WCS & VNS Animation Gallery

Click on any image to download the video file. They are in MPEG-4 (.mp4), MPEG-1 (.mpg), QuickTime or QuickTimeVR (.mov), or Audio Video Interleave format (.avi)

You can download QuickTime players for several kinds of computers from Apple's web site. QuickTime 7 is now part of the iTunes install.

To keep download times reasonable, the animations are reduced in size, and highly compressed. Despite the artifacting and lack of detail imposed by the space and time compression, the demo animations are still useful to get a feel for the dramatic motion WCS & VNS allow.

World Construction Set and Visual Nature Studio can render at any resolution or frame rate, and include support for field rendering and motion blur.

Italian Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park Video

The Italian Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park (www.dolomitipark.it) contracted with GEOgrafica to create this animation in VNS.

The area displayed is about 40 km wide and 30 km tall, the DEMs were completely generated with VNS at a grid size of 5m x 5 m from vector contours. Different datasets at lower resolution, with inserts at higher resolution, were created with DEM Merger and used for a quicker rendering. The terrain is draped with digital ortophotos from italian Compagnia Generale Riprese Aeree, and 3d ecosystems corresponding to different forestry ecotypes where applied, basing on a very detailed GIS landuse coverage, where single species of plants where described as DBF attributes. Search queries and Thematic Maps were heavily used for applying correct ecosystems to corresponding areas.

File size: 608 Mb

Institute for Business and Home Safety Wildland Fire Video

3D Nature recently created a 3 minute long animation on the subject of wildfire defensibility for the Institute for Business and Home Safety, an insurance industry consortium.

The project was primarily built from GIS data using 3D Nature's VNS, with the majority of the houses built using the Walls component. Four "hero" houses that would be focused on were modeled in detail from photos using Newtek's Lightwave 3D. The scene was then exported using Scene Express to Lightwave, where the hero houses were added, and rendered. Smoke and fire effects were added in post using Particle Illusion 3.

File size: 108 Mb

Landscape Architecture Show Reel

This reel was put together to for the ASLA National Convention. It includes a variety of Landscape Architecture related images and animtions. Materials were contributed by a large number of 3D Nature customers.

File size: 12 Mb

Forestry Show Reel

This collection of images and animations was put together for the Society of American Foresters event. Works were contributed by 3D Nature customers from around the world.

File size: 50 Mb.

Hurricane Rita, Potential Galveston Water Level Animation

This animation was created to show the prediction of water level in Galveston, Texas, assuming a storm surge of up to 20 feet. Terrain data was 1/3rd Arcsecond NED DEM. Imagery was 30m Landsat, processed with PixelSense LS combined with 1m Color Infrared DOQQ, processed with PixelSense CIR. The NED terrain surface is made from contour maps, and does NOT include building heights, so it is not indicitive of how much the buildings themselves would be submerged.

The compass rose in the upper right corner indicates North. The Water Level graph on the left indicates water level in feet, from 0 (normal sea level) to a maximum height of 20ft of storm surge. Surge height greater than 20ft was not simulated, because the maximum terrain height on the island is less than 20ft.

File size: 2.2 Mb.

Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Water Level Animation

This animation was created to show the progression of the water level in New Orleans. Terrain data was NED DEM (made from 5m LIDAR data). Imagery was 30m Landsat, processed with PixelSense. Timeline, water height and dike height info was gathered from various sources, including the Army Corps of Engineers.

File size: 1.1 Mb.

Bench Project Visualization, Bighorn National Forest

An animation by Gary Huber showing a ride through the Bighorn National Forest near Sheridan, Wyoming, and the effects of beetle damage. The foreground has been lowered in detail to draw attention to the damaged and treated forests in the distance.

Segment A file size: 3 Mb.
Segment B file size: 2 Mb.
Segment C file size: 3 Mb.

Copper Mountain Helicopter Ride

This animation shows an otherwise impossible helicopter ride down the slopes of Copper Mountain in Colorado, then through the town below, and up into the air circling the mountain. The somewhat blurry trees are a side-effect of the high video compression.

File size: 4.4 Mb.

Near Home

Gary Huber conjures up images of heading home to your place in the country, passing down a wooded lane on the way home from a sunday picnic on a lazy afternoon.

File size: 2.4 Mb.

Morning Reverie

A demonstration of WCS6's new transparent water features done by Gary Huber of 3DNature

File size: 1.8 Mb.

Polar Dream

This animation of a dreamlike, craggy mountain range in some polar region was done by 3DNature's own Chris "Xenon" Hanson

File size: 1000k.

NLCD

Large Map flyover modelled and animated by David Edwards

File size: 3.3 Mb.

Marquette

Marquette intersection proposal.

File size: 2.6 Mb.

Earth Approach

Building on world data included with WCS and VNS, a high resolution image map of the surface was draped over the terrain as a Color Map. Subtle easterly rotation was added to the planet and a Cloud texture map was animated in a westerly direction to mimic real cloud movement across the planet's surface. Constantly shifting Haze enhanced the realism and an animated Sky created the atmospheric halo along the horizon. Four separate render passes were required to simulate night shadow on the combined planet, clouds, haze, and sky. The sequences included a starfield, full planet mask, shadowed planet mask, and full color unshadowed planet. The sequences were composited for the final animation.

File size: 3.3 Mb.

Clouds

This animation shows volumetric light through clouds. It is a 6 second animated "timelapse" with vegetation and animated clouds and camera. A volumetric atmosphere was used in conjunction with a hi-res shadow map to get the light beams to show. "3D" Clouds created from 19 stacked cloud models!

File size: 1.2 Mb.

Meadow with Pond

The Texture Engine was used to control the clumpiness of the vegetation in this meadow and the scum on the surface of the pond. A Foliage Effect was used to place the single tree stump near the camera during the opening of the animation.

This image was started during 3D Nature Academy as a test of the Render Engine's capabilities.

File size: 1.2 Mb.

Monte Rosa VR

The mountain you can see is Monte Rosa, situated between Italy and Switzerland east of Mt. Bianco and Cervino. The mountain is 4550 meters tall: those are the highest mountains in Europe. Every ecosystem you see is a combination of Corine Landcover applied using WCS's vector-based Ecosystem effects, and WCS Rules-of-Nature(tm). The bigger village is called Alagna Valsesia, and it's situated at an elevation of 1050 meters. Mountains are very steep in this region.

Rendered in World Construction Set. File size: 1 Mb. Note: This is a QuickTimeVR movie that lets you move around interactively. It requires QuickTime from Apple Computer.