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Blog devupdate
New Release – Infinite Studio 4.0.0 (UE5.3)
September 12, 2024
Blog devupdate
New Release – Infinite Studio 4.1.1
September 9, 2025

New Release – Infinite Studio 4.1.0

April 2, 2025

Blog devupdate

What’s New

We are excited to announce a new release of Infinite Studio 4.1. This release contains many new features, improvements and general bug fixes.

  • New Hyperspectral Camera Component
  • New Dynamic Spec Material Expression Node
  • New Night Sky
  • New TDF Importer
  • Improvements and Optimisations to our Thermal Modelling Feature
  • New Spec Material Library Browser and Expanded Thermal Asset Library

Major Features

New Hyperspectral Camera Component

The Hyperspectral plugin is an experimental feature that allows users to configure a hyperspectral (multi-band) capture system.

A new non-real-time Hyperspectral Camera Component has been introduced, supporting a significantly higher number of sub-bands compared to the existing Spec Camera Capture, which is limited to three.

Hyperspectral rendering (multi-band output) provides the unique capability for sensors to look at objects using a vast portion of the electromagnetic spectrum at a given time. Hyperspectral rendering has many applications, from modelling remote sensing to input into AI deep learning models.

image 20250226 222847

Dynamic Spec Material Expression Node

A new node has been introduced that enables dynamic changes to Spec Materials, temperature, and emission modes at runtime. This also allows for the creation of master materials.

DyamicSpecMaterialExresssionNode 1

Night Sky

With the introduction of the experimental Night Sky plugin, Infinite Studio now has improved night time scene generation capabilities.

This Night Sky plugin uses real world star catalogue data to introduce accurate positioning of stars in the sky based on the observers spatial and temporal state.

In combination with Infinite Studio’s high fidelity atmospheric scene generation, we are a step closer to replicating accurate night time optical scenes.

GentleBrightnessIncrease

TDF Importer

The TDF importer is used to import .tdf files from ThermoAnalytics products into Unreal Engine. The importer generates a static mesh asset from the geometry contained in the file, along with materials that contain the temperature data. These assets are combined in an actor that allows the temperature to be displayed over time. The TDF importer is currently a prototype and is considered experimental.

HiluxTemperatureMode

Spec Material Browser

The Spec Material Browser is an editor tool for browsing Spec Material and Spec Emission assets. Users can filter the list of assets using a text filter, as well as metadata such as the spectral bounds that are covered by the asset. The Spec Material Browser also includes features to allow users to browse to the selected asset in the Content Browser, and drag and drop the asset into compatible inputs.

image 20250218 223218

Improved Multi-Atmosphere Support for Thermal Modelling

The system can now generate thermal scene data for multiple atmospheric conditions without requiring separate Unreal maps.

Optimised Thermal Data Caching

The thermal system now detects when actors are added, removed, or moved in a level and flags any invalidated thermal data. Processing these changes is also more efficient, as only affected actors need to be recalculated.

Decoupled Thermal Modelling Assets

Thermal data properties are now independent of Spec Materials. New Spec Thermal Data Assets can be created separately, making them more flexible and reusable.

image 20250218 224545

Expanded Thermal Asset Library

We’ve added a diverse range of Thermal Assets, including materials like wood, concrete, and dirt. Their properties are based on real-world thermal data provided by NASA.

image 20250218 224809
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Radiometry

  • Infinite Studio has multiple custom nodes that have been programmed to allow the integration of Spectral Materials into the existing Unreal Engine material system

  • Infinite Studio provides a large Spectral Material Library sourced from publicly available databases such as ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) Spectral Library, which encompasses the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Spectral Library

  • Materials are defined using real data for spectral reflectivity, emissivity, transmission, and roughness
    • DHR Infrared Spec Material Curve

    Concrete example material curve

    Unreal Engine - DHR Asphaltic Concrete MAT

    Concrete example material

    Infinite Studio currently supports MODTRAN for verified high-fidelity atmospheric calculations

    The following data is computed in-band:
  • Transmission and Radiance (Scatter & Thermal) lookup tables for applying to the scene in real-time

  • Solar and lunar irradiance for applying sun and moon directional light source intensities

  • Ambient sky lighting (global illumination)
    • Synthetic Dawn Atmosphere Simulation
  • Fully Volumetric Cloud modelling using MODTRAN to obtain transmission and path radiance values across cloud density

  • Supports lighting, transmissions and secondary effects such as cloud shadows and cloud reflections

  • User customisable Weather and Noise Maps for cloud shape

  • Adjustable coverage levels, cloud altitude, wind speed, cloud density and many other parameters in editor

  • Ability to add individual cloud volumes and control placement, as well as an overall bulk layer property
    • Clouds gif
  • Ability to pre-calculate higher fidelity surface temperatures for static background objects

  • In-band thermal emissions are evaluated by spectral integration

  • Grey body and selective radiators are implemented using spectral emissivity data

  • Real-Time Thermal Emissions
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    Camera and Sensor Modelling

    Stages of the In-Band Rendering Equation Solver:

  • Render Radiance Image: Detector Spectral Response, Resolution
  • Radiance to Photons conversion: Pixel Pitch, F-Stop, Shutter Speed, Lens Transmission
  • Photons to Electrons conversion: Quantum Efficiency, Full Well Capacity
  • Electrons to Counts: ADC Gain & Offset, ADC Bit Depth
    • At each stage of rendering, applicable noise sources are simulated and can be customised:

  • Dark Shot Noise: Dark current flows even when no photons are incident on the camera
  • Read Noise: Electronic Signal Noise resulting from sensor design
  • Photon Shot Noise: Statistical noise associated with the arrival of photons at the pixels
  • Fixed Pattern Noise: Caused by spatial non-uniformities of the pixels
  • Aliasing occurs when the rasterization process during rendering of a scene does not apply enough samples to a target resulting in scintillation artefacts

  • Long range targets subtending few pixels could wildly vary in intensity as sample points hit and miss the target all together

  • Zoom anti-aliasing is effectively rendering a part of the sensor image, a window, at a much higher resolution and averaging the image down to the original resolution, resulting in a more accurate distribution of energy

  • The advantage of this approach is that anti-aliasing can be adaptively applied to parts of the scene where it is needed optimizing performance by not applying it where it is not
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    External Control

    Available in C++, Python, and Java, the External Control API supports full control of the simulation, via TCP/IP, including commands to::

  • Simulation Control (Begin, End, Propagate)
  • Querying available assets by path, or type
  • Open and Load levels
  • Spawn, move & destroy actor assets
  • Custom message types

    Infinite Studio provides multiple example scripts, demonstrating the most commonly used features.
    • External Control logos 2
  • Trajectory: Trajectory Spline Actor provides actor scripted 6-DOF motion via time referenced dynamic state data.

  • Recording Tools: Record actor and sensor image data, for single or multi-runs, useful for post run analysis in third-party tools.

  • Waypoints: An experimental waypoint capability has been added for air, land & maritime platforms and includes infantry soldiers. Waypoints can be imported from CSV files, manually entered or added at runtime. Users can specify many options covering waypoint actions, including initial speed, speed between points, and end of course behaviour.
    • waypoint gif
  • Target Labelling: Rendering of scenes with target pixel (stencil) labelling for training of neural networks, machine learning or data analytics tasks

  • Loop Controller: Orbits a camera about a given target at varying ranges writing captured image data to file. Customisable loop control for changing additional scene features; such as the environment (atmosphere, time of day, sea sate, etc.)
    • Machine Learning Stencil offMachine Learning Stencil on
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    Maritime-Based Physics

  • Emissions: Based on Planck’s blackbody radiation equation for a specified ocean temperature

  • Reflections: Reflectance varies directionally according to the Fresnel Law of reflection

  • Transmittance: Optional transparent material applies translucent fogging to submerged objects based on depth/view angle
    • SurfacePlatform Gif
  • Fully customisable FFT based wave spectrum model of time-varying ocean height fields

    Wave height and chop driven by real world parameters, e.g:
  • Wind speed and direction
  • Ocean depth
  • Fetch length

  • Additional user customisation possible ranging from simple amplitude/property scaling through to complete user generated spectrum
    • SurfacePlatform Gif
  • Buoyant Forces: Surface Platforms use a finite element solution to calculate buoyancy and wave motion. Forces are then consolidated to the object’s centre of buoyancy, and corresponding moments are generated to affect the platform’s motion

  • Energy Conservation/Momentum Collisions: Each element approximates the change in energy due to the collision between the object surface and the fluid element

  • Limitations: Currently the buoyancy model only imparts forces from the fluid to the object (the high fidelity wakes model generates coupled surface wave motion)
    • SurfacePlatform Gif
  • High Fidelity Wakes: An experimental high-fidelity volume displaced wake implementation

  • High Performance Wakes: A high performance turbulent (foam) and kelvin wake implementation, allowing hundreds of wakes rendered on screen for real-time solutions
    • SurfacePlatform Gif
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    Additional Content and Features

    As well as demo maps, Infinite Studio provides you with the toolset to create your own real world landscapes

  • Street Map Importer: New real word scenes have been developed, with buildings, roads, railways, vegetation as imported from OpenStreetMap and terrain height data from the Registry of Open Data on AWS Global Dataset. You can also create and import your own custom height sampler

  • Real World Maps: Urban, rural, forests, grasslands, deserts, mountains, littoral and open ocean scenes can be quickly and accurately generated using Infinite Studio
    • Infinite Studio can provide the tools to create and edit your own assets, in addition to a library of Unrestricted Assets.

  • 3D model library of aircraft, ships, vehicles, weapons, people, infrastructure & nature assets pre-configured with multispectral materials

    Learn more on the Content page:
    • Content
  • Multi-player networked scenario management for human-in-the-loop real-time simulations
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    Island Locale

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    Rural Locale

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    Urban Locale

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    Curved Earth

    The Curved Earth Plugin implements a spherical Earth model based on the WGS84 reference ellipsoid and provides accurate projections for applications that require precise Earth curvature modelling.

    Two modes of operation are supported:
  • OpenStreetMap mode – applies materials to land-use areas defined by OSM data.
  • Blue Marble mode – uses NASA’s Blue Marble satellite textures for surface rendering.

    This approach ensures optimised performance and scalable rendering of the spherical Earth model across different zoom levels and viewing angles.
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    Asset Packs

    For more video turntables of our 3D assets, click on the buttons:

    Land Assets
    Air Assets
    Sea Assets
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    Night Sky