Dell - Cool Use of Interactive 3D Room To Showcase Their Products

3Dwalkthroughs.com came across a pretty cool use of an interactive 3D environment which is being used by Dell to showcase some of their products.

The 3D room can be navigated by clicking an arrow or one of the hotpspots laid over the products. Once the navigational element is clicked, the whole room view changes to showcase the specific product, with specific product info revealed upon rollover.

Another cool feature of Dell’s presentation is that some of the products can also be viewed from all sides in an interactive 3D window. If you want to check out the presentation and interact with some cool products in 3D, you can do so here>>

Fitspott - the spott where fitness and life collide

As promised, every Friday 3Dwalkthroughs.com will be posting updates on the development progress of Fitspott. Well, here it goes, development continues to roll along on schedule, with a soft launch date estimated to be around September 1st.

In the last week we have added a few new features to the site that we expect to be part of the initial launch, even though they are relatively major additions. We believe the combination of the features we had already planned along with these new features are really going to set us far apart from what is currently available on the market.

In addition to the development of the platform itself we are also excited to unveil our new tagline. Our entire team has struggled with creating a concise tagline that accurately represents what Fitspott is all about. As soon as the words came out of our creative directors mouth, we knew she nailed it.

The new tagline for Fitspott is: the spott where fitness and life collide.
Our goal is to create an extremely robust networking platform where fitness principles, techniques, philosophy’s, goals etc. collide with the coolest gear, gadgets, music, equipment, media, technologies and other lifestyle elements.

We encourage you to go to fitpsott.com to sign up for the free private beta launch. We are confident that you will be blown away once we launch. Check back next Friday for another update.

3D Walkthroughs and Choosing The Right Music

3Dwalkthroughs.com prides itself on helping developers to sell their vision as well as their properties. One of the most important post production elements which can help to accomplish both of these goals is the correct selection of music.

Similar to how music is used in movies to help tell a story, music help breathe life into even somewhat ordinary 3D Walkthroughs. If the movement of the animation is properly choreographed with the right music, the results can be extremely powerful.

The first step in choosing the right music is understanding the goal of the 3D presentation as well as the demographic that the property is being marketed to. Once this is accomplished choosing the correct music is much easier.

Selecting music that is annoying or too distracting could actually work against what it is trying to accomplish… Metallica would probably not be the best choice if the 3D Walkthrough was demonstrating an old age home.

SoftKinetic - 3D Sensing Technology

3Dwalkthroughs.com came across an article on Venturebeat.com about a company that is acting as the software intermediary between camera makers and game developers. The goal of the software is to reduce or eliminate the need for Wii or other type of gaming controllers.

Using cameras mounted on a TV or computer, movements of the human body would be captured, and with a combination of sophisticated hardware and software, extrapolated into three dimensions (the exact details vary by company).

The company, SoftKinetic makes a software development kit (SDK) and API that makes the switch to gesture recognition simple for game makers. According to the article this has been one of the hurdles of the mainstream adoption of sensor based gaming. The other two are price and quality of the cameras.

Source: Venturebeat.com

We are excited about the possibility of this technology, especially as we continue to make plans for fitspott.com. It is our belief that once sensing technology works through the kinks, we will see an explosion in the amount of 3D video games that are focused on promoting exercise and activity.

The Wii controllers have been a great start, but the movement is somewhat limited. Once the body is totally unhibited the possibilities as it relates to physical fitness is unbelievable.

A Beautiful Weekend in NYC - Cranes a Plenty

We had a Memorial Day Weekend filled with what might arguably be the best weather of the year. When the weather is this nice, and before every one starts heading out of town for their summer homes and vacations, the city is packed.

Aside from an increase in the number of locals and tourists out and about, we also noticed something else…a continued surge in new development projects. We were blown away by not only the number of new development projects that are underway, but also the size of them. Some of the condo projects being developed look like they are going to have over 300 units available.

We cannot imagine that the demand for these properties are going to match the inventory, at least relying on local buyers. For the developers sake they had better be thinking of marketing to foreign investors. What better way to impress this market than with powerful 3D Walkthroughs, 3D Renderings and 3D Floor Plans.

3Dwalkthroughs.com believes it can draw on it’s local knowledge to not only make the properties look great, but also to capture the true flavor of New York.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

3Dwalkthroughs.com would like to wish all of our friends, family and clients a very happy and safe Memorial Day Weekend.

I am sure most will agree that they cannot believe Memorial Day is here again. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Labor Day Weekend.

Anyway, we are looking forward to an interesting summer, with a lot of new projects and new ventures. It will be very interesting to see which direction the real estate market will trend throughout the summer.

Fitspott.com Friday Update

As we mentioned last week, 3Dwalkthroughs.com is involved with the creation of a comprehensive Social Network totally geared to the health and fitness industry. Every Friday until the initial launch we will be posting updates on the progress of development along with any other noteworthy info.

In addition to a ton of new sign ups for the private beta launch, we are also receiving a lot of valuable ideas to add to the platform. Just when we think the team has all bases covered, someone comes up with a new idea, and we are forced to re-think things.

It is amazing to us how many social networks are launched, but fail to draw a large community. In many cases the site looks great and navigates well, but still, community interaction and new member sign ups are minimal.

We encourage anyone that has even a mild interest in health and fitness to sign up for the private beta test. We believe the platform we are involved with developing will truly be different than many of the other social networks, aside from just being focused on health and fitness.

Check back in a week for another update.

Integrating 3D Models Into PDF Documents

A new technology is being developed in Australia that will allow interactive 3D models to be intgerated into PDF documents.

Co-developer Christopher Fluke, an astronomer based at Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, said there was a trend away from physical, paper-based journals to fully online digital publications.

“In the past, the way you would have shared a 3D model is that you would either have to make a movie of it - so you might rotate that with one particular set of views, or you would have to present it as a series of individual images,” Dr Fluke said.

“The problem there is that as the person creating those movies, or those images, you are making decisions about what you want the reader to see.”

“So rather than seeing a static, single image of a 3D object, readers can click on the image, rotate it around, and view it from different angles, as well as zoom in and out,” he said.

Source: thinkingaustralia.com

3Dwalkthroughs.com believes this technology could be a great way of delivering interactive 3D Renderings, 3D Walkthroughs and 3D Floor Plans to potential buyers. As a PDF document the files size would be considerably smaller than the current format of which these assets are delivered. In addition to smaller file sizes, users will be able to experience a much more interactive view of a property…hurry up and get here already!!

CyberWalk -Omni-Directional Treadmill to Navigate 3D Virtual Environments

3Dwalkthroughs.com just became aware of a really innovative technology that is being developed to help navigate within 3D virtual environments. The technology called, CyberWalk is being developed by a team based at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany. CyberWalk is an omnidirectional treadmill designed to serve as a VR-capable movement platform.

The actual unit is a stiff, gapless, 20 x 20-foot floor and movement and feedback system that enables quick, fluid changes of direction. To provide the user with an integrated fully immersive Virtual World the CyberCarpet will be combined with visual and auditory input, supplied via a Head Mounted Display (HMD).

Source: Cyberwalk Website

As the technology evolves, the Cyberwalk platform will surely get much smaller and be capable of being outfitted to service many different industries and applications. The possibilities of this technology are endless once it is perfected.

It will certainly be a lot more fun to do a 3D Walkthrough of a property by literally walking through the 3D environment…and much better exercise than doing it with a mouse. Look out Wii Fit.

Source: Wired.com

Adobe Flash 10 Beta Release - Improved 3D Renderings Effects

3Dwalkthroughs.com is excited about the beta release of Adobe’s latest version of Flash. The public release of Flash 10 is expected to be released very soon.

One of the biggest features of the new upgrade, and reason we are so interested, is the support Flash 10 is going to offer for 3D rendering effects. The upgrade to it’s 3D capabilities is expected to make very immersive, cinematic web viewing experiences possible.

For the end user, Adobe Flash Player 10 is supposedly going to make more use of hardware graphics acceleration, meaning that Flash applications will be quicker and smoother than previous versions.

Source: PCworld.com

From the few articles we read, we gather there are still quite a few bugs to be fixed. With that being said, our developers and designers are going to start digging our heels in and seeing what this upgrade has to offer and how we can incorporate it into our current list of 3D products and services…stay tuned.