3d Quits Outer Space For Your Living Room
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 10, 1999
New 3D technology reflects an old axiom, writes Jenny Sinclair - a picture is worth a thousand words.
NEAR-infinite bandwidth and near-infinite processing power will add a new dimension to the way we "see" the Internet and our information, literally, if Computer Associates has its way.
Sandeep Divekar, in-house strategist for visualisation applications at CA, is looking forward to the day when 3D images are a standard means of communication. "Everybody understands pictures, not everybody understands words or numbers," he says.
The company has already used 3D imaging in online shops at www.sharper image.com and www.styleclick.com.
It will incorporate 3D visuals in the next version of its Unicenter system control software, and is getting into the formerly high-end market of creating 3D models.
It is among the first of the business software mega-firms to push this kind of technology for business applications.
Its newly acquired credentials are formidable, and a lesson in pulling together a new division by creative buy-ups.
Divekar and his company, 3Name 3D, were bought in October 1998. He brought with him a stable of developers and "information designers" - specialists in representing complex data as simple images.
At the same time, CA bought Viewpoint, a 3D "objects" specialist firm, from California. (Viewpoint made the 3D models used in the films Antz, Flubber and The Prince of Egypt, and creates computer models of real objects, such as cars, for commercials. Among their development team is an ex-Princeton University physicist, who specialises in quantum gravity and quarks.)
And in January this year, MetaCreations, the majority partner in CA's online 3D venture Metastream, bought out a small Californian company, Canoma.
The attraction was Canoma's innovative photogrammetry technology, which helps create 3D images from digital photographs. And Canoma's two founders were in the development team for Adobe's Web tool PageMill.
And is all this so that you can examine your new shoes from all angles before you buy them online, or see the view from your seat in the stadium (www.ticketmaster.com)?
Yes and no. Divekar says the only thing that online businesses can hope for now is to differentiate themselves - "you've got to add that value" - and The Sharper Image report that customers spend 50 per cent longer in their 3D-enabled areas.
The next step will be to use the Metaflash system already licensed to Kodak and Minolta to create rudimentary 3D objects for users to upload; it could let you put your own lounge room online and place 3D furniture in the room, or create a virtual changing room using your own body instead of a model's in an online clothes shop.
Divekar is confident that Moore's law will see processor speed doubling for at least the next 10 years, and bandwidth will not be a problem, he believes. So 3D shopping definitely has a future, and Metastream's 3D streaming application, supported by Windows 98 and standard in Windows 2000, will give the Web side of things a real boost.
But where the real revolution may come is on the desktop, he says. With the disclaimer that this is the first time they've really shown the technology to business, Divekar says visualisation and 3D can make computing more accessible than ever, requiring almost no training for simple jobs, if it's designed correctly.
CA's services arm has a visualisation division, and Divekar is excited about what business may propose once the ideas sink in.
To start with, they've designed a call centre interface for insurance companies. When a call comes in, instead of tables, windows or lines of text, the operator sees a living room full of visual cues - a red car parked outside means it's uninsured, a picture on the wall shows the whole family, and a smiley-face lamp on the table indicates how happy the customer was last time he or she called in.
The long-term plan is to get information designers to find more and more ways to turn complex data into pictures. Divekar pauses at the question of how this could affect people's literacy and abstract thinking skills.
"The words will never go away and I find that images help abstract thinking . . . for instance, look at the poetry of Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, all the Romantic poets - what they ended up doing was painting visual metaphors with words," he says.
"And the whole thing could work in reverse. I wouldn't say dumb down, I'd say easily understood."
© 1999 Sydney Morning Herald