What is cloud rendering?

In the age of digital transformation, data is growing in number. For audiovisual professionals, managing projects or processing heavy 3D data requires solid and heavy infrastructures capable of computing increasingly complex images. However, with the sanitary crisis, the need for access to increasingly sophisticated and high-performance software and hardware infrastructures has become so great that it creates a challenge. The solution? Cloud rendering. #CloudRendering

A virtualization of hardware and workflow

If in the past it was mandatory to have a powerful hardware and software infrastructure to enjoy high quality content, with the cloud, these constraints have been faded. Indeed, the cloud is a service that alleviates the customer by virtualizing the hardware and providing instant access to it, at anytime and anywhere (whether at work or at home) thanks to a provider via the Internet. It is a new way to consume digital content by offering flexibility and a reduction in hardware costs.

Today, the cloud has proven to be an essential tool in the “new normal”. Indeed, it is an alternative solution to ensure activities or benefit from numerous services in a period of lockdowns and remote activities.

These observations are backed up by a recent study by the Cloud Industry Forum showing that 91% of IT managers say the cloud has played an important role in accelerating digital transformation in 2020. Furthermore, 88% of companies anticipate an increased adoption of cloud services in the next 12 months. The cloud is also proving to be an excellent collaboration tool, which the need and relevance of which has been demonstrated since the health crisis. Indeed, users can share the content they want directly and in real time with anyone. They will be able to browse and interact freely with said content. Ultimately, this trend will inexorably increase and eventually become a normality in the years to come.

Cloud and rendering

The cloud comes in handy for 3D rendering, whether it is precalculated or real-time. Indeed, both usually require adequate performances and hardware to obtain a very qualitative final rendering, both on the graphical and interactive aspects (especially for real-time rendering).

It should be noted that the pre-calculated rendering allows having very high-quality graphics, even photorealistic. It does not offer any interactivity because, as its name indicates, everything is calculated upstream by a computer. By the way, the calculation of a single image can sometimes take several minutes, even hours. Whereas for the real-time rendering, it integrates the notion of interactivity because the image is calculated instantaneously just before being displayed on a screen and this, countless tens of times per second: in theory, at least 30 times per second to have a feeling of fluidity and up to 90 times per second for virtual reality experiences.

Although it is common to think that pre-calculated rendering is more qualitative than real-time rendering, with the latest technologies, the boundaries between the two are starting to become more and more blurred.

No more powerful, expensive and expensive configurations, the cloud will automatically manage all the necessary graphics processing remotely through virtualized servers. Some of them will be performed in “render farms”, server parks dedicated to the rendering of very complex scenes. This digitization of the process allows us to be free of hardware and take advantage of external power. The use of the cloud for rendering has thus given birth to the notion of “cloud rendering” which can be exploited in various contexts: Project review, gaming, engineering, imaging… As long as it requires displaying images!

This technology is especially suited for product configurators. We had made a webinar on this subject that you can watch again now for free!

The pillars of cloud rendering

The perfect rendering would mix interactivity, speed of rendering and photorealism. However, there is another problem: the connection, and therefore the bandwidth. Indeed, the more images there are to load and the higher the resolution required, the more the bandwidth will be consumed. The advent of fiber and 5G will be able to significantly reduce the latency time and ensure a faster image refresh and a high resolution.

For instance, with a powerful cloud rendering, it may be possible to fully enjoy both interactive and photorealistic experiences (such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for example).

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Eager to find more information about 3D tech? LS GROUP believes in the potential of 3D technologies. We strive to better meet the needs of each of our clients, in order to provide them with a memorable virtual experience. Feel free to contact us for more specific information about cloud rendering and how we can help you with this technology!