Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!amiga!jimm From: jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: 3D Applications Message-ID: <4288@amiga.UUCP> Date: 31 Jul 89 21:50:39 GMT Reply-To: jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) Organization: Commodore-Amiga Inc, Los Gatos CA Lines: 95 There are some things I've been thinking about for 3D applications. I don't own any 3D tools, and wonder which would be most applicable. I also wonder how the low-end 3D we have so well developed is playing a big role in new application areas. Seems it should. Application 1: Low-end architectural walk-throughs. I'm sure you can do this, and I suspect that there is a market out for affordable low-end tools. Take this scenario: Interior contractor/designer is trying to help Joe Schmoe decide on some big changes to his kitchen. (I guess that should be Jim Mschmoe, in this case.) Contractor shows Joe rough plans, points at the would-be-vaulted ceiling and says things like "Light," "Space," "Open," "Unified." Joe, is thinking dollars. Contractor takes copy of rough plans, on Friday, over to Self-Employed Amiga Person (or, Seap). Seap takes the plans, fires up his modeller, opens his "Kitchen" collection of shapes, defines the room shape with the vaulted ceiling, and then tosses some cupboards around, fridge, and stove as specified in the plans. A little work on the windows and walls, ... Monday, the contractor picks up a video tape (a key point) and shuttles it over to Joe Schmoe's home, which certainly has a VCR. Tape has some animated rendering of the kitchen, at different times of day, with a moving camera. Renderings are rough, since there was only a weekend. At a few points in the tape the camera freezes, and a ray-trace/texture mapped still-shot replaces the freeze frame. Are the tools there? Are the economies there? How much would the SEAP need to charge for the service, and who pops for it? Does the contractor do it to be cool and help the client decide? Does the contractor offer it as an extra-cost service to the curious client? Is it realistic to hope that the model setup time could be short, but the rendering and subsequent recording might go on all weekend? I think that it should be TRIVIAL to lay out most rooms, esp. living rooms, once a healthy collection of objects is in place. The SEAP might even strike a deal for a contractor to help subsidize building a shape/color/texture database for their standard lines of cabinets, appliances and furniture. I'd say that a standard, morphable set of chairs/tables/sofas would be great objects to include with a 3D modeler. Could you design a table to real physical inches in today's modelers, or is that too much a CAD thing? I'd like to be able to grab a simple table and stretch it to precisely the right dimensions, if not the exactly right style, for playing with furniture layout. The impact of a video tape would be prominent. A furniture dealer had somebody make us a sketch of a chair with a particular fabric. If both fabric and chair shape were in a database (or easy to generate), why wouldn't it have been just as easy (cheap) to hand us a video tape of a various views of the chair with several different fabrics? And for a room with lighting issues, it would be even more dramatic. It seems to me that a person could at least pay for a nice 030 Amiga and a hot-shit VCR doing this stuff on the side. Application 2: Presentations and Tutorials Is there a simple business graphics package that can feed the rendering/ray- tracing tools? Has anybody ever drawn a picture of an Exec List using a 3D tool? How about a 3D tutorial animation, such as for, say, a 3D modeler? I saw something Leo made of a camera moving around an object with a moving light source. Little coordinate system, etc. How about simple mathematics tutorials? Anyone ever try to teach a roomful of students that mixed partials commute? How about what it means when they do NOT commute? What would you use to draw some surfaces and tangents, and work up an animation with a moving camera? Maybe if Doug's Math Aquarium spit out polygons for a rendering and animation tool. (Yeah, I know, Mathematica.) What are the applications that Amiga 3D stuff is getting, REAL WORLD, besides TV, logos, and 3D text? Any of it paying off? Anyway, I've been wondering about the walk-throughs for a while, and I just noticed that my little reminder diagram of an Exec list could use improvements. jimm PS: Evaluation copies of 3D tools are most welcome. -- Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing "... the signs are very ominous, {cbmvax,well,oliveb}!amiga!jimm and a chill wind blows." - Justice Blackmun Opinions are my own. Comments are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.