Raylectron – interview with Jack Martin

“Raylectron – produce photorealistic renders without using anything else”….that’s what they say! Well, lets get some background first. The spiel is “Affordable, easy, fast and a powerful SketchUp render plug-in. It will change your 3D design into a realistic image, it does not need any editing by other graphic software (such as Photoshop) to produce photorealistic renders.” All this and it seems to suit everyone…can this be true? Its list of unique features certainly look pretty impressive. So what does make it different from the rest?

1. Has the ability to stop the render, save it, reopen it later and resume the render.

2. You can rotate, pan, zoom, modify the materials and lights right from the Raylectron viewer.

3. There is no need to remove walls to see the interior render, simply use the X-Ray vision.

4. A nice little extra – Render Stereo Vision (also called stereopsis or 3-D imaging).

5. It supports HDR maps and can save the rendered image as an HDR, it can also save in jpg, png and many other formats.

6. All rendering processes happen outside of SketchUp in order to allow continuous work on the model being rendered.

7. You can render OBJ files.

8. There is a Fix Reversed Face Material tool in its arsenal.

So, is this the next best solution for your needs? We managed to gently interfere with Jack Martin’s busy schedule (Business Manager for SoftByte Labs) and squeezed a few answers out of him.

Pool Table

Who are the team behind Raylectron’s development and its creation?

Hi, my name is Jack Martin, Business Manager for SoftByte Labs. Thanks for the oportunity to answer a few of your questions. SoftByte Laboratory, Inc. was established in 1993 to develop customized software for the medical community and real estate. In 1996, we created utilities and Internet Shareware for Microsoft Windows and won many worldwide awards. We now turned our experience and expertise to the fields of developing quality software and plugin for 3D modeling design.

Michael Purkhardt is the owner and the head programmer/developer of the company, he’s been in the computer field since 1976, he has many degrees such as… Computer Technology, Computer Programming and Operations, Computer Programming and Network Administration, Engineering/Design in Architecture combined degree, Electronics Engineer degree and also in Robotics.

Atrium

SketchUp already has many popular rendering plug-ins, why develop another?

SoftByte Laboratory, Inc. created Raylectron for anyone with little computer knowledge or tired of spending hours on trying to make their render look right. No need to use any graphic editor (such as Photoshop) to have a realistic image. It is fast, no complicated settings to make a nice render output.

Bugatti

What was the first idea that lead to the development of Raylectron and whose idea was it?

SoftByte Laboratory, Inc. was working on creating an architect plan for a Home Development Construction firm, and they were asking if we knew of any Renders that is user friendly with little computer knowledge and to make the drawing photo-realism! We shared with this firm many great Renderers on today’s market, but it was too complicated for them to use and the output was not exactly what they were looking for. They did not want to use any graphic editor (such as Photoshop) to modify any renders. This is how Raylectron came about.

Dining Room

Can you give us an overview of the core technology behind Raylectron, or more simply …what’s under the hood?

Trade secret 🙂 …the technology used was developed by SoftByte Labs, and does not use any already existing ones.

What are processing times like?

Minutes on large models. Raylectron is an incremental render, in other words, the longer you let it run, the better the output. But after a few hours (or less) it already is photo-quality.

Concept Home

How easy is this plug-in to learn?

Very easy. Only one window in SketchUp to set your materials and start the render. The main program is also very easy to use.

Who would you say this render plug-in best suited for, the pro, hobbyist or both?

It is suited for everyone and everything from the Building Architect, Landscape Architect, Interior Designer, Builder, General Contractor, Educational, Inventor, hobbyist, amateur, or anyone with 3D designs who which to turn their models into photorealism presentations, and/or to view their models in 3D stereo to view them as if they are real.

Bedroom Scene

Raylectron is available for Windows. What about the Mac version?

Mac version in currently under development.

What has the interest been so far and what has the uptake been like?

Very successful, and we have many updates all the time, as per customers/users request for new feature and improvements.

Sponza

One final question…what’s next?

Well, this is up to our customers and users. Whatever they want, we’ll do it.

Careful what you say….you could be opening the flood gates. Thanks Jack for your time and this interview for SketchUpArtists and our readers. We look forward to seeing more from you guys and further developments in this area……you can get back to work now!

(Big thanks to Diane Duclos at Softbyte Labs for supplying some great images for us).

To find out more and try out Raylectron for yourself (Free version available with faint watermark), visit their Homepage at  http://raylectron.com/