Graphics Card for 3D rendering in Agisoft Photoscan, 3DS Max, Rapidform, etc

[KaterTime]

I'm looking to purchase a new graphics card, but am unsure of what to get. I would like it for rendering photogrammetric models (point cloud construction, building mesh, etc.) and the post-processing involved with that. I generally build the cloud in agisoft and construct the mesh in rapidform.

If anybody has any suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. If you have a specific model in mind, I would really like to hear a brief explination. Any tips are welcome though, even if it is just RAM over speed or vice verse.

My current build includes an intel i7-3770 and 16GB RAM, but no dedicated GPU.

Thanks!

 

[wavetrex]

You should be fine with the integrated GPU.

3D Rendering is done by the CPU anyway, the GPU has nothing to do with it, today's GPUs while being very advanced are still useless for ray-tracing ( the algorithms are just too complex to be run on the GPU, so the current commercial renderers still use pure CPU software solution.

Maybe in 5 years... who knows?

 

[dwatterworth]

First off, you're going to want an Nvidia GPU if you are going into 3DSmax.
I have a number of workstations (I build the workstations for the architecture firm I work for) that have GPU's from 650ti cards 680/770 cards. We utilize Nvidia/Mental ray RT rendering, Vray RT rendering and use lumion for landscape stuff. All of these are compatible with Nvidia cards but only Vray and Lumion will work on AMD cards, the same holds true for a lot of other productivity applications. Nvidia seems to have better developer relations in the mainstream productivity market.

Depending on the resolutions that you are looking to output along with your time frame, really any card is feasible. For your current CPU and memory spec, I would recommend starting at a 760 or 770. The top obviously being the 780ti, but after the 770, diminishing returns on your investment really kick in. For any card you get, try to go for the version with the highest on board memory. This will let you render out larger scenes more quickly and at higher resolutions. The more data your card can hold at once, the less texture swaps etc that will slow down your rendering workflow.

Unless you are looking into more engineering and precision requirements along with some of the more obscure shader packages from medical software etc, I would steer well clear of the professional/workstation GPU's, you just don't need the software certifications that those bring for the programs you are looking at.

In contradiction to wavetrex, not all final rendering is done on the CPU now. GPU rendering is a progressive process, refining the light calculations as you render longer (at least in Iray on 3ds). Also, renderers such as Vray RT can take full advantage of the GPU to output fantastic final quality renderings or be used for lower quality interactive rendering to easily preview light effects, textures etc.