Animmersion has continued its relationship with Sirius Minerals with the delivery of a new prestigious project to visualise the installation of the first 1,800-tonne tunnel boring machine (TBM) that will be used to construct a 23-mile mineral transportation tunnel from Wilton to Whitby.
The Middlesbrough-based digital services team has been working with Sirius Minerals for the past 12 months, at key times during the development, to create accurate 3D animations of the engineering processes and infrastructure of the multi-billion pound project to build the UK’s first deep mine in 40 years.
The company uses the animations to educate and inform the public and investors about the unique engineering challenges, solutions, progress and future plans of the project.
Having already produced animations to demonstrate the D-Walling process, the Materials Handling Facility and the Port, Animmersion will follow on from the tunnelling project to additionally create visualisations of the sinking of the shaft, the mine and a project overview.
The Sirus Minerals’ polyhalite mining and processing operation is one of the UK’s most significant engineering projects, which will lead to the creation of more than 1,000 full time jobs in North Yorkshire and Teesside when operational in 2021.
It includes a 1,600m deep mine at Woodsmith near Whitby, to access the polyhalite resource, which will be connected to a processing plant at Wilton on Teesside by a 23-mile underground transportation tunnel. The processed fertiliser will then be transported via a 3.5 km conveyor to a harbour facility for shipping.
This is the latest project secured by Animmersion to support the promotion and community engagement of Sirius Minerals operation. The team are using multi-disciplinary capabilities and have extensive experience in digital media and immersive solution deployment – ranging from 3D animation and content through to interactive software development, game design and virtual reality.
Animmersion is one of the UK’s most established digital visualisation experts, with more than a decade’s experience in producing cutting edge, interactive, experience-driven solutions for industry.
With a team of talented and experienced designers, artists and software engineers, Animmersion provides a range animation, immersive virtual and augmented reality, holographic and interactive technologies to support customer projects.
Dominic Lusardi, the Owner and Managing Director of Animmersion said: “We want to create a full suite of immersive and advanced visualisation for Sirius including VR, AR, interactive maps and holograms as a collection of digital tools that allow Sirius to use them through promotion, compliance and training.
“This development is a fascinating and major piece of infrastructure, which will have effects locally, regionally and globally as the fertiliser developed could feed the rest of the world for the next fifty years.”
Maurice Rankin, General Manager for Corporate Communications at Sirius said: “We are using immersive technology to explain the opportunities available from this significant development and its positive impact on the local area, the country and world at large. It is a pleasure to work alongside a forward-thinking company that will exploit digital technology to explain our great ideas and industry-defining project.”
Dominic added: “Digital visualisation has so many beneficial applications for a cross-section of industries, providing both practical and marketing applications, which can help to communicate their facilities, products and services.
“Companies are maximising on their ability to enhance, but also disrupt, traditional methods to support areas such as virtual site training.”
