For those of you who haven't heard, Alice Labs is a Dutch based company that has made a software program called Studio Clouds. Originally, this was a plugin for Maya that allowed point cloud data to be imported and rendered from the viewport, but more recently, this has opened up to 3DS Max users (hence my interest) and it is possible to render completely in Mental Ray! They are also going to be releasing a stand alone version that allows for point editing, modeling, painting, measuring...etc.
I am currently beta testing the stand alone Studio Clouds and so far I am quite pleased that a product like this is going to be available. What I can see as its strengths thus far is the ability to handle billions of points much smoother than anything I have previously tried. I am not sure what the technology is under the hood, but it's much smoother than what I have seen before.
Also, the ability to render and model directly in Max over the point cloud is a big advantage for me and removes some of the intermediate software that I would require otherwise.
I understand they are coming out with a Modeler, Register and even a Studio Clouds for Mac OSX!!
So, as things progress out of beta, I'll keep updating here.
Cheers,
Eugene
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I am certain these guys have thought about other opportunities and compatibility with different software, but I believe it's probably a bit lower on the list. From what I know, most of the focus right now is on getting any bug fixes and new features into the stand alone version.
The plugin for Max is just too cool and if it were to work the same way in Revit, I think it would definitely be a hit.
Fist of all, I am honoured that we received our own section on the forum!
Regarding the Revit question. Our engine and technology is fully flexible and we can integrate it into virtually any 3d software suite. Our initial goal was to enable point clouds within Maya and 3ds Max. Adapting this for Revit should not be to much of an issue.
My question would be: how many people would want to be able to have their point clouds within Revit?
As Eugene states, we have a very filled product development pipeline where integration with other Autodesk tools like Autocad (very easy to do) and Revit are not on top of our priority list. But of course, if demand is high, we can always easily change our priorities.
My question would be: how many people would want to be able to have their point clouds within Revit?
Elmer
We have been evaluating your plug-in with the new mental ray addition and are very impressed by it. The interface is great and the point cloud handling is fantastic! We are trying it out specifically to find an effective way to get scan based models into Revit.
In regards to a Revit plugin. If you had one I would buy 3 seats of it today. The problem you might run into, and we have talked with Faraz at Pointools about this very subject, is that Revit is rumored to handle point clouds natively in their next release - so it may not be a viable idea. That being said, the Revit companion, Navisworks, handles point clouds natively now, (version 2010 added native Leica files) although it does not handle them very well. Especially large ones.
Also Revit is a very strange bird in the way it models. It may not be as easy as you think to build something that works. It might be easier, faster and smarter to create a plugin for SketchUp. Sketchup creates models in the same way Revit does, just with an easier interface and less overhead. Not to mention about 5500US less expensive. Point clouds modeled in SketchUp can move directly into Revit, infact in many Revit workflows the concept and rough work is done in SketchUp first. I also bet you'll find the SketchUp people a lot easier to work with. I'd buy 3 of these too!
Lastly, If anyone on this forum has not looked at Revit yet, better get going and DL the evaluation copy. If you can't get your work into a Revit friendly format, your going to start loosing work.
Richard Lasater President Smart GeoMetrics a division of Smart MultiMedia, Inc
Lastly, If anyone on this forum has not looked at Revit yet, better get going and DL the evaluation copy. If you can't get your work into a Revit friendly format, your going to start loosing work.
