Even when you have the correct settings rendering times can run from a few minutes to a few hours for city and geographic models. As such we were intrigued with the 14 day demo of hyperShot by Bunkspeed. HyperShot is a software renderer, that allows anyone within minutes, to create photographic realism with their model. As their site info states – think of it like a new type of camera, an all software camera. Import all the popular model formats, drag and drop accurate materials, choose your environment and you have a photo of your digital model.

The interface takes a little getting used to, oddly enough because it is so easy to use and with so few options to tweak. You can simply load up a model, the software supports Obj, FBX, Collada, Autodesk 3D Studio Max (3DS), Rhino 4.0 and prior and SketchUp 7.0 and prior on the Mac (our test platform) set a HDR environmental map and then render.

The image above is a geographic model out of ESRI ArcScene, every other software package we have tried to render it in has crashed with ‘out of memory’ messages, hyperShot rendered it in 3 minutes.

Its a similar story with the image above, rendered within a HDR environment in a couple of minutes. This allows us to get on with the work flow rather than worrying about ‘photons, final gathers’ etc etc that are far too common in 3D packages.

Of note also is the ability to render from SketchUp via .skp or .dae files and it handles SketchUp files rather well. Below is a render of our SketchUp model of Fitzrovia Square, London:

The only option we would like to see is the ability to render out animations and fly throughs of the models, that would make hyperShot a must buy.

You can find out more and download a 14 day demo for both Windows and Mac operating systems via http://www.bunkspeed.com/

The post hyperShot: Near Realtime Rendering System for Windows and Mac appeared first on Digital Urban.

We downloaded it last week and have put it through a few first tests. If it wasn’t for a fundamental flaw in the way the iPhone names images it would be almost the perfect pick up and go TimeLapse tool. Annoyingly at the moment the iPhone names images in sequence up to 1000 and the goes back to the start, so with a timelapse of over 1000 images you end up with a file sequence of 1000_1 1000_2 etc which means that the files need to be renamed before imported into any of the programs above.

That said, we think have found a way round it using some Windows freeware, more on that later next week. Our first example is embeded below – it was a horrible day with fast moving clouds but you should get the idea:

By simply turning your phone on and running the software you can get some interesting sequences – its the easiest way we have found so far for creating timelapses. Hopefully the image naming issue can be ironed out, until then its not too much a hurdle and for £1.79 it makes TimeLapse a must buy for any iPhone owning image sequence fan.

You can buy TimeLapse directly from the Apple App Store.

The post TimeLapse for the iPhone – A First Look appeared first on Digital Urban.

Entering the free 3D modelling market, currently do dominated by SketchUp, is not to be done lightly. Virtual Developer Software from deveoper3d.com take the ease of use of SketchUp and add a focus purely on layout and visualisation in home.

The aim is to link each model to a local supplier, meaning that you can redesign you home and then order the decor having visualised it first, we think thats kind of a good idea.

The first YouTube movie below provides an overview:

The second movie provides a longer view of various templates and examples:

While we are always unsure of software that is offered ‘free’ with various ‘add in’ packages at cost it is worth trying out.

You can find out more and download the free basic version from developer3d.com/

The post Virtual Developer & Decorator: Free Home Visualisation Software appeared first on Digital Urban.

LandSIM 3D – is by way of the press release – a new generation of simulation software developed for analysis, design, planning and presentation of landscape and urban projects. With Bionatics kind permission we have uploaded a sample movie of LandSIM as detailed below:

LandSIM3D will be revealed for the first time in the United Kingdom during two exclusive conferences scheduled in London, October 15th and Manchester, October 16th with prestigious guests such at Scott Wilson, The Ordnance Survey and the Forestry Commission of France invited to testimony about their experience with LandSIM3D:

“The upcoming release of LandSIM3D is a great opportunity for a large range of urban planners and landscape professionals since this new 3D tool will give them an ability to rapidly visualize large geographical or territorial information data that are often complex and difficult to understand in a simple and convenient way” explains Stephan GOURGOUT, Sales Director and co-founder of Bionatics. “LandSIM3D makes it possible to quickly correlate vectorial data coming from GIS and aerial photos to deliver a realistic and geo-referenced 3D model: an accurate base from which projects can then be inserted and studied with their alternatives and their environmental impacts”.

LandSIM3D is different from traditional 3D imagery solutions, normally reserved for computer graphics experts. It offers a whole gamut of features and services which are directed towards landscape and urban planning professionals and includes a simple interface which guides the operator with the new use of the 3D. LandSIM3D thus proposes to accompany the professionals in their everyday practice through the following key steps:

• MODEL the existing landscape in 3D to better analyze and study it in a few hours only.
• INSERT your architecture, infrastructure, urban or even new landscape project simply in this existing environment.
• STUDY the possible alternatives of your project, its environmental impacts and its evolution in the future.
• PRESENT your decisions and EXPLAIN your choices thanks to the interactive 3D visualization. A must have tool for your public meetings and presentations.

LandSIM3D is scheduled to be released in November 2007, in United Kingdom.

Registration for the LandSIM3D UK launch tour can be made online at www.landsim3d.com.

For more information about LandSIM3D, contact Bionatics +33 1 56 02 04 20 or by email: infolandsim3d@bionatics.com

We hope to be at the launch in London and will carry full review of the software as soon as we get hold of a trial version…

Find out more about LandSIM3D via the Bionatics product page.

The post Bionatics announces LandSIM3D®, Landscape and Urban Simulation Software appeared first on Digital Urban.

LandSIM 3D – is by way of the press release – a new generation of simulation software developed for analysis, design, planning and presentation of landscape and urban projects. With Bionatics kind permission we have uploaded a sample movie of LandSIM as detailed below:

LandSIM3D will be revealed for the first time in the United Kingdom during two exclusive conferences scheduled in London, October 15th and Manchester, October 16th with prestigious guests such at Scott Wilson, The Ordnance Survey and the Forestry Commission of France invited to testimony about their experience with LandSIM3D:

“The upcoming release of LandSIM3D is a great opportunity for a large range of urban planners and landscape professionals since this new 3D tool will give them an ability to rapidly visualize large geographical or territorial information data that are often complex and difficult to understand in a simple and convenient way” explains Stephan GOURGOUT, Sales Director and co-founder of Bionatics. “LandSIM3D makes it possible to quickly correlate vectorial data coming from GIS and aerial photos to deliver a realistic and geo-referenced 3D model: an accurate base from which projects can then be inserted and studied with their alternatives and their environmental impacts”.

LandSIM3D is different from traditional 3D imagery solutions, normally reserved for computer graphics experts. It offers a whole gamut of features and services which are directed towards landscape and urban planning professionals and includes a simple interface which guides the operator with the new use of the 3D. LandSIM3D thus proposes to accompany the professionals in their everyday practice through the following key steps:

• MODEL the existing landscape in 3D to better analyze and study it in a few hours only.
• INSERT your architecture, infrastructure, urban or even new landscape project simply in this existing environment.
• STUDY the possible alternatives of your project, its environmental impacts and its evolution in the future.
• PRESENT your decisions and EXPLAIN your choices thanks to the interactive 3D visualization. A must have tool for your public meetings and presentations.

LandSIM3D is scheduled to be released in November 2007, in United Kingdom.

Registration for the LandSIM3D UK launch tour can be made online at www.landsim3d.com.

For more information about LandSIM3D, contact Bionatics +33 1 56 02 04 20 or by email: infolandsim3d@bionatics.com

We hope to be at the launch in London and will carry full review of the software as soon as we get hold of a trial version…

Find out more about LandSIM3D via the Bionatics product page.

The post Bionatics announces LandSIM3D®, Landscape and Urban Simulation Software appeared first on Digital Urban.

Competition in the panorama market is fierce with a number of competing products, of which the main contender is PTGui. PTGui, currently on version 5.8.4 retails at a price point of 65 Euro or roughly $80, Stitcher Unlimited on the other hand is $580 or 499 Euro.

We note that the automatic stitch function is only one aspect of both Stitcher and PTGui but from our point of view, and to compare the output of all the images in this blog, we are interested in ‘out of the box, point and click’ functionality. To compare the two packages we loaded in a set of images of St Peters Church in Soho, London which were captured with a Precision 360 panoramic head and a Nikon D70 10.5mm lens.

Both Stitcher and PTGui recognise the cameras EXIF data so there is no need to enter any lens parameters, as should be the case for a point and click automatic stitch setup.

The Stitcher interface is clean and intuitive; it is simply a case of loading the images in, accepting the EXIF data and selecting ‘AutoStitch’. PTGui is similarly straight forward although the interface is not quite as intuitive. We don’t intend to go into depth on the in’s and out’s of the packages but concentrate on the automatic output which is the important aspect in our current work flow.

This is sadly where Stitcher Unlimited 5.5 falls down. The company must realise that it is going to be compared directly against the likes of PTGui, to such an extent that posts on their forum mentioning the package are now banned. If this is the case you would of thought that RealViz would of made sure that Stitcher works ‘out of the box’, and in our tests this was simply not the reality of the situation.

Pictured above is a selection of errors in the output from Stitcher. The images speak for themselves and resulted in a panorama which was unusable, PTGui on the other hand, stitched the images with no notable errors that could be detected. Render times are also of note with Stitcher creating the panoramic scene in 6.47 minutes compared to PTGui’s 3 minutes and 50 seconds.

We are aware that reviews on the web are subjective and often opens oneself up to criticism. However, in our view, Stitcher should be able to compete with the much lower priced PTGui on the autostitch functionality. To find that it doesn’t is disappointing to say the least and you have to ask yourself what is RealViz doing releasing a package that it knows does not hold up to comparison with the competition which is less than a quarter of the price.

We like RealViz, they create some innovative software but Stitcher Unlimited 5.5 falls short and we can’t understand why.

The post RealViz Stitcher 5.5 Unlimited vs PTGui Review appeared first on Digital Urban.

VTour is the latest in a series of software from RealViz aimed at the 3D Modelling/Panorama market to produce Virtual Tours. In essence it takes in 360×180 degree panoramas and allows the user to calibrate the scene in 3D.

A series of primitives can then be added to the scene allowing a model to be created and textured from the photograph. Once complete, the model is exported via a Shockwave viewer to allow free navigation or a movie with a pre-rendered flight path.

To illustrate this we have posted below, via YouTube, a 3D model of the Andy Warhol room in the Tate Modern. The scene, produced to show a quick example, took under 30 minutes to calibrate and model.

Indoor scenes are easy to calibrate whereas outdoor scenes are slightly more problematic. The RealViz website has a number of examples which are well worth viewing, especially the view of Oxford University. We have not however been able to replicate the quality of these models with our outdoor panoramas as the modelling seems to be suitable for certain types of scenes. We plan to add some more examples over the coming month as we get to grips with the tools.

So all well and good, until you get over the wow factor and then realise you cant export to any other 3D modelling package and can only work with a single panorama. We understand that VTour is not a high end modelling package, for that you need to go for Image Modeller, it just seems a shame that it has so much potential only to leave the modeller wanting more.

We recommend that you download their trial version and have a go yourself. Let us know how you get on and we will share your results. If Realviz can add some export options and the ability to model from multiple panoramas then VTour would become essential to anyone creating panoramas or virtual tours. At the moment its a one trick pony – but what a trick!

The post RealViz VTour Review appeared first on Digital Urban.

RealViz has released an update to its once impressive panorama stitching software in the form of Stitcher 5. The majority of the panoramas in this blog were stitched in its previous version 3.5 and as such version 5 has been hotly awaited.

It has a number of new features, including an automatic stitch mode and the ability to add control points for those difficult alignments. At $580 Stitcher has always been a ‘high end’ option and so we took the new version for a test drive with a series of simple test images.

The images we used were captured outside the London Globe Theatre using a Nikon D70 and a 10.5mm lens. Due to various patent issues RealViz is not able to stitch such wide angle images directly so they we ‘defished’ beforehand using Nikon Capture 4.1.

Once loaded into Stitcher the first thing one notices is its new interface, allowing a simple point and click auto stitch. However, with the 10.5mm desfished images there is noticeable distortion so the RealViz distortion option was run to enable it to line up the images.

This is where Stitcher fell at the first hurdle. Using images that stitched happily in version 4 or 3.5, the new version failed to stitch the panorama. The auto stitch option featured even worse performance, failing to recognise overlaps in the images and resulting in an unusable panorama.

The images were captured using a precision panoramic rig, so the fact that Stitcher failed with such shots is disappointing to say the least, especially at the $580 ex vat price tag.

To ensure a fair test, we then ran the same images through PTgui 5.1 which also featues a recently revamped stitching engine at a mere 59 Euros.

PTgui ran the autostitch first time, resulting in a new perfect panorama merged and saved in 5 minutes. They were no noticeable errors and the interface is clear and easy to use. Behind the scenes PTgui also features a number of advanced options on blending and control points, which can be offputting to the casual user but with such a precise autostitch engine they will probably never need to use them.

Stitcher 5 has been a massive disappointment where as PTgui equals in its surprise in terms of speed and accuracy. We cant even go back to our old version of Stitcher as to install the version 5 demo all previous versions need to be unintstalled first.

RealViz have a lot of ground to make up, PTgui is streets ahead and a tenth of the price. The verdict is ultimately disappointing.

We have made the images available online for any user who wants to run the same tests. You can download the zipped archive here (Saved as jpg to reduce file size 7Mb)

The post RealViz Stitcher 5 Review vs PTgui 5.1 appeared first on Digital Urban.

RealViz has released an update to its once impressive panorama stitching software in the form of Stitcher 5. The majority of the panoramas in this blog were stitched in its previous version 3.5 and as such version 5 has been hotly awaited.

It has a number of new features, including an automatic stitch mode and the ability to add control points for those difficult alignments. At $580 Stitcher has always been a ‘high end’ option and so we took the new version for a test drive with a series of simple test images.

The images we used were captured outside the London Globe Theatre using a Nikon D70 and a 10.5mm lens. Due to various patent issues RealViz is not able to stitch such wide angle images directly so they we ‘defished’ beforehand using Nikon Capture 4.1.

Once loaded into Stitcher the first thing one notices is its new interface, allowing a simple point and click auto stitch. However, with the 10.5mm desfished images there is noticeable distortion so the RealViz distortion option was run to enable it to line up the images.

This is where Stitcher fell at the first hurdle. Using images that stitched happily in version 4 or 3.5, the new version failed to stitch the panorama. The auto stitch option featured even worse performance, failing to recognise overlaps in the images and resulting in an unusable panorama.

The images were captured using a precision panoramic rig, so the fact that Stitcher failed with such shots is disappointing to say the least, especially at the $580 ex vat price tag.

To ensure a fair test, we then ran the same images through PTgui 5.1 which also featues a recently revamped stitching engine at a mere 59 Euros.

PTgui ran the autostitch first time, resulting in a new perfect panorama merged and saved in 5 minutes. They were no noticeable errors and the interface is clear and easy to use. Behind the scenes PTgui also features a number of advanced options on blending and control points, which can be offputting to the casual user but with such a precise autostitch engine they will probably never need to use them.

Stitcher 5 has been a massive disappointment where as PTgui equals in its surprise in terms of speed and accuracy. We cant even go back to our old version of Stitcher as to install the version 5 demo all previous versions need to be unintstalled first.

RealViz have a lot of ground to make up, PTgui is streets ahead and a tenth of the price. The verdict is ultimately disappointing.

We have made the images available online for any user who wants to run the same tests. You can download the zipped archive here (Saved as jpg to reduce file size 7Mb)

The post RealViz Stitcher 5 Review vs PTgui 5.1 appeared first on Digital Urban.