Rapid Design Visualization (RDV) is an application for Autodesk Civil 3D 2005 which enables the rapid and easy creation of high quality visualization and simulation scenes of the Civil 3D project. 

RDV provides true dynamic interaction as it transforms the project into a simulator environment where each viewer can determine independently how they want to visually explore the design project.

RDV empowers every Civil 3D user and enables them to effortlessly create compelling visualization in a streamlined process at a fraction of the traditional costs, providing a clear return on investment. 

RDV is internet enabled providing an excellent means to efficiently distribute and communicate Civil 3D design content to anyone, anywhere and at anytime. 

RDV is used to facilitate internal design review and interdisciplinary communication between the different design professionals on the project team and can save months in the project coordination, planning and construction process

Integration with Civil 3D:

RDV 2005 was developed over the past 2 years in coordination with Autodesk’s Civil 3D development team.  “RDV ties in very nicely with Autodesk Civil 3D 2005 resulting in a very easy process of taking a design model into a 3D virtual environment that can be used to present a design proposal to approval agencies, the public or other project stakeholders.”  says Dave Simeone – Civil 3D project manager for Autodesk.  “I’ve found that the process of creating animation views and paths that will be followed in animations are enough of a barrier for most users to keep them away from integrating 3D visualization into their design and selling processes. RDV simplifies these and other steps so that the process is painless and immediate.”

“We are proud to be one of the first 3^rd party developers to roll out a product based on Civil 3D” says Natan Elsberg - CEO of RDV Systems.  “Civil Engineers have been waiting a long time for easy to use tools to help them visualize their design.  Civil 3D’s power in modeling coupled with RDV 2005’s easy to use visualization tools will revolutionize the way designers work with computer aided design systems.” 

Cost Effective:

Civil engineers invest a lot of time and money into a project before they are ever presented for feedback or approval.  Discovering design problems during late phases of design or construction can be devastating to a project and the design firm.  RDV 2005 is the first tool commercially available which provides a cost effective means for engineering firms to review their design online during the design process.  While visualization has been considered a valuable addition for many important civil engineering projects in recent years it was difficult to prove cost effectiveness for daily use in the design process.  In the past engineers creating the design did not have the tools to create the visualization on their own in a rapid and simple manner.  Ease of use in the content creation and viewing stages are key features of the RDV system which are critical to achieving cost effectiveness.  Engineers working through different design alternatives on a daily basis are now able to update their design visualization effortlessly, considerably reducing risk.

Focused on Civil 3D users needs:

Traditionally the problem with design visualization was that designers needed to learn an entire new profession to create visualizations.  Most designers just don’t have the time to learn standard visualization programs.  RDV 2005 for Civil 3D focuses on the tools and processes needed daily by Civil Engineers, Landscape Architects and other land planning professionals while most of the tools available on the market today focus on just architectural visualization needs.  RDV 2005 includes automated processes for tasks such as drive through animation paths, sight distance evaluation, accurate draping of raster imagery on terrain models, generation of vegetation on terrain surfaces, placement of road environment features such as lane striping, crash barriers, and many other dedicated features needed to easily create high quality visualizations. 

Interactive:

The ability to provide full user interaction throughout the visualization experience differentiates RDV 2005 from other visualization products.  Visualizations creating still images or AVI files leave no room for user interaction in the proposed design environment.  The RDV 2005 simulator not only allows for predefined drive through and fly-over animations to be run, but also may permit the user to move around freely in the design project, all the while updating the user on position and project coordinates.  Problems identified with sight distance on a road may be tied to project coordinates to notify the design team of the exact location of the problem to be resolved.  RDV 2005 interactive visualizations may include different design scenarios in the same scene so that users can turn on or off Autocad layers, each showing a different design alternative from the same vantage point.  Additional point and click interaction may be incorporated into the scene allowing users to select objects and change their appearance or obtain the object ID for more advanced geo-spatial queries. 

Web Enabled:

RDV 2005 creates files that are just a few megabytes in file size for a typical project.  On high bandwidth connections, which are common in most design offices today, these files are downloaded to the viewing computer in just a matter of seconds.  In contrast, conventional techniques for visualizing animations created large AVI files which could easily reach hundreds of megabytes for each animation posing problems for efficient distribution to those who need to view the visualization.  Furthermore, the RDV viewing control is automatically downloaded to the viewing computer enabling the graphic processing and animations to be performed on the viewing computer, with no additional costs. 

December 20th, 2004

RDV Systems rolls out Rapid Design Visualization an application based on Autodesk’s Civil 3D software

Civil Engineers can now visualize their designs in an interactive, web enabled simulator environment in just one click.

December 20^th, 2004 – RDV Systems has announced the availability of RDV 2005 for Civil 3D.  Rapid Design Visualization (RDV) is an application developed specifically for use with Civil 3D, Autodesk’s new generation of Civil Engineering design software.  RDV 2005 enables any Civil 3D user to create a fully interactive visualization environment directly from their Civil 3D project.  Using RDV 2005 designers can easily create drive through simulations, flyovers and interactive simulations for proposed roads, subdivisions, interchanges and many other complex land development projects.  RDV 2005’s interactive simulations are cost effective during every phase of the project from preliminary design validation for internal use through to presentations for public review and even on the construction site to visualize complex construction scenarios.  RDV 2005 is web enabled so that users can easily publish their simulations to the internet or intranet enabling them to communicate their design intent to anyone

December 1st, 2004

Attendees at Autodesk University had the chance to see the preview version of RDV 2005 for Civil 3D.  In cooperation with Avatech Solutions, RDV 2005 was one of the applications available for attendees to use in the Avatech Rendering Challenge.  Joe Hedrick, the Civil Solutions Group Manager for Avatech Solutions  explained the benefits of RDV to Civil 3D users … “RDV addresses a segment of the marketplace that has traditionally been ignored by Civil Engineers due to the time and complexity involved in creating visualizations and renderings.  Because RDV can do in minutes what would traditionally take hours to complete, this product will add a new service offering that Civil Engineers can begin providing.”  Many attendees took home with them a trial version of RDV 2005 to see for themselves how easy it is to incorporate visualization in their Civil 3D projects.  Many thanks to Jessica Montaya of Avatech Solutions for the Civil 3D drawing of the Golden Gate Bridge.

RDV shown at Autodesk’s Civil 3D launch event in the Netherlands.

Attendees at the Netherlands Civil 3D launch event had the opportunity to see a preview version of RDV 2005 in action.  Chris Berends, application engineer for Autodesk’s Northern region incorporated RDV into the Civil 3D presentation. “My first impression about RDV 2005 was that it is useful to visualize a complete civil design project.  Materials are dynamically incorporated in the design and the ability to directly visualize to the internet and generate an automatic drive through easily impresses the project managers and external project owners.  But after working with RDV 2005, I realized the visualization process is so simple that you can use it for internal failure check as well… to visualize a particular part of the complete design gives the civil engineer the opportunity to check the design from all views, it is much easier than checking a complex technical drawing.”   By the end of the demonstration more than 40 managers, representing some of the largest civil engineering firms in the Netherlands and worldwide, were able to see the benefits of incorporating RDV visualizations into their design process with Civil 3D.

Info Courtesy RDV Systems