Dear Reader, “Real-time” – a concept that has now come of age in the general business world. Although the term has been widely known and understood in the specialized area of virtual reality throughout the 1990s, new mass market consumer applications such as Google Earth and Second Life have resulted in a much greater awareness amongst global IT leaders and corporate executives of what “real-time” means and why it is important for today's consumer applications. Even in the year 2000 PCs and graphics cards of that era were unable to display sophisticated 3D applications rapidly enough to be considered “real-time” yet now, thanks to modern hardware and applications such as Google Earth, the business case for real-time 3D applications that was envisioned in the 1990s has been validated – the skeptics have been well and truly silenced. Seven years on and today the technology, even on standard consumer PCs, is able to rapidly display huge datasets, streamed in real-time over the Internet with extremely high visual quality and realism. So what does all this mean for end-users? Above all “real-time” VR means “interactivity”. The end-user of a engineering simulation or multi-user virtual world such as Second Life is free to move, explore and interact according to their own desires and without any of the delays or “jumps” seen in early VR applications. The result of this constant user interaction is redrawn (rendered) to the screen many times per second thus providing the sensation of instantaneous or “real-time” interactive feedback. A convincing example of this concept is the user-controlled fly through feature of our recently developed Bertelsmann 3D Atlas project. The user us able to fly over a city, a continent or move within a building – not along a predefined path, but completely according to their own desires. Real-time capability is therefore the technical requirement for true interactivity and through this interactivity – particularly in an online environment – new business concepts and end-user communication becomes possible. The applications developed by our many customers provide convincing testimony that interactive, real-time 3D software will continue to penetrate traditional industries and ever more consumer markets. I welcome your opinions and comments. Please write to me. Yours |
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News |
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 Football Enters the 3D World.
The HSV (Hamburg Sports Club) has deployed the virtual reproduction of its football arena on its website. Visualization, interactivity and real-time rendering was provided by the 3D technology of Bitmanagement. More info is available under “applications” below. |
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 Hewlett Packard Pushes X3D.
With the introduction “X3D, an open-standards file format and run-time architecture, lets you view, create, and share web content in three dimensions—plus a lot more.”, HP promotes the core benefits of using X3D, the evolution of the ISO standard 3D format VRML. |
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Vision 3 International Sees 3D Stereo as Future Market.
The South Korean enterprise is offering complete 3D stereo solutions including stereo cameras, stereoscopy equipment, service and digital content. Vision 3 International aims to accelerate the spread of stereoscopy through research and development to become a prominent player in this area. This is but one example illustrating that the the development of stereoscopy hardware is being vigorously perused across the globe. Bitmanagement's software is stereo capable. |
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 Schneider Digital Becomes a Qualified 3D Graphics Hardware Partner.
Schneider Digital, based in upper Bavaria, specializes in professional graphics cards, graphics workstations, monitors and peripherals and offers advice on the best hardware and software combinations for high performance 3D graphics. Schneider Digital serves the markets of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. |
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 Hamburg, the Most Beautiful 3D City in Google Earth.
Most virtual cities within Google Earth are simplistic and rather plain looking. That is until now, as the central business district of Hamburg has been integrated into Google Earth as the first full 3D model city to include comprehensive building facades. The popular 3D program, which permits virtual flights over our planet, has been extended with hundreds of models of buildings from the Hamburg city center. Spiegel Online article (German only) |
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Cebit 2007. 3D Stereo is Coming.
In this year's Cebit show in Hanover 3D stereo was a much discussed topic. Notably, much that was in previous years only a vision has now become reality. For example, 3D monitors for auto stereoscopic rendition, now make 3D for stereoscopic effects possible without special eye glasses. Previous problems that had limited uptake of these new displays, like manual calibration and optimization for specific content, have been largely eliminated now. For Peter Schickel, CEO of Bitmanagement Software, this trend towards 3D auto stereoscopy is confirmed, and Bitmanagement with its BS Contact Stereo software – which natively supports 3D monitors – is in a prime position to capitalize on the new opportunities for 3D stereo visualization using VRML and X3D compliant models. |
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Announcements |
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BS Collaborate: Bitmanagement Develops Community Technology.
The community technology enables 3D chat and shared events and is administered via a 2D web interface embedded within a free content management system. Two communication methods are being implemented: peer-to-peer for fast and safe communication, and alternatively a server solution for large-scale applications. Bitmanagement is leveraging our in house experience from the former blaxxun team coupled with the latest technology advances to develop a stable and efficient community solution. We welcome customer input and feature requests before a beta test version is released. |
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 Bitmanagement Supports Use of CAD Data.
Bitmanagement is working on a solution to enhance and simplify the visualization of CAD data within BS Contact for customer applications and product concepts. Support will be provided for the online visualization of the market-leading CAD formats with users being able to view and annotate assemblies. Together with BS Reducer this will result in new possibilities for the efficient use of CAD data in PLM (product life cycle management) as well as marketing and sales. |
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Developments and Technology |
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 Example Protos from the BS SDK.
Bitmanagement has extended the BS SDK with the addition of 150 Protos, which are designed to simplify GUI programming, animation and special effects. For example, the BS_SkyDome is a simple hemispherical sky dome object with correct texture coordinates to accept a single hemispherical sky texture, as opposed to the six separate textures required for the standard cubic Background node. Many online texture libraries supply textures only in this hemispherical form, so this object eliminates the necessity of converting to cubic format. There are many more such protos available in the BS SDK. |
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 Documentation for BS Contact Geo.
Bitmanagement has released documentation describing the new geo nodes supported by BS Contact Geo, which go beyond the nodes of the BS Contact VRML/X3D. The additional nodes include GeoSphere, GeoMap, GeoSystem, GeoLocation, GeoElevationGrid, GeoTouchSensor and GeoPositionInterpolator. The documentation is available for download in English. |
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 Intel Cooperation.
Bitmanagement and Intel are working together to optimize real-time 3D graphics rendering for their dual and quad core CPU technology. With it Bitmanagement secures itself the early adjustment of its software on trend-setting hardware developments - and products. Also common activities are intended with the Launch of new Intel products. |
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 Vista Compatibility for BS Contact VRML/X3D.
After extensive testing Bitmanagement has confirmed the compatibility of BS Contact VRML/X3D with the recently launched Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista. |
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Applications |
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 AR Prototype for T-Systems Delivered.
Augmented reality is seen by analysts as one the top ten potential high-growth sectors within information technology. T-Systems has been conducting research for years within this field and therefore is well-positioned to capitalize on the coming opportunities. Together with Bitmanagement in February this year a prototype for a new augmented reality system was developed, which enables sales and support personnel to better explain complex products and processes. After extensive internal customer testing and presentations the partners are now exploring strategies to commercialize and further develop the successful prototype. |
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HSV Visualizes AOL Arena in 3D.
The Vhaus agency has created an interactive 3D virtual model of HSV's Hamburg football stadium. A goal was to give club members and fans the possibility of exploring the HSV stadium informally with virtual walk-throughs of areas normally off-limits to visitors of the real stadium. From this initiative, the Hamburg Sports Club expects to further increase its fan base and Internet traffic and thereby raise its profile with potential advertisers and club sponsors. “With the real-time 3D software of Bitmanagement we exceeded the requirements of HSV in building the virtual arena and set a new benchmark in terms of quality and simple operation”, said Vhaus managing director Johannis Niemeyer. |
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 3dplaza Offers Interior Design Simulation.
The Korean company 3dplaza is now offering a sophisticated online interior design simulator or “configurator”, which is powered by Bitmanagement software's BS Contact. The application enables customers to interactively select and arrange a variety of furniture and decorations within a room to their liking, before they buy. |
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 Spatial View and Bitmanagement Deepen Cooperation.
Manufacturer of auto stereoscopic screens, Spatial View Inc., Toronto, Canada, and Bitmanagement agreed to intensify their cooperation after meeting at the recent Cebit 2007 trade show. Bitmanagement will supply the software visualization component BS Contact Stereo, which handles the real-time rendering of 3D models on the stereo displays marketed by Spatial View. |
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 Masskon Releases Unique Innovation for Real-time Visualization of Made-to-measure Clothing.
After three years development and with helpful support from Bitmanagement, ViDOO is completed – the world's first tool for the visualization of made-to-measure clothing. This innovation will be presented from April 27th at the offices of the UNICATUM Company in Kaiserslautern, Germany. |
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Trade Shows and Events |
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 Web3D Symposium in Perugia, Italy.
The Web3D Consortium met for their annual conference at the University of Perugia in Umbra, Italy from 15 to 18 April. The program of the international symposium included news from the 3D world and multimedia applications stand in the Web, software languages, tools, rendering technologies, interactivity, mobile terminals and innovative applications. The meeting was again cosponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH, Euro Graphics and the Web3D Consortium. Bitmanagement showcased many existing and upcoming products at the event. |
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 Workshop on Image Processing for Medicine.
Medical image processing (for example, 3D volumetric textures) is the key technology of modern, image-supported diagnostics and operation support, as well as biomedical research. The workshop “Image Processing for Medicine” took place at the Clinical Center of the Technical University of Munich from 25 to 27 of March 2007. Bitmanagement exhibited at the workshop in conjunction with our medical imaging partner, Digital Image. BVM Workshop website (German only) |
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For any questions, comments or suggestions in relation to
the Bitmanagement business letter please send us an e-mail. Please visit our forum if you have a technical issue
you’d like to share or discuss with other 3D professionals.
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This business letter is an offer of: |
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