Interview with Aksel Karcher of ERCO lighting

Interview with Aksel Karcher of ERCO lighting

Aksel Karcher a long time veteran of ERCO lighting and project manager of lighting simulation at ERCO lighting, talks to CGarchitect.com about his industry experiences.

CGA: Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about ERCO
lighting and your role there?

AK: ERCO Leuchten GmbH, Lüdenscheid, is one of the leading companies in the
European luminaire industry. Working together with internationally renowned
designers, lighting engineers and architects, ERCO develops product ranges
for all areas of architectural lighting. We can boast an impressive list of
reference projects in this field. These include the Guggenheim Museum in
Bilbao, the Grand Louvre in Paris and the Berlin Reichstag Building, all of
which are illuminated by ERCO products.
ERCO entered their commitment to Lighting Simulation already several years
ago, we are pretty much sure this will change the way planners work within
the next 10 years. We are actually quite proud on the achievements we
already made in that field.
My part in the commitment is being the project manager for Lighting
Simulation at ERCO, and in that way taking care about everything related to
CG.

CGA: Tell us about your background. How did you get into the Architectural
CG industry?

AK: I studied in Germany and the Netherlands, and graduated in Architecture two
years ago. Basically to earn my money I was working in several architectural
studios during all the years, starting of with helping out on competitions,
building maquettes, all these things. One night our boss came in while I was
typing a letter in Word. He saw that and said: "Hey, you can use computers!
We got to get a deadline, can you work on AutoCAD™?". Stupid enough I said
yes, even if I never worked with any CAD package ever before, so I learned
it the hard way while working on plans for a tradefair hall (I am not keen
to revive these weeks). That was seven years ago, short after I started
being the 3DStudio™ R2 (DOS) guy there. That's how it started.

CGA: How did you become involved with the lighting design aspect of the
industry?

AK: Still while studying I discovered a Program called Lightscape™ on the
Internet, and I decided to buy it with the money I earned with the tradefair
hall before. I was deeply fascinated by the way Radiosity worked, because
you cannot cheat here, as it is a physical model of rendering. It was pretty
difficult to get used to the way the program worked, but afterwards I used
it a lot for my study-projects, though mostly for lighting-studies within
conceptual models without ever using specific manufacturers lighting data.
While I graduated ERCO found my name on a webpage and asked me to join in. I
was always interested in lighting design, but never thought about moving in
that direction. So I joined in and learned quite some things about
Architectural Lighting and CG since then, what I am very happy about.

CGA: How is ERCO Lighting using CG software to enhance the services offered
to its clients?

AK: There are different ways ERCO is using CG: first they are providing maybe
the biggest luminaire library available for Lightscape™ and 3DStudio™ (coming
end of the year). That would mean roughly 2500 files. With CG we are able to
show our customers our products lighting their design already while they are
working on it by simply downloading the files from our website. We are in
close contact with Autodesk™/Discreet™, which is very interesting for both
sides, i.e. in cooperation on further developing their I-drop format.
Further we provide support for all CG related questions our customers come
up with during their work. What we don't do is visualizing projects for our
customers, because we are convinced that CG has to be right in the designers
hand to really make sense during design.

CGA: How have you seen the architectural CG industry grow, with respect to
lighting, since you have been involved in the industry?

AK: To be honest - not too much in terms of software. Lightscape™ is a program
you are still able to use the same way as several years ago, Radiance™ is
still a good academic approach which hardly made it into any design studio,
Mental Ray is big in the film business as well as it was some time ago. But
the big change is not in software but in hardware! Think about the scenes
and the machines you simulated in any of the named above 1994, and think
about today - that is what makes the big difference!

CGA: Where do you see the future of architectural rendering and how will new
rendering technologies affect that future?

AK: I think that, in combination with the incredible speed hardware is improving,
new rendering technologies will have us forget thinking about the term
"rendering" as a period of time, but more on a state. Real-time.

CGA: GI and radiosity have become fairly commonplace over the past five
years, what do you feel are the current limitations of these technologies
for achieving accurately lit scenes?

AK: Limitation I see so far is of course processing time - or other way around:
as you never have too much time in production, you often have to compromise
detail in order to use radiosity. That's a pity but I am very confident this
will change soon.
Talking about accurately lit scenes is hardly a matter of the software in my
opinion, but most of the times about users. Because using GI requires much
more parameters to be set properly, a scene can often lack accuracy if you
are not sure which ones are crucial and which are not.

CGA: What have been your most rewarding experiences while working with
architectural CG work?

AK: Being able to convince some completely non-digital lighting experts that CG
can be a big help to them.

CGA: What have been your biggest challenges both past and present, with
regards to computer renderings?

AK: To not loose the overall concept you aim to with a rendering during doing a
lot of technical work involved within a project. I assume its healthy if it
would always stay that way.

CGA: What project are you most proud of and Why?

AK: Most proud of I am still of an montage-image I did when I started learning
Lightscape™ only for testing. I think it was important for me because it did
hardly involve any modeling time (its simply a box filled with standard
blocks and lights), but the lighting and overall atmosphere was exactly what
I wanted it to be, without one compromise. As a matter of fact that kind of
firsttime-feeling is hard to reach if you once gone "professional".

CGA: What software do you currently use and have you used in the past for
computer renderings and why have you chosen those particular applications?

AK: I used 3DStudio™ from R2/DOS till today, along with FormZ™, AutoCAD™ and
Lightscape™. I tried some other but always came back to these because they
gave me enough flexibility. But I am sure the type of software you are using
does not have anything to to with creating a great picture or not. It is
same as in photography - sure you need a good camera, but it won't make you automatically a master if you got this or that type of product.

CGA: What do you not like to see in computer generated architectural work?

AK: Hard to say. I think a lack of feeling for image composition and setting the
camera in an artistic way is a common problem, even in otherwise very well
done scenes. And for sure all images labeled "Fantasy" on websites ;-)

CGA: What tip(s) can you give our readers to improve their architectural
renderings?

AK: Start pencil sketching! - this will teach you more about light and shadow
than any handbook can ever do.

CGA: What are your future plans?

AK: I have decided to leave ERCO this fall - changing any job after two years
can be a healthy thing from my point of view. I have worked on so many
interesting things here, what made my idea of moving on a little hard in the
beginning, but now I am looking forward to the future. At this point in time
I unfortunately cannot talk about the things to come, but maybe soon ;-)

CGA: Which/What web based resources that you have found the most
informative?

AK: Asking me today I would say that is the "Handbook of Lighting"-PDF on
www.erco.com, the Discreet Support Forums and www.vfxpro.com

CGA: What is your favorite link to visit on the web?

AK: Still www.wired.com