Incoming features

We are working on the next release of OpenSpace 3D.

Incoming features :

• Networking with a multi-plateform Java server, coming with network plugITs like a chat and avatar.
• Physics with newton engine.
• Interfaces in 3D using flash controls.
• 3D Stereo mode.
• Embeded plugin for firefox, Chrome, Safari and internet explorer.
• and more …

A lot of  improvement are available!

Let’s list them:

• More PlugIts (functions)
• Animations support.
• Import from ogre scene with a simple wizard.
• Export your project directly to a web page.

For details see the history in the download section.
(You will need to update your Scol Voyager for this version)

Try the Car Showroom Demo from here !

Now, you can follow the OpenSpace3D news on Twitter :

http://twitter.com/openspace3d

Discover the first development demo produced with OpenSpace3D : a 3D real time car showroom. It presents the rendering capabilities of the platform and some interactives functions. Take a look to the video before getting the real time demo which be soon available in the next setup release.

Thanks to Benoit Vandangeon from 3D-test for this first video tutorial which explain how to import 3D datas from Softimage in OpenSpace3D

30 students (engineers and computer graphists) used the OpenSpace3D Editor during the Virtual Fantasy competition which occurred from April 22th to April 24th at the Laval International Conference on Virtual Reality (laval virtual website). We have considered their remarks to improve the first Alpha version of OpenSpace3D Editor : We fixed different bugs and added some new elements.

You can download this new Alpha release by visiting the Download section

Version History

0.1.3a – 05/04/2009

• improve axis ergonomy
• add helpers icons for camera / nodes / lights
• add the grid and helpers show / hide buttons on 3d toolbar
• adjust the default light setting

0.1.2a – 04/27/2009

• add Scol version verification on start and install
• update .Scol with loader
• correction of anims import on scale keys
• add test of the presence of flash player activeX in flash function

OpenSpace3D Editor Alpha version is the first step of the OpenSpace3D Project (OpenSource and online collaborative Platform for the development of real time and interactive 3D project). This first version of the editor runs as a local and mono user software.

Based on the 3D rendering Engine “Ogre 3D”, OpenSpace3D allows you to create full 3D applications by assembling functions to create interactions. A player is available to distribute created applications: the OpenSpace3d player.

Now available ! OpenSpace3D Editor first alpha release.

OpenSpace3D Editor needs the Scol Voy@ger 6.0 to run.

Get the Scol Voy@ger 6.0 first at www.scolring.org or directly : Here

Then Download and install OpenSpace3D Editor : Here

3D Editor:

The 3D Editor allows you to transform 3D Objects by modifying position, rotation and scale.

Editing Functions:

The Editing functions allow you to create links between the functions to add interactions in the 3D environment.

A link is the connection of an event of a function to an action of another or the same function.

Available Functions in the OpenSpace3D Editor :

Object Link allows to create a click on an object

Open Url allows to open an url

Flash allows view Flash content on a 3D object.

Basic Navigation allows to activate the movement of the camera in first person mode.

Set active camera allows  to change the camera used.

Animation allows to read or stop an animation.

Distance allows to trigger an event when one enters or leaves an area around an object.

Timer allows to trigger two events as alternative.

Sound allows to trigger a sound when launching the application or during the “play”.

Rotate allows to apply a rotation on an object or a node.

Light allows to activate or deactivate a light dynamically.

Hide allows to hide or show an element in the 3d.

SCOL/Ogre: 3D Rendering and 3D Management

Technical features of the SO3Engine based on the Ogre 3D Engine

N.B: All this features have been integrated in SCOL Language, but only the features in Bold are available into the OpenSpace3d Editor (alpha version).

General Features –  Architecture and MiddleWare

• Full Compatibility DirectX/OpenGL
• Dynamic Resource Management

Scene Management – Scene Graph Management

• Hierarchical scene graph and Scene Node Management
• Scene querying features
• XML format .scene to describe Scene or Object Groups : easy to merge

Physics – Newton Physics

• Collision detection, Gravity, forces, inerty and velocity

Lighting – Realistic Lighting

• Can have an unlimited number of lights in the scene
  
• Supported through vertex and fragment programs
  
• Lightmap

Shadows – Shadow Mapping, Shadow Volume

• Shadow Techniques supported: modulative stencil, modulative projective
• Multiple stencil shadow optimisations, including vertex program extrusion, zpass and zfail methods,Texture shadows fade out at far distance

Texturing –  Textures Features

• Unlimited multitexturing
• Automatic Texture Compression
• Supports PNG, JPEG, TGA, BMP and DDS image files and Video Textures

Shaders – Vertex, Pixel, High Level

• Supports vertex and fragment programs (shaders), both low-level programs (assembler), and high-level programs (Cg,DirectX9 HLSL or GLSL)

Animation – Animations into Scene

• Skeletal animations, variable bone weight skinning,
• Unlimited bones per skeleton
• Node Animations
• Vertex Animations and Facial animations

Meshes – Mesh Loading, Skinning, Progressive

• Hardware-accelerated skinning
• Automatic Mesh LOD
  
• Flexible mesh data formats accepted
  
• Export from many modelling tools including Sketchup, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Blender and Wings3D.

Special Effects – Usual effects for realistic rendering

• Special Effects : Environment Mapping,Water effect, Cartoon..
• Fog, skyboxes, skyplanes and skydomes Management

Rendering – Rendering features

• Loader for material Scripts and Scriptable multipass rendering for materials
  
• Transparent objects automatically managed
  
• Fullscreen rendering and Anti Aliasing

… Strength and Innovation of a Technology originates from its concept …

Since its foundation, I-maginer develops web 3D applications based on a high level and open Source Language: SCOL.

Strength and Innovation of this language originates from its concept: « The possibility of dynamically and quickly creating 3D multi-user Applications” what differentiates it from most other existing  technologies (excepting video games solutions).

I-maginer has established a strong strategic focus on innovation and R&D to put in lights and to develop the core of the SCOL Technology.

SCOL : A Complete Language

SCOL language is a fully complete technology based on a virtual machine. To describe the power of such a technology we could list the main libraries and APIs included in the language allowing to create 3D applications :

• 3D Engine
• 2D APIs
• Network API
• Communication with Data base Library
• API to manage Multimedia and ActivX
• IHM Management Library

We cannot speak about SCOL without mentioning its multi-user dimension.

Moreover, SCOL is fully evolutive. Indeed, it is easily possible to create new “plugins” enriching the language. For example, we can add Virtual Reality Interface (Augmented Reality, VR IHM…), Speech APIs or Domotic management…

SCOL : Web3D Precursor

The development of the first 3D Engine for SCOL started in 1997.

In 2001, the first version of the SCOL OpenGL 3D Engine, called ZooEngine, already allowed the creation of virtual environments on public computers of that time!

Since 2007, I-maginer has established a strong strategic focus on innovation and R&D to evolve towards better rendering quality and the development of new features.

However, due to its weak possibilities of evolutions, the ZooEngine was somewhat outdated.

That is why, since 2008 I-maginer has been actively working on the integration of a new Open Source 3D Engine.

Ogre 3D coupled with SCOL

At that time, I-maginer made an important strategic choice for SCOL Technology. Rather than reinventing the wheel it was better to focus on developing a new 3D engine incorporating powerful features. We oriented our choice on Ogre 3D Engine.

Ogre 3D is one of the best Open Source 3DEngine.

It allows the creation of high quality 3D environments with a strong compatibility with present 3D technologies.

Available Technical Features

The SO3Engine integrates some powerful features derived from the Ogre Engine :

• Platform & 3D API support : Full Compatibility DirectX/OpenGL,Renderer Properties, Hardware and OS Information,
• Scene Management : Management of 3D Objects (mesh, lights, cameras, skyboxes…) to gain full control over the scene organisation, Hierarchical scene graph, Dynamic and realistic Lighting, Multiple shadow rendering techniques,
• Material/Shader Supports : Full Management of Material effects, Supports vertex and fragment programs (shader), Texture compression and management,
• Animations : Sophisticated skeletal animation support, Animation of SceneNodes,
• Others Features : Dynamic Resources Management, Physics Engine based on Newton Engine, Benefits of the Ogre Community (exporters)

R&D Objectives

The development of SCOL Technology does not only concerns 3D, I-maginer has also other priorities.

First, SCOL applications will soon be integrated into web Browsers.

Another priority is to enhance the Voice over IP to comply to present standards.

I-maginer is also investigating Virtual Reality through the development and integration of innovative IHM.

Finally, I-maginer is part of fundamental research projects (with the support of the French ministry of Research) applied to different fields such as : Image processing, Speech recognition or Web3D standardization.

OpenSpace3D

These developments are for I-Maginer a prefiguration of its new development platform: OpenSpace3D.

OpenSpace3D is our final objective, allowing SCOL to be a leading technology for real-time 3D  and Web3D applications.

It is an online multi-user development platform for collaborative 3D web projects in SaaS mode.

OpenSpace3D’s aim is to help develop new 3D environments in the field of collaborative work (distant meetings, webconferences), training (virtual classroom, learning and serious games), simulation, innovation, e-commerce (virtual shops and malls), Virtual Reality applications, social networks for expression and sharing (personal 3D spaces) or massively multiuser games (MMOG)… for both B2B and B2C uses based on 3D and real-time collaboration.

These developments set a new direction for I-Maginer that is now positioned in the field of integration and development of open source technologies as an Open Source computing service company.

The open source platform OpenSpace3D will spearhead.

I-Maginer’s team is pleased to introduce to the SCOL community (http://www.scolring.org), it’s projects concerning the development of the technology.

For some time (since November 2008), we have been actively working on the integration of the open source 3D engine Ogre (http://www.ogre3d.org).

Several reasons motivated this choice:
First, we wanted to enable SCOL developers to create high quality 3D environments in line with current developments of 3D engines. Indeed, the current engine ZooEngine had changed little since 2002 and was somewhat outdated.
Rather than reinventing the wheel it was better to focus on developing a new 3D engine incorporating powerful features. That is what motivated our choice of Ogre 3D.

This development allows a better compatibility, a higher rendering quality and higher performances of 3D in SCOL.

The new plugin (dll) for SCOL / Ogre interfacing is the SO3Engine.

Its purpose is to allow a high-level use of the Ogre 3D engine in order to combine these new features with the existing SCOL API.
This project is very promising. It aims to revive the interest of 3D developers to SCOL technology and to add a more computer graphic oriented community.

We will deliver to the SCOL community these developments during the month of April, under Open Source license : the SO3Engine, the Ogre (v1.6.1)redistributable and documentation.

In addition, we will deliver our SCOL developments that will allow anyone to use this new API: an interactive 3d scene editor (offline and mono-user at first). This application, named OpenSpace 3D, will allow you to edit a 3d ogre / Scol scene and to implement features

OpenSpace3D’s aim is to help develop new 3D environments in the field of collaborative work (distant meetings, webconferences), training (virtual classroom, learning and serious games), simulation, innovation, e-commerce ( virtual shops and malls), social networks for expression and sharing (personal 3D spaces) or massively multiuser games (MMOG)… for both B2B and B2C uses based on 3D and real-time collaboration.

These developments set a new direction for I-Maginer that is now positioned in the field of integration and development of open source technologies as an Open Source computing service company. The open source platform OpenSpace3D will spearhead.
More to come really soon.