SkyLook Renders 3-D Illustrations

People don’t live in a two-dimensional world and SkyLook Visuals Inc. certainly doesn’t either.
The company combines content from a variety of programs, like SketchUp Pro, Google Earth and AutoCAD, to create a new visual product, or in tech lingo, a “mashup.” With this technology, SkyLook can take 2-D drawings of construction developments to the next level by converting them into interactive, 3-D visuals.
On a computer screen, developers, city officials or just the average citizen can view how a 20-story building in downtown Fayetteville would change the skyline or see the density of a subdivision planned for Siloam Springs. The amount of detail is up to the customer, but SkyLook could generate each tree in its correct location and allow people to explore individual floor plans.
“It’s about providing more information to the public,” said Snow Winters, creative director. “Going back, they might have a lot of 2-D photos or even original 3-D renderings in 2-D format, but it’s just kind of hard to understand that information. By providing that next step — that 3-D environment — that user can actually go in there and manipulate what it looks like, turn around, look at the front side or the backside or the top or compare it to other locations.”
Winters and Paxton Roberts, marketing director, forged the new company in November. SkyLook is unique in the area with its 3-D specialization, a service usually relegated to companies found along the east and west coasts.
“We saw a need for 3-D visualizations in this area with all the growth,” Roberts said. “With all the developments going on from Bentonville to Fayetteville, we saw that our 3-D visualizations really provide a needed service to developers and the general public to make a more educated, more informed decision about what’s being built.”
The pair don’t have revenue projections for their fledgling company, but they hope to roll one local customer into a regional or national account base.
Cost of this type of service varies. Roberts said costs start “around a couple thousand dollars,” but the sky is the limit as it is dependent on what scale and depth each customer desires.
“The products you can derive from creating this 3-D model are unlimited,” he said.
It’s a double-edged sword. The technology is new, and it can be a challenge to explain the types of visuals that can be created.
“Several times we’ve gone into meetings, and I’m sure very skeptical clients, and they’re not really sure, but once you get in and actually show what’s possible,” Winters said, “then you really see it in their eyes.”
Ruskin Heights
Within less than two months of opening for business, the duo couldn’t have been more excited to announce it landed its first paying, 3-D client.
When the Ruskin Heights development team (comprised of Mitchell Massey, Dirk Van Veen, Morgan Hooker and Ward Davis) was looking to inform Fayetteville about its proposed mixed-use, planned community, it chose to enlist the aid of SkyLook.
Davis said the group was tossing around the idea of using 3-D renderings for marketing purposes, but couldn’t find any local examples. Then he heard through word of mouth about the upstart 3-D company.
“We were kind of surprised to find that in this area,” he said.
Ruskin Heights partners chose SkyLook to create precise renderings of the development for the regulatory approval process. Then, SkyLook will also be able to provide more detailed visualizations for all interested.
Davis said he has seen his share of 3-D work, and it ranged “from poor to bad.” But he had only great things to say about SkyLook’s work.
“The way they incorporate disparate technologies is a great strength,” he said.
Davis said he and his team would certainly like to use the company for future projects and that this could also spark more business for SkyLook from other developers.
“The ‘new urbanist’ world is very small and they’re always looking for the cutting edge of everything, and once you can break into it, they could really pick up a lot of business,” he said.
While SkyLook is on the verge of big things, it still is a small company. Winters and Roberts operate out of their homes and subcontract work to help shoulder the burden of intense work that goes into these applications. One advantage is little-to-no overhead. “The Web hasn’t really caught up to the 3-D world yet, so the programming languages involved are a lot of custom coding, custom applications that would allow you to interact in a 3-D environment on the Web,” Roberts said.
But keeping an eye on potential growth, SkyLook is beginning to scout offices and hopes to settle on a location before summer.
“We have actually quite a few proposals out right now and meetings with potential clients, so we’re right on the verge of having a whole lot of work in the near future,” Roberts said.
One of the biggest challenges for SkyLook could be keeping company growth in check.
“Growth can be one of the hardest things for a company and how you approach that growth,” Roberts said. “Our plan looking for, ‘what happens tomorrow if these five proposals come through, can we handle it?’ We have that plan together where we can take on the possible work that we see coming down the road, and plan Bs and Cs.”
Part of those plans includes the prospects of hiring its first actual employees: 3-D modelers, graphic designers, programmers and Web designers.
SkyLook anticipates that much of its workforce could be students in college and high school — a group that both Winters and Roberts are familiar with.
Destined Duo
The two actually began working together at the UA Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies. There, they worked with students through the Environmental and Spatial Technologies Initiative classes taught at area schools. The would-be SkyLook partners were able to become familiar with the skill and knowledge levels of students.
Winters also was able to work with students during a UA project, in coordination with the City of Fayetteville, to create a 3-D, virtual map of the Master Plan district for the city’s downtown area. The group created 1,500 3-D buildings, of which 100 were designed with textured detail.
Winters said experience like this helps students gain the skill sets necessary to enter the workforce.
“One of the things we would like to do is start internships as soon as possible and give opportunities to these students,” she said. “Just being around them we know that the potential for what they can do in this area is very little and a lot of problems is that they’re having to leave the area if they want to continue in that type of thing.”
Roberts has also been impressed with students’ experience.
“Their skill sets are really on that level,” he said. “You wouldn’t normally think of students being able to handle this type of thing, but they sit for hours and hours in front of their computers at home, and we know that many of them are modeling stuff.”
Winters and Roberts are proud of their work at UA and credit it for knowledge they are now using with SkyLook.
“It’s a great environment and has a lot of flexibility,” Roberts said. “You get to work on a lot of different projects. We just felt a need to do something on our own.”
Winters followed, “It’s just time for the next step.”