Having previously worked with the Equinor team on the Dogger Bank offshore wind farm project, 3DW was commissioned to produce a fully interactive 3D visualisation of the offshore infrastructure associated with the Empire Wind project off the coast of New York.
The primary focus was a tool to engage with offshore stakeholders associated with the marine environment especially fisheries and shipping, in order to effectively illustrate the wind farm in various weather and lighting conditions.
One of the main challenges facing the project was to explain to users of the water, especially those from the fishing industry, how much distance there would be between turbines. By creating a realistic 3D environment, users were able to properly appreciate the scale and distances between turbines and to reassure them that they would still be able to navigate the area in a range of different vessels.
The 3D model allows users to experience navigation through the wind farm on board a vessel or aircraft with the ability to dynamically change the time of day and weather conditions including the sea state.
The produced 3D solution also illustrates proposed offshore cable routes and includes overlays of several constraints associated with the project to help explain the reasons behind various design decisions and layout proposals.
