3D imagery is now viewable everywhere in people’s lives. It can be seen in pretty much every modern feature film and in advertising for print, internet and TV on a 24/7 basis.
We often automatically think of it as a ‘special effect’ or an expensive form of entertainment that makes a ‘Lord of the Rings style’ movie, or perhaps an impressive car commercial we so often see at home. All points which are true fact of course, although only to a certain degree……
There’s no doubt CGI still amuses the mind enough to say ‘Wow!’ as it always has done from day one and engages us in spectacular big screen scenarios which make the impossible seem possible.
Due to the mainstream media based exposure of the 3D/CGI sector, sometimes it isn’t clear what the practical uses for it are outside of the daily servings we now take for granted.
When we just hold up for a second and step out of the Hollywood blockbuster mind set, we start to find some of its very practical uses and often ones that can streamline both business ventures and everyday scenarios to be an advantage to everyone.
From a business perspective, 3D software is an extremely powerful tool in realising ideas such as product design concepts, visualising a grand interior design or even an entire building development.
With ever increasing project lead times, often large overall time-scales and heavy project costs, it certainly makes sense to visualise designs through 3D at an early stage. Doing this allows you to not only get your final project deliverable on the market but also raise the potential to make a sale before it’s even completed.
3D Imagery can also help support applications for designs or builds that need to get through stumbling blocks like planning, patenting laws or other legislation. When carried out successfully, this can readily invite key investment that’s vital to a business meeting its ambition.
With 3D Scanning and Printing also now gathering pace as an industry with lots of media exposure, it seems that people now will embrace 3D as not just a ‘Steven Spielberg fantasy’ but as a thing of value both at home and in our important engineering and manufacturing industries.
Current 3D buzz words which are really hot right now are Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality – or VR and AR for short. Fully immersive 3D environments are now being created to simulate scenarios for both employee training through simulation and interactive entertainment such as VR computer games. Developers are constantly looking for new ideas where their apps can have a useful practical application to solve an everyday problem in our lives.
Augmented or Mixed Reality as it is also is known is also gaining steady momentum too. This is where a combination of the real world environment and 3D data or information is viewed by the user. It has many applications in various sectors, including education, retail marketing, medical and tourism to mention just a few. The majority of the applications can be used on a smartphone or tablet via its camera, making them constantly accessible to the everyday person and it is thought it is these applications that will eventually become something we can’t live without.
One day will we really have our own Holodeck at home? I personally think we will, which means the good news is, we can all be in Hollywood blockbusters eventually!………I’ll leave you with that thought for now, until next time.
Edward Richards-Bond – 3D Artist at Archi-Vista.com
