NUBIGON Point Cloud Visualization Transforms 3D Storytelling

Summary:
NUBIGON’s point cloud visualization is redefining how reality capture data is presented and understood. This article tells the story of NUBIGON’s origins, technical innovations, and ambitions to make cinematic 3D storytelling a core part of geospatial and AEC workflows. By transforming raw scans into cinematic animations, the platform makes complex 3D datasets accessible to clients, stakeholders, and non-technical audiences.

This article was written by Nathan Roe, Co-Founder and Editor at Lidar News, based on an interview with Bert Azizoglu, CEO at NUBIGON.

If you are interested in collaborating with Lidar News to develop an article like this, please contact nathan.roe@lidarnews.com.


Reality capture makes it possible to document the world in remarkable detail. Using advanced tools such as laser scanners, drones, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), and photogrammetry, experts can collect detailed data from complex environments. Once acquired, this data is processed to generate insight, supporting everything from engineering to cultural heritage preservation.

Over the years, hardware and software advances have greatly improved how data is captured and processed. Visualization, however, has often lagged behind – treated as a secondary feature rather than a core capability, despite the extraordinary potential of point clouds and 3D datasets. NUBIGON set out to change that.

By prioritizing visualization from the start, NUBIGON redefined what point cloud animation can be. Instead of offering visualization as an add-on to analysis, they built a platform where cinematic renderings take center stage. Today, NUBIGON is recognized as the gold standard for point cloud animation, enabling users to create smooth, cinematic fly-throughs that bring projects to life. This maximizes the value of reality capture projects and makes them accessible – allowing clients, stakeholders, and the public to experience complex 3D data in a way that is intuitive, compelling, and easy to share.

The Story Behind NUBIGON

The idea for NUBIGON first emerged as co-founder Murat Arikan’s academic research at the Vienna University of Technology in 2014. Having presented at the renowned SIGGRAPH conference, he was approached by a group of archaeologists using high-end terrestrial scanners to document cultural heritage sites with millimeter precision. Despite the quality of their data, they were unable to load their scans at full resolution, let alone view or present them in a meaningful way.

Scanners were producing enormous datasets, but significant software and hardware limitations existed for processing and visualizing data. That experience made it clear that a tool was needed to handle large datasets with performance and visual clarity. Murat Arikan teamed up with Bert Azizoglu, a business developer with strong ties to the construction and surveying industries, to establish NUBIGON and turn this research into a commercial application.

NUBIGON set out to build a rendering engine that gave point clouds the cinematic treatment they deserve. This was a fundamentally different vision from most software at the time, which focused on data analysis and operations, and treated visualization as an additional feature.

After a few years of custom development projects, NUBIGON announced its standalone software release in New York City in March of 2020. Three days later, the city’s first COVID lockdown was imposed. Suddenly, the need for better visual communication tools became even more critical. In-person meetings and site visits disappeared overnight, and the marketing of reality capture moved online. What began as a point cloud renderer quickly evolved into a storytelling solution, enabling professionals to transform complex 3D datasets into concise, impactful videos for websites, client presentations, and social media.

The Communication Problem in Reality Capture

NUBIGON is solving a communication problem. While reality capture is gaining popularity, most people in the AEC space still don’t know much about it. Developers, property owners, asset managers, and architects, the very people funding and approving these projects, often lack a clear understanding of what reality capture involves or why it is valuable. At the same time, they are inundated with competing proposals filled with technical jargon and overpromises.

As Shea Gleadle noted in his video review of NUBIGON, most reality capture projects are delivered without clients ever seeing the point cloud visualized. They receive an E57 or LAS file, but the decision-makers signing off on the work rarely have the tools, or the time, to visualize that data. NUBIGON has changed this by transforming raw scans into cinematic visualizations, which can easily be shared. NUBIGON’s products have significantly increased both the volume and quality of visualizations shared across the industry, broadening awareness of reality capture and making its value clear to non-technical audiences, including executives and potential clients.

NUBIGON tackled this communication problem by leveraging the most engaging medium: video. Their platform transforms reality capture data into visually striking experiences, showcasing the inherent beauty of point clouds and 3D scans. With this approach, practitioners in surveying, cultural heritage, and scan-to-BIM can share their work in a clearer and more compelling way.



Caption: Flythrough video of the point cloud and BIM model of St. Michael’s Church in Hamburg, Germany, rendered with NUBIGON
Credit: Data & Model courtesy of Scan-3D and Digital Twin GmbH.

Technical Innovations in NUBIGON’s 3D Point Cloud Animation

At its core, NUBIGON is a native, real-time rendering engine purpose-built for reality capture. It uses an optimized spatial data structure to efficiently organize and stream massive point clouds, ensuring smooth navigation even in projects with billions of points. Smart level-of-detail management keeps playback responsive, while advanced GPU rendering techniques deliver sharp visuals and lifelike shading.

NUBIGON supports a wide range of input data and workflows:

Reality Capture data types: Point clouds (all major formats), 3D meshes (OBJ), Gaussian Splats (3DGS)
Design formats: CAD (DWG), BIM (RVT, IFC), animated glTF models
Workflow inputs: Enscape camera paths, Revit model-to-point cloud alignment

This functionality allows users to easily combine point cloud and CAD/BIM elements to make sophisticated visualizations that animate each feature independently.

NUBIGON also provides high-quality rendering functionality that results in industry-leading realism, including simulating material properties, shading, and colors (this will be discussed more in the next section).

Recent Updates to NUBIGON

Over the past year, NUBIGON has evolved from a point cloud renderer into a complete visualization and animation platform for reality capture and scan-to-BIM.

Recent updates expand file format support, streamline workflows, and help users stay ahead. They introduced seamless Revit (RVT) import with auto-alignment to point clouds, a significant step toward merging design and site conditions without friction. They have also integrated Gaussian Splat (3DGS) rendering, featuring one of the first built-in Level of Detail systems, enabling lightweight, visually rich spatial presentations from this emerging reality capture format.



Caption: NUBIGON’s latest release features auto-aligned import of RVT models and Enscape camera paths. Find out more on https://www.nubigon.com/explore-updates.
Credits: Data & Model courtesy of Excelsior Measuring.

The Future of Reality Capture Visualization

NUBIGON’s development is steadily moving toward faster processing, greater usability, and more immersive visualization. The platform’s evolution appears to be focused on helping professionals transition from capture to presentation with less friction, while broadening the creative possibilities for communicating complex spatial data. Upcoming advancements are expected to enhance the management of large datasets, the interaction between diverse data types, and the visual contextualization of results. Taken together, these efforts underscore NUBIGON’s broader ambition to make high-quality 3D storytelling an integral part of geospatial and AEC workflows.

Ultimately, NUBIGON has established itself as the visual communication layer of the reality capture stack. Their recent updates and plans for the future continue to push the boundaries of how reality capture projects can be shared and understood.

I’d like to thank Bert Azizoglu, CEO of NUBIGON, for generously sharing NUBIGON’s story with the Lidar News audience. Collaborating with Bert on this piece was a pleasure, and his thoughtful review of the text greatly enriched the article.

NUBIGON Discount Code

Bert has kindly offered the Lidar News audience an exclusive discount. Use code LIDARNEWS to receive 20% off new purchases of 3-month, annual, or perpetual licenses – https://www.nubigon.com/pricing.