For over 20 years, CGI.Backgrounds has stood at the forefront of new technology in the 3D rendering space.
From releasing some of the earliest digital environments, to sending our photographers around the world to capture diverse and stunning locations, to inventing our revolutionary RAY.HDR technology, we’ve spent two decades delivering the best HDRi Map tech to clients including Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Aston Martin, and many more.
Today, we are thrilled to take another massive step into the future with the release of CGI.B Horizon, a powerful new AI HDRi Map generator custom-built for CGI.Backgrounds and trained on our collection of over 200,000 high-quality HDRi Maps and Backplates.
Here's a demo video of Horizon in action.
Note: Image generation sequences have been shortened--generations take approximately 30 seconds.
AI image generation has already taken the world by storm, and the quality of AI images has increased exponentially over the last two years. As we’ve explored in numerous blog posts and articles, though, AI image generators normally struggle when creating HDRi Maps and Backplates.
Largely, this is because of their training data. Most off-the-shelf AI photo generators are trained on photos from websites on the public Internet. They’re great at generating photos that look like an Instagram post, but not so great at making images that meet the needs of a 3D designer creating a virtual scene.
Over the last year, we’ve explored the artificial intelligence space extensively, both through our own research in through collaborations with major players like NVIDIA . This experience showed us exactly how AI could positively benefit our industry.
We also realized that quality training data is everything, and after 20 years producing amazing images, we have the best training data around.
For that reason, we worked with Depix, a leading creating of customized AI image generation models to build a custom image generation model based on our massive library of content. We’re now releasing that system, Horizon, as a core function within our existing CGI.Backgrounds website.
Here are some of the amazing things Horizon can do.
Generate a Backplate or HDRi Map from a Text Prompt
Crucially, CGI.B Horizon is specifically tuned to create backplates that can easily accommodate a vehicle digital twin or other 3D model. Unlike off-the-shelf AI image generators, Horizon produces image with flat colors (allowing flexibility in post process), as well as angles and camera heights optimized for 3D rendering.
Again, this is possible because the system was trained on our industry-leading library of HDRi Maps and Backplates. Horizon knows exactly what to create because it has seen all of our top-performing content.
Create an HDRi Map from a Backplate or Still Image
CGI.B Horizon doesn’t only create backplates, though. It can also transform an existing Backplate or other still image into an HDRi Map in a single click.
Users have the option to upload their own image file for Horizon to transform. But because the system is deeply integrated into the CGI.Backgrounds library, users can also find any Backplate in our existing collection, press one button, and create an AI-generated HDRi Map from that backplate.
Further, designers can customize the camera pitch and image ratio before generation, allowing them to transform an existing backplate into a new backplate or HDRi Map with the perfect angles for their specific render.
Find Real-World HDRi Maps Based on an AI Image
Users can type out any idea as a text prompt, and CGI.B Horizon will create an AI-generated backplate from the prompt. Users can then click a single button on the generated image, and use that image as a jumping-off point for an AI-powered visual search of similar, human-created images in our collection.
For example, we asked Horizon to create a “Street scene in Marin County, California on a sunny day”. It generated a backplate that captures the look and feel of the California coast.
We then used that AI image as a visual prompt to find numerous California Coastline images in our human-created collection. The system found plenty of backplates and HDRi Maps that match the aesthetic of the California coast, including many that aren’t located in Marin, and so would not appear in a traditional keyword-based search.
We’re extremely excited about how this Horizon capability will turbocharge design workflows. Instead of brainstorming keywords for target images and combing through results, designers will be able to generate an image to match any idea they can imagine, and then use that image to find professional-quality content from within CGI.Backgrounds’ existing library.
Join The Waitlist
CGI.B Horizon is currently available to select CGI.Backgrounds account holders in a private Beta.
Want to get access? Join our waitlist.
Please note that users with active CGI.Backgrounds Annual plans will receive first priority access to CGI.B Horizon. We encourage you to create a CGI.Backgrounds annual plan or upgrade your existing plan for priority access to the system.
