E3Di Helps UK Property Developers with boujou bullet and SteadyMovePRO

Press Release

E3Di Helps UK Property Developers See Quick Returns with boujou bullet and SteadyMovePRO

Property developers are turning to leading-edge marketing methods to convince buyers and generate rapid return on investment, as the falling cost of computer-augmented visualisation techniques developed for the motion-picture industry makes them available to a wider market.

The UK’s Leeds and Huddersfield area is just one part of the country where a fast-moving property scene mean developers are racing to build new homes for customers ready to buy quickly. In such a volatile market, selling off-plan is the quickest way for a developer to see a rapid return on capital, and to give buyers confidence about the property agents and developers and are increasingly relying on high-quality visualisation of the proposed development set into video footage of the site.

‘More architectural practices and developers are doing this now that they are realising it’s available at such an affordable cost,’ says Neil Evans of Architectural visualisation specialists e3Di, who used 2d3’s automated matchmoving software boujou bulletand camera stabilizer SteadyMovePROon a recent project for visualisation of 21 developments totalling around 1000 residential units in Huddersfield. Evans cites boujou bulletas a catalyst in spreading the use of computer-augmented video sequences for architects and developers: ‘The process of matching the CG elements into the video footage has been very specialized and
costly in the past. Now boujou bulletnot only makes it very quick and easy to do, but the pricing of bullet means we can now provide the service at a cost the makes it attractive to a wide range of developers.’

boujou bulletbrings unprecedented ease and efficiency to the task of matching 3D and film or video footage to create a convincing animated on-site visualisation of proposed developments. By adding comprehensive user-guidance wizard to boujou’s celebrated automatic processing capabilities, boujou bulletmakes it possible for the non-expert unfamiliar with the concepts and skills involved in matching video and
computer-generated to produce perfect results every time.

According to Neil Evans, boujou bulletalso helped e3Di meet cost constraints imposed on the shooting. Budget limitations meant that the first of the series of video shoots used a plane rather than the preferred combination of helicopter and gyroscopically-stabilized camera mount. ‘We had a prolonged bout of bad weather to deal with, and
on the day we did the shoot there was a lot of turbulence,’ says Evans.
‘The resulting footage really made you feel the bumps!’

Tracking and recreating the camera path through the shots – typically between 20 and 30 seconds long – would have been exceptionally difficult with conventional software, but boujou bulletautomatically locked on to the landscape and held on through the buffeting to deliver an accurate solution for Evans to work with. By importing the camera path reconstructed by boujou bulletinto a 3D animation program, Evans achieved a perfect match between the video of the site and the 3D
elements in each shot.

However, because of the theme-park ride quality of the original shots, this still left e3di and their client with an unusable sequence: ‘For it to be any use as a selling tool, we needed to stabilize the footage, to get rid of the ups and downs produced by the turbulent flight path.’

Initially this seemed like a tall order to Evans, but he changed his mind after running the sequence through 2d3’s SteadyMovePRO. Available as a plug-in for popular editing and effects packages, SteadyMovePRO automates camera stabilisation using technology related to boujou’s camera-tracking algorithms. ‘It’s an unbelievable product,’ enthuses Evans: ‘I never imagined we’d get the results we did on such a
difficult piece of video. I’d still prefer to shoot with a helicopter whenever possible, but SteadyMove really saved this shot for us by giving the same degree of stability.’

With more property developers and architects becoming aware of the value of video sequences, Evans expects the technique to be a standard part of property marketing before long. ‘Developers are competitive, and every job we do increases the demand for more. With these tools from 2d3 we can deliver work so cost-effectively that rapid growth in this market is inevitable.’

About OMG

OMG plc is the parent company of wholly owned subsidiaries 2d3 and Vicon Motion Systems, developers of the world's most advanced motion capture systems. OMG plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

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2d3 is a trademark of Vicon Motion Systems Ltd. boujou is a trademark of 2d3 Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.