If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is the value of being able to walk through a finished aircraft long before the first seat is installed or the first carpet? At NBAA last month, I was able to try out some new three-dimensional imaging technology that virtually created the interior of a business jet on the show floor out of thin air. Miami-based 3DVisualization Service traveled north to Orlando to display its product, which creates incredibly detailed interior locations that move in response as you walk through them. The system is portable, consisting of a laptop computer, an off-the shelf Microsoft Kinect camera (as used on the company’s Xbox gaming system) and a custom 3-dimensional headset produced by Washington, D.C.-based partner Sensics.
Once you place the somewhat clunky virtual reality headset over your face, you are transported into an amazingly realistic virtual environment, in the case of my demonstration, in the form of an Embraer Lineage 1000 cabin. The level of detail is stunning, right down to the weave of the carpet. A newspaper rests on a table along with a pen and a smartphone and you are forgiven if you reach down and try to grab them. Turn your head and across the aisle is another table set for meal service. A glance out a cabin window reveals clouds slowly drifting past in a blue sky. As you walk over and sit in a real folding chair, your virtual perspective of the cabin changes just as if you were settling into a plush leather club seat. The only real disconnect is that you do not see any part of yourself, as you move ghost-like through the visualization.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined AIN in 2007, Curt came to the publication from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to AIN sister publication Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.
