Property information in 3D: A screenshot of 3D
Demonstrator showing part of an apartment block in
Crawley.

Real estate investors and property buyers recently got a glimpse into the future as to how they’ll be able buy apartments and get property information in 3D, thanks to an innovative computer application developed in Perth.

The application – called 3D Demonstrator – depicts properties such as multi-storey apartment blocks in three dimensions, and can display various information such as Certificates of Title, survey plans and sales information.

The application can also show aerial pictures of the surrounding neighbourhood to assist potential buyers who might be interstate or overseas, or even people looking at buying a property before it’s built.

In effect, it brings alive all the legal, building and spatial information contained in a two-dimensional plan or photo so that it is much easier for viewers to ‘see’ and follow.

The 3D Demonstrator is a proof-of-concept project developed by WA’s land information authority, Landgate, and ISA Technologies, with the help of local animation firm 3D Millipede.

It was unveiled in front of an international audience at the Western Australian Land Information System Forum in Perth earlier in 2008.

“We have received a very good response to it,” explains Mike Bradford, Landgate’s executive director of Information Access. “We had it on show and people were drawn from all across the room to the screen where the 3D images were on show, and asking questions about it.”

ISA Technologies is a high performance computing and visualisation company based at Perth’s Technology Park.

The firm was responsible for providing the intense computing power to render the 3D images so that they are realistic.

“Basically, we supplied our land data, and they modelled it and put it together,” Mr Bradford explains.

Mr Bradford says the value of the 3D Demonstrator is that it shows how government land agencies can partner with commercial firms such as ISA.

“We put it together in two and a half weeks,” he says. “It shows what’s possible when government utilises its data and looks outside its area of expertise, and collaborates with the private sector.

“Ideally, what we’d like to do in the end is to create – through some sort of partnership – a 3D product for clients that can be incorporated into the Shared Land Information Platform (SLIP) which utilises the land information held by various government agencies in WA.”