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The Globe Plugin unlocks blackshark.ai’s SYNTH3D replica of the entire Earth for Unreal Engine 5 and is now available to anyone on Epic Games’Unreal Engine Marketplace.

San Francisco, Orlando, November 30, 2022. blackshark.ai, the developer of a 3D Digital Twin of Earth, announced the launch of a long-awaited plugin for the Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 during I/ITSEC, now available on the Unreal Engine Marketplace to the public. The blackshark.ai Globe Plugin will stream blackshark.ai’s SYNTH3D data, containing synthetically reconstructed 3D terrain, ground textures, buildings, infrastructure, and vegetation of the entire globe based on Maxar’s satellite imagery. The freely available plugin will allow users to generate their own applications in Unreal Engine for any kind of gaming, training, simulation, and visualization projects based on the real world.

blackshark.ai, best known for its global scale 3D reconstruction technology used in Microsoft Flight Simulator, applies artificial intelligence onto 2D satellite and aerial imagery to derive semantic object classification information and metadata to create a blueprint of the world that is then automatically transformed in photorealistic 3D. “Applications for these synthetic environments are infinite,” says Michael Putz, CEO of blackshark.ai. “While using the real world as a backdrop for gaming is one of them, most of our customers use blackshark.ai environments for all kinds of simulation applications, be it in the context of autonomous driving, humanitarian relief, city planning, or government efforts.”

At its core, the Globe Plugin streams blackshark.ai’s SYNTH3D data in different LODs and contains 3D terrain, ground textures, buildings, infrastructure, and vegetation in an accurate, realistic, geo-typical, and regional-specific manner.

While until now the company was offering custom integrations of its technology to mostly large clients and partners, the Globe Plugin for UE5 now gives the whole world into anyone’s hands. At its core, the Globe Plugin streams blackshark.ai’s SYNTH3D data in different LODs and contains 3D terrain, ground textures, buildings, infrastructure, and vegetation in an accurate, realistic, geo-typical, and regional-specific manner. The data for the 3D reconstruction is derived from Maxar’s Vivid global satellite imagery basemap and includes 1.5 billion buildings and over 30 million square meters of vegetation coverage. Buildings are generated at runtime carrying metadata, and building material attributes make it ready for physical simulation. Easy combination, conflation, and replacement with a user’s own georeferenced data is possible too. The blackshark.ai Airport Generator turns any airport ground charts globally into accurate 3D airport models, including runways, towers, markings, and light systems, introducing unprecedented opportunities for sensor simulation and officially accredited pilot training.

SYNTH3D is highly performant and data efficient and thus enables massive multiplayer real-world metaverse applications, online or entirely network free.

To give Unreal Engine users a jump start with the Globe Plugin, a 1.5×1.5 miles sized sample set of New Orleans is available to anyone for free. SYNTH3D is highly performant and data-efficient and thus enables massive multiplayer real-world metaverse applications, online or entirely network-free. “This is the beginning of a new era of simulation and training, available to anyone. We can not wait to see what users will build in Unreal Engine on top of the real world”, says Michael Putz.

About blackshark.ai

blackshark.ai provides a 3D digital twin of Earth by extracting information from satellite imagery and reconstructing detected attributes in photorealistic 3D fully automatically. A scalable artificial Intelligence builds the core of the blackshark.ai platform, detecting features globally with incredible precision and speed. A patented approach to 3D reconstruction can store petabytes of data and render it in infinite detail in real time, allowing for powerful visualization and simulation applications for government, geospatial intelligence, humanitarian relief, planetary management, autonomous driving and flying, insurance, smart cities, and more. The blackshark.ai platform, backed by M12 – Microsoft’s Venture Fund, Point72 Ventures, and Maxar Technologies, provider of comprehensive Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructures (NYSE:MAXR), serves large clients globally with a team of 100+ people based out of Silicon Valley/US and Graz/Austria, Europe’s computer vision hub.

 

Additional Information

Video explaining SYNTH3D shown in the blackshark.ai Unreal Globe Plugin
Blackshark.ai for Unreal Engine Product Page

 Media Contacts

blackshark.ai
Simona Huebl
shuebl@blackshark.ai
www.blackshark.ai

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