Use of 3D for Business Grows

In the darkened theater of the performing arts center at College of The Canyons, the images of the interior of the Bombardier Challenger 850 business jet came to life. But these were no static, two-dimensional shots of the inside of the plane but rather a three-dimensional simulation in which the viewer gets a truer feel of what the inside looks like. Created for a business aviation trade show in Geneva, the presentation shows the advances made in 3D technology and how businesses can use it to promote their products in a less expensive way. After all, the expense would be too great to bring an actual aircraft or even a mock up to a trade show, said Mats Johansson, president and founder of Eon Reality, Inc., the company that developed the software to create the 3D simulation. “This way they can bring in 10 aircraft and show them in a compelling way,” Johansson said. Advances in digital technology now make it possible to create more realistic 3D images that businesses can use for marketing and training purposes. The demonstration of Eon Reality’s software took place at the college in Santa Clarita as part of Technology Week sponsored by the Business Technology Center of Los Angeles County. Most recognized for its uses by the entertainment industry other industries can now create the images in a faster and less expensive methods, so much so that the use of 3D will explode in the next few years, said Peter Bellas, director of college’s Center for Applied Competitive Technologies. Three dimensional modeling is used for product design, in the development of roads and bridges by civil engineers, in the health care industry to take MRI images of, say, the brain or another organ and look at it more closely. The three dimensional images are created by taking existing digital data that is then re-purposed by software such as the one developed by Eon Reality “We can get conceptual knowledge of an object without actually building the object,” Bellas said. Early adapters of Eon’s software have been manufacturers of complex products, aerospace companies, automotive companies, and industrial component companies. The 3D is put to use in two primary ways marketing and training. When integrated into a training program, 3D images can change the way that people learn and work, said Marly Bergerud, president of Strategic Alliance Solutions, an advisor to Eon Reality. During the demonstration, examples were shown of pieces of machinery -an oil pump, a plane engine assembly, a part from a nuclear power plant broken down into their individual parts and seen from any angle so as to get a better understanding of where each part fits in the finished product and how the parts interact with each other. The use of 3D presentations in training helps companies because it is a new level of immersion and a more compelling way to learn and increase retention. The better the retention, the better the learning experience. “The better the learning experience, the better you have a knowledgeable workforce,” Bergerud said. Examples of how 3D images can be used in marketing included the Bombardier trade show exhibit and a short film created by a chair manufacturer to showcase one of its new products. Using the company’s existing computer-aided design data, the 3D presentation was created to visually describe how only 18 parts went into the new chair. The stunning realism of the 3D effect made it appear as though the parts were just inches away from the viewers in the performing arts center theater.