The Open Source Solution

I've been getting a lot of questions about what the 'best' or 'easiest to learn' 3d modeling program is. After further discussion, it usually turns out that the person really wants to know what the 'cheapest' or 'easiest to obtain' program is. My answers to these people usually come in the form of some sort of open source solution. I've been really surprised at how few people actually know about these solutions or even the open source concept in general.

From the Open Source Initiative homepage: Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

Open source allows users to contribute to the development process by writing, reviewing, and optimizing source code. Non-developer users can also contribute by providing bug reports, reviews, or financial support. Everyone gets the advantage of a freely available product that often has less bugs, is easier to use, and has more of a support community than its commercial rivals.

Following are some of my favorite open source solutions. Give them a try and remember to contribute where you can!

3d Modeling/Animation

Blender - Blender Tutorials

K-3D - K-3D Tutorials

Raster Image Creation/Editing

GIMP - GIMP Windows Installer

Vector Image Creation/Editing

Inkscape

Office Tasks (word processing, accounting, etc.)

OpenOffice

Emerging Tech: VideoTrace

Creating great looking real-time ready models of complex objects is getting easier and easier.

Anton van den Hengel of the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies is leading the development of an amazing new process that allows you to easily create 3d models from video. The process - called 'VideoTrace' - debuted last year at SIGGRAPH and involves interactively tracing the desired object over several frames of video.

Check out a very cool demo video here or here.

Image processing algorithms have existed for years that attempt to automatically detect and generate 3d meshes from a set of images. Examples of successful implementations are found in medicine and geology, where data sets involve known components with little variation. The limiting factor in taking this idea to general use has primarily been the ambiguities (jitter, fade, artifacts, etc.) of an undefined visual source.

VideoTrace compensates for these shortcomings by providing an interface for the user to interactively trace the desired object in the video. These tracings give hints to the algorithms about what should be processed and (theoretically) remove the major ambiguities. A paper describing the technology can be found here.

A note on the ACVT VideoTrace page says that they are currently looking for support for commercial development. I sure hope they get it. Even though models of some small objects would still be easier to generate with a low-end 3d scanner, the applications for this technology on a large scale are huge. Think of a bridge between Google Streetwise and Google Earth - users could quickly trace the video of all the houses on their block and have it uploaded for use in Google Earth.... The possibilities are many!

ReViving Virtual Worlds pt. 2

After yesterday's foray into the Lively beta, I finally decided to swing back to the Vivaty private beta invite that had been sitting neglected in my inbox. To my surprise, they are now supporting IE6 as well as IE7. So, though I'd really like to see Firefox capabilities, at least I didn't have to upgrade...

Vivaty currently functions as a Facebook or AIM imbedded application. I decided to go the Facebook route. This integration ended up being great - at least on the setup side of things. The usual Facebook login also served as the Vivaty login, transferring all of my Facebook data to the application as well. This was great, as it provided for a quick entry into the app and my default scene already had some personal touches (profile pics, info, etc.).

The application loaded fairly quickly (< 1 minute) and had a graphical quality similar to SecondLife. The navigation was also reminiscent of SL, but without a 'fly' option and a little clunkier and less responsive. A small menu allows you to add to your scene from a library of pre-made objects. You can modify their size and texture, but that's about it. Avatar customization is also limited to selection from a library.

I found Vivaty to be very functional (with a few glitches - to be expected in a beta) and on par visually with the competition, but incredibly lonely! A shared virtual environment quickly loses it's appeal if there is no one to share it with. Instead of adopting a 'public spaces' policy like Lively or SL, Vivaty opts for a private 'invite-only' system. The only way to share your space with others, or visit someone else, is to invite people from your Facebook or AIM friend lists.

Ingenious marketing strategy or fatal flaw? It's a great idea to tap into a well established distribution network, but I think Vivaty is making a mistake by not facilitating some sort of public meeting spaces. I'm sure this makes the system easier to manage, but it also stops the flow of users who just want to try out the experience without getting to invested or subjecting their friends to unwanted invites.

In the end, I think the lack of social spaces puts the Vivaty beta a step below Lively. While Lively definitely needed some technical issues worked out, the experience was still engaging and available. Vivaty was interesting at first, but quickly became old without true object creation options or interaction. Perhaps the public release will open things up. If so, I will gladly add Vivaty to my regular list of virtual hangouts!

Lively Conversation

Last week Google jumped into the world of shared virtual environments with a beta release of 'Lively.' Lively is essentially a 3d chatroom where users can customize their avatar from one of a library of preset characters and create custom environments with furniture, pictures, etc.

As I was downloading the Lively web-applet (it runs completely within your browser) I found myself pretty excited, even after coming across some pretty bad reviews. Google has created some great applications in the last decade, especially involving 3d (Sketchup, GoogleEarth), so it seemed promising. But so far, I have to agree with the critics.


Right of the bat, the application seems to have a scaling issue. In any of the Lively 'rooms' with say, 10 or more people, the environment loaded incredibly slowly. In fact, in one case I left it running for 10 minutes and only managed a fifty-percent "Room Materializing" bar. The libraries of avatars and room items also had a long enough loading lag that I still haven't been able to explore them all.

As expected with user-generated content of this nature (see: SecondLife) there is already quite a bit of wading through advertising, spam, and adult content, though apparently Google is attempting to address it. Good luck!

It's tough to blast Lively too much as it is still a beta release. Hopefully Google will recognize these issues and make some improvements soon. Though it will never provide the flexibility and creativity of SecondLife, Lively could definitely become a popular hangout for chatters. The graphics are nice and have a 'youthful' quality to them. I also really enjoyed the navigation (when it worked). It reminded me of the pan feature from Google Maps - very fluid and intuitive.

All in all it was a disappointing launch that offers a glimpse of a good platform with many opportunities to become great. I'm ready for version 2.0!