AFRY, a major European engineering firm, leverages Epic’s real-time visualization technology to conquer communication barriers and visualize massive, geometric infrastructure data, leading to significantly smoother project outcomes.
Visualizing immense infrastructure projects—like new train lines stretching across entire regions or massive harbor redesigns—presents unique challenges, particularly when integrating geometrically heavy data across various engineering departments. Traditional software often buckles under the strain of rendering dense environments including countless forests, rocks, roads, and rivers in a single, unified view.
Oskar Wallin, who works within the visualization department at AFRY (one of Europe’s largest engineering firms with 18,000 employees), shares how his team tackled this problem by turning to Epic’s cutting-edge real-time platform.
Overcoming Communication Gaps in Engineering
One of the greatest hurdles for large infrastructure developments is communication. Multiple specialized consultancy firms and internal departments often work simultaneously on overlapping geographical areas, leading to potential conflicts and misunderstandings.
By utilizing the power of this real-time engine, AFRY created a unified environment where engineers from different fields could meet digitally, share their project segments, and instantly adapt their work based on others’ progress. This capability ensured that data from land surveys and various engineering disciplines could be seamlessly integrated and viewed collaboratively in one uncomplicated space.
Empowering Stakeholders and Local Inhabitants
Beyond internal coordination, AFRY emphasizes external communication with the public. Large infrastructure projects inherently affect local inhabitants, often generating considerable worry and appeals.
Wallin explains that using the engine allows AFRY to generate cinematic videos and interactive design environments that they can share directly with environmental boards and municipal inhabitants. This crucial step in data visualization helps affected parties feel more informed, significantly reducing appeals and leading to quicker, smoother projects.
> “We want to be able to use this in workshops with inhabitants there, be able to fly down to their house, and see how these large projects impact their daily life. [The real-time platform] is the only place where we can do this.”
Why Real-Time Visualization is Essential
The speed and fidelity offered by modern real-time visualization platforms are transformative. AFRY chose this specific engine because it is the only viable tool that could efficiently handle the scale and geometry of their projects in real-time, allowing for rapid iterations and faster data processing than previous workflows.
Discover more about how professionals leverage advanced Lumen lighting and massive scene construction capabilities by exploring our deep dives into Environment & World Building techniques, or review the latest in Lighting & Rendering technology on CGEcho.net. For a broader overview of how artists are harnessing this powerful software, check out our general Unreal Engine coverage.
Source:
AFRY uses UE5 to visualize heavy datasets for large infrastructure projects
