Envision’s efficient workflow allows users to explore complex scenes and 3D models, assembling them into animated visualisations for collaboration and iteration.
Chaos Envision is new real-time storytelling software developed for architects and designers who need to create engaging presentations quickly. Through Envision’s efficient workflow, users can explore and work with complex scenes and 3D models, including CAD files, and assemble them into animated projects conveying emotion and visual stories.
"Envision opens alternatives for architects who have had to find workarounds to avoid compromising on quality, speed and flexibility in their presentations," said Petr Mitev, vice president of solutions for designers at Chaos. "Now, users can produce high-fidelity visuals much earlier in the process, accessing photorealism similar to V-Ray’s to resolve internal questions and pitch projects more effectively to stakeholders."
Interoperable
Envision brings multiple 3D components into a collaborative environment to create scenes that illustrate the key building, site and material information. Envision accepts content from any combination of applications that host Enscape or V-Ray renderers. It can import common industry formats, which makes detailed scene preparation unnecessary and avoids data loss. Lighting, materials and assets will carry over, as they are, from the original CAD or Enscape design, to make the presentation ready for use immediately.
By enhancing objects per-scene, animating crowds and adding context with Chaos Cosmos assets, designers can build up visualizations in Envision that show the wider potential of buildings or environments. Envision keeps visualization decisions intact throughout iteration, removing the need to start over as designs evolve.
Ray-traced Renders
Enscape has a different purpose to Envision. Enscape visualizes a project in real time as a fully rendered 3D walkthrough or VR presentation that can be navigated and explored from any angle. Viewers can see updates instantly, due to bi-directional geometry exchange between the CAD program and the renderer.
In Envision, however, visualizations are rendered with ray-tracing for realism, achieving offline accuracy in real-time, even when polygon counts run into the trillions. To assure teams of the fidelity of their visuals as they work, physically accurate lighting, reflections, shadows and global illumination can always be calculated and rendered.
"I was fortunate to be one of the first to try Chaos Envision and found it extremely user-friendly and easy to learn," said David Tomic, architect and AEC specialist. "What stands out to me is being able to import different rendering software files into Envision and edit them there without having to go back to the original programs, all without any lag."
Scene Animation
Envision includes various ways to animate presentations. One is through Chaos Anima, an engine that introduces movement into static scenes by populating them with moving characters and vehicles, and simulating crowds and dynamic flows of traffic.
Through a direct integration with Anima, Envision users can drag-and-drop hyperrealistic 4D people and crowds with AI-assisted behaviour into scenes and then direct their movement by assigning them a path. Paths can also be applied to other objects and to cameras for more cinematic looks. Meanwhile, the Anima elements and simulations align with the scene’s lighting conditions and camera effects to preserve realism.
Envision also supports variation-based animations which include, for instance, sun studies showing how sunlight varies through the day, planned phases of construction, or cycles that switch through different design options. With these features, most visualization teams can start animating very quickly. www.chaos.com
