iED 2011 Will Anounce 3D/VR Mesh Format

The Immersive Education Initiative today unveiled iED 3D/VR, the open and royalty-free cross-platform 3D/VR mesh file format that enables 3D and virtual reality (3D/VR) content to be created once and experienced across a range of virtual worlds, games, simulators and mixed/augmented reality applications.

The culmination of over 2 years of work conducted through the Open File Formats Technology Working Group (OFF.TWG), iED 3D/VR is supported by official iED virtual world platforms realXtend, Open Wonderland ( http://openwonderland.org/ ), Open Simulator ("OpenSim") and Open Cobalt in addition to the candidate iED platform Sirikata.

A range of hands-on workshops will be given at iED 2011 to teach educators how to create cross-platform 3D/VR content using a variety of authoring tools, including Google SketchUp and Blender, and starting immediately virtual training sessions will be provided to Initiative members online and free of charge.

"Create Once, Experience Everywhere" is what they want to get with this new file format that wants to become a de facto standard for virtual worlds, education and 3D. The iED 3D/VR open file format, which was developed in accordance with the open and royality-free intellectual properly process under which the Initiative operates, is based on and closely aligned with the COLLADA standard.

iED 3D/VR is designed specifically to enable 3D and virtual reality content to be exchanged between all official Immersive Education Initiative platforms. To this end, iED 3D/VR is a functional subset of COLLADA that is tested across conformant iED platforms to ensure consistent content representation from platform to platform. The current baseline profile for iED 3D/VR features static 3D mesh models and textures. New features and capabilities, such as animation and skinning, are now being added as well.

"The Khronos Group is pleased that the Immersive Education Initiative has chosen COLLADA as the standard format for interoperable 3D and virtual reality content. The Initiative's willingness to work with Khronos, for example by co-sponsoring the COLLADA 2009 contest, has strengthened both communities.Going forward, the Immersive Education Initiative will develop software that passes the COLLADA conformance test suite and form a close liaison with Khronos to advance this important work." - Mark Barnes, chairman of the COLLADA work group at Khronos.

"Standardizing content delivery and enabling the 'Create Once, Experience Everywhere' approach to content creation is vital for virtual worlds. The first step is a standard file format that different platforms can support either natively or through conversion. At realXtend we have been working with the Immersive Education Initiative to add support for the iED 3D/VR format, initially through an external transcoder and soon natively. Education is one of the most prominent use cases for virtual reality technology, making it an ideal starting point for standardization and interoperability for virtual worlds." - Antti Ilomäki. Project manager, realXtend

The world's leading experts in virtual worlds, learning games, educational simulations, and mixed/augmented reality convene May 13-15 in Boston for iED 2011. http://mediagrid.org/summit/

-Jordi R. Cardona-

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