| Blog free-visit |
 Hi there. I originally come from the 2D world, not 3D. Afterall I only discovered 3D in the last five years, after 12 years of building "2D" gui-layouts. In the 2D we use images. Pleinty of them. Of course to use images file we need a format. Plain simple. So what have we got here ?
Everyone uses png files and all grapfics designer tools also have an png reader. It's just a dream to work with images today.
when you discover the 3D software world, the first things that strikes you is that almost each 3D Tools has its own file format. Even some of them use two formats at the same times. Ever heard of .obj , or .3ds ? This is just the two best knowned, because there are perhaps 30 differents other formats. Hey 3D formats could't you be textures-aware ? First let's talk about those "super" formats that, for most, are just not aware of the texture. what ? Yes I know in today world (in todays powerfull hardware I should say) 3D-mesh with no textures (images) would be like talking about writing a text with no Font and no color. Just wierd. So how do we "had" textures in those format.... well you create a zip... with the 3D-mesh file on a directory (.3ds or .obj or .... well the 30 other #@!!? mesh format) and the textures (usually .jp files) on another directory. A normal guy would just say : Well we need a container like a .3DS_With_Textures_included format but no there is none. this is just the begining of the bad surprises.
So Imagine the nightmare for any developer trying to use those 3D-Objets in his scene. Yes man , theorically you have to write about has many "importer programs"as there is format. The problem is that writing an "3D-importer" is just painfull and takes time. And for each neu version of the format you have to update you program. Often what developers do is that they write a importer for one or two format and they expects people to convert their files in this format. This is possible but has 2 big drawbacks : 1) Quality - just like google-translation, not all 3D-converters-format are of good quality. Prepare yourself with days and days of trying to guess waht went wrong in this convertion. And having question like "Oh oh, what this converter-tool transfrom the .obj in what version.... ". 2) Binary formats.And I did forget to add : Most of the 3D-formats I have used are not XML formats (readable I mean), no they are binaries format ... well like "dam I need a reader to undertand that format... oh I got one, but what version does it reads.... oh shoots. As we say in french "J'ai essayé, mais plus jamais". In clear, "never again". I am not aware of the histoy of those 3D-files, but I am sure of one things : All those format were/are kept to enclose the client of each 3D tool. The worst in all this is that there is a standard format. Collada format. It's open, it's XML readable. But it was only promoted "just to simplified transfert between software nit as a true format". a bit like a second class citizen.
The good thing about new Players entering a Market is that they sometimes take shortcuts and dare takes route the other players did not. In recent years, Google tryed to build a central place to store and download 3D objets. The call it Google-warehouse and it's getting traction. There is also 3DVIA that does the same and is also getting good traction in europe. Both of them have thousands of 3D objetcs files. Impressive ! Now do they allow people to upload in any format ? No, they of course promote there own fomat (compliant with google earth for example) but they also have a second format, the Collada format.Open and simple format. good move. And you know what, since they almost all 3d tools have an "Collada export" function. Therefore in only one year thanks to googlewarehouse and 3DVIA the Collada format has received a First class citizenshift.
Yep ! free-visit is also Collada-aware
So starting from today and thaks to a few people from the open source community around java/java3D free-visit can now upload any 3d object from the Collada format. I tryed it with no failure over 40 objets from google or 3DVia. It just work fine. This collada files uplod is also I must say a very interesting move because many collada files available. Many of them are free or cheap. there was a time when one simple 3D object could cost 200 €. Now it is more like 10€, and many standards 3D objets are let free by there creator. See under an example of a visit with a few Collada files. By the way, you may find that the lauching of the visit takes longer now because the processsing of Collada files takes some seconds. But I did not yet optimise this, so perhaps I will improve in the future. Stay tuned. Update (mars 6 2010): the Collada now has a 30% increase over yesterday. So it is faster allready. The demo under uses the patched engine.
January 10th 2010 : OpenGl und DirectX friends again
When programming softwares, sometimes you have enough that software companies just complicates things. With GC 3D cards, the one used to navigate in 3D in free-visit Player, it goes beyond the limit.
Back 2 years ago when windows vista was delivered, Microsoft just tried to kill OpenGl. Now how can a company do that ? Well if you controll 98% of the Market for Operating system (OS) of PC, you can use this power to force HP, Dell or about all the computer manufacturers to deliver a buggy OpenGl. What ? A "full of bug" piece of software just to decrebilise OpenGl ? Yea man, this is just what they did. Unbelievable. No ? As a result, I have long noticed that many Pc with Vista just did not have a satisfaying performance on a free-visit visit. Happily I am using java3d API, witch happens to be able to target both OpenGl as well as DirectX. The trick was to -before sarting a visit- check the OS, and if it is a Windows with XP, just run OpenGl. But if it runs windows Vista just than launch the player with Microsoft DirectX. So now with free-visit, Opengl and DirectX are for once good friends. And any computer running any windows will have a good performance. "Pourvu que ça dure !". 
December 15th 2009 : A New Demo
Since a few days I have been trying to produce an external tour of "Bebelplatz" in Berlin. Well at first it was just Bebelplatz. But as I modelised a bit the surroundings I did discovered that even if I added "Unter den Linden strasse" most computer could honnestly cope with such a memory foot-print. So ... I added "Unter den linden" to the visit. Later on I also tried to modelised a quiet street parrallel to "Under den Linden"(honnestly I did forgot the name). I tested it on my 5 computers (some 3 years old). It just worked fine, 3D was fast enough. Of course everything is not so good with this new visit.For example I really don't like the road texture of "Unter Den Linden" witch I got from google map. I also find some buildings just ugly but in overall it is a honnest "quick made" visit. I added a music and voice to explain.
October 12th 2009 : New Internet site  First post on free-visit blog !
This fall we have the pleasure to have a brand new Internet site. Yes at last ! Thanks to Bruno, Joomla and others few people, this new internet site is better looking, faster and easier to maintain. So long live to free-visit's new Internet Site. You can go from this url : www.free-visit.net
 Screenshot showing the main In ternet page :
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