Hiperia3D News: Interviews

Showing posts with label Interviews. Show all posts

Bruno Uzzan, co-founder and CEO of Total Immersion ( www.t-immersion.com ), send us some reflections about the real practical use of 3D. Total Immersion is the global leader company in augmented reality. They develop all kinds of solutions in 3D through augmented reality that solve real problems or enhance a real experience. He answers to the question "Where is 3D taking us?", which can be re-formulated as "Where is the future of 3D?"

According to Bruno Uzzan, part of the answer lies in augmented reality (AR). AR - which blurs the line between the virtual world and the real world by integrating real time interactive 3D graphics into a live video stream - is, for increasing numbers of consumers, the front line in the 3D revolution. It's the way that millions are now getting up close and personal with 3D, via near-tactile experiences.

"This isn't your father's 3D. In an earlier era, 3D in films - typically h or r or films -- was used as a trick, a f or eground element. In this post-Avatar era, 3D is now the depth of the environment, a way to immerse the audience and create hyper-realistic experiences. The 3D phenomenon is part of a profound transition in expression, from analog to digital - not at the expense of the analog world, but as an adjunct to it. In short order, we will begin to consume entertainment differently, we will begin to shop differently, we will begin to see differently."

According to Uzzan, what's missing - what the industry needs now - is "community engagement around a vision of both 3D and AR as transformative platforms f or experiential advertising, marketing, education and entertainment."

About Total Immersion
Total Immersion ( www.t-immersion.com ) is the global leader in augmented reality. Through its patented D'Fusion® technology, Total Immersion blurs the line between the virtual world and the real world by integrating real time interactive 3D graphics into a live video stream. Leading the augmented reality category since 1999, the company maintains offices in Europe ( France and UK), North America and Asia. Total Immersion supports the world's largest AR Partner network, with a diversified portfolio of more than 80 best-of-breed solution providers worldwide. Find the latest news about Total Immersion at: http://blog.t-immersion.com.

Q&A: VenueGen - Web 2.0 For Telepresence
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In the last times I am quite sceptic about what kind of things are virtual worlds useful for. But there are some applications that make them useful for example for things like telepresence, and virtual meetings at enterprise level, or for e-learning. This article is about one of the most promising: VenueGen.

VenueGen is a virtual meeting platform for telepresence for the enterprise and education. This is a "questions and answers" whose author is VenueGen's CEO David Gardner.

Read it to better understand his views on what is VenueGen, and about matters like telepresence, online meetings and solutions for the present and future needs of e-learning and enterprise level events.

David Gardner and his VenueGen Avatar

1. Is VenueGen the death of the webinar?

David Gardner: Not necessarily. Different modalities are good for different uses. Well, the Internet certainly has revolutionized the way people consume media. The Internet is interactive, and so is the VenueGen virtual meetings platform. Virtual meetings are used for three things: everyday meetings, training, and events. Meetings and trainings are highly collaborative, and VenueGen provides a highly collaborative platform to meet this need, whereas webinars have been utilized largely for passive events, like watching TV. So, in short, if companies want Webinars where audiences are passive listeners, they can select a passive platform. If companies want a virtual meeting that encourages participation, then they can select an interactive platform. Our view is that webinars and events will become highly interactive - that's where it's all heading.

2. How do 3D meetings work? How is VenueGen different from other webconferencing programs?

David Gardner: VenueGen creates a TelePresence-like experience while running in your browser. No video equipment, no cameras, no special rooms - no big expense. In VenueGen, the online meeting's hosts select one of our virtual venues and invite others to join, which is similar to joining a WebEx meeting, only you appear in a 3D environment as an avatar. You hear sound directionally and you can turn you head by dragging your mouse around to see others and to interact with content. It is very simple and easy to use.

3. Who needs virtual meetings?

David Gardner: Anyone meeting, collaborating or learning online needs VenueGen. It is extremely similar to the real-world experience of sharing a physical space together. Meeting hosts who want to create more engaging, personal and productive events online will try VenueGen and will never go back to flat 2D screen-sharing technology.

4. MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford already offer online education-there are even classes on iTunes. Will VenueGen "classrooms" with student & professor avatars holding discussions and writing on blackboards lead to a new kind of academic campus?

David Gardner: Yes. There is nothing in education as powerful as a skilled teacher facilitating a class full of engaged learners. As instructor-led distance learning continues to grow the 3D modality will become the standard. There's tons of great research on this showing that learners immersed in a 3D environment show dramatic improvements in participation and retention over those using 2D online platforms. We currently run a pilot with Duke University.

5. Can folks without broadband still participate?

David Gardner: VenueGen's core functionality requires minimal bandwidth because only highly optimized positioning data is being sent and received. However, some features of VenueGen such as real-time screen sharing may not work well in low bandwidth settings. That said, unlike any web conferencing tool on the market today, VenueGen has the ability to pre-distribute content to online attendees and then simply control that content running locally. This model requires almost no bandwidth and makes VenueGen a viable option where screen sharing-only tools cannot work.

6. Will your children even know what a webinar was?

David Gardner: They will probably call it television. In the not-so-distant future, the 3D web will be very commonplace. There are certain internet activities such as online learning, collaboration and social networking that will be performed almost exclusively in 3D. Other asynchronous and individual activities will remain 2D. Anything involving interacting in real-time with other people on the web that is not in 3D will start to look like the black and white television, or radio-not very appealing or interactive.

7. How does VenueGen change the playing field for unified communications?

David Gardner: Unified communications involves the convergence and integration of many meeting and communication modalities. 3D will be the least common denominator for UC because everyone can use it and other modalities such as VoIP, video feeds, chat, etc. can be brought directly into the 3D environment. Although 3D is only one of these modalities, I believe VenueGen will become the presentation layer or central HUB for UC platforms. 3D environments don't required special hardware or cameras or lots of bandwidth like video applications do. This makes 3D the richest experience with the least barriers.

8. Second Life has exited the enterprise virtual meeting space. How does VenueGen see this as an opportunity?

David Gardner: SL leaving the enterprise space was not a surprise to anyone. SL was designed as a consumer's virtual world and never really understood the needs of the enterprise. A company and technology has to focus like a laser to solve a business problem. SL never had that focus and unfortunately SL is the only 3D experience most enterprises ever piloted. I'd have to say that SL's entry and exit of the enterprise space has done more to hurt the adoption of serious 3D modalities than anything to date. Second Life required customers to spend hours learning the platform - no one has time to do that today. Customers who experience VenueGen indicate a remarkably different experience. The platform was built with enterprise in mind. It takes a few minutes to get up and running. Users are immediately productive and running effective 3D meetings and training events.

9. When will you bring VenueGen to the iPod and Android?

The iPad and iPhone will be our first mobile deployments because we already have a version of our client 3D engine that runs on these. Eventually VenueGen will run on most mobile computing devices.

10. You have a track record of successful startups. Is VenueGen venture backed, and will you be going for another funding round?

David Gardner: We are angel backed at this time, but we are currently in discussions with both venture capital and strategic investors.

11. What kind of partnerships are you looking for?

David Gardner: We are talking with some companies now that want to integrate VenueGen into their core platforms. Any business solution that can add value by incorporating the ability to instantly meet, learn or collaborate in 3D is a potential partner. This would include some major corporations, communication companies and collaboration platform companies.

12. What's the next big thing for you?

David Gardner: VenueGen will continue to evolve as an exceedingly productive platform for meetings and distance learning. Frankly, those are two markets worth tens of billions of dollars. We are not at liberty to divulge our technology and marketing roadmap because we are in investor and partner discussions, but you will see some major announcements coming out of the next six months.

13. Is there anything else you would like to share?

David Gardner: All of the analysts have said something similar but Forrester said it best, "The Internet is on the verge of its next major evolution." 3D is coming and as with all new technologies, early adopters will gain competitive advantage and differentiation. Anyone who has had the VenueGen experience understands what I'm saying and will never go back to using legacy web conferencing tools. Companies considering videoconferencing, spending hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, they find that their workforce is distributed and mobile and can't physically get to these rooms. They might be better served by considering VenueGen as an online virtual meeting platform.

For more information please go to https://www.venuegen.com or follow VenueGen at http://twitter.com/venuegen

About David Gardner, CEO

David Gardner has been a serial technology entrepreneur for over 25 years, creating or co-founding nine successful companies including ProviderLink, Peopleclick, Report2Web, DBBasics, BuildLinks, and OnSphere. He has raised over $60 million in venture capital across multiple industries and markets, without a single startup failure or investor loss.

Mr. Gardner specializes in taking IT products and internet-based companies to market, and he has served on several corporate boards. He launched the first hosted "software as a service" enterprise application in North Carolina, long before SAS was generally recognized as a preferred delivery method. His forward-thinking white papers and articles on technical, marketing, and managerial topics have

Interview: Matt Kelland, Founder of Moviestorm
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Matt Kelland is the one of the two founders of Moviestorm, the new application to make animation movies that gives you instant access to a big gallery of all that you need to make complex and rich films. In addition, Moviestorm also provides tools for machinima directors that make easier things like voice recording and lip synchronization.

Instead of having to wander into a virtual worlds searching for something that fits with your story, Moviestorm provides you with all that, so you can make the movie of your dreams now.

In this interview, Matt Kelland introduces us to Moviestorm, and answers the questions that every machinima director may need to know.

* * *

- What would you highlight as the main difference between Moviestorm and other ways to produce or record animation movies?

- Making a movie with Moviestorm is a lot like making a movie with The Sims, but with one big difference: it's not a game, it's a complete virtual movie studio. Everything in it is targeted at film-makers: the director has complete control over all the characters all the time, there's no annoying HUD to get rid of, the camera and editing systems are built in and fully integrated, and it includes features such as voice recording and automated lip sync. Most machinimators who use games or MMOs have to use tools like FRAPS or a mod to capture the video, and then assemble the film in some external video editor. Moviestorm lets you do everything right inside it, and the camera tools allow you to change lenses, change the focus, and so on. Those are features you normally only get with full animation tools, which are much more complex to use.

Unlike using a virtual world such as Second Life, making a Moviestorm movie is all scripted. This means one person can create everything, even a crowd scene. You don't need to get a lot of people together to perform a scene, and you don't need to be online.

To sum up, Moviestorm gives you the ease and affordability of making machinima with a game engine, but gives you many of the features of a powerful animation tool. You can do more with 3DS Max or Maya, of course, but they're much more expensive, take much longer to learn, and a lot slower to use.

- The contest at Koinup has proven that Moviestorm can easily be learned in a short time and start making animation movies faster than with other tools. How much would it take for the average drector to master most of the aspects of the application?

- You can learn what all the main tools do in just a few hours, and you can be making really good movies within a couple of weeks. Mastering them, however, will take years! Film-making is a hugely complex artform, involving drama, photography, lighting, sound, writing, and more. We're constantly finding new ways to use Moviestorm, and we're amazed by some of the things our users are doing with it.

- Can movie makers incorporate their own scenarios and characters inside Moviestorm? For example, a 3D model that they have made.

- We have a modder's workshop, which allows people to import models from Google Sketchup as well as sets and props. You can also retexture the costumes. We don't have a character importer yet: that's still in development.

- Do they need to adapt or animate their own model in a special way or file format?

- We use CAL3D, because it's open source.

- One usual issue in machinima production is copyright ownership. Is the director the owner of the final produced video? Are the resources offered in Moviestorm to make videos royalty-free for the users of Moviestorm?

- Yes! This was a key part of the design of Moviestorm. Whatever you make with it, you own. We already have some users who are selling their Moviestorm movies, and we fully support them.

- What do members get with a Premium account in Moviestorm?

- All members get the Moviestorm application and the Modder's workshop, which allows them to use and create third party mods. Depending on what type of membership you get, you may also get a number of free Moviestorm Points as well, which you can use to rent or buy content packs. We have a unique content rental system: instead of paying full price to own a content pack which you may only need for one scene, you can pay 10% of that price to rent it for a month, or 1% of the price to rent it for a day. This means you're not spending money on content you don't really need, and it gives you the opportunity to try before you buy.

It's the same with Moviestorm: you can purchase it outright, or you can pay for a month or a year's membership. This makes it much more affordable to many people, as they don't have to find a large sum of money right at the start.

http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/

The Immersive Talks: The Future Of 3D
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Hiperia3D News proudly presents a series of conversations with one of the driving forces in Web3D. He is an early pioneer in virtual reality, and someone that is admired by many of the 3D community as an example of entrepreneur, developer and researcher: Tony Parisi.

In the first and second chapter we were talking with Parisi about virtual worlds and related technologies. Here comes the third part, in which we start to analyze the future of 3D.
Stay tuned for upcoming new conversations that will be published.

Photo by extranoise

* * * * *

- How do you think augmented reality fits in the 3D and virtual worlds scenario?

- I have no clue. My suspicion is that AR is going to go down its own path for the next several years. There may be interesting intersections with VR and 3D here and there, but I do not believe they are going to be fundamental or game-changing. We might see that happen in vertical markets such as medical visualization, or urban planning. These are potentially lucrative areas but they will be on the margins compared to the AR initiatives we are seeing on the consumer side, especially in mobile.

- Do you think that AR associated to 3D and virtual worlds will have more protagonism in desktop PCs or mobile devices?

- While there is a huge buzz around AR in mobile right now, I am not sure how that fits in with virtual worlds in the short term. I think we will see more uptake of AR integrated into virtual worlds on the desktop first, where there is less technology risk and also a little less of an AR land grab going on. The land grab in mobile AR means that startups are building small, simple consumer apps that can be viable very quickly with millions of users. That means they will be averse to the technology and design risks that come with integrating AR into a 3D virtual world.

- As a developer, in which areas do you think you will be dabbling in the near future and what do you think is more interesting amongst the current technologies for 3D?

- For my "day job" right now I am building social games as an independent consultant. I am largely focused on the back end, to round out my technical expertise. So I am spending a lot of time with a LAMP stack, PHP, MySQL, memcache etc. But my passion is still around 3D so I am keeping a close eye on several emerging technologies.

I will say that is highly unlikely that I will myself build another 3D client. I have done this in startups twice now and tried to "boil the ocean" around that technology. I think I can safely say that I have moved past that part of my life. However I am still a believer that there is a big, bright future in Web3D. I am looking into creating highly scalable platforms and services that take advantage of 3D client software that is emerging from several directions. In particular I am looking at three different kinds of client technology.

Unity is an amazing achievement. By far they have done what no other Web3D plugin developer has done to date: built a usable Web3D tool set and deployed it to millions of users. They have done it by staying focused on gaming, and working very closely with their customers. Kudos to them! Unity has the big issue of being an additional download, which is a problem for most web developers. But if they succeed in becoming ubiquitous, that will solve a distribution problem that has plagued Web3D for over a decade. I am definitely keeping a close watch on them. In addition, there may be other plugin-based solutions that make a run at Unity's dominant position. Any of these could become a viable platform for building 3D social experiences for consumers.

Photo by extranoise

Away3D is the best Flash-based solution. They recently released a "lite" version that is very friendly for building web games and worlds that download fast; it also takes advantage of the 3D rendering built into Flash 10. That capability is rudimentary, and very limited in the complexity of content you can deliver. It is nothing near as sophisticated as native OpenGL rendering. However, it has the advantage that there is no additional download, which is a boon to most web developers. I have used Away3D on projects and had a very pleasant experience. It is stable, relatively high performance and easy to develop with.

Finally, there is WebGL emerging in the so-called HTML5 browsers. With WebGL, at last the native rendering capability of the underlying machine is exposed to web developers. However, because of how it was designed I am a bit concerned that it might not be industrial strength enough to deploy meaningful 3D applications such as a fully featured game or virtual world. To get a bit technical: it is a procedural solution, a JavaScript API to the OpenGL hardware-accelerated rendering on the native machine. That is wonderful as far as it goes: large meshes with textures and shaders can be rendered with high performance. However, graphics is not just about rendering; it also involves animation, interactivity, picking, physics. Those tasks typically fall on CPU-based code, which in this case has to be built in JavaScript. So in a sense the success of WebGL is tied to the performance capabilities of the host browser's JavaScript interpreter, or virtual machine (VM). That is a risky proposition. Performance of the JavaScript VM's varies. Google has built a fast VM for Chrome, and Safari's is reputed to be fantastic as well. But there are other browsers - how well will it perform in those?

Which brings up another point: Microsoft has not committed to WebGL for IE. I don't how much that means in today's world but it probably still counts for something. So, there is some risk there. But by far this is the most promising direction in my opinion so I am spending some time with the Chrome daily builds and WebGL development.

The Immersive Talks: About Virtual Worlds, Part 2
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Talking With Parisi: Immersive Talks
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Photos by extranoise

Tony Parisi was the co-creator of VRML, alongside with Mark Pesce, in 1994. They also made the first VRML browser, Labyrinth. In 1995 he created his own company, Intervista, and as a Chief Technical Officer developed WorldView, the first VRML browser for the PC. He worked closely with Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Macromedia, and others to make this protocol as much widespread as it was, and is even today, as we see it being used in medical, scientific, and architectural applications, as well as in 3D printing services, visualization and virtual art.

He was also a fundamental mind in the birth of X3D, years later, as main editor of the X3D specification. He also founded Mediamachines and developed the first X3D browser for PC, Flux, and an experimental platform for multiuser X3D worlds, that was the seed of Vivaty, the company that he co-founded. In Vivaty, he developed the first X3D and COLLADA-based multiuser platform integrated with Facebok.

Now that we live with realities like virtual worlds and 3D on the web, we must remember that this dream has become true because of the hard work of people like Tony Parisi, that conceived the Internet as virtual places were one can be immersed. The Internet not merely as a collection of documents, but as a meeting place, as an experience.

I'm sure most of the readers of Hiperia3D News, as anyone involved in 3D and virtual worlds will follow this series as we talk with Parisi about all the topics that always interested us, from the past, present and future of everything related to 3D.
Every Monday a new episode will be published, starting today.

Nothing better than starting with the virtual worlds topic. Today, the International Day of Internet, we publish the first part of this topic. Stay tuned next Monday for the second part.

* * * * *

- In which areas do you think 3D is going to be employed in the near future?

- Understand that my orientation is purely consumer and entertainment. So please take my responses in that light. I can't really comment on enterprise and vertical uses of 3D technology as I have not been focused there for over a decade. Here goes :-)...
We are seeing a resurgence in web gaming based on new plugins such as Unity, and Flash-based 3D tools like Away 3D. Just as with desktop gaming in the 90's, 3D is becoming a driver of new development, and the games are incorporating higher production value "sizzle" and novel forms of interaction.
Mobile gaming shows a fast growing use of 3D. The iPhone leads the way in bringing true 3D to phones. Many if not most of the iPhone games make extensive use of the OpenGL rendering built into the SDK.
Several casual and social games currently employ some 3D, and this will continue to increase as the games trend toward higher fidelity and more real-time interaction. Even "2D Flash" implementations at the forefront of social gaming, like Café World, use some 3D in them, e.g. for rendering avatars.
I believe we will also see several experiments in new forms of display advertising. Advertising is largely about catching the eye with production value, and as 3D development becomes easier, and simple 3D rendering capability has come to Flash, we will see marketers try these new technologies to reach audiences.
"Virtual Worlds" as such will also form a part of this new landscape. However, it is sad that market interest is currently on the wane. We may instead see features we commonly find in virtual worlds (e.g. avatar customization) subsumed into game play, advertising, corporate communications, etc. At least for now - until the world is ready for a fully-customized, user-generated world experience. I believe that will happen again… someday.

Photos by extranoise

- And what about p2p virtual worlds? Companies seem to avoid them because of differences of bandwidth problemss and they tend to be out of control and unprofitale, but why not hybrid software (p2p controlled by a central server that for example serves ads)? May they be a new kind of communication between people, were everyone can run a home p2p world?

- I see no problem with P2P worlds from a technology standpoint. As you rightly point out, there may be business issues for companies who want to control access through a central server. But I can just as easily imagine making a business around P2P-based world serving, especially when combined with centralized services for ads, or identity authentication, etc. We might see a move in this direction as we see growing concern about privacy on today's social networks like Facebook, and as projects emerge like Diaspora that attempt to decentralize social networking.

- You say games will take some features from VWs, but aren't vws who have taken some features from games and communications, and not the opposite? what features do you mean a game can incorporate from vws?

- I am referring to the personalization and social features you typically find in all virtual worlds or social networks: an avatar, a user profile, chat, messaging. These are essential in a virtual world but not always present in games. As games continue to evolve more toward social- and multi-player, and as game developers start to build a longer-lasting relationship to customers and attempt to build "networks" and cross-sell titles, we will see these lines blur more and much of what we have traditionally thought of as "virtual world" features will just become commonplace in games, game networks and game platforms such as consoles and phones.

Photos by extranoise

- What conditions should be present that are not today for a serious widespread of virtual worlds in the future?

- Two things. First, a ubiquitous client. Either Unity, or a Unity competitor; or WebGL (maybe not version 1.0 because it might not have all the features). Or Adobe finally takes graphics seriously and puts hardware-accelerated 3D into Flash. Second, game play. In my experience, the single biggest reason users leave, or fail to return to a virtual world, is that there isn't enough to do. They declare "this game sucks," and leave in frustration. The subtle concept that this environment is an open-ended 'world' to be explored at their pleasure, and in which they can display their creativity in new ways, is lost on most casual users. The thing looks like a game, but it doesn't play like a game. They get bored, and leave.

- Social games: are still on the buzz or is the big public loosing interest?

- From where I sit in the Bay Area, social games are still very much the buzz. The public seems to be showing no sign of losing interest - for the moment. These apps are still the hottest things on social networks, with millions of daily active users, extremely high engagement and generating millions in annual revenues.
But I imagine that we will reach a saturation point sometime in the next 18 months, and that the social gaming market will undergo evolution. Eventually it will have to go in novel directions: rising production value on the one hand i.e. 3D, and/or more rich personalization and support for user generated content. The current crop of social games is pretty weak in both of those respects. Or something more location-based might disrupt the current status quo. We'll see.

(To be continued…)

Photos by extranoise

Interview: CloudFab, Connecting The 3D Printing Universe
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CloudFab, a new service that connects designers, buyers of 3D printed models, and manufacturers that fabricate the models, is now out of beta. You can open an account and start to use this new service for 3D printing.

CloudFab basically works like this: Manufacturers list their machines and prices. Buyers can then upload STL files, and request quotes from all manufacturers that have a machine that can make their part. We've written software that analyzes the file and automatically generates a quote based on various factors, including shipping cost. That way, quotes are generated (almost) instantly.

In this interview we talk with Nick Pinkston the co-founder of CloudFab. He says about himself:

“I've been a lifelong tinkerer - working with rockets to race cars to electronics, and I've always had to beg for access to the right equipment for my projects. With CloudFab, we're trying to make that process a whole lot easier.”

- What is CloudFab?

- The concept we've developed is a platform to produce 3D objects from 3D files & standardized specs. Our system allows anyone to access a wide network of digital fabrication providers (all forms of 3D printing for now) so that they can setup their own shops. For industrial designers, they'll be able to get automated quotes for any 3D printing process / material within seconds. For owners of virtual worlds / content, they'll be able to monetize their creations to physical products.

- Which market are you targeting?

- The current site targets designers, engineers and serious hobbyists. Unlike Shapeways, we don't target general consumers (e.g. my mom) directly. We're encouraging others to build these types of sites on our API and sourcing platform. The diversity of ideas for 3D is quite high, and we think that no one general site could serve the market well, so we think the cloud model is best.

- How does the process work?

- To use CloudFab in the coming release, you upload your file to our site, and select the process / material specs (and advanced specs if required). After this, quotes are generated from applicable sellers via our STL analysis algorithm. You then select one of the quotes & send payment. We hold your money in escrow, and your file / specs are sent to the supplier for fabrication. After you receive & approve the parts, the money is released to the supplier.
Soon though, you can do all of this via our API. The first API integration will be with the CADSpan plug-in for Google SketchUp. However, the API calls, documentation, etc. will be public for everyone to use pretty soon.

- Will the API require some license fees or will be public and free for all developers?

- The API will have a free version with basic functionality and higher versions will be on a subscription basis. It really depends which services they want from us. The less human actions and more parts through the system - the better for us. We're not going to charge for API users like that. However, if a users wants a lot of value-added services - they'll have to pay to play.

- Are you going to release more plugins for other modelers like 3D Studio, Hexagon, Zbrush...? Or know of others being prepared?

- That is the CADSpan plug-in that we're integrating with; it should be ready within a month. We might integrate into other programs in the future, but we don't have hard plans to do so at this time. If anyone wanted to develop apps for our system that integrate into our API, we'd be more than willing to closely work with them to make it happen.

- As 3D printing services can use the API and build business on it, do you think that Cloudfab may be an impulse for the emergence of this kind of services in Internet?

- Yes, that is exactly our goal. We want to be the cloud resource for digital fabrication just like Amazon is for cloud computing. We'd like to work with anyone who has passion to develop their ideas on our platform, and we'd encourage them to contact us with their ideas and plans.

- How do you protect designs’ copyright and authors?

- All the suppliers, by using the site, accept a non-disclosure and confidentially agreement. Also, the file is kept on our servers for the analysis, and only until you commit to a supplier do we send them the file - however if you want manual quotes the files will have to be submitted. Another way of securing this is the feedback system. I'm sure any supplier would be blacklisted if they stole or released a design to the public.
Another issue is that, via the API, many of the objects will be variations on a central design or public objects. For instance, a designer might sell their creations on their own website and build/send orders through our system, but the design will already be on their site as a picture for viewing and the file never reaches the end consumer.

- What share does Cloudfab take on the cost of the final printed model? How much do you charge to the modeler/designer?

- Our model for on-site purchases is a sliding scale % of the transaction amount. Anything under $100 is free from fees. After that, it goes from 6% to 3% to a capped $90 per transaction fee for anything over $3K. The API will work a little differently ($100 will be charged fees as well due to added costs).

- What materials do your manufacturers have available now for 3d printing?

- As far as materials, here's the current ones by process:

Makerbot: black/natural ABS, HDPE
FDM: many colors of ABS/ABSplus and ABS-M30
PJET: VeroWhite / VeroGray (resins)
ProMetal: S4 (Bronze/Stainless)
SLA: 9 various resins
SLS: Nylon with: glass fiber, alumide, and more.
ZCorp: most powders + color on some machines

We'll be adding even more with everyday. You can check out the "Get a Quote" page to see what's being added.

- A last thing... could an existing company, (for example like Shapeways) use your cloud of services to externalize costs and get a wider diversity of materials for 3D printing, better costs, or this is not the case?

- Certainly, anyone can use the API - from Shapeways to a single developer. We want to see the fabbing / mass customization community flourish as much as possible. A faster growing market not only allows us to develop more cool tech, but also brings us closer to our goal of bringing the means of production to everyone's desktop.

CloudFab

Interview: Jason Kennedy, Marketing Manager For Renderosity
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Jason Kennedy is the Marketing Manager for Renderosity. In this interview, he introduces us to Renderosity, the art community for 3D modelers, render artists, and in general for everyone that enjoys creating computer-generated art.

Renderosity is one of the most successful and reputed communities for digital artists, and has an huge marketplace for the products they need. But beyond that, it has lots of features that will make you feel at home with others that enjoy doing the same things as you.

Most of the people that are already involved in virtual worlds are also attracted by 3D and render art. So in the future (as already I am doing now), Hiperia3D News will follow closely the activity of Renderosity, announcing coupons, activities, contests, and featuring modelers, gallery artists, and all the enormous activity of this community.

2007 - 2009 by ToxicAngel

- How and when did Renderosity started? Was the concept of the site the same as nowadays?

- Renderosity was started back in late 1998, from a group of 3D modelers that wanted to create a site where they could get together and share questions, tips and images created in their favorite modeling applications - most notably Poser. Since then we have evolved into a rich, robust community and marketplace for all digital artists. Photographers, 2D artists, animators and 3D modelers all have a place here at Renderosity.

- Some people approach Renderosity in search of 3D models and 2D resources for their software, but beyond a marketplace, what is Renderosity ?

- A very large community serves as the backbone of the site. Forums, galleries, tutorials, videos and more are available to those digital artists that are looking for something outside of a marketplace solution. We have updated industry news listed on the site to help keep our members and visitors in tune with what is going on in the CG Industry.

2003 - 2005 by MindVision-GDS

- What social features has Renderosity and how they integrate in the community?

- Aside from the "regular" social features that you would find on a website such as forums and chatrooms - we also offer artist homepages and a gallery voting feature called the Art Charts. We have also launched an industry specific Wiki where people can find and add information about the CG industry as a whole. In the larger Social Media realm we participate regularly on Facebook and Twitter. You can find our Social Media links at the bottom of any page on Renderosity.

- In which ways can a render or 3D artist show their art and participate in the community?

- There are a multitude of ways to participate within the community. Members can add their images to our Gallery, upload videos, submit entries for our numerous contests, write blogs, offer tutorials and much more. Membership is always FREE at Renderosity.

1999 by Mec4d [aka Catharina Przezak]

- What features of Renderosity do you think are more appealing for the members?

- With so many options available, it really depends on the member. For those looking to make money with their art, we have one of the easiest to use and comprehensive marketplace consoles in the industry. For those interested in showcasing their art, we have a gallery of over one million images and counting. Those just looking to get into modeling can find many different tutorials and forums - as well as a Free Stuff section where you can download varying models and resources for free.
We work hard to provide a complete experience for digital artists, and we believe that there is something for everyone here at Renderosity. Come see what we're about at Renderosity.com today!

Renderosity

Interview: John A. Stewart - X3DOM: X3D And HTML 5
(Read more...)

As announced in the article "The Best For 2010 In 3D And Virtual Worlds", Web3D Consortium and the World Wide Web Consortium are working to integrate HTML 5 with X3D.

Together, they are exploring different ways to join the 2D and the 3D standards, and this may mean a big change in Internet.

World Of Warcraft and X3D

For anyone that has a website, this means having an easy to use 3D language to visualize 3D inside pages that is not harder than HTML to learn.

This will suppose a renaissance for X3D and converted VRML worlds, and may be a huge adoption of X3D by the masses.

X3D was designed to become a standard for 3D visualization and immersive 3D worlds in web pages, and many people would agree that this integration into HTML 5 is a must. We have been waiting for this for many years, and now it's taking shape.

John Alexander Stewart has been a part of the computing scene since the early '80s. He has worked for various companies and organizations in Canada, New Zealand and Europe.
The second most fun he has had while working was to be the "daily duty manager" of Canada's Defence network, the DREnet, and he managed the transition from ARPAnet to the Internet; and was part of the initial group that allocated and handed out initial ".ca" domains. The most fun has been working with 3D graphics; both in terms of networking and display. Currently he is employed by the Communications Research Centre in Ottawa, Canada as a Team Leader for Networked Virtual and Augmented Reality.

This interview is a first step to know what's going on and what will be in the near future.

- Who is behind the X3DOM project (organizations, people, volunteers)?

- First, Web3D Consortium, the keepers of the X3D series of protocols, has various working groups. One of these is the HTML Integration Group, which currently contains a handful of people from governments, industry, and academia. One of these members is actively developing the X3DOM implementation. The core group, in alphabetical order, is:

Dr. Johannes Behr, Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft, Germany;
Dr. Don Brutzman, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California;
Leonard Daly, Daly Realism, Inc.;
Anita Havelle, Executive Director of the Web3D Consortium;
Peter Shickel, BitManagement Software GmbH, Germany;
John Stewart, Communications Research Centre, Canada;
Joe Williams; HyperMultiMedia.com

As you can see, we have a diverse mixture of professions. We feel that this is important, as X3D is targeted to a diverse audience.

Volunteers? While there are lots of volunteers helping to ensure that X3D continues to be the 3D markup language of choice for many application areas, we are all Web3D Consortium members, because that membership allows us to participate in the W3C HTML5 working group.

The X3DOM (pronounced "x-freedom") is a project spearheaded by Dr. Behr of Fraunhofer. It explores the bounds and limits and efficiencies of what our working group is developing. It is a Javascript implementation running over WebGL; soon Dr. Behr's team will have it running over O3D.
Whether X3DOM is the final solution or not is up for debate; while it is an impressive piece of software, it is showing some of the boundary issues associated with integrating Javascript, WebGL, and O3D; issues that may be better resolved with other technologies, such as a native interface (non-scripting) running directly into an OpenGL or Direct-X canvas.

Nuli Ibrahim Virtual Worlds

- When you say that X3DOM is for getting "x3d integrated directly into html5", does this mean that X3D may become a part of HTML and then supported by default by any browser supporting HTML 5?

- We are working with the HTML5 working group; and there are broad issues that they have to solve regarding extensibility. Which ever way they choose, we are ready to work with the W3C and HTML browser vendors to best integrate X3D and HTML.
The X3DOM project shows one implementation; the FreeWRL team (which I lead) are actively working on WebKit integration; and there are other projects afoot.
When browsers support HTML5 is up to the vendors.

- I have seen and tested implementations of X3DOM in Chrome and Firefox 3.7a. As Firefox is now in version 3.5, with 3.6 in release candidate, the project seems to be coming really soon. When do you expect it to be supported by Firefox in a public release?

-The X3DOM implementation is really interesting; all it requires is Javascript, and WebGL, and soon O3D, so it can run in any browser that correctly supports Javascript and WebGL/O3D.

- Will this integration of X3D into HTML5 be compatible with proprietary plugins or open source plugins for X3D?

- First, 3D is happening; how X3D actually fits is dependent on a few HTML/W3C decisions, so definitively answering your question is hard at this time, so let me give you a few thoughts.
X3D is a vendor and technology neutral 3D rendering and runtime environment. We do not favour one vendor, or technology over another; the X3D specifications are ISO standards and are freely available for download and comments on the Web3D Consortium's web site. There is no hidden "money trail"; we endeavour to keep the final specifications in the open.
Open Source is very important for the Web3D Consortium's X3D efforts. As mentioned above, I manage the FreeWRL project; we are actively working on multiple fronts; two of which are increasing our platform base, and improving HTML browser integration. The X3DOM Javascript-based browser operates under the same goals, but using differing technologies than the norm.

Bernd Heilenz (Erny), Awesome VRML Worldbuilder

Bernd Heilenz 3D world

- How will the browser decide to use one or another?

- This is an intuitive question! Dr Behr's X3DOM team are working through this; currently, if a browser is installed via a plugin, it is expected that it will have better performance, and a more complete X3D implementation. So, X3DOM is a lower performance fallback; should a user wish better performance (or, lower power consumption) she can install a native plugin.
I see that X3DOM is not the only project to integrate X3D into HTML 5, so I think that now we can center in your work with FreeWRL, so to start please answer:

- How will your project, FreeWRL, contribute to the support of X3D in HTML5?

- As one of the goals of our working group, we wish to "kick start" X3D support. We have Dr. Behr's group at Fraunhofer working on the X3DOM implementation; the FreeWRL development team are working on providing a library for X3D support for Webkit and Firefox open-source browsers. This is a medium-term project; we are completing our cross-platform support which will be necessary for the HTML5 integration.
It will be interesting to see how the differing types of implementations work; we expect that a library written in native code will render much faster, but that remains to be seen.
I think that once users can use Javascript, X3D, WebGL, O3D or whatever, then we as a 3D graphics community will be able to cut through the marketing hype and interesting stuff will start to happen.
The book is currently being written with regards to HTML5, X3D and FreeWRL. With FreeWRL, we are looking at different ways of including it with HTML browsers. We would like to be able to have it linked in directly to HTML5 -compatible browsers, if not, we would like it to be a WebKit plugin, and have it bind as tightly as possible to the HTML5 browser.

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