Easy Ideas for Virtual Shopping with Interactive Elements

With 3D renderings and 3D walkthroughs being all the rage in terms of presentations for architectural firms isnt it about time for 3D walkthroughs and virtual shopping to come hand in hand in creating the best possible virtual shopping experience.

Here are some great ideas for when the next evolution of virtual shopping begins.

One of the things that virtual shoppes can enjoy is the almost lifelike interactivity between them and the shops or between themselves and the products that they are interested in purchasing.

A research team from the electronics giant Philips have come up with a great way to ease the virtual shopping experience.

When coupled nicely with a great looking 3D rendering, the shopping glass technology will be a great help for the virtual shoppers who would like to see the nitty gritty details on the products that they would want to purchase.

The shopping glass technology can also give added information to virtual shoppers anywhere in the world with just a touch of a button or a mouseclick.

Another great interactive service idea that virtual shopping can also provide a shoppers with an interactive wall such as this…

With this interactive wall added to a virtual shopping mall, shoppers can easily meet other people with the same taste in fashion among other things while also at the same time easily send suggestions and reactions to shopkeepers and shop owners.

These are only some futuristic yet practical ideas that can be incorporated and executed properly for virtual shopping.

Attending College in a 3D Virtual World

3Dwalkthroughs.com has been finding many examples of universities building a virtual presence in Second Life. Similar to the virtual trade shows we have seen, 3D virtual classrooms are not trying to totally replace their real life counterparts, rather complement them.

Integrating 3D virtual classrooms into a universities curriculum allows the teacher to reach a larger audience in a more immersive way than just posting text and photos on a schools intranet.

Some 300 schools, with about 4,200 educators from around the world, are now taking part, said Claudia L’Amoreaux of Linden Lab (creators of Second Life). Stanford University recently developed a new Second Life site that includes a virtual library. Stanford’s School of Education and the humanities lab also have sites.

“The 3D Internet is this immersive place and it’s very different than any kind of Web-based learning,” L’Amoreaux said.

Schools such as the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill are even creating virtual school pharmacies and planetariums or interactive library catalogs and book-loaning projects.

For San Jose State, building a virtual campus gave distance learners a sense of “being present,” said Linda Main, associate director of the School of Library and Information Science and a professor at San Jose State for 21 years.

Main said the school’s virtual campus has allowed its small library program to offer more courses to a wider range of students, who come from more than nine countries. Fifty percent live in Southern California.

The virtual campus “has changed the whole concept of place – there’s no need to move here to become a librarian,” Main said.

Next fall, Main said, the department is going to make it a requirement for students to include a Second Life component.

Source: Mercurynews.com

3Dwalkthroughs.com believes that just like virtual trade shows, many new applications will be launched specifically focused on 3D virtual universities. These new applications will address and overcome any limitations existing in Second Life, and provide an even more valuable and interactive 3D learning experience.

Happy Thanksgiving From 3DWalkthroughs.com

The entire staff at 3Dwalkthroughs.com hopes all of our friends, family and clients had a very Happy Thanksgiving.

As everyone knows, the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. Do you know why? Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year.

The origins of the name Black Friday are fuzzy but there are 2 popular theories as to its origin.

Theory 1- Stores do enough business during the holiday season, which officially begins on Black Friday,taking their financial position from being in the negative(red) to turning a profit(black).

Theory 2- The name Black Friday comes from the stress that one might experience during the holiday season due to the shopping with the crowds.

Ding,ding, ding…we have a winner. While theory 1 might be true, theory 2 seems a lot more appropriate.

We are looking forward to the day when 3D virtual shopping is as common as making a purchase on a site like Amazon. As computer processing speeds are improved and we continue to move towards an immersive 3D internet, a new theory for Black Friday might evolve. One which involves carpal tunnel syndrome or the depression that comes with credit card debt.