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Daden Limited has just released the results of their Immersive Training Authoring Tools survey, trying to figure out who is using immersive environments for training purposes and how they’re doing it.  Not surprisingly, Education was the biggest sector but the tools they use were a bit surprising.

Nearly 47% of the respondents were from education, 15% from the health professional training sector and interestingly 19% were from the corporate sector – especially as there’s little sign of a significant uptake of immersive training in that area. Second Life, OpenSim and Unity were the top three platforms and Second Life, despite the removal of the educational discount, dominates still with 39% respondents using it.

Not all that surprised to see Second Life at the top, given it’s existing infrastructure and multiuser environment.  I was surprised, however, to see Unity in there.  Unity is a great tool (I’ve even started using it myself just for experience), but not one I would typically think of for immersive environments.

via Daden release results of its Authoring Tools for Immersive Training survey.

Science daden, education, secondlife, unity

Unity has been picking up a lot of steam lately for it’s simplicity and ability to quickly prototype impressive 3D visuals and games, but has been locked out of several platforms because it requires the Unity Player.  That may change soon, however, thanks to a newly demonstrated feature that allows you to export Unity projects directly to Flash.

While we are not quite ready to ship with Flash support yet, we just couldn’t resist sharing this video with you, as this has been a major milestone for us. We’ve taken the project, changed the build platform to Flash, hit build; magic happens…and the game runs in the Flash Player.

Performance is great and things are looking very promising. Keep in mind, this is a sneak peek; many things are still rough around the edges. Rest assured we are working hard to ship this, there is nobody who likes to see this in your hands as soon as possible more than we do.

I believe Unity already has an iPhone exporter, so adding a Flash exporter pretty much brings Unity to every single computing/gaming platform out there.

via Unity Technologies Blog » Blog Archive » Unity and Flash : a sneak peek..

Graphics flash, unity

At the InfoComm event right now in Orlando, FL, Mechdyne is on-hand showing their big CAVE and Display technologies on the floor in DPI’s booth.  They’ll be showing 3D datasets, CABELib and VRScape apps, and (a surprise to me) in Unity.

At the show, Mechdyne will demonstrate a new interactive 3D application that helps users easily create virtual worlds with outstanding realism. With this new virtual reality toolkit it is easy to build dynamic 3D environments that can now include scripted behaviors, triggered physics and user interactions. Such 3D content could be used for training, presentations, simulations, research or design reviews.

Now, using Unity to develop 3D applications for the CAVE is a thought that honestly never occurred to me.  If it’s true, it could be a great alternative to traditional CAVE systems like CAVELib and VRJuggler.

via HPCwire: Mechdyne Showing 3D Visualization Applications for at InfoComm 2011.

Hardware cave, conference, dpi, mechdyne, unity

Unity, the high-level 3D game engine, has just released an announcement that they’ve hit 500,000 Registered Developers, with 150,000 “active monthly users”.

“The combination of Unity’s powerful yet approachable technology has resulted in it being the number one game engine used for both traditional and casual games,” said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. “It’s exciting to see how our users build on top of Unity to create mind blowing innovation of their own.”

In addition, they’ve got 60 million users of their browser plugin, making Unity probably one of the most successful 3D plugins around.

via Gamasutra – News – Unity Surpasses 500K Registered Developers.

Graphics unity

The Wall Street Journal published the recipients of their annual Innovation Awards, and there are quite a few visualization-oriented winners.

The one most people are talking about is Unity’s win in the Software category:

San Francisco-based Unity Technologies won in this category for a set of game-development tools that make it cheap and easy to create three-dimensional interactive content, including games, training simulations and medical visualizations, for a range of devices from cellphones to game systems.

The software for creating 3D online universes typically requires teams of engineers who spend years creating and refining these tools. As a result, they’re often too complex and expensive for small-scale or amateur game developers.

Unity’s software simplifies the process of building 3D games and other programs. It includes an easy-to-use editor that can take prefabricated components—rain or falling crates, for example—and combine them with other features to create full game environments.

But they’re not the only ones.  Some others to see:

Consumer Electronics, Runners up:

NanoLumens Inc., U.S.: Lightweight digital displays that are flexible, thin and energy efficient. The first product, a 112-inch display, weighs less than 90 pounds, is less than an inch thick and consumes less energy than five light bulbs.

Ford Motor Co., U.S.: MyFord Touch, an instrument panel for cars that replaces traditional buttons, knobs and gauges with voice commands, customizable LCD screens and five-way controls on the steering wheel similar to those on cellphones and MP3 players.

Nokia Corp., Finland: An “augmented reality” browser for mobile devices, called Point & Find, that lets users get information about real-life objects by pointing a camera phone at the object.

Medical Devices Winner:

Zoom Focus Eyewear LLC, winner of the overall Silver award, won in this category. (See “ A Different Kind of Eyeglasses “)

Network/Broadband Winner:

Vidyo Inc., based in Hackensack, N.J., won in this category with its technology for delivering high-quality videoconferencing over the Internet or cellular networks at a fraction of the cost of dedicated “telepresence” systems.

and Runnerup:

Microsoft Corp., U.S.: An experimental Internet application, called Pivot, designed to help users to explore, organize and visualize collections of data quickly by showing relationships between the information.

The WSJ Technology Innovation Award Winners, Category by Category – WSJ.com.

Science award, unity, wsj

One of the new features in Unity 3.0 is the new Shader Language they’ve created called ‘Surface Shaders’.  Given the historical complaints of many having to learn the multitude of shader languages and making them work in the many different rendering models, they’ve decided to write their own much simpler language.  A new blog post on their site shows what you can do with the new system.

Over a year ago I had a thought that “Shaders must die”. And what do you know – turns out we’re doing this in Unity 3. We call this Surface Shaders cause I’ve a suspicion “shaders must die” as a feature name wouldn’t have flied very far.

via Unity Technologies Blog » Blog Archive » Unity 3 technology – Surface Shaders.

Science shader, unity

Qualcomm, the mobile technology company behind Android handsets like the Nexus One, has just made a push into the Augmented Reality arena with a new freely-available SDK that aims to bring standardized AR support to Android devices.

“Augmented reality represents a quantum leap in the mobile experience ” said Matt Grob senior vice president of engineering and head of corporate research and development at Qualcomm. “By offering a no-charge SDK with state-of-the-art image detection and tracking technology we help developers create the new generation of applications that are richer and more compelling than anything seen on the market today.”

Initially, the SDK is being used by Mattel in their newest version of the classic “Rock `em Sock `em” robots game.  Unlike systems like Layar that use GPS & Compass to overlay data on the screen, the Qualcomm system is an actual computer-vision system using Markers, enabling more interactive applications.

In addition they are working with Unity to create an integrated development environment for application development, granting access to the Unity tools and assets.

Go check it out at http://www.qdevnet.com/ar/ .

via Qualcomm Introduces Mobile Augmented Reality Platform and Software Development Kit — SAN DIEGO, June 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ –.

Hardware, Science android, augmented reality, qualcomm, sdk, unity

The Unity Blog has been updated with example of some of the new Image Effects you’ll be able to use in the upcoming Unity3.  They have examples of lens flares, depth of field, outline shaders, bloom, sun shafts, lens effects, and many more.

Unity Technologies Blog » Blog Archive » Introducing some of the new Image Effects.

Science imageprocessing, unity, unity3d

Unity is preparing to release their new 3.0 with several enhancements, and have just posted a teaser picture showing some fantastic lighting effects in this war torn environment.

Just had to share this: It’s a screenshot from our 3.0 launch demo, lovingly done by the super-talented chaps at Aquiris.

via Unity Technologies Blog » Blog Archive » 3.0 Upcoming demo.

Graphics unity

If you work with the Unity Engine for game development, then you might want to check out the new “Unity Prefabs” project.  Aiming to create a catalog of ready-made assets for game development, the site is still in its infancy.

Game developers have already created countless man-hours worth of content, code and art. We bring them together in the shape of building blocks. Simply get what you need, connect them together and build solid games…fast!

Currently they have a few camera setups, but hopefully they’ll add more soon.

via The Big Idea page.

Graphics unity