AccuRender nXt

AccuRender nXt is a new AccuRender rendering engine currently under development.

The next AccuRender is under development. It is completely new technology and we need feedback from a wide range of users. Both professional renderers and designers that need an occasional killer image.

1 Goals
2 New technology
3 Technical Specifications
4 See also

Goals

The goals for the new AccuRender technology include:

Substantially faster. Our long-term goal has always been to make our rendering technology fast enough to "Design with the lights on"™. We believe the new core makes that now possible for many users.
Easier to use. The AccuRender technology should not burden designers with having to understand rendering technology. The new AR makes big steps in that direction.
More accurate images. For a designer it is important to both understand how a space or building will actually look and feel, and also have the rendering tools needed to show off a design "in the best light". Our goal is to make both easy for the designer. The new core takes another big step in that direction.

New technology

The main differences are:

Optimized core engine runs 4-5 faster

handles models on large sites much better
better thread scheduling for multi-core machines

Better image quality

images are continually refined and updated until halted
trade processing time for quality
much better anti-aliasing
better tone reproduction, more saturated colors

Indirect lighting without radiosity

can handle complex models with many polygons
fewer artifacts
no specialized modeling required

New HDR sky source algorithm

better analytical sky source

Better interior day-lighting

possible to do without special "daylight sources"

new material editor w/lighting and anti-aliasing

Technical Specifications

Core

Physically-based luminance calculation
Choice of Packet Tracer or Path Tracer engines
Progressive refinement algorithm
64-bit version for massive data sets

Multiprocessing

Parallel algorithms efficiently use all available cores
Near-linear performance increase WRT number of cores
Vector-based calculation using SSE

Lighting

Analytical sky and sun
HDRi image-based lighting
Up to eight Lighting Channels
IES file support
Luminance values available for all surfaces
Refractive and reflective caustics
Automatic daylight portals for efficient interior daylight simulations

Materials

Efficient displacement mapping with low memory overhead
Normal and bump mapping
Texture set support
Procedural textures and bumps
Blurry transparency and glossy reflection
Fully assignable to ACA components

Entourage

3D plant editor and library
Textured mesh object support (OBJ and 3DS format)
RPC™ support

Ready-made Content

Fractal Trees
Material Library
HDRi Backgrounds

Camera

Perspective
2-Point Perspective
Orthographic
Panoramic
Accurate depth of field

Image Editor and Output

Lighting channel manipulation
Post-process fx like real-time depth of field, haze, and veiling glare.
Image arithmetic
Piranesi™ support
HDR and EXR high dynamic range output
Mask, material, and distance channels
Automatic alpha-compositing

Animation

Easy to use 3D slide show animation
Path-based animation

AccuRender nXt

Contents

Goals

New technology

Technical Specifications

See also