Clement Welsch

BuildingSmart is a project created by the team ACUMES in the laboratory INRIA Sophia-Antipolis.
The main goal, it is to compute the heat equation depending on the materials used to build the building.
Wood, Concrete, iron... they all have a very specific reaction to the heat.
If we put the radiator ON at 8am, at which time the all room will be at 25 degree?
It is that kind of questions that ACUMES is trying to acheive to answer.
The solver is programmed by the expert of the scientist team.
I have mainly work on the 3D visualization, the GUI and the wrapping of the solver.

The solver computes the heat equation on a VTK structured grid in C++.
Unity 3D is a really powerfull videogame API in C# that we are using to have a realistic visualization.
It is necessary for the team to be independent from Unity 3D which manages the 3D.
That is why I am using SWIG to make automatic wrapper between C++ and C#.
The scientists are working mainly on Linux but it is necessary that BuildingSmart could work on multi-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac).

To render the Heat cloud, I am using the Volume Rendering shader technique. It is a optimization of the Raymarching technique.
I am computing if the raycast "which start from a pixel of the screen" is colliding the VTK grid. If it is positive, I am computing the accumulation of colors inside the box.

To immerge the player inside of the building and to be closer to the heat cloud, I am using the Oculus Rift a Virtual Reality.
It provides the sensation to brake the fence that the screen is creating.

Click on the Picture to see the full size!