Tidbits: Apple 3D patents, LumentRT and other news

Apple 3D Patents Point Towards Mac Future

We generally don’t write about Apple’s patent trail but this jot covers an interesting patent related to the world of 3D. AppleInsider uncovered a patent from Apple that describes a Microsoft Xbox Kinect-like interface technology that is sans physical controller. Instead users use their hands to move items in the UI.

Entitled “Three-Dimensional Imaging and Display System” the Apple patent (application #20110298798) attributed to Christopher Krah of Apple. In a nutshell, the Apple patent describes a method that allows the control of a 3D computer interface via a 3-dimensional imaging and display apparatus that scans and detects physical movement within a volume of space. With the system, a user could perform gestures with their hands within a given volume of space in order to control the user-interface of their Mac computer. To learn more read here.

Ad Agency Walter Isaacson uses modo

For the recent holidays Walter Isaacson was hired by Philips Norelco to produce a new TV commercial for their new SensoTouch 3D rechargeable razor. They decided to re-imagine one of Norelco’s most popular holiday ads of all time, which was a stop-motion ad featuring Santa sledding through the snow atop one of their products.

For this new ad Isaacson turned to computer graphics studio re:think studios, of Chicago. re:think studios is a big-time Luxology modo user and turned to modo to produce the ad. “mod is blazing fast!” said Brian Bulock, director of CGI and partner at re:think studios. “And with the deadline we had on this spot, we needed every minute. I vote we put modo on the nice list.” You can watch the spot here at Vimeo.

Adobe to update Critical 3D Bugs in Acrobat

Adobe is slated to update critical 3D vulnerabilities in its Acrobat and Reader applications across platforms today. The bugs were discovered in December where the 3d file format .u3d contained memory corruption issues that could lead to code attacks. These were limited in practice to the Windows platform, says Adobe. To learn more visit this eWeek news report.

LumenRT Customer Story

Vue software maker e-on software has had a new product out for awhile now called LumenRT, a plugin product for SketchUp. The photorealistic rendering plugin has received good reviews in the industry.

You can learn a little bit about this product by watching and reading the customer profile of Matthew Stone, a landscape design professional in Australia, who switched from Autodesk 3D Studio Max to SketchUp with LumenRT for its rendering platform. Read the interview here.