The WAVE Report on Digital Media
3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space
Published by 4th WAVE, Inc.
Issue #604 8/2/96
CONTENTS
Caligari is announcing a special upgrade price to trueSpace2 for trueSpace 1.x and trueSpaceSE users. The upgrade will be $149 and is good for 30 days.
Contact http://www.caligari.com
Eos Announces PhotoModeler LX for Web Use
Eos Systems has announced PhotoModeler LX 3.0 a Web-oriented light version of its PhotoModeler Pro, the "photos in - 3d models out" product.
Eos proposes that PhotoModeler LX could be used for: - VRML model of your house for a personal Web page - VRML photo-textured human or animal face models for personal Web avatars - VRML house models for real-estate professionals - 3D DXF models of products, objects and scenes for real-time VR and animations.
PhotoModeler LX 3.0 is shipping now and sells for $145.
Contact: http://www.photomodeler.com, 604-732-6658
VRML Group Plans Boffo BOF for SIGGRAPH
Shooting to bring 500 attendees to its Birds of a Feather session, the VRML Special Interest Group will meet from 6 to 8 on Wed 8/7 at SIGGRAPH, in rooms 10-12-14 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. A second SIG meeting is scheduled on Wednesday, 8/8 for a technical discussion of VRML.
Intergraph Wins SIGGRAPH Best Friend Award
Intergraph will be hosting two concurrent parties on Wed 8/7 at SIGGRAPH. One with Apple, Sun and NewTek, another with Microsoft and Kingston. Just think, maybe you can work a 3D workstation theme into your next Christmas party and get Intergraph to spring for the tab.
604.2 S3 Ships 1 Million 3D Chips
S3's VirGE claims to now be the volume leader in PC 3D chips, with over 1 million chips shipped to OEMs such as Packard Bell, Del, Compaq, Diamond, and others.
According to Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie associates, "S3 has shipped more 3D accelerators to the PC market than all of its competitors combined"
S3 claims that "more than 70 software developers are compelling VirGE- based gaming titles to be available for the Christmas '96 buying season." Also, in May the company launched a $6 million marketing program to identify and promote S3-accelerated titles. 35 ISVs and IHVs have joined.
Let's see: $6 million title marketing budget for 35 partners and 70 titles. That is almost $200,000 per partner, $100,000 per title.
604.3 SGI Announces CosmoGL/Cosmo3D
Think OpenGL will never work for games? That's not the word from SGI, maker of OpenGL.
SGI has announced Cosmo GL, "a highly optimized, fully compliant version of OpenGL" for Win 95/NT.
According to SGI, "Cosmo GL brings the full range of OpenGL capabilities and fast graphics performance for applications ranging from games to complex CAD modeling systems on PCs without dedicated 3D graphics hardware."
SGI also announced , Cosmo 3D, a "higher-level, cross-platform, object- oriented graphics toolkit that enables the creation of multi-player games, animation, collaborative design and engineering applications for the Internet as well as the desktop."
Cosmo GL serves as the core renderer for Cosmo 3D.
Contact http://www.sgi.com
604.4 ParaGraph Announces Suite of VRML Tools
ParaGraph has announced a suite of VRML 2.0 authoring tools:
Internet3D Space Builder (ISB), "the first PC-oriented VRML 2.0 authoring tool for creating highly sophisticated 3D Internet worlds. ISB combines powerful 3D creation, advanced texturing and publishing functions with an intuitive interface that gives Web site developers the ability to quickly publish VRML 2.0 worlds of unlimited complexity. ISB's capabilities include advanced shape modeling (including Boolean operations), easy object manipulation and importation of VRML 2.0, .DXF and .3DS files in addition to ParaGraph's .MUS and D96 files."
A beta version will be available for Web download August 5th.
To ship Q4:
Internet3D Avatar Builder (IAB) will allow customers to assemble 3D avatars dragging and dropping different elements. IAB assigns elementary movements to diverse parts of an avatar's skeleton and exports these produced behaviors as VRML 2.0 files, "enabling avatars to demonstrate complex lifelike behaviors in Cyberspace."
Internet3D Behavior Builder (IBB) will allow users to easily add behaviors in a drag and drop manner to VRML 2.0 objects. The IBB product will include a number of generic behaviors as well as the means to add customized behaviors to the behavior library.
Internet3D Multi-User Server(TM) (IMUS) will support multi-user interaction within 3D environments, including motion, shared state and digital ink transmission. The server architecture "allows for easy scaling from 2 to 1000 simultaneous users."
Contact: http://www.paragraph.com, (800)810-0055
604.5 3D/EYE Launches Low Cost Clip Art
3D/EYE, maker of Trispectives, has jumped into the low-cost 3D clip art race, announcing TriGallery(TM) and TriGallery Technical CD-ROM. 1,000 models per CD, each CD $79.95.
3D/EYE claims "it has become both the value and quality leader in 3D models and content worldwide, eclipsing the offerings of companies such as Viewpoint and 3Name3D." 3D/EYE is also offering over 4,000 3Dmodels for sale at its TriWorld(TM) web site, which will allow users to browse the collection and place orders online. Formats: 3D/EYE IntelliShapes(TM), VRML, OBJ (for Alias Wavefront) and 3D Studio.
The models were built in-house by 3D/EYE with its IntelliShape technology.
Says Dr. Samir Hanna, pres/ceo of 3D/EYE: "IntelliShape's technology is the core of our competitive advantage, and is another benefit of our intelligent approach to 3D. . . IntelliShapes makes it extremely easy to create and modify 3D models, which can then be exported to any of the 30+ file formats supported by our 3D design software, TriSpectives."
http://www.eye.com/trigalry/galintro.htm
604.6 3D Home Appliances over the Net
So what is 3D on the Net good for? Try 3D home interior design with the latest brand-name appliances downloadable over the net for you to virtually try out at home.
That is the premise Visual Home just announced, by Books that Work. BTW promises "the first Internet-enhanced 3D home and interior design CD-ROM for consumers."
You will be able to go to the Visual Home web site and download new appliances using Netscape Navigator 2.01, which is bundled with the product. "We're partnering with leading home product manufacturers such as General Electric Appliances, Delta Faucet, and Merillat Cabinets to develop 3D model collections of their products," said Dan Levin, co- founder/president of BTW. "As these manufacturers release new products, you'll be able to update Visual Home with their latest models."
The Visual Home site will also link to the "addresses the hundreds of home product manufacturers and service providers who do maintain corporate Web sites. Concise descriptions and hot links are provided to these sites from virtually every 3D model within Visual Home."
Visual Home for Windows is due out in August at around $60. The CD will contain more than 2,000 3D models of furnishings and appliances and 1,000 material textures.
Also picking up on the Internet home design concept, Broderbund has also just announced that 3D Home Architect Edition 2 "brings the power of the Internet to designers with a dedicated 3D Home Architect home page that can be accessed through any web browser."
Contact: http://visualhome.com
604.7 Virtus Claims Dominance of VRML Retail Market
Virtus claims a "90% share of the retail VRML market" based on retail sales tracking report from PC Data. According to Virtus, 3-D Website Builder "is outselling the nearest competitor three-to-one."
Virtus therefore claims to be "the world's bestselling desktop three- dimensional authoring tools for the Internet."
"When we introduced 3-D Website Builder in April, we were confident professional and hobbyist web site developers were ready for an easy-to- use, drag-and-drop 3-D web authoring tool," said Virtus president David Smith. "The acceptance of Virtus' 3-D tools to date bears out our belief that 3-D web tools are the next big wave of Internet products."
Virtus' VRML-related products include 3-D Website Builder, Virtus WalkThrough Pro and Virtus VRML Toolkit.
Contact http://www.virtus.com, 1-800-847-8871, ext. 3050
604.8 Americans for Better Digital TV
Getting TV on your computer has become a political cause.
Americans for Better Digital TV, a newly formed coalition of computer and entertainment industry organizations seeks to defeat Grand Alliance's HDTV proposal pending FCC approval and replace it with a progressive scan system. WAVE readers (WAVE#603) will recognize this group as an outgrowth of previous lobbying efforts by these groups to defeat HDTV.
Bill Gates states Microsoft's reasons for joining the group: "The standard being considered by the FCC would stand in the way of future innovation and force consumers to use inferior technology over time. If this standard is approved, it will be a roadblock to the convergence of the television and the PC. This standard would slow down the progress toward the digital future, where consumers will be able to watch television on their PCs or access the Internet from their TVs."
The coalition claims the proposed HDTV standards "could cost American consumers more than $91 billion, limit consumer choice, undermine U.S. industry and lock in obsolete technology."
Coalition members include the Directors Guild of America, the Computer Industry Coalition on Advanced Television Service, the Media Access Project, the International Photographers Guild, Local 600, AFL-CIO, the American Society of Cinematographers, Digital Theater Systems, LP, the Todd-AO Corporation, Panavision International, LP, the American Homeowners Foundation, the Computing Technology Industry Association, the Business Software Alliance Compaq, Apple, Intel, and Microsoft.
Among the Hollywood leaders supporting Americans for Better Digital TV are Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Arthur Hiller, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Zemekis.
Contact: http://www.dga.org/dga
604.9 Consumers' Perception of Multimedia
by Jonathan Sunberg
Recently, 4th Wave Inc. conducted a survey of consumers to understand the consumer market's perception of the multimedia industry. Although the majority of consumers surveyed stated that they were impressed with multimedia and the ability to add value, most couldn't distinguish between the content which had multimedia and that which did not. Of the frustrations cited about multimedia, the most common were: time constraints for downloading, the large disk space requirements, the poor video quality, and the inability to work with lower-end computers. 91% of the consumers utilize their computers daily. Of the remaining 9% polled 4% use their computer 1 to 2 times per week. Those that do not use the computer daily are either retired or use the computer for business functions only.
78% of the consumers have an online connection, and, of these consumers, 97% use the Internet. Therefore the users are somewhat knowledgeable about their systems, yet they still couldn't distinguish multimedia and had little or no experience with multimedia on the Internet. (Jonathan Sunberg: jsunberg@fourthwave.com)
Copyright 1996 4th Wave, Inc.
May be redistributed in full for individual readership and posted to newsgroups, Web, and FTP sites. May not be reprinted or redistributed for profit. Short quotes are permitted but must be attributed to the Wave Report on Digital Media.