I am interested in a tool that can determine (or provide useful information about) what product (e.g., component or any other stuff) has been used as part of a modern or legacy GUI application, particularly for 3D viewer?
As for example, say, Autodesk Maya, Solidworks, Comsol, etc. is running, I want to know what piece of software they have used for 3D viewers.
You can check dlls used by your application to see if any of them are related to any 3D engine you know.
Try DependencyWalker.
Or this Stack Overflow question.
Related
I'm planning on doing an interactive AR application that will use a laser sensor (for distances), GPS technology to get a location, and then use compass/gyroscope for tracking 6DOF viewfinder
movements. The user can choose from a number of ready-made 3D-models, and should be able to place them by selecting the desired location on the screen.
My target platform will be a 8"-handheld-device, running on windows8.
Any hints what would be the best AR-SDK or 3D-viewer to work with?
thanks in advance!
There are quite a few 3D viewers that are working in the browsers. But most recently and most notably: va3C viewer
It is webgl based app and doesnt require a server, so if your handheld device supports webgl, then you are good to go, however, whether it works on IE or not is questionable ;).
Although based on my experience and your usecase, I believe client side JS libraries do not provide enough access to the device's hardware. So you might have to serve the information like GPS, Gyroscope, from the server side, then gather this on the client using something like socket.io and then mash it up alongside the geometry.
I am trying to do something similar, although havent quite done it yet. Will keep you posted.
Another approach I am exploring is X3DOM, which gives the ability to write 3D data like XML alongside HTML, which is quite declarative and simple to pickup. X3DOM derives from X3D.
Tell me if you need more info.
Also, worth exploring for its motion abilities, is Robot Studio, which is a desktop app with SDK.
I am gonna develop a lesson in two platforms(firstly in webgl and then a similar lesson in unity 3d).
the aim of this research is to see the best of these platforms in terms of performance and speed to use it in e-learning environments.
my question is this :
how can i measure the performance (processor, memory, graphic card) for these platforms?
also, I am very appreciated if any one give me ideas or a suggestions to improve this research.
WebGL and Unity are not platforms. Unity is a library that has support for multiple platforms; its performance depends on what hardware its running on. WebGL is a JavaScript API for browsers that allow them to access OpenGL ES 2.0. This also isn't a platform; it is utterly dependent on the hardware it is running on.
Sure, each incurs overhead, but they also do completely different things. Even if one is seen as faster for a particular piece of hardware, that doesn't mean that you can use it. Unity makes applications. Something you download and install. WebGL is for web pages: HTML+JavaScript. The reasons to use one are not the same reasons you would have to use the other.
Making a "WebApp" is very different from making a regular application. You generally decide first off whether you want to make a WebApp or a regular application, then use the tools that are available to the one you pick.
There are platforms that don't support WebGL. Namely, Internet Explorer. Microsoft has already stated that they aren't going to implement WebGL. So WebGL's performance on IE is effectively 0.
Also, WebGL is a low-level rendering API; Unity is a game engine. Unity provides more functionality towards making a game than WebGL, so there are productivity differences you must take into account.
Your desire to compare the performance of these simply is not the most useful criteria for deciding which one to use.
OK, your later answer clued me in to the idea that you're focusing on browser-based tools.
WebGL is not available on Internet Explorer. So again, half of your customer base is gone. However, Unity's browser plug-in is a plug-in and therefore must be downloaded by the user. Quite a few users are against that. Also, Unity's browser plug-in doesn't work on mobile systems; you would be expected to write an app for those.
So which matters more to you: reaching out to mobile users (where WebGL is available), or reaching out to Internet Explorer users? Again, this is something you need to deal with long before you answer questions of performance.
I am thinking of building a web based face recognition system. I know there are a few like KeyLemon, and others offered by different manufacturers that allows the laptops users to login into Windows using their face. I am wondering if this functionality could be transfered to a web application.
suggest you use this as the basis
OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision) is a library of programming functions for real time computer vision.
There was an excellent podcast on OpenCV on Hacker Medley which has various references that are useful. From that i understand that the library tends to move quite fast in development terms so needs close attention.
You may use thing like flash to access to camera ... , and then use the same algorithm to recognize the face ..
I've written a web application which does something similar. And I have to say - I'm quite disappointed at the level of technology we're currently at for such things. The system in question used a 10mpix Canon camera and a special flashlight stand. It had to have a perfectly white background, the head had to be tilted exactly the right way, couldn't be rotated by more than a few degrees, and had to have very precise distances to the edges of the picture. And even then it gave a lot of false positives and negatives.
So maybe they've come up with something better today, but I doubt that. This was all 2 years ago and the software was some commercial product by a company that specializes in that sort of thing.
So all in all I say - better don't. Biometrics are cool, but currently they are way too unstable to be deployed in anything more than niche situations.
Keylemon provides web api to enroll faces and their later recognition. You can use this web apis to integrate in your application to provide face recognition functionality. It works like this. During enrollment six photographs are taken and a bio metric model is generated. A model id is returned to the client. This model id needs to be stored in application database. For face recognition, web camera streaming combined with model id is passed to the keylemon server. If the model id and stream matches the face is authenticated.
I am looking for book titles or other resources for showing me how to get started and become advanced at windows based software with 3d graphics.
That depends on the application. A modeling application (Maya, Rhino) works differently from a game engine (Unreal, Crysis), a renderer (RenderMan, VRay) or a specialized tool such as Z-Brush. The math basics are the same, but data structures largely depend on the application.
If you just want to get some 3d graphics on the screen, go for XNA. It's focused on games, but it should get you started.
I used to read a book about beginning DirectX, i didn't finish it but it looked interesting and easy to follow. Also if you'll want to use a developed game engine, instead of creating your own, you can have a look at Ogre, it's free, open source and it has a lot of tutorials and examples, with a huge community behind. If you want something more simple and to use .Net you can have a look at Microsoft XNA.
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When prototyping initial GUI functionality with a customer is it better to use a pen/paper drawing or to mock something up using a tool and show them that ?
The argument against a tool generated design being that the customer can sometimes focus on the low-level specifics of the mock-up rather than taking a higher level functional view of the GUI overall.
Always start with paper or paper-like mock-ups first. You do not want to fall into a trap of giving the impression of completeness when the back-end is completely hollow.
A polished prototype or pixel-perfect example puts too much emphasis on the design. With an obvious sketch, you have a better shot of discussing desired functionality and content rather than colors, photos, and other stylistic matters. There will be time for that discussion later in the project.
Jeff discusses paper prototyping in his Coding Horror article UI-First Software Development
Click the "Watch a video!" link at twitter.com to see an interesting take on the idea from Common Craft.
The "Napkin Look & Feel" for Java is really cool for prototyping. An actual, functioning, clickable app that looks like it was drawn on a napkin. Check out this screenshot:
Seriously, how cool is that?
I would suggest you sit down with your client and use a tool like Mockupscreens and develop the UI interactively. A benefit it has over Napkin LAF is that it does not require coding, or indeed development tools of any kind
Check out Balsamiq
It does the "THIS IS NOT A FUNCTIONAL APP" napkin view very well and is easy to use.
Has a full featured demo you can try out online and as an added bonus you can email your XML to your client and they can tweak it and play with it and email it back to you without having to have a license.
There is a book called Paper Prototyping which details pen and paper drawing and what you can gain from it. I think it has a lot of benefits, particularly that you can, very early on (and easily), modify what the end result will be without much effort, and then start off on the right foot.
A basic paper version is the way to go for an initial mock-up. It's been my experience that if you do a "real" mock-up, even if you explain to the customer that it's a non-functional mock-up, they are confused when things don't work.
Bottom line: keep it as simple as possible. If it's on paper, there is no way the customer will confuse it with a working product.
For the first draft, I prefer to use graph paper (the stuff with a grid printed on it) and a pencil. The graph paper is great for helping to maintain proportions. Once the client and I have come to a conclusion I'll usually fill in the drawing with pen since pencil is prone to fading.
When I actually get around to building the digital prototype, I'll scan in the hand-drawn one and use it as a background template. Seems to work pretty well for me.
I think it is best to start with Paper/Whiteboards/White walls.
Once you have the basic structure, you can move it to Visio with the wireframe stencils
(Download a Stencil Kit)
(Visio Stencils for Information Architects).
Or you could use Denim (An Informal Tool For Early Stage Web Site and UI Design) with a tablet PC or Wacom tablets to design the GUI and run it as HTML website.
WireframeSketcher is a tool that helps quickly create wireframes, mockups and prototypes for desktop, web and mobile applications. It comes both as a standalone version and as a plug-in for Eclipse IDEs. It has some distinctive features like storyboards, components, linking and vector PDF export. Among supported IDEs are are Aptana, Flash Builder, Zend Studio and Rational Application Developer.
(source: wireframesketcher.com)
I've recenly used a windows App to prototype an application to a customer (the final interface has to be integrated into a website).
At first people thought that it would be the last version and they started to make very heavy criticism from the way controls were displayed to the words I had used (terminology and stuff) and the meeting time ended before we could even discuss the functionality itself.
That discussion dragged on for days and days until I told them that, being a mock (and not a final application) all input is welcome but we had to focus on the functionalities first and then we could move on to look and feel as well as terminology issues.
From thay meeting on I am always terrified of prototypes and mock-ups... Perhaps I should just have given them something made in visio instead.
You can try out ForeUI, it allow prototyping with different styles, what's more, it can make interactive prototype and run it in browser.
For a non-installation browser based tool you can try draft-it
It's free - and if you have a gmail account - no registration is needed.
Makes interactive/Step by Step Or Slide Show- prototypes. You can share your protoype with anyone you choose by just sending a link.
Works for us ...