3D Content — Why it’s important in the near future
We are embarking on the biggest series of changes in the 3D and Design space since the GUI. Here’s a look at the past and the future of 3D content.
With Virtual reality hitting it’s stride again, and Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and numerous other organizations announcing frameworks such as ARKit, ARCore and Daydream; there arises an important question — How different are these platforms to what we use today? Answer: very.
Like any other platform, AR/VR/MR are only as useful as the content that drives them, and this content all hinges on 3D. Having books for the ‘Amazon Kindle’ or signed artists and music labels to any music streaming service out there now are important more than ever for these platforms. It seems major companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft took a note and it’s a matter of time until we will see others follow.
The History of 3D Design Software
3D content is amazing, but at the same time, very hard to create. It all started in 1972, by Fred Parke and Ed Catmull, who will later be one of the founders of Pixar. 3D modeling and animation, back then, was still something you had to program and not design.
Since then, companies such as Autodesk, Omnibus and numerous other ones have made 3D designs possible for professionals to create stunning output. These were focused on professional designers and programmers since the learning curve was very steep. Although many tried to find the right user interface for a 3D design software, it was a significant barrier, and most of which remain with us even today.
3D, meet the Smartphone
Since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, our lives changed in so many ways. So how has mobile changed the way we do 3D design? It pushed developers to rethink the user interface of 3D design apps to make it easier for everyone to participate in the design process: more ideas and inspiration, more collaborators — better design. While we’re still using software that was built in the 1980’s and 1990’s, we see two trends that are happening right now:
Enterprise grade : Consumer first
The most famous example for that is ‘Instagram’ which enabled anyone to drastically and easily enhance their photos by taking the most desired features from Photoshop and making them accessible to anyone simply by applying magical filters. Snapchat and Pokemon Go made Augmented Reality a possibility in everyone’s lives in their own ways. Foursquare made possible complex geographical data, which just years before would have been almost military grade precision data.
Virtual | Augmented | Mixed Reality — XR
Mobile helped a lot in shaping the user interfaces of today’s software, making it easier to distribute and to consume. How are we going to move forward with 3D design software?
It seems that big companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple are not waiting for anyone, and have already started the race for 3D content by working on their 3D creation tools. Let’s take a look at the current efforts:
Apple
Until June 2017, Apple only talked about the potential of AR, but now it not only shows its power, but is opening its platform to the massive iOS developer’s community. In the next few months, we should see more and more AR apps or AR-ready apps that will change the way we consume and create a design. With the launch of the iPhone X, Apple looks to shape the next 10 years of the smartphone, and AR plays a pivotal role in the shape of things to come, if we go by what Apple believes in.
The first foray for Google into 3D was through the acquisition of SketchUp. Back then, Google wanted to enrich its Maps with 3D buildings, and SketchUp was perfect for that job. Since then, Google was highly involved in the 3D design space with the acquisition of ‘TiltBrush’, a 3D sketching app for VR, and unique experiences tailored to its hardware, like the mobile VR headset ‘Daydream’. Recently, Google launched a new 3D design tool for VR named ‘Blocks’ to allow more people to create 3D (low-poly) content.
Google’s goal is to allow people to create ‘stuff’ so they can enrich their future VR or AR environment.
While being pretty new to the 3D design space, Facebook already holds many achievements in the form of launching its own VR hardware, Oculus; a consumer facing ‘AR Studio’; Quill and Medium — Two VR 3D design tools; and introduced this year a new AR platform for developers with advanced AR technology.
Facebook anticipates that AR will have a similar effect on 3D design space like the one the iPhone and Instagram had on photography and Photoshop. That’s why it’s creating a platform where people would be able to create and consume 3D content with ease, as it did in the past with camera masks, stickers and more.
Microsoft
Microsoft was one of the first to enter the space of Augmented Reality with their fully untethered headset, the HoloLens. In Microsoft’s vision, anyone can open their studio, build anything in 3D and even print it out in 3D. HoloLens as hardware is very impressive, although a bit limited in what you can do right now. That said, a vision where we wear glasses and operates with our hand to create and design is something we all looking forward to seeing and experiencing.
Along with its efforts in AR, Microsoft has also released Microsoft Paint 3D — a modern version of its legacy MS Paint, to allow more people to engage with 3D design and democratizing it. Recently, Microsoft launched Windows Mixed Reality, a platform that brings the promise of Mixed Reality to every mainstream PC user out in the world. This might prove to be a winning stroke given the pace of adoption by OEMs to release Windows Mixed Reality headsets. With Remix 3D, Microsoft’s vision on 3D content is similar to Google, and targets users to build, share and use 3D in Mixed Reality.
Where from here?
Until recently, some of the aspects of these technologies were pretty much in the sci-fi territory. The combination of innovation, new technologies and easier tools to use these technologies will mean that the end user is more empowered than ever.
At Scapic, we see this future. A future where people are more creative, filling their lives and surroundings with their creations, is the world where we all would love to live in. To that, we are building the simplest platform for you to get started with Virtual, Augmented and Mixed reality!
Make 3D. Make it come alive on Scapic. Check out our tool here.
