Sony's XYN Spatial Capture Solution Generates Photorealistic 3DCG Assets From Real-World Scans for Virtual Production

Sony is bringing its XYN Spatial Capture Solution to professional customers, with general availability set for summer 2026 in the US. The toolset converts real-world locations into photorealistic 3DCG assets for LED walls and real-time engines, targeting film, drama, and commercial virtual production workflows.

The XYN suite debuted in January 2025 and is now moving from concept to shipping professional product, with Sony using its NAB 2026 presence at booth C8401 as the launch platform. Three integrated tools handle capture, asset generation, and on-set playback, with Sony Alpha cameras driving the capture stage and Unreal Engine integration bringing HDR assets into virtual production pipelines.

The solution ties together three pieces of software covering capture, asset generation, and playback.

XYN Spatial Scan Navi is the capture front end. It runs on a smartphone and uses AR navigation to guide operators to optimal shooting positions with a Sony Alpha camera. The app surfaces real-time previews and records metadata alongside each shot, so the capture plan travels with the imagery into processing.

XYN Spatial Scan handles the heavy lifting in the cloud. Using Sony's proprietary algorithms, it converts captured imagery into photorealistic 3DCG assets with HDR data and accurate reflections. Outputs are built for direct use in Unreal Engine.

XYN Spatial Renderer Plugin closes the loop on set. It provides stable, high-quality playback for the generated assets on LED walls and inside real-time environments, preserving HDR support through to the final frame.

Photogrammetry is a common approach for capturing real-world locations for in-engine use in virtual production. Sony's approach with XYN is an end-to-end pipeline from a single vendor, with Alpha cameras on the capture side and a dedicated renderer on the volume side.

That continuity matters for teams shooting hybrid setups where live-action foreground elements sit in front of LED-rendered real-world locations. Metadata captured on the smartphone app flows through to the cloud processor, and HDR is preserved all the way through to on-set playback.

Sony is positioning the XYN Spatial Capture Solution squarely at film, episodic drama, and commercial producers. General availability opens summer 2026 for US professional customers. The company is showing the full workflow at NAB 2026, booth C8401.

We've previously covered Sony's virtual production toolset expansion, including corner-shooting techniques for LED volumes and the glasses-free 3D display SDK for previs and review. XYN rounds out the company's virtual production footprint by solving the capture side, where teams have typically stitched together third-party photogrammetry, scan cleanup, and Unreal asset prep.

For virtual production professionals, the bet is that a single-vendor pipeline cuts friction when building location-accurate LED content. Whether XYN delivers on asset quality at production scale will become clearer once the tools ship and shows put them through a full shoot cycle.