State of The Art - 3 Architectural Visualizations

A Village House - Architecture Simulation from Studio Aiko on Vimeo.

The Colosseum from Uniform on Vimeo.

Hermitage Plaza from Uniform on Vimeo.

Post3D - Don't forget Autodesk and Dassault Systemes are developing Immersive3D

Here is a technical preview of Dassault Systemes' 3DVIA Post3D, demoed - January 23 - 26



3DVIA Post3D provides a virtual, online environment for Product Designers and Engineers to collaborate in 3D. Just post your design, then invite others to view and discuss the work in real-time at your own customizable URL.

POST3D combines DS’s experience with gaming technology, cloud-based services and, of course, 3D design and builds a 3D collaboration service. Upload a model (formats include IGES, STEP, DAE, 3DS, SolidWorks and, of course, Catia), any related documents and you invite the team working on a project to discuss, interact with the model and make decisions.

Phoenix will go to v2.0 Viewer Code in 2011 - Firestorm Preview scheduled released Today

News:

• Phoenix will show its Firestorm Preview 1-31-2011
  
• Phoenix for SpotOn3D
• Search will require V2.0 codebase in the future

Links:

• What is firestorm-viewer?
• Firestorm Preview Interface Customization Tutorial

Theft of €30 Million in Virtual Assets Reported

The below was snipped from a post on virtual-economy.org based on a report in the Financial Times at FT. com

€30 million worth of industrial grade virtual goods reported stolen

By Vili Lehdonvirta 2011/01/21

Cyber-thieves have stolen approximately 30 million euros worth of carbon credits circulating in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), authorities revealed yesterday. The carbon credits are entries in a distributed database maintained by EU states. Companies access their credits by logging into their online user account. Crackers used phishing-style attacks to obtain login credentials from companies, and transferred credits to other accounts.

This sounds familiar. Here's an interesting exercise: let's compare EU carbon credits with the virtual gold of the online game World of Warcraft. See if we can find a difference.

• Both credits and gold are elements in an abstract system of rules, implemented as a computer program. Neither have any shape or function outside this system.
• Both systems have a certain group of participants, and each participant has a "user account". Each credit/gold coin belongs to exactly one user account.
• Both credits and gold can be transferred between accounts, but creating new ones is not possible; only the operators of the system can do that. Both are thus artificially scarce.
• Both credits and gold can be exchanged to national currency by selling them to another participant who finds them so useful as to be willing to pay money for them.
• Because of the above, both are targeted by cybercriminals who attempt to steal them through phishing attacks.

ETS credits are clearly the industrial version of game currency -- industrial grade virtual goods. Funnily enough, it seems from the news coverage that ETS has worse cybersecurity than WoW. Those who set up new virtual economies would do well to learn from their predecessors in the game industry.

3dVia

Expand to full screen after the required download install.

This is a scene designed by Tom Dixon. Established in 2002 by Tom Dixon and David Begg, Tom Dixon is a British design and manufacturing company of lighting and furniture. In 2004, Proventus the Swedish-based private investment company, teamed up with Tom Dixon and David Begg to establish Design Research Ltd, a design and product development holding company. It includes Tom Dixon, Design Research Ltd and Artek, the Finnish modernist furniture company established by Alvar Aalto in 1935.

VIE

via: http://www.viethegame.com/

Looking Ahead 2011 (Updated)

On January 21st 2009 I wrote Predictions Dreamers and Critics in advance of my rez date in Second Life. I started out writing my predictions and instead wound up writing a history of Second life, and the only prediction I made was that 2010 would be the year titled "Coming Soon".

Well I think I was right all in all, though my 2009 post now feels more like an obituary then a look forward. In hindsight I did not miss that big changes would be just coming soon and improvement would not be put into play fast if at all, but I did not expect this meant that Linden Lab would implode, cut it's losses, and abandon the enterprise and educational communities.

I will add another year to the my history post soon, and I will venture a few guesses as to the future of Second Life and Linden Lab before months end. Here is a brief peek:

1. Mesh will not be integrated into SL until the Second Quarter or later.
2. Second Life will become totally cloud based, ditching all it's servers.
3. Second Life will be acquired or Mitch Kapor & company will sell their stake privately and quietly. (This deal may have already been signed.)
   
4. Linden Lab, or others will have to change the whole business model for Second Life.

LL has understood for some time that the land/sim based revenue model is not in line with growth and the cost of a growing lag, rez time, infrastructure & services.

Most people are foremost avatars, not sim owners/renters. Avatars cost money and CPU/GPU cycles.

Many avatars now use, store and displaying more prims & chatter then a homestead sim as they freely teleport around.

Increasing the number of avatars adds very little to the LL bottom line, it just increases the bleeding.

In general SL will be quite different by the end of 2011 then it is now, if it survives 2011 at all.

Update re: Prediction 2: From SL Blog Posted by FJ Linden on Jan 13, 2011 3:11:21 PM

Planning to Implement Significant Grid Infrastructure Enhancements in 2011

We’re planning significant grid infrastructure enhancements throughout the year including technologies to speed server-side rendering (SSR) and server virtualization (web and simulator services). We are also exploring new storage and asset delivery systems. Some of the benefits will not always be noticeable, but they are foundational platform changes that set the stage for rapid performance and scalability improvements. We will continue to keep you updated as we roll out these systems.

I’m pleased with the progress that we made across the platform last year and I'm looking ahead to newer technologies that we will deploy in 2011 to enhance your Second Life experience. As always, I'll be watching for your feedback and thank you for making Second Life such an amazing place.

Tribeca Loft -This is State of The Art 3D Modeling

Tribeca Loft, originally uploaded by BBB3viz.

This is not a photo, the image is architectural modeling and rendering done in 3ds Max and Vray. I just discovered this flickr stream via http://www.ronenbekerman.com/

Avatar Kinect

Image via: Microsoft News Center

Ballmer has now just been reduced to an Xbox avatar on screen. It looks just like him. And it's part of a demonstration of Avatar Kinect, where using Kinect people will see their body movements map to their on-screen avatars. There's even a video where people's lip movements and head shifts in real live show up on avatars on the screen. That is pretty cool. And the avatar bit gives Ballmer a good laugh line: "Maybe it's just me, but that avatar was pretty darn bald." Avatar Kinect will be available for free to Xbox Live Gold subscribers this spring, real-life Ballmer says.

Text via: WSJ