I’ve always been a big fan of the RPC (Rich Photo-Realistic Content) Plug-In which I’ve used since the early days of the original 3d studio max & Viz days.  Almost everyone who uses 3ds max for architectural visualisation will be aware of this plug-in and most of those using Revit Architecture will be aware of its native ability to render RPC content.  However, what I’ve realised lately is that the majority of AutoCAD Architecture (& AutoCAD MEP) users don’t know that they can also integrate the photo-realistic content in their scenes on these platforms.

Since the introduction of the ‘Mental Ray’ rendering engine in the 2007 release of AutoCAD, people have gradually cottoned on to the fact that they can produce excellent quality presentation images in the AutoCAD platform.  This can literally save hours, not to mention the cost and learning of additional software, by not having to export and prepare information in another environment.  Most people eschewed the old rendering engine in AutoCAD as the crude results were often not worth the pain of setting up but the new tools are a breath of fresh air, and quality images are well within the reach of any AutoCAD operator.

The new lights and materials are extremely easy to work with and exterior scenes are a breeze due to the option to have the sun provide the main light source with the sky set to illuminate the scene more naturally.  As you can see from the example image below, the output of such a scene is much more realistic than most would anticipate with preparation time measured in minutes, rather than hours.

Excitech HQ: Model Courtesy of Scott Campbell & Paul Grimston, Excitech

The only thing missing here is some ‘entourage’ to make the scene come to life a little more and provide a sense of scale and context; and this is where the RPC plug-in comes into play

The eagle-eyed amongst you may already have spotted the availability of this plug-in, which appeared in version 2008, via the ‘Content and Plug-ins Catalog’ in the ‘Content Browser’:

However, if you look at this in AutoCAD Architecture 2010, it still states that the plug-in available is for version 2008:

Not to worry though, the plug-ins for each version can be located from the plug-in section of the ArchVision website:

http://www.archvision.com/RPCPlugIns.cfm

Once the plug-in has been installed, a new Ribbon tab and panel for inserting and managing RPC content will become available:

Although there are a few free content samples available from the Archvision website, there is actually a new content download for Autodesk subscription holders that provides a much greater range of content for AutoCAD Architecture/MEP users:

This provides a good basic selection from some of the main libraries, such as people, trees, cars and clutter; which should also be familiar to those who have experience of the RPC content provided with Revit:

There are a few familiar faces in amongst this lot that have popped up in many diverse locations over the years, so much so that I feel that I somehow know them; but there are plenty of new ones too, so mixing them up shouldn’t be a problem!

These can then be easily placed and positioned in any of your scenes using the ‘RPC Place’ option on the RPC tools panel: 

  With very little effort these useful additions can quickly bring your scenes to life more naturally by incorporating them within the context of the model:

Although I can’t see many building services firms using this plug-in initially within AutoCAD MEP, there are a lot of people now taking advantage of the rendering capabilities to help visualise system designs; so here is how a typical plant room might look with some people added:

Happy rendering!