Realtime 3D by Ben Cooper-Woolley

I joined the Perth office in January this year from the Cardiff office, via a stint in London, as a GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and 3D Realtime specialist. My background is primarily in GIS, but over the last few years working with the graphics and 3D visualization teams I have become more and more involved in developing realtime environments for 3D models from a range of disciplines across the firm. For me combining the data and information aspects of GIS with high end visualizations is very appealing, and finding innovative ways to present data is something that can set us above the rest.

I have worked on a range of projects, from navigable environments of single rooms to entire cities, creating highway visualizations that allow users to explore planned road schemes and view modeled transport data. Just before I came to Australia I won the Welsh Water Chairman’s Innovation Award for work visualizing the sub-surface sewer systems in Cardiff in an interactive city model. I also presented some of the work at the Quest 3D user conference in Amsterdam.

Realtime 3D environments offer the user the opportunity to navigate themselves through a 3D model, viewing from any perspective and interrogating the model and imported data. Arup have a very strong capability in this field, and are able to very quickly create realtime representations of 3d models as they are being designed. Viewing a design in realtime 3d is a very powerful tool both in the design phase and in the final project stages where visualizations are becoming much sought after.

I import modeled data from a range of sources, including pedestrian, vehicle, blast and fire simulation packages. Subsurface utilities can be shown in their real world locations, and any data with a spatial location can be imported through GIS to create a single source for all 2D and 3D data to be visualized, even if it’s not been done before we can probably import your model and data!

Self contained applications that require no specialist software are compiled and distributed as a standalone file, containing all the models, textures and data required, allowing universal access. We use a variety of realtime engines to suit different purposes and scales of projects. Some examples that I have worked on since coming to Perth earlier this year, and from the UK using the Quest 3D platform, are showcased in the animation above.

I am always on the lookout for ways to push this technology forward, and for more project examples to apply these techniques to so if you have any question, ideas or would like to be involved please don’t hesitate to contact me