This scene is of a virtual reality architectural walkthrough of a proposed design for a permanent virtual reality installation at the Beethovenhaus Museum in Bonn, Germany.

MultiGen Creator allowed us to transform architectural drawings and abstract ideas into a photorealistic virtual scene. The scene was developed with MultiGen Creator using architectural drawings as design templates for modeling. Autodesk® Lightscape and Lightscape Libraries were also used, as well as online texture libraries. MultiGen Creator's Modify UV's plug-in, the combine faces tool, and the database management tools were especially useful for fixing errors and re-optimizing after converting to and from Lightscape formats. The model was shown on the i-Cone™, a high-resolution, stereo, 4-pipe, curved screen virtual reality device driven by an SGI™ Onyx2.

The project proved highly valuable in getting computer scientists, museum curators and architects to understand a design and be able to discuss its strengths and weaknesses. Several major design modifications occurred based on discussions that arose after viewing the architectural model on the I-Cone. The final design, scheduled for completion on December 17, 2002, meets the desires and demands of everyone involved with the project because of the use of virtual reality as an evaluation and communications tool.

Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication
Schloss Birlinghoven
D-53754 Sankt Augustin
Germany
T +49 2241 14 2874

Vertigo Systems GmbH
Beethovenstr. 5-13
50674 Köln
Germany
T +49 221 240 5471

RMH - New Media GmbH
Beethovenstr. 5-13
50674 Köln
Germany
T +49 221 272 25 0

Team:
Jeremy Eccles (Fraunhofer-IMK)
Uli Lechner (Vertigo Systems)
Florian Dombois (Fraunhofer-IMK)