For the second goal, we created what we call the Integrated Design Environment, or IDE. This new interface wraps itself around World Machine, and replaces the outdated UI with a new look and cool new productivity tools. We affectionately call it the Iron Man suit for World Machine.

I’ll give you an example of how some of the devices came about. Our friends at Glassworks UK were shooting a TV commercial for Swisscom featuring Swiss skiing champion Lara Gut on the iconic slopes of the Swiss alps. Since they were shooting in the summer, there was barely any snow cover and the landscape was barren. Jordi Bares, who was heading the VFX on this project asked us if we could add the snow to the terrain. We adapted some of the existing macros and wrote a couple of new plugins (now called Buildup and Hydro) that could simulate heavy snow. A very high-resolution satellite map of the Zermatt area was processed through the new GeoGlyph plugins, including some texturing. The final terrain output was 134,217,728 pixels. The geniuses at Glassworks took these assets and blended it with the live action footage.

Almost everything in GeoGlyph has evolved in this way – from real life situations where we suddenly had to come up with a solution, which we then adapt for more general usage.