Anyone familiar with Meshroom VR for product validation? It looks intriguing. Wondering if anyone here has been using it.
Hi @carvecream
Haven’t used it, but the pricing… OMG! Look into Simlab Composer (400 USD for a perpetual license) or learning Unity/Unreal Engine. 3468 Euro (that’s just over 4K USD) for a single year license is plain robbery!!! There’s also Mindesk VR, which should run inside Rhino - haven’t used that either, but at least it’s half price (2K USD) for a full year subscription. But seriously… if it’s “just” a matter of doing product reviews, either doing it directly in Unity (it really isn’t that complicated) or using something like Simlab Composer - which does animations and a few sfx as well - should be more than enough. I reckon I could bring a Rhino model into VR in less than 10 minutes using Composer - create ground, import model, drag’n’drop materials, set start position, press play… it really is that simple. They do use their own proprietary viewer (free download!), but that about the only drawback I can think of (and I seem to recall, that you can actually export to Unity from Simlab Composer, but not sure/haven’t tried it). And Composer does 3D PDF, rendering and other stuff as well. At least check out the trial before investing that much money in Meshroom.
HTH, Jakob
Yah definitely will demo first.
I’m still looking for something that all of our different digital fab customers and artists can use with zero fuss. Ideally something cloudbased that a customer can login to and we can view a sculpture or design together at the same time. We are in the business of reproducing an artist’s designs at large scales. I want the EASY ability to show them what things will look like in an environment, or even just validate surface texture, details, etc. You know, all the typical things we go through in the prototyping stage of product/sculpture design.
Our customers often don’t have Rhino, or any other cad software. They often work traditionally, have us scan their small scale models and enlarge them. Then we go back and forth with 2d images and pdfs and renders until everyone is happy.
Having something simple and full proof and handles large meshes is the priority right now. By large mesh, usually 1 to 10 million polys.
Simlab looks interesting too. Def will check it out, thank you.
I happen to be one of the cofounders of Mindesk, so perhaps I can shed a light on this. I hope you don’t mind the direct involvement.
You guys were talking about it just days before we published the new version for Rhino 6, which has enormously superior performances compared to the old one: it can handle very large files at high frame rates, with no hiccups. It can even run Grasshopper and while GH is calculating it will keep on running smoothly. It’s a Rhino plugin, so no export required: one click and you’re in VR. Whatever you do in VR is already on the Rhino file, it’s one single experience. That means that if you change something during the design review in VR, you don’t have to do it again in Rhino. By the way, you can already work “4-handedly” with a colleague on the desktop and one in VR working at the same time on the same file. Soon we’ll also add local/remote multi-user VR collaboration.
10 million polys: some Mindesk users have been dealing with even bigger meshes with no issues whatsoever, but I guess it depends on the file. In general, I’d dare to say that Mindesk goes as fast as Rhino allows, it isn’t a limit on the plug-in side.
You are more than welcome to give it a try, it’s free for the first 15 days.
Cheers
Vittorio