Import the real world in 3D for creative design!

3D is a standard format for visualization and communication. It’s used broadly in many industries but can imply a challenge in the design process, when creating or acquiring 3D object models to actually start designing.

Schwarz Etienne marketing use case

Swiss luxury watch maker Schwarz Etienne needed a creative video to market the release of Voyage, a piece in their Roswell collection. Design studio Pixi created the video, which features a UFO capturing the iconic Matterhorn mountain, Voyage’s main branding element, and embedding the design on the watch’s back seal.

To create the video, 3D animation designer Arnaud Parel (Pixi), used a 3D model of the Matterhorn created by Pix4D’s drone-mapping software. This meant he would not need to go through the tedious process of recreating a mountain’s complex geometry by analyzing images and using CAD tools.

The 3D model used for the video is also image based, only these images have been processed in Pix4D software to produce a ready-to-use outcome in hours, instead of what could take weeks.

In Parel’s own words, “I could easily take the OBJ geometry delivered by Pix4D and integrate it in my scene. For this project, to have that complex geometry ready to use was a real big plus.”

Parel imported the Matterhorn model into Cinema 4D and started creating the animated video.

The Pix4D Matterhorn 3D model

The Pix4D Matterhorn model covers an area of 2800 hectares and was created by processing a dataset of 2188 images from 11 drone flights.

Each of the 300 million points in the model’s point cloud (see video below for example) were automatically computed from image content.

Could other creative fields benefit from 3D-mapped objects?

Photogrammetry-based 3D mapping services are used in industries like surveying, mining, forensics, construction, agriculture and real estate. But will the creative industry also adopt them?

Game designers are already using 3D scanning to speed up the character modeling process; drone-based photogrammetry could open the door to a fast, accurate and photorealistic environment design. Landscape architects and environment designers could also benefit from tools that import the real world in 3D, to redesign it.

Would having easy-to-import 3D models of real objects help designers and media artists better focus their energy on what they are passionate about? From small sculptures to buildings, from vehicles to the sea bottom, models of any scale can be created.

Setting creativity free

3D visualization is the norm in communication and creative design, where photogrammetry-based 3D models can valuable in speeding up the creation process,

allowing landscapes and objects from the real world to be easily integrated into work, and setting designers free to create and focus on other things.

For more information on 3D modeling from images, visit Pix4D’s Website.