Room Planner

[GabeS]

Hello, I'm new to the forums. Just ran across this site looking for a 3d rendering solution for a room planning web application I'm developing.  Basically, the user would create a room layout (add tables, chairs, desks, etc...) in a 2d, top-down view.  Then they could submit the room information and have the web server render out 4-5 high-quality jpg's of the room in 3d format.  I'm replacing an existing system where the furniture has already been created as 3d studio maxx files so I'd like to be able to use those without having them changed to another format.  Would jPCT be able to do that kind of rendering?  I wouldn't need any animation, just nice stills from a few different angles in the room.  Thanks a ton for any advice you might have!

Gabe

[Melssj5]

well you must model on 3d studio max but you must save in another format. 3d studio max saves on .max you have to export the files to .3ds

The rendering quality wont be as good as the one in 3ds max. but playing around with lights and things like that you may get a good result.

[EgonOlsen]

Plus you have to make sure that the server can open an OpenGL-window to render into (i.e. it can't run without any GUI and appropriate drivers) or you've to stick with the software renderer, which may be sufficient in your case but offers less options and a lower renderer quality (can be compensated by using anti-aliasing to a degree).
So in theory: Yes, this can be done. In practice, the server has to be capable of doing it.

[ToddMcF2002]

You could dowload the "Devkit" code.  Its all about loading and placing objects dynamically and all the source code is included.  The terrain, in this case would be the room and you could load all the furniture through the load interface.  Hope that helps.

[halcor]

hmm, if focus is on rendering quality and the renders are done on the server you could use renderer like povray, yafray, blender renderer.... and a lot more options here. of course, you have to properly tune rendering quality, so it looks nice and doesn't take forever (how nice - it depends on your server speed (if you have render farm you can perhaps even afford GI ) and the load of the web application - how many users are using it, how responsive it has to be and so on). your web application just prepares the scene and calls the external renderer.

forget about the .max format - it is supported only in 3ds max. but you can always easily convert to .obj or .3ds - they are widely supported.

jpct is suitable for realtime rendering - for example if you want to make an online 3d editor of the room DevKit seems quite suitable for a foundation.