Fovotec Blog

Fovotec announces Dynamic Projection

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 08:42:09 GMT

News:

Fovotec’s Dynamic Projection is a brand new 3D rendering plug-in that offers a powerful new way to extend viewport space and improve the quality and immersion of image content in a huge number of applications, both real-time and offline. These applications range from gaming and eSports through smartphone photography and cinematography to simulation, security and medical.

The unique projection algorithms and patented processes in Dynamic Projection, developed during more than 10 years of intensive research and development in Fovotec’s labs, provide an unprecedented breadth of view — up to 180 degrees — and can show a six times greater volume of 3D space compared with a standard 90-degree linear projection — but with far less unnatural distortion than any other current method.

Dynamic Projection uses a novel camera rig that is capable of capturing an ultrawide 180 degree seamless field of view at high resolution, the same as the full field of view that a human would normally see from the same point in space. The software also offers an incredibly powerful menu of tools that allow the user to control the appearance of the image and create custom projections that suit the 3D content. Dynamic Projection also contains a suite of intelligent algorithms that adapts the image projection to the camera motion, automatically producing the optimal projection on a per frame basis.

Dynamic Projection is the next iteration of Fovotec's human-centred imaging software and builds on its predecessor FovoRender. It solves the same long standing problem of how to most effectively render very wide fields of view, but does so using a new and improved technical approach with the result that it is easier to set up and is more performative for real-time.

Releases:

Early access i n the form of a Beta Trials program for select developers will be coming soon.

Dynamic Projection versus Linear Projection:
The following slider panel compares Dynamic Projection and Linear Projection at the same horizontal field of view of 150 degrees.

Dynamic Projection versus Curvilinear Projections:

Dynamic Projection software can also render any standard curvilinear projection such as a Panini, Equirectangular, or Fisheye. The below image panel shows a comparison between a standard Panini projection and Dynamic Projection. The Dynamic Projection version has considerably less curvature and the central figure is more naturally proportioned.

The following panel shows a series of standard curvilinear projections (using Dynamic Projection software). In each case the Dynamic mode image exhibits less distortions, less curvature, a straighter horizon, less angular verticals, all of which combine to increase the feeling of immersion by producing a more natural feeling image.

Dynamic Projection versus Post Processing Effects:

Dynamic Projection is also a significant step forward from the standard methods offered by 3D engines to achieve wide angle curvilinear views, for example Unity's or Epic's single camera post processing solution, both of which suffer from significant resolution problems or high levels of apparent curvature. With its novel twin camera solution and intelligent image processing Dynamic Projection offers both a significantly higher quality image and improved aesthetics with less curvature and distortions. The following images compare the standard single camera Unity Post Processing Panini Effect with the same view generated using Dynamic Projection.

David Hockney, Bigger and Closer

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 16:15:09 GMT

‘David Hockney is our English Picasso’. Have you read this article in the Sunday Times? It’s a great feature by journalist William Boyd about Hockney’s new immersive installation at Lightroom UK , opening in February 2023.

David Hockney’s ideas on art and perception have been a major influence on the development of Fovotec’s FovoRender 3D graphics process.

“Many artists of the past have been dissatisfied with the images created by linear perspective…” explains Alistair Burleigh, Fovotec Co-Founder and Technical Director “…including the artists who helped to invent it, such as Leonardo da Vinci. David Hockney has consistently pointed out its limitations and come up with many creative ways to describe 3D space without using it.”

Fovotec CEO & Research Director Robert Pepperell says: “David Hockney has entitled his latest exhibition "Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)" which perfectly describes what we try to do with the technology of FovoRender, which is make objects in 3D space we are interested in feel bigger and closer.”

"Human vision tends to magnify things we are looking at, which makes them feel closer. This is the main reason why the full moon looks big to us in the sky at night, or a mountain range looms large in our view.”

Linear perspective, on the other hand, doesn’t know or care about what objects the camera is pointed at, and so space and objects get flattened out, and things we are interested in seem smaller and hence further away – just as Hockney says.”

FovoRender is the product of nearly a decade of research and development that has drawn on ideas from many artists, including David Hockey, as well as scientific data.

You can read the Sunday Times article about David Hockney here:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/david-hockney-is-our-english-picasso-william-boyd-meets-the-artist-njfd503pf

Fovotec collaborates with top Film Director Karim Zouak

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 11:45:43 GMT

Karim Zouak is an award–winning writer/director/producer that has been in the business for almost 20 years. Working in both Canada and the United Kingdom, he has honed his craft as writer, director, executive/supervising producer, editor and visual effects artist on commercials, television series, feature films and countless online videos for clients like MTV, Channel 4, Nike, Sony, Philips, Virgin, Blackberry, Unilever and Diageo. His work has been produced and seen internationally in multiple languages by millions of regular viewers, and developing strong creative work remains the heart of his dedication to the craft.

Karim has been the first film director to try FovoRender for Unreal 4.27.2 in the context of a virtual production. Karim has been testing FovoRender on his fantastic full CGI film project Recognition, due for release at the end of 2022, teaser image below:

Karim said:

"Fovorender is an amazing visual tool. I’m really excited to discover the new visual language it offers… the ability to refine the depth of visual planes within wider shots really helps clarify my visual storytelling and deepen emotional engagement."

Of particular interest to Karim is that FovoRender provides a set of highly flexible and adaptive real-time composition tools. The tools can be used to preserve the natural shape of objects and reduce distortion as the camera moves through the 3D scene and can be controlled on keyframes every single frame to achieve perfect composition.

By way of example of this concept the Fovotec team has made a short video using some Unreal marketplace assets. This video compares 4 different types of projection

Bottom right is the standard 90 degree horizontal field of view, currently your only option for the least distortion (although still some). But you can see how cramped it is compared with the others. Top right is a wide angle linear view, with severe distortion. Bottom left is a standard curvilinear projection, which makes elements of the scene look very curvy. Top left is a shot tuned up interactively by an artist to camera movement using FovoRender. The FovoRender version includes the best bits from all the other projections and removes the negatives, being of a very wide field of view, but with very little curvature and very little wide angle lens distortion.

The same video is available on Youtube here:

The current version with manual key-framable control has big potential in virtual production / CGI filmmaking for making nicer looking shots. Karim is exploring these kinds of adaptive and interactive 3D shot composition processes for use in the virtual production environment, so watch this space!

Fovotec’s future plans for these adaptive features are to develop them to intelligently respond to camera movement and to continue to research bringing more intelligence of the control parameters based on context, ultimately moving towards AI driven compositional tools in future all tuned to natural human visual experience.

David Baylis uses FovoRender to improve realism in automotive visualisation

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 09:32:25 GMT

David Baylis is a 3D artist living in Vancouver, Canada (Originally from Lille, France). He works as a Technical Marketing Consultant at Epic Games producing demos, tips & tricks tutorials and webinars.

As a car enthusiast David specialises in automotive real-time rendering using Epic’s Unreal Engine. He has been working with Fovotec as a development partner and has recently used FovoRender to create a hyper-realistic shot of an Audi A5 that looks closer than ever to real life.

"I have been actively testing FovoRender on my scenes, and it's hard to go back to the vanilla version of Unreal! The biggest difference I noticed was for the interior shots. Extremely helpful to use FovoRender to control the distortion effect of the camera. Amazing plug in!" - David Baylis, Technical Marketing Consultant, Epic Games

Whilst Epic’s Unreal Engine 4.27 is designed to produce photorealistic results and contains incredible technology, David finds it can be limited in options for 3D image composition. In standard Unreal you can either zoom in for a tight shot with minimal distortion or zoom out for a wide field of view with lots of distortion, which can be restrictive, particularly when rendering the relatively small interior spaces of cars.

Here you can see how FovoRender helped David to fine tune the image composition to give the most realistic result. The biggest visual difference is on the interior shot where he could use FovoRender to tweak individual elements of the images such as the curvature of the windshield, and to show a more realistic width of the wing mirrors. What else can you see that has been corrected?

The exterior shot of the car is a more subtle use of the FovoRender tools but is still a valuable change. Here David has chosen to adjust a standard 90 degree horizontal field of view linear shot with some FovoRender functions in order to create a more natural view of the car with less distortion than the comparison linear view.

David was a massive fan of the flexibility of FovoRender and the multiple compositional tools it contains that can be used to adjust an image through depth in many ways. To create these outstanding images he started with the in-built presets then made further tweaks to the image composition, using the many adjustable parameters provided.

Watch this space for more in the pipeline between David and Fovotec!

https://www.artstation.com/davidbaylis

ThreePointZero enhance their famous Mercedez-Benz scene with FovoRender.

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 09:32:11 GMT

ThreePointZero creates higher detail ultra-wide angle renders using FovoRender - for high end automotive visualisation.

Threepointzero is a software technology company, interacting with companies in the real time computer graphics visualisation industry with offices in London and Brazil. They have recently been working as a development partner with Fovotec on trialling and configuring FovoRender for a high quality automotive project rendering case study.

In their line of work, the more details you present on the screen then ultimately the more realistic the result is and that is the challenge they explored with FovoRender. Before partnering with Fovotec, they were using Unreal 4 Normal Cine Camera.

In this case, Paul used FovoRender UE4 Path Tracer to fix common distortions created by linear perspective, making the car look even more realistic, both at 120 and 90 degrees FOV.

“FovoRender is perfectly suited for rendering wider and higher angle of view stills and it allows us to capture unseen or hard to spot segments of the environment around the car model.”

~Paul Eliasz, Founder

The following images show a before / after comparison of the ThreePointZero Mercedes Benz scene rendered in a linear viewport and with an equal field of view using FovoRender.

Fovotec develops new version of FovoRender for Intel® OSPRay

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 10:59:14 GMT

Fovotec is very excited to announce the start of a new integration of FovoRender into Intel’s OSPRay, a next generation ultra-realistic path tracing based renderer. Intel® OSPRay is an open source, scalable, and portable ray tracing engine for high-performance, high-fidelity visualisation on Intel architecture CPUs.

The purpose of OSPRay is to provide an open, powerful, and easy-to-use rendering library that allows one to easily build interactive applications that use ray tracing based rendering (including both surface- and volume-based visualisations). OSPRay (today) is completely CPU-based, and runs on anything from laptops, to workstations, to compute nodes in HPC systems, and in the cloud. In the future, OSPRay will also support GPUs as part of oneAPI cross-architecture programming efforts.

It is clear that OSPRay brings some really interesting new possibilities to 3D rendering and following an initial meeting to learn more with Bruce Cherniak, an Intel ray tracing software engineer, at SIGGRAPH 2022. Then, Fovotec set to work looking at the compatibility and potential integration of the FovoRender processes within this exciting new host platform.

While there is some way to go to develop a final FovoRender version, below are some of the first proof of concept image compositions created with an initial version of FovoRender for OSPRay. These renders are designed to demonstrate how the FovoRender spatial composition tools can be used by a 3D artist. For example, we show how to create a more natural-looking and spatially accurate render of the interior of a car, in this case a Volvo, than can be achieved with a standard linear render.

Images 1 and 2 below show a comparison between a shot created in Intel® OSPRay using a standard linear render and one created using the new trial integration of FovoRender for Intel® OSPRay with some custom settings. Both shots have a horizontal field of view of around 120 degrees, of a model freely available on sketchfab.com .

FovoRender was initially developed as a technology to run within the framework of the real-time rasteriser engines used in gaming; it has also been integrated into several GPU-based path tracer engines such as Cinema4D with Octane Render and the Unreal 4 path tracer rendering mode. This new integration into OSPRay demonstrates the versatility of the natural rendering process behind FovoRender in the new environment of an interactive CPU-based path tracer. As a result, FovoRender combined with the ultra high-quality CPU rendering of OSPRay is now able to produce even more realistic and immersive images, all based on modelling the structure of human vision.

“The ease with which Fovotec enabled its FovoRender technology within Intel OSPRay exemplifies how high-quality open source products can foster rapid innovation. These images highlight how FovoRender is addressing a common problem in standard rendering and photography where distortion occurs with wide fields-of-view. This Intel and Fovotec collaboration helps bring images with much higher perceptual quality to a wider audience.” says Cherniak.

Fovotec is constantly evolving its technology and patent protected IP to keep up with trends and market insight to create better processes for 3D rendering. Our aim is to enable end users to create more immersive and higher perceptual quality images.

Find out more:

· FovoRender - www.fovotec.com

· Intel® OSPRay can be downloaded individually from GitHub , or as part of the Intel® oneAPI Rendering Toolkit (Render Kit), which includes a suite of advanced ray tracing libraries. OSPRay builds on top of Intel® Embree and Intel® ISPC (Implicit SPMD Program Compiler), which are part of the Render Kit package.

FovoRender has been selected by DEVELOP3D.com as one of the top 30 technologies of 2022!

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 13:00:03 GMT

Fovotec announced today that its new rendering product FovoRender has been selected by leading computer graphics industry magazine Develop3D as one of the top 30 new technologies set to change the world in 2022.

Read more about it on this link: https://develop3d.com/the-d3d-30/

“We believe that all featured companies are going to change the way the industry uses technology to design, engineer and manufacture products.”
- Stephen Holmes, Develop3D

The companies included in this year’s selection are:

ADDIFAB - AMD - AUTODESK - BCN3D - BOTCHA3D - CADENCE - CARBON - DASSAULT SYSTEMES – E3D - EPSON - FOVOTEC - HEXAGON - HP - HYPERGANIC - INTEL - LUMAFIELD - MATERIALISE – MAXON - MAYKU - METAFOLD - MONOLITH AI - NVIDIA - PHENOMETRY - SEURAT - SHAPR3D – SIMCENTER - SMARTPARTS - SOLID EDGE - VARJO – WOMP

FovoRender is a new form of 3D renderer developed by Fovotec that is more natural, flexible, and immersive than current 3D renderers.

DEVELOP3D is read by designers, engineers, and technologists around the world, across a huge array of industries and specialisms.

Find Out More About DEVELOP3D

Find Out More About Fovotec

Fovotec
2 Kingdom Street
London W2 6BD
info@fovotec.com

First version of FovoRender for offline rendering - Cinema4D and Octane

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 19:47:29 GMT

A common request from our industry partners in the visualisation space has been... "can we deliver the awesome flexibility in composition that FovoRender offers in our real-time tools, but packaged up in the highest quality offline renderers instead?" We've listened, and have been working hard on delivering the tools asked for.

Fovotec are pleased to announce the first trials of a new evolution of FovoRender that can be used with Maxon’s Cinema 4 D and Octan e to produce path-traced stills and animations.

FovoRender is a highly flexible rendering solution designed around human vision that creates much wider fields of view with far less distortion than traditional rendering tools.

Until recently, FovoRender had only been developed for Unity and Unreal, both of which are primarily real-time engines but also have some facilities for high-quality offline rendering of the kind used by professional 3D artists and visualisers.

The recent move into professional offline environments is a major step for Fovotec, and builds on the work we’ve been doing with studios such as Soluis , CreateCG , and Lightfield , all of whom have used FovoRender to create high-quality stills and animations.

FovoRender for Cinema 4D was built using the Open Shading Language and can be set up with a few clicks. The first industry trials of the new process on architectural and automotive visualisation projects are kicking off very soon, watch this space.

First example renders are below, and can also be found on our gallery page .

Please get in touch for any more info.

Stunning new archviz images created with FovoRender path-tracing tool in Unreal 4.27

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 19:08:50 GMT

One of the biggest challenges 3D artists face is rendering wide fields of view without creating unnatural distortions. This is especially true for architectural visualisers who want to show the details of a design and the wider spatial context that they sit in.

The only existing solution is to simulate wide-angle camera lenses, either rectilinear or curvilinear. The shot below shows an archviz scene rendered with an ultra-wide 10mm rectilinear lens, which is equivalent to a field of view of about 135º:

And this shot shows the same view rendered with a panini projection, which is similar to a fisheye lens, but with the advantage that vertical lines are kept straight:

Neither looks especially natural. This is where FovoRender comes in. This shot was rendered from the same virtual camera position as the others, but you can see the dramatic difference from the others:

The very wide horizontal field of view is the same (around 135º) in each case, but the central area of the image in the FovoRender is much larger than in the others, allowing viewers to better appreciate the details of the design, and the unnatural curvature of the panini is gone.

These images were created using the new FovoRender path-tracing tool running in Epic’s Unreal 4.27.. This offline rendering method produces the highest optical quality for shadows, reflections and transparency while the unique FovoRender tools give artists unparalleled freedom to adjust the geometry of a scene volumetrically to create the most realistic looking shots.

Here are three more examples:

FovoRender is a patent-protected technology developed by Fovotec that was initially developed for real-time engines Unity and Unreal.

Watch this space for some news in the near future on FovoRender offline tools for Cinema4D.

Fovotec team up with 3D visualisation agency CreateCG to make never-before-seen shots of a BMW i3 interior

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 14:32:04 GMT

Ben Walker is a seasoned professional in the automotive visualisation industry. Having spent several years as Head of Real-Time Imaging at the Burrows agency working for clients such as Ford, McLaren and VW, he set up his own agency CreateCG in 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning to bite. Fortunately business has been brisk since. CreateCG have benefited, like many other agencies, from the general upswing in demand for virtual content in recent times.

A few months ago Ben produced some beautiful architectural renders with the Unreal Engine 4.25 version of FovoRender that we showcased on our blog . And so when we got the new path-tracing version working recently we were keen to see how he might use it for high-end automotive visualisation.

Automotive visualisation presents some unique challenges for 3D artists, particularly when it comes to interior shots. The spaces are almost always tight, and it’s very difficult to move the virtual camera without cutting into windows, columns or headrests.

As a result, the ‘heights and angles’ options for camera position are limited. So creative teams involved in the production of car interiors tend to rely on a few tried and trusted setups that use narrow fields of view or long lenses. These can be great for showing off the details of instruments and trim but less good for capturing the overall feel of the cockpit.

We sent Ben a copy of the FovoRender path-tracer running in Unreal 4.27 and let him experiment for a few days. Then we met up and asked him how he got on. One of the things that Ben noticed immediately about applying FovoRender to make shots of a BMW i3 was the freedom it gave him to render more of the car’s interior at once.

“Straight away you get a huge sense of space using FovoRender. You can get a lovely shot with lots in the frame that looks great; it’s a much more natural image”

A very common setup in autoviz is the view of the steering wheel and dashboard area from the driver’s side. Getting a generous volume of space in a shot like this without deforming the internal structure is a classic problem. In a typical workflow, the artist might start with a linear perspective lens equivalent to a camera lens of around 18 mm, which produces a shot like this:

Nice as this shot is, Ben felt the lens was causing the steering wheel to bulge out towards the viewer too much, creating an unnatural and distorted feel. Using the spatial adjustment tools built into FovoRender, he was able to ‘push’ the central space back, so making the space feel more comfortable and less bulged, like this:

One of the really interesting things about working on these images with a person as experienced as Ben was that he used the FovoRender tools in ways we hadn’t expected. We assumed that artists would start with the narrow fields of view that 3D engines like UE4 provide by default and then try and widen them as much as possible, using FovoRender to increase naturalism along the way.

Ben surprised us by working the other way round. As with the shot above, he often began with the narrower field of view, as expected, but then used the FovoRender tools to correct the unnatural appearances they produced without needing to widen. This was a reminder to us that even relatively low fields of view can produce spatial artefacts that don’t look quite ‘right’. But until now there’s been no way to fix them.

Another shot that often causes problems is the view through the passenger door. The aim here is to show off the trim of the seats and to emulate the experience of someone entering the car from the front. It’s often hard though to avoid clipping the door or column with the camera when your camera is this close. Removing chunks from the car is a time-consuming option. Setting up such a shot with the standard lenses in UE4 produces this:

Here the deformation of the passenger seat is probably too severe to make this shot usable. However, by applying the adjustment tools in FovoRender Ben was able to produce this version without moving the camera at all:

This is the same setup, from the same camera position as before, but modified using FovoRender. Ben felt this shot was a big improvement over the standard linear perspective version. Note how less stretched the passenger seat is, and how much more interior space is shown.

Again, you can see a far greater volume of space and a much more natural composition of the interior compared to the standard shot.

“You can see more, objects are straighter and less distorted and it’s great that you can fine tune the details”

We really enjoyed working with Ben on these renders and we learnt a lot in the process. We think the renders he produced, which have never been possible to produce before at this quality with these compositions, show why FovoRender could become an indispensable tool for 3D artists and creative directors who want more freedom and control over the images they create.

FovoRender is a patent-protected technology from Fovotec Ltd.

Fovotec collaborates with future-of-work platform Bublr to improve metaverse experience in WebXR

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 13:54:24 GMT

Bublr is an innovative virtual meeting space designed to make collaboration and social interaction more natural and intuitive. The platform represents users with live video avatars that can freely explore 3D spaces in real time and connect with others to meet, work and play.

It’s crucial for a successful metaverse experience that the images should look as natural as possible. Unfortunately, the linear perspective geometry used to render most 3D spaces creates unnatural-looking distortions, especially at wide fields of view.

As the team at Bublr realised, this problem is especially severe when it comes to representing human faces. We might not notice or care if a desk looks a bit stretched, but when it’s our own face, or that of a colleague, then we do.

When Bublr reached out to Fovotec we were happy to let them know that there is a solution. The FovoRender process bypasses the normal linear perspective calculations that standard 3D engines use and replaces them with a novel, patent-protected set of calculations based on the structure of human vision.

In practice this means that a version of Bublr running with Fovorender can show much wider fields of view—which improves interaction and navigation—while keeping the natural appearance of objects—including the faces of the avatars themselves.

The FovoRender solution is particularly effective for WebXR delivery as it is designed to work on standard screens—phones, laptops, and large displays—and can be configured to suit the display size.

Bublr and Fovotec are now working together on developing a FovoRender version of the Bublr platform in the BabylonJS rendering engine and we hope to share more results soon.

Proof of concept images follow showing some of the Bublr 3D assets running within our Unreal 4.27 FovoRender integration at various fields of view from a standard 90 degree horizontal up to an extreme 150 degrees.

In each set of comparisons the faces of the avatars will be more distorted and the center of the 3D space will feel smaller and further away in the linear view compared to the FovoRender version, where both the faces and the 3D space will have a far more natural experience.

The FovoRender Story: Part 1:

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:10:12 GMT

This is the first in a series of articles we will be releasing throughout 2022 with more detail on the long backstory of research and experimentation that underpins FovoRender and how we developed it. But we thought we would start by answering the first and most important question—why?

Why FovoRender?

The answer is simple: we wanted to find a better way to represent the world we see— as we see it .

It’s widely assumed that linear perspective perfectly represents the world as we see it. After all, we hear people talk about ‘photorealism’ and ‘optical accuracy’ in cameras and 3D graphics engines.

But there’s a great historical irony here. Artists have long known that linear perspective doesn’t represent the world as we see it, even though they (along with architects) invented the very principles of linear perspective!

Proof of this lies in the fact that artists have hardly ever used accurate linear perspective to create pictures of 3D space, despite being trained rigorously in the method for centuries.

Why? Because other than in a few very special cases, linear perspective geometry simply cannot reproduce the kind of wide and deep visual space that we naturally experience.

The clue is in the name. Linear perspective is, by definition, linear . But we have known since at least the 17th century that human vision is non-linear. Whether you are aware of it or not, the world you actually see is really quite curvy (a consequence of several things, including the physical shape of the eyeball).

To prove this, look at the image below. It’s a regular grid, right? Now shut one eye and move your head back and forth in close proximity to the image.

It was by doing hundreds of experiments like this in our lab, and exploring art history and the history of vision science in-depth, that we gradually worked out the basic structure of visual space—which turns out to be a LOT more complex and strange than anyone ever imagined.

But then we found out something even more interesting. When we make images based on this complex geometrical structure—which we call ‘natural perspective’ because it’s based on natural human vision— people tend to say that they look deeper, more immersive and more real than images created using linear perspective.

FovoRender is a computer graphics process that implements natural perspective in 3D renderers. It’s the first form of perspective to be modelled on the structure of human visual space. It’s being used by architectural visualisers, automotive visualisers, and other 3D artists to create stills, animations and real time content that is wider, deeper and more immersive than can be achieved using traditional linear perspective-based rendering tools.

Check out the video below, go full screen and the watch should look pretty 3D, you could even try shutting one eye.

And what does Fovo stand for? Field of View Opened. We want to free the consumers of 3D content from the narrow letter-box viewports that linear perspective renderers currently impose on virtual worlds.

Leading producer Soluis begins using FovoRender with Unreal

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 13:38:32 GMT

"FovoRender is a game-changer for static digital images. The more I used it, the more I questioned why we didn't have a tool like this in our toolbox already."

(Heather Main, Real-time artist at Soluis Group)

Soluis is a cutting-edge visual engagement agency that specialises in producing digital media and interactive experiences for the property sector and major brands. From their base of operations in the UK, their multi-skilled teams produce a range of architectural visualisations, experiential content and immersive reality installations from a coordinated production pipeline.

In a highly competitive market, companies like Soluis need to keep up with the rapid innovation in 3D imaging technology. At the same time, clients expect digital content that is ever more immersive, realistic and compelling.

So it was natural for Soluis to begin using FovoRender, the revolutionary 3D rendering process from Fovotec that gives artists unparalleled scope to heighten immersion and realism in computer-generated images.

"Aside from being interested in evaluating any new, innovative solutions that could bring value to our clients, we are always interested in anything that improves our ability to increase visual fidelity and perceived realism" (Heather Main, Real-time artist at Soluis Group)

FovoRender, developed by Fovotec , is a novel way to render 3D space based on the way humans perceive the world rather than how cameras record light. It allows artists to create wider, more natural fields of view with far less distortion than traditional rendering techniques.

Working with a high-quality real-time 3D office environment developed in Unreal 4.26 , designers at Soluis produced a demo video comparing FovoRender with standard linear perspective views. As the images show, the space in the FovoRender version appears more realistic and more natural than in the linear perspective projections.

FovoRender not only provides optimised real-time presets for a range of fields of view—from standard (90°) to ultrawide (150°). It also offers an entirely new set of depth-based compositing tools that help digital artists maximise the impact and quality of their work:

"Having the ability to tweak and straighten that warped or pulled perspective on the verticals so easily and quickly was instant happiness." (Heather Main, Real-time artist at Soluis Group)

Soluis is now planning to collaborate with Fovotec on further projects that explore the creative opportunities opened up by FovoRender and is incredibly excited about the new ultra-realistic path tracing version of FovoRender in Unreal.

"The improvement in immersive viewing - especially on larger screens - is notable and will be a standard that we won't come back from once established. The ability to increase depth perception without the need for headsets or eyewear is arguably one of the most immediate benefits." (Scott Grant, CEO at Soluis Group)

Path Tracing in Unreal 4.27 is a reality for FovoRender

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 16:34:55 GMT

Fovotec is very excited to announce that FovoRender is now running in Unreal 4.27 in ultra-realistic full path-tracing mode. This new offline version is designed for enterprise 3D visualisation professionals using Unreal engine that want to produce extremely high quality stills or motion sequences using FovoRender.

You can find some of the first images created using this new process in Unreal 4.27 on our brand new dedicated gallery page here.

FovoRender was initially produced as a technology to run within the framework of the real-time rasteriser engines used in gaming. This latest development means that FovoRender can now run within the framework of the off-line path-tracing engines used to create top quality images and animations in advertising, architectural visualisation, and cinematography. To allow ease and efficiency for the user, the user control process in Unreal remained similar to the rasteriser version, and with the addition of some new features.

As a result FovoRender is now able to produce even more realistic and immersive images, all still based on modelling the structure of human vision.

The Fovotec developers are also working on implementations for other full offline path-tracing renderers, so watch out for more information on that in the near future.

We are about to kick off the first industry uses of the technology on perceptually realistic architectural and automotive visualisation projects, all coming soon.

Fovotec is constantly evolving its technology and patent protected IP to keep up with trends and market insight to create better processes for 3D rendering. Our aim to enable end users to create more realistic and immersive images

If you are interested in trialing this new version of FovoRender please get in touch.

Fovotec participates in the Unreal Build: Automotive 2021 virtual event

Fri, 28 May 2021 06:52:41 GMT

Fovotec is excited to have participated in the Unreal Build: Automotive 2021 virtual event which our business development team attended in order to network and gain more insights into the latest industry trends and updates.

The scope of the event was to inform about the ways Unreal Engine is currently used and the potential it has in the Automotive industry. It was mainly based on digital presentations of concept cars using this new technology, as well as introducing new real time web based customizers and visualisation tools.

The new technologies that were presented were Animech , a product configurator that delivers state of the art 3D applications, digitizing the complete sales and aftersales process and Unevis that uses intuitive, scalable and powerful AI CAD Data for the automotive industry, that showcased their AI shader material conversion tool.

The new technological advancements that were introduced to us were groundbreaking and Fovotec is excited to be part of this digital revolution. Such tools like Animech and Unevis can be used in future in combination with FovoRender within Unreal to create deeper, more immersive content in the car visualisation field.

Pagani, the italian car manufacturer was also one of the guest speakers and showcased their real-time car configurator which creates a digital showroom that delivers a live and interactive 3D scene of a car. This amazing new feature could be even more enhanced when used with FovoRender’s rendering technology.

The future of the visualisation industry in the automotive sector looks promising as more companies are moving over to real time visualisation and online visual sales tools in favour of expensive physical showrooms. Big names like Volkswagen and Volvo are currently leading the way with this transition.

Other companies that participated in the Unreal Build: Automotive 2021 event were BMW, General Motors, Pagani, Volkswagen, Animech, AV Simulation, Effekt-Etage, Elastique, Google, Hyper Bowl, nVIDIA and MHP.

With our participation in this event we managed to take a deeper look into how real time visualisation is helping to support the automotive industry and explore both the positives and negatives it can bring and what problems FovoRender is solves in this market.

Fovotec is increasing its activity in the industry and will be participating in more events in the future, not only to network and stay up to date but to be in a position to constantly iterate improvements to FovoRender based on market feedback to ultimately provide our customers and partners with the best possible set of tools.

For more information, this is the dedicated link to the event: Unreal Build 2021

Lightfield London uses FovoRender in Unreal 4.25 - to enhance high-end architectural visualisation rendering.

Mon, 17 May 2021 09:15:28 GMT

Lightfield London uses FovoRender to create more immersive architectural renders with higher visual impact and increased immersion.

Lightfield London are a creative studio who have been producing films, 3D animations, stunning visuals and bespoke music compositions for the last 20 years for a wealth of blue chip and household name clients as part of the renowned architects Foster + Partners.

Lightfield have recently been exploring Unreal Engine for real-time visualisation work using its standard linear perspective based cinematic camera processes. Whilst Unreal produces high quality renders and is designed for photorealism they find the compositional tools limited.

Objects can appear distorted even at low fields of view and many hacks and workarounds are employed by a 3D artist in the pursuit of realism and immersion. Any wide field of view renders using linear perspective exhibit severe distortion and this forces Lightfield to instead use narrow lens settings which can feel unrealistic and highly cropped.

Video made with FovoRender

Using FovoRender

Implementing Fovotec’s new FovoRender technology in Unreal has greatly increased the flexibility of how they can shoot interiors and exteriors. “The wide field of views feel natural, and give the user more creative freedom when visualising scenes.” ~ Robin Smith, Lightfield London.

‘’FovoRender is very easy to use, after the project has been launched using the custom FovoRender build once, it can launch from the Epic Games Launcher like any other project. The FovoRender settings are clearly labeled to activate and edit in the viewport.’’ ~ Robin Smith, 3D Artist, Lightfield London.

The R&D project Lightfield built with Fovotec was designed to mimic the “worst case scenarios” the studio faces when trying to visualise virtual spaces most effectively, such as when shooting large atriums and lobbies for a single shot.

Lightfield found that using FovoRender’s uniquely flexible ultra-wide field of view settings has helped them overcome many of the limitations of linear perspective and allowed them to create more immersive renders with higher visual impact and realism. For example in standard Unreal the only way to render the full extent of a large atrium realistically is to manually pan or dolly the camera using a tight-angle camera setting, or to place the camera far outside the building and clip geometry, which is very time consuming.

With FovoRender’s enhanced wide field of views those techniques are no longer required and more space can fit more naturally into the same screen areas even in one shot with far less camera movement, and with less setup effort.

‘’Fovotec’s FovoRender technology can potentially be effective enough for still images to replace the need for some walkthroughs/stills.’’ ~ Robin Smith, 3D Artist, Lightfield London.

Video made with Linear Rendering

Top User Functionalities as rated by Lightfield

The ability to switch on/off instantly to see the result while working on the project is great not just for the user but to show and present the work and capabilities to others.
The default field of view settings

When we asked Lightfield what is the single biggest reason they would recommend FovoRender, they responded “FovoRender’s ability to render ultra-wide field of views works seamlessly and increases the immersiveness and effectiveness of real-time walkthroughs. Given the simple choice to leave FovoRender on or off, we’d leave it on... all the time!’’

3D Project Credit:

Custom Development Unreal Project created by Lightfield London
Rendered in Unreal 4.25 with Hybrid Ray Tracing and FovoRender

Next Steps:

Watch this space for more projects

MadacThreePointZero visualises Bugatti Chiron and Divo with increased realism using FovoRender in Unreal 4.25 with hybrid ray tracing.

Mon, 10 May 2021 12:42:45 GMT

MadacThreePointZero creates higher detail ultra-wide angle renders using FovoRender - for high end automotive visualisation.

MadacThreepointzero is a software technology company, interacting with companies in the real time computer graphics visualisation industry with offices in London and Brazil. They have recently been working as a development partner with Fovotec on trialling and configuring FovoRender for a high quality automotive project rendering case study.

The challenge

Whilst the standard camera technology in Unreal 4.25 is designed to produce photorealistic results MadacThreepointzero find it challenging in that there are very limited options for 3D spatial composition. Particularly when rendering the relatively small interior spaces of cars you can either zoom in for a tight shot with minimal distortion or zoom out for a wide field of view with lots of distortion. With standard Unreal cameras MadacThreePointZero also usually apply many different camera settings for each individual view and render. This creates many complexities and is ultimately very time consuming.

MadacThreepointzero are always looking to explore new and interesting processes and technologies within the 3D visualisation space to improve their client offering and workflow and this was a key motivation for them to enter into a development partnership with Fovotec. Working with a solution like FovoRender will help the studio to continue their operations with greater ease and efficiency in the future by avoiding the time consuming tricks and hacks usually employed in 3D rendering in order to produce a desired end result.

Using FovoRender

“FovoRender is perfectly suited for rendering wider and higher angle of view stills and it allows us to capture unseen or hard to spot segments of the environment around the car model.”

~Paul Eliasz, Founder

MadacThreepointzero think that FovoRender will be useful to showcase their work and projects in a much more detailed perspective. As with any new technology, they took some time to understand the product itself and how it works, but once set up the value and enhanced functionality quickly became clear.

With this new rendering technology, MadacThreepointzero achieved higher details within the wider angle which were unachievable before, with the conventional Unreal camera. The fact that there are no real alternatives shows just how groundbreaking Fovotec’s technology is.

‘’While using blueprints, I can set the view style mode and change my projection mode from Unreal to Natural. 120 and 150 are my favorite settings to use, especially with the wider angle. It is easier for my workflow and I find it a lot more comfortable this way.’’

~Paul Eliasz, Founder

When we asked them what’s the single biggest reason they would recommend our product, they responded: ‘’It is beneficial for projects that need higher resolution pics of a product. Even this can be a limit within standard Unreal and that's where FovoRender can come as an advantage because you can render at 4K resolution and capture more details around the image with the wider angle settings in the natural perspective mode.’’

To find more information about MadacThreePointZero, click here:
https://en.madacthreepointzero.com /

Next Steps:

Watch this space for more projects

London Visualisation Studio Your 3D World joins Fovotec as a development partner for FovoRender.

Mon, 10 May 2021 12:02:14 GMT

Your 3D World partners with Fovotec to work on demonstration projects for FovoRender in Unity Forward / Deferred.

Your 3D World provides 3D marketing videos and VR experiences for a wide range of real estate projects including designs for villas, bungalows, airports, corporate, hospitals, education, hotels, commercial and residential properties, malls and multiplexes, sports, religious, township, and office space.

With an ongoing interest in cutting edge rendering technologies and how to improve visualisations of 3D space for their clients Your3DWorld partnered with Fovotec to work on a set of demonstration tools for the FovoRender project using FovoRender for the Unity Forward / Deferred renderer. After installation and set up in their projects they found it to be a very easy piece of software to use.

FovoRender is designed to allow visualisation professionals to render ultrawide fields of view with a higher degree of realism and less distortion than standard methods.

“FovoRender 100% adds more realism to a scene as it solves some problems that designers have been facing for years. Objects look particularly good! We think this technology will revolutionise the way 3D work is done in certain industries.’’ ~Gedi Kalinauskas, Founder

With any new product it is very important for the end user to understand what they need to do every step of the way and how the new technology fits within their standard workflow. Fovotec’s goal with all our development partners is to learn from their feedback in order to give an ultimately great customer experience.

Before FovoRender, Your3DWorld was using a default Unity 3D camera and the standard 3D rendering techniques. FovoRender is a completely different experience with many new features and functions not found in a standard rendering engine. Their favourite benefit of FovoRender is how it can be used to improve the rendering of cramped interior spaces. This feature allowed them to see more of the scene within the same screen space, see image below. Your3DWorld is positive that FovoRender will help them grow as a business as it is a clear technical upgrade for Unity that will allow them to create better and more advanced projects in the future.

‘’It allows us to make the 3D Environment much more realistic, allowing us to play with edges of the scene and wider views. Whenever we want some additional effects, we now know what we need to use and that is FovoRender’’

~Gedi Kalinauskas, Founder

This image shows a scene being used for a simulation based visualisation project and how FovoRender can be used to show more of the training space than a standard linear view for a more natural experience with greater immersion.

For more information regarding Your 3DWorld, click here: https://www.your3dworld.co.uk/

Next Steps:

Watch this space for more projects

Fovotec joins Unity's Verified Solutions Partner Program

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 19:59:33 GMT

Fovotec announced today that it is now a Unity Verified Solutions Partner (VSP) . Being a Verified Solutions Partner means Fovotec has been verified by Unity (NYSE: U) to ensure its SDK is optimised for the latest version of the Unity editor, providing a seamless experience for Unity developers.

Following ten years of pioneering research at Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK, Fovotec was formed as a spin-out computer graphics company with a mission to emulate the experience of natural vision in imaging media.

Fovotec makes FovoRender, a new real-time 3D rendering technology designed for enterprise 3D visualisation professionals using Unity. FovoRender is the first core rendering technology to be verified by Unity, one of the world’s largest 3D engine providers. FovoRender increases the field of view in a 3D render using a process based on human vision, meaning a user can fit far more space into the same screen area with far less distortion compared to a standard render.

“We think FovoRender will change the way 3D artists work and how users experience 3D space and are excited about delivering this revolutionary process to users of Unity. FovoRender breaks with 600 years of imaging geometry tradition based on linear perspective to open up virtual spaces based on the way humans see, not cameras. Never before have artists been able to render so much 3D space with so little distortion - FovoRender opens the field of view, and we can't wait to see what imaging professionals worldwide create with it.”, said Robert Pepperell, Fovotec co-founder and Research Director.

Unity is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content. Creators, ranging from game developers to artists, architects, automotive designers, filmmakers, and others, use Unity to make their imaginations come to life.

FovoRender provides solutions across the 3D visualisation enterprise spectrum with Unity to deliver a range of benefits:

it increases the usable field of view
it renders far more 3D space in the same screen area with far less distortion
it is deeper, more immersive, more natural than standard alternatives
it is highly flexible and saves time in the 3D workflow
it solves many problems for 3D visualisation artists

See https://www.fovotec.com for case studies.

See https://unity.com/partners/verified-solutions/fovotec to learn more about Unity and Fovotec's partnership.

Note: image shows an architectural scene rendered in an ultrawide field of view using FovoRender in the Unity High Definition Render Pipeline.

Unity Scene Credit: https://oneirosvr.com/

CreateCG use FovoRender in Unreal 4.25.

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:59:54 GMT

Innovative visualisation studio CreateCG uses FovoRender to produce highly immersive ultra-wide CGI showcase images.

CreateCG is a CGI production studio based in London that specialises in real-time automotive and product visualisation. Amongst other 3D rendering tools, they use Unreal Engine to produce hyper-realistic real-time renders for prestige automotive clients and others.

Fovotec has entered into a development partnership with CreateCG and has been working closely with Ben Walker, CreateCG Creative Director and ex-Burrows head of 3D, on a showcase rendering project using FovoRender Unreal 4.25 with hybrid ray-tracing. Before Ben started this collaboration with Fovotec, he used the standard version of Unreal - an engine based on simulating physical cameras’ properties.

Whilst Unreal is an extremely powerful tool for visualisation artists, Ben was already aware it had some limitations. Notably, it is challenging to capture a natural, wide view from confined spaces without producing images that look distorted due to the way it simulates camera lenses.

‘Ben said, “’ Getting a camera lens into a tight space normally results in a trade-off between cropping the view or distorting it massively to fit everything in. This compromise is always a cause of frustration when setting up automotive shots.’’

What we did

Initially, Ben was introduced to FovoRender, a rendering technology designed for enterprise 3D visualisation professionals using real-time 3D Engines Unity or Unreal. We then had a mini-training session to explain how everything works and ultimately allow him to gain and explore its features’ full potential.

Ben said, “Initial impressions are great! It is immediately clear that FovoRender is a very powerful tool to have as a CGI artist.”

Fovotec’s main goal was to satisfy that FovoRender solves the pain points experienced by CreateCG and 3D artists using the standard tools in Unreal. Once FovoRender was up and running, it was straightforward to use, and few challenges were presented based on feedback. Any technical issues that have arisen have been resolved promptly, allowing a good collaboration between the two companies.

What we achieved

‘’I’ve so far only used this on arch-viz scenes, but it does look very promising. I’m looking forward to testing it out on automotive projects so that I can test it against the same issues I described in my arch-viz projects.’’ - Ben Walker.

Using FovoRender in Unreal, CreateCG can now adjust the render’s visual appearance in new and exciting ways, all in real-time, to immediately see the changes and alterations in an output render. As mentioned by Ben, this is a very powerful tool to help get angles signed off with art directors quickly. FovoRender has way more versatility than the standard camera-based engine.

One of the many features of FovoRender that benefited CreateCG is the ability to capture natural-looking visuals of confined spaces without the usual drawbacks expected from wide-angle lenses. As Ben shared with us, it is the main reason he would certainly recommend it to others.

The images below show some real-time renders produced from an architectural interior scene.

Created using:

Unreal 4.25
Hybrid Ray Tracing
FovoRender

Rendering and shot planning credit - Ben Walker @ CreateCG

https://createcg.com/

Architectural Scene credit - Epic

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/

Next Steps:

Watch this space for more projects

The role of 3D Visualisation in the Automotive Industry

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 17:55:39 GMT

What comes to mind when you think about 3D? In recent years, we have all become more familiar with this term and we have seen it and experienced it in our lives, sometimes even more than we realise.

We have 3D glasses and 3D Animation that lead to an enhanced cinematic experience or home cinema experience, we have 3D printing that allows people to even print human hearts and of course, we have 3D Visualisation.

But, what does 3D Visualisation entail?

As the name itself suggests, it helps people create better visuals with three dimensions and make everything look a lot more realistic. You might have heard of that same term as 3D rendering or 3D graphics or computer-generated images(CGI).

In 2019, the 3D Rendering Market size reached 2 USD billion . We also see that the forecast for the industry is looking highly optimistic since the growth estimation is at over 20% CAGR between 2020 and 2026.

3D Rendering has many uses across various industries but the focus of this blog post will be about its trending current applications in the automotive industry.

3D Rendering in the Automotive Industry

When you want to buy a new car and you look at the photos of the model you like, it feels nothing like the live experience. Actually, the difference between the two might actually put you off as a buyer. What 3D rendering is trying to achieve is to create a more realistic experience by producing a wider field of view.

Imagine creating such realistic images that you could almost feel like you are in the car. This could be a great commercial benefit for dealerships that would invest in such technologies because they could convince the end-customer of a car’s benefits without even getting into the car.

Especially since last year, after Covid-19 struck, people could not really go for a test-drive and struggled when they had to make such an important decision as buying a car. This technology can be a game-changer.

Many major companies have shut down their physical dealerships completely and are turning to completely virtual and 3D solutions. “The future of Volvo Cars is defined by three pillars: electric, online and growth,” says Lex Kerssemakers, head of global commercial operations “We want to offer our customers peace of mind and a care-free way of having a Volvo, by taking away complexity while getting and driving the car. Simplification and convenience are key to everything we do.”

This is something that 3D Rendering solutions like FovoRender can give to the end customer. An immersive experience that can equalise the physical to the virtual experience with an 180° field of view.

The rising industry competition has pressurized enterprises to adopt 3D models for better visualization of their products, consequently ensuring a competitive edge in the dynamic market.

The challenging part of the rendering when it comes to the automotive industry is how cramped the interior spaces of a car are. This is actually why the 2D images look so flat. To gain more insights into how the 3D Rendering works you can have a look here , at one of FovoRender’s case studies.

When using FovoRender, which is a 3D Rendering technology you get 6 times the volume of space compared to a 2D image . Standard renders produce surprisingly distorted-looking objects even at relatively low fields of view, whereas FovoRender produces a far more natural looking image that gives the true experience of “being there” even when viewing on a standard flat screen at home.

There is no doubt this is a game-changing technology for the automotive industry that will help the early adopters gain an advantage over their competitors. We have seen it before when the first 3D Visualisation technologies were first introduced. Maybe now is a good time to become part of the action and provide your customers with more immersive experiences of your product.

For any further information on ultra-wide fields of view even up to 180 degrees, contact Fovotec .

FovoRender - A more realistic 3D experience

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 17:55:38 GMT

Enterprise 3D visualisation professionals can now achieve visual accuracy and expanded views of 3D spaces using FovoRender, a new rendering technology designed in Wales. The technology can be groundbreaking for industries which rely on visualisation tools such as architecture, automotive, and consumer product development.

FovoRender is a product of Fovotec, a tech start-up based in Cardiff. Fovotec has recently released FovoRender into the real-time visualisation industry after many years of research at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

What makes it unique?
Standard 3D Visualisation technologies to date have known restrictions and limitations including high levels of distortion and limited fields of view. For example on average the field of view they offer is up to 110°. Using FovoRender, the field of view is significantly wider and can reach up to 180°.

The FovoRender technology shows 6x the space on the same screen whilst minimising distortion. The visual improvement is impressive as it creates deeper, more immersive content. It is time-saving for the user in any 3D Workflow as it is adaptable and highly flexible.

The product is compatible with real-time 3D Engines such as Unity or Unreal, and is a Unity Verified Solution. FovoRender is also compatible with PC / Workstation and runs under Windows, Nvidia, AMD, DirectX, OpenGL, Vulkan technologies and more.

The FovoRender’s technology will impact many industries now and in the future as it is emulating the true experience of natural vision in real-time computer graphics without distortion. Imagine photos and images that will no longer look flat.

3 different use cases:

Automotive : In the automotive industry many dealerships are reducing costs by shutting down physical showrooms and selling online only. Using product visualisation tools FovoRender greatly improves the experience a potential customer would receive online, reaching almost the same level of real-life visual experience via their standard flat screen at home.

Product : The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed our everyday lives and how we shop. Many reviews online prove there are many unhappy customers who receive something different to what they expect because product images are not accurate enough to create a realistic expectation. FovoRender massively improves the user experience by providing a perfect 3D representation of the product.

Architecture : Renders created with FovoRender show greater space and are more realistic. This leads to better informed, time-saving, design decisions. Architects can use it to minimise mistakes while still in the design process and this can ultimately reduce costs. FovoRender technology implementation in architecture doesn’t stop there, as it can also be used for virtual tours of a development.

Fovo Technology Ltd

info@fovotec.com