3D Exploration

1. Platform, Pricing and Company

• Window 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 with IE 4.0 or later
• A minimum resolution of 800 x 600 pixels
• A graphics card capable of displaying 16-bit color
• At least 64 MB of RAM
• A Pentium 200-MMX processor or better
• A CD-ROM drive for installation
• 3D graphics hardware accelerator is recommended
• A graphics card capable of displaying 24-bit color (Recommended)
• A Pentium III 266 processor or better (Recommended)
• Deep Exploration costs US $249. An upgrade from 3D Exploration Discovery Edition is $199, and the upgrade from 3D Exploration Enterprise Edition is $49.
• Price $$-$$$
• Right Hemisphere Inc. http://us.righthemisphere.com/

2. Applications

• 3D Exploration™ is an easy-to-use tool with a Windows® Explorer® like interface for web searching, viewing and 3D rendering. It supports most popular 2D and 3D file formats. The Enterprise Edition allows translation between many different formats with animation included, as well as publishing to many different 3D web formats. 3D navigation tools let you instantly explore 3D objects and scenes from any angle. You can even use 3D Exploration to present a slide show of a folder's images or create high quality renderings of 3D objects and scenes for use in any other graphic applications. It is extremely fast and includes Open GL hardware acceleration support. Full support for the nVidia GeForce 3 based graphics cards is included for the fastest highest quality results. Ideal for beginner, intermediate and professional 3D artists!
  
  The 3D Exploration Enterprise Edition will allow you to Browse, View, Render AND Translate! All of the features enabled for the 3D Exploration Discovery Edition are included in the Enterprise Edition but the translate feature is also enabled. Please see below for more information.
• 3-D Viewer/Translator supporting all popular 3D/2D file formats.
• Allows creation of 2D/3D slide shows for presentations.
• Enterpise edition ideal for scientists as it generates C++ code for transformations performed in viewer.
• Ideal tool for students to experiment with OpenGL features and view effects.
• Discover new 3D model and texture sites with Web Search!
• Turbo Squid(tm) search tool added with direct links to Turbo Squid - find and purchase high quality 3D and 2D content to speed your content development project!
• Optional .dds file support for Direct X
• New HTML templates added.
• MAX import/export plugin available for Enterprise Edition Only (3ds max® required)
• W3D (Macromedia Shockwave® 3D file) export plugin added
• MTX (Viewpoint® media) import/export plugin added
• HTML publish plugin added (based on Viewpoint media)

3. Examples/Samples

• http://us.righthemisphere.com/products/3dexplore/screenshots.htm
• http://www.bioquant.com/features/saveasdxf.html

4. Features

• Discovery Edition
• Browse and view and thumbnail 2D image files
• Browse 3D objects and materials
• High speed Open GL 3D acceleration support
• Load and view most any 2D or 3D file format
• Dynamic viewpoint control
• Create 2D and 3D slide shows
• Multiple rendering modes, solid, points, wireframe, transparent etc.
• Individual object rendering control
• Full screen mode operation
• High quality raytracing output with shadows and reflection
• High quality Anti-aliased Z-Buffer 3D rendering output
• Create and browse 3D thumbnails
• View files contained in Zip and Rar archives directly without unpacking them
• History of browsed files
• Reads animation and scene attributes such as lighting and camera definitions
• Drag and drop 2D and 3D objects to and from other applications
• Launch applications directly from 3D Exploration
• Merge multiple 3D files for viewing
• Enterprise Edition
  - Includes all of the features of the Discovery Edition, plus. . .
• Publish 3D content for web-based presentations using Viewpoint™ Media File format support or Macromedia Shockwave® 3D.
• Viewing support for Maya® .mb, .ma and 3d studio max® .max native files (Available as optional plug-ins)
• Allows modifications and saving of 3D file attributes such as textures and geometry transformations
• Allows translation between different 3D file formats including animation support between many formats
• Allows batch conversion of files
  
  
• Right Hemisphere Developed Plug-ins
  
  
• Maya Binary & Maya ASCII
  
  
• .mb - Import with animation - Requires Maya*
• .ma - Import with animation - Requires Maya*
  
  
• max - Import/Export.
  
  
• This plugin allows 3D Exploration to load *.max files. It only works with Enterprise Edition and requires 3ds max 3 or 4.
  http://www.righthemisphere.com/products/3dexplore/plugins.htm
  
  
• .dds - Import only - Requires Direct X 8.0
  
  
• Optional Plug-ins that require Enterprise Edition
  
  
• 3rd Party Plug-ins. . .
  
  
• AIR Portal
  
  
• This plug-in provides a very affordable full quality Renderman rendering solution directly from within 3D Exploration. Such features as global illumination and hemispherical lighting are supported. Drag and drop Renderman shaders directly onto 3D Exploration models for the highest quality rendering possible. Ideal for animators, industrial designers, architects and anyone involved in high quality 3D presentation or entertainment graphics. Features include:

Renderman RIB export plug-in for 3D Exploration
Global illumination
Area and hemispherical lighting
Renderman shader support including displacement mapping
For more information see http://www.sitexgraphics.com/
Wild Tangent
Coming Soon…. Features TBA.
More in development. Contact support@righthemisphere.com for more information.

5.  Web Resources

• http://us.righthemisphere.com/3dexploration/
• http://www.perpetualvisions.com/ articles-and-graphics/review-deep-exploration.htm
• http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/articleview/110/
• http://www.3dgate.com/
• http://www.stormfx.com.au/pages/Software/3D/3D_Exploration.htm