This is an interesting way to show people a scheme/area/idea, and make them feel like they are actually in the space/location.

By linking the VR Panorama to the iDevice internal gyro, the viewer has to physically turn around and look up and down to get the full experience.  You wouldn’t want to be doing it for hours on end, but for a brief view of a space, it really works brilliantly.

Thanks to the built in Vray tools, we were able to render out a perfect 360 degree image from a single camera.. Which we can then photoshop up like any other still image.

After some research we found a great tool called “KR Pano”, that chops up this lovely smooth image into 6 images as you would have on the inside of a cube.  This is like the old QTVR’s that we played with many moons ago.

There are lots of options in KR Pano that we havent fully gotten into yet, so we should have some new bits to show off soon enough.. I’ll update this post as and when we have more to show..

The full Pano can be found here…

These small scale scenes are great fun to work with as we get to really get some detail into the textures, fixtures and fittings. Creating a warm inviting image to draw the viewer in.

We were also asked by the client if we could create an interactive 360 degree panorama of the apartment that would work on the directors iPad they were taking to MIPIM..

A bit of fun R&D later and we have a very lovely toy to play with on your iDevice. Click here to view the Panorama (works best on an iPhone or iPad)

Donal’s done a little blog post about the process.

Donal has moved to Edinburgh and is now headlining our shiny new Scottish office.  We are sharing some space with the lovely people at the Schop Institute  on St Mary’s street in the beautiful old town part of the city.

We have a setup capable of taking on projects independently, or in tandem with the Liverpool office, with a high speed network joining the two locations, and Donal’s nerdiness incredible knowledge.

I actually worked on the pre planning application for the museum many years ago. The company I worked for produced the planning CGI images taken from various locations across the city.  This was my first visit, and it did not disappoint.

The stone cladding looks absolutely stunning, the undulation of the form on the main cladding give it a great effect across the façade, you cant help but be impressed as you follow the seam lines that guide your eye to the historic Liver Building.

The content stands up to the building, well it would its all about our great city, the displays are informative, and interactive.  We were more than entertained for a fair few hours.  My only crit is that whoever decided to place the café on the ground floor and not behind one of the two huge windows at either end so that you can take in the amazing views, really should hang their heads in shame.

The Museum is free to enter, and well worth the visit a view shared by my 7 year old daughter.

You can read more about it here.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/about/building.aspx

Follwing text taken from the website.

This January 2012, don’t miss a rare opportunity to view the exquisite handcrafted Minton tiled floor in the Great Hall.  The beautifully preserved Minton tiles will be unveiled for visitors to enjoy, they are very rarely revealed, so a magnificent treat for visitors in the New Year.

The mosaic masterpiece consists of 30,000 Minton tiles – depicting tritons, sea nymphs, and boys on dolphins, as well as the city’s coat of arms.
The floor was originally laid in 1852, but was covered over in the 1860’s by a raised wooden floor surface to enable dancing and events to take place in the hall, whilst preserving and protecting the tiles.  Unveilings are rare so don’t miss this wonderful and unique chance to see this hidden wonder.
Open Daily 7th Jan – 22nd Jan
10am – 5pm
Admission £1
Under 16 free
Entrance via Heritage Centre (St John’s Lane)

Tours of the building will also be available.

For more information please see www.stgeorgesliverpool.co.uk
Or call 0151 225 6909

We imported the vessel from SolidWorks in 3d, which worked unusually well, with judicious use of the Vray 2sided material, we managed to get it rendering nicely.  Some additional modelling for extra details, and interiors was done as required by each view.

We worked closely with Sean Conboy (http://www.photo-genics.com/), photographer, who visited the site to take many of the photos which we later used to montage the vessel into.  Sean’s artistic eye, and Hasselblad camera delivered some really beautiful and huge images to work with..

The Hotel is due to open in the spring of 2012, the Sunborn Barcelona will be located at the new Port Fòrum Marina. Looking out over the Mediterranean the new yacht hotel will be centre point of the marina area.

The 5-Star Grand Luxury class vessel has been custom designed and built at Sunborns purpose-built yacht hotel construction facility in Lumut, Malaysia. The 140m Sunborn Barcelona incorporates 180 rooms with 27 larger special suites. To enable guests to enjoy spectacular views of the Mediterranean, marina and Barcelona skyline, each suite has wall-wall and floor ceiling windows, as well as their own extensive balcony or terrace.

Throughout the vessel every detail in the design, choice of material or finish, has been carefully selected to add to the feeling of quality and exclusivity. There are also a wide variety of facilities including a large sun deck with pool, an exclusive lobby area and bar, fine dining restaurant, a day spa and fitness centre, meeting and conference facilities.

When we were asked to put together a website for Karl’s Cousin Andy Reid, Karl took it upon himself to learn the wonders of the web…well word press at least..He struggled through it until he had something that looked about right, thankfully this was good enough for Andy.

Andy was injured in Afghanistan in 2009, when he was caught out by an IED. Two years later Andy is coming to the end of his Rehabilitation and he is now focusing on his career after the Army as a Motivational Speakier. This keeps him busy along with his charity work on behalf of the Army Benevolent Fund.

We hope that the website gives Andy everything that he wants, if your looking for a bit of motivation and inspiration take a look at the videos on his site, he is truly is an inspirational person.

Check out his site, www.andyreid.org

JMP’s design incorporates new sport facilities, including a fitness suite, sports hall and upgraded pitches and courts. We worked with JMP both with the Architects and the Interior design team to illustrate various colour schemes and layout options.

We produced such a large body of work that we thought the best way to present it was to produce a dedicated booklet for the hand over which was included with the closure pack. The brochure can be previewed here

They supplied us with a CAD model and we added the textures and lighting, to create some lovely product images.

Paul Dodd, of rapid3dsolution describes the use of the product:

The Lime dispenser was designed for Experimental agency RPM Ltd for a campaign to promote a drinks range by a premium brand, Paul says “we took this challenge from RPM to provide 30 mobile lightweight dispensing units capable of hold 1000’s of limes”. The unit had to be aesthetically in keeping with the promotion and on brand, but also there was a great deal of functional requirements such the unit needed to be lightweight to light in and out of the collection vehicles, but strong enough also.

The main concern was how do the promoting guys get to the bottom of the unit without being consumed by the large bin ?, well this is where Paul’s love of the Archimedes screw came in !, we developed a system on the same age old line that if we could rotate a threaded bar and stop the inner shelf from rotating it had to climb and lower, so with some rapid prototyping ….it worked a treat ! 0-1000 limes in 6 seconds.

There are lots of experimental implementation companies out there trying to design and manufacture items without the years of experience we have- most of them are joinery shops whom try to engineer with the tools they have in house whereas with ourselves we are continuing to explore all the latest technologies and materials to suit the brief in hand, and working with RPM and taking on such a good brief is always a pleasure.

If you would like to know more about Rapid 3D solutions, please visit.

www.rapid3dsolutions.co.uk