The frustrations of working on complex design files across multiple software platforms are real, and have only been compounded as BIM files grow in size and complexity. Architects and engineers, working in Revit, Tekla, Grasshopper and other design tools often end up spending extra time to ensure data imported and exported between these platforms transfers smoothly.

In an effort to create a common environment for design visualizations, Autodesk has partnered with Nvidia to bring its broad suite of design software to Nvidia's Omniverse, a recently launched collaborative 3D environment that allows users of different software to see their 3D designs in one shared online space. Using Nvidia’s RTX technology and built upon Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (USD) format and Nvidia’s open-source Material Definition Library (MDL), Omniverse can fully display the live building models in real-time, drawing data from a range of applications in real-time. This allows collaboration between users across the world and among different design software applications.

“A lot of our customers don’t use Autodesk software exclusively,” says Amy Bunszel, senior vice president of design and construction products at Autodesk. While many Autodesk products already have the ability to send data back and forth, they lacked a single, online visualizer. Omniverse will allow for even competing design software to be used in the same shared space as Autodesk’s suite, without any additional work to import or export design files.

While Omniverse was not purpose-built for design and engineering, Nvidia decided it would be useful to industries other than entertainment and media, particularly during the remote work situations of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It works in different markets. We now have this common platform to bring out to all our [industries],” says Richard Kerris, Nvidia general manager for media and entertainment.

Omniverse运行在Nvidia的RTX技术llows for a level of real-time 3D visualization with ray-tracing for realistic simulations of building lighting conditions. “With this we can simulate reality with physics and real-world lighting and rendering, and it allows collaborators to work across the room or the globe, as it all runs in the cloud,” explains Kerris.

Promising Results

The Omniverse platform recently entered into open beta for other industries, but so far only a few select architects and engineers have had access to its AEC software features. Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates has been running its own internal tests of Omniverse and so far the results have been promising, according to Cobus Bothma, director of applied research at KPF. “We can have two to three offices working on one project, and now they can collate these large data sets and visualize them much more accurately.”

Bothma的团队在Omniverse中与用户在不同的应用程序中使用相同的模型，从而使不同的学科可以实时更好地测试想法。“我们有两个非常大的Revit Files Live运行，还有Rhino和Grasshopper [实例]。对我们来说，要有多个应用程序很重要。”在Omniverse中，不同的团队可以对他们所知道的软件中的模型进行实时调整，而“左侧是一种工作视图，而不是实时渲染”，Bothma解释说。KPF还测试了Omniverse的远程协作功能，世界各地的办公室都登录了同一模型。“我们已经测试了从纽约到伦敦的连接。我们已经在我家和办公室里的机器上跑了犀牛和犀牛。一切都是脱位的，LAN或封闭的网络上没有任何东西。”

While KPF has only taken the first steps to using Omniverse on real projects, Bothma says he expects the time savings from not having to build connections between different software packages will be huge. “With one airport project—put on hold for COVID—we had to spend two to three weeks optimizing and writing scripts to get it into a virtual environment for the client to navigate.” But with Omniverse doing the heavy lifting, that work could be eliminated. “Pushing 15 million polygons is not difficult for Nvidia, so that cuts two to three weeks off of our optimization,” he says.

While Bothma is primarily using Omniverse with powerful PC workstations to run the design software, there is also potential to let users on less-powerful devices log into the session and contribute as well. “We could stream this big Revit model, 12 to 14 million polygons, to devices like iPhones or iPads,” he says. “Real-time renderers have changed the way we work in the last few years, but it’s still very centralized. This definitely will change the way we work, with so many more people able to work on it and make decisions.”

AEC的NVIDIA OMNIVERSE目前正在为用户提供预注册，预计将在秋季晚些时候提供完整的平台。