bricklyne]

Not exactly from a friend It's just a plugin (in German) I downloaded once, from another site and it seems that this is one of those well-kept secrets from Graphisoft (together with ArchiLumos). There are some nice add-ons, but Graphisoft and the dealers are not that active in making sure everybody knows about them...

 

 

Wait a minute. Are you Stefan from the graphisoft user forums? ( the 'a castle in Belgium' dude?) I hadn't noticed your profile at left before I put 2 and 2 together. If you are, I didn't realize and was probably already preaching to the converted. How long have you been on CGarchitect.com? It would certainly be great to increase the graphisoft presence here. Great to have you around, whatever the case .

[jefferson]

........check Stefan's profile here and it appears to be a match. A vaulable and knowledgeable contributor! [wondering how often he's been called "dude"?]

 

So do you know just how much Archilumos is, and where it's available in North America?

[stefkeB]

Yes. I am the same person. I'm more active in the Architalk & 3DBuzz forums

 

The 3ds importer more or less does what it's supposed to do, but I hardly ever bring external geometry into ArchiCAD. It's never as efficient and fast as the GDL-scripted objects, which is still the major tour-de-force of ArchiCAD.

 

The new Lightworks engine is nice. They didn't include the radiosity nor RPC-support, though, so you have to stick with their ray-tracing-based solution for a skydome and for windowlights: more or less like an area-light with multiple fallof lights that you place on the inside of windows, to give a feel of indirect lighting. It's not so fast to set up (scripting this would be cool), but it does the trick. This is not for the everyday drafting-user though.

 

ArchiLumos seems to be a strange story all together. I've installed the demo at work, but the demo limits it to 320x240 renderings, so I hardly ever see anything worthwhile. It's more a Lightscape clone (which is not a bad thing). It has pretty fast adaptive meshing, which is still very much missing in VIZ or 3ds max...

 

About API-development: I've registered as a developer and from time to time I work on my personal learning project: a Radiance exporter and renderer for ArchiCAD. I'm allready capable of exporting most geometry (the doors & windows are still oriented wrong) and the materials (alas not with texture mapping - which is a pain in Radiance). Even the ArchiCAD-triangulation seems to more or less work. I can export and render directly from ArchiCAD, but rview seems to get stuck most of the time.

The camera viewpoint & the sun position are also supported. I haven't tried regular lamps.

This is not a commercial effort, since I can't devote much time to it these days, but as a proof-of-concept it started to work.

 

The nice thing is that it even works in a demo-version

 

The other nice thing is that, once you get the hang of it, any command-line rendering engine could be supported in a similar fashion, like POV-Ray, BMRT and the upcoming VRAY.exe as long as you know how to write polygons, lights & camera into a text file. Imagine the possibilities when some 'real' programmers jump onto this. But I'm not a trained programmer, I just taught myself and use it in a research project at work.