Months ago I purchased LumenRt 2015 and it took me months to get it properly installed and running on both my Mac and a laptop PC. I do not use Micro-station or any of the other Bentley products. It was only through the gracious help of Dave Burdick that I was even able to use LumentRT for a project, yet the entire project has been plagued with the software not performing properly. Some of those problems have been linked to hardware limitations and the rest is software related. I have created an outline of my most basic an persistent problems associated with LumenRT. If you have input or solutions, please let me and others know. Based upon the lack of postings I see specific to LumenRT, I am already concerned if I will see any responses. One suggestion would be for the forum to have a LumentRT specific category other than the general visualization one I see.
Consistent problems:
Crashes that are both predictable and non-predictable
Tools not performing properly or at all
Taking still images consistently freezes/crashes the application
.lrt files do not necessarily transfer between Mac and PC reliably.
Tools stop working at times and have to reopen the application to get them to work again.
Shadows do not always show up properly in still images
Concerns:
Tool set extremely limited
Tools inconsistent in performance
Object tools unpredictable in performance
THERE NEEDS TO BE AN ERASER TOOL with a collection of options, so that editing/cleaning up objects placed do not take the exhausted process currently required.
Extremely limited [WAY TOO limited] pallet of both objects and terrain textures. IT lacks even a most basic DIRT option or Decomposed Granite of assorted colors.
Should have a user create-able/editable layers palate to allow needed control and management of a file. This is marketed as a stand alone application - Treat it that way!
- Allows to create different activity scenes to the same file instead of having to manage/create multiple files that currently has no capacity for copy and paste between.
- provides the opportunity to experiment with different design sets and visualize them by turning on and off the layers.
- Providing subset layers would be even better in file management by expanding or collapsing them in the palette.
- Providing pull off/tear off menus would greatly help saving work time.
Should have COPY CUT and PASTE functions that work globally in the application for many reasons
- Would save many hours of creating or replicating objects or groups of objects
- If a file is corrupt, selecting and placing objects/groups of objects into a new file would save much work effort.
- There are many other good reasons and invite everyone else to come up with their own list.
I could go on, yet I need to see want work I can get done for now and wanted to at least get this out there to see what help might come back.
Thanks,
Ron
/pt
Hi Scott,
I am not sure why LumenRT Community was lumped in with the others if you want to post LumenRT questions to Visualization Community I am sure plenty of users will see them here. For what it is worth I host a Visualization Special Interest Group every month to talk about visualization topics and on numerous occasion I have showed and discussed LumenRT, these are recorded so you should be able to watch the recordings from the link. This is great place for users such as yourself or Ron to attend ask questions or even request features. Just yesterday I showed how to create LumenRT content and even how to use Adobe Fuse to create your animated characters. I know there are a lot of YouTube videos posted that I learned from in the beginning. For me LumenRT is dead simple to use and I have used it for absolutely huge projects without problems that being said I do have some stellar hardware, lots of memory and high end GPUs.
We pay attention here at Bentley I know Ron started this thread and he mentions all the help from Dave Burdick but I helped him as well. I cannot speak for using a Mac but some of Ron's issues could very well be hardware related. Just to be clear LumenRT is meant to be a tool for visualizing your designs and not a design tool. The workflow is that the model comes from a design package like MicroStation and changes to the model other than jazzing it up with trees, people, vehicles etc should be done in the design package. If you want to be able to create content without having to use a Bentley product you can do that too. You can load OBJ or DAE files directly into LumenRT you can even drag the files onto the LumenRT window (on a PC) I am not sure what Ron is using to get his design into LumenRT but surely he can create at least an OBJ file. If you are using MicroStation CONNECT Edition we let you export a VUE object or VOB file this is the same as native LumenRT object LOB files. If you use Bentley products yes the process can be even more straight forward.
Now while cut, copy and paste could possibly be implemented at some point, currently it is not and this does not mean LumenRT is poorly engineered. It means that up till now we have never had a single user request the feature. I don't see this as being a huge deal when you could be using your design package for adding for instance an array of bollards or street lights with some know spacing hit the export button and you are done. The content you added in LumenRT is retained, If my building, bridge, roadway or whatever it is I am try to visualize changes that should always be accomplished in the design package not in LumenRT.
As far as training goes try searching web on LumenRT tutorials I easily found10 pages of stuff, this is how I learned LumenRT before E-on was acquired by Bentley. You can try this link if you at logged into this community there is some training here.
Hope this helps.....
Cheers,
Jerry