[Uni-verse] [Fwd: FW: [UNIVERSE] Collada]

Wed Oct 12 13:13:36 CEST 2005

Hi,

In case you didn't answer it (and Eskil is too busy), here's what I  
would write.

---------

Thanks for forwarding this message to us.

Several members of our Consortium are familiar with Collada. The  
original creator of this file format, Remi Arnaud, is well known in the  
3D industry and has discussed it with Consortium partners Ton  
Roosendaal (Blender) and Eskil Steenberg (Verse) already since the  
specifications became public in 2003.

Collada is a very well designed format, and a potential candidate to  
become a widely supported 3D file exchange format. Collada isn't the  
only initiative to achieve this though. Very strong competitors for it  
are for example the Web3D Consortium's X3D format, but also Alias's  
FBX.
For 3D tools there's not much more choice now than just aiming at  
supporting all of them. All major tools in the market come with dozens  
of import/export modules for that reason.

We were of course very happy with the announcement that Collada now is  
a part of the open standards as maintained by the Khronos Group. It is  
relevant that good open standards get created and maintained,  
nevertheless it's important to witness that each initiative to create  
the ultimate 3D exchange fileformat has failed the past decades.  
Specifications for 3D data just don't get easily frozen, especially  
with technology and markets evolving a lot.

As a radical new approach to bypass the problematic convention and  
severe limitations of fileformats, the Uni-Verse consortium currently  
researches and validates the Verse Protocol. One of the benefits of  
using the a network based protocal is that 3D data exchange bottlenecks  
can be efficiently bypassed, in that way you could compare it to the  
benefits of using X3D, Collada or any file format as currently being in  
use. However, the very intrinsic intention of using Verse goes much  
beyond that purpose. Verse is aimed at connecting 3D tools,  
applications and modules into a real-time network, allowing team  
collaboration and efficient modular (content and software) development  
to extend and integrate functionality of any existing framework.

We strongly believe that this is not only viable approach, but also  
very well aligned with future technology market development, especially  
in how Operating Systems will deploy applications in the next decade.  
The Uni-Verse platform might not be ready for yesterday's desktop  
system, but certainly will prove to fit in what's going to be next.

This is a very important aspect of our project schedule, and the  
'reason d'etre' of the Consortium itself. We can not afford to treat  
our work as if it's part of a regular commercial software product  
development cycle - aimed at feasible short term goals that should be  
profitable within a short time span - if we want to deliver something  
relevant for the European Union's market competitiveness, we have to  
make sure that what we do can be picked up by commercial developers  
during the entire second half of this decade.
The Universities and Institutes that are part of this Consortium are  
excellently suited for that task. Our main competence is to research,  
develop and validate innovative solutions, and ensure our results are  
relevant for deployment in future commercial products as well.

Best regards,

--------------

-Ton-

On 5 Oct, 2005, at 15:58, Gert Svensson wrote:

>
>
> From: Konstantinos.Papanikolaou at cec.eu.int
> Date: 5 October, 2005 15:08:18 GMT+02:00
> To: gert at pdc.kth.se
> Cc: peter.astheimer at ititechmedia.com, jtceligueta at ceit.es,  
> olivier.balet at c-s.fr
> Subject: FW: [UNIVERSE] Collada
>
>
> Dear Gert,
>
> I forward to you a message I received from Olivier Balet about the  
> project
> COLLADA, which may overlap with the work of UNI-VERSE. Please assess  
> the
> claim that UNI-VERSE may be rendered obsolete by this new project and
> appraise the situation against any thoughts you may have on  
> redirecting the
> work in UNI-VERSE. Let us know about your thoughts and intentions on  
> the
> subject.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Kostas Papanikolaou
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BALET Olivier [mailto:olivier.balet at c-s.fr]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 2:52 PM
> To: PAPANIKOLAOU Konstantinos (INFSO); jtceligueta at ceit.es;
> peter.astheimer at ititechmedia.com
> Subject: [UNIVERSE] Collada
>
>
>
> Dear all,
> I don't know how mature Collada is but it may make UNIVERSE obsolete  
> very
> quickly. Same subject but endorsed by all the main actors in the field.
>
> I hope the Universe consortium is aware of this initiative and has  
> studied
> the added value of Universe and possible synergies, provided of course  
> that
> Collada is not a sleeping project which has to be analysed in details.
>
> This also strengthens some of our comments about enlarging the scope of
> Universe to distributed simulations too.
>
>
>
> COLLADA is a COLLAborative Design Activity for establishing an open  
> standard
> Digital Asset schema for interactive 3D applications. COLLADA is  
> designed to
> be the center piece of Digital Asset toolchains used by the 3D  
> interactive
> industry.
>
> COLLADA is a unique oportunity for the industry actors to collaborate  
> on
> such a design. For the first time, digital content creation (DCC) tool
> companies such as Alias, Discreet and Softimage have collaborated on  
> data
> interchange technology. Numerous companies have joined the effort,  
> including
> middleware providers such as Aegia/Novodex, Criterion. game developers  
> such
> as Backbone Entertainment , Vicarious Visions, and hardware vendors  
> such as
> nVidia, Ati, 3Dlabs, and Sony Computer Entertainment are participating  
> in
> this effort.
>
>
> http://www.collada.org
>
>
> best
> O.
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr Olivier Balet - Technical Director
>
> CS Systèmes d'Information
> Virtual Reality Department
> 5 Rue Brindejonc des Moulinais
> BP 15872
> 31506 Toulouse Cedex 5 - France
>
> E-mail     : Olivier.Balet at c-s.fr
> Web        : http://www.c-s.fr
> Tel        : +33 (0) 561 176 528
> Fax        : +33 (0) 561 176 578
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Uni-verse mailing list
> Uni-verse at projects.blender.org
> http://projects.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/uni-verse
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org  
http://www.blender.org