Architects gear up for real-time visualisation

25 November 2009 | by Gemma Battenbough

Zaha Hadid’s visualisation for the futuristic Dubai Opera House has her trademark fluid style.

Australian architects are leading the world in architectural visualisations but it’s not necessarily the big firms that are producing the best work, according to a visiting expert.

Smaller firms are most pioneering because they tend to be agile enough to adopt new technologies early, a visiting specialist from Autodesk said.

A strong visualisation can also help architects claim offshore work by effectively bridging cultural barriers, Chris Ruffo, senior design visualisation manager at Autodesk, told Architecture & Design.

“The difference between a good quality image and a poor image, is the difference between winning or losing a job.”

Stephen Blowers, associate director of London firm Dyer, said that one image not only won his firm a job, but a market share, in Russia.

“The recession has made it impossible to get away without doing a visualisation, and that’s changed within the past year,” he said. “To stay ahead of the game, you need to keep broadening your horizons.”

Real-time rendering is going to be a big future trend, as technology from the gaming industry is applied to architecture. Visualisation artists are beginning to take cues from film and video, studying camera moves and techniques in a bid to communicate architects’ visions in the most effective way.

“The biggest technology enabler is what is happening with hardware,” Ruffo said.

“If you look at the computing power behind the games console, those technologies are filtering down into desktop systems. This will enable architects and designers to leverage the advances of the games industry to create a new visualisation for our time.”

Firms should be investing in developing their own instantly recognisable brand of visualisation if they are to harness technology to its greatest force.

“Each image should be like a signature, conveying the culture of that company,” Ruffo said.

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Add a comment14 Comments

Cathy | 18 January, 2010 at 05:26 AM
Hi, I'm planning to immigrate to Australia and working into architectural visualisation. So I was pretty surprised to read this : "Australian architects are leading the world in architectural visualisations". I have searched the web for australian's architectural visualisation agencies and was totally desappointed by the general low quality. But may be my search wasn't accurate. Can you people give me your favorite australian firm ? I mean, not the bigest ones but the more inspired and / or with an international aura. Thanks a lot It can be helpfull ! - C.
Mark | 24 December, 2009 at 08:38 AM
I doubt that the multiple years of production required to produce a game are required to fill out a real time architectural presentation. There is so much more work going into games. A real time architectural presentation would use the modelling, rendering, and perhaps some of the physics capabilities of the real time engine. These engines do so much more than those few tasks when running a game. A single architectural model is so much more simplified than a gaming environment. The other huge barrier for real time Arch Viz, is the licensing models provided by the gaming companies which are built around multi million dollar sales models that rival holywood. An Architect can expect to deploy "tens" of unique models per year as opposed to hundreds of millions of the same model.
Adrian | 3 December, 2009 at 03:07 PM
My studio was founded on offering real-time visualisation to firms back in 2001 - With a few early successes, the quality and technology just wasn't on par with market expectation, and this has not changed. I agree with Owen's comments - The only thing to add is that the current industry, whilst obviously time-pressured for commercial reasons, is whoring itself more to price-driven antics, rather than creative ambitions and quality output. Once the market can properly value the benefit of pre-rendered visualisation then MAYBE real-time has a chance for concept, massing, DA purposes.
Mark | 3 December, 2009 at 01:05 AM
The article reads like, it's the lack of computing power and software solutions in the tools that we use in the architectural world, that is preventing us from using real time visualization. You are correct that what is stifling real time is, 1. architects who were not raised in the computer generation still insisting that computers hinder people's creativity for fear of becoming obsolete, and 2. It's more work that we're used to providing to model a project completely in the round. The second barrier here, is actually just a pipeline problem. Once we stop throwing away the visualization model and starting over again at the beginning of WD. The time to model the entire project will be viable time spent. Welcome to the BIM era.
TS | 2 December, 2009 at 07:31 PM
Years developing a project just so it can be viewed in real time? Most projects will be complete and moved into before the team can finish the game simulation? ....real time will come, but is not through a game engine, unless the engine is directly integrated into the design software that is being used to design the structure.
Jacob | 2 December, 2009 at 02:35 PM
to Mark, you cant compare the production demands of a game that delivers the visual results they generate to the value of a individual house lot, it's the market size (revenue) that allows that to happen. A client might expect it but they certainly wouldnt pay for it. Real Time will be a new and exciting path for arch vis, but its got a looong way to go.
Chris | 1 December, 2009 at 02:47 AM
The meaning behind the article is less about the computing power of today’s games consoles, and more about the promise of what gaming technology can bring to real-time visualization. It is the immersive, real-time and interactive experiences that one has with good games (consoles or PC) that will help drive the future of design visualization in architecture. Look at Mirror’s edge from DICE for example, there is no wide spread commercial available solution for real-time architectural visualization today that looks this good
Mark | 28 November, 2009 at 05:54 AM
For some unknown reason, the architectural world does still believe that real time visualization is unattainable. It's ridiculous. The next generation of home buyers, business people will have been raised immersed in real time visualizations of World War 2, Alien Planets, etc. The world at large calls these video games. For this next generation of clients, the idea that they can't experience the design they've commissioned, in real time, and in the round, inside and out, will be outrageous. We think our Macs, and our 3d stills are so cutting edge.
John | 28 November, 2009 at 05:32 AM
I agree with Mark, the computing power of gaming consoles are years behind that of the latest desktop. It is kind of embarrassing how the guy from Autodesk obviously does not know what he is talking about to think he was interviewed because of his expertise. Anyone who has played an Xbox 360 version of a game and played the same game on a high end PC can tell you that the PC is ALWAYS the better looking one, the Xbox hardware is like 4 years old and even the PS3 is getting to be old as well. Please do your research on what you write.
owen | 28 November, 2009 at 12:44 AM
"Australian architects are leading the world in architectural visualisations..." .. illustrated with an average rendering of a project by UK architect Zaha Hadid? Every one of the really great architectural visualization groups i can think of are European (MIR, Luxigon, Labtop, Uniform, etc). I cannot think of any really great arch viz groups in Australia with such well known 'signature' styles. There are lots of very capable ones, but we are definately not 'leading the world' by any means. There is a fundamental flaw in one of the key arguements of the article - that is an ever increasing level of image quality is being expected. You cannot get this through real-time visualization. It is just not possible with todays hardware and probably not even in the next decade to get the same level of image quality we have in todays stills and pre-rendered animations. I have never seen a real-time animation that made me think 'wow that looks great, fantastic atmosphere'. They tend to all look the same as the artistic input you really gain during post-production is just not there.
RTshaders | 27 November, 2009 at 03:08 PM
Very much agree with the topic.It is about time to work on applications for real-time visualisation but it is not an easy task. Actually we have been doing kinds of attempts on real-time visualisation. If interested,you can see our work on http://rtshaders.deviantart.com/
Editor | 27 November, 2009 at 02:25 PM
Video and images of real time visualisations on their way - Ed.
arthur | 27 November, 2009 at 07:14 AM
This is very interesting topic, and finally its gaining momentum, not long ago, real-time visualization was like a fantasy.
Mark | 27 November, 2009 at 05:27 AM
It would have been nice to see some evidential links to a real time presentation in the posting. I disagree with the statement that computing technology is filtering into desktop hardware from the game console world. The flow of technology is decisively the other way. Consoles are snapshot in the past of computing technology.