Paul Krush

I added a model search page to the site. Just a different way to look at the models I have for free download. I’m not sure if I will add models to this database in the future. I think the most useful jewelry model database would just be elements of jewelry(or related items) that are very standardized.

In fact, I am actively working on some of the ideas outlined in this post from June 2007:
The merging of model sharing and jewelry design software.

Currently I am writing a plug-in for Rhino using C# & .NET. It’s my first venture into .NET. I know VB & some C++ so it’s pretty easy. As always I am working on jewelry software for the end user/consumer that they can use for free. It will be 5 years in October the I have been toying with ideas for this project. It’s frustrating because I have yet to release anything useful over the years.

I can’t wait till I have a useful product out there. I don’t think this will take too long. Well, at least a useful product for people that already know Rhino. To make it simple enough for non-CAD people will take much longer.

I am writing a jewelry design tool that non-CAD users can use for free. As a side effect this also can be used as a basic standalone jewelry design Rhino plug-in. It will also be a back end to a web based mass customization system.

There would be no cost to the non-CAD users. You can download and use Rhino for free permanently as a model viewer. My plug-in will be free as well. These users will be able to save parameters of a piece they designed using the plug-in. Jewelry manufactures can use these parameters(a file or link) to build the piece, or as a starting point to design what the non-CAD user wants.

I plan on releasing every Monday night for 8 weeks. Yesterday all I had was a ring rail tool. These releases will be in Alpha, as in buggy. Releasing unfinished software is a necessary evil as I need I to create a feedback loop with the users.

At some point I would like to write a front end so this can all be done over the web. One thing at a time. I feel a Rhino plug-in would be the most useful (and hence profitable) starting point.

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 am now focused on learning formal project management skills and out-sourcing at the employee level.

I need to update everyone on where I am heading. I tried hard at being a corporate sales person. But after 8 months I think I don’t have the politically smooth to pull it off. I’m a pretty open and hate hiding details for ill gain. When do honest profits turn into ill gain; I don’t know. I know I spend too much time thinking about this stuff. Maybe I am an analyst at heart, and an outside sales career is not a fit. Maybe it’s just not my passion. I know I can learn to be more political savvy, but would I lose genuineness in doing so? I don’t know. I did learn a lot about myself, working at this for 8 months. I have added a new level of humility, and learned a lot more about sales.

I got into sales because I feel need to work with people more face to face. So now I am learning about project management (a people-facing role). I had no idea there was such a huge methodology to PM (project management). After years of doing projects (mostly alone) I wonder what I am going to find out. I am reading a few books on it, ask me how they turn out.

I am also reading the book “Producing Open Source Software” by Karl Fogel. It’s pretty dare interesting because it describes a successful model of creating software with people that remotely communicate over the Internet. It talks about having a website, mailing list/forum, a bug tracker, and version control. What is so interesting is how oDesk.com is promoting the same virtual PM environment. I have often thought about going open source with the mass custom tools. If you know me “free” software suits me well, but I am not sure about the profit model. I went looking for .NET C# people out on Linkedin.com for the Rhino Plug-in’s I want to write. I was surprised at the number of people that were interested in the project because of the shear coolness factor. This would be one key to attracting great volunteers. With my budget I am going to have to call them volunteers!

ODesk.com is an employee focused out-sourcing site. I like them a lot better then eLance.com, Guru.com, and RentaCoder.com in that they are focused on having the buyer develop long term relationships with the employee/freelancer. They only charge 10% and take care of all paperwork and paying the person. They have profiles, history/ feedback, and tests for people to demonstrate their skills. OK, I need to quit talking about it and use the site. I do have some pretty neat plans for it.

So what are all my plans? I don’t know. For the next two or three 3 months I am learning these two areas (PM and oDesk.com). I have a number of little projects I would like to try that I think would be profitable.

So in the next few months I want to:

1.) Create a bench of Jewelry modelers/designers on oDesk.com
Anybody could go out to oDesk.com and use these people I bring in.
2.) Create more free models for the site.
I like to showcase what you can (and can’t) be out-sourced.
3.) Do some CAD/CAM consulting in order to create a CAD/CAM for jewelry FAQ (and earn cash).
I have been doing this already. It’s nice to make money and keep my feet wet.
4.) Really get comfortable with using oDesk people for Web Development.
I have high hopes for this. I want to leverage time & skills. There are so many projects I want others working on, if oDesk.com works out.
5.) Learn a lot more about PHP tools such as Drupal or Joomla.
Neat stuff, I don’t know much at all about them.
6.) Create some basic 2D Flash consumer jewelry design tools (Mass Customization configurators).
These would output 2D curves to manually build models in Rhino. I will offer these for free download for jewelry manufactures large and small around the world so they can get started in mass custom for jewelry. If this works well I am thinking about a mass custom Flash builder builder. Meaning you can generate your own .SWF (Flash) files for your jewelry website. The .SWF files would be customized to your website & models you want to sell.
6.) Expose my jewelry model database so people can search my models by all different ways.
I have a really nice working model database that people can use to search my models. I am not sure what all to do with this beyond exposing it. I am not sure I want to get into the jewelry model business. Right now I am trying to use what I have to jump to mass custom. If models pay the bills to develop software, so be it.

I think these tasks will lead to a model that will start paying the bills. If not, I will work locally in web development.

So some of you out there think I am schizophrenic. I say I’m out of jewelry, then I’m in, and out again. Get use to it. Some people think I am a flake and others a visionary. I think to really be a great visionary you have to be a total flake!

Thanks for the comments over the years, Paul

From configurator-database.com the definition of a configurator:

“Simply put, a configurator is a software application for designing products exactly matching customers’ individual needs.”

They posted videos from the mass customization gurus:

YouTube.com/user/configuratordatabase

To me, a configurator is a jewelry design tool so easy that consumers can use it. The super easy tools will wind up as banner ads, harder tools will expand from the easier tools. I see a world in 5-10 years that there will be a full blend of jewelry design tools available from simple mass custom configurators to professional tools(training required) all available in a internet browser.

My idea of a configurator for mass custom jewelry is like the corny Flash games(advertisements) you see on websites. It must work in any browser without the permission of the user. It’s an advertisement that expands to become a jewelry design tool. I say it must be written in Flash because Flash is ubiquitous, and can do the job. It’s on more machines that Windows. For a long time I was held up on the idea that these tools had to be in 3D. 3D for flash is out there, but I think the smart companies will use 2D to start. It’s so much easier to write 2D tools.

Gemvision calls the configurators “builders” in their jewelry design software call Matrix. I call it a tool or builder, sometimes a configurator. My take on this, for many years, is the configurator needs to be run by the consumer. Even if it’s just to get their mouth wet so a professional can take over. People think I’m nuts when I say this, but I feel this mass custom jewelry market is going to be huge!

It may seem weird if you look back in time at this post, but the only way to present a great 3D tool for the consumer to design jewelry is an installed program, or browser plug-in. Both of these require permission from the user. You highly limit your customer base when you do this.

So here is my prediction: In five years 3D jewelry design tools for the browser written in Flash will be used in advertising on main stream websites. They will be viewable on mobile devices. Five years from now people are going to be in jewelry stores with jewelry design software on their phone playing with it like a video game.

I had this idea for years and realized it’s not on the website. Just as you can write software to render frames of a computer animated movie, you can script out Rhino 3D to render people’s names into a name ring or name pendant for a post card. Say a jewelry store has 5000 people in their database. You could build a system that renders 5000 pictures for 5000 post cards each using the persons first name. You could render all sorts of address information into a post card. I think this would be eye catching as heck. Every year when Mother’s day gets near I flirt with this one.

Just to review each post card would be different. It would have a 3D computer rendering of jewelry designs that contain the persons name.

The scripted name pendants you see can also be rendered in a mass customized way like this. This is more of a highly specialized 2D font creation. You can script in a name and create all sorts of 2D rules on how swoops and hearts are applied. You can add 2D symbols till the cows come how in an automated fashion. After the 2D curve is extruded into the 3D model. You can also add 2 ½D art work into this. 2 ½D art work is neat because it can be represented by a grayscale image.

I had JewelryPostCards.com registered for a while, but I never wanted to jump into the jewelry marketing business, so I  dumped the name. Dell color laser printers are high quality and cheap enough to do stuff like this. You can buy software that helps you automated the address information, bulk rate info, and barcodes.

I think the money is just not in jewelry to do this sort of stuff. My prediction is these ideas will be fleshed out in Asia. They can market and ship directly to the western world. This has been going on with colored stones from Thailand and cell phone accessories out of Hong Kong for a long time now.

To fantasize, can you imagine having full 3D scanning glasses? Where you could pick up the 3D info on objects in your sight? Not just mesh info, not Nurbs, but the automatic generation of parametric models? You could look at an old ring in your hands, and have a model with handles (to change it) pop up in your vision. As you play with the forms and change the model a price could constantly update on what it would cost to build this new ring you are designing. An efficient, low cost, mass customization, manufacturing center somewhere in the world will make it in days and ship it to you. When will this happen? 15-20 years from now??? I have no doubt that it wil happen.

Here’s an interesting site:
http://genometri.com

http://genometri.com/pdf/case_risis.pdf

On the surface it just looks like they are just messing around with parametrics in CAD software. Their intentions are truly mass customization for the consumer. Genometri’s founder Sivam Krish is talking about releasing products in Second Life. That’s fun, but for me I just want more than Second life has to offer. I want the real Metaverse now!

Lately I’m not working on this stuff at all. Things don’t move that fast, so I am not worried. At this point I feel another 2-3 years will bring some of the core tech up to speed. Someone will write a Flash 3D CAD engine, and have it working smoothly. Better 3D worlds will come out. Computers and Internet speeds will get faster. Heck given enough time, servers will be fast enough to do the 3D modeling on the server. You can do that now, but it would be so much nicer to have the client’s machine do that. It’s not about tech; there is just no critical mass in 3D standards for the browser.

Here’s screen shot from their site:

This has all been talked about before. I am just framing the concepts differently.

As first glance most people would say this is oil and water, but I don’t see it that way. Steps can be taken to bring model sharing closer to software and software closer to sharing. With the release of uber-builders and scripting in Matrix Version 6 I think Gemvision is taking a small step in this direction.

It makes for an interesting exercise if you ask these two questions:
1.) How can Internet Model Sharing be more like Jewelry Design Software?
2.) How can Internet Jewelry Design Software be more like Jewelry Design Software?

These can be small steps toward each other, but end I see a product that is a combination of both these services. Yes, I’m calling jewelry design software a service.

Steps to bring jewelry design software closer to model sharing:
1.) Making the final model more parametric. It’s finished, but it has handles all over the place to change it.
2.) Some 3D Art can be standardized, and directly injected into a builder. Such as:
Standard panels for class rings
Standard tops for signet rings, pendants, etc.
Collar sections of rings.
Really any element can be standardized, and then offered as an option.
2.5) You can build a model and the builder can cycle through the standard art available.
3.) Offering the design software in an Internet browser. Yes this is a jump, but standards and tech to make it happen are forming right now.
4.) Put a live human into the jewelry design software and offer this service live. No Joke. Yes, even I am dreading the day jewelry design software has an Indian accent. Cool, but scary! It’s called Artificial Artificial Intelligence.
5.) Offer community and collaboration tools directly inside of the software. A share my screen/model button. This would be a lot easier if the software was web based.

We do some of these steps already manually, but sometimes it can be done with a person that does not know CAD. Like a store employee or even a customer standing at a kiosk.

Step to bring model sharing closer to jewelry design software:
1.) Offering models that have parametrics already built into them. An example would be a model with the Matrix WIP 6 handles already in the model.
2.) Offer models that have the parametrics automated. Like you can play with the controls before you downloaded the model?
3.) Offer models that the standard 3D art can be changed on the fly, and seen in real time with the sharing interface.
4.) Offer manual changes to the models being shared. (We will resize this ring model for $xx.xx)

Reasons why you would want to marry the two concepts:
1.) Profits. This creates a new product category for the wholesale or retail customer. They can claim that they designed their jewelry.
2.) CAD designers can start with a model that is closer to the final design.
3.) This brings more people to the table. Most jewelry sales people do not work with CAD.
4.) It’s the Burger King business model. Have it your way. This gives the customer far more control over the model.
5.) These concepts create more ways to get the designer’s creative juices flowing.

This is all about building intelligence into the design of the model. The model has to be simple to allow this, but it can be done in many different ways.

I use Gemvision terminology here, but these concepts are already in use in other industries.

By the way artificial artificial intelligence is a really cool concept. I have not thought much about it for jewelry design. It’s all about humans interacting in complex ways with each other with complex software.

The convergence is coming!

What do you think?

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.

Did you know you can buy home, deck, and garden design software at Target?

Do people play with home design software before going to architect? If so, how has that changed custom home design? Do people rough out the house design, and let the architect detail it? This was one of the directions I was heading when I was working on that 3 stone trellis ring software in the end of 2003. I have not thought about it much lately until several people brought it up here in the forums.

One could write software that would let people rough out custom rings though a series of controls and parameters.

Having consumers rough out the ring first fits some rules I have for consumer design software to work in an independent retail store.

Those rules are; Will the consumer jewelry design software (or kiosks too):
1.) Keep the relationship?
2.) Build the local community?
3.) Be sustainable?

Would free consumer jewelry design software like this hurt an independent retail store? Sure I can think of many ways. One becomes defeatist when you go down this path. Pretty much you can argue that Gemvision cannot make its products better, because in doing so it will smother its current customer base. Every copy of Matrix they sell makes the rest of the copies less valuable though this thinking.

Does a $20 home design package cheapen the work of a professional architect? Of course not, this is mearly a better (maybe) way for the consumer to communicate to the architect. Some people might need to be educated on this.

Why do I keep coming back to consumer jewelry design software? This will be one of the ways jewelry will be designed in the future, and I want to be part of it. Good or bad it’s a compulsion I have.

These are some of the rings I did with a program I wrote 3 1/2 years ago. You enter in a bunch of parameters and it modeled the ring for you. I can do a much much better job at writing this software these days. I was just goofing off with some of these designs. It’s pretty fun using it.