UK Firm Boosts Business with HPC 

A Swansea based computer animation company has announced a 50% growth in its international trade on its 10th anniversary. iCreate, which employs 10 people, has recently secured major contracts with US chemical corporation Dow - producing a 3D digital ‘flythrough‘ of the Sochi Winter Olympic Park - and Caltex, a leading Australian fuel supplier.

The firm specialises in producing architectural visualisations for the property sector, allowing customers to view and examine a 3D housing or land development before it is built. The company, which has created three new roles in 2013 as a result of its expanding client base, has achieved sustainable growth by focussing business development on global corporate customers.

Alongside its work for companies worldwide, iCreate also supplies architectural visualisations for more local developments, including the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, the Bay Science and Innovation Campus and residential schemes for regional house builders such as Waterstone Homes and Purnell Developments.

The firm is supported by High Performance Computing (HPC) Wales, the UK’s largest distributed supercomputing network, and it uses the advanced technology to speed up the process of transforming a 3D scene into a fully functioning animation.

With access to HPC Wales’ supercomputing technology, iCreate is able to improve levels of detail within its animations and significantly reduce the time spent rendering them. This increased quality, alongside faster rendering speeds, allows the company to take on more ambitious projects and provide services to more customers than previously possible.

Dawn Lyle, Co-Founder of iCreate, said, “We’re delighted to announce such a significant increase in our international trade. The past 12 months have been very successful for us, as we have won significant contracts both within the UK and abroad. With the support of HPC Wales, we can now produce higher quality animations more quickly. Their team has provided the necessary support and training to help us utilise the network to its full potential. Our goal for 2014 is to continue growing and innovating, ensuring that we stay ahead of the curve with industry-leading animations with the ‘wow factor.’"

Professor Sian Hope OBE, Interim Chief Executive Officer of HPC Wales, said, “We’re very pleased to announce our partnership with iCreate, an innovative Welsh business working within the vibrant creative sector. Our team is committed to providing not only the technology, but the support and training alongside this to help SMEs harness the power of supercomputing. Many SMEs are unaware that the potential power of supercomputing is on their doorstep here in Wales, and that they can access our network remotely from their own computer. This technology has the potential to significantly improve the speed at which companies can complete processes, allowing them to improve their overall performance and become more competitive, leading to new innovative processes.”