Market size for architectural walkthrough software

[stefand]

Hi there!

 

I am working on software for virtual walkthroughs for architecture, archeology, city planning, etc. It is based on some automatic polygon reduction scheme, supports lightmaps (even computes some simple GI itself), and it comes with an option to use VRML or its own multi-platform, web-based or standalon viewer.

Though it should be good at reducing data, and provide a useful walkthrough system, it won't do too much interaction. There will also be some quality reduction, but how much this will be an issue, I cannot yet tell. The user will be able to trade off quality and (computation/run) time and amount of data generated.

 

Since I plan to do it for a living - I am entrepreneur of sorts - I am about to set up a businessplan. [For those who raise an eyebrow about my way of writing this up in such a forum: I am living in Europe, and I am not that deep into setting up a business, yet ].

Although I am sure that there is an interest in such a tool, it is hard for me to give a number of possible sales. To make an educated guess, I am trying to find out numbers like, and I am having a hard time getting them:

 

- how many users of Max/Maya/Lightscape are out there used in architecture (I am doing a plugin)?

- how many architectural projects are using VR now?

- how many architects are interested (would buy) in a simple walkthrough solution?

- any profound hints to real market numbers?

 

Another question is, which would be the best 3D app(s) to make such a plugin for?

 

Thanks for bearing with me with this business stuff. I hope you will be able to discuss some of my results here when they are done!

[DennisHolland]

Hi Stefan,

 

good to know that there are still a few native entrepreneurs in Europe, go for it!

 

Here is my opinion in this;

 

- It's hard to tell which software is the most used, but in my opinion MAX is the leader in Archiviz now a days, Lightscape and Maya are very competitive along with a couple thirth party tools.

 

- Looking at the innovations, compared to the questions from customers, I'd say there is definetely movement going on, heading to VR and a solution for architects/visualizers to provide their customers with this niche service. From my point of view, clients are asking more and more for a web-presentation on a VR structure. That is the reason why I'm in research for this all, the last couple of months.

 

For which application is the best to develop a VR-tool for? Try make one that is unified and works with all. The reality is that if you focus on MAX, you'll be thinking in the right direction. No offence to other artists who obviously are working with other applications. Applications that also do their job well...

 

Keywords to keep in mind while developing:

 

Fast, userfriendly, innovative, wide range of features, soft lighting solutions and shadowing for realism-sake and the most important, running on the web without having to download a weird viewer-plugin.

 

In short, this is my opinion. After all, CG wouldn't be CG if everybody has the same opinion in this...it all depends on 'which tool fits your creativity most and with what features would you like to work'...

 

Hope this little mindspin helps you out a bit. For research, go to the sites of Demicron, Quest3D, Cult3D, Anark, turntool and all others which i've forgot to mention here.

 

Good luck, grusse aus Holland.

 

Dennis

[Richard McCarthy]

I think there is definitely market there, although I have no real number to prove to you the market. Right now I feel everyone is leaning towards the interactive realtime viz, due to the amazing advanced of the past decade with game industry. Newer generation of architects and clients are all expecting to see some form of interaction with product because of the game experience they have in the past.

 

Now, I think you can do this several way. As a plugin for MAX (like "CubicSpace rTre") which gives MAX (or any 3D application itself) a EVEN MORE ADVANCED 3D viewport renderer. Or it could be release as plugin to LINK with the main application for fine tuning. But I defintely think it's best if it can work INSIDE the application itself (like MAX, XSI, MAYA, LW). It would be unwise to also ignore the need of the VAST CAD BASE of this industry. I am sure every architectural office would like to have a cost efficient interactive viewer to impress their client, also to help their digital design process. Right now Autodesk Revit, ADT, ArchiCAD all can generate 3D models right off the bat from the drawings, but their viewport may not have the advanced capability your application can provide. Perhaps if you can write plugins for these CAD applications, it could also be great venue to explore.

[mbr]

I have used EON software to make real time presentations. The #1 most important part is the interactivity. Without it, there is little to no point of having it in real time. The limitations are fairly large at this point, mostly being graphic cards. The textures required to make a decent architecture scene look good overwhelm even the best cards fairly quickly and it becomse a tedious game of optimizing this, optimizing that, etc., etc.

 

The really cool thing is presenting it on a large screen in stereo. Put on some glasses and viola! 3D presenations, almost life size. It's pretty impressive. The cost limitations, limitations of hardware, etc., are all very prohibitive, but in the not too distant future it will overlap and we'll get some great stuff.

 

EON has the capabilities to make anything interactive (and object, etc.,) you can make HTML based menus, load things on top of each other like a web site,etc. Some pretty nice stuff can be done via scripting, too, but it isn't easy.

It's also not cheap.

 

Take a look at these (most have been mentioned):

 

http://www.eonreality.com

 

http://www.anark.com

 

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/index.cfm/ID/218794

[bjornkn]

I can't really see why interactivity is so important for architectural walkthroughs? What I think is most important is that you can move around freely, enter different rooms, go up/down stairs etc, and maybe go outside and back inside again? Sure it would be nice if you could click on a door to open it, and so on, but it is not that essential IMO.

 

I think this is a great idea! The automatic poly reduction sounds like a very good idea. The tools I've used before had LOD, but you had to make all the different LOD versions yourself...)

I would think that the best platforms for plugins would be Max, LightWave and Cinema4D. I don't have the impression that many people use Maya and XSI for arch-viz work.

Imo the best viewer would be in Java, and not as a plugin which needs to be run inside IE!

[stefand]

Thank you all for your valuable input! I have the feeling that I am on the right track with my plan.

 

One thing that I am not very sure of is the plugin/no-plugin issue. All the other products have proprietary plugins, right? I am sure that many users would like to have a java based solution for security reasons, but will they accept the slow performance? I am not sure about that.

 

Thanks again for your comments, I do appreciate them very much!

[bjornkn]

I think there are other reasons than security for wanting a Java solution. It would be able to run on all platforms, like PC, Mac, Unix, Linux, Irix etc, and it would be browser-independant too. It would maybe even be possible to run on a PDA?

Then you'll have no plugins to download.

It may be easier to interact with it through Java/Javascript?

And then there is a lot of plugins available, but very few Java-based (I only know of Wirefusion) - iow less competition..

AFAIK it's possible to use OpenGL in Java too?

[Richard McCarthy]

AFAIK it's possible to use OpenGL in Java too?

 

 

Yes, there was a company called "shout interactive" who made a java solution called "shout3D" (there are even books published on it) that uses Java AND OpenGL. OpenGL comes as a small plugin (I think about 3K if I remember correctly) that uses your 3Dcard to render, it makes it about 100 times faster than pure java mode. The whole java applet is less than 30k which is quite impressive. It even supports Physics! It's a pity now the company went belly up like so many other Web3D companies nowadays.

[DennisHolland]

Yes,

 

shout3D was a pretty hot item 3 to 4 years ago and haven't heard of shout-interactive since. I've searched the web for any info but all I got was a few published University rapports (in plain text) and a couple student coding tuts from back in 2002.

 

I'm starting to get curious which tool will be considered as an allround standard for web3D/VR within' the next 4-5 years from now. Java (demicron) has it's restrictions in quality but no plugs needed, great interactive features and fastloading. Anark, for instance, is rather fine quality but very heavy scenes (in mb's). What happened with Blender3D, good quality (and plugin) but left behind, development-wise.

 

I think more and more web3D tools will make a turnaround and focus on other targets than interactive archi-presentations, like interactive learningtools and web-vertising. Just a couple will stay in the archi-fields, I think.

 

Interesting....

[Richard McCarthy]

What I think it needs for Web3D to take off again (IF EVER !?) is to make every browser adopt the web3D standard natively. There is no but, or if, just every browser must support it natively.... like supporting HTML. That way, Web3D just might be able to thrive.

I think the reason been, from all these years I look at Web3D/VRML is that, market is too fragmented by 3rd party developer, everyone pushing out their own plugin trying to dominate the market, it is a classic too many cooks spoil the soup syndrome. VRML97 was quite fine as a classic renderer, it was later refined by Parallelgraphics and Blaxxun to an advanced level (supports lightmap and dynamic shadow if I remember correctly) other host of modern goodies. The problem both plugin conflict with each other, and WHY OH WHY do we need to download many different VRML plugins which is suppose to do the SAME THING and obey the SAME STANDARD? Due to the nature of this conflict, I think most user give up on VRML after a while, and with each 3D page they visit that requires them to install NEW plugin, even more user left VRML. I think the deveopers have to realise that they can't do these kind of thing, it's a vicious cycle that tears the whole body of Web3D consortium apart and it has never come back eversince (since 97' if I remember correctly when VRML97 was red hot with SGI's Cosmo software).

 

So, I think what WEB3D consortium needs to do, is to develop the STANDARD (eg. WEB3D standard/MPEG4 3D) and make it part of the W3 standard everyone (that means browser companies) must comply. This will be like OpenGL standard almost where everyone contribute to a single API and make everyone conform to it. If that can succeed, then I think 3D internet might really start to take off and make its impact

[Brian Hay]

Agreed ... mostly.

 

Standards are required. So many wannabees littering the web 3D graveyard. Forget all the small efforts that barely made a ripple before sinking like a stone, you only have to look at the BIG proprietary failures like Microsoft Chrome (stillborn), Microsoft/SGI fahrenheit (stillborn), Adobe Atmosphere (discontinued) and Macromedia Shockwave 3D (barely updated of late) and every 3D technology Intel has ever touched (they're now pushing the U3D - Universal 3D barrow).

 

VRML is far from perfect but hey it's the ONLY ISO standard for 3D on the web that we've had ... until now that is. Now there's X3D, which is a definite improvement and evolution of VRML97. With multi-texturing, shader language support (cg, HLSL), better extensibility, scriptability and integration with other web standards like XML it's right up there on the cutting edge again IMHO. Of course it will only have a chance of taking off if and when the plugins, exporters and visual authoring tools mature and have feature and performance parity across multiple platforms ... but that is happening. Support from the big 3D players would help too, but don't count on it (they don't see any competitive advantage/profit in promoting the uptake of open international standards over their proprietary "me too solutions").

 

However, you can't enforce standards compliance - you only have to look at the web. We have XHTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, SVG and umpteen other W3C standards and although there is now growing acceptance and use of tableless XHTML/CSS amongst web designers, you still see a lot of proprietary, inaccessible Flash instead of the standard SVG. And for any designer that's taken one look at XSLT and NOT run screaming from the room, I take my hat off to them ;-)

 

While there are still tech-geeks walking the earth and failed games companies trying to salvage some investment dollars from their 3D engines, there will always be the weekly "unique new web 3D technology" announcement. rtre, turntool, blender3d web plugin and many other wannabees are just failed game engines repurposed into web 3D plugins. People will always want to reinvent the wheel, despite the fact that we have had a perfectly good wheel for a long time ...

 

I think the one big factor going for VRML/X3D is that, after a decade of growing pains, try hards, criticism and general ignorance from the masses, it's STILL HERE, being used daily and thankfully now evolving again. Whilst many other proprietary technologies have died along with the companies that developed and marketed them, VRML/X3D has survived despite the loss of individual companies like Cosmo and Intervista along the way. Only a standard gives you that safety net ...

 

So back to the point of this thread. Stefand, if you want to succeed in your web 3D efforts, it would be my suggestion that you focus on supporting existing and evolving standards like X3D rather than reinventing the wheel like the many who've tried and failed before.

 

Unintentional rant over ;-)

 

Brian.

[stefand]

The VRML/X3D is certainly the best Web3D standard we have (as it is the only one), and developing for Web3D would be more fun if we had a standardized player, for which role I cannot see any product right now. Blaxxuns contact is probably one of the best players right now, but it is not free to use even for non-commercial applications. Octaga and Flux are alternatives, but I wonder, how one should find a decent subset of functions that work on all of them in the same way.

 

My main issue with VRML/X3D is the amount of work that has to be done on the client, the vast amount of functionality that a decent player has to support, the 3D data, the different sound, image and movie file formats, the scripting... The size of the player is just too much to bear. X3D is a huge improvement, and I hope someone will take their open source software library and wrap a standard application around it.

 

Interestingly enough, Flux ( by http://www.mediamachines.com) is a company founded (?) by Toni Parisi, one of the creators of VRML. Why he decided to build another commercial browser after so many attempty I cannot say... It just keeps me wondering about the whole open source idea.

 

Brian, thanks for your advice. The VRML/X3D route will be an option for the tools that I am working on. This is simple to do, since it is easy to export VRML/X3D. But for users who desire a consistent user experience, small downloads and maybe data encryption, I will provide my own file format and a browser plugin. Since my magic ingredient is the automatic LOD generation, the scenes might even be rendered by a java applet. I will look into that.

 

Thanks again for all your input!

[oluv]

hey stefan...

 

what about lightmaps, multitexturing, texcoordgenerating, bump-mapping etc. in your tool?

 

i think the most important feature is the support of multiple texture sets and multiple UV-coordinate sets that can be blended one into each other, how it can be done with blaxxun for example.

 

without lightmapping and the proper light-simulation 3d models look very flat and boring.

 

the question is, how will the export of lightmapped scenes be?

as for now the most limiting factor is that there is no file-format that really supports multiple-texture sets and multiple uv-coords.

you have to export the lightmapped model as well as the textured model separately and tweak the textureblending afterwards within your final visualisation-viewer.

 

i always had to do this in my own vrml-models by hand and it works the same way within quest3d as far as i know. you must always export 2 different models.

 

a real lightmap exporter would be cool. one that can read the multiple-texture sets from a 3dsmax for example (or other formats) and directly use this for realtime-visualisation.

 

i would love to hear more about your project, you can pm me or write me an email (in german of course) ;-))

[seismograph]

interressting!

 

some month ago we decided to go with a vrml plug which is available for PC and Mac ... for clients who want to reach as many ppl as possible this feature will outperform any hitech package with dozens of features.

 

my 2c.

[Brian Hay]

as for now the most limiting factor is that there is no file-format that really supports multiple-texture sets and multiple uv-coords.

 

Blaxxun Contact, Bitmanagement Software Contact and Parallelgraphics Cortona all support multiple texture sets/coordinates but using their own proprietary mechanisms.

 

The new X3D standard supports it in a standard way, based on the way Contact does it (but not exactly the same). Flux and Octaga support X3D at present.

 

As far as exporters go, BS Exporter exports multiple texture sets plus light, bump and environment mapping from 3dsmax. Dave Arendash has an alpha X3D exporter for 3dsmax (and a cool Unreal to X3D converter) and there's X3D exporters for both Blender and Maya.

 

More options are in the pipeline ...

 

Brian.

[Brian Hay]

My main issue with VRML/X3D is the amount of work that has to be done on the client, the vast amount of functionality that a decent player has to support, the 3D data, the different sound, image and movie file formats, the scripting... The size of the player is just too much to bear.!

 

Yes the VRML/X3D specifications are large but one of the improvements of X3D is the concept of "profiles". So, in order to be "100% X3D compliant" you need only support say the interchange profile which is a small subset of the X3D specification. If your intended market requires more features, you could support the immersive or interactive profiles. In this way you can have very small plugins or applets to display ISO standard 3D content in a compliant manner.

 

Brian.

 

PS. The auto-install ActiveX cab file for BS Contact is only 1Mb. This is miniscule given the feature set and file formats it supports IMHO. The 4-5Mb filesize of the manual install of Blaxxun Contact is probably due to such extraneous features as multiuser chat, shared events, languages and text to speech.

[Richard McCarthy]

In my opinion , the most important factor to overcome is plugin(less) or small file size of plugin to install. MOST, if not everyone hate to install yet another HUGE plugin (cosmo is one offender, and blaxxun is another even though base package is only 1mb). People just hate waiting to download plugin. Not to mention a lot of website take advantage of the plugin architecture and install trojans/virii/adware. (Gator is one example, also those Orbital IE tool bar adwares) That's why I guess ppl are fearful of plugin. So, my recommendation is if you can bypass plugin, all the better

[oluv]

Dave Arendash has an alpha X3D exporter for 3dsmax (and a cool Unreal to X3D converter) and there's X3D exporters for both Blender and Maya.

 

do you know where i can find dave's x3d exporter for max? i have only found his unreal converter so far.

 

thanks, o.

[rpict]

hi oluv, still hunting that vrml thing

 

you mean that one?

 

http://darendash.home.comcast.net/MaxExporter.html

 

-rpict

[oluv]

hi oluv, still hunting that vrml thing

 

you mean that one?

 

http://darendash.home.comcast.net/MaxExporter.html

 

-rpict

 

thanks jehli!

 

wanted to write you an email, but haven't found enough time. still busy on the "ecocity" project just preparing the last renderings

[Brian Hay]

the most important factor to overcome is plugin(less) or small file size of plugin to install.

 

This isn't possible unless browser makers support a web3D format (such as X3D) natively and hell will freeze over before that happens.

 

The only so-called "plugin-less" web3D solutions are written in Java. After the Sun/Microsoft legal battles, Java is no longer guaranteed to be on a user's computer for such plugin-less web3D applets to work. Many non-MSIE browsers have Java as an optional download simply because it is so large.

 

The only other potential technology for "plugin-less" web3D is Microsoft's .NET platform (and Mono on Linux/MacOSX), but again there's no guarantee users won't have to download and install 20Mb+ of stuff.

 

So when companies market their web3D solutions as "plugin-less" (WireFusion, Kaon etc) they're really stretching the truth.

 

Brian.