[SOLVED] Parametric scenarios configuration and rendering

[davide445]

Planning a project where I will need to create an external scenario configurator for an industrial application, where

- a third party product will generate specific scenarios (visible assets, time of day, weather conditions, etc)
- that need to be written in some interchange format,
- read from the engine that will next render the specific scenario as images
- also this need to be done without the editor being opened but as a server installation

I'm just reading about Unigine, I have instead experience on Unreal Studio (as prototyping and levels creator for small product promo rendering, not developer) that does have his strengths but appear not to be specialized for this kind of more "industrial" applications.

Interested to discuss if Unigine will be good for this kind of usage. Tanks and apologize for this naive question.

Edited September 29, 2019 by davide445

[silent]

Hi Davide,

If you have developers in your team you should be able to achieve this :) If not, you can contact our team and we can see if we can help you.

You can describe any scenario in any format and than you just need to write a parser of the scenario files and combine it with already existed assets database (you can make a connection by using properties and component system). You can even import some user assets (if required) in runtime if it's required.

Unlike UE4 or Unity you can embed engine library into already existing application and use all the methods that available in API.

Thanks!

[davide445]

Hi silent

thanks for your so fast answer. Some more specific points to ask (maybe useful for others also)

- Being the goal related to BIM construction I expect ifc format assets to be used. As far as I understood this is not a currently supported format. There are any usage example on that area? Seen the Oil refinery BIM demo curious to know what was the pipeline.

- Reading is possible to import geo referenced terrain, meaning I can nativelly import from public and private sources such as OSM/ESRI and import layers or I need some pre-offline processing? Also will be possible to import street data?

- All the engine features are available by scripting? Asking since experimenting on Ureal Studio sequencer appear is pretty limited respect the full engine.

- I can't find any specific feature for characters (and crowd) animation

- What kind of license is needed for this application - I'm seeing a difference btw Engine licenses and sim

- There are any licensing for pre-production prototyping and feasability study

- There are any part of the team based in EU

Thanks a lot!

Edited March 1, 2019 by davide445

[silent]

Hi Davide,

Quote

 - Reading is possible to import geo referenced terrain, meaning I can nativelly import from public and private sources such as OSM/ESRI and import layers or I need some pre-offline processing? Also will be possible to import street data?
 

 - What kind of license is needed for this application
 - There are any licensing for pre-production prototyping and feasability study

If you need Geo-referenced terrains import you need to get at least Professional license (in some cases Sim is required). You can discuss other option with our sales manager (I believe Olga should already contact you regarding this).

 

Quote

- Being the goal related to BIM construction I expect ifc format assets to be used. As far as I understood this is not a currently supported format. There are any usage example on that area?

IFC is not supported yet, but we plan to add this format. If you have some specific use-cases (and example files) - we would be glad to check them :)

 

Quote

 - Reading is possible to import geo referenced terrain, meaning I can nativelly import from public and private sources such as OSM/ESRI and import layers or I need some pre-offline processing? Also will be possible to import street data?

Yep, it's possible with a Landscape tool. However, most of the data requires a manual polishing in 3rd party app (modifying vector, cleaning satellite imagery and so on).

 

Quote

 - All the engine features are available by scripting? Asking since experimenting on Ureal Studio sequencer appear is pretty limited respect the full engine.

Yep, most of them available. However, some complex systems (like Landscape tool) is not. 
 

Quote

 - There are any part of the team based in EU

Development team is outside of EU, but we have a business unit here.

[davide445]

Thanks very much for your answers, I'll discuss further with Olga about my plans.

[davide445]

4 hours ago, silent said:

IFC is not supported yet, but we plan to add this format. If you have some specific use-cases (and example files) - we would be glad to check them :)

Byw if this is sharable there is a roadmap in the IFC format support?

[silent]

I believe that it will be available later this year (no exact date for now, sorry).

[davide445]

Reading more about the programming features can you confirm is will be possible to manage by command line / script

- Create terrain based on provided geo coordinates and datasources for heights and biome

- Texture the terrain based on rules such as distance from the construction site

- Create roads using OSM data

- Create buildings based on internal rules, public buildings tiles and predefined textures

- Populate the world with vegetation based on parameters such as the season

- Populate with characters, both static and moving

- Set multiple assets (nodes in Unigine language I understood)  visibility at a specific time

- Define objects movements during the simulation period (random or on specific paths, searching paths based on other objects presence so to avoid intersections)

- Define a camera path around the whole construction

- Define time of day and relative illumination results

- Define presence of clouds and rain

- Define camera effects / distortions (DOF, focus, scratches, color and white balance)

- Render image sequence

- Control multiple cameras

- Instance multiple rendering processes depending on the load

[silent]

Hi Davide,

Quote

- Instance multiple rendering processes depending on the load

Could you please elaborate on this? Right now it's not completely clear what task we should solve by that.

 

Quote

- Create terrain based on provided geo coordinates and datasources for heights and biome

- Texture the terrain based on rules such as distance from the construction site

- Create roads using OSM data

- Create buildings based on internal rules, public buildings tiles and predefined textures

- Populate the world with vegetation based on parameters such as the season

That's can be partially done by code. We do recommend to use Landscape tool to generate initial terrains with roads and buildings (especially if you need to generate whole cities at once). Also, you don't need to handle manually terrain textures changes depending on camera distance since object is already doing this internally. After generation you can try to modify already existing objects via code.

The rest of the list can be done via code as well.

Thanks!

[davide445]

Since the activity will be server side with no direct human intervention and will be linked to a service website, the load can vary depending on the number of users.

This mean Unigine engine need to scale based on the workload, working on multiple projects at the same time. You can solve this having multiple installations serving every one a single request (inflexible since you need to define from the beginning the max number of concurrent requests) or having a dynamic instancing so that at a new request a new instance of the service is activated. Similar to what DB server or application server are doing.

Didn't know if you ever need to manage this kind of scenario, I suppose for the "standard" simulation activity where the engine is driven from an interaction with the user the standard scenario is one engine serve one user.

Landscape tool can be driven by code?

 

[silent]

Hi Davide,

Quote

Landscape tool can be driven by code?

There is no API for Landscape tool, so currently there is no possibility to use it via code.

 

Quote

This mean Unigine engine need to scale based on the workload, working on multiple projects at the same time.

That would be hard to achieve, since only a single loaded .world can be run at once on a single engine instance. You can run multiple engines on a same machine, however. 

Thanks!