3DRender is a program that takes the output from Cameron Churchill's SustDes, and translates it into a VRML "world". Written by Oliver Meyn in the Java programming language, it replaces the original visualisation tool bundled with SustDes that was called SCAPE, and required AutoCAD to render its images. 3DRender uses Delauney triangulation to quickly interpolate the scene's ground surface, and keys the scene's features to those calculated elevations. The scene's features (houses, roads, trees) are drawn from separate VRML files (included with 3DRender) that can be updated independently of 3DRender. This allows for those who have their own housing type (from a specific architect, for example) to substitute their design without affecting the functioning of 3DRender.

The VRML worlds created here, though still quite artificial looking, provide a definite feel of "being there", and as such we consider the use of VRML an evolutionary step in community design. The eventual goal in this branch of the research group is to produce an extension to ESRI's well known GIS software ArcView. This extension would allow the same rapid prototyping of community layouts, but be capable of accepting the much broader range of inputs generated in a GIS. Now under development, it is slated for release in July of this year.

Both SustDes and 3DRender are available for download by following the link below. To give some idea of the results of these two programs, the next page shows several examples.

Go to the downloads page to download 3DRender.