Techniques involving the use of HDR imaging were taught Students in Brighton's School of Architecture and Design, and the wider Arts Faculty, in three ways:
Of the three techniques the latter two were the most successful, and the last one (using the LiVi scripts available from the Resources page) had the greatest impact on design work and thus came closest to achieving the ideal of seamless integration between design and technology.
Below are some student comments on the use of HDR in architectural/design education:
"What I found to relate most with my course, Architecture, is the 3D Visualisations we learnt to create in Blender. The same way I added objects on to the site panorama I can also add objects of my building on to a panorama of the site which will give a clearer demonstration of my work. Hence, this visualisation technique proved most useful, even though, the image quality of a HDR can be used for anything in the Architectural Field. Perhaps, it would have been even better if we had focused more on applying our own architecture models into Blender and learnt to work with them specifically, yet, the time provided was limited."HDR imaging provides a more accurate lighting scenario yet has the limitation of only being specific of one day. Currently, I use my model along a sunpath diagram to get an indication of the type of light throughout the year and this gives a broader range of information, yet, it is more time consuming and not very precise."What I found most interesting was learning how to create animations and I believe this to be useful in my design-related field for architectural walk-throughs around the building. This would give the viewer a clearer idea of the concept and appearance of the building while also showing specific functions such as pivoting doors for example. I intend to explore this animation technique even further as I think it will prove to be rewarding towards my course."
"HDR imaging was an interesting theme to choose for my extension study. I can use Hugin to create panoramas for my future work, although a lot of work has to be done still. Hugin and Blender are two programs that I had neither known nor used before. It was a challenging task for me with the meaning that I had to learn those two programs and create finished work for submission. Animation was one of the most interesting parts and the more I used Blender the more things I found out and learnt. I would have liked to have had more lessons in blender but the time was limited."
"For me the knowledge of how to generate HDR imaging has been very useful to my work within my chosen discipline of Graphic Design, as I have specialized in motion graphics, and within that I have been incorporating 3D rendered imagery into real life footage, and the HDR’s make the lighting so much easier and more realistic when they are rendered out. In future this process will allow me to choose a particular place to film and I will be able to have the know how to generate a HDR from it."
