turtlethink.com » 3D

Mightier: 2D Puzzle Meets 3D World

Mark Kizelshteyn — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:19:58 +0000

I came across an experimental game developed by ratloop, an independent game studio developing 3D entertainment products.

Their most recent game is called Mightier and according to the website “is an independent puzzle action game developed by Lucas Pope and Keiko Ishizaka. Play as the Engineer and the Actionaut to solve puzzles and collect items in each sector.”

The puzzle is fully interactive, where you first physically solve the puzzle by drawing out 2D components on a piece of paper. Once you’ve solved that portion, your webcam scans that piece of paper and your drawing is converted into a 3D puzzle. You then draw your own characters, scan those and play on your 2d converted to 3d turf. It is quite innovative.

Check out how it works below:

Mightier from Ratloop on Vimeo.

[via Interface Design and Usability Blog]

EON Reality’s immersive 3D cube

Paul Fayngersh — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:10:37 +0000

Someone has finally pulled off this sort of thing well. The setup looks simple enough at first: a white 10×10x10 box coupled with old school 3D glasses. However, a closer look at the frames of the glasses reveals little protruding markers that expose the novelty of EON’s cube. They are linked via infrared to cameras around the perimeter of the room which track the exact location of the user’s eyes. In turn this information quickly tells each projector what images to display, producing a real-time, completely immersive effect. Don’t believe me, just watch this guy in the video:

Amazing 3D immersion technology from IDEO Labs on Vimeo.

Great write-up at [IDEO], via [Offworld]

Firefox, Google and The 3D Web

Mark Kizelshteyn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:01:26 +0000

This past week the Khronos Group, working with Mozilla (creators of Firefox) and Google, announced an initiative to create an open standard for accelerated 3D Web browsers. The group is leading a 12 month initiative aiming for release as part of the Canvas3D extension for Firefox 3.5.

As Virtual World News points out, “there are plenty of other developers and organizations trying to bring 3D to the Web, but most rely on plug-ins to do so, whether that’s the near ubiquitous Flash, a quickly growing Unity3D, or their own proprietary technologies. The benefit of the new standard, if it’s successful, would be that designers could include hardware-accelearated 3D graphics in their websites without forcing users to download a plugin. With OpenGL, JavaScript, and hardware acceleration available on pretty much all platforms, it could also make it easier to develop apps and environments across multiple contexts.”

People are expecting more and more of their online experience as we witness the shift from static desktop applications to dynamic web applications. The addition of 3D will add an array of new user experiences to the web app platform. Paul Jackson, an analyst with research firm Forrester, states: “…If you think about the traditional browsing experience of flat pages and links this is not a natural way to interact. People are much more used to walking around and picking things up so a 3D browser could lead eventually to a more naturalistic way of interaction…”

This standard could offer a significant shift in the 3D web by breaking down the end user barriers of entry. With the increase in web applications, people are reluctant to download bulky plug ins or software, but if the 3D environment is native to one’s browser, the potential is incredible. This team of developers and thinkers are industry leaders — allowing them to trail head this initiative will undoubtedly yield industry shifting results. I look forward to the release.

Hands Free 3D

Mark Kizelshteyn — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:59:53 +0000

Mitch Kapor and Philippe Bossut designed a prototype interface to control Second Life with physical gestures. The design of the interface takes from the Segway (i.e. lean forward – move forward – lean backward – move backward). As Mitch states, this is just the beginning of their research. Check out the video here.

This seems to be a different means to a similar end with Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, where users can control the computer with their thoughts — but I have not heard much about this recently. Check out this article for some info on this. Obviously, both platforms can be developed (and will be) — there are different technological manifestations of hands free use, where we can see a disabled person using the BCI interface for navigation, while a fully-able person can use a gesture reading interface for a Virtual Immersion Room…

Augmented Reality, Augmented.

Mark Kizelshteyn — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:34:33 +0000

Check out this neat video of University of Washington’s ARTkit integrating 3D virtual images into a real world feed via Second Life. As New World Notes reports, “Metaverse developer Christian Contini uses it to integrate virtual images onto the surface of a monitor that’s displaying Second Life. The effect, as you see in this video, is that Second Life objects seem to “pop” out of the monitor into 3D form.”

Yet another innovative experimentation with Augmented Reality.

As reported in previous posts on Augmented Environments, we are going to see the rise of this technology in practical applications. We already saw this in the Map Wiki, WIKITUDE, and with the Mini Advertisements, both well executed….But imagine when you can put your cell phone up to a bill board, a parade, a building or times square and see all of the augmented happenings in that space. The lens of your cell phone camera will read “tags” across environments which will in turn activate augmented scenery, information and content unavailable to the naked eye.

I believe that augmented environments and the technology developed alongside are going to be some of the most exciting tech achievements we are going to be seeing in the next year or two.

Altering Space with Light

Mark Kizelshteyn — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:52:49 +0000

PSFK posted this neat video of 3D mapping video projected on buildings and interiors.

Check out this spectacular video:

As PSFK writes, “The ability to transform and interact with spaces and objects using projected light is advancing rapidly with breathtaking results.”

It is incredible to see this sort of technology and consider where it will go in the future. Although the current state of this 3D mapping is static, I am sure we will see this technology move to a dynamic domain, where users will be able to engage and interact with these sorts of art forms. Surely, the business world will pick up on this and we will see some fascinating displays where consumers will engage and interact with advertisements.

Apple working on 3D Mac OS User Interface

Mark Kizelshteyn — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:25:43 +0000

Apple Insider released a series of images from a recent string of patent filings by Apple. The overarching idea behind this innovation is how to more effectively use the “real estate” of a desktop. The name given by Apple is a multi-dimensional desktop.

Apple Insider writes: “A series of Apple patent filings published this week reveal the Mac maker has spent a considerable amount of time outlining a new multi-dimensional interface for Mac OS X that would make better use of screen real estate by increasing the number of virtual surfaces capable of housing application and interface elements.”

Check out this image:

Read the full post here.