We’re in the midst of an uber-hyped boom around artificial intelligence, and whether there’s room for debate as to how the positive/negative breakdown will shake out, there’s no doubt that there will be some impact across nearly every industry. A lot of the focus has been on the effect AI will have on the long-established industries – spaces we’ve covered like construction as well as places like Hollywood. What’s really interesting here, though, is that the effects are limited to these older spaces that could use some efficiency gains. Some of the most cutting-edge sectors are also leveraging AI to make their work even more efficient and powerful.
One example of that is the burgeoning space around 3D world creation, both fictional and practical. This is a good example of a place where AI can really thrive, creating realistic and physically accurate 3D assets and environments much more quickly than traditional methods. It’s also a space where AI can potentially take some of the soul out of the work, removing human creativity where that’s really what makes these worlds live.
Cybever is a company that is looking to walk this fine line between the positives and negatives of AI in the 3D world-building space. Rather than creating all of the assets within a 3D environment, their artificial intelligence tool, using large-language models, converts text into a broad 3D environment, with creators then able to fill in the rest of the world with their own assets or assets from other artists.
To this point, as one would probably expect, much of their business is in the gaming and entertainment spaces, allowing creators to, for example, quickly create a large medieval world that can be filled in with more specifics. However, as founder and CEO Cecilia Shen told Geo Week News in a recent conversation, they believe that their technology can also help companies within the AEC and facility management sectors with their transition into the 3D environment.
These are industries that are starting to look more towards working within 3D environments, specifically with the advent of 3D twins. As we’ve covered over the last couple of years with Geo Week News, the confluence of improved 3D creation workflows, artificial intelligence, and better connectivity for sensors has all led to digital twins becoming more commonplace and valuable. However, these are also industries that don’t have a ton of experience in the 3D space, which is where Shen believes Cybever can help.
“You don’t have to know anything,” she said. “You just need to know what you want to create, and you go from there.”
The platform works using text-to-3D methods, with users just typing in the environment they’d like to create and letting the AI do the rest.
“We generate the layout for you, the geographic information for you – whether it is nature, indoor, outdoor, city, or town – we find the asset that’s correct,” Shen noted.
Cybever is also leaning on the Universal Scene Description, or USD, which has gained prominence in the AEC and facility management space. Shen told Geo Week News that the company believes USD is to the 3D ecosystem what HTML has been to the traditional internet, a common comparison demonstrating the value of the USD. She believes it is the key to gaining more companies into the industry and overall growing the 3D ecosystem.
There’s little doubt that these industries are going to embrace 3D ecosystems in some form, as these digital twins allow for better monitoring of spaces and projects as well as key simulation capabilities that can transform workflows. It remains to be seen, though, how much crossover there will be between tools used in the entertainment space and the AECO sector. Cybever is betting on there being more than one would immediately think, and by creating a tool that eases the creation process for industries that are not well-versed in 3D creation, it’s a good approach to take in entering these new spaces.
