Paul Krush

You get an easy CAD like 3D engine in Flash and people will build mass customization tools with it. It’s a given. There will be a million micro-factories that will rise up in Asia making every custom product you can think of using these 3D tools to directly communicate to the world wide consumer. I see this growth of mass custom as inevitable and unstoppable.

So I’m glad to see things are moving along on the 3D Flash front. Adobe has released a beta version of Flash 10 with some native 3D support, including hardware rendering. Speed wise it’s getting comparable to a regular windows application.

A company out of Russia called Alternativa Game, Ltd. has released a 3D Flash engine based on the Flash 10 called Alternativa Platform. Neat stuff. It’s private competition to open source Papervision3D

Microsoft has to be cooking up support for 3D in Silverlight, but I have yet to see any news on this. I don’t see how they can get to critical mass with Silverlight, but you can’t take them off the table as a player.

I don’t plan on working with 3D for Flash for a long while, but it’s nice to see it’s evolving into something useful for 3D consumer jewelry design in the browser.

I have said this a 100 times, but I just have to repeat it. Flash is on more machines than Windows and growing. These tools are going to give you the ability to release 3D design tools on any screen. Consumers will be able to design products on their iPhones, smartphones, micro-laptops, whatever, with the same interface as their home computer. Yes, a lot of the tools will be impractical due to screen size, but a least they have the connection/portal to the mass custom tools, databases, and community.

I’m speculating here, but I really think Flash is where real time 3D will really catch on.

Adobe is chasing the dream of the virtual machine that Java tried to do 10 years ago. I hope they make it. What is a virtual machine? It’s a sandbox for software. The trouble with software is you give it all the rights to your computer. You give the keys away when you install a program. How can a real time 3D advertisement run inside a browser? (A 3D mass customization configuration tool) A virtual machine is the answer. The trouble is this interferes with Microsoft’s monopoly. They crushed Java 10 years ago when they tried to do this.

Why do I care about this? I want to build tools that you can design jewelry in 3D in the browser. The tools would be advertisements like the rich Flash content you see today. A person can configure a piece of jewelry very intuitively using such a tool. This has to be very easy for them to start using. Today you have to install software to get the 3D to work. This is far too much of a block for people to use these tools. They have to be able to start using such this software instantly.

In the past I have talked about how Flash is becoming much more powerful. It’s clear that very soon people will be able to build 3D tools using Flash. Microsoft is trying to release their own tool call Silverlight to compete with Flash. It’s going to take years for this to get going. Silverlight will let you use a lot of different computer languages to program in, but Flash is proprietary.

Right now the 3D rendering is in software which slows it down greatly. I found a blog post with an interesting take on this if they put hardware rendering into Flash or Silverlight.

I have been watching 3D in the browser try to develop for years, really since 1996 when 3D Java applets became somewhat popular. It really needs to be in the browser. The server can do a lot of the 3D work, but it would expensive, and the client machines have the power. You can see on RingHunt.com I played with a few methods to do this. I have yet to try doing the 3D work on the server side. I’m not convinced it’s a good enough idea to pony up the resources.

There are other places that this could start first, but I think not likely. Online 3D worlds like SecondLife.com, There.com, World of War Craft, and maybe even a worlds based on the gaming consoles. Heck there is a possibly of some mobile smart phone or Internet table 3D standard could cause this to happen. Yep, 3D jewelry design software on a mobile tablet. These $200-$400 Internet tablets may not have the power now, but I would say in a few generations they are going to cheaper, far more powerful, and standard setting.

I plan on writing design tools that people can use within a web page to design rings. Now that real time 3D can be done in Flash, I am interested in starting with Flash with just images. I want to get my foot in before real time 3D flash takes off.

I think simple rings are a great starter product. These rings have no holes and a minimum thickness. This makes them very easy to manufacture; as easy as printing.

This type of design is called 2 1/2D because you can only change the flat profile of the design. The design is wrapped around a ring, but not designed in 3D. The design is represented by an image with the grayscale color being the height. So you will hear me say ways to manipulate an image, but really it’s changing the 2 1/2D information.

This is a rough list:
Centering of text on a ring.
Arraying artwork around the ring.
1D & 2D Arraying.
1D scale of the layout – stretch to array.
2D scale.
3D scale, the ring size, or thickness must change.
Pattern builder for the ring.
Booleans for the art work.
Art database.
Ring database.
Ring LxW look up calculator. Like a size 6 4mm layout fits on a size 8 4.5?mm layout.
Softening/blurring tools. Putting a chamfer on hard edges.
A cropping tool.
Import pictures tool.
Rail selection tool.
Height raise/lower tools, or darken and lighten the image.
Negative image tool.
Ring size calculator.
Font builder and font spacing tool (kerning maybe).
Vector curves – like adding a grove.
Basic setting tools for bezels and prongs.

I am thinking about these tools for simple rings, but they can be used for:
Bracelets, Links, solid or hinged.
Napkin rings
Huggie earrings.
Rondelles
Coin/medalian bezels
Flat metal strips for decoration.

Really these tools can be used for any 2 1/2D design work.

I think I see the Holy Grail for products designed by the consumer in an Internet browser forming. Adobe will be releasing ActionScript 3.0 for Flash 9 sometime in 2007. It’s currently in alpha. This release is orders of magnitude faster than previous versions. This release combined with faster computers is going to put us over the top for real time 3D in the browser. These 3D tools will work in almost all computer browsers without having to install them. The tools can just pop up, just like flash ads do at this point.

ActionScript 3.0 is not about 3D, but a powerful virtual terminal that runs in the browser. This lets people write 3D engines that use ActionScript. See Papervison3d.org and Kirupa.com.

Right now there are a lot of tricks you can do in 2D, but real time 3D in a browser that works on almost all desktops without installing anything is very hard. I see a small ad in a page expanding much bigger with a full-blown tool set popping up. In the past I thought Java would be the answer, but this was never able to achieve critical mass. Microsoft wanted to make darn sure that Java in the browser was not a way to replace desktop applications, and did what it could to kill Java. A server based CAD engine could work, but this lets the CPU power of the client go to waste. I have thought about running Rhino on a server outputting models and renders.

Flash is not just for computers; it works or soon will on kiosks, palmtops, handhelds, and large cell phones. The same tools that let consumers design products over the Internet can be used at a local level. Just like a person at Walgreens can print photos from a kiosk, a person can use a kiosk to make a custom gold pendant in a jewelry store. Sure this can be done with desktop software now, but kiosks would be easier to manage using these Internet tools. Also people could use their own devices in the store to run the store’s machines. This would truly be user manufacturing like Frank Piller is talking about.

I’m not sure where I am going to take this. I think it would be wise to let these 3D engines get developed for another 6-12 months or so to see what happens. I need to explore the world of 2D and Flash first. At least I now have more motivation to learn Flash. I am most interested in designs that are flat with 2 1/2D profiles. This limits the options and makes it easier for people to design there own pieces. With 2 1/2D you can use images to represent profile information. This is why I think a coin is perfect starter mass customization product. It’s just 2D printing with one more piece of information, height.

So can something like ActionScript 3.0 be the grease that really gets mass customization rolling? For simple custom jewelry I say yes.