The corrected release reads:
SCENECASTER BRINGS PERSONALIZED 3D SCENES TO SOCIAL NETWORKS THROUGH MENTAL IMAGES’ REALITYSERVER
SceneCaster, a leading provider of 3D social media applications, and mental images, a global leader in rendering software and visualization tools, today announced a partnership to bring photo-realistic 3D content and applications to millions of Internet and social networking users.
SceneCaster has integrated mental images's RealityServer® 3D web services software platform to power the company's latest application called 3D Scenes. 3D Scenes, currently available on Friendster ( http://www.friendster.com/explore3dscenes.php) and soon on Facebook and other global social networks, allows users to add their favorite photos, videos and other personal media to photo-realistic, fully interactive 3D Scenes. Users' personalized 3D Scenes can then be shared and published across Friendster's social network and embedded anywhere on the Web.
“With mental images's RealityServer solution we now offer users and brands one of the highest quality 3D visual experiences on the Web,” said Mark Zohar, President and CEO of SceneCaster. “In addition to vastly improving the user experience for 3D media on the Web, the level of visual quality enabled by RealityServer is a key enabler of our virtual goods marketplace where users can purchase premium photo-realistic 3D Scenes to personalize and embed on their profile pages. For brands, our 3D Scenes application offers one of the most engaging and effective social media advertising platforms while ensuring premium visual representation of their products and branding.”
By providing a server side rendering solution, RealityServer software allows SceneCaster to deliver the highest quality 3D scenes in a short amount of time, no matter what computer hardware the end users may have. A person working on a laptop or mobile Internet device can get the same level of final rendering quality as if they were on a high end graphics workstation. RealityServer software is deployed in the Cloud to house and process the imagery, alleviating the user’s computer from having to do this work. Depending on the application demands, RealityServer software can scale to support large server clusters permitting thousands of concurrent users.
“RealityServer is a universal software platform for accessing and interacting collaboratively with rich 3D digital content from any user device on the net,” says Rolf Herken, CEO and CTO of mental images. “mental images is excited about SceneCaster’s integration of RealityServer because it provides the social networking world with a unique and imaginative 3D application that truly enhances online profiles and experiences overall.”
In considering rendering solutions, SceneCaster chose RealityServer software to power its 3D Scenes application due to the following benefits:
- Exceptional quality of the images produced for 3D Scenes
- Overall speed of the rendering solution found to be second to none at equivalent quality levels
- Availability of COLLADA as a scene format for input made it simple to integrate into SceneCaster’s production pipeline
- Packaged as a fully functional web service at the start, the initial integration takes only a matter of days to complete
- mental images’ roadmap and commitment to provide powerful hybrid CPU/GPU solutions
- The GPU based acceleration offered is a key means to deliver high quality content to end users rapidly over the web
- Flexible licensing and monitoring allows SceneCaster to scale rapidly with customer demand
“Our experience integrating RealityServer was the best I have ever had with respect to integrating an external service into our overall solutions,” says Alain Chesnais, CTO of SceneCaster. “The integration team at mental images set up a private forum for us to use so that we could literally work around the clock, given the time zones involved, and helped with modifying C++ code in our modeling software as well as development of custom JavaScript code to deal with how assets were managed and where the resulting renders needed to be sent. We are currently using Reality Server 2.2 and are looking forward to using 2.3 as it becomes available.”
About mental images: mental images, founded in 1986, is the
recognized international leader in providing component and platform
software for the creation, manipulation and visualization of 3D content.
Its world leading rendering and other technologies are used by the
entertainment, computer-aided design, architecture, scientific
visualization, and other industries that require sophisticated images
primarily as part of their software products and application services.
mental images is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NVIDIA Corporation with
headquarters in Berlin, Germany, a subsidiary in the United States,
mental images, Inc., and a subsidiary in Melbourne, Australia, mental
images Pty. mental images has a multinational staff of top qualified
engineers exclusively dedicated to basic research and development in the
area of 3D graphics and 3D Web Applications and Services technologies.
For more information, visit
www.mentalimages.com .
