We have developed our first iPhone app for 3DVIA, which allows you to view and inspect any public 3D model from the 3DVIA.com library.  However, the best part is the collage function, which allows you to take a photo with your iPhone, then download any 3D model from 3DVIA.com, and add it into the picture, in true perspective. You can add 3D models of people into a picture of real people, you can add 3D models of furniture into rooms, you can add cars into your driveway. All this in the palm of you hand, wherever you are.  The possibilities are endless.

This must see video shows some of the great uses for the app, both practical and fun. After the video, get a few tries to practice and join our special Launch Promotion Challenge!
If you have any comments or suggestions to improve 3DVIA Mobile or have questions visit our 3DVIA Mobile Forums

*Note: If you haven’t seen the movie Office Space, this video may seem a silly at the end. Here is a clip from the movie, which may clarify our spoof.

All the details on the new 3DVIA Mobile App, including where to download are here.

We have created a quick (1:30) video here…

Hooray! We’ve finally gone and done it, we now have 3DVIA Forums! 

We’d like to welcome all of our Community Members to stop by and say hello!  This is the place to ask questions about all the different parts that make up our website, and 3DVIA Shape.  As opposed to 3DVIA Groups where our users gather around topics and 3D content, our forums are places for our users to gather and discuss 3DVIA!  Here you can post questions, tips, feedback and take part in the conversation with 3DVIA and other users like you.

Our forums are new and we need your support.  Here are the direct links to the first topics on the site.

3DVIA.com
   – General Feedback - General chat about 3dvia.com.
   – Player Feedback - 3DVIA’s Web Player feedback forum.
   – My 3DVIA Feedback - My 3DVIA personal portal feedback forum.

3DVIA Shape
    – Tips and Tricks – A forum to share tips and tricks discovered while using 3DVIA Shape.
    – Suggestions and Feedback - Share your Suggestions and Feedback about 3DVIA Shape here.  
    – Support - Seek help and support about 3DVIA Shape here.  
    – 3DVIA Shape for Maps – A support forum dedicated to the 3DVIA Shape version of Bing™ Maps.

I hope to see you all over there, make sure you post in the Hello Thread :)

And don’t forget our existing forum communities for 3DVIA Virtools and 3DVIA Composer users :)

- 3DVIA Virtools – The Swapmeet
- 3DVIA Composer – 3D Mojo

-Juan

Believe it or not, 3DVIA now has our own online television station – 3DVIA.TV!  We’ll not exactly, but we now have a site dedicated to all 3DVIA video content. The launch of 3DVIA.TV is one step in our effort to improve how users discover and learn the benefits of 3DVIA technologies. Consider 3DVIA.TV your own personal video tutor for anything and everything 3DVIA.

3DVIA.TV Will be Your One Stop Shop for 3DVIA Video Content Including:.

• Trailers
• Software tutorials
• Interviews
• Cliff’s Clips
• Podcasts
• Live streaming
• & more

To kick-off 3DVIA.TV, we have an exciting episode of 3DVIA People with Bernard Charlès, the CEO of Dassault Systèmes, and the visionary behind 3DVIA. This is a must-watch episode.

3DVIA.TV will also be broadcasting a live video feed from SIGGRAPH 2009 from August 4th-7th.

We plan on posting at least one video every week so tune into 3DVIA.TV often.

Play Subsurface online! The first game built on 3DVIA Virtools 5 by 6 people in just 60 days is up and running on the official Subsurface Web site.

Help Dr. Valerie Toulé navigate through an underwater field of depth charges and missiles as she tries to prevent the evil narco-terrorist Ian McClusky from discovering a power capable of destroying the world. But don’t let the story end there…discover the 3DVIA story behind the Subsurface story.

Meet Little Chicken Game Company, the development shop responsible for the creation of Subsurface, and learn how with a team of just 6 people, Little Chicken was able to turn out Subsurface in only 60 days. Watch the team discuss the making of the game in this video.

Enjoy!

3DVIA is proud to announce the launch of our new blog! We know it looks way different, but don’t be scared—it’s a good thing. The design, functionality, content, searchability, EVERYTHING in the new blog has been improved to cater to your needs.

Key Improvements

Based on your feedback, we’ve taken steps to improve the 3DVIA blog, paying special attention to the home page. In fact…it’s all about the home page. On the new Blog home page you can get all news 3DVIA community related without having to click, click, click your way to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Please, let the paragraphs below help introduce you to the new 3DVIA Blog.

Hot Topics

Stay up-to-date with the important article of the day/week.

Scroll through and read your choice of featured articles.

Are you obsessed with staying on top of breaking news? Well, “Recent Stories” is your place to be. Find it either at the top of the home page, or the bottom of the blog site.

Searchability

Categorized, drop-down tabs from the secondary nav bar help get you to the articles you’re most interested in.

Search popular categories such as contests, software, tutorials and Top Tens and quickly scan the most recent article posted under each.

Pull up articles based on popular search tags with this nifty (and addicting) “3DVIA 3D Tag Cloud.”

If you still aren’t getting the information you need, explain it in your own words with the 3DVIA Blog Search field located at the bottom of the page.

Videos

View the featured videos of the site in one place.

Getting the Buzz

Keep tabs on what 3DVIA users are saying when they’re saying it.

See what the rest of the Web is saying on 3DVIA’s Twitter account.

Enjoy and please feel free to leave comments on this post letting us know what you think.

Marc (back row, 1st on left) thinks that the Concord group bears a strong resemblance to the crew from NBC’s The Office.  Which one of us does that make Dwight?

Check out the rest of the pictures on the 3DVIA Flickr account.

Check out more from Kenneth Wong over at Desktop Engineering or on Twitter.

The best models you upload every week are spotlighted with their own Top 10 post, including an additional 5 Honorable Mentions.

You even have the chance to win valuable prizes in our frequent 3DVIA Challenges!

So, thanks to everyone; hard-core gamers, down-to-the-tenths CAD folks and anyone who just plain enjoys 3D modeling for becoming part of the fun here at 3DVIA!

Publish to 3DVIA from SolidWorks from SolidWorks: Heard!

Check out Lou Gallo’s SolidWorks: Heard! blog post covering the latest update to SolidWorks making it easy to publish content directly to 3DVIA.com.  I could be a tiny bit biased but I love how Lou opens the post (flattery will get you everywhere in this world).

“3dvia is a place where social media meets 3D modeling, allowing its users to upload, share and find 3d models. With over 6000 models and almost 75,000 users, 3dvia is the place to be when it comes to sharing 3d models.”

Lou also touches upon one of the keys to 3DVIA at the end of the post. “I hope this new addition will encourage SolidWorks users to share their models and help reduce the barrier of entry for the SolidWorks masses.”  Here at 3DVIA.com, it’s all about connecting different communities of 3D users together in the hope of expressing ideas in 3D easier.

In addition to SolidWorks: Heard!, you can follow Lou on Twitter and 3DVIA (maybe we can get Lou to publish a few more models!)

Documenting and Viewing via 3DVIA Composer from Desktop Engineering

We also had another great post from SolidSmack blogger and Desktop Engineering contributor, Josh Mings on his test drive of 3DVIA Composer.  Garth over at our 3DMOJO blog already has a post on the article but I wanted to republish a quote from Josh to continue our theme of making communication through 3D more accessible to everyone.

“It’s marketed as a tool enabling non-CAD people to take 3D CAD data and create rich deliverables — but in the hands of an engineer it becomes much more.”

You can follow Josh on his SolidSmack blog and Twitter.

Thank you Lou and Josh.

New tools available in Virtual Earth – 3DVIA!

The latest upgrade for Virtual Earth-3DVIA, 3DVIA’s free, online 3D modeling software for Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, is now available for download.  Developed to specifically address user feedback, the new upgrade features several key product enhancements, including improved UI for object manipulation.

Now Virtual Earth users will be able to more easily scale, position, and rotate imported models thanks to simple drag handles found on the outer edges of the bounding box that surrounds imported models.

Go try the new tools now, click here.

Check out the live tour in Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D, click here.

Check out this video to see the new features in action!

Making 3DVIA Shape even easier!

The latest upgrade for 3DVIA Shape, 3DVIA’s free, online 3D modeling software, is now available for download.  Developed to specifically address user feedback, the new upgrade features several key product enhancements, including improved UI for object manipulation.
Now 3DVIA Shape users will be able to more easily scale, position, and rotate imported models thanks to simple drag handles found on the outer edges of the bounding box that surrounds imported models.

To download 3DVIA Shape 2.1, click here.

Also, be sure to try out our new 3DVIA Starter Set.  With over 100 furniture models to choose from, you can build your dream room in minutes!

To start:

1. Launch 3DVIA Shape.

2. Type “3dviastarterset” in the search box on the lower left panel of the 3DVIA Shape interface.

3. Insert, position, scale, and rotate any item in the search results.

As the Web 2.0 portal from Dassault Systemes, 3DVIA.com is aimed at both professionals and consumers. Seen as a kind of “YouTube of 3D”; free registered users can create, upload and download 3D models, comment on models, have private conversations with other modelers and create their own groups.

01net.com also did a through review of the site as part of the presentation. This is just one page of seven in the review!

 01net.com is a leading French news web site (6 million single visitors/month), covering the Internet and Technology. It is part of the NextRadio business media group (owner of BFM Radio, BFM TV, RMC Info Radio and La Tribune), within the IT media division. Main topics at the 01net site include daily news, product information and reviews, tips and tricks, forums, videos, job listings, job training opportunities and a download center.

All in all, this is great award from a powerhouse player in the market. We appreciate the recognition!

You’ve added a lot of great models too - almost 5000! And that doesn’t even include the thousands more private models that have also been uploaded.

You’re also creating Groups at a growing rate – 88 special collections of models with related discussions! There’s something for everyone and anyone can start their own group.

There’s also a new weekly post recognizing the Top 10 models from the previous week. So, there’s always something new to find and get involved in at 3DVIA.com. Come on in, the water’s fine!

3DVIA BOOTH #1217

As the biggest international event in digital content creation, Siggraph is an excellent opportunity for 3DVIA to show off our applications for professionals and consumers to create and share content in 3D.Come meet us at our Booth #1217, and you’ll discover our latest demonstrations of 3DVIA Virtools.

TAKE THE 3DVIA CHALLENGE AT SIGGRAPH

LEARN ABOUT THE LATEST 3DVIA TECHNOLOGY

Our booth is also the perfect place to gather latest information about our cutting-edge solutions as well as our partner’s involvement. Be sure to attend some of our scheduled main stage presentations (stay tuned for more info).

Should you be interested in a private meeting with a sales or technical representative, please schedule an appointment using the following form: More information

CHECK OUT 3DVIA AT EDT – IPT 2008 THIS WEEKEND

If you are in the Los Angeles area this weekend and are a fan of Virtual Reality, don’t miss the “Creating Tools for Emerging Display Technologies” panel at this years Emerging Display Technologies and Immersive Projector Technologies (a mouthful we know) event. David Nahon, Dassault Systemes Immersive Virtuality domain leader will present its use of 3DVIA Virtools for creating powerful VR applications. More information

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Image Credit

In order to help reach this goal, we are creating a “What’s New on 3DVIA” column to establish a direct line of communication between our users and R&D.  That’s right — I’m a developer!  By now, you might have seen me around the site.

In this update, I’d like two highlight two new features that I am especially happy to see on 3DVIA: pervasive activity feeds and direct messaging.

3DVIA Messaging

Since I started working here at 3DVIA, by far the most common user request has been a way to communicate directly and privately with other users.  Until now, users were forced to leave comments on models as the their only means of communication.  The communication system was broken and we knew it.  Today we are introducing 3DVIA Messaging as the first part of our solution to this problem.  Let’s take a look…

One of the first things you’ll notice when you log into the revamped “My 3DVIA” area is a new section in the right sidebar called “Toolbox.”  The Toolbox is, as it sounds, your arsenal of tools interacting with 3DVIA.

The latest addition to this arsenal is your Inbox which is your hub for communicating directly with other 3DVIA users. Here’s a shot of my new messages screen:

Our inbox functions in a similar fashion to other communication systems you are used to such as Facebook and e-mail. It also guarantees your privacy, because your real e-mail address is never given out during the messaging process.

Users can send you a message through our new revamped profile pages. These pages are linked from just about anywhere your username is mentioned, and can also be found by searching users. Take a look at my profile, for instance. On the right sidebar, you’ll see a new area called “Connect with username.”

Aside from adding the user as a contact, which you’ll understand the usefulness of shortly, you can now send the user a direct message. The user will be notified by e-mail so they have no excuse for ignoring you!

Activity Feeds

A couple of months ago, we introduced an activity feed on the home page that helps users to keep up with what’s going on on the site.  Recently, we also added an atom feed so you can subscribe for updates via a feed reader. Though we started small, we’ve always had big plans for activity feeds.  Today, I think we can say that 3DVIA activity feeds have grown up.

With this release, activity feeds are now much more pervasive throughout the site.  The first of two new feeds we are delivering is on the user profile page.  It shows activity from a single user only, so if you want to keep tabs on a particular user, this is the best way to do it.

Another way to to follow a user, is to add that user as a contact from the link in the screenshot above.  Doing so will cause the user’s activity to display in our second new feed, which shows on your “My 3DVIA” page.  Since this feed is an aggregation of all of your 3DVIA contacts, its now the easiest way to stay in touch with all of your friends on the site.  Here is a screenshot of what your feed will look like if you have several contacts:

We think this is a great addition that will help people stay in touch and we hope it will help you create a bigger audience for your 3D art.  There is more in store for the 3DVIA activity feeds, so stay tuned!

I hope you have enjoyed our first installment of “What’s New on 3DVIA.”  What you’ve read are just a couple highlights from our most recent release so I encourage you to poke around the site to find out what else is new.

For more pictures from this release, visit our Flickr set.  If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment or send me a direct message!

We are also currently up over 2,400 free 3D models in the public warehouse and thousands more stored in private collections. 

Have you read Juan’s 3D Tutorials yet or seen our latest series by Don covering user m2morgan64 efforts to create a game starting with our own free 3D modeling application 3DVIA Shape?

Although I am probably biased, there is a great article on TIME.com today featuring a certain 3D content site that you may have visited recently. Please check out the Thomas Grose 3D Comes to Web 2.0 article that is all about your very own 3DVIA.com.

“The hosted services and communities of Web 2.0 already amount to an entirely new form of communication. But now a new site called 3DVIA.com is taking the social-networking concept to another dimension — both literally and, well, virtually.” [ Read the Full Article ]

If you are not familiar with TIME.com, it is the online version of Time Magazine which has over 3,250,000 subscribers and is read by nearly 10 million people each week.

Do you have Digg account?
Please Digg the TIME article above.

It’s amazing – click on the image to zoom into the improved 3D Las Vegas.

Also featured in the update…an improved Virtual Earth – 3DVIA.  Some of the new enhancements include lighting for contributed models, creation of preview thumbnails when you save a model, and much faster publishing when using high resolution textures.  To try it out while in Live Maps, switch into 3D view, right click where you would like to add a building and choose ‘Add 3D model’.

Other key updates for Live Maps include:

• Export Your Collection to Your Navigation/GPS Device
• The Ability to Add Labels for Birds Eye Imagery
• 1-Click Directions (They call it Party Maps!)
• MapCruncher Integration!…MapCruncher is a tool for registering your raster maps to create map tiles for mashups. You can now add your MapCrunched layers to Collections
• “GeoWeb Exploration”…”one of the largest stores of local content on the web”
• Neighborhood Subscribe via GeoRSS….very cool feature allowing to subscribe to local updates of a given geographic area!
• Tour Enhancements Including Hi-Def Movies
• Directions and Traffic Enhancements
• Improved Display of KML Files Including Google MyMaps Links

There is already some buzz for the update from around the blogosphere including:

• Live Maps hits us with a big release
• New Live Search Maps is Live
• Microsoft Introduces Tool for Avoiding Traffic Jams
• New Live Search Maps is Live
• The New Maps Is Live
• The New Release of Live Maps and Virtual Earth 3D is now Live!

Congratulations to the Live Maps team!

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We also passed 2,000 public 3D models at the same time (there are an additional 4,000+ private models being hosted on 3DVIA).  Check out new user smike, who has an amazing collection of spaceship 3D models, and the Earth Alliance “Ivanovas” SA-23E 3D model that he uploaded recently. 

Click the play button to examine the model up close.

You can find out more from smike on his website…Smikes World!

Let’s keep it going! Search for free 3D models now.

Here is an application of our 3D technology that we have had almost too much fun putting together.  Welcome 3Dcollage, our new picture application for Facebook that will let you overlay 3D models from 3DVIA.com on your favorite pictures to create new “3D mashups”.  These new mashups can be published to your profile or, even better, sent to your friends Facebook profiles.

Why would you want to do this?…Not only is 3Dcollage is a great way to dress up your Facebook profile, but it allows you to create stunning new images in a way not currently possible. You can position and re-position 3D models over 2D images in a natural way, making use of 3D effects such as lighting, sizing, and rotation to create your own Facebook works of art.

Check out these 2 pictures as a very simple demonstration of what you can do with the same model over a picture.   Models in 3Dcollage can be easily placed, spun and positioned in anyway that you want.

Now I am not making any political statements, but I found an interesting demonstration of the 3Dcollage idea on the campaign ‘08 group on Facebook using a Barack Obama model found on 3DVIA.com.

Interested in trying it for yourself?  It’s easy to do…first, login in to your Facebook account (Facebook accounts are free) and then in 3Dcollage,

1. Upload your picture – or search for one on Flickr
2. Import a 3D model from the 3DVIA.com library
3. Position it any way you like on your picture
4. Click the camera icon to publish it to your profile or send it to your friends
5. Rinse & Repeat.

What are you waiting for, create your first 3Dcollage right now!

In fact, this is one of the key changes that you will notice this year on 3DVIA.com. Instead of having several big releases, we plan on updating the site frequently to allow you the user to help shape the future of our service…so let us know how we are doing and what we can add for you.  We plan on monthly updates to the site so the suggestions you provide today could be included in the future site.

Here are some of the key updates released today on 3DVIA.com.

Simplified and Improved 3D Content Search
We’ve introduced an updated search feature that allows you to enter a keyword once and then search through our 3D models, people and groups with just a few clicks.

Search by 3D Model Format and Software
We’ve created an easy way to search the model library by format and the software used to produce it right on the search page.  For example, here are the free 3DS models available on the site right now.

3DVIA User Activity Feeds 
To highlight the user activity on the site we’ve begun to introduce Facebook style activity feeds to the site that will keep you up to date on the hottest 3D models and content on the site right now.  The first activity feeds can now be seen on the homepage.

Simple, Simple, Simple…We’re a 3D Content Sharing Site! 
I could have used the passé buzzword K.I.S.S. to describe this update but the sentiment applies.  Simple is our new theme. We’ve made very simple UI and messaging updates to highlight, particularly to  our new members, what you can do on the site.  That is…SEARCH, UPLOAD & SHARE 3D models and your latest ideas in 3D!  So go…search, upload and share!

Stay tuned, we should have an update to the site at least once every month!

As Bertrand Duplat, Virtools founder and CTO for 3DVIA puts it, “3DVIA has taken into consideration studios’ needs when designing and developing games, especially those that work with large development teams in multiple locations.  Our new development engine encompasses the entire development cycle – from importing content to testing and debugging – maximizing publishers’ investments by allowing them to create content once, optimize it, and publish it across multiple platforms.”

If you are in the game development space, you should check out the 3DVIA MP site for all of the details.  Or you can watch this early trailer for the product below. 

The official announcement for 3DVIA MP was released yesterday at this years Game Developers Conference and the reaction has been excellent.

The survey should take less than two minutes. Thank you again for your support.

 Click Here to Launch the 3DVIA Site Improvement Survey

If you would like to be notified about upcoming changes to the site, please register for a free 3DVIA 3D model hosting account or leave a comment below.

In addition to the additional exposure you will get on 3DVIA.com, a great reason to upload your Google Earth content is the ability to offer an interactive 3D preview of your models for the visitors on your website.  Every 3DVIA model comes equipped with an interactive 3D Life Player that can be embedded directly into your blog, online profile or just about any web page.

Here is an example of a .kmz packaged model uploaded recently to 3DVIA.com.  Click on the “PLAY 3D” button (you will need to add the 3D Life plugin to your browser) to view the model. 

Posting a 3D model to your site is as simple as posting a video from YouTube.   After you have uploaded your content, look for the small snippet of code located underneath each model on it’s viewer page.  It will be listed under the title of  “HTML Widget”.  Simply copy and paste that code into your page or post and you are off to the races.  We currently use Wordpress as our blogging platform but the player will work with Blogger or any other standard page that accepts iframes.

Enjoy!

• Ajax in alerts: automatic refresh when queuing and / or processing.
• In context sign in: now you can sign in before posting comments or rating a model in context.
• Sign in: you can now sign in by enter your username or your email.
• Texture:”allow download” attribute inherited for textures.
• Zip Download: Download 3D models and materials via a ZIP file.