NC AI said on Tuesday it has completed development of a next-generation model for its 3D generative artificial intelligence (AI) service, VARCO 3D. It plans to apply the model to its in-house cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform in July.

VARCO 3D 2.0 was developed based on user feedback accumulated since its launch in December last year and the company's research results. Its key feature is a major improvement in shape distortion, a chronic problem of existing 3D generative AI. It faithfully reflects the silhouette and proportions of the original image and reproduces complex decorative elements and detailed structures with high accuracy.

The company also unveiled performance benchmarks. NC AI said it scored 0.449 on Uni3D, a shape similarity evaluation metric, up about 40.8 percent from version 1.1 at 0.319. It outperformed global open-source models on the same metric, including Trellis2 at 0.436, UltraShape at 0.428 and Hunyuan3D 2.1 at 0.427. The company said it also posted top performance on other key metrics including CLIP-N and ULIP-2.

It also improved visual completeness. It supports textures up to 4K resolution and realistically implements material textures such as metal and wood, fine surface patterns and even wear expression, it said.

It also broadened its range of uses. The company said it can generate 3D assets in as little as 3 minutes, compared with about 4 weeks for an expert, reducing the cost and time needed to build data required to implement physical AI and digital twins in manufacturing, construction and defence.

NC AI Chief Executive Lee Yeon-su (이연수) said, "Based on our proprietary AI technology, we will secure data security and AI technological self-reliance, and grow it into core infrastructure that leads the era of physical AI and digital twins."