Issue #752
Luxion a decade ago invented realtime raytraced rendering. The company's vp of marketing Thomas Teger talked to CADdigest managing editor Ralph Grabowski about the origins of the company, the current product line, and the future of rendering.
Q: Where did Luxion come from, and how old is the company?
A: Luxion has been around since 2003, when it was founded by two brothers in Denmark, Claus Wann Jensen and Henrik Wann Jensen. Henrik Jensen is probably the best known researcher in the rendering world, having authored over 50 papers for SIGGRAPH. He won a technical Oscar for his work in simulating some 98.5% types of human skins in renderings. Now he works at University of San Diego, continuing to develop real-time raytracing.
As a result of their research, their first product was launched in 2007 by Bunkspeed at SolidWorks World, under the name of "Hypershot."
Q: I still have that T-shirt, and wear it to volleyball.
A: We'll have to get Ralph an updated T-shirt! The Jensen brothers still work on other products, such as VLux Daylight Visualizer; see http://viz.velux.com.
Hypershot quickly got a lot of traction in CAD, especially with Pro/Engineer, Solidworks, and Rhino, being used to visualize products quickly in the native file format. This allowed companies to take CAD data directly to the marketing department through images that were realistically rendered. In less than three years we gained ten thousand customers.
Q: Bunkspeed is no longer associated with Luxion, so what happened there?
A: Luxion had licensed Bunkspeed to market our software as Hypershot. This ended when Bunkspeed was unable to pay the licensing fee, and so in 2010 Luxion renamed and relaunched Hypershot 1.9 as KeyShot 1.9, taking over marketing and support. (Bunkspeed subsequently licensed replacement technology from nVidia's GPU-based iRay.)
We released an all-new version with a new UI, labeling, translucent materials, and all those human skin types. We now count 80-95% of original Hypershot users as KeyShot users. In addition, we worked hard on making partnerships, and so we were one of just three Creo launch partners with PTC. Luxion now works with SolidWorks, Autodesk, Rhino, Alibre, and Spaceclaim.
Q: Is Keyshot Windows-only, or does it run on other operating systems?
A: Everything in the Windows version is supported on Macs. For us, Macs are only 20-25% of Windows sales, but we see it gaining in importance when we look at design departments around the world, at home users, and at schools.
But not all CAD vendors support Macs (such as SolidWorks and CATIA), and so our Mac version uses importers from a third-party. We do not charge extra for our importers and plug-ins, and they can be downloaded from our Web site free.
Q: Tell me how KeyShot works with CAD programs.
A: We just provide a button inside the CAD program that you click, called Render. There is no need to export drawings; tessellation is taken care of automatically.
You don't even need to have KeyShot installed on your computer. When those free-of-charge plug-ins detect no KeyShot, they save data to our native .BIP format automatically; the file can be given to a computer running KeyShot.
Q: In setting up renderings, the big hassle for me is placing lights. You do things differently, right?
A: The key to KeyShot is that we don't mess with lights; we don't use lights. We use an HDR image which de facto implements the lighting, depending on the scene, such as inside a warehouse or out in the desert. Just in case there is too much or too little light, KeyShot Pro does let you adjust the brightness, saturation, hue, and other common parameters within the KeyShot HDRI Editor.
You can pin lights in the HDRI Editor and see them instantly in scenes, for instance to add a hotlight. As you move the light, the rendering is updated in realtime and you see the effect instantly. The color, shape, and location of pinned lights can be modified.
Q: What is new in the latest release of your software, KeyShot 3.3?
A: We have a partnership with DuPont Paint, so you can see what products like cars and airplanes look like with exact paint chips, even metallic paint. DuPont is interested in replacing those 2"x4" physical paint chips with digital paint chips.
You cannot edit the parameters of these paints in KeyShot (except for roughness), because they are exact matches to the DuPont line. Some are included free with KeyShot 3.3; for the other colors, you need to contact DuPont, because they have 300,000 paints in their library and we just can't include them all. In any case, a typical customer works with just a half-dozen or so colors for their entire product line.
Q: One of your new products is KeyShotVR. Tell me about it.
A: It came as a request from customers who wanted to be able to spin objects around in renderings -- rather than just view the still shots we have produced until now. We didn't go with Quicktime VR (it is dead) or Flash (it is dying), but wrote our own "virtual reality" technology and patented it.
KeyshotVR does four types of VR, including turntable (rotate in a plane), spherical (360-degree rotation in all directions), hemispherical (360-degree on a plane), and custom. It does a real-time preview before rendering all the images, so that you know what to expect. (Smoother motion requires longer rendering time due to the larger number of frames.)
The output is HTML5 and JavaScript code for Web sites; upon completion, it launches in your Web browser automatically. KeyShot VR works in any browser that handles HTML5, including on Androids and iPads. VR is available today as a $1,000 add-on and has a floating license.
Q: LuSt is also new. What is the name short for, and for whom is it intended?
A: LuSt is short for "Luxion Sabertooth," taking initials from both companies. The point to LuSt is that it is a Web-based platform meant for configurators, like at a kiosk in a car dealership made by advertising agencies. It lets teams of people change colors, components like car tires, and environments. It supports large organizations who need online, simultaneous users -- like 12 users accessing the model on a 24-core system (each user gets two cores). This is not possible with GPU-based systems, because they cannot handle multi-user sessions. This can only be hosted on a CPU-based cloud, and would not work on a GPU-based one.
Q: Because I am not familiar with Sabertooth, can you tell me who they are?
A: They are an interactive content provider, such as for advertising agencies doing online configurators. For instance, they created all the interactive content for the Game of Thrones Web site. They took our KeyShot engine (where we peeled off the UI, leaving just the API), and then run it remotely off a server -- nothing is local. It minimizes the user interface. The demo of the Mustang I am showing you is made of six million polygons.
Q: Who would be your competitors?
A: Number one is the CAD companies themselves, because many have integrated rendering functions into their software. In this case, the IT departments of large firms especially will argue that a second rendering solution is not needed. But from ease of use and quality standpoint, we win hands down.
Another big competitor is inertia, people who don't render -- even when it is free in their CAD package. They tell us, "We don't need renderings."
There so many other rendering systems out there, such as vRay, Maya, and 3dmax, but their users tend to be individuals who have rendering expertise, whereas we market to the masses with quick, high quality renderings for tasks like selling concepts, creating internal presentations, and exploring digital prototypes, as well as generating images and video good enough for marketing materials.
Q: What are some of your future plans for KeyShot?
A: We are answering the question, "What happens to a rendering where just one part of an assembly changes?" We showed earlier this year live-linking between KeyShot and CAD systems, specifically Creo, SolidWorks, and Rhino. When we release KeyShot 4 late this year, you will be able link from KeyShot back to the CAD program, establishing a live link. As you work on the 3D model, the new Update button will push only parts that have changed shape or position to KeyShot. The materials and animations of parts are retained, and so the re-rendering will be much quicker.
Q: How to you see the future of rendering developing?
A: The future of rendering is touted as being all-GPU, especially by nVidia. But we see GPU-based software as too hardware-specific. It needs multiple, special graphics boards, which limit the number of calculations they are able to perform for fast renderings; this just isn't going to happen on laptop computers. The majority of our customers are mobile, meaning they are running CAD on laptops, because they need to be able to move around the office and the world.
In contrast, we are 100% CPU-based. This lets us run on any recent computer. The only limit to our software is the amount of RAM in the computer; more RAM is better. KeyShot will use all cores and threads in the CPU 100%. You double the cores, CPUs, and/or threads in your computer, and we double speed of KeyShot. On a 64-core SuperMicro system, our software maxed out all 64 cores with no rewrite to the software.
Being CPU-based, any networked computer can be a slave in a render farm; no special graphics boards are used and no software is installed when firms run our separate KeyShot Network Rendering software (priced at $15/core/year). When office workers go home for the day, their computers' dual and quad cores can be utilized by our networked rendering software.
You didn't ask me about the cloud!
Q: I forgot, sorry. What is Luxion doing about the cloud?
A: We have no cloud-based solution available yet, but we are getting requests of being able to upload models for rendering so that local machines are not tied up. The great concern from users, however, is over IP [intellectual property] leaking out of the design office.
[This article first appeared on CADdigest.com.]
Out of the Inbox
Vectorworks 2013 boasts wall network manipulation, clip cubes, Parasolid-based roof objects, faster navigation of Vectorworks scenes, and some eighty other changes.
(The entire line consists of Vectorworks Designer, Architect, Landmark, Spotlight, Fundamentals and Renderworks.) Shipping now. http://www.vectorworks.net/2013
upFront.reSearch is the research arm of upFront.eZine Publishing, and so provides consulting and white papers for clients. We provide consulting in the areas of CAD cohabitation, improving AutoCAD drafting efficiency, and understanding CAD trends -- as well as provide expert consulting on legal cases, such as HP vs Intergraph and John Doe vs Microsoft. Some of our white papers are available from http://www.upfrontezine.com/research.
Contact [email protected] to start the conversation.
Letters to the Editor
Re: Here's Why CAD Should Run 10-100x faster in 2-3 Years
"Wow! Henrik's article was fantastic!! Excellent work, and very interesting to read. Thank you! (both of you)."
- Dave Stein
"Some irony I read you ezine editorial 'Here's Why CAD Should Run 10-100x faster in 2-3 Years' while waiting for CAD software to process?"
- Robin Capper, rcd.typepad.com/rcd
New Zealand
"While it may be true that 'CAD software spends most of its time waiting for its user', the exact opposite is the case for BIM software, specifically Revit. We pan or zoom, and we wait for regeneration. We select an element, and wait for regeneration. We change a size, and we wait for regeneration. It's a ridiculous waste of my life, and I am seriously considering changing careers BECAUSE OF THE SOFTWARE. I am completely serious.
"Thanks again, and please encourage Mr. Vallgren to hurry toward the future he describes. Autodesk needs to be scared of a new paradigm to make this software a good choice for businesses."
- Peter Lawton
The editor replies, "Sounds like AutoCAD, circa 1985."
"Thanks for the interesting article."
- Chris Cadman
"I'll tell you why it runs so slowly now; it's all the crap icons, video, animations, and special effects that have been added to the CAD systems and the operating systems through the years. If you want to make AutoCAD load and run significantly faster, then turn off the ribbon and turn the text menus back on. Better yet, turn them both off and activate the old DOS screen menu. Yes, I know it was officially discontinued a couple of releases back but if you enter the AutoLISP expression (setvar "screenmenu" 1) it magically reappears, even in AutoCAD 2013.
"Similarly, turn off Windows effects such as menus that scroll down and instead have them simply pop down, turn off shading, and so on.
"My first AutoCAD station, running version 2.17g under DOS, was an 8MHz 286 with 2MB RAM. It could go from a cold boot power on to the AutoCAD Command: prompt in about 30 seconds. My current machine is a 3GHz Core2 quad-core with 4GB RAM, and takes almost 4 minutes to do the same thing. Oops, sorry, it's not the Command: prompt any more it's the 'input window'.
"I agree CAD programs spend much of their time waiting for user input. That's because I'm busy hovering the cursor over each of the hundreds of icons, waiting for the tool tip to pop up so I can figure out what the icon does, until I find the one I want.
"Traditional Chinese used 450,000 icons. When chairman Mao came to power, he decreed that they should institute a simplified Chinese with only 4,500 icons. By comparison, AutoCAD 2013 uses over 1,200 icons."
- Bill Fane
"Thanks for the opportunity to publish!
"The hardware is already here (and getting better), so it's all about software. I think very highly of AMD's devices and so I bought the AMD 7970 as my testbench, because that's the kind of card that allows the industry transformation that we're looking for. High end cards may be even better, but this needs to be mass-market and available in some form even on laptops. For a relatively low power chip, go for the AMD 7870m (45w), capable of about 1 TFLOPS (single precision). See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_HD_7xxxM_Series
"For C++ AMP, we need vendors to build software with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (just released). I'll have to show the world myself. It's almost silly: VS2012 comes with great features for CAD. Even if you don't start developing with C++ AMP, there's things like automatic vectorization (four floating point calculations in parallel) and automatic loop parallelization.
"If Autodesk follows its tradition of three versions of binary compatibility, the change on AutoCAD will come in 2015 with AutoCAD 2016. I've tried to persuade Bricsys to build their next release with Visual Studio 2012; I guess we'll know after their conference [next week]."
- Henrik Vallgren, Streamspace.com
Sweden
Re: AutoCAD on Windows 8
"You say: 'If you run AutoCAD 2013 in Windows 8 already, it might run better with the maintenance patch...'. A simple search on Google for 'autocad windows 8' brings back:
At this time, Windows 8 and the Windows 8 Consumer Preview are not supported operating systems for any AutoCAD versions. The AutoCAD team is investigating compatibility with these new platforms, but we do not have any further information at this time.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=19048377&linkID=9240617
"But I'm guessing that would ruin the false impression that readers are left with from reading your newsletter."
- David Flood
Ireland
The editor replies: "'Not supported' by Autodesk is different than 'not working':
- 'Not supported' means that if you have problems with AutoCAD and you are running it on Windows 8, Autodesk will not help you (for now).
- 'Not working' means AutoCAD does not run at all on Windows 8 (such as the problem Autodesk is having with Acad/Mac not running on Mountain Lion).
"In fact, I and other others are running AutoCAD on Windows 8."
"rerTERrReReRRReERRrrrRREERRRRrrRrRRReReerRRRRereRRrRrR7XChgsdew"
- R. S. D.
Re: 'Personally, I do not like the cloud concept for CAD work.'
"I SECOND THE MOTION !!! HURRAY FOR MR.BUD !!! HOPE EVERYONE IS ON THE SIDE OF R.BUD. MORE POWER TO YOU SIR !!!"
- VICTOR LAXAMANA
CADD OPERATOR/DRAFTER
Spin Doctor of the Moment
"Our team is responsible for displaying map content for the Maps application on iOS. It is used by millions of customers and it's the best mapping program on any mobile platform."
- Job recruitment ad from Apple
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/21/apple_hiring_ios_maps_engineer
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