| Q&A |
WorldViz Vizard,
Andy Beal,
September - 2009
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“We
help companies decrease cost of prototyping and training
by enabling them to simulate complex scenarios in a
fully immersive fashion. Next to Fortune 500 companies
such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Toyota or Bosch, WorldViz
products are also widely used in academic research across
disciplines such as medicine, psychology, engineering,
and computer science.”
<
Serious Game build with WorldViz Vizard |
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| Q1 |
What
is the role of WorldViz in the growing market of visual simulation? |
| A1 |
We
are an industry leader in interactive virtual reality solutions.
WorldViz brings immersive 3D simulations to the mainstream
by making the technology affordable and easy to use. We help
companies decrease cost of prototyping and training by enabling
them to simulate complex scenarios in a fully immersive fashion.
Next to Fortune 500 companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin,
Toyota or Bosch, WorldViz products are also widely used in
academic research across disciplines such as medicine, psychology,
engineering, and computer science. |
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| Q2 |
Vizard
is specially dedicated to handle VR equipments such as Head
Mounted Display, CAVEs, or Haptic devices. Is it still a good
choice for project that do not require such peripherals? |
| A2 |
While
Vizard is particularly adept at connecting to all sorts of
input and output devices, its Python-based programming environment
and modular approach makes it extremely versatile and capable
for building even conventional desktop-style applications.
For instance, customers use it for data-mining and data-visualization
without any special input or output devices. |
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| Q3 |
Vizard
uses Python; this is a language well known for web programming.
What are the benefits of using this script language for bringing
interaction to 3D scenes? Is it fast enough for realtime 3D? |
| A3 |
Our
customers are convinced that the benefit is faster development
cycles. True, Python is well known in the web community, but
it’s equally well-known in other scientific and industrial
communities. Our philosophy is to leverage high-quality open-source
components, which in-turn make available huge resources to
our customers (e.g., universities teach Python, enormous Python
exist making available numerous high-quality resources). Regarding
speed, our Python interface is largely an abstraction. All
underlying 3D rendering is done with a C/C++ based engine,
and very rarely is Python the processing bottleneck for any
of our customers’ projects. |
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| Q4 |
Behind
Worldviz there is OpenSceneGraph engine (OSG). Since OpenGL
performances decrease with MS Windows Vista, is it still a good
choice for displaying very large scenes? |
| A4 |
This
question asks whether OpenGL is competitive on Vista compared
to XP. The evidence is that it is; for example see http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9.
That said, we find Vista’s real-time performance (e.g.,
networked render clusters) to be less reliable and robust
compared to XP, independent of OpenGL or DirectX, and therefore
continue to recommend XP as our OS of choice for the vizsim
industry. Importantly, W7 is released and is now the only
relevant comparison to XP. We don’t not yet have an
answer regarding W7 reliability and robustness.
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| Q5 |
What
are the key advantages to use Vizard vs Delta3D since they both
use OSG? |
| A5 |
The
two platforms also share Python as their chosen programming
interface for the developer (though both allow extension thru
C/C++ modules), and overall have many similarities. Our chief
advantages separating us from Delta3D would be :
1) we’re a commercially supported product and offer numerous
services for our customers,
2) our inventory of natively supported hardware is larger than
any other product we know about,
3) we specialize in vertical markets different than Delta3D
such as real-time motion capture, CAD based training, and architectural
visualization. We do not promote ourselves as a gaming platform. |
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| Q6 |
What
would a typical industrial application of WorldViz products
look like? |
| A6 |
 For
example, aircraft turbine manufacturers use WorldViz technology
to turn CAD models into stunningly realistic and interactive
training applications for maintenance engineers, allowing supervisors
to train their maintenance procedures upon virtual aircraft
viewed either by donning a stereoscopic head-mounted display
or by entering a multi-wall projection system, and manipulating
the turbine parts using haptic gloves. |
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| Q7 |
Workflow
is a major aspect : how does Worldviz import and update 3D data
during the development? |
| A7 |
Natively,
we support numerous standard formats (e.g., wrl (VRML2/97),
.flt (Open Flight), .3ds (3D Studio Max), .txp (multi-threaded
TerraPage loader), .dae (Collada), .geo (Carbon Graphics), .bsp
(Quake3 world layers), .md2 (Quake animation models), .ac (AC3D),.obj
(Alias Wavefront), .lwo/lw (Light Wave), .pfb (Performer), the
OSG's native .osg/.ive format, DirectX .x format, and .3dc point
cloud). However, WorldViz also actively maintains the 3D Studio
Max exporter known in the OSG community as OSGExp. This exporter,
combined with our WorldViz-side modules, provides a high-quality
and efficient artflow capable of binary data format, embedded
textures, optimizations, and certain shader operations. For
our CAD customers, we have allied ourselves with Anark and their
Core™ product line for automated CAD asset conversion
into the Collada format. |
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| Q8 |
Worldviz
can be well integrated with 3ds max, but how can 3d artists
using Maya or Softimage can import their assets since Collada
is not well supported by OSG? |
| A8 |
We
are investing in Collada loaders and expect that our upcoming
Release 4 of our product line will prove that Collada as a format
is a viable artflow for both the Max/Maya/SoftImage as well
as CAD (e.g., CATIA/SolidWorks/Pro-E) communities. |
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| Q9 |
What
can I do with your 3D software toolkit Vizard? |
| A9 |
With
Vizard even undergraduate students can learn within one week
how to create fully immersive, interactive virtual reality environments.
Vizard is your central platform for importing all common 3D
formats, scripting your own interactive scenarios, rendering
to any stereoscopic display system, using motion tracking or
full-body motion capture, and rendering scenes over complex
computer clusters. Our customers are very pleased when they
see that their existing virtual reality hardware already works
plug-and-play with Vizard. |
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| Q10 |
How
would a company distribute and sell applications created with
Vizard? |
| A10 |
Vizard
allows you to build applications as executables. Those applications
can be distributed without royalties. This allows to share and
sell applications made with Vizard, and let anyone run them
without installing Vizard. |
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| Q11 |
What
if a customer wants a full solution out of the box? |
| A11 |
That’s
a good question. We have an impressive in-house team of expert
software programmers, hardware engineers, and graphics designers,
who provide full custom solutions including 3D application development,
hardware integration, onsite installation, technical support
and training. Clients can come to WorldViz with their own unique
vision of a simulation application, and we will deliver it. |
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| Q12 |
What
about the motion tracking systems PPT-X and PPT-H manufactured
by WorldViz? |
| A12 |
 You
will not find a system on the market that tracks larger areas
at such low cost. Our PPT motion tracking solutions break the
cost-performance barrier, bringing high-quality motion tracking
to cover ranges over 50 x 50 meters at competitive prices. We
use an optical-inertial hybrid technology which guarantees extremely
robust real-time tracking. Recently we have added to the product
line a hand-held interaction wand and tracking for shutter glasses,
which makes the PPT system an ideal solution for powerwall and
CAVE users. |
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