3D Floor Plans Used For Hotel Marketing

3Dwalkthroughs.com is launching a new line of products focused on the Hotel industry. The first product to be released is a realistic 3D Floor Plan of a hotel room. The plans can be created from 2D Floor Plans, CAD files and reference pictures of the hotel rooms finishing details.

We believe this product will be extremely valuable for travelers that want to get a true sense of the layout of their hotel room before they book. Most hotel websites include basic photos of room types and some have 2D Floor Plans or even virtual tours. In many cases these media types are confusing and do not do a good job at providing an easy to understand representation of a rooms layout.

We have just started to develop this product for a few test hotels within a major franchise. Once we determine the best vantage points to show a hotel room we plan on introducing this product to other hotel chains across the country.

If other media types exist, we can attach them to a fully branded interface, making the 3D Floor Plan interactive. We will be launching this demo in the next few weeks.

Tsu-Shi-O-Mi - 3D Virtual Humanoid

Japanese researcher, Michihiko Shoji, has helped to create U-Tsu-Shi-O-Mi, a virtual humanoid designed as a tool for enhancing virtual reality simulations.
Tsu-Shi-O-Mi uses “green screen” technology to project a 3D virtual avatar onto a robot. When wearing a special head-mounted display, movements of the robot are synced with the 3D avatar, resulting in an interactive virtual 3D character that the viewer can reach out and touch.

In its current form Tsu-Shi-O-Mi requires a lot of bulky and expensive equipment but Mr. Shoji is actively working to streamline the technology. Initially it is believed the technology will be used for arcade games, but in the future Mr. Shoji believes the technology be improved to the point where Tsu-Shi-O-Mi can take many different forms and even be suitable for home use.

Please let us know when the technology improves to the level that 3Dwalkthroughs.com can use Tsu-Shi-O-Mi to increase our staff.

SceneWeaver - Easily Export 3D Scenes Across All Platforms

SceneCaster, a 3D social media application and online community gives users the ability to visualize their ideas, share them, and make them real. SceneCaster bridges the gap between the virtual and real worlds by linking the 3D Web experience to online storefronts, product catalogs from leading brands and retailers, social networks, and consumers’ dreams.

Source: SceneCaster Website

Launced in 2007, SceneCaster has just announced a major upgrade to their SceneCaster platform. The new feature called SceneWeaver was designed to provide users with more exportable options for 3D scenes created with its application.

One of the huge features of Sceneweaver is that it allows scenes created with SceneCaster, to maintain it’s interactive features, even when it is embedded into other websites, blogs or social networks.

SceneWeaver is being touted as a great new advertising tool as it allows scene creators to embed real consumer products which can be purchased directly from the site. SceneWeaver has also become one of the most popular 3D applications on Facebook.

3Dwalkthroughs.com believes we will look back on SceneWeaver in a few years as the application that helped us take the first big step towards a completely 3D internet.

Sundance Film Festival Invites "Invisible Thread" - 3D Virtual Sweatshop

An article in today’s NY Times describes one of the more interesting premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. The festival, which is dedicated to the discovery and development of independent artists and audiences, is coming to an end today.

The interesting premiere described in the article is actually not a movie at all. It is a 3D virtual factory called “Invisible Threads” which exists only on Second Life. The 3D factory produces real-life, custom-ordered, personalized blue jeans which can be picked up at the festival.

Invisible threads was started by Stephanie Rothenberg and Jeff Crouse as a combination of an art project and possible glimpse into the future of how manufacturing will take place.

Customers tell the Invisible Threads staff the size and style of jean they would like, the instructions are sent to the 3D virtual factory inside Second Life, where workers push buttons that generate an image. From that image, a pattern is created and sent to an industrial printer, made by Hewlett-Packard, which spits out the custom-printed canvas cotton patterns. The patterns are then cut and assembled on the spot (at a Sundance Festival venue, that is) with a glue gun and a little stitching for reinforcement. They cost around $35.

Source: NY Times

Second Life workers are paid in Linden dollars and plots of land…perhaps 3Dwalkthroughs.com workers should consider moonlighting on the assembly line.

Indie Band GOLDEN Releases 3D Video On Their Website

3Dwalkthroughs.com just picked up a story on CNETnews.com about an Atlanta based indie rock band, GOLDEN, that is premiering a full-color stereoscopic 3D music video of their latest single.

You can download and watch the 3D video directly from their website but will need 3D glasses to experience the 3D effects. If you do not have 3D glasses, the band will actually send them to you if you provide your name and home address.

The video which showcases the bands new release, Shine, was produced by Atlanta-based Dzignlight Studios at a fraction of what it costs to create an MTV style 2D music video. The fact that producing 3D videos is becoming much more affordable will hopefully promote a more stable future for 3D videos and movies than in the past.

We have been reading about many different developing technologies that will soon eliminate the need for the 3D glasses altogether. Based on the rave reviews of U23D it seems like these movies are off to a promising start.

Click Here>> To Download the 3D Video

Icovia To Launch 3D Interactive Space Planner

Icovia, has announced that it will be launching a 3D version of their online room planner. The goal of this new product is to help retailers and manufacturers of new home furnishing products improve their online sales.

With Icovia 3D, shoppers will be able to “furnish” their homes with products from the manufacturer’s online catalog before actually making a purchase. In addition to increasing online sales, the Icovia 3D technology will make retail and manufacturers websites more sticky.

Once Icovia 3D is added to a retailer’s or manufacturer’s website, prospective
buyers can create rooms of various shapes and sizes, and then drop in
products from an online catalog. Users are further engaged by their ability
to customize these interiors with selected fabrics and finishes, room lighting, wall colors, and flooring. Icovia 3D ultimately gives the shopper the power to make intelligent buying decisions while simultaneously alerting the retailer or manufacturer to their most qualified prospective buyers.

Source: prnewswire.com

3Dwalkthroughs.com is certainly curious to see the results of the end product. We have yet to come across an automated drag and drop product that allows mass customization while producing a 3D photo-realistic end result.

3D Virtual Trade Show Developer Gets $10 Million Dollars in Financing

Menlo Park based, Unisfair Inc., announced today they received $10 million in a second round of funding from Palo Alto-based Norwest Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital, which has an office in Menlo Park.

Unisfair, who specializes in created 3D trade shows said it will use the financing for new product development and sales and marketing.

Although 3Dwalkthroughs.com will be launching our own 3D virtual venue platform over the next couple of months, we still view this as exciting news.

The ability for Unisfair to successfully raise $10 million validates our belief that we are only experiencing a small preview of what is to come in terms of a 3D internet.

We believe that in the next few years 3D Trade Shows and other 3D Venues will become a major way that real business is accomplished. We also believe that as the momentum builds with a few early adopters, we will soon see an explosion in the use of this technology.

Processing speeds and bandwith still needs to be improved to be able to achieve the standards of today’s high end graphics but we are getting close.

We are very excited about our forray into the 3D virtual venue space and can’t wait to see how this new business model develops.

The New Standard In Home Theaters? 360 Degree 3D Cinema

3Dwalkthroughs.com just became aware of the world’s first 360 degree 3D cinema, debuting now at the University of New South Wales.

As part of the Sydney Festival, the university’s iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research is showcasing its “T-Visionarium”, a virtual reality theatre that is 10metres wide and 4metres high.

Wearing 3D glasses, a Cinema goer steps into the cylindrical cinema, selects the video clips they want to watch using a computer program, and produce and direct where they want the story to go.

From the 30-metre-curved screen, the viewers experience being surrounded by hundreds of Australian television broadcast clips moving in three dimensions.

Source: The Epoch Times

The T-Visionarium is not only being used as entertainment, but is also being used as an immersive 3D training tool. Four mining companies have already purchased the technology to train their workers on proper maintenance techniques, how to work machinery underground, as well as the obvious, emergency response protocol.

About TVisionarium Mk II
TVisionarium Mk II is “an immersive eye-popping stereo 3D interactive 360-degree experience where a user can search through a vast database of television shows and rearrange their shots in the virtual space that surrounds them.”

Click Here for a YouTube video which describes the immersive 3D experience

PDF3D - Integration of Interactive 3D Models into PDF Documents

UK based PDF3D has recently launched a publishing tool that allows for the integration of interactive 3D models into PDF documents. With PDF3D’s tool, users can rotate, zoom, select and explore 3D images in much greater detail than a flat 2D image.

The tool is being promoted to a wide range of industries including: Geology, Aerospace, Engineering, Architecture and Bioinfomatics.

The newest version of the free adobe reader makes viewing 3D objects and images a breeze.

3Dwalkthroughs.com posted about the possibilities of the new Adobe 3D products in the past. The ability to create PDF brochures with integrated, interactive 3D images is very valuable for our business.

Using this technology, property developers can create very effective brochures of their new development properties which include detailed 3D views of the unit exterior and interior. The ability to interact with the model allows the user to more thoroughly review all the properties details from all sides.

While we are a little behind schedule implementing this tool into our arsenal, it is definitely on our “to do” list for the second quarter of 2008.

Edgenet - 3D Visual Selling Solution, Edgenet Vision

It seems like every time we build a 3D Rendering, 3D Floor Plan or 3D Walkthrough of a home, the builder asks if there is a way that the end user can move the furniture around or change the furniture style on the fly. Our answer to their inquiry is always the same, it sounds like a great idea but it is not something that we currently offer.

3Dwalkthroughs.com just came across a possible way to satisfy this desire. Edgenet Inc., a leading provider of guided selling applications and product data services, announced today the release of its 3D Visual Selling solution called Edgenet Vision™. Edgenet Vision offers 3D renditions of real products shown in true-to-life room settings.

By allowing consumers to interact with 3D products in a drag-and-drop room environment, the consumer can get past their concers about buying major home products without seeing them first. Edgenet Vision also allows the consumer to think in terms of whole-room projects as opposed to individual products.

One of the features of this solution is that manufacturers can supply the 3D images of their products, which can open a channel for a direct purchase from the manufacturers website.

The solution is offered as both an in-store and online option. The first instance of the live product launched recently on Better Homes and Gardens’ Web site, bhg.com.

About Edgenet
Edgenet provides visual guided selling and content solutions to leading retailers and suppliers in the hardlines industry. Vertically integrating the industry, Edgenet links retailers and suppliers with rich product content and compelling software solutions for in-store, online and in-home selling. Edgenet’s Big Hammer Data division maintains the largest and richest data pool in hardlines, serving thousands of suppliers and synchronizing more than 300,000 product items and 21 million attributes. Edgenet solutions empower consumers and associates with visual product knowledge, endless buying options and customizable products and services, increasing sales for retailers and manufacturers across all hardlines product segments.