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VIZualize This!

Jonathan Muller

Kinetix has added a number of useful features to Release 2.0 of the ‘VIZ’ visualization product. Some features are aimed directly at AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) professionals. Other features such as NURBS modeling, serve a wider user group. In total, VIZ is a very powerful and mature package for visualization that is hard to beat for value, ease of use, and quality output.

VIZ benefits enormously from being derived from 3D Studio MAX; which has been used to create special effects for recent feature films. This signals the ascendancy of Microsoft Windows NT as a content creation platform.

While MAX heads toward film and television; release 2.0 of VIZ further focuses it on the Architectural, Interior and Engineering professions. Fortunately, VIZ’s native file format is .max, which means that it avoids file transfer issues. In the author’s opinion, this is significant and very welcome.

Although VIZ is enormously capable—and should be the automatic choice for those at whom it is aimed—it does miss out on some MAX features, such as the video-post module. This means that fade transitions between camera views and alpha channel overlay effects require the transfer of project .max files to other parties running MAX, or to an off-line post-production bureau.

System Requirements
Kinetix recommends Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 running service pack 3, or Windows 95. Multiple sessions of VIZ are supported on NT, but not Win 95. Kinetix quotes a 150MHz Pentium with 64Mb RAM and at least 200Mb free swap space as minimum, combined with 800x600 - 256 color graphics display.

To render moderately complex scenes and take advantage of VIZ’ new material and rendering features you should really be looking at a 266 or 300MHz Pentium II, with a minimum of 128Mb of RAM. A graphics card that supports 24 bit (True Color) display at 1024x768 is highly desirable.

Interface
The VIZ user interface is very similar to 3DS Max, and this is a welcome fact—why re-invent the wheel when it already works well? As a regular user of 3D Studio MAX 1.2, I felt immediately at home with VIZ. This helps when learning complex new tools like the NURBS modular, since you can relax without the distraction of a new interface.

New Features
There are multitudes of new features in VIZ R2.0; here are some of the more significant…

DWG link manager
Possibly the most significant new feature in VIZ 2.0, from an architectural or engineering drawing office point of view. The purpose of the DWG Link Manager is to enable the creation of a single design database while working in both AutoCAD and VIZ. Drawings created in AutoCAD can be linked to a VIZ scene, allowing read-only access from AutoCAD’s point of view, but complete freedom of manipulation from the VIZ side of things.

DWG Link Options dialog box.

All entities brought in from AutoCAD behave like other entities created in VIZ. You can scale, rotate and move them as well as attach modifiers and materials. Any changes made in VIZ become part of that scene, but do not affect the entities in the original DWG.

However, if elements of the drawing are modified in AutoCAD, the changes are reflected in the VIZ scene entity when that drawing link is reloaded into VIZ. It does this while maintaining the effect of any VIZ modifiers which were applied to the entity before it was modified.

This creates the possibility of viewing 2D AutoCAD drawing elevations as 3D facades in VIZ. For instance; rather than building a complete 3D model of a building in addition to existing 2D elevation drawings in AutoCAD, those elevation entities can be rotated up into their correct 3D position on top of the floorplan while in VIZ. The resulting ‘card house’ model would be suitable for an exterior perspective view.

2D Window reveals and ledges could have an extrude modifier applied to them in VIZ, giving them 3D depth. If those 2D entities exist in the linked AutoCAD drawing as blocks, a redefinition of those (2D) blocks will be reflected when reloaded into the VIZ scene, and the extrude modifier will still apply to them.

The potential for this facility is far-reaching, but drawings will still need to be created in AutoCAD with this end in mind. PaperSpace entities, materials applied in AutoCAD, and various objects such as shapes, Xlines and Rays.are not supported. AutoCAD blocks are handled by a new VIZ entity called VIZBLOCKS. These are ‘compound’ objects, like nested AutoCAD blocks. Various options are available when linking drawings, such as sorting by layer, by color, and so on. Filter options enable selected layer exclusion.

AEC Objects and Modeling - Doors, windows, and stairs
Parametric 3D doors, windows and stairs simplify the creation and subsequent modification of these items. When a door or window is linked to a VIZ wall object, an automatic Boolean subtraction occurs in the wall, following the door or window around if the placement is altered.

A quick attempt at a parametric "U shape" stair with handrailing and stringers.

A question arises when considering whether walls, windows or doors should be created in VIZ rather than AutoCAD to exploit this feature. Perhaps the basic geometry and setup information could be drawn in the AutoCAD drawing, moving to VIZ to ‘trace over’ this for the parametric objects? This area deserves a bit of thought when planning a 3D model, and further blurs the distinction between either programs’ suitability as specific geometry creation devices.

The parametric stair generator is impressive, with options being spiral, U-shape, L-shape and straight. Railing is also parametric. Riser height and riser count is linked, maintaining a correct overall rise height while adjusting either of the other two variables. A rail path option lets you create custom section handrail profiles by lofting a shape along a spline.

Also provided are a number of procedural object models—like terrain, which allows the creation of a topological mesh from supplied contour elevation data; foliage, for adding plants to a scene; and walls, for use with the parametric windows tool.

Splines and Lofts - Section
One potentially very useful addition is the ‘section’ tool. This allows a cross section slice to be taken through existing geometry by placing a ‘cutting plane’ into the scene. The cutting plane is a gizmo that can be sized, moved and rotated into any position. Once positioned, the outline of the cross sectional slice is used to create an independent spline shape, available for further manipulation using the usual VIZ tools.

NURBS Modeling
For compound curvature, NURBS modeling is often a better alternative to polygonal mesh modeling. 3D Studio VIZ 2.0 offers NURBS as both curves and surfaces, as well as the ability to convert nearly all standard primitive mesh objects into NURBS models.

There are two types of NURBS curves or surfaces; a ‘point’ curve or surface, and a ‘CV’ (control vertices) curve or surface. ‘Point’ versions have control points lying on the surface, while ‘CV’ versions have a lattice of control vertices surrounding the surface or curve. These behave similarly to the FFD modifiers for mesh objects; they are very intuitive and satisfying to use.

While NURBS are mathematically efficient, and produce smoothly profiled rendered objects, users who are proficient in 3D polygon mesh modeling may be surprised at the amount of re-learning required to get the most out of this set of powerful tools.

Lights and Cameras - Omni light shadows
Omni lights now have the ability to cast 360-degree shadows and image projection. Some new options to materials effects include controls that allow the isolation or removal of specular highlights, if desired.

New camera options include orthographic cameras, which view and animate orthogonal and axonometric views.

New Materials - Raytrace material
To selectively apply raytracing within a rendered scene (and thus minimize the considerable render time penalty) VIZ 2.0 has the option of a new raytrace material and map. The map has parameters for both reflective and refractive properties. You assign the material only to the objects in your scene that warrant the feature, such as curved glass materials.

After adjusting parameters for ‘IOR’, (index of refraction) I was able to achieve some impressive results in simulating glass distortions by using the raytracing material for both refraction and reflection mapping. A great addition, but watch those render times!

Rendering- Image motion blur
Image motion blur differs from object motion blur because it produces a ‘smeared’ effect for fast moving objects, rather than the multiple images that object motion blur creates within a frame. It produces a smoother effect than both object motion blur and scene motion blur.

Tools - Walkthrough assistant
A worthwhile addition to VIZ 2.0 is the walkthrough assistant, a MAXscript utility that simplifies this common task. After drawing a spline curve, (or preferably a NURBS curve for a smoother result) to act as the camera path, the assistant prompts you to create a camera. After assigning it to the path, you can set the height and the ‘target’ for the camera over the course of the animation.

Adjustments for the target of the camera are titled ‘turn head’—to left or right. After all, this is an ‘Assistant’! A small preview window gives a rough idea of the result. Changes along the duration of the animation are accomplished by sliding to the appropriate frame and turning on the ‘animate’ button. This tool works well, and simplifies what can often be a time-consuming task.

Asset manager
The asset manager is a new utility to view thumbnails of bitmaps, photoshop .psd, .max or .dwg files on your hard disk. As well as viewing, you can drag and drop bitmaps onto material map slots or onto scene objects and .max and .dwg files can be dropped into a VIZ viewport.

You can also link an AutoCAD .dwg file to a VIZ scene by dragging and dropping from the Asset Manager instead of using the DWG Link Manager. This utility provides welcome convenience to the program, and worked well when reviewed.

Conclusion
Kinetix 3D Studio VIZ 2.0 is a ‘deep’ program. You could use 50% of the features of VIZ and be entirely happy with it. No doubt this will be the case in busy offices where AutoCAD-trained staff are put in front of VIZ and told to produce walkthroughs of the project for tomorrow’s client meeting.

To get the full benefit from it, you need time. I believe this makes VIZ a good investment. It may be overkill for very basic renderings but in conjunction with AutoCAD, you will probably never need any other tool if you are seriously intent on designing and presenting in 3D. Very impressive.

Jonathan Muller
CAD User - republished by arrangement

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