Claude Meets SketchUp

A new SketchUp Connector brings in the power of an MCP (model context protocol) service that allows Claude to interact directly with SketchUp (.SKP) files.

Key Takeaways

• SketchUp users can utilize Claude AI to generate 3D models from prompts, including both text prompts and pictures.
• SketchUp users will need a Claude AI account to utilize the new SketchUp Connector for Claude.

The connectivity benefits users by enhancing their ability to create 3D models, regardless of their SketchUp 3D modeling skill level.

What Can You Model

Users can create new geometry by simply describing their design goals, such as building massing models, landscapes, or furniture.

SketchUp Connector for Claude AI powers AI-generated 3D modeling in Trimble SketchUp.

They can provide plain-language inputs, reference images, sketches, photos, floor plans, and dimensions that they upload to give Claude the necessary context to understand the design modeling objective. Claude then builds the geometry in a cloud SketchUp session, iteratively verifying the dimensions.

Chris Cronin, vice president and general manager of architecture and design solutions at Trimble, says:

“Natural language prompts and the power of AI make it easy for anyone to get started and excel,” adds Cronin, “including inexperienced and non-traditional 3D design users, bringing us closer to our ‘3D for everyone’ goal.”

This new specialized Claude integration with SketchUp is consistent with Trimble’s overall initiatives to democratize advanced technologies and make them available to a wider range of users.

More Claude Advantages

SketchUp Claude Connector also tracks version history within a single chat, allowing users to quickly navigate, troubleshoot, and refine their models. If the design is not quite correct, the user can describe what is wrong, and Claude will make adjustments based on what is specified as wrong.

MORE: Trimble set to acquire AI-powered Document Crunch

When a model is complete, the Connector creates a 2D preview thumbnail and provides a direct download link to the (.SKP) file. Once downloaded, the user can then manually edit the model.

And one more final note. Users can train Claude on core skills and unique workflows to complete competitive tasks.

Availability

Users can get started today by enabling Trimble SketchUp in Claude’s MCP directory connector settings. Accessing the connector does require a Claude account and a Trimble ID for authentication. Users receive a free SketchUp entitlement that allows them to save up to 30 SketchUp models; after that, a paid entitlement is required. Resulting files can be opened in SketchUp for Web, Desktop, iPad, or iPhone.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

As some additional directions. When you log into your Claude account, go to Customize, click on Connect your Apps, and then you will have a list of all of Anthropic’s partners. Search for Trimble. Hit the plus icon to connect Claude with SketchUp. 

View of Claude’s main sign-in page. You need an Anthropic Claude account in order to link SketchUp to Claude for AI-powered modeling.

In watching some users explore this technology, the results are varied but also quite solid. Reference images only type Claude-generations may be off quite a bit, while others are strangely very good. Perhaps most positive is that a combination of detailed reference images (those including dimensions), combined with detailed prompts with dimensions, can yield substantially good results. We are talking about whole combinations of rooms, like a bedroom suite. Another positive side is that Anthropic‘s Claude appears to be quite fast. Trimble doesn’t really note that in their announcement, but user tests are showing good speed for results. You still have to download the file, but that doesn’t take a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, especially if Claude saves you 30 minutes of modeling. 

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Update 2 – MacOS

Update 2 also addresses the demands of the Blender community, which have been calling for native Mac support in V-Ray for Blender. Now they have it!

V-Ray for Blender is now available for Blender on macOS. This is a fully native implementation of V-Ray for Apple’s Mac operating system.

“Responding to the Blender community, we’ve introduced macOS support to V-Ray for Blender, giving even more artists access to our industry-standard rendering and the latest AI technologies to deliver stunningly realistic rendering faster,” said Allan Poore, chief product officer, Chaos. “With streamlined workflows that enhance speed, scalability, and accuracy, artists can spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on creating exceptional images and animations.”

The Blender community has spoken and asked for V-Ray for Mac support, and Chaos has listened. Update 2 brings native macOS support for the first time.

V-Ray is a trusted rendering tool across multiple industries, including AEC, VFX (visual effects), product design, and animation. V-Ray offers a complete “studio-grade” visualization pipeline inside of Blender’s interface and app. Update 2 also includes support for the latest version of Blender 5.

Key features in the update include:

• Native macOS support for V-Ray for Blender
• AI Enhancer adds details and realism to supporting elements like foliage, people and terrain, helping artists refine renders without tedious rework and time-consuming re-renders. It allows them to fine-tune specific objects, such as clothing, and refine vegetation for greater precision and consistency.
• AI Material Generator turns any photo of a real-world surface into a render-ready, PBR material with all the necessary maps in just a few clicks. Part of the recently expanded Chaos Cosmos, AI Material Generator creates secondary materials that don’t require extensive art direction, allowing rapid scene shading without time-consuming setups or extra tools.
• AI Upscaler saves hours of rendering time while delivering crisp, photoreal results. Artists can turn low-resolution images into high-quality, presentation-ready visuals in a single click, boosting resolution while also sharpening textures and enhancing fine details. 

V-Ray for Blender also facilitates Distributed Rendering, spreading rendering loads across multiple computers. And support for Cycles’ Material Override, for easier lighting analysis, custom clay, and wireframe renderers.

For more information, please visit V-Ray for Blender.

Pricing and Availability

New users can get access to the update by purchasing the Blender-only version of V-Ray at a special price or as part of any of the V-Ray suites. Educational pricing for V-Ray is available as well. V-Ray for Blender is available for Windows 10, Windows 11, and macOS (11.0 or newer).

Complete details on the pricing can be found here.

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SketchUp 2025

The new version now boasts photorealistic materials and environments with true-to-life finishes and skydomes that deliver more realistic visuals of models and scenes. These new capabilities pair with the new Ambient Occlusion features from last year’s 2024 release and make the AO features more meaningful.

While SketchUp has a wealth of photo-realistic renderers which work with it, these new visualization advancements bolster the impact of visuals while architects and designers are actively designing in their modeling workflows. The new Photorealistic Materials include layers of textures (maps) that can produce effects like roughness, metalness, shine, and other such visual effects. There are defaults in the program and hundreds more in the 3D Warehouse.

SketchUp 2025 adds Photoreal (PBR) Materials and Environments as it steps up its visualization features along with IFC and Revit interoperability gains.

In addition to photorealistic materials, the new skydome enables 360-degree (HDR or EXR) image files that are both a background image and a light source. So sunset skies cast warm red hues into your environments and onto their objects.

IFC and AEC

Also in version 2025 are new IFC features that enable AEC users to move in and out of SketchUp with their models (BIM models) with greater ease. Upon import of IFC, SketchUp will reuse geometries between components, reducing file sizes by up to 85 percent. SketchUp 2025 also now creates tags for each IFC class present in an imported file. And it now recognizes and supports over 180 IFC classes.

MORE: ToolTalk: Looking at Skema’s SketchUp Integration for Design

When importing an IFC file SketchUp 2025 will preserve the original version, whether in IFC 2×3 or IFC 4. Exports are also improved, including IFC 4 Hierarchy preservation and IFC PropertySets.

The Revit Importer now adds a dialog displaying all available 3D views in your (.rvt) file. Users can now import a specific view. The Revit Importer now creates components in the Outliner based on the hierarchy structure of levels in your (.rvt) file.

Other Features

There are several improvements to modeling features, including improvements to the Rotate tool, Snaps and others. There is also a purge unused prompt option when saving your file to help keep files smaller. There is a new Extension Migrator that helps users migrate their Trimble and third-party extensions when updating.

MORE: Trimble Joins AOUSD Alliance — SketchUp for Omniverse

Other new features include Trimble Connect improvements and a new generative AI feature inside of the material editing tools. This allows users to take older materials and use generative AI to create a PRB texture that matches it.

For info and updates to Layout and other features see this page here.

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Laubwerk

Based in Berlin, Germany, Laubwerk’s acquisition is part of Maxon’s ongoing Capsules Project to provide 3D artists with essential assets to help them jumpstart their creative processes. Laubwerk’s 3D foliage assets are a gold standard in the industry for their natural realism. (see image below).

An example of trees and plants by Laubwerk, which Maxon has acquired. (Image: Assets by Laubwerk / Scene by Imminent Studio)

“With the Laubwerk team joining Maxon, they bring synergies that will result in even greater innovation in our products and enhanced creative possibilities for artists,” says David McGavran, Maxon CEO. “Laubwerk’s vast library of plants and trees, some of which we already added to Maxon One as part of our long-standing partnership, is widely used by artists working in architectural visualization and visual effects. Their solutions and extensive experience will be instrumental in supporting our efforts to accelerate artists’ workflows by delivering ready-to-use, parametric assets to help kickstart their projects.”

Philip Losch, chief technology and product officer at Maxon adds:

Laubwerk has always delivered to artists a bounty of ready-to-use 3D plants models for architects and CG artists working with popular 3D software platforms. Their 3D asset models have also been part of Maxon One subscribers as part of a partnership deal, including access to Laubwerks’s Redshift-ready trees and plants directly inside the Cinema 4D Asset Browser.

“Laubwerk’s mission has always been to create the most authentic, versatile, easy to use digital plant models, grounded in the expertise of experienced landscape architects and botanical experts,” says Philip Paar, CEO and Founder of Laubwerk. “Our previous collaboration with Maxon has been incredibly rewarding and our relationship has always been characterized by a shared passion for innovation and a commitment to enhancing the creative process for digital artists. Joining forces with Maxon allows us to leverage their extensive resources and reach, enabling us to elevate our offerings and continue pushing the envelope in 3D plant modeling and visualization. We look forward to the incredible new possibilities this union will bring to the industry.”

To learn more visit here.

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Maya Creative

This more affordable and flexible version of Maya is a good option for those looking to scale capacity whilst still accessing professional quality VFX (visual effects) and 3D tools.

Screen capture showing Maya Creative in action.

For example, VFX studios are often under considerable pressure to create high-quality content, quickly. Streaming services always need new material in order to satisfy their subscribers. This new product offers artists just the creative tools they need, as they need them, on-demand.

Autodesk. SVP of Media and Entertainment, Diana Colella explains:-

Maya Creative features powerful animation, modeling, rendering, and rigging tools for film, television, and game development. This includes Maya’s full industry-standard creative toolset:

• Animation deformation.
• Camera sequencing.
• Data and scene assembly.
• High-end 3D modeling.
• Motion graphics.
• Rendering and imaging.
• UV, look-development, and texturing.

Maya Creative also includes Arnold renderer, designed to meet the demands of complex photorealistic VFX and animation workflows.

Creativity on demand

Autodesk’s goal was to introduce a cost-efficient option for freelancers, boutique facilities, or small business creative teams, who don’t need the same API access or extensibility required for larger production workflows. Maya Creative is available on both Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS. Artists can use it as it is needed for their work. It is available through Flex, Autodesk’s token-based pay-as-you-go option for daily product use.

According to one independent creator, Clifford Paul, the best thing about Autodesk’s new product is its flexibility. As a freelancer working on a wide range of different creative projects, he needs to use a wide variety of programs for his client work. Maya Creative allows him to use and pay for Maya just for the time when he actually needs to use it.

• Learn more about Maya Creative and compare its features with those of the standard Maya here.
• You can access Maya Creative using Autodesk’s Flex tokens or download a free trial here. Flex tokens cost USD 300 for 100 tokens.
  

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Joining Forces

Alfred P. Scott—who recently penned an article on Architosh about the passing of influential Boston-area architect, educator, mentor, and longtime PowerCADD user, Phil Loheed, AIA, NCARB—wrote in to share the news of AutoDesSys joining forces with Engineered Software. He has shared the entire email, which we will quote below:

Todd Stanley of Engineered Software writes:

In June I delivered sad news that development was ending with PowerCADD. Today, I have some exciting news about PowerCADD’s future. Engineered Software and AutoDesSys, Inc, (the maker of the form•Z 3D design modeler) are joining forces to develop the next generation of PowerCADD. 

This partnership brings additional development, technical support resources and expertise, and a 3D connection to the PowerCADD product line and will add powerful 2D drawing capabilities to the form•Z product line. We share a vision of a drawing tool with classic PowerCADD capabilities using a modern approach that will take it well into the future. 

In this partnership I will be focusing on development, returning to a role I have cherished since the early days of PowerCADD. Work on this exciting new PowerCADD is already underway. Please bear with us through this process. We look forward to sharing details along the way and we  hope to launch the new PowerCADD by the end of next summer.

We will be announcing more details on the partnership in the coming weeks and operational details regarding sales and technical support. 

An interesting note above is the comment that “work on this exciting development is underway.”  This will certainly be a welcome sigh of relief for countless PowerCADD users who heard this news not too long ago.

It is with heavy hearts and much sadness that Engineered Software’s announcement of PowerCADD’s future must be made.

Those were Todd Stanley’s opening words back in June on the PowerCADD forums at Engineered Software. It appeared that Apple’s operating system changes had gotten the best of them and the required efforts to catch up were simply no longer feasible.

With AutoDesSys Inc. now coming to the rescue this latest announcement reverses the course for the future of PowerCADD.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

We have been tardy in announcing the original storyline about PowerCADD but it is turning out that we can get a chance to write a happy story. That story still needs a deeper journalistic look-see to get at the what-about and goings-on of what is really involved. Certainly, PowerCADD and AutoDesSys will likely make a more detailed announcement in the near future as Todd Stanley notes in his message above. 

Given what we know from what everyone could read here, AutoDesSys must be taking some stake in ownership in Engineered Software. It is just a guess at this moment. If the total rewrite of PowerCADD and the challenges that come with that were the big issues, AutoDesSys will surely be the source of technical knowledge, know-how, and maybe manpower to get PowerCADD’s source code to where it needs to be. And where is that? 

Apple wants its Mac developers on its development IDE, Xcode working in Swift, and SwiftUI. But that is only part of the challenge in creating a modern platform for PowerCADD. Going off of OpenGL and moving to Apple Metal is also a critical affair. And as far as formZ is concerned, it too is making its migration—as most Mac 3D/CAD applications are—over to Apple’s modern code requirements. Such a process is big work and it can come with critical dependencies. 

Back to a more positive light, the idea of future PowerCADD and future formZ applications having connectivity and integrations sounds interesting. PowerCADD is famous for several reasons, including being quite popular over the years despite being only developed for the Mac platform. Back in the days of Barry Isakson’s “Day in the Life of an Architect” seminar series at Apple locations around the United States, Isakson gave high praise to PowerCADD’s overall capabilities, citing its graphics orientation and in particular its speed. 

Over at FormZ’s forums, they enthusiastically offer a warm hand to PowerCADD users. The implications are fairly clear. FormZ technology will benefit from PowerCADD’s robust 2D CAD drawing code base, and PowerCADD users will gain a bigger and true 3D sibling. The moderator at FormZ says, “Work has already begun on a new modern PowerCADD. We look forward to sharing details along the way and expect to introduce these exciting new 2D capabilities by the end of next summer.” 

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Streamed Live

The event is scheduled for Wednesday, 17 March 2021. It takes places at 8:30 AM PDT / 11:30 AM EDT.

The free virtual show is aimed at content creators across various industries where 2D, 3D, motion design, VFX (visual special effects), and visualization take place, often in various combinations. Key industries include Hollywood film and broadcast television VFX, product and industrial design visualizations and animations, AEC industry renderings and animations, and motion design across broadcast television and other industries.

There will be a series of presentations from:

• Jonas Pilz is Product Marketing Specialist, Cinema 4D evangelist, and Master Trainer at Maxon. Previously as a freelance 3D generalist, he created visualizations and animations for designated industrial clients and television with Cinema 4D.
  • 9:00 am PT – “Procedural Rail Tracks, Streets, and Power Lines”
• Elly Wade is a UK-based expert trainer and self-taught Cinema 4D artist who loves to set up fast ways to create beautiful monograph designs, with quick workflows for combining them with After Effects.
  • 10:30 am PT – “Creating a ‘Release the Kraken’ Scene in Cinema 4D and Redshift”
• Athanasios Pozantzis, a.k.a. “Noseman”, is a Cinema 4D Master Trainer, tutor, and creator of educational content for Maxon products, particularly Cinema 4D.
  • 12:00pm PT – “Mixing Procedural, Art-Directable, and Dynamic Setups: Jellyfish School”
• Daniel “Hashi” Hashimoto, AKA “Action Movie Dad”, is Senior Content Creator at Maxon and producer of the ever-popular “Cheap Tricks” and other VFX tutorials.
  • 1:30 pm PT – “Creating Invisible Things in After Effects”

You can learn more about Maxon’s first 3D & Motion show of 2021 here.

Presentations will be streamed live and will be available online shortly after airing on 3DMotionShow.com as well as the Maxon YouTube channel.

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Until now!

MetaHuman Creator

MetaHuman Creator is a new tool for creating unique (not pre-made models) digital humans that are rigged and ready to animate in Unreal Engine in a matter of minutes.

While the software is not quite ready, users will be able to test-drive the software as part of an Early Access program within the next few months. Moreover, Epic is releasing two fully finished sample digital humans available today to begin working with.

Epic’s new MetaHuman Creator is a forthcoming app for making bespoke life-like digital humans for use in Unreal Engine.

MetaHumans Creator will enable users to create bespoke, real-time digital humans with life-like accuracy. Epic says this is going to set a new benchmark in the industry. Users will be able to directly manipulate facial features, adjust skin complexion, and select from preset body types, hairstyles, clothing and more. You can even edit a character’s teeth.

The new Epic app is a cloud-streamed application where you conduct your character creation process. Once your character is finished, you can export and download it, rigged and ready to animate in Unreal Engine.

To learn more and see what this app can do, click here for MetaHuman Creator. And watch the video below.

Details – Availability

The software is for use only with Unreal Engine-based products. Version 4.26.1 or later is required. This implies that Twinmotion may be able to utilize such digital humans if it is based on Unreal Engine 4.26.1 or later.

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Vulkan on Apple

Apple has forbidden Vulkan drivers on their macOS and other operating systems, eschewing a cross-platform graphics API framework for its proprietary Metal graphics API. This, of course, contributes to 3D graphics platform fragmentation which makes it harder and more expensive for software developers to write code and deploy it once to multiple operating systems and devices. The net result of that is less software choice. And on Apple’s minority share macOS platform, it has meant fewer games and professional 3D graphics applications than on Windows.

MORE: Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Macs with M1 Chip

The Khronos® Vulkan® Portability™ Initiative fights this fragmentation by encouraging and enabling layered implementations of subsets of Vulkan over Apple Metal, Microsoft DX12, and other APIs.

Khronos says that much of the initial interest in Vulkan portability has been centered on layering Vulkan functionality over Apple’s Metal API, as native Vulkan drivers are not permitted on macOS, iOS, or other Apple platforms.

Developing Vulkan applications for Apple Platforms on macOS.

There has been significant effort behind Vulkan Portability efforts for macOS, and there are multiple royalty-free, open-source Vulkan Portability implementations over Metal, including MoltenVK and gfx-portability. The former has recently added many new features, including support for Apple Silicon, Metal 3.0, Mac Catalyst, and more.

macOS SDK for Vulkan

As more developers use Vulkan Portability on Apple platforms the need to further improve associated development tools grows more urgent. LunarG, who develops and supports Vulkan open-source tooling, has previously ported the Vulkan SDK to macOS, enabling developers to build, run, and debug their Vulkan applications on Macs.

LunarG is now shipping Device Simulation (DevSim) and Validation layers for the Vulkan SDK on macOS in addition to Linux and Windows.

To learn more visit this blog post.

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The new PreDesign features also produce data and graphics to help users articulate and build a narrative around early-stage climate-related design decisions.

PreDesign with SketchUp

“SketchUp is a fantastic way to develop ideas in 3D and we are continuously exploring new capabilities. We saw tremendous value in making it easy for our users to include design research in their pre-design workflows,” said Andrew Corney, PE, M.CIBSE, M.ASHRAE, product director at Trimble. “With PreDesign, we’re providing designers with the insights they need to take a truly holistic approach to creating suitable design strategies and communicate value to their clients.”

PreDesign is a new feature set inside SketchUp 2021 Professional that helps architects and designers gain insights from design research focused on climate data.

Climate responsiveness is an important factor in building design and energy-related building performance. Even in today’s Greta Thunberg context, building designers often fail to take sufficient action to maximally optimize architecture to building energy performance. At the same time, architects and designers worldwide widely use Trimble’s SketchUp for their early design phase work. So the introduction of PreDesign features for climate response is an excellent fit.

Here is what the PreDesign features help architects and designers focus on:

• Architectural response – connects the dots between the climate and building type, suggesting appropriate architectural responses, such as larger openings to take advantage of outdoor conditions or shading to control adverse solar gain. Armed with this knowledge, architects and designers can create an informed architectural design narrative around climate and build the most efficient building possible.
• Shading – produces an intuitive sun path diagram showing the areas that receive warming sun and indicating areas that are exposed to overheating sun or overcast by cloudy skies—insights that are based on existing weather files. This allows designers to effectively position the built form to take advantage of favorable conditions, such as a well-lit courtyard. PreDesign provides shading guidance specific to any direction and indicates the effectiveness of shading options for optimal climate design.
• Glazing – allows designers to adjust glazing type, framing insulation, solar control, and external shading to better understand the impact of glazing specifications and ensure realistic and budget-friendly materials are specified.
• Daylighting – provides inspiration and clear guidance on the suitability of a wide range of top lighting options, making it easy to find the right solution for beneficial daylight.
• Outside spaces – provides the foresight needed to design functional outdoor spaces, allowing designers to propose strategies such as windbreaks, fans, rain covers, fire pits, and solar-powered lighting.

Architosh readers may recall that recently we published an in-depth product review of SketchUp Studio, the version of SketchUp that comes with environmental analysis design tools originally from Sefaira. In our review of SketchUp 2020, we dove into the many benefits of SketchUp Studio with the Sefaira tools, showing how they aid critical early-stage design and help inform decisions for architects pursuing LEED credits for their building projects.

PreDesign doesn’t provide the Sefaira tools and workflows but does provide many useful features that will help architects and designers understand the impact of climate data for their specific building site. It is the major new feature update in SketchUp 2021. But it is far from the only other really great feature and improvement in SketchUp 2021.

SketchUp 2021 New Features

Add Location is a new feature that brings hi-res aerial imagery for accurate site placement and site context data. In version 2020, as Architosh discussed in its review, SketchUp renamed Layers to Tags. It was more than a name change. Now in version 2021, Trimble SketchUp has added new Tag Folders to help users better organize models by tags, with faster access and bulk visibility control. Basically, what one can say about this new Tag Folders feature is it is equal to layer set visibility control in other CAD and 3D programs. While seemingly simple in terms of its addition, it is a huge win for SketchUp users. They also added a “filter” data field at the top of the Tags palette. So now you can filter Tags like you were able to filter in the Outliner. (see image here from our article, “Product Review: Trimble SketchUp Studio 2020,” 25 Aug 2020).

Tag Folders offer SketchUp users serious new organizational powers—a much-needed feature for large 3D models.

Another new set of updates is with Scenes, with the ability to select and save hidden objects on a scene-by-scene basis. With this latest update, you can save the visibility state of hidden objects and section planes. Another new feature, though small but useful, is the ability to toggle on and off “line inferencing.” Sometimes inferencing—which makes drawing actions snap to the red, green, and blue axes super easy—gets in the way. So now you can turn it off. And SketchUp 2021 introduces a native ‘Weld Edges’ command to join edges and arcs into a single polyline without installing an extension.

Materia and Live Components

Trimble has added new parametric modeling technology to SketchUp 2021 called Materia, which they refer to as a “computational design platform.” The company says that the introduction of Live Components is just the early start of where this new computational design platform will be going. So that is exciting news for SketchUp fans.

Live Components in SketchUp 2021 is part of the new Materia computational design platform.

Live Components are programmed with modeling logic that controls their geometry vis-a-vis a Live Components configuration palette. One example is a table that can automatically adjust in size complete with updated chairs for the table. The configurator options allow for material and surface color changes to objects in the Live Component, so a table surface could change from wood to glass and chairs can change their materials.

Live Components are found in 3D Warehouse and downloaded into your models. However, the company says that they will bring this ability to create your own Live Components soon. This technology only works with version 2021, of course. Live Components and the Materia computational design platform are launched as part of what Trimble calls SketchUp Labs, a new way for Trimble to introduce new features into users’ hands where they can impact development.

To learn more visit here.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

The biggest surprise news in this latest version of SketchUp (v.2021) isn’t any of the main features but the introduction of Materia—this new “computational design platform” that Trimble is referring to as the technology behind Live Components. Where Trimble is thinking of going with “computational design” is an open question. The fact that they call it a “platform” and that it will work across other Trimble products (which ones isn’t yet clear) is even more interesting.

The new logo for SketchUp (also introduced with this new version) is another indicator that Trimble has been working hard behind the scenes on some massive changes for the world’s most popular 3D modeling software. There have been rumblings over the years that SketchUp could morph into a full-blown BIM program; many AEC users treat SketchUp models in similar and same ways to conventional BIM models; SketchUp already supports IFC in some capacity. Still, a true BIM program SketchUp is not. At least not yet. On the other hand, the new Tags and Tag Folder and Tag Filters feature all better enable more intensified and larger 3D models at the model management level. This certainly creates an interesting and more robust foundation for where SketchUp goes next. 

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Supporting Blender

Patron Membership is the highest level of support for the Blender Development Foundation and Unity joins other big names like AMD, Nvidia and Epic Games. This news signals that Unity recognizes Blender software as an important and essential digital tool for creative and technical pipelines across a range of industries.

“Ten years ago Unity already offered support for Blender files to Unity users,” said Blender Foundation founder and chairman Ton Roosendaal. “Thanks to the grant we will continue investing in Blender core development, with particular focus on high-quality interoperability with free and open formats.”

Unity Technology’s involvement gains Blender another industry heavyweight and additional funding for development.

The latest Development Fund memberships have pushed the monthly donations over 100k euro, which will support 20 people to work on core Blender development full-time.

“At Unity, we believe the world is a better place with more creators in it. This has always been at the core of our business. As such, our values align with those of the Blender Foundation and it seems a natural fit to continue our support of an open ecosystem that enables millions of users to create 3D content with a free tool,” said Dave Rhodes, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Unity Create Solutions, Unity Technologies.

About Blender Foundation

The Blender Foundation (2002) is an independent public benefit organization with the purpose to provide a complete, free and open source 3D creation pipeline, managed by public projects on blender.org. The foundation offers grants to individual contributors to Blender, worldwide.

Its spin-off corporation Blender Institute (2007) has been established in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, it hosts the foundation’s offices and currently employs over 20 people who work on the Blender software and creative projects to validate and stress Blender in production environments.

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The implementations are shipping from Oculus and Microsoft, leveraging the newly opened OpenXR 1.0 Adopters Program and open-source conformance tests. OpenXR is a royalty-free, open standard that provides direct access into Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)—collectively known as XR—runtimes across diverse platforms and devices.

Khronos OpenXR Conformance Tests and Adopters Program. All rights reserved.

The OpenXR Adopter’s Program enables consistent cross-vendor testing and reliable operation of OpenXR across multiple platforms and devices with OpenXR-conformant products published on the Khronos Conformant Product Registry.

Enabling portability across various platforms

Khronos members Microsoft and Facebook each have multiple conformant OpenXR-enabled devices showcasing how OpenXR enables portability across diverse platforms. PC-enabled virtual reality devices include Microsoft’sWindows Mixed Reality and Oculus Rift headsets, enabling these HMDs, and any future OpenXR-compatible devices, to run the same application executable on Windows. In addition, Microsoft has released an OpenXR-conformant runtime for the HoloLens 2 headset, and Facebook has shipped a conformant runtime for the Android-based Oculus Quest, demonstrating OpenXR’s flexibility to enable portable VR and AR applications across standalone and tethered XR devices—using different underlying operating systems.

Developing OpenXR applications

In addition, Valve has released a developer preview implementation of OpenXR 1.0 with new features on SteamVR expected to now appear through OpenXR, rather than OpenVR APIs. Similarly, Varjo’s developer preview implementation of OpenXR enables the use of OpenXR applications with Varjo headsets. The Monado open-source XR runtime founded by Collabora is also more compatible and capable and is approaching conformance with OpenXR 1.0.

OpenXR enables developers to create polished VR experiences by targeting a single non-proprietary SDK. All rights reserved.

In parallel with finalizing the OpenXR 1.0 conformance tests, the OpenXR Working Group continues to push the API forward and announces today two OpenXR cross-vendor extensions for eye and hand tracking. These new extensions expand the range of advanced UI techniques that can be portably deployed through this cross-platform, cross-vendor API. In fact, Ultraleap has released a developer preview OpenXR integration for its hand-tracking technology for Ultraleap tracking devices.

“This is another milestone for OpenXR, and Collabora is proud to have contributed to the development of the OpenXR specification as well as the open-source conformance test suite,” said Ryan Pavlik, specification editor, OpenXR Working Group, and principal software engineer at Collabora. “The Monado open-source XR runtime project founded by Collabora is quickly approaching conformance. As a specification editor, I commend the working group on their dedication to publishing and maintaining a high-quality standard and a comprehensive test suite. The suite is designed to ensure conformance to the specification and uniform application behavior across runtimes and environments, so the industry can deliver on the OpenXR promise of unifying reality.”

XR games and applications

OpenXR enables XR games and applications to target the widest range of hardware with maximum performance. Today, Microsoft is excited to announce that Minecraft’s new RenderDragon rendering engine is building its desktop VR support using OpenXR!  Further adding to OpenXR ecosystem momentum, several open-source projects have also incorporated OpenXR. The free and open-source 3D creation suite, Blender 2.83, has integrated OpenXR to deliver native VR scene inspection capabilities. Google recently released Chromium81 with OpenXR as its default backend for WebXR, enabling Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers to use any OpenXR-compatible hardware. Finally, Microsoft has released its OpenXR samples for Mixed Reality Developers as open-source, demonstrating how to use OpenXR to access the full capabilities of HoloLens 2. Firefox Reality also supports the OpenXR browser for the HoloLens 2 platform.

“Khronos has done it again, bringing divergent industry organizations, technologies, and ambitions to a common ground that benefits all parties,” said Dr. Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research. “OpenXR will not just save VR and AR—it will provide the launching pad to make all the promises, dreams, and potential be realized. An extraordinary body of work, the members are to be congratulated for their tireless effort. The industry is in your debt.”

Become and OpenXR Adopter

The OpenXR 1.0 Conformance Test Suite has been published as open-source under the Apache 2.0 license on GitHub for continued public development and for use by any company as they implement the OpenXR API on their platform. Any implementers, whether or not a Khronos member, are welcome to become an OpenXR Adopter and submit conformance test results for working group review and approval in order to use the OpenXR trademark and gain patent protection under the Khronos Intellectual Property Framework.

Industry Support for OpenXR 1.0 Adopter’s Program

“From the earliest days of VIVE, we’ve set out to keep the platform open for developers and their content, and we believe OpenXR’s work is important for the entire XR community. We’re committed to enabling the developer community to build the content and applications that power experiences across the spectrum of reality. This is a big step in the right direction for the XR industry,” said Dario Laverde, senior developer evangelist, HTC.

“Holochip develops AR flight training and simulation technology for the U.S. military and is incorporating XR capabilities into existing NAVAIR training environments. The OpenXR 1.0 spec will enable wide adoption of conformant OpenXR-enabled devices. The OpenXR spec paves the way for military simulation environments to benefit from the technical advances in the commercial XR market. These advances will lead to greater effectiveness and cost savings of training and improve the ability of warfighters to safely mitigate risks,” said Robert Batchko, CEO of Holochip Corporation.

About Khronos

The Khronos Group is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of over 150 industry-leading companies creating advanced, royalty-free, interoperability standards for 3D graphics, augmented and virtual reality, parallel programming, vision acceleration, and machine learning. Khronos activities include Vulkan®, OpenGL®, OpenGL® ES, WebGL™, SPIR-V™, OpenCL™, SYCL™, OpenVX™, NNEF™, OpenXR™, 3D Commerce™, ANARI™, OpenVG™, and glTF™. Khronos members drive the development and evolution of Khronos specifications and are able to accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests.

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Modeled after Maxon’s NAB Show

Following the success of Maxon’s NAB digital experience, the company will host a robust calendar of online streaming events to coincide with the timing of Siggraph, IBC, NAB Show NY, HOW, and Adobe Max — shows that are now canceled as in-person events. Each virtual trade show or event will be modeled after Maxon’s NAB Show online event, which featured four full days of exciting presentations that streamed live the same week the major industry conference would have taken place prior to its cancellation amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

01 – Enjoy the latest demo reel, filled with amazing 3D animation, created by Cinema 4D artists from around the world. All rights reserved.

Maxon will be hosting this series of events as “The 3D and Motion Design Show.” It will feature the world’s top motion graphics and VFX artists showcasing professional 3D techniques and real-world production workflows using Cinema 4D, Redshift, and the Red Giant suite of products. Presentations from each event will be streamed live and available online shortly after airing on 3DMotionShow.com as well as the Maxon YouTube channel.

“The 3D and Motion Design Show” kicks-off on June 18th, at 8:00 a.m. (PDT). Interested viewers can sign up now to receive updates and for early access on 3DMotionShow.com.

Presenter highlights

• Anthony Abbott, Senior Creative of San Francisco-based motion design studio Swordfish, will discuss the creation of the company’s short film, Talos, which was produced during studio downtime and completed while the creative team was sheltering in place during Covid-19. Anthony will share techniques used in Cinema 4D, Redshift, and Red Giant Looks to create the film’s mesmerizing 3D visual effects.

• Alan Towndrow, Rigger and Animator for Bomper Studio, a leading creative production studio in Wales, will share how they relied on the character animation toolset in Cinema 4D to create its recent hilarious animated short, Coffee Run. Alan will also share the details of their contest for aspiring animators called #MovingColin, with prizes that include a Cinema 4D subscription and a Bomper Studio internship.

• Ryan Talbot, a Dallas-based freelance 3D animation and VFX artist for broadcast, commercials, mixed reality, and more will be sharing an exciting new personal project created with Cinema 4D and Redshift.

Maxon Event Calendar

The Maxon virtual event calendar for June through December 2020 includes:

• The 3D and Motion Design Show: June 18

• The 3D and Motion Design Show for Siggraph: July 21-23

• The 3D and Motion Design Show: August 12

• The 3D and Motion Design Show: August 26

• The 3D and Motion Design Show for IBC: September 11-14

• The 3D and Motion Design Show for AdobeMax/NAB NY/HOW: Oct 26-28

• The 3D and Motion Design Show: November 18

• The 3D and Motion Design Show: December 9

All events will be streamed live on 3DMotionShow.com (formerly C4DLive.com).

About Maxon

Maxon is a developer of professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions. In January, Maxon and Red Giant closed a merger of the two companies. The combined company’s award-winning Cinema 4D, Redshift 3D, and Red Giant products have been used extensively to help create and render everything from stunning visual effects in top feature films, TV shows and commercials, cutting-edge game cinematics for AAA games, as well as for medical illustration, architectural and industrial design applications. Maxon products are available directly from the website and its worldwide distribution network. Maxon is part of the Nemetschek Group.

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New in Twinmotion 2020

Twinmotion 2020 is a real-time, interactive visualization software that delivers excellent renders and animations to professionals in architecture, design, construction, urban planning, landscape architecture, and related fields. Users can quickly and easily communicate their designs to colleagues and clients in a minimum of clicks.

Twinmotion 2020 is now out and offers greater realism and tons of new features.

Key new features focus on new lighting, vegetation, material options that let users increase realism and design faster.

“We have seen incredible adoption of Twinmotion within the architectural industry, with almost half a million Twinmotion registrations since it joined the Epic suite in May of last year,” shared Marc Petit, General Manager, Unreal Engine, Epic Games. “It’s always our mission to make high-end visualization more accessible to all users regardless of experience, and Twinmotion 2020 is the most robust release to date –enabling high-quality visuals in real-time, while still being extremely intuitive and easy to use.”

A sample rendering of the new Twinmotion 2020, featuring new Glow material options.

Here are key descriptions of new features:

• Enhanced lighting and rendering — An array of new lighting features have been introduced, including a new screen-space global illumination (SSGI) method for dynamic indirect lighting, a physically-based atmospheric sun and sky model for more realistic exterior renders at different times of day and year, an area lighting tool to accurately fill spaces with diffuse lighting, a volumetric lighting tool for accurate light ray effects through particles such as fog or smoke, and cinematic depth of field.
• Enhanced vegetation system — Users now have access to all new high-fidelity tree assets from Xfrog, and bush assets from Quixel, containing various age and season options; sub-surface scattering tools accurately filter light through leaves. A new vegetation growth tool allows users to see how vegetation will look within a property over time, from first planting to full growth. Users also have increased control over landscapes with new grass customization options, a new vegetation scatter tool, and improved vegetation painting.
• More realistic humans — All 3D animated characters have been replaced by new high-quality photo-scanned character assets from AXYZ design. Users can choose from 62 animated characters, each with 5 clothing variations, or 82 ready-posed characters.
• Rhino One-Click Support – Rhino is now supported by Twinmotion’s DirectLink feature, enabling users to sync their Rhino and Grasshopper data into Twinmotion with a single click. Organization and hierarchy are retained, and native materials are automatically substituted with Twinmotion PBR materials.
• Project presentation and viewer – Twinmotion Presenter enables users to share an individual project in a standalone viewer in a lightweight package, with the option for multiple points of view and camera paths, and either a locked view, guided, or free-to-explore options for viewers. A new note tool also lets users annotate elements within a scene for streamlined project review and information sharing. Notes can be exported to Revit, ARCHICAD, and many other BIM packages.
• New material and texture options — Users can now import and use H264-encoded video as a material, enabling animated features such as a TV playing or a flickering fireplace. A new Frosted Glass material makes it easy to simulate translucent glass (such as privacy windows) and accurate light scatter. An enhanced Glow material uses screen-space global illumination (SSGI) to enable those objects to act as a light source. Additionally, a new X-Ray option lets users see the position of objects occluded by other objects, allowing for easy visualization of MEP data such as pipe or air duct locations.

Pricing and Availability

Licenses of Twinmotion 2020 are available now as a special offer to new users at a 50% discount off the US $499 purchase price, plus free upgrades through December 2021.Early adopters using previous versions of Twinmotion get access to Twinmotion 2020 free of charge, and free upgrades through December 2021.

A new X-ray render mode enables items like MEP items to appear in renders in ghosted form.

Please see https://www.unrealengine.com/get-now/twinmotion for a full list of pricing and licensing information.

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About Quixel

The Swedish software developer has particular expertise in photogrammetry using using Megascans of 2D and 3D physically-based assets. There asset library of scans—over 10,000 in total—will now be free with to use with the Unreal Engine. Ten high resolution packs have been shared on the Unreal Marketplace. The popular Iceland collection used in “Rebirth” assets are also available for free.

Quixel is now part of Epic Games and Unreal Engine (UE) users gain free access to Megascans, Quixel Mixer and Quixel Bridige.

Quixel Mixer and Quixel Bridge—two of the company’s software solutions that run on both Windows and macOS (and Linux for Bridge)—are free to use for all regardless of Engine choice or license type. Quixel users can look forward to more downloads per month, and more generous license terms.  

Epic recently partnered with Quixel and other companies on a groundbreaking virtual production demo for creating in-camera visual effects. Today, Epic is sharing, behind the scenes video exploring opportunities for artists working in film and television production with new features in Unreal Engine and high-fidelity visual assets from Quixel.  The AEC industry benefits from this collaboration providing new features for artists working on high-end visualization. 

“Building photorealistic 3D content is an expensive endeavor in game development and film production. By coming together with Quixel to make Megascans free for all use in Unreal Engine, this level of artistry is now available to everyone from triple-A studios to indies,” said Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney. 

“Our mission at Quixel has always been to make the world more accessible for everyone through ultra-high resolution scanning. As part of Epic Games, we’re now able to accelerate this vision as we grow the Megascans library, speed up the development of Bridge and Mixer, and improve integrations with all major 3D software and renderers,” said Quixel Co-founder Teddy Bergsman.

Upgrades to Unreal Engine Version 4.24

Epic also announced a better streamlined workflows that advance Unreal Engine for all creators Starting with Unreal 4.24 release features such as Datasmith suite of plugins, static mesh editing and the Variant Manager now ship as a unified binary tool. 

Quixel’s software solutions run on both Windows and macOS.

Unreal 4.24 now ships with many new upgrades and features:

• New nondestructive, layer-based Landscape workflows enable more interesting and engaging outdoor environments where the terrain automatically adapts to other elements in the world.
• The Sky Atmosphere component generates a physically-accurate sky that can be updated dynamically depending on the time of day, and it can be viewed from the ground or from the air to create realistic-looking planetscapes.
• The new experimental strand-based hair and fur system brings characters to life with realistic, flowing hair.
• Screen-space global illumination allows for natural light-filled spaces using fewer resources.
• The Live Universal Scene Description (USD) Stage Actor creates a direct link to the USD file on disk for faster iteration and better collaboration.
• Project creation workflow now includes a wizard-style workflow centered around the industry or type of project you are creating so you only see relevant settings and tools.

Epic also announced that the Twinmotion free download has been extended to first quarter 2020 until the new release of Twinmotion. Epic says the new release will offer greater photorealism, improved assets, and tools to facilitate collaborative workflows among other features. Twinmotion is a highly intuitive solution for the AEC industry. 

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

Quixel’s software tools, particularly Mixer, are solid tools that would be of use to the company’s advanced segment of its entry level app users—Twinmotion users. The ability to work swiftly in Twinmotion is one of the apps strongest appeas but the ability to customize and provide your projects with textures that are highly specific to your projects would be highly valued by many architectural visualization professsionals. While there is not specific word on where Quixel’s acquired assets will touch down on Twinmotion users versus Unreal Engine users, ultimately we do know today that Epic plans a bridge of sorts to bring users up-market from Twinmotion to Unreal Engine over time. — Anthony Frausto-Robledo

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ARCHICAD 23 Wins

The widely lauded and awarded ARCHICAD BIM software package has won this top honor for BIM technology for the ninth year in a row, at this.

Known in the UK AEC industry as “The Hammers” solutions are nominated and voted on by real users working industry-wide in the AEC industry. As one of the few awards covering the use of IT in design and construction, the awards are known for reflecting the actual users’ experiences with products for delivering projects.

GRAPHISOFT UK staff receive their 9th in a row BIM Product of the Year award at this year’s Hammers!

“We are always proud to be recognized by our users,” says Akos Pfemeter, GRAPHISOFT’s vice president of marketing. “Our success in these 100 percent customer-voted awards underscore the value our users attach to both ARCHICAD and BIMx.”

“Doing so well in these awards for nine consecutive years means so much to us, added Adrian Girling, Managing Director, GRAPHISOFT UK.

The award-winning BIMx features the Hyper-model, a unique technology for integrating 2D and 3D building project navigation. BIMx helps bridge the gap between design studio and the construction site. “Knowing our users value the work we put into developing ARCHICAD and BIMx makes these awards very special,” said Adrian Girling.

Voters appreciated ARCHICAD 23’s responsiveness, advanced modeling capabilities for prefabricated structures, and best-in-class multidisciplinary workflows, said the company.

To learn more about both solutions visit GRAPHISOFT’s home page here.

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The Seattle-headquartered software company said that the WIP (work in progress) is recommended just for testing and not for production or mission-critical work.

Rhino 6 for Mac with Integrated Grasshopper

As Architosh has written in the past, the big news about Rhino 6 was the integration of Grasshopper, the industry’s leading algorithmic-aided design (AAD) or node-based visual programming tool. Tools like Grasshopper—sometimes referred to as accessible programming for designers (APFD)—enable architects and designers to develop generative algorithms for building both 2D and 3D computer models and designs. Such tools have been in vogue for well over a decade and a half by key marquee design firms (eg: Zaha Hadid Architects) and architecture students worldwide.

01 – Rhino 6 for Mac WIP is available for download, use, and testing. It includes integrated Grasshopper.

Rhino 6 for Mac includes Grasshopper with multithreaded components, VB support, and more. It features a faster display using modern graphics hardware support, an updated Materials and Rendering system.

There is also a Raytraced viewport display mode, a faster and cleaner Make2D with more customizable results, and most of the new features and enhancements found in the already released Rhino 6 for Windows.

Availability

Rhino 6 for Mac WIP is available for those who have a license of Rhino 5 for Mac. Users must first critically update their version of Rhino 5 for Mac to the latest version prior to installing Rhino 6 for Mac WIP.

The solution also requires macOS High Sierra or later. Users can report any problems on the Serengeti Mac forum.

To download Rhino 6 for Mac WIP go here.

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OpenXR Specification

OpenXR is a unifying, royalty-free, open standard that provides high-performance access to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)— collectively known as XR—platforms and devices. The new specification can be found on the Khronos website and is released in provisional form to enable developers and implementers to provide feedback at the OpenXR forum.

The OpenXR 0.90 provisional release specifies a cross-platform Application Programming Interface (API) enabling XR hardware platform vendors to expose the functionality of their runtime systems. By accessing a common set of objects and functions corresponding to application lifecycle, rendering, tracking, frame timing, and input, which are frustratingly different across existing vendor-specific APIs, software developers can run their applications across multiple XR systems with minimal porting effort—significantly reducing industry fragmentation.

The Khronos OpenXR working group was formed in early 2017 with the support and participation of leading XR companies. Throughout the development of the specification, multiple Khronos members have been developing independent implementations to ensure a robust and complete specification. Many of these implementations are becoming available for developers to evaluate including the ‘Monado’ OpenXR open source implementation from Collabora and the OpenXR runtime for Windows Mixed Reality headsets from Microsoft shipping today. Additionally, the Unreal Engine from Epic plans to continue to support OpenXR.

01 – OpenXR is a new royalty-free, open standard for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) platforms and devices and will simplify development enabling applications in this space to reach a wider array of hardware platforms.

Links to these implementations and more information can be found on https://www.khronos.org/openxr.

“OpenXR seeks to simplify AR/VR software development, enabling applications to reach a wider array of hardware platforms without having to port or re-write their code and subsequently allowing platform vendors supporting OpenXR access to more applications,” said Brent Insko, lead VR architect at Intel and OpenXR working group chair. “The OpenXR provisional specification—together with the runtimes publicly available at launch and coming in the next few weeks—will enable hands-on, cross-platform testing by application and engine developers. The working group welcomes developer feedback to ensure an OpenXR 1.0 specification that truly meets the needs of the XR industry.”

Wide Industry Support

“It is significant when so many key players in the industry come together to create an open standard like OpenXR. We look forward to seeing the adoption of the new standard, and believe that reducing barriers for cross-platform XR applications accelerates growth, innovation, and diversity in the VR and AR industry,” said Nandan Nayampally, vice president and general manager, Client Line of Business, Arm.

“Being dedicated to royalty-free open standards and open source technologies, Collabora is proud to be one of the major contributors of the OpenXR working group and its first release today. In addition to this milestone, Collabora is excited to announce Monado, an open source implementation of the newly released OpenXR spec. More than just a vendor SDK, Monado is an open source project and codebase to harness and focus wider community effort around XR technologies. Collabora plans to provide the technical foundation and industry leadership to accelerate the development and deployment of XR technologies on Linux while providing XR device vendors the choice to use and contribute to a Linux-based platform for their XR products,” said Philippe Kalaf, CEO, Collabora.

“Epic believes that open standards like OpenXR are essential foundations for a vibrant, multi-platform VR and AR industry in the coming years. We’ve supported OpenXR since its inception, including powering the first public demo of OpenXR at SIGGRAPH last year, and hope to see the ecosystem continue to grow with the first public release of the spec at GDC,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games. “Epic plans to continue supporting OpenXR in Unreal Engine 4.”

“Facebook and Oculus continue to believe in the value the OpenXR standard delivers to users and developers. We plan to provide runtime support for apps built on OpenXR 1.0 on the Rift and Quest platforms later this year,” said Nate Mitchell, Oculus Co-founder and head of VR product, Facebook.

“HTC VIVE is committed to creating a viable ecosystem for the XR industry which is why we are proud to support OpenXR,” said Vinay Narayan, vice president, platform strategy, HTC. “Bringing the community together to help define standards and best practices, allows all of us to move forward, together.”

“Microsoft believes that for mixed reality to thrive, it must be open for everyone: open stores, open browsers and open developer platforms. We were proud to demo our OpenXR runtime at SIGGRAPH last year, and we’re dedicated to supporting the launch of OpenXR this year on Windows Mixed Reality and HoloLens 2,” said Alex Kipman, technical fellow at Microsoft. “To help developers provide feedback on the provisional OpenXR spec, we’re releasing today a developer preview of our OpenXR runtime with support for Windows Mixed Reality headsets.”

“The next key enabler to drive the XR ecosystem will be OpenXR: an open broadly supported API standard for cross-device compatible applications. It will build on the impressive progress in the XR field over the last few years, including multiple great HMDs and powerful VR-specific GPU features,” said David Weinstein, director of virtual reality at NVIDIA.

“Tobii has been part of the OpenXR initiative for years and is committed to this effort,” said Henrik Eskilsson, CEO of Tobii. “We believe that an open standard, multi-platform API holds great promise to enable developers to introduce eye tracking in a uniform and predictable way for XR applications. OpenXR will reduce the complexity of supporting multiple platforms and devices, and let developers spend more time creating amazing content.”

“Unity is committed to being an open and accessible platform and we remain supportive of open standards for XR applications and devices,” said Ralph Hauwert, vice president of platforms at Unity Technologies. “To that end, we’re excited about OpenXR and believe this is a significant step towards a more open ecosystem.”

“At Varjo we’re pushing professional virtual reality to a level that is truly useful for enterprises with the highest possible visual fidelity. For that we need standards that make it easier for companies to interoperate with the best technologies,” said Rémi Arnaud, principal architect at Varjo. “Varjo is committed to supporting OpenXR.”

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Now Chaos Group is delivering not just V-Ray for Cinema 4D but also has plans for its recently acquired Corona Renderer.

Now One But Two New Renderers Coming to Cinema

It was earlier in the late fall at the Maxon Supermeet 2018 event that the news was announced—Chaos Group officially acquired the V-Ray for Cinema 4D product from LAUBlab. The Bulgarian software company will offer current LAUBlab customers a free migration to a new update, V-Ray for Cinema 4D. All new users will also acquire a new license from Chaos Group (not LAUBlab), and this license will be valid for all updates through 15 January 2020. Essentially, moving forward Chaos Group will take over all support, sales and develop the product in-house.

01 – Chaos Group is taking V-Ray and its newly acquired Corona Renderer to Maxon’s Cinema 4D.

Based on V-Ray’s Academy Award-winning ray-tracing technology, the development of V-Ray for Cinema 4D will be focused on powerful production rendering for high-end visual effects and motion graphics. Corona for Cinema 4D will focus on artist-friendly design visualization.

“The Cinema 4D community creates amazing work and deserves the best tools available, which makes it incredibly exciting to say that we are going to officially support them with two Chaos Group products,” said Peter Mitev, Chaos Group CEO. “We are looking forward to working closely with the Maxon team and users to address all of their rendering needs.”

“We are pleased that Chaos Group has fully embraced the Cinema 4D ecosystem. The latest version of their rendering technology will be a welcome addition to our community,” said Oliver Meiseburg, Chief Product Officer at Maxon.

Corona for Cinema 4D Beta 2

In addition to ongoing improvements to V-Ray for Cinema 4D, Chaos Group is also releasing the Corona for Cinema 4D beta 2 at Supermeet, with the final product to follow in January 2019. Corona for Cinema 4D has been gaining popularity among design visualization specialists looking to leverage fast and intuitive rendering. Beta users have been especially impressed with its thorough integration, ease of use, fluid interactive rendering and powerful material editing using its own node-editor.

For more information about Corona for Cinema 4D beta 2, please visit: Render Legion’s blog.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

Both V-Ray for Cinema 4D and Corona for Cinema 4D are available for both Windows and macOS platforms, giving users of the popular Maxon product additional choices for a rendering engine. The comments above about Corona’s popularity for “design visualization” echo the continuing trend among AEC visualization market needs for faster and easier rendering solution that yield high-quality photo-realistic results. Chaos Group has already worked hard on simplifying its V-Ray user interface for many CAD and BIM tools, including SketchUp, but the Corona Renderer seems further destined for integration with design tools. The company currently has a new Corona Renderer for ARCHICAD Alpha 2 available for download as well. That tool is only for Windows but the hold-up seems to be a lack of macOS software developers to work on it. 

Originally, the BIM tools in AEC had their own rendering engines but these tools are opening up to include options for their users, as these users become deeply aware of more advanced renderers yielding higher results in dedicated visualization pipelines. 

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Since its inception decades ago, Abvent’s Artlantis has been utilized by over 100,000 architects, designers, landscape and urban planning professionals, across more than 110 countries. The software is powered by its own rendering engine and the application is renowned for its ease-of-use and powerful results.

What’s New in Artlantis 2019

Besides the new unified application in Artlantis 2019, Abvent’s photorealistic rendering and animation application provide numerous new features, like a new Site Insertion tool.

01 – Abvent’s new Artlantis 2019 unifies the previous two separate versions of Artlantis Render and Studio and adds several new features.

An essential tool that allows the designer to include the environmental context, the new Site Insertion tool will aid architects in numerous ways. The method for calculating the insertion of 3D models within an imported fixed view has been completely redesigned for a simpler and more fluid use, executed with step-by-step space recognition settings, immediately displayed in the preview window.

Other key new features include:

• 3D Grass — Artlantis now offers new shaders to create 3D grass, enhancing the overall realism of the scene.
• Vegetation Tool — A new vegetation tool allows users to blanket a defined zone with a selection of 3D vegetation. This helps designers quickly add landscapes to larger sites with greater realism.
• Expanded Media Catalog — there are expanded choices for tree varieties, vehicles, and new characters as well.
• Optimal Automatic Exposure — A new feature eliminates under-exposed and over-exposed scenes automatically benefitting from the best possible exposure.

A new Artlantis teammate, Twinlinker, allows Artlantis 2019 users to create and share virtual visits of your projects online instantly and with ease. Just as with the award-winning Twinmotion 2019, users can export their Artlantis 2019 media (images and panoramas) to Twinlinker, then link them together to instantly create virtual visits to share widely by email, on social networks, or make available on company websites.

To learn more visit Artlantis online here. To see the new features in this video watch below.

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