Merger gives company new dimension

By ADAM GIFFORD

Established Christchurch survey, planning and engineering firm Davis Ogilvie and Partners has bought a 49 per cent share of video imaging specialists Digital Presentations to enable it to incorporate real world survey data into computerised 3D models of projects.

Partner Roy Hamilton said the merger would give Davis Ogilvie an extra weapon in its arsenal as it moves into Auckland. The company has just opened an office in Henderson.

Davis Ogilvie projects include the Mt Hutt skifield facilities and the Christchurch Gondola. It has used the new 3D imaging technique for Christchurch projects, including a Northwood subdivision, Baccalaureate College and a development at Redwood Springs.

In Auckland, Digital Presentations has worked with the developers of the Botany Downs mall and Telecom's Kingston Towers office.

Raw data is taken from co-ordinates such as survey pegs and older engineering drawings and inserted into the new plans, which are developed in Autodesk's AutoCAD and 3D Studio software.

This means the designer and client can not only see a 3D computer model of that project, something the software does now with a click of the mouse, they can see how the project will fit into its real environment.

"We have the ability to produce a design for a building in AutoCAD, pick that up and place it in a digital terrain model so you have real contours," Mr Hamilton said.

"It means if we have a neighbour with concerns about shading or the visual effect of the structure, we can show them a view of exactly what they will see when it is completed."

He said the images produced by Digital Presentations were so precise that they had been admitted as evidence in Environment Court hearings.

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Digital Presentations