“The Paragon Group visualisation team has seen an increase in its output quantities and quality by integrating Lumion into its daily production workflows,”
Emile Maritz
Thanks to the Revit > Lumion Integration, The Paragon group has not only achieved an increase in its output quantities and quality but also experienced a much reduced production time and seen improved communication and feedback from the various team players.
In 2018 The Paragon Group, as lead architects, embarked on an exciting project, namely the conceptualisation of Barloworld Equipment Head Office & Caterpillar Showroom in Kempton Park – Gauteng. The state-of-the-art 4500m² head office consists of two elongated, north-facing buildings: A two-story north building, and a three-story south building, linked by an enclosed, glazed bridge.
The office structures sit lightly on a landscaped podium, which floats above a semi-basement parking level.
The 3200m² showroom is the first of its kind in South Africa – a bubble-like structure dedicated to large earthmoving equipment. The building is split into two specialty areas, namely equipment defined by a ‘tyre’ or ‘track’ category. The space also includes two floors of office space to the rear.
The space also includes two floors of office space to the rear. Once we learned of the completion of this first in South Africa project, we made contact with The Paragon group in order to share with you the achievable outcomes when combining Autodesk Revit with Lumion Rendering Software. By doing this, we are able to present the options that you can too implement in order to streamline and increase the efficiency of your design projects.
The below was discussed:
What software solutions were used for your project?
Our team uses a combination of the below Software to ensure maximum design efficiency:
Autodesk Revit
Autodesk CAD
Autodesk Recap
Autodesk 3ds Max
Lumion
In what way do you use Lumion and Revit in your practice?
Conceptual Design (do you use Lumion to gain an early understanding of the design).How do you achieve this? With LiveSync or by DAE export?
Over the last two years we have started to integrate Lumion as part of the design process
where the design teams use LiveSync to refine and adjust design ideas.
Client visualizations?
This is the main use of Lumion in our practice
95%of our presentation renders and animated fly-throughs are produced in Lumion
Partners to comment on the designs?
We use Lumion as part of the continues design communication and feedback between project teams in our daily workflows.
Do you use Lumion Viewer to communicate designs to clients?
No, we mainly provide clients with renders and animations.
Do you use Lumion Pro to collaborate on designs (merge models)?
Yes, the companies within the Paragon Group require collaboration between architectural and interior design teams w.r.t their varied models. It is standard practice in our workflow to combine a base-build model from the architectural teams with the additional interior components from the interior design team.
Do you use panoramic images to act as backdrop for your models?
“Yes. Where required and depending on expected render outcome”
Do you use drones to capture reality in close proximity around
the model (FBX import)?
“Do you also use the same drone data to create point clouds?
Yes. We have used drone photography extensively in several of our projects for both back
context information in renders/fly-throughs and point cloud creation.”
Do you use Open Street Map to import height maps into your
model?
“How do you integrate the Revit Topography into the Lumion terrain? Do you create the
topography in Revit large enough to make use of the 3D Grass effect?
We use Open Street Map for heightmap and for satellite photo information (from Lumion 11).
This allows us to be less dependent on terrain models created in Revit. It is however still
necessary to have the terrain model from Revit for use as a reference to get site and building
models aligned in Lumion.”
What is the mix between Lumion Standard and Lumion Pro
Licenses in your office?
“We have only Lumion Pro licenses in our practice”
Do you use Revit to render at all?
“Not as part of the visualisation production workflow. Design teams might render low resolution conceptual renders for design discussions”
Do you use selection sets to map Revit categories onto Lumion
materials?
“No this is not part of our workflow”
Do you have a mix of Revit and Revit LT licenses?
If so, how do you streamline the workflow to Lumion?
“Our practice only has full Revit licenses as part of the Autodesk Architecture, Engineering and Construction Collection”
Do you use Revit to write models out to 3D DWG files so that you can manipulate families in Lumion, or are you happy to place content in Revit and then as any additional objects in Lumion?
“It is standard practice for us to export our models from Revit to 3ds Max. Adding this step in the workflow, gives us much greater flexibility and insures we have greatly optimised models and textures for import into Lumion. “
Does the Link between Revit and Lumion speed up changes
made in Revit in your Lumion model?
“Yes”
Have you used the Material Sets?
And does it speed up your material assignments when bringing in a Revit project each time?
“As stated before, we do not use material sets as standard. Because our workflow included preparation and refinement of the models in 3ds Max, we would do all material assignments in Max before exporting for Lumion. “
Conclusion
The integration of Autodesk software (Revit and 3ds Max) with Lumion via LiveSync has streamlined our workflows in such a way that we are now able to:
Produce a larger number of visualisation media and assets
With a much-reduced production time
At a greater quality
With better communication and feedback from various teams within our practice throughout
the project design and visualisation process.
