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Google Makes the Future of 3D CAD… Lively

Published
by
Josh
on July 10, 2008
in Rockin' Cool
. Tags: , , .

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3D online maps are so yesterday, and so is the news of Google’s new web-based 3D Virtual World, but after looking into it more, I had to let all of you interested in 3D and CAD know what the possibilities could be.

You may know about the popular Virtual World SecondLife. It’s a full-featured World with the ability to do about anything you want to, but living in your own Virtual World can leave you a little… disconnected, which is exactly what Google has changed with Lively.

Why does this make sense?
Google has connected a Virtual World to the rest of the web. Right now, it’s not so much a ‘World’ per se. You have your own room. You visit other rooms. Why does this make sense? You can embed those rooms into your website. The SolidSmack Room is embedded here.

Why this is cool for 3D CAD

  • Interact with SolidWorks Users in rooms you design
  • Set up a space on your site for a User group
  • Share personal photos and video
  • Share Model (hopefully coming soon)
  • Discuss Issue and collaborate online

The future of 3D CAD
There’s a lot more to it than this though. I believe Dassault and 3DVia realized this. I didn’t think to much of their Virtual Reality (VR) demos of V6 but the more I saw them and what they were doing with V6, the more I became interested in the possibilities of what VR worlds and sites could do for the wonderful world of CAD and moving it toward the web.

Google Lively brings us one more step in that directions. Not only are you more easily connected with others via rooms, you are connected through your Google account, in which, I will assume, will soon allow the the ability for you to access your email with Gmail, your documents from Google Docs, your models from Google SketchUp and use it all offline with Google Gears.

People wonder why Google would even venture into the realm of 3D Virtual Worlds, but it makes complete sense when many are already connected into Google for everything else. If I look at My Accounts with Google, there’s nearly two page screens of service that I not only use, but am increasingly dependent on for my day-to-day work and computer usage.

If Google jumps a few bandwidth and programmatic hurdles, adds this dependency for 3D CAD Data while making it highly accessibly and secure, I’m one step away from doing all of my design work from a browser.

Relationship with Dassault or SolidWorks?
With Dassault and SolidWorks strong ties to Microsoft I speculate as to anything being done with Google. But I don’t think compatibility or interoperability is out of the question. My guess is that SolidWorks is moving toward development with V6 technology which I think we could see as early as Version 2010. This will bring in some web-based, VR capabilities and open the door to allow Worlds or Rooms to be more of a focus in the Product Lifecycle.

I was never too interested in the Virtual World craze, and found SecondLife, like a friend said to me this morning, creepy, but this brings a lot of new ideas and potential to the… World. What do you think about Lively and the possibilities of it changing how we use 3D CAD?

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Viewing 6 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    What I want to do with this:
    make my own personal 3D showcase
    Show private designs to people I invite.
    What you can do:
    Design a machine place it in a digital factory walk around it with some one on the other side of the world.


    And.........make the whole internet 3D!

    All this is not yet possible, but i hope at least the custom content will be possible in the near future.
    • ^
    • v
    As creepy as it is, I entered SL after getting a little tired of game modding. It scratched the itch of "making stuff and sharing it." If a service emerges that allows obj import withe the same social potential I think people will switch over.
    • ^
    • v
    "Jeez Bullwinkle, another web based environment? There are more ways to waste, I mean spend, time on-line than there are acorns in my nest; CADJunky, FaceBook, Plaxo, Linked-In, MySpace, Twitter, Plurk, Google, Vimeo, YouTube, Blogs..."

    "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"

    "Again?"

    "I gotta get a new hat"
    • ^
    • v
    @Devon - I know what you mean. I have to limit the number I use, but enjoy trying them out to see potential. I saw it in Twitter and have the same feeling about Lively. It's pretty basic right now, but just wait.

    I was hanging out with the 3DVia gang earlier, just gabbin' about stuff. That doesn't happen everyday.

    I don't like the gamey, cheesy fake aspects of it so much, but when other industries start to affect how the features are developed, I think we'll get a lot more use out of the VR Worlds.
    • ^
    • v
    What I find generally surprising is the assumption that the future of 3D social applications starts with a 2D browser like IE or FF, and then 3D plug-ins are grafted on to it. Surprising, because browsers built into a CAD application aren't new. Surprising, because there's no reason not to expect a 3D client with browser capability to emerge on the scene.

    -

    Some of us are just waiting for Linden Lab to strip their client down to the bare basics: access to a virtual world (whether Second Life, OpenSim, an IBM server, or something else) with an easily accessible browser. Nothing more than a perhaps a 15Mb download (tiny in comparison to today's 1Gb+ game demos). The content creation functionality (modeling, scripting, etc) can all be either provided through separate clients or perhaps via a plug-in architecture.

    They've been trying to integrate the Mozilla code for a couple of years now, with most of the progress having come fairly recently. And if you read the most recent Linden Lab blog post by their CEO, he indicates they're moving forward on a stripped down client as I described above. So it might actually happen as I've suggested it could.

    None of this is to say that a Linden Lab 3D client is the future. Not at all. But there's no reason to persist in the belief that we'll be going from 2D to 3D instead of the other way. It could be Dassault. Could be PTC. Could be AutoDesk. Or even someone unexpected. And when viewed from that perspective, as a designer and user of highend CAD, I find things become much more interesting; I start seeing e-commerce in a whole new light (e.g. http://blog.rebang.com/?p=577 ).
    • ^
    • v
    I really like that you covered this. i set up our lively room the same day you did. like you, i dislike the "gamey" "cheezy" aspect of it, but i think can be a great asset as soon as they open up the field for our own creations. we have international clients and to set up a virtual meeting to show off a portfolio or even work in progress could be a great experience for people.

    do you know anything about when they will be releasing the ability to create "products" etc?

    Ps. Love the site.

    Thanks

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