blackshark.ai released a free plugin to access and include data from its SYNTH3D dataset to Unreal Engine 5-based projects. Titled the Globe Plugin for Unreal Engine, the name refers to blackshark-ai’s synthetic 3D globe product called SYNTH3D, that offers the entire as a digital 3D globe, including DEM, terrain texture, buildings, vegetation and various vector layers. With the release of this plugin, custom integration of blackshark.ai’s technology becomes possible for any developer which until now this was only possible for large clients and partners.
Plugin features
The app will stream the following data: a terrain elevation model and terrain texture tiles in different LODs, SYNTH3D building data and vegetation coverage, a SYNTH3D sample dataset of New Orleans (2,5 x 2,5 km). The app enables 3D reconstruction and rendering of the entire 3D environment at runtime, where all data is referenced in WSG84 global spatial reference system. The dataset of SYNTH3D is based on Maxar Vivid’s global satellite imagery basemap, after applying artificial intelligence to derive semantic object classification information and metadata.
Using the plugin, it becomes possible to use blackshark.ai’s 3D data for gaming, training, simulation and visualization applications. Because the underlying basemap from which the data is generated is updated regularly, the data is up-to-date and therefore more ‘realistic’. CEO Michael Putz stated that most customers use blackshark.ai environments for all kinds of simulation applications, including autonomous driving, humanitarian relief, city planning and government efforts. The new plugin enables combining it with other Unreal Engine plugins or 3D assets, data layers and to build geospatial applications with it. The plugin includes many useful functionalities and provides access to data points and handles.
Displaying 1.5 billion photorealistic buildings
blackshark.ai is best known for its global scale 3D reconstruction technology used in Microsoft Flight Simulator to display the surface of the entire plant in 3D, containing more than 1.5 billion photorealistic buildings, giving users an unprecedented immersive 3D flight experience and the largest open-world in the history of video games. Apart from bringing immersive 3D flight experiences to flight simulator software products, blackshark.ai offers digital airport models, synthetic training data for applications such as drone delivery and semantic 3D city models for urban planning and insurance risk analysis, among others. Finally, the company offers an AI-based service for object detection and attribute extraction called Orca, provided via Microsoft Azure.
Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games. The latest generation, Unreal Engine 5, was launched in April 2022. The Unreal Engine Marketplace was opened on September 2014 and is a digital storefront that allows content creators and developers to provide art assets, models, sounds, environments, code snippets, and other features that others could purchase, along with tutorials and other guides.
