Courtesy of Redshift

很快，建筑师将能够通过VR装置来制作3D模型
Soon, Architects Will Be Able to Create 3D Models From Inside Their VR Headset

由专筑网李韧，杨帆编译

本文最初由Autodesk's Redshift发表，标题为“下一代虚拟现实技术将通过VR实现”。

建筑业和制造业的建造方式将影响整个行业的发展方向。在不久的将来，设计师和工程师们将能够通过VR技术来实现建筑以及城市设计的实时创作。

在对于VR技术演变过程的预测中，一个对早期电影发展史的类比较为贴切：当首台电影摄像机问世时，演员们在一堆假树前拍摄。有人问：“你为什么不直接把相机放在森林里呢？”这说起来虽然简单，但改变起来并不容易。VR技术已经极具实力，让它实现真正的普及也只是时间问题而已。


现状：可视化

在洛杉矶John A. Martin & Associates工作室的一个VR工作站里，我是建筑信息模型（BIM）的负责人，同事们通过视觉追踪装置、手持控制器导航来观察BIM软件制作的3D模型。这种可视化的方式可以让用户发现一些不易察觉的结构错误。

This article was originally published by Autodesk's Redshift publication as "Next-Gen Virtual Reality Will Let You Create From Scratch—Right Inside VR."
The architecture and manufacturing industries are about to undergo a radical shift in how they make things. In the near future, designers and engineers will be able to create products, buildings, and cities in real time, in virtual reality (VR).
In predicting VR’s dramatic evolution, an analogy to early cinematic history is apt: As one legend has it, when the motion-picture camera first came out, actors were filmed on a set, in front of fake trees. Then someone said, “Why don’t you just put the camera in the forest?” Simple, but game-changing. VR technology is already available, and it’s only a matter of time before it is used to its full potential.

What’s Here Now: Visualization
At a dedicated VR station inside the Los Angeles office of John A. Martin & Associates, where I am a Building Information Modeling (BIM) director, colleagues strap on eye-tracking headsets and navigate using handheld controllers through 3D models created by BIM software. Visualizing a design in this context lets users detect structural irregularities they might otherwise miss.


Courtesy of Redshift

例如，通过VR技术，你可以发现梁的设计是否恰当。当然如果没有VR装置，这些小细节也很容易被察觉到，但是整个3D环境能够让你更加身临其境地感受到作品的各种细节，从而更加容易地检测到设计是否具有不合理因素。

近年来，VR技术已经取得了很大的进步，无论是对于企业内部，还是针对客户，它在建筑、工程、施工等领域中都占据着不可撼动的地位。通过手持激光点和点击控制器，工程师和设计师们能够在3D建筑渲染环境中任意移动，这就好像在玩一场真实游戏。他们可以上楼梯，穿过走廊，亦或是从楼上的窗户眺望远方的风景，这些对于传统建模方式可以说是非常神奇了。

可视化设计同样能够帮助企业的推销工作。通过将3D建筑模型与Revit Live、ds Max, 以及Enscape等兼容VR技术的软件相结合，设计师可以邀请客户与业主共同切身体会整个设计方案。


未来：创造性

上述的这些还只是VR技术的冰山一角。设计师与工程师们接下来还将超越可视化技术，直接运用VR技术制造产品或是建造建筑。

想象一下将VR技术与Revit软件相结合，这样你就可以通过眼部追踪装置，再进行手动操作，然后建造基础、修改模型尺寸、旋转模型、改变模型形状，这将是一件多么令人惊叹的事。

For example, in VR, you can see if a beam is not properly connected to a girder. Sure, this is possible without a VR headset, but being completely immersed in a 3D environment makes you feel as if you are standing in that actual physical spot. It’s easier to detect building components that are not in the correct location.
VR has made great strides as a visualization tool—its dominant use in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries—both within firms and for use with clients. Using handheld laser point-and-click controllers, engineers and designers can move through 3D building renderings as if they’re in a first-person video game simulation. They can float up staircases, teleport down hallways, or peer out of upper-story windows. It is truly amazing.
Design visualizations can also help firms sell ideas to stakeholders. By deploying 3D building models as playable “games” with VR-capable software such as Revit Live, 3ds Max, and Enscape, designers can invite clients and owners into immersive showcases of their prospective projects.

What’s Coming: Creation
Still, these examples only scratch the surface of VR’s potential. The next big opportunity for designers and engineers will move beyond visualization to actually creating structures and products from scratch in VR.
Imagine VR for Revit: What if you could put on an eye-tracking headset and, with the movement of your hands and wrists, grab a footing, scale a model, lay it out, push it, spin it, and change its shape?


Courtesy of Redshift

事实上，这种预想的操作要实现起来并不困难。Google Tilt Brush程序，能够让你在3D环境中进行绘制工作，这也预示着直接通过VR技术来建造项目的未来即将到来。设计师们只需要在绘画工具中轻松动动手指，便能够直接绘制出一整个VR环境。在大多数建造业和制造业的VR技术平台中，这种方式还并不可用，但这不代表这种技术在其他领域不可行。

当前，3D网格曲面建模技术已经能够让设计师通过控制平滑曲线来轻松建造各种异形模型，例如有机形状的车身、檐篷等，而如果通过2D技术来建造这些模型，也许需要花费大量的时间与操作步骤，为了控制节点和路径，使用者必须费力地操纵各种命令，这在3D时代简直是个吃力不讨好的工作。

如果设计师可以直接在VR系统中创建模型，而不用通过外部平面软件，他们也可以直接在墙体周围发送所需命令，通过与物体的直接联系与操作，设计师将能够创造出更多独具创意的建筑形态，并且对于细节的把控质量也将提高。艺术家们在职业生涯的初期就能够通过手工来雕刻各种工艺品，但这种能力并不能直接应用于建筑以及汽车等产品的设计中，而VR技术也许可以满足这一缺憾。


改变：交互作用

在VR技术被广泛应用于建筑业与制造业之前，软件的升级是重中之重。正如前文所说，大多数游戏引擎技术只能让使用者环顾四周，但却不能直接触摸或者编辑物体。例如，如果你在VR技术中检测模型，但是此时你想要做一些细微的调整，那么你必须将装置取下来，回到你的工作台上，重新运用鼠标和键盘来操纵修改模型，这个过程就会显得过于繁琐。

That scenario may not be far off. Programs like Google Tilt Brush, which lets you paint in a 3D VR environment, could signal what’s coming for creating design projects in VR. Simply by rotating your wrist in the painting tool, you can color an object in a VR environment. That kind of physically responsive design functionality is not available in the VR platforms used by most architecture and manufacturing firms, but its existence outside the industries suggests it could migrate.
There are 3D mesh and surface modelers that allow designers to form smoothly curved, organic shapes—car bodies, canopies, and the like—but they are made on a 2D screen using tedious mouse movements and keyboard commands. To manipulate nodes and lines, users pull and drag cursors—a clumsy way of doing things in an age of VR.
If designers could create directly in VR, rather than using external desktop software, they could peer around rear walls and teleport to tight spots, such as joints and moldings. By working at a closer, more maneuverable range to objects, designers could create more organic shapes with a higher level of granular detail. Artists and artisans learned a long time ago to use their hands to sculpt with stone and clay—and while that ability doesn’t directly apply to the realities of designing things like buildings and cars, there’s an opportunity to bring it back in a virtual way.

What Needs to Change: Interactivity
Before VR will see widespread adoption as a creation tool in the architecture and manufacturing industries, the software must make a significant leap forward. As it stands, most game-engine technology allows users to only look around, not touch objects or edit on the fly. For example, if you are viewing your model in VR and you want to make a beam correction, you must take the headset off, set it down, find the beam in the authoring software, make the change with a mouse and keyboard, update the model in the game-engine viewer, put the headset back on, and make sure the change happened. That workflow is long and tedious.


Courtesy of Redshift

VR技术的未来必须对使用者仍然依赖键盘鼠标这一特性有所改善。建筑和制造设计软件应该充分发挥VR手持控制器和沉浸式环境的整体优势，并且充分结合各项经验与软件，达到最终能够直接修改3D模型的效果。

另一个障碍便是VR技术缺乏自动化交互体验。使用者在VR技术中的任何步骤都必须预先与游戏引擎工程师进行沟通互动。因此更好的解决方法也许是让这一过程实现充分的自动化。例如，通过交互式程序，Revit3D模型能够自动转换成一个VR技术通用的游戏引擎环境，这样的话在任何时间使用者都可以轻松地移动一睹墙体、打开一扇门，亦或是在VR环境中弯曲任意组件。

信息建模就像是一个看得见摸得着的物体，建筑、门窗、桌椅、医疗设备等各个物件都具有灵活的相关参数。然而在今天使用的大多数游戏引擎技术中，这些参数都暂不可变。VR技术是未来的趋势，你准备好了吗？

The future of VR needs to move beyond taking the VR headset off and relying on mouse-and-keyboard clicks to make changes. Architecture and manufacturing design software should take full advantage of VR’s handheld controllers and immersive environment, as well as provide tools within the experience to interact with and make changes to 3D models.
Another stumbling block is the lack of automated interactivity inside VR. Any action a user might take in VR—move a beam, open a window, or turn on a light—must be preprogrammed by an experienced game-engine programmer to make it interactive. A better solution could be to automate this process. For example, the Revit 3D model could automatically be converted into a game-engine environment that is VR capable, with interactivity already programmed in, so anytime a user wants to move a wall, open a door, or flex any type of component within the VR environment, it’s possible.
Information modeling is like a living, breathing thing: A building, door, window, table, or piece of medical equipment all have flexibility in their parameters. In most game-engine based technologies used today, these elements are static—for now. VR is about evolve. Are you ready?


出处：本文译自www.archdaily.com/，转载请注明出处。