I think the above video gets most interesting (to me anyway) about 2:06 in, proving that 3DVIA ‘Scenes’ appears to take the integration of immersive, avatar-based, shared experiences seriously – even including realtime chat and geo-specific contextual model placement. With the feature list they’re planning to include, I think they could have edited a much more exciting machinima than the rather amateurish one they’re headlining, but maybe they’re trying to temper expectations. Here are some of ‘Scenes’ features, beyond the the potential of introducing an immersive, avatar-based layer to Virtual Earth and Bing:
- Invite friends, co-workers, clients or anyone to share and experience your 3D creation online in an intuitive and interactive interface.
- Drag, drop, rotate, and scale 3D models in your space.
- No programming or modeling skills required.
- Layout game level designs for a first person shooter with ease.
- Create “Virtual Tours” with a few clicks.
- Geo-locate your scenes.
- Chat in realtime within a scene.
Imagining this within the context of 3DVIA’s other products, and their relationship (and integration) with Microsoft products, this could get interesting:
“3DVIA is product of Dassault Systèmes, which “develops and markets PLM application software and services that support industrial processes and provide a 3D vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance to recycling. The Dassault Systèmes portfolio consists of CATIA for designing the virtual product, SolidWorks for 3D mechanical design, DELMIA for virtual production, SIMULIA for virtual testing, ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management, and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences.”
Th above video demo also includes a clip where the model is shown within Microsoft’s new ‘Bing’ platform (@2:35), which could be a powerful feature, on par or exceeding the capacity of the Google Earth/SketchUp combo. I find myself using Bing’s ‘Birds Eye’ photo-mapping resources (where available) for site research studies whenever possible, and could see the addition of multi-user, avatar based, realtime chat on top of those tools to be a pretty powerful combination – especially if I can import an instance of a BIM model mesh into a geo-specific location, and use ‘Scenes’ to add a context-specific layer to it – with avatars.
The 3DVIA site appears to accept a wide variety of model types, including the popular ‘FBX’ format that ports quite readily between most of the apps I’m currently using. 3DVIA integration is also described on Microsoft’s website, in part as follows:
“Bing Maps-3DVIA is a newly released application that empowers you to build your own 3-D models in the Bing Maps environment. Imagine, create, and share realistic 3-D models and place them inside different environments to gain unique perspectives of your creations. Import location data to help you learn more about your structure in its real surroundings. Bring ideas to life in 3-D!”
Here is a link to the 3DVIA Scenes’beta tester request page: http://www.3dvia.com/blog/introducing-3dvia-scenes-beta-testers-wanted/
I certainly have my beta tester request in, but if you have any experience with this, let us know what we can expect!
