Metaverse One

Esri , a software development and services company providing Geographic Information System (GIS) software and geodatabase management applications, announced the availability of CityEngine Web Viewer in their ArcGIS Online product this week. For the double bonus, the viewer leverages WebGL . Yes, this means anyone with a WebGL-enabled browser (Chrome, Safari, Opera, FireFox) can navigate and explore uploaded 3D cities and environments created in CityEngine 2012. CityEngine is the software Esri acquired when they bought Switzerland based Procedural last year. CityEngine allows for rapid creation of 3D city models and is used in everything from movies and games (I first met the Procedural team at GDC ) to architectural and proposed development visualizations. I have watched people create rather detailed cities in a matter of minutes with this powerful tool. Since CityEngine is a desktop solution, these models were only able to be viewed within the software until...

At the beginning of this month Long Beach, California based Oculus announced their Kickstarter project  to create a next gen VR HMD (Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display) called the Rift. Since putting this project on Kickstarter, Oculus has shot past their goal of $250,000 and raised over $2 million for creating the device. The Rift will work on PC and mobile (no mention of Mac), offer 110 degrees diagonal / 90 degrees horizontal field of view, 6 degrees of freedom head tracking, 1280x800 resolution (640x800 per eye), with a weight of only 0.22 kilograms. What makes the Rift so exciting is that there has yet to be another HMD out there that has great specs that is even close to affordable. HMDs that offer this resolution and field of vision are thousands of dollars. Rift will retail around $300. Check out their Kickstarter video with some big names in the gaming world giving their support. So I pledged my $300 to get the EARLY RIFT DEVELOPER KIT + DOOM 3 BF...

So a few days ago I posted the following about an online hands free home configurator developed from a partnership between IDEAbuilder Homes and SpiralConcepts. Here is the original post  and the repost  by sci-fi author Bruce Sterling on the Wired Blog. When out in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley tech scene it is not the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) industry I hear about leading the charge in technical innovation. It is the chatter of the millions given and insane evaluations of those either in the cloud, selling user data, social, gaming, or insert buzz word here. Yet more and more construction companies are incorporating technology to improve various areas of the building process. I observe all around SOMA how construction companies like Swinerton  and  Webcor  are using data from the BIM (Building Information Modeling) process to build better. I applaud Skanska 's  use of tablets  and  experiments with augmen...

Last night during a WWDC party I got a first hand look at Sphero  and one of its augmented reality applications. Sphero, made by Colorado based Orbotix, is a little plastic LED-lit orb that can be controlled using a number of smart phone applications. Users can control this $129 dollar 'smart toy' either via a phone's touchscreen or with gestures, using the handset's accelerometer. Although there are not many applications for Sphero yet, a little less than a dozen, more will be released over the next month  (thanks Chuck) . I can quickly imagine a variety of fun uses for such a toy. It is currently only available on iOS with Android coming soon. Seems I now have a new thing I need to hack on.

Here is one for manga artists and character animators, a posable mannequin input device for intuitive 3D manipulation called Qumarion .  The model uses 32 sensors across 16 body joints to translate the statue's pose to the computer screen simply by bending limbs, and a 120 frames per second sample rate over USB means that poses are mirrored instantly.  Each Qumarion comes with a variety of interchangeable hands, a stand, suite of software for capturing mannequin data (with mention of a plug-in for Autodesk 3D Studio Max and Maya modeling tools in the future), and more. All this can be yours for only $850 USD.

This is a cool project I came across from MIT's Media Lab. T(ether) is an experimental app that combines gestural interfaces, computer vision, and collaboration into an experience straight our of a sci-fi movie.  Creators Matthew Blackshaw, Dávid Lakatos, Hiroshi Ishii, and Ken Perlin call T(ether) "a tool for spatial expression" that "acts as a window affording users a perspective view of three-dimensional data through tracking of head position and orientation." So what this means is you can use the iPad to view a shared virtual space where you can manipulate objects with the other hand using a special glove. You can draw 3D shapes, rotate, pinch, zoom, and examine them in a multi-user environment. Two people looking through their iPads at a grid of virtual cubes can both reach in independently and manipulate them at the same time.    A cool concept that illustrates another way to do collaborative design in a virtual space.

So earlier this week San Francisco based Leap Motion , formally Ocuspec, released their Leap hands free controller. I got a personal demo of the device last week at their office in SOMA district and "Wow"! Developed over the past 4 years, Leap Motion moves far beyond the current technologies designed for hands free control. Leap is an entirely new way to interact with computers that lets you control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements. It's more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard, and more sensitive than a touchscreen. The Leap is a small iPod sized USB peripheral that creates a 3D interaction space of 8 cubic feet to precisely interact with and control software on your laptop or desktop computer. It senses your individual hand and finger movements independently, as well as items like a pen. The Leap can distinguish your individual fingers and track your movements down to a 1/100th of a millimeter. The compan...