Unity Technologies, creator of a popular real-time 3D development platform that is mostly known for its widespread use in the gaming industry, has set up a team to bring its expertise to the automotive industry.
The new automotive division is made up of experts from companies including Volkswagen, Renault, GM, Delphi and Denso, and is to continue the work it started with 10 OEMs.
“The real-time revolution in automotive is here. Over the past 15 years, we’ve made great strides leading the game development industry. Now, we’re bringing our real-time rendering technology to a new group of creators, equipping auto makers with the tools that will allow them to iterate at the speed of thought,” said John Riccitiello, chief executive officer, Unity Technologies.
“We can’t wait to see what auto creators – from design and pre-production all the way through sales and marketing – create with our technology.”
So far, Unity’s technology has been used mostly to develop marketing tools such as the AMG Powerwall, a kind of virtual showroom. However, Unity has partnered with CAD specialists PiXYZ to go further.
The resulting Unity Industry Bundle is built on a combination of PiXYZ products, training and Unity Pro. It streamlines the import of CAD data for real-time development while maintaining the integrity of information throughout the process.
“Innovation is a core principle at Audi,” said Jan Pflueger, coordination AR and VR, Audi Center of Competence. “With Unity, we create and deploy immersive, real-time interactivity to ace.”