
Building 3D with Ikea - panarky
http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/building_3d_with_ikea
======
fizixer
In case anyone has about 30-60 minutes and is interested to get a quick
glimpse of how easy (I guess meaning free and accessible at the least) it has
become to do such graphics:

\- Download and install Blender 2.71
([http://blender.org/download](http://blender.org/download)). On linux
(Ubuntu) I did not even have to install it; I just extracted the tarball and
ran the blender binary.

\- Go through this two part ceramic mug tutorial (30-60 minutes):
[http://youtu.be/y__uzGKmxt8](http://youtu.be/y__uzGKmxt8) ...
[http://youtu.be/ChPle-aiJuA](http://youtu.be/ChPle-aiJuA)

As someone who does not have graphics training, I was blown away when I did
this. Apparently there is this thing called 'path tracing' based rendering,
that takes care of accurate lighting, as long as you give the correct
specification of geometry and materials.

Some interesting videos:

\- Octane 2.0 renderer: [http://youtu.be/gLyhma-kuAw](http://youtu.be/gLyhma-
kuAw)

\- Lightwave: [http://youtu.be/TAZIvyAJfeM](http://youtu.be/TAZIvyAJfeM)

\- Brigade 3.0: [http://youtu.be/BpT6MkCeP7Y](http://youtu.be/BpT6MkCeP7Y)

\- Alex Roman, the third and the seventh:
[http://vimeo.com/7809605](http://vimeo.com/7809605)

Brigade is an effort towards real-time path tracing, and it's predicted that
within 2-3 GPU generations, such graphics would be possible in games.

~~~
runeks
> Brigade is an effort towards real-time path tracing, and it's predicted that
> within 2-3 GPU generations, such graphics would be possible in games.

Who predicts this? Path tracing is fundamentally different from rasterization,
and I doubt that GPU manufacturers can transition that fast.

~~~
fizixer
I've tried to make a very rough inference based on John Carmack's statement
along the lines "at one order of magnitude improvement on today's GPU's we'll
start seeing it in real things, and at two orders of magnitude it'll get
competitive in games"
([http://youtu.be/P6UKhR0T6cs?t=1h4m30s](http://youtu.be/P6UKhR0T6cs?t=1h4m30s)).

(some ninja edits)

------
bhouston
There was more information given on this at Martin's talk at SIGGRAPH as part
of V-Ray Day's - but I can not find out if it is online anywhere:

[http://siggraph2014.chaosgroup.com/vray-
days](http://siggraph2014.chaosgroup.com/vray-days)

The renderer used by Ikea is V-Ray, the same renderer we have integrated into
our online 3D modeling & rendering tool: [http://Clara.io](http://Clara.io) :)

Here are two simple Ikea-like furniture scenes which if you click "Edit
Online" you can edit it in your browser, both the geometry, the materials and
the lighting setup, as well as rendering it photoreal via V-Ray:

[https://clara.io/view/1d984b08-9711-4643-ae01-c3e53b174ace](https://clara.io/view/1d984b08-9711-4643-ae01-c3e53b174ace)

[https://clara.io/view/9fb1c2dd-0ff1-465e-bc64-fb8ac2cf7366](https://clara.io/view/9fb1c2dd-0ff1-465e-bc64-fb8ac2cf7366)

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groovur
Even IKEA doesn't like putting their furniture together ...

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bjelkeman-again
I'll never be able to look at an IKEA catalogue the same way ever again.

~~~
dahdum
Same here...it's incredibly well done but I can't help but seeing it as all
fake now. Their showrooms are still real at least.

~~~
nkozyra
The showrooms are greenscreen/CG as well. Make sure to wear a green shirt next
time.

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mixedbit
IKEA catalog in few years ;) [http://www.shapespark.com/formikodesign/old-
brewery-apartmen...](http://www.shapespark.com/formikodesign/old-brewery-
apartment/)

~~~
_archon_
There's no refrigerator in this apartment. Also, I really want those
chandeliers. That's a beautiful rendering though.

~~~
mixedbit
The largest door in the kitchen is the refrigerator door. Kitchen equipment
with front panels matching the furniture panels are quite popular
(refrigerators can be bought without front panels, panels can be then bought
together with furniture to match it exactly).

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johansch
So when do they take the obvious step of providing an easy to use 3d modeller
where customers can model their homes using ikea furniture?

They do have a tool sort of like this for kitchen design (developed by
Configura in Linköping, Sweden). But I want something for the entire home!

~~~
rasur
Not really having paid much attention to how they did do their catalogs in the
past, I just kind of presumed they were moving towards 3D instead of 'real'
photography.. and I guess my assumption has been proved right (makes sense -
it's a lot more flexible).

I can only wait for a well integrated 'select the furniture for your own house
app/site/whatever'.. which.. makes me wonder if they're considering some of
the opportunities presented by VR or - better - AR (such as Meta and others).

AR overlays of how furniture would look in your own home, would be quite neat!

~~~
mng2
They actually have AR overlays already. What you do is lay the catalog down on
the floor, and the iPad app uses it as a size reference to generate the
overlay. It's a little finicky in practice but still pretty impressive.

~~~
rasur
Interesting! I did not know that. Thanks for the heads up, I shall investigate
further :)

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mentos
Here are some realistic renders from Unreal Engine 4:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7Bp4wmd_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7Bp4wmd_s)

Epic is encouraging all kinds of applications such as architecture simulations
and not just video games. I'm interested to see how the engine can be used to
do something similar to what Ikea is doing.

------
cyberjunkie
I wonder how active the 3D-CG scene is these days. In the mid-2000s there was
so much activity on CGsociety (then cgtalk.com). The kind of work people
posted there was just out of this world. Absolutely impressive attention to
detail. I was an enthusiast too so I would visit the site many times a day.

Of late, I haven't been in touch. Good to see stuff like this on Hacker News.

------
jlarocco
I wish they had given a bit more information about the actual workflow.

Specifically, I wonder if they leverage the original CAD models? And if so,
how are they converted to 3D Studio Max, and if the process is automated in
any way?

~~~
sawiemander
I went to the Ikea Vray talk at Siggraph. They are reusing CAD models but the
key to photorealistic rendering is not the model but the materials. They use a
capture and calibration process to feed textures into their VRay based shaders
in 3DS Max.

~~~
jlarocco
Awesome! Thanks!

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cluster1
> We use every computer in the building to give power to rendering as soon as
> they are not being used. As soon as someone goes to a meeting their
> computer-power is used, and of course there is overnight when people go
> home.

I'm very curious how they manage the distribution of computation?

~~~
wnkrshm
Path tracing is highly parallelizable, a ray doesn't need to know anything
about its neighbors (there are integrators that give better results if more
information is available) to be traced. In practice, each process just gets
assigned a part of the picture and can calculate in until it's done, moving on
to the next part.

~~~
wmkn
This is only partly true. Path tracing is an embarrassingly parallel problem
but only under the assumption that the entire scene description can be
accessed.

When a light ray strikes the ceiling it can bounce off towards a vase that is
on a diffuse table which scatters the light in all directions. So the
calculation for this light ray needs to know the shape and material (BRDF) of
all the objects that interact with the ray.

Before sending out the ray from the camera into the scene it is unknown what
objects are going to be hit along the way - as you can imagine is a difficult
problem to optimize for. The usual solution is to just distribute the entire
scene.

On a single computer there is no problem, the entire scene is usually present
in memory. On multiple computer it is more difficult since you will end up
distributing large amounts of data (scenes can be multiple gigabytes).

~~~
berkut
It's really just a bandwidth issue - VFX studios do this all the time with
their renderfarms - textures are the main issue - prod/archviz like Ikea stuff
are generally really clean and don't have THAT many textures - whereas in VFX
everything's dirty and generally very detailed so you're generally pulling in
>300GB of textures per medium level scene.

And at least in VFX everything's generally done lazily so you only read
textures as and when you need them if they're not cached already - there's a
bit of overhead to doing this (locking if a global cache, or duplicate memory
if per-thread cache which is faster as no locking), but it solves the problem
very nicely and on top of that the textures are mipmapped so for things like
diffuse rays you only need to pull in the very low-res approximations of the
image instead of say 8K images and point-sampling them, so this helps a lot
too...

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swalsh
It would be great if ikea sold some of these model libraries for use in videos
etc.

~~~
tincholio
You'd get a bunch of polygons and an Allen wrench :)

~~~
mankyd
Ållen

~~~
symmetricsaurus
'Insex' actually. But you were pretty close.

------
neovive
The entire concept is very interesting and is a logical extension of the
product catalog business (think about the impact of 3D and CG on movies,
architecture, etc.).

I've been experimenting with Blender and Skulptris lately and 3D modelling is
quite amazing. A wonderful mix of technical and artistic skills. I wonder if
IKEA will ever rethink their large super-store model and move towards smaller
stores where you virtually walk into and interact with rooms and furniture.

~~~
kalleboo
> move towards smaller stores where you virtually walk into and interact with
> rooms and furniture

I'm sure once Holodeck technology arrives, all stores will adopt it...

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mcpherrinm
A lot of my furniture is from Ikea: It would be great to have this software
for seeing how new room layouts look!

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emmanueloga_
I was hoping this was about an app to build 3d things by mixing and matching
ikea parts. I know there's at list one community around that idea [1] (and
I've done it myself :).

1: [http://www.ikeahackers.net/](http://www.ikeahackers.net/)

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igl
I am amazed on how this could be cheaper and faster than actually doing real
life photos. The scenery and lighting quality is amazing though. Can't do that
in a warehouse full of ikea products and fake housings either.

~~~
jkaunisv1
I'm also amazed. But if you've ever been on a photoshoot set it becomes a bit
more believable. Sometimes the simplest shots can take forever to get right.
Not to mention the number of people required - photographers, grips,
directors, gophers, etc. Factor in the point they made about shipping all the
physical stuff to a central location, all the different room setups (ie.
American vs German vs Japanese kitchens) required and it starts to make more
sense.

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trhway
the photograph in the office with people - are these real people on the office
or rendered models too?

[http://www.cgsociety.org/static/images/feature/ikea-
onComp.j...](http://www.cgsociety.org/static/images/feature/ikea-onComp.jpg)

A model of model rendering itself....

By the way, instead of home furnishings of different colors for people with
Google Glass or similar devices IKEA can just sell an app which will color a
furnishing (only in the image projected onto retina) into "bought" color
whenever owner looks at the piece, Emerald City style.

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wmf
This is becoming pervasive in the industry:
[http://www.wired.com/2013/03/luxion-
keyshot/](http://www.wired.com/2013/03/luxion-keyshot/)

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johnnyio
They should use Sketchfab for that. It is lighter and better thought for the
basic user to see the 3d model.

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borgchick
I am Jack's 3D hatred.

