Perspective correction techniques

I've been neglecting my blog lately due to having too much work to do, so to try and get back into the swing of things I though I might as well put this up here (even although its not a tutorial). I like to do as much as possible in Lightroom when it comes to processing photos, its so handy to keep everything raw and then even when I do need to make a jpg for uploading to the internet I tend to bin them afterwards. One thing that annoys me though is how LR does perspective correction. In my opinion PTlens (a cheap plugin for photoshop) does it well, in that it looks believable, whereas LR's output always looks a bit squashed.

The two programs clearly use different algorithms, but which is more 'correct'?

Lightroom:

PTLens:

and a comparison between the two showing how much taller buildings appear in PTLens:

I don't have aperture but would be interested in knowing how it handles it. Also, if there is a way of stretching an image in LR please let me know! Otherwise, I must say I am very pleased with the lens correction presets in LR (for barrel distortion correction).

My workflow just now is to camera match with the uncorrected version in 3dsmax and then do PC control afterwards in photoshop. How do you camera match a TS Lens in 3dsmax, is it even possible? (with a degree of accuracy)

Kilburn Vale - Gianni Botsford Architects

Kilburn Vale by Gianni Botsford Architects.

I loved GBA's Casa Kike when I first saw it, so this was a very exciting commission for me.

As usual I started by building a very detailed sketchup model (thanks for your help Bojana!). It's quite a simple building, but with a lot of thought in the details:

I try to do as much as I can these days in sketchup, even roughly positioning textures which then get replaced by vray materials in 3dsmax.

The external terracotta louvres were given a cg-source.com multi-texture map to randomise the colour of each louvres very slightly, this really helped in adding some realism. (Maybe I could have used the new vray multi subtexture map? haven't figured it out yet)

All the furniture was chosen by the architect, the main items were:

- Drop table, Living Divani. Designed by Junya Ishigami - Garden plate, Living Divani. Designed by Junya Ishigami - Family Chairs, Living Divani. Designed by Junya Ishigami - Loop Chair designed by Willy Guhl - Extrasoft sofa by Living Divani

The principle HDR skies were 2003 for the night time shots and 1739 for the sunlight ones.

Arkitekthus - Ekerö

AH#024 house by Thomas Sandell for Arkitekthus

My first commssion from arkitekthus.se is a house designed by one of Sweden's foremost architects and designers Thomas Sandell.

Technical info for those interested:

Building modeled in Sketchup, rendered at 6000px resolution in 3dsmax using vray, brix, forest pro.

Geeky vray stuff:

Irradiance map & light cache for the high res renders, universal method for the 1200px alternative lighting renders.

Furniture:

HDR Skies used: 0743, 1739, 1928, 2028

clay render

viewport

Stöten

A short 3d intro for Stöten Ski Resort made in collaboration with Panama Channel. Made with 3dsmax, vray, multiscatter, snow flow & after effects The actual terrain was actually imported into 3dsmax via google earth>sketchup. www.panamachannel.se www.peterguthrie.net

A short 3d intro for Stöten Ski Resort made in collaboration with Panama Channel.

Made with 3dsmax, vray, multiscatter, snow flow & after effects

The actual terrain was actually imported into 3dsmax via google earth>sketchup.

www.panamachannel.se

www.peterguthrie.net

Dalarna Business

This was a fun 1 day job I did for Norkay, the people I share an office with. It's an advert for Dalarna Business to show (with a sense of humour) how local businesses might grow in the future. Norkay came up with the concept and the idea for this image, I then designed and modeled an airport, rendered it and montaged it into a photo of the existing Mora airport. Oh, and I added some reindeer and a sleigh for good measure.

Double page spread in the local newspaper, Falu Kuriren.

Concept by Norkay, photography by Ulf Palm Fotograf, visualisation by me.

Sketchup!

Don't let anyone tell you sketchup is not a 'serious' modeling program and that it produces untidy geometry, like any program its how you use it that counts. The genuis of sketchup lies in it's tidy interface, brilliant snapping, and ease of use. Sketchup has it's limits of course, but for architectural visualisation I think it is the perfect tool for modeling. Every single project in my portfolio started life in sketchup. The start of any project for me is understanding the building and modeling it - as quickly and as efficiently as possible. This timelapse screen recording shows the whole process, speeded up 10x. The whole thing took about a day (3 hrs 46mins, excluding all the coffee breaks). I like to get the overall form of the building done first, but identifying and making components for any repeating elements (windows, doors, whole apartments) as I go. You can then go back and add detail later on.

Don’t let anyone tell you sketchup is not a ’serious’ modeling program and that it produces untidy geometry, like any program its how you use it that counts. The genuis of sketchup lies in it’s tidy interface, brilliant snapping, and ease of use. Sketchup has it’s limits of course, but for architectural visualisation I think it is the perfect tool for modeling. Every single project in my portfolio started life in sketchup. The start of any project for me is understanding the building and modeling it - as quickly and as efficiently as possible. This timelapse screen recording shows the whole process, speeded up 10x. The whole thing took about a day (3 hrs 46mins, excluding all the coffee breaks). I like to get the overall form of the building done first, but identifying and making components for any repeating elements (windows, doors, whole apartments) as I go. You can then go back and add detail later on.

Plain Space

A little personal project inspired by Jown Pawson's recent Plain Space exhibition at the Design Museum in London. These renders take a lot of inspiration from Gilbert McCarragher's beautiful photos of the exhibition. My main interest in doing this was to capture the same quality of light as in the photos, I love the blue light from the sky in contrast to the warm concealed lighting under the benches. You can view the renders at a bigger size on Flickr

HDRi sky used in this series: 1123.

Ronen Bekerman's Hover Challenge

In case you haven't seen it, Ronen has wrapped up the latest arch viz challenge on his site, Hover. I really enjoyed following everyone's progress, and just wanted to share my favourites here (along with some commentary on each!).

My personal favourite entry was Tolgahan Güngör's imaginative interpretation of the brief. I know this wasn't his final entry but they were all very good. I loved the design, composition and lighting. There were maybe some technical things that could have been better, but for me they aren't so important when the overall mood is right.

Next up is Micael Dillner's entry. A strong concept, the environment here really appealed to me, and I liked the composition a lot too (I know the judges disagree with me here!).

Finally Benjamin Brosdau's sleek modern house. It was fascinating following the development on his thread, if you haven't looked through it you really should. Great attention to detail, incredible modeling and texturing, there's lots to learn there for everyone. Considering the promise shown though, I felt the final 2 images needed a bit more work in terms of lighting and composition. The final exterior shown here seems to be a bit in between an exciting dynamic view and a stiffer straight on view (like Micael's above). I'd like to have seen some more experimentation in composition and lighting before settling on the final entries. Here is an example of the stunning attention to detail shown on Benjamin's WIP thread:

Congratulations to everyone who took part, and well done Ronen for another great challenge!

Snow!

Seeing as its almost that time of year again, I thought I'd share some progress on an exciting new project I'm working on.

The snow is mostly done with the brilliant snowflow plugin, some of the trees are from the winter trees collection at rendering.ru and some are made with onyxtree and have snow applied using snowflow. I still haven't decided on the mood and haven't even begun to think about views.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any ideas!

EDIT:

The sky hdri numbers used were 1008, 1929, 1725, and 1928