Hi folks, I put VR down a while ago but am considering picking it back up again to explore the utility of populating some P&IDs in VR so my team can get a better idea of the human interfaces in the built pilot plant environments that we are creating.
Does anyone have any experience remotely like this that they care to share? I am super interested to be able to handle built objects and assemblies in a virtual and perhaps even an AR environment. I am interested in both software and hardware interfaces and workflows.
Hi, @cognitdiss. I’m a professor of architecture & design and have been exploring VR & AR for too many years to count with Rhino and many other software/hardware. Do yourself a favor and get a Meta Quest 3 and explore it with Rhino (free 90-day eval or paid) & Twinmotion (free). Once you get some experience with TwinMotion and want to create your own interfaces and interactive environments, then step up to Unreal Engine. You’ll also have a good VR experience using Rhino with Enscape. The best free tutorials for how to use these tools is hands-down Gediminas Kirdeikis on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@DesignGoBrr/videos). Fun guy to learn from
@stevefuchs@scottd Thank you so much for this fast direction, I was looking over the archives but it is much more valuable to be able to take the pulse of the technology.
Much obliged, if I have any interesting results I’ll be sure to post back.
Just in case you want a non-McNeel second opinion, we have been using VR both in concept development and to show clients since 2016 and I’ve tried everything from the first post (they all suck) and also everything from the second post and that’s what I recommend. Start with TwinMotion, then get yourself familiarized with Unreal Engine as fast as possible so you can tailor the experience exactly the way you want it.
If you can afford a full time developer, then Nvidia Omniverse is also an alternative (Bentley has some plant planning tools made with it, for example).
If you have a link to those plant planning tools, that would be great!
And I wonder: If using Rhino in VR, is it possible to have a stereoscopic 3D viewport?
I work with stick geometries where stereoscopy would be very helpful to see what is in front and what is behind. As a side note, stereoscopy has been used for ages for visualization in crysallography, where you have similar geometries. It is much easier to understand what is going on if your brain is provided with actual 3D info.
I don’t think so, and I also I don’t like anaglyph 3D. When viewing 3D content for fun, I prefer parallel or cross eyed free viewing.
My question was more about using Rhino with a VR headset. The Bigscreen Beyond, for example, looks nice and lightweight, especially with the new addon to flip up the glasses – when working I don’t want total immersion. I have no idea what it would actually mean to use Rhino in VR. I presume there some way to bring up a Windows desktop and see Rhino in a window. This is where I would like to see the perspective viewport in 3D. In fact there is no reason not to have it in 3D.
I assume this is for presentation to clients. I want to do the modeling in 3D.
Mainly for internal use, evaluation of design concepts.
I have not found any reason at all to do modelling in VR (yet) mainly because models in VR, in 1:1 and at standard resolutions at normal frame rates, isn’t accurate enough, neither are my eyes I guess, so everything that needs to be modeled to a high standard needs to be possible to zoom in much further than 1:1 IMO, so VR remains an evaluation platform for my needs.
If it was possible to have it hooked up to, or as a secondary monitor, where I could just pop it on whenever I wanted to, then I think I would have used it quite often. But hooking up TwinMotion and hitting f10 is close enough and satisfies my basic needs.
Maybe we have to wait for lightfield displays to be available until VR is actually pleasant to use (CREAL). They accurately reproduce depth perception and don’t require diopter correction. But it’s still early stage technology. There is no commercial headset available with these.
The last headset with conventional optics that I tried was a friend’s Vision Pro, and that gave me eyestrain in no time with blur in the periphery of my vision. I think the Oculus headsets that I tried before were slightly more enjoyable. All these are bulky, though. This is the reason why I’m attracted to the Bigscreen Beyond 2. It’s small and light weight, and it doesn’t require having the headset rest on the face (Halo Mount). But I don’t know anyone who has one.
That sounds pragmatic. I might try that some day. For truly working in VR, one probably needs different modeling paradigms anyhow. A few years back, I tried Gravity Sketch, which was an interesting experience.
You also need Rhino to deliver 120fps to two HD monitors (one for each eye) to avoid getting car-sick So run _-TestMaxSpeed to check how Rhino handles your files right now.
2560×2560 px at 75 Hz or 1920×1920 px at 90 Hz (specs)
I would get a dedicated stationary machine for that. At the moment I’m using a ThinkPad X1 Gen3 tablet with an occasional eGPU (Nvidia A2000). I rarely work with heavy geometries, and for these I rent a remote machine.
So run _-TestMaxSpeed to check how Rhino handles your files right now.