Edificius AIrBIMpro2: the powerful AI-rendering engine

Here’s the latest update for Edificius: AIrBIMpro2, the new physically based, ray/path tracing AI-Rendering engine with new features and advantages for faster and more realistic renderings.

Do you need to produce superb visuals for your architectural projects in a matter of seconds?

Edificius is the first rendering software to fully integrate AMD Radeon™ ProRender technology in its BIM modelling. The Archviz output is a super-fast, physically accurate render.

Further on, we’ll see how to produce spectacular photorealistic and high-resolution renders thanks to AIrBIMpro2, the new Edificius rendering tool based on AMD’s Radeon ProRender v.2.0 PBR path tracer engine.

Look at the example below. It was produced in literally a few minutes with Edificius BIM + AIrBIMPRO2.

Render created with the new Edificius+AIrBIMPRO2 rendering engine (res: 5500×3000 in just under 3 minutes with a WX9100 AMD card) | AIrBIMPRO2

Download Edificius for free  to create accurate PBR renders in just a fraction of the time necessary with traditional technology.

Getting your hands on the latest Edificius update

Before we move on, let’s see how you can get the new update.

The two main methods, as always:

• if you already have the software as a subscription plan, you can get hold of the update completely free of charge. Simply:
  • log in to your personal area on accasoftware.com, or
  • use the “Updates from internet” feature in the “?” application menu.
• if you don’t have the software yet
  • click here and download the 30-day free trial version.

Even more physically accurate renders with the new AIrBIM-PRO2 engine

Probably the most awaited for feature for Edificius, is the new AIrBIM-PRO2 engine to create high quality ArchViz output for professional architectural artwork in just a matter of a few minutes thanks to GPU accelerated and Machine Learning denoising.

It goes without saying that renders are now an essential part of the design and ArchViz process and it’s crucial for any AEC professional to be able to create great renderings quickly, intuitively and preferably using an all-in-one software solution.

So, let’s dive in to see the characteristics of the new AIrBIM-PRO2 engine in detail and why it’s so important and useful for your workflow.

Back in 2019, Edificius was the first AEC industry BIM software for architecture to implement AI-denoised based rendering powered by AMD’s Radeon™ ProRender technology.

Now, in 2021, Edificius gets a new “facelift” with an update to Radeon ProRender v.2.0 to boost creativity and productivity even further producing stunning architectural artwork while dealing with the heaviest of BIM model workloads.

In all this, the interesting part is that you don’t even need to be a highly trained expert to produce high-quality renders with Edificius and AIrBIMpro2, nor do you need to go through complicated settings to launch your first render.

Even during the rendering process, you can still iterate different lighting and exposure settings and see what’s happening in the 3D viewport while the Artificial Intelligence denoising algorithm, automatically tracks the fastest path to obtain the maximum rendering quality of your 3D scene.

Render created with the new Edificius rendering engine | AIrBIM-PRO2

Improved performance is just part of the new engine. Among the new features brought to industry users, Edificius allows AEC professionals to address Architectural and MEP design, landscaping and terrain modelling in a single solution.

Even import your Revit objects (.rfa/.rvt files) directly into the BIM workflow by means of an integrated BIM models, data and documents information system. Now render even larger, more complex scenes taking advantage of better out-of-core geometry and textures processing.

As stated earlier, AIrBIM-PRO2 is based on AMD’s Radeon ProRender II technology and can therefore manage dynamic scaling across multiple devices with combined CPU+GPU rendering adding extra realism when describing light sources used in Architectural models.

But not only extra realism, there’s also improved performance with Radeon ProRender v.2.0 supporting hardware-accelerated path tracing when used with AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series graphics cards based on RDNA™ 2 graphics architecture. In fact, when rendering with both AMD CPUs and GPUs, renders can now reach up to 47% in increased speed compared to rendering on the GPU alone.

The best possible balance between software and CPU/GPU performance, while maintaining both quality and productivity high, without having to worry about video memory problems when working with complex scenes and keeping the costs of your workstations under control too.

Historic BIM Render created with the new Edificius rendering engine | AIrBIM-PRO2

Better details and faster renders with AI-DENOISING technology

The new AIrBIMpro2 engine uses AI-Denoising technology which brings two great advantages:

• renders are even more photorealistic (with less noise)
• rendering tasks take a fraction of the time necessary with traditional raytracing technologies.

In fact, AI-Denoising technology optimizes the use of GPU memory by dividing the workload to get even faster and more faithful high-resolution renders.

Thanks to the innovative Machine Learning Denoiser, which completes a partially rendered image using Artificial Intelligence algorithms, rendering processing times are even faster allowing the designer to face even the most intense workloads, focusing more on creativity aspects without wasting time and increasing productivity.

AI-Denoising On/Off | AIrBIM-PRO2

Adaptive Super-sampling

Increased render performance thanks to the automatic “adaptive sampling” which reduces the number of samples for surfaces that have fewer material details. For example, reflective metals with rusty areas may need many samples while a smooth painted wall in the background will need very few.

This reduces the overall render time, and returns amazing realistic images particularly after denoising. Edificius AIrBIM-PRO2 work together to automatically choose the appropriate number of samples.

Tone Mapping

The new rendering engine continues to work with the fully integrated in-process tone mapping manager.

Simply choose from the various image mapping methods while the rendering process is running instead of having to re-launch it from scratch each time to try out different settings.

Available Tone Mapping methods are:

• Default
• Reinhard;
• Drago;
• Photographics;
• Exponential;
• ACES filmic;

The Edificius AIrBIMpro2 rendering interface – PhotoMapping settings | AIrBIM-PRO2

Improving performance – How to set up video drivers for best results

Buildings are becoming sophisticated pieces of engineering, and it’s often very difficult to understand their complexity by simply looking at 2D drawings, in fact, it’s not enough to simply see architecture, you need to experience it too and that’s why at ACCA software, we’re obsessed with bringing the best BIM design tools and technologies to our clients making them intuitive and easy to use.

With our latest VR enabling technology, we need to provide the AEC professional with the ability to experience their digital building prototypes and interact with them more intuitively in an immersive design environment.

They want to be able to re-arrange furniture or even make design changes to the architectural concept meaning that it’s absolutely crucial for our Edificius users to have the best possible balance between software and CPU/GPU performance in an efficient design workflow keeping quality and productivity high. They don’t want to worry about video memory issues when working with complex scenes because their only concern is to focus on design solutions and be sure that they simply work while keeping the costs of their workstations under control.

From a hardware standpoint, when working in a collaborative design environment, no matter the workload, AMD processors deliver outstanding performance for ACCA software solutions even when used in multi-task scenarios. Here are some useful additional settings that can push graphical visualization even further.

These are our video driver setting recommendations:

• ANTI-ALIASING MODE: set to OVERRIDE APPLICATION SETTINGS
• ANTI-ALIASING LEVEL: set to 2x (on faster GPUs set to 4x)
• ANTI-ALIASING METHOD: set to ADAPTIVE MULTI-SAMPLING
• MORPHOLOGICAL FILTERING: set to OFF
• ANTISTROPIC FILTERING MODE: set to OVERRIDE APPLICATION SETTINGS
• ANTISTROPIC FILTERING LEVEL: set to 2x (on faster AMD GPUs set to 4x)
• TEXTURE FILTERING QUALITY: set to PERFORMANCE
• SURFACE FORMAT OPTIMIZATION: set to OFF
• WAIT FOR VERTICAL REFRESH: set to always OFF
• OPENGL TRIPLE BUFFERING: set to OFF
• SHADER CACHE: set to AMD OPTIMIZED
• TESSELLATION MODE: set to AMD OPTIMIZED

Video driver settings

Application side, Edificius can also be optimized for better graphics and viewing performance too.

Simply access the OPTIONS tab under the Tools menu:

Edificius graphic performance recommendations

• USE HARDWARE ACCELERATION: set to ON
• USE ANTI-ALIASING IN 2D VIEW: set to ON
• USE ANTI-ALIASING IN 3D VIEW: set to OFF (on faster GPUs set to ON)

Video:AIrBIM pro2

The video below shows how to obtain spectacular renderings in no time, thanks to AIrBIM pro2