An Open 3D Visualization Toolkit - presentation

I've Got the 3D Content, How Can I Use It?!

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 15:39:53 -0600

Here you can learn about and discuss the different ways to present your visualizations: high-definition, standard-definition, geowall, science on a sphere, realtime game engines, cell phones, Croquet, etc.
Again, this is not a software support area or forum, but a place to gather and share information about matching the best presentation technology to your content.

QuickTime VR

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:50:07 -0600

QuickTime VR allows you to create a 360 cylindrical view or a spherical view of a scene. The nice thing about QuickTime VR is you can make it a small 320*240 movie for publishing on a website or output as an 1920*1080 HD kiosk.

To create a cubic QuickTime VR you can use the Blender QTVR Exporter from the Resources Page.

Game Engines

Wed, 29 Dec 2004 13:06:18 -0600

Blender 2.35 and above have a game engine that can be used to playback in visual stereo (or mono) and is crossplatform.

Keep in mind it is a lightweight game engine and isn't intended for your highly detailed and interactive reconstruction of Ankgor Wat (for example).

Games are always a compromise between detail and interactivity, so weigh what you want most. If detail is key, perhaps you want to create an interactive video or QuickTime VR instead of a game.

Games also require the greatest knowledge of programming of any of the presentation formats here.

Polarized Stereoscopic HD

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:33:17 -0600

This is the next step beyond HD. This requires you to use 2 video cameras (representing the left and right eye) simultaneously while recording your subject matter OR rendering a both a left and a right eye pass from your 3D software.

The camera offset is something that needs to be tested and tweaked. It's often best to do this in a lower resolution and use a low-cost technology like red-blue anaglyph glasses to see if you have your offset correct. There are several resources that can make an anaglyph out of your right and left eye images.

A free way to do it is to use GIMP and follow this anaglyph tutorial!

High Definition Video

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:26:05 -0600

You can render out sequential animation frames or QuickTime or .avi files from Blender (or other 3D Applications) for use in a high-definition (HD) project. There are several factors you need to take into consideration.

The first is resolution. There are several flavors of HD. HD is actually a family of formats, the most popular being 720p (for progressive) and 1080i (for interlaced). The 720 refers to the height in pixels. The dimensions of this format are 1280 wide by 720 high. 1080i images then are 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high.

The big thing to keep in mind before ¥ou embark on an HD project is knowing you will have the storage capacity to render and then encode such large files. You must bring your rendered frames or movies from your 3D package into a video encoder that can play back for your intended device. Some HD playback devices require transport stream encoded files, while others require slightly different formats. Be sure you have the codecs necessary to encode your file for playback in the delivery device before you start your project!

Geowall

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:40:59 -0600

The Geowall comes in several versions. Geowall 1 is a stereo system where 2 projectors with polarizing lenses are connected to a computer with a dual-monitor graphic card. When the overlapped images are projected and viewed with low cost polarized glasses, images are viewed in 3D.
The Geowall Consortium makes use of these projection systems to visualize structure and dynamics of the Earth in stereo to aid the understanding of spatial relationships.
Reason Computer provides Geowall system

Open Croquet

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 15:58:14 -0600

Croquet is a massively multi-user, persistent 3D world space that allows for networked and permissions based collaboration. Currently a developer release, Croquet is a great choice for presentations that require many users from different locations all wishing to visualize and manipulate 3D information without restarting the system to see changes. Croquet also can view "legacy content" such as Flash animations, videos and web pages right within the Croquet space.

Find out more about Open Croquet or