2006 Screampoint International Consultants Conference

2006 Screampoint International Consultants Conference
by Jeff Mottle

A few weeks ago I was invited to attend the first annual Screampoint International Consultants conference in Shanghai, China. The conference was an opportunity to bring together the heads of Screampoint’s numerous international offices, as well as many of their partners and consultants to discuss the future of the company, recognize excellence in the field of digital media, and encourage discussion within the digital media community about the need and importance for best practice standards. I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in on some of these discussions and presentations and learn more about this very forward thinking and unique company.

Digital City and Building Intelligence

For those who may not be familiar with Screampoint, they are one of the leading visualization and spatial information management companies in the world. Their projects are world recognized and include the World Trade Center Redevelopment projects in New York City, the Hudson Yards redevelopment, the new Bank of America tower in Manhattan, the Swire Properties Pacific Place Three and the Mandarin Oriental Hotels in Hong Kong as well as the Xintiandi/ TaiPingQiao and the Bund/ Waitanyuan projects in Shanghai. They have also completed projects for the LG Regional Headquarters and Sanlitun redevelopment in Beijing, and AIG’s International Finance Center in Seoul.

HsiaoLai (Sean) Mei, President and CEO of Screampoint

Kim O’Brien Chalmers, HsiaoLai (Sean) Mei, Marcio Carvalho, Laraine Wang
Founders HsiaoLai (Sean) Mei, Kim O’Brien Chalmers, and Michael Semmen started ScreamPoint in December of 2000, and have since grown the company to over 120 employees globally with offices in San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. They also work closely with consultants across the globe including Thailand, China, Brazil, Yugoslavia, and the U.S. By the end of 2006 Screampoint expects to employ over 300 people worldwide.


2006 Screampoint conference delegates

What makes Screampoint truly unique is both their approach to using 3D datasets, as well as their belief in global collaboration to advance the value and sophistication of the 3D modeling industry. These values were at the core of organizing the conference and is inherent in their business practices.

BIM (Building Information Modeling) is a hot topic in the architecture world today, and anyone that attended the Autodesk University conference this year will know that industry leader Autodesk’s message was clear - adopt BIM as part of your workflow, or perish. Some early adopters have embraced this new way of thinking already, but many have yet to make the transition or see the light. Screampoint is one of those companies that has not only seen the light, but has developed a platform to enable city planners, real estate developers and government agencies to use 3D datasets and visualizations to their benefit. Screampoint’s 5Dimensional systems enable their clients to manage everything from new building proposals and traffic analysis to emergency scenario simulations and property management.



New York - Lower Manhattan: Once digtized, development ,construction logistics, and phasing can be analyzed on a single platform and timeline



New York - West Side

Their advanced 5Dimensional computer models represent real world conditions and consist of 3D GIS models, the dimension of time and the dimension of data and information. The deliverables are advanced digital model systems ranging in scale from entire cities such as the most detailed model of New York City in existence, to individual buildings, building systems, down to the individual nut and bolts inside. All of Screampoint’s models can have time and data information linked directly to them for management purposes. Screampoint’s advanced digital models can be viewed, managed and analyzed in a proprietary viewer, which is built around their own database driven KAFA 5D real-time engine, which is capable of handling more polygons than any other in the industry.

Screampoint constructed 5D Digital Las Vegas in order to provide private developers and the city with a common platform to envision and manage one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.


The 5D-City is built on top of GIS data layers

In addition to its own real-time software and accompanying exporter plug-ins compatible with 3dsMax, Screampoint has also developed a Google Earth Exporter plug-in for 3dsMax, which exports 3dsMax models directly onto the Google Earth platform (www.5d-software.com). I am told they will soon be releasing its KAFA 5D real-time engine for public use.

Google Earth




The 5D-City acts as a platform for information management

Although this was the first conference, I’m told it will definitely not be the last.
“Judging from the excellent work and the enthusiasm of all participants, our first International Consultants Conference was truly a success. We believe that our rapidly changing industry offers opportunities of a scale that can only be tackled through collaboration and the adoption of best practice standards. It was an honor to host so many leaders within the 3D community and specifically I would like to thank Jeff Mottle for his participation in what we hope will be remembered as a critical event. We are already looking forward to our conference next year and hope to see many of our current as well as prospective collaborators there!” said President and CEO, HsiaoLai Sean Mei.

For more information about Screampoint visit: http://www.screampoint.com

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