Waiting for Sony PS3 Home - 3D virtual online community? You will have to wait a bit longer.

If you have been waiting for the release of PS3 Home 3D virtual online community, you will have to wait until later in the year. Sony confirmed that they postponed the launch of the "Home" service, which is aimed at giving users a place to interact with other PS3 users, to early this year from last Winter.

We understand that we are asking PS3 and prospective PS3 users to wait a bit longer," Sony Computer Entertainment Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai said in a statement.

"But we have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today."

Source: halflifesource.com

3Dwalkthroughs.com is anxiously awaiting the release of Sony's 3D virtual online commmunity. We are optimistic that it is going to set a new standard for what can be accomplished in a 3D virtual community. If it is as robust as we expect, it could also have a huge impact on how a 3D virtual platform and a social networking platform can be integrated to create a truly valuable experience...but I guess we will have to wait a while to find out.

Sixense - Advanced 3D Input Device

3Dwalkthroughs.com is excited to test out a device that has gotten rave reviews from the Nvision 08 industry conference. The device by a company called Sixense is being described as a more advanced Wiimote, although the functionality of Sixense is based on precise tracking relative to a base station and has the ability to react to movement in six degrees of freedom.

Apparently at the show, Sixense had demos of a variety of simple but impressive used of their device. The demos included a paintball game, a lightsabre simulator along with simple squash, golf, American football and baseball minigames.

Source: bit-tech.net

Here is a Youtube video which demonstrates the device.

As we have said in previous posts, the more accurate and responsive these tracking devices become, the more engaging will be the video games they are associated with. This Sixense device offers great potential to further the benefits of active gaming products and we are excited to test it out in person.

iHealthSpot - 3D Animations for Orthopedics and Physical Therapy Websites

3Dwalkthroughs.com picked up a press release of a Florida based company, iHealthSpot, that just announced the launch of its library of interactive patient education videos complete with 3D animations for orthopedics and physical therapy. This new interactive content will enhance the robust written and illustrated library that is available to all of the company's medical practice website clients.

The current interactive video library includes 35 conditions and treatments for orthopedics and physical therapy. The videos are 3-4 minutes in length and include detailed visual information on causes, symptoms, surgical and non-surgical treatments and rehabilitation for each condition in easy to understand language. The company anticipates 50-60 total videos in the orthopedics and physical therapy specialty with dental and cosmetic surgery videos coming next and eventually will have a library covering all medical specialties. The content has been developed entirely in-house using the most detailed 3D model of the human anatomy available today.

iHealthSpot creates websites specifically geared to medical practices and the inclusion of impressive 3D animations on their certainly brings an additional value to their clients. If a patient can go onto their doctors website and get a better understanding of their injury or illness it could help to relieve alot of the anxiety that is associated with these types of events.
Source: Prweb.com press release

Airtouch - 3D Holograms You Can Touch

3Dwalkthroughs.com came across a new development by a company that it posted about several months ago. Provision Interactive Technologies, Inc. announced today that its next-generation, patented 3D Holographic display with its proprietary "Air Touch" technology interface will premiere at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The system allows 14 different Intel-based products to float in the air, in 3D, approximately 36 inches in front of the 40-inch screen. Each product's "air time" is about 30 seconds, allowing an audience to attentively watch the cool 3D hologram as it spins and turns. If the consumer is interested in a particular product, all he or she has to do is literally 'touch' the hologram. The software recognizes the interaction and prints out a marketing brochure or spec sheet on that particular product.

Source: CNNMoney.com

For more information about Provision's products go here>>

This certainly sounds like a 3D technology that marketers will eat up assuming the price is somewhat reasonable. We are excited to see a live demo of this new technology.

Photosynth - 3D Walkthroughs Created from Photos

Microsoft has just has announced that Photosynth, its ground breaking 3D photo display technology, has moved from their demo stage and is now available for photographers to process and upload their own Photosynths. The free service works only on Windows XP and Vista, both for preparing and viewing Photosynths.

Photosynth automatically stitches together digital photographs to create abstract but high-resolution 3D re-creations (dubbed a synth) of photos submitted by users. Previously, the website had some ready made demos but Microsoft just announced they have upgraded the photosynth website to allow everyone to upload up to 20GB of photos.

3Dwalkthroughs.com believes as this technology continues to improve it will have some Legitimate commercial applications. Based on the latest release of Photosynth's new website along with some of the articles I have read on their plans for this technology, it is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

As the user base grows and more and more creative demos are displayed we believe photosynth will catch on like wildfire.

Image Source: Webware.com

3D in the Courtroom Part 2 (Medical Animation)

In yesterday's post, 3Dwalkthroughs.com discussed how 3D animation is helping lawyers to visually demonstrate their cases. Whether this means re-creating someone falling off a balcony or getting hit by a car, attorneys are using 3D animation to make or defend their cases in the courtoom.

Another huge application for 3D animation is the medical industry. 3D animations can help to attorneys demonstrate whether or not there was any malpractice by a physician. Obviously every last detail of a medical 3D animation needs to correct as the opposing attorney will seek to discredit the 3D animation at every turn.

Another less confrontational use of medical animation is by pharmaceutical companies. Drug companies often use 3D animations to help demonstrate how a specific drug works on the body. This can be used to train reps of the company as well as for sales of marketing of the drug to the public.

The reason I posted about this type of animation for two days in a row is that it is quite fascinating and different than the architectural 3D animation we typically write about.

3D Animation in The Court Room

3Dwalkthroughs.com came across an interesting article in Fortune Small Business Magazine about a few animation studios that are creating 3D animations to help clients win or defend lawsuits.

With the prices of 3D animation decreasing over the last few years, 3D animation is being used by more and more attorneys to help with their cases. According to the article, 25% of firms with 50-99 attorneys used 3D animation in 2007.

Due to the sensitive nature of the materials, the 3D animation used by attorney's are scrutinized very carefully. So much in fact,there have been instances where 3D animations have actually cost attorney's their case.

There seems to be a fine line between successfully using subtle visual clues to influence a jury and being too manipulative. Interestingly enough many 3D animations are actually so well produced that they result in a settlement before ever reaching the courtroom.

I do not envision that 3Dwalkthroughs.com will shift it's gears to focus on this market any time soon but it does seem very interesting.

3D Virtual World Technology and Social Networks

3Dwalkthroughs.com and Fitspott are facing a unique challenge. We are trying to determine the best way to integrate the 3D virtual world technology we have at our disposal into the phase 2 launch of Fitspott's social networking platform.

We are confident that integrating 3D virtual world technology will wow our members from a visual standpoint, but this is not enough. It is of utmost importance that if we are to integrate 3D virtual world technology into the Fitspott platform, it most improve the overall experience and provide a real value to our members.

The ideas that are on the table are quite interesting and I believe that we are closing in on the answer. We certainly welcome any suggestions and ideas regarding what would be the most beneficial way to integrate 3D virtual technology into Fitspott.

We understand that it will be much easier to offer suggestions once the platform launches in Mid-September and people have a much better understanding of the nuances of the site.

Fitspott Friday Update (August 15, 2008)

3Dwalkthroughs.com and the rest of the Fitspott team are pleased to introduce our first official press release.

Fitspott To Launch A Social Networking Platform Focused Exclusively On The Health and Fitness Industry

A social networking platform targeting the health and fitness industry will open the doors to the beta version of its platform in Mid-September. “The most popular social networks are reaching a critical mass which will result in the emergence of much more targeted social networks. Our target is the health and fitness industry,” says Erin Hurry, Co-Founder of Fitspott.

The Fitspott team is made up of a group of highly motivated and diverse entrepreneurs, athletes and creative minds. We have set forth a goal of creating a social network which will give trainers, members, athletes, coaches, corporate fitness executives, health clubs and basically anyone with any level of interest in health and fitness, a robust platform to meet, communicate, get support, conduct business, exchange ideas and more.

One of the primary goals of Fitspott, aside from creating a unique and valuable platform with robust communication tools, is to organize the very large and convoluted health and fitness industry into easy to navigate sub-communities of members with similar interests, goal, skills, wants and needs.

Fitspott has scoured the internet, becoming educated on the pros and cons of existing social networks, and has committed to using this knowledge to create the most powerful, yet simple platform for all of our members.

“Unlike many self serving health and fitness communities that preach one philosophy, are too clinical, or are just one big advertisement, the direction of our growth will be determined by our members” say’s, David Gise, Co-Founder of Fitspott.

Whether your goals include improving your body, business, network, game, network, income potential, information resources, eating habits or simply your quality of life…Help Is on the Way!

Fitspott is a social networking platform with an ever growing number of tools designed to help you meet and exceed these goals. Benefit from the Power of a Goal Driven Community.

Using 3D Floor Plans, 3D Renderings and 3D Walkthroughs to Sell Your Ideas

3Dwalkthroughs.com has just started with a few new projects that are not being used for sales and marketing purposes...at least in the traditional sense of the word. The projects involve creating 3D Walkthroughs, 3D Floor Plans and 3D Renderings for home theater installers, kitchen and bath centers and interior designers.

The accuracy that can be achieved with our 3D assets is a great way for our clients to show their clients what something will look like before the work begins. In many cases our clients utilize our services before they even offically get a job. Once they have a qualified client in their grasp, blowing them away with detailed 3D perspectives is really helping them close deals.

The turnaround time for many of our products is about the same as it takes our clients to generate a detailed proposal. Many of our clients have commented that being able to include 3D assets in their bid helped them to win jobs they thought were longshots.

Considering the challenging climate of the current real estate industry, any tool that could help promote a competitive edge should be taken very seriously.

Scientists Develop Way of Capturing Movement of a Body in 3D

3Dwalkthroughs.com came across an article in Science Daily about a new technique that allows for the capture of a human body in 3D. The technique was developed by researchers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and the University of Lovaina (UCL), in Belgium.

The process uses 2 video cameras to capture human movement, and makes it possible to recognize body movements and display them in three dimensions on a computer, according to the journal Multimedia Tools & Applications.

The technology is interesting as it does not require any special suits or receivers, using a simple video camera to film the body's movement. One of the obvious markets for this is the interactive gaming market. If exergamers can lose the Wii controllers and other devices that might restrict their movement, the level of interaction within these games will be much greater than they are today.

The low level of complexity in this system allows it to be applied in real time on any personal computer, with a margin of error of between 4% and 9% in real situations, depending on the context and the quality of the segmentation carried out.

Source Science Times

The more sensitive the camera with regards to translating to the movement of a human body to a 3D computer object, the more immersive will be the experience for the end user.

Alter Ego - Unbelievable 3D Facial Animation

3Dwalkthroughs.com found this wild 3D technology that was created by the facial animation division of Pendulum, a company based in San Diego.

The division called alterego is focused on developing solutions and providing services that facilitate the highest caliber of facial performance animation for the film, broadcast, and interactive entertainment markets. AlterEgo is also the name of the studio's proprietary facial performance software... and part of a leading-edge turn-key solution for character development, motion-capture, and full performance character animation.

Source: Pendulum Website

The demonstration which can be found here is quite impressive and also pretty humorous. Perhaps in a few years this type of advanced 3D facial animation will be integrated into 3D virtual world avatar functionality. It would certainly make things a lot more interesting...although perhaps a bit creepy.

Beijing China - 3D Olympic Village integrated into Google Earth

As most of you know, last night was the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Unless you have thousands of dollars to spend and at least 7 days free, you will be watching the games from the couch like me.

Well, 3Dwalkthroughs.com came across a story that might bring your couch, or at least your computer chair closer to the action. The story details how the entire olympic village was modeled in 3D and integrated into Google Earth.

Take the tour as you fly in from space towards China and Beijing. Soar around the swimming pools and velodromes before heading towards the 'Birds Nest' itself, the Olympic Stadium.

Sourc: Telegraph.co.uk

In addition to the 3D tour, Google Maps is providing up-to-date tables for medal counts and results. This feature will allow those of us at home to keep track of the 207 countries competing in the games.

Here is a link to view the 3D walkthrough tour. The tour is interesting as it also highlights the improved resolution capabilities that were part of Google Earth's recent upgrade.

Fitspott Friday Update 8-8-08

3Dwalkthroughs.com and the rest of the Fitspott team continue on our frantic pace to get everything accomplished before our launch. It seems like every time we scratch something off the "to do" list, 5 more things pop up.

This week we released our second newsletter and have also sent out a number of press releases detailing our launch. It is very encouraging to see the diverse group of individuals signing up for the beta launch. For Fitspott to be a success it really needs ALL of our 3 targeted segments to embrace what that the platform has to offer.

We truly believe that once our engine starts revving, word of mouth will spread and the platform will take a life of its own. Unlike many of the other social networks, we are really focused on our members achieving specific goals that they have set for themselves. Whether these include fitness goals, business goals, networking goals, life goals, etc, the necessary tools will be available at Fitspott.

To sign up for the beta or to download our media kit go to fitspott.com.

3D Mobile Phone Displays By 2010?

3Dwalkthroughs.com picked up a story on the Techon website about the Seiko Epson Corporation's newly developed 3D display that is targeted at mobile phones. The technology allows high-resolution 3D images to be visible to the naked eye with no special glasses.

According to the article the commercial version of the display will be available in 2010. To display 3D images, a special lens called "lenticular lens" is placed on pixels so that different images can be seen from different angles. A lenticular lens is composed of an array of many hog-backed convex lenses, each of which is as large as a few pixels.

Several cameras are used to shoot images from slightly different angles. Then, the images are resolved into pixels and arrayed on the pixels of the display based on a certain calculation (rendering).

Source: Technon Website

By the time 2010 rolls around I am sure that displays for mobile phones in general will be significantly improved. With the movie industry making such a push into the 3D arena, how cool would it be if you watch them directly from a mobile device.





In general, the resolution of the 2D images shown by 3D displays deteriorates when the amount of information for 3D images is increased by, for example, using many cameras. It is because more pixels are used for 3D-related information. To solve this problem, Seiko Epson adopted the following measures.

As for (1), the original pixel count was drastically increased. And concerning (2), the company utilized the pixels in the direction in which human eyes are not very sensitive to resolution (vertical direction).

In regard to (3), Seiko Epson reduced by half the cycle in which images change depending on angles (viewing image width).

"So far, in our industry, it has been indisputable that 62-65mm, the distance between right and left eyes, is the best," Hamagishi said. "This time, we cut it by half to 31-32.5mm (to enhance 3D images)."

Inventory for One Bedroom Apartments in NYC on the rise

3Dwalkthroughs.com came across a somewhat troubling article in the NY Times regarding the rising inventory of one bedroom apartments in NYC. According to the article, the root of this phenomenon is that many buyers interested in one bedroom apartments are first time buyers and are having a hard time getting a mortgage.

The availability of one bedroom apartments is a good thing for some however, as some developers are more willing to negotiate better deals. In addition, some home buyers are able to afford apartments that were previously out of their range.

It will be interesting to see how property developers adjust their marketing strategies to help them reduce these inventories. We are confident that 3D renderings and 3D floor plans will still be in high demand although the specific market they are pitched to might change slightly...only time will tell.

3D Property Marketing Tools - The Delicate Balance Between Price and Necessity

Exactly how long the real estate industry in the US continues to slide is anyones guess. It is quite scary when we hear from some of our friends and clients about projects that have been put on hold altogether because of the current climate in the industry.

For 3Dwalkthroughs.com, the downturn in real estate is forcing us to get much more creative in terms of our pricing. As expected, developers are more sensitive than ever as far as the cost of 3D marketing tools. In some instances we are finding that creative directors are being forced to sacrifice quality to find the lowest price.

Clearly if a property is not being represented well by its 3D marketing tools, it can actually have the opposite effect of its intended goal. Understandably however, marketing budgets cannot ignore the economy.

So where does the balance lie? It is our belief that for 3D rendering and 3D animation companies to survive, they are going to need to come up with easy to understand a la carte menus, as well as creative solutions that combine custom modeled images and existing photography. In addition they are going to need to stop trying to hit a homerun on every project, but rather listen to the creative directors and come up with affordable/creative solutions that still satisfy the goals of the project.

3D Technology Used to Create Custom Footbed in Less than 5 Minutes

3Dwalkthroughs.com came across an interesting company that is using 3D technology to create in-store custom footbeds in less than 5 minutes.

Custom Footbeds, recently announced the global launch of its state-of-the-art 3D TruCapture(R) Kiosk Scanning System in conjunction with the unveiling of its eFit(TM) semi-custom footbed.

Source: istockanalyst

The process involves taking a scan of a foot in their kiosk scanning system. The suggested retail price for this product is only $69.00.

Benefits
Here are some of the benefits of e-soles custom footbeds as taken directly from their website.

eSoles® custom footbeds are a quality of life investment for work, play and everyday life. eSoles® footbeds are designed with two things in mind; You and your Life. Experience a difference in the quality of your work, play and sports by aligning your feet and body with eSoles custom footbeds.

Life in alignment is better; leave the "old" you and the discomfort behind. Your feet are the foundation that align or misalign the whole body. eSoles® footbeds turn back the clock, re-align your feet, and help you feel better and perform better.

- Work all day on your feet without discomfort.
- Play a full round of golf feeling great start to finish.
- Hike, run, cycle, ski or walk with less foot, knee or back pain.
- Perform better in any competitive or recreational sport.
- Shop at the mall all day and feel great afterwards.
- Reduce or eliminate existing pain in the feet, knees and back.

Based on their website, it looks like the kiosk is currently available in 12 states including New York. E-sole's 3D technology seems like it is right up the alley of our future Fitspott members.

Fitspott Friday Update (August 1st, 2008)

OK, we have ripped another page off the calendar and are now in the homestretch of development before the launch of Fitspott in Mid-September. 3Dwalkthroughs.com and the rest of the Fitspott team are feeling a mixed bag of excitement and nerves as we push to get everything on our "to do" lists accomplished.

We will be releasing the August newsletter this week which will include a downloadable marketing information packet. To receive the newsletter and get a chance to win a Flip Video Camera, you will need to be signed up for the beta launch which can be done at Fitspott.com.

This week we will begin producing 4 or 5 video shorts which we will be releasing the week before our launch. It will be interesting to see how these turn out but we are excited and optimistic about the prospects.

Oh, one more thing, we have changed our tagline once again. The new tagline is A Social Networking Platform for Health and Fitness. The tagline will not be changed again...we hope.