// Make First Contact

Greetings Stranger!

Thank you for your interest in Tinman 3D SDK and for reaching out for first contact. Here are some helpful online resources which provide initial explanations:

For downloading the Tinman 3D SDK, you can choose between the following:

For accessing the downloads, please refer to the Download Protection page.

For trying out the Tinman 3D SDK, we welcome you to request an evaluation licence. Please refer to "How to evaluate the SDK" for details on how to do this.

For information on how to purchase a licence for the Tinman 3D SDK, please refer to the explanations that can be found in the "How to order" section.

Please use the email address / public key below to contact us. We recommend that you sign or encrypt your email with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP).

// Features are Coming

Download latest release

Code-X Write C# code and get fully-functional C++, HLSL and GLSL code automatically. Rust, Java, TypeScript, PHP and others follow!
Web Run Tinman 3D applications in browsers, at almost native performance with WebAssembly and WebGL, based on super clean Rust code.
Data Use geospatial scene data in Tinman 3D, such as OGC CDB (Common Database) and OGC City Geography Markup Language (CityGML).
Plugins Use Tinman 3D features in your Godot, OpenSceneGraph, Qt, Unity and Unreal Engine application, with minimal integration overhead!

// Tinman 3D SDK

Figure 1

The Tinman 3D SDK is a commercial software development kit for real-time 3D terrain rendering, processing and analysis. It provides dedicated APIs, ranging from low-level application integration to high-level 3D scene construction on a global scale. Tinman 3D is being put to use in various sectors of the software industry.

Aviation Geo-referenced real-time terrain for FDA / FDM / FOQA
Desktop GIS Terrain database creation and interactive spatial analysis
Edutainment Real-time interactive terrain rendering (fulldome, virtual reality)
Games Terrain processing, editing and export of seamless terrain blocks
Figure 2

Tinman 3D consumes arbitrary amounts of geodata and processes them into ready-to-use terrain modules. At runtime, these terrain modules are combined in order to create a coherent and highly accurate 3D representation of the terrain: a seamlessly textured and adaptive continuous level-of-detail triangle mesh. This terrain mesh is used for interactive rendering, real-time spatial analysis and data export to other software applications (for example as a part of the content pipeline).

Integration into existing software is easy: the Tinman 3D SDK is self-contained and has no mandatory 3rd-party dependencies. It is available in separate editions: C++ (ISO/IEC 14882:2011) and C# (language version 4). Tinman 3D is based on flexible abstraction layers, which enable it to run on any platform (e.g. 32-bit, 64-bit) and on any operating system (e.g. Windows, Unix). Real-time rendering can be performed through any modern graphics API (e.g. Direct3D, OpenGL).

// Demo Content

This is a small collection of demo content which provides some nice starting points.

Demo Application
Demo Application
You can watch many features of the Tinman 3D SDK live in action here.
Workshop Application
Workshop Application
A sandbox GUI environment for exploring the features of the Tinman 3D SDK
Geodata Examples
Geodata Examples
Browse the examples for importing third-party geodata into Tinman 3D.
Airtec 2016
AIRTEC 2016
"Real-time Fusion, Visualization and Analysis of High-precision DSMs and Ortho-imagery"

// References

Here is a selection of milestones along the development path of the Tinman 3D SDK.

YEAR EVENT
2024
Sky-Skan
The Tinman 3D SDK provides advanced terrain features for integration into DigitalSky Dark Matter , the powerful digital planetarium software developed by Sky-Skan .
2023
Cosm
Advanced terrain features of the Tinman 3D SDK become a part of the CX Engine , an immersive experience engine built by Cosm .
2021
Military
Tinman 3D delivers interactive 3D Earth visualisation and realtime simulation capabilities to a government contractor that provides Defense Modeling & Simulation Solutions.
2021
NASA
Tinman 3D provides interactive 3D visualisation of the lunar surface at centimetre scale to aid the planning of routes for NASA's "Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover" - VIPER .
2021
SIGGRAPH
Contributing to SIGGRAPH 2021 :
"Modeling Asteroid (101955) Bennu as a Real-time Terrain"
2020
SIGGRAPH
Contributing to SIGGRAPH 2020 :
"Using Mesh Shaders for Continuous Level-of-Detail Terrain Rendering"
2020
INTAERO
INTAERO choose the Tinman 3D SDK, adding smooth real-time terrain rendering capabilities to their software solution AIRCOM.
2018-2022
DLR
Tinman 3D provides key 3D algorithms, data structures and software architecture for the manufacturing execution system of DLR's research production facility GroFi .
2017
E & S
Evans & Sutherland replace the Cloddy SDK with the new Tinman 3D SDK, bringing exciting new terrain features to their digital planetarium software Digistar.
2016
AIRTEC
Attending AIRTEC Congress as speaker:
"Real-time fusion, visualization and analysis of high-precision DSMs and orthoimagery"
2014
F.D.V.
Flight Data Vision replace the Cloddy SDK with the new Tinman 3D SDK, allowing advanced terrain features to be used in their Professional Ground Station suite.
2012-now
Tinman 3D
Matthias Englert creates the Tinman 3D SDK, which replaces the deprecated Cloddy SDK prototype.
2011
UNAV
United Navigation (Becker & Falk) choose the Cloddy SDK as terrain engine for the development of next-generation navigation systems.
2011
F.D.V.
Flight Data Vision choose the Cloddy SDK as the terrain engine for their Professional Ground Station suite.
2011
E & S
Evans & Sutherland choose the Cloddy SDK as the terrain engine for their digital planetarium software Digistar.
2011
Airbus
Airbus Helicopters (formerly Eurocopter) choose the Cloddy SDK as the terrain engine for their in-house E.V.E. software (Eurocopter Virtual Environment).
2010
E.I.G.A.
At E.I.G.A. 2010 (European Innovative Games Awards), the Cloddy SDK wins the "Advancement Price" in category "T - Innovative Technology" - Press Release / PDF .
2008-2011
CLODDY SDK
The Cloddy SDK is an experimental software development kit - created by Matthias Englert - that allows the Cloddy algorithm to be integrated into any software.
2006
CLODDY
Cloddy - an efficient algorithm for real-time 3D terrain rendering - is developed by Matthias Englert, the founder of Tinman 3D.