The Steamship Simulator developed by Ai3D became a highlight of the Bass Strait Maritime Centre Devonport located in Tasmania, Australia. The simulator is powered by the powerful and versatile UNIGINE Engine and provides a virtual experience of captaining a ship of the beginning of the last century into the Mersey River. It successfully completed beta testing and was even captained personally by the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard.

The simulator looks like a real steamship – seven cabin windows of which are replaced with 1920×1080 HD resolution TVs. As a result, the visitor who captains the simulator is immersed into the virtual world with an impressive 180 degrees panorama view. One can control the ship using the original steamship’s helm and telegraph wired with network inputs. To complete the simulation, navigation is accompanied by full sound effects for the ambient environment and weather.

Ai3D developed the software plus interface and created a computer-simulated world of Devonport in the early 1900s with 3D ships, leading lights, lighthouses and watercraft of the era. The terrain model is based on old plans and surveys of the area. The simulator features dynamic weather, day-night cycle, visibility, swell conditions, AI controlled ships and other period watercrafts.

Over the time we have been using UNIGINE, we have been impressed with the regular feature updates and improvements to systems and visual quality. UNIGINE’s abilities to handle very large simulation environments make it a first class realtime simulation solution, said Steve Brodie, CEO of Ai3D.

UNIGINE Engine combines a unique mix of cutting-edge graphical technologies with features required specifically for serious games and the training and simulation market such as double precision of coordinates support, multi-channel rendering, zone-based streaming, stereo 3D, edge blending, non-linear image mapping, etc. Due to a comprehensive set of these out-of-the-box capabilities, this multi-platform 3D engine is successfully used in hundreds of distinctive projects worldwide.

Read more about the Steamship Simulator

About Ai3D

Ai3d is a 3D visualization consultancy, using the latest games and 3D visualization technology to convey design intent of large complex infrastructure, master planning, engineering, architecture and landscape architecture projects. The size of a project is no deterrent to the company. Ai3D has created realtime interactive models for some of the largest Australian and international projects that have been undertaken.

Ai3D is a multi-disciplinary practice with experience in the construction and planning industry. The disciplines of Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Art and Architecture are represented by the principals of the firm.

Website of Ai3D: http://www.ai3d.com.au

About UNIGINE Corp.

UNIGINE Corp. is an international company focused on development of real-time 3D technologies. Over eight years on the market, the company offers top-notch real-time 3D solutions for scientific research, simulation, visualization, serious games, virtual reality systems, video games development and more.

The company is also well-known for its advanced performance benchmarks, such as Heaven Benchmark, the world’s first 3D benchmark with full support for Microsoft DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0, and newest Valley Benchmark.

Website of UNIGINE Corp.: http://unigine.com/