LUMENRT Update 15

I've just spent a couple of hours with LumenRT Update 15 and have a few comments.

First, congratulations to the development team - there are some good improvements. I also tried everything to make it crash - without success.

  • screen text;    "Date: [date]"  - this is pre-populated with "1 May 2020" how can this be changed to today's date?
  • WEATHER>Aerial - this affects the haziness of the ground plane towards the horizon... but why call it "Aerial" in the context of "WEATHER"? ie. what is "Aerial weather"?
  • SUN POSITION> Year. Why have this variable? Looking at the shadows, I can's see any difference in solar position between 10 December 2020 or any other year. It would make sense if it called up the leap-year date options for February, but the calendar offers 31 days for all months anyway.
  • Disable clouds shadows. This is a useful feature. I've always run clouds across the sky and paused them to get sunshine in my scene, so this is a valuable improvement. I'd just change the language to "Disable cloud shadows" (singular).
  • CAMERA SETTINGS> Use fixed camera height. Nice!
  • NAVIGATION OPTIONS> Save window rect  What is this? What does it do? "rect" isn't a word.
  • NAVIGATION OPTIONS> Pass through wall Assuming this is intended to prevent navigation through solid vertical objects? It doesn't seem to work.
General notes (many of these have been around for years, so I hope they get looked at someday).
  • ORTHO PROJECTION - still hoping for the ability to render pure plan and elevation views (ie. no camera)
  • Birds - still flying around unnaturally, would be better if they flew in flocks (and preferably pigeons, more likely to occur both at the coast an inland)
  • Dialog panels - need to undock from their current position at the toolbar. They obscure the view while making adjustments.
  • MATERIAL PROPERTIES - it would be good to show all material properties at once, currently cumbersome to scroll through Color> Normal Map> Roughness>Metallic>ambient Occlusion>Displacement>Backlighting.
  • EXPORT CLIP "Press Esc to abort"... too easy to inadvertently abort an animation export. I multitask several other apps while rendering and have hit Esc by mistake while exporting a clip. Actually, Esc used to abort the rendering even if LumenRT was not the App in focus, and I see this no longer happens - but it still seems too easy to inadvertently abort (ESC is used for too many things). CTRL-C would be better.
  • UNDO should only apply to changes made to the model, or settings. It should not undo view states. This should be a similar principal to the way that Microstation draws a distinction between "Undo" (CTRL-Z) and "View Previous".
  • LAYERS still clumsy (defining layers by object with color codes)
  • PLANTS thumbnails in the collection are too dark.
Finally, the Characters library is starting to look quite retro and tired. Many of them are severely distorted (oversized hands/ feet, relative to body). A refresh of this library would be most welcome - along with the ability to silhouette all characters (ie. apply a solid color to each one, and possibly transparency).
There are the obvious other possible improvements (already implemented by one of LumenRT's "free" competitors); RAIN (and wet ground surfaces), SNOW, DECALS, GRUNGE EFFECTS, CLAY RENDER, CAMERA PARALLELISM, VEGETATION GROWTH, automatic UV repair, a far more comprehensive CHARACTERS and MATERIALS library etc., but I'll stop here in case it sounds like I'm about to jump ship! LumenRT's 3DConnexion and very large scene capability still gives it the edge (just).
Max

Parents Reply
  • Ok - easy way to make LRT crash...

    A raster image (JPG) is mapped to a mesh in Microstation. Export to LumenRT, all fine.

    Now do some photoshopping to the JPG and overwrite the original JPG. Re-export to LRT and it will corrupt the LRT file.

    There are some occasions when it doesn't corrupt the LRT, but the original version of the map remains in the file (not the updated one).

    Please provide a work-around or update to make this work.

    Thanks,

    Max

Children
  • Hello Max,

    Thank you for reporting.

    Can you just confirm, which version of Microstation you are using?

    We will reproduce the issue in the same version.

    Thank you.

    Regards,

    Pinky Shee

  • Thank you - CE 10.15.00.74

    It feels as if LumenRT latches on to some unique identifier (not just file name) for each image map. If I change something on the image, but keep the same file name, LumenRT will hold on to the original image and is not interested in the updated version.

    Max

  • Hello Max,

    Will be able to share a small sample file for testing ?

    I will try to reproduce the issue at my end.

    Thanks.

    Rg,

    Ankur Ashesh

  • I've not been able to reproduce the crash with a smaller version of my files, but can demonstrate the problem in a different way.

    Attached is a small version, with just one of the many meshes included. I've created a draped jpg called "draped aerial image", and for reference have written "OPTION A" on it.

    1. I export the DGN to LRT, and as expected the "OPTION A" draped aerial image appears.
    2. Save the LRT file, and close LumenRT. I also close Microstation.
    3. In Photoshop, I make changes to the draped aerial image JPG. As a test, all I do is change the words "OPTION A" to "OPTION B" Theoretically this new image should appear in the next LRT export. I don't change the filename.
    4. I open the DGN in Microstation. As expected, the draped aerial image is the updated JPG from step 3. It says "OPTION B"
    5. Export the updated DGN to LRT, and the aerial has not updated. It still shows the original "OPTION A". Surely Microstation should export what it shows in Microstation?
    6. To make things worse - I try to change the image in LumenRT (MATERIAL PROPERTIES>COLOR>Load) and navigate to the updated JPG. This does nothing. The old "OPTION A" remains in place. Only if the filename is different will it update.

    I hope this helps. As I said previously, it feels as if LumenRT is determined to keep the original image map rather than accept any updates from Microstation. Possibly related; I did a screenshot of a Microstation message earlier which made reference to a missing pattern (same as my draped aerial images). (lost the screenshot, but it was something like "Unable to find pattern: draped aerial image.jpg [X10F273500DE78]

    It adds a complex identifier behind the filename, which makes me think the JPG is not only identified by filename, but by unique identifier too. This is confusing to the Microstation>LRT export process.

    Max

    SP_test_2.zip

  • Hello,

    I posted a question in the visualization forum about LumenRT and roadway section. When you have time can you help me out.

    Thanks

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