***3D Clip Art Eases the Modeling Burden
by David Lohse
In the beginning, 3D modeling had to be done the hard way, by actually
typing in commands and scene descriptions in plain text to be rendered
at a later time. Then along came higher-level modeling tools that
allowed 3D modeling to be done visually, letting the content developer
interactively place and modify objects in a scene with a (relatively)
simple interface.
Although great strides in 3D modeling tools have been made over the last
few years, 3D modelers (the people, not the software) have begun to
realize that even with the current crop of user-friendly and powerful
modeling tools, modeling is still a time-consuming and often painstaking
process. In response, the rising popularity of 3D "clip art" companies
was seen at this year's SIGGRAPH with around 10 such companies present,
all with booths constantly swamped by onlookers.
Some notable 3D models (clip art) companies:
Viewpoint Datalabs: Announced the Summer '96 Edition Catalog, with more
than 5,000 3D models, including 1,500 new models. With prices ranging
from $25 to $700 individually, the models can also be purchased in
groups as either collections or libraries, with prices ranging from $695
to $14,995. http://www.viewpoint.com
Acuris: Displayed their 8 major collections of models, including
ClipModel Library, David's House, The Modern House, Air Land & Sea,
Textures, 3D-30, as well as two new collections: 18 Perfect People and
Perfect People SE, which feature 18 medium-resolution human models for
$399 and 9 medium-resolution human models for $199, respectively.
www.acuris.com
REM Infografica: A young Spanish company, REM displayed their 3D Models
Bank, a collection of over 1,200 high-quality 3D objects, consisting
mostly of military, vehicle, ship and aircraft models. The models are
currently available on CD-ROM, and it was announced that they will be
available on their Web site in the near future.
www.rem-infografica.es
3Name3D: Displayed their popular Cyberprops CD, which contains six
locked libraries of more than 100 low- to medium-resolution mesh objects
each. Each library is available in 3DS, DXF and OBJ file formats, and is
available for $395. They also announced that they would soon be adding
six new libraries to the collection. http://www.ywd.com
Other companies showcasing 3D models collections included 3rd Dimension
Technologies, Artbeats Software, Digital Wisdom, Syndesis Corp., and
Visible Productions.
Wave Issue 9606 8/16/96 Article 5-01