Epic Games partners with Cesium to bring 3D geospatial data to Unreal

Epic Games has partnered with Cesium to enable 3D geospatial technology in games using Unreal Engine.

Cesium will be available for free to all creators on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. It is an open-source plugin for the engine that unlocks global 3D data and geospatial technology. This means that games that use it will be able to discover in real time a player’s location in a given 3D space, using precise real-world 3D content captured from cameras, sensors, drones and machines. smart.

Marc Petit, general manager of Unreal Engine at Epic Games, said in a statement that Cesium’s expertise in cloud-based geospatial software and focus on open standards for streaming huge amounts of 3D content corresponds to Epic’s vision for an open metaverse, the virtual universe. worlds which are all interconnected, as in novels such as Snow crash and Player One loan. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, recently spoke about Epic’s ambitions for an open metaverse at our GamesBeat Summit event in January.

Cesium for Unreal enables developers to integrate global high-resolution 3D content in the form of photogrammetry, terrain, images and 3D building data into their applications. Immersive geospatial applications require massive, high-resolution real content to create a photorealistic user experience. This data can easily reach several terabytes of storage. Cesium uses the 3D Tiles spatial index to optimize the user experience by loading only the content that is most important for the user experience.

The use of 3D geospatial technology in real-world environments – from creating immersive experiences in artist-created scenes to those based on 3D content in its precise geospatial location – represents a shift in industries, including including training and simulation; architecture, engineering and construction (AEC); automobile and transport; cinema and television; broadcast and live events; and games.

The plugin is the first step towards a future in which immersive 3D applications on a global scale with pinpoint precision are ubiquitous in all industries.

It includes integration with cesium ion for optional commercial access to organized 3D content such as global terrain, 3D buildings, photogrammetry and satellite imagery, as well as software to convert custom high-resolution 3D data into tiles. 3D diffusable.

Meanwhile, Epic Games also launched Twinmotion 2021.1, a tool for developers that allows them to create, develop and present real-time visualizations, from first concept to advanced photorealistic experiences.

With the addition of the Transparent Bridge to Unreal Engine, the shareable Presenter Cloud, and thousands of high-quality assets thanks to the new Quixel Megascans integration, Twinmotion 2021.1 opens up new storytelling possibilities for all creators, Epic said.

Twinmotion has a simple interface that allows architects, designers and students to create high quality 3D images on their own, without having to outsource the work to visualization specialists. Users can easily import their existing building models from most BIM and CAD programs – including Archicad, Revit, SketchUp Pro, RIKCAD, and Rhino – into Twinmotion, and quickly supercharge them using the software’s sophisticated capabilities, resulting in into pixel-perfect visualizations that can be created and edited in minutes rather than days.

Twinmotion 2021.1 is available at a 25% off price of $ 370 (regional price may vary) for a perpetual license – offer ends April 1, 2021. This introductory price includes all subsequent updates up to at the end of December 2021. There is also a free trial option for those who wish to evaluate new features before purchasing, and a free educational version for students and teachers.