Paris, France - Abvent has launched Artlantis 4, the latest version of the company's stand-alone 3D rendering application for architects and designers.
Providing tools for rendering photorealistic 3D projects, Artlantis interfaces directly with popular architectural CAD and BIM software titles--including ArchiCAD, Revit, SketchUp Pro, Vectorworks, and Arc+--and provides native support for many popular file formats--including DXF, DWG, 3DS, DWF, OBJ, and FBX.
Available in two main versions, Artlantis offers a product line suited to different needs and practices. Artlantis Render is developed for design professionals (architects, interior designers, urban planners, landscapers, exhibition organizers, exhibitors, etc.) who need to create very high-quality still renderings.
Artlantis Studio not only creates high-resolution still images, but also offers an enhanced suite of tools to generate dynamic renderings, such as iVisit 3D panoramas, VR objects, and animations, that provide interactivity with and motion through the project. Like previous versions, Artlantis 4 is designed based on the original concept of the interactive preview window, with user-defined settings that provide immediate visual feedback on changes made to the project. The new and improved rendering engine allows users to generate radiosity images directly within the 3D preview window, providing an accurate representation of the final rendering in real time, while saving the end user valuable time as changes are made to the project. New features in Artlantis 4 iVisit 3D Panoramas (Artlantis Studio only).
Create a realistic virtual tour inside your project with multi-node panoramas. Artlantis 4 creates everything needed to view the panoramas. Based on Flash technology, the player is free of charge and viewable within most popular web browsers. A special tool also allows users to view and share these panoramas on an iPad or iPhone. iVisit 3D is available in two versions (Lite and Pro) from Apple's App Store. iVisit 3D Lite is free, but is limited to one viewing per day.
As in photography, color is an essential consideration in rendering. The new radiosity engine improves images for better perception of colors, textures, and materials. Tone correction is a new post-process tool that allows users to lighten dark images or vice versa. A new Fresnel shader has been added to the library, which is particularly suitable for metallic car bodies. Transparent surfaces and a variety of other edits are now managed more easily in this new version, thanks to an improved method for selecting and handling multiple objects.
Artlantis 4's average rendering time is two times faster, and up to seven times faster if the project uses several Neon shaders. In order to better handle large projects, Artlantis is now optimized for 64-bit Macintosh and Windows environments.
A new Horizontal material projection method simplifies working with complex roof surfaces, automatically orienting the direction of all roof textures to line up with all soffit edges in one simple step. Batch rendering work can now be reorganized and filtered before the renderings are generated. In the 2D view, a series of duplicated objects can be automatically positioned on the underlying ground surface using gravity.
Along with the release of Artlantis 4, five new Media volumes are also being released exclusively for Artlantis 4, featuring 3D Transport 2010, 3D Cars 2010 (Europe), 3D Cars 2010 (Asia), 3D Cars 2009, and 3D Cars 2008. This brings the total number of optional Artlantis media volumes to 39. Artlantis Media volumes contain themed collections of 3D objects or shaders and parametric textures, available for download or on disc. Artlantis 4 is now available for purchase through Abvent's network of international distributors.