The Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science


More rendered images

(4/30/2004) Siebel Grand Opening Animation:
An animated fly-through movie of my model was included in the grand opening ceremonies and dedication of the Siebel Center today. The three minute animation is set to the first significant musical piece "The Illiac Suite" composed using a computer (The Illiac) in 1957 here at the U of I. This animation has some minor improvements that could be made, but it's great introduction to the building, and it gives you a feel for the feel and colors of the building.
The animation was rendered at 1024x768 resolution and the frames took up about 3.6 GB of disk space. It was rendered on 5 PC workstations in about 26 hours (so, ~130 hours total). The model contains around 660,000 mostly rectagular polygons - so the display is around 1,000,000 triangles, probably.

These animations require the free DivX codec to view.
Large version: Grand Opening Animation (1024x768 - 60.2 MB)
Medium version (640x480 - Grand Opening Animation (640x480 - 33.7 MB)
Small version (320x240 - Grand Opening Animation (320x240 - 33.6 MB)


Siebel Center VRML model


      As part of an effort led by Prof. John Hart to create a 3-D virtual walkthrough of the Siebel Center, Brent Yarger and Tony Kaap have constructed this VRML 3-D model. VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) is similar to HTML, and allows 3-D data sets to be viewable easily across the internet. Using a VRML plugin to your internet browser, you can walk through the Siebel Center, finding its more outstanding architectural features, as well as locating future office space for your laboratory, professors, or other collaborators in the department.
      This model is a rough "block" model of the building. It includes all walls and doors, and staircases, but it has some limitations. A work in progress, the model could be used in a number of ways, and expanded to a number of detail levels. Since VRML can work as a in a web-browsing fashion, one could even imagine the model being used as an alternate portal to through the department web site - "walking" to the office of the researcher or instructor, and viewing their website upon arrival. Immediate plans include texturing and labelling the model, for eaiser navigaion.
      While travelling around the building, you may find building maps helpful for locating your destination, and orienting yourself. These are my design source images, but they have the older furniture placements. The walls are all in the right places, but some of the furniture layouts will be different.




If you already have a VRML browser or VRML plugin, then select one of the following options:

Download complete beta 4th floor model: Current.12.10.zip (1.39 MB). Model date: Apr 7th, 2004
Step into the "Download as you go" beta 4th floor model: SiebelCenterWeb.wrl (Up to 9.1 MB). Model date: Apr 7th, 2004
This is a low-detail model of the whole building: bldgVRML.gz.wrl (1.4 MB). Model date: Aug 27, 2003
      If you're saving it to your hard drive, then drag-and-drop the file into an internet browser with a VRML plugin installed for it. If you do not have a VRML plugin installed, you will not be able to view the Siebel Center model. Please see lower in the page for the VRML browser plugins that I have found the best. These suggestions are all for Windows systems and for the Internet Explorer browser. There are plugins for Netscape, and for operating systems other than windows, as well. This link is helpful for locating other VRML plugins.

MODEL UPDATES: As a note, the "Download as you go" version will be cached to your local hard disk as it is downloaded. Local files will be used before remote files. This may prevent you from viewing updates to the model, since your computer will use the local copies instead of updated ones on ther server. The viewer should check once per day for a new model. If you want to make sure you're viewing the most up to date model, right-click on the VRML model once it is loaded, then select settings->preferences from the menu. Next, select the "cache settings" tab, then press the button labelled: "empty cache now." Click "OK" when prompted to. When you reload the model in "Download as you go" mode, your system will now download the most recent model from the website.
      If you plan to download the whole model at once, you can update to the newest model simply by downloading the latest version, and overwriting your old version.

      Most VRML 97 browsers can handle the VRML file (which is all ASCII) in gzipped form, which cuts the file size down from the original Large size to it's current more manageable size. If you're interested in looking at the VRML code (which was generated directly by a Maya exporter), use gunzip or winzip to restore it to ASCII text form.

To make your VRML browser run the best for your computer: BS Contact user's guide
Highly Recommended:
      Enable Mip Mapping - this will prevent "aliasing" - distant textures not rendering smoothly.
      Look at the section regarding performance enhancements if your computer is running the VRML scene slowly.
      Re-Open the VRML scene after making changes to the preferences.

If you do NOT have a VRML plugin installed: These are some VRML plugins for Windows Internet browsers:

BS Contact
BS contact installer - This is my favorite viewer. It seems to render the model the fastest. This viewer lets you navigate with a "First-person" video game style, and also provides an optional 3d figure to walk around the model. It's interesting to play with, but it gets stuck on corners sometimes. Also, it opens VRML files with a double-click as well, rather than insisting a drag-and-drop into a browser only.

Cosmo Player - This one is nice, but I've only had it work well in Internet Explorer
http://www.ca.com/cosmo/home.htm
When installing, do not select to install functionality for other programs by this company, selecting "unsupported browsers" instead. Then, only select to install for Internet Explorer.

NOTE: The Cosmo browser has some issues with spaces in the file pathname. If IE tries to open the file as a local file, but stores it to a temp directory with spaces in the name (such as "...\documents and settings\..." or "...\temporary internet files\..." or some other nonesense, the browser plugin may not open the file correctly. I would recommend right-clicking to save the file to a folder that makes sense, then dragging and dropping the file onto an Internet Explorer session to view the model.

Cortona VRML browsers - This will work in Netscape (and, allegedly, Mozilla) but it's not as much fun as the Cosmo Player.
http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/

Page maintained by Tony Kaap. Contact him with any comments or suggestions