OpenSim on USB Stick Chosen Over Google SketchUp for Real World Product Placement Project

This is seriously cool -- a developer named David Miller (his blog here) explains how he used OpenSim on a USB stick for a real world marketing project: "A marketing company was looking for a way to have their sales team create 3D images of product placement in cinema lobbies." The company wanted to hire contractors to create these images, effectively and most of all, quickly: "[The contractors] needed to be able to respond to proposals (RFPs) as quickly as possible because the first response typically wins the business."

Now here's where it gets even more interesting (to me at least): While there are other 3D platforms besides OpenSim on a stick that could provide this solution, it won out for practical reasons over an industry standard, Google Sketchup:

OpenSim was not my first thought for this; Google SketchUp was my initial choice because of the ability to use a ray tracer such as Kerkythea to create photo-realistic renders. Part of the project requirements included training them on the tool and this tipped the scale toward OpenSim. I have done Sim-on-a-Stick workshops and was confident that I could train them in a day on how to set up product displays, import appropriate textures, snap quality photographs, and even do videos of the space...

The images do show a hypothetical HP display in which the two reverse spotlights on the floor and one spotlight on the ceiling were animated, a feature not possible had this solution been done in Google SketchUp. The lower polygon count of OpenSim was an acceptable quality compromise for the ability to script movement and to “fly” a camera real-time through the space (no need for overnight rendering which means faster RFP response time).

Emphasis mine. Above, one of the images created with OpenSim on a stick. Click here to read in detail how David did it. This comes only a couple weeks after I blogged about an also cool practical use of stick-based-OpenSim (should we call it SOS?) to plan retail store Layout and salesperson training. It makes me think there's a great Kickstarter crowdfunding project here: Develop and distribute OpenSim on a stick customized for use in rapid 3D prototyping.

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Comments

[foneco zuzu]

And its so simple and easy to use it as the name says.
http://simonastick.com/
And btw:
http://metaverseink.com/blog/?p=357
Vivox is not longer SL exclusive:)

[Douglas Story]

Does the SL client also live on the stick? Or does the client have to be installed on the customer's computer in order to demonstrate the build?

[Desdemona Enfield]

Hi Doug,

Some versions include imprudence. The startup script runs the viewer as well.

Desde

[Dave Bell]

My reading is that they create images and videos to show to customers, rather than having them visit the OpenSim world. But I also see a couple of different levels of "customer". There's the marketing company, who employs the contractors to produce the images, etc., and there is the product company. I can see the marketing company having staff who could benefit from walk-through access, to get a better advertising display.

[Graham Mills]

It's normally called SoaS, I believe.

[David Miller]

Thank you Hamlet, nice piece about what was a very fun project.

The viewer can 100% be run from the stick, however, it will try to look at your User > Application Data folder for viewer config files. That's only an issue if you only want the SoaS localhost and OSGrid in the Imprudence 1.3.2 grid manager.

I use Imp 1.3.2 because it is simple and for complete newbs, it is easy to get them up to speed.

Dave - you are correct, this was only used as a 3D application for doing screenshots and video - no concurrency. Although, SoaS can be configured to allow a class to network into one stick.

The stick is a "live" USB meaning it is running as a server - Apache, MySQL, PHP, and OpenSim.

Ener Hax has the site http://simonastick.com in which she keeps SoaS up to date and most helpful is the link to "blog posts" for how people have extended it, etc.

OpenSim used like this is just an easy 3D app that can be taught to anyone in a matter of hours. The trade off for photo-realism is that someone can build representative models that get 80% of the concept across.

While Unity would be much nicer, I know that I could not teach anyone Blender in a day!

YouTube is the number one eLearning source in the world and it's all about content and not slick presentation - I'll leave that to the Robert Jackson's of the world!

[Ener]

w00t! nice post Hamlet and yay for my subQuark! *very proud gloating*

sim-on-a-stick has been downloaded about 8,441 times since it came online back in december of 2010 and it very much has been a collaborative thing but clearly by a tiny niche within a niche!

on the SoaS site there is a link to blog posts (like subbie said above) and that should be helpful to see use cases and mods to it

one thing David did not mention was the cost of the project - $250K! a lot of that was because it involved physical site checking and a certified accuracy of one inch for each of the 100 lobbies! but it was a company project, not big $$$ directly to subQ