Procedural Blog

Wow, we had a fantastic time in Stuttgart at the FMX last week. We demoed the CityEngine for the first time in public and got valuable feedback from potential clients. Here are our highlights from the FMX:

1. The people! We just met high-quality or interesting visitors at our booth! We were quite impressed about the diversity and internationality of the fairgoers. Hope they liked Stuttgart as much as we did.
2. The FMX-crew! They whole crew did an outstanding job to make FMX happen and even under pressure they never stopped smiling! Thank you very much for your support.
3. Our workshop! We demoed the CityEngine for the first time in public. The room was crowed with over 50 people (remember: it started at 10am, which is quite early for a cg-audience) and up to 30 online viewer on our Procedural TV channel.
4. Bob Bennett's blog post (http://www.luxology.com/community/blog/entry.aspx?id=63)! He's the VP of Marketing from our friends of Modo. In his recent blog post he called the CityEngine “the coolest thing he saw at FMX”. We are flattered and honoured - thanks for that Bob!
5. The Procedural energy drink! As a gift for our visitors we produced a Procedural energy drink. It gives wings like the CityEngine does and it was highly sought after at the FMX.

Below you find the best pictures of the FMX! See you next year on FMX/09 in lovely Stuttgart!

PS: We recorded our workshop in six parts on our TV-channel (just browse through the shows):
http://www.procedural.com/cms/company/procedural-tv.html

During the whole day we get great feedback and inputs from potential customers all over the world. FMX is a great place to be in our industry.

Tomorrow we will demo the CityEngine for the first time in public (Tuesday, May 6th, 10.00am - 11.00am CET, List-Saal: Turm B)! Don't worry if you can't make it to Stuttgart, we are broadcasting the session on our Procedural TV channel:

http://www.procedural.com/cms/company/procedural-tv.html

Greetings from Stuttgart!

Christian Engler is one of Europe's finest sales coaches (Motorola, GM, Pfizer, etc.) with a special flair for the needs of startups. Yesterday we had the pleasure to welcome him in our garage for a special workshop.

The purpose of the workshop was an exhibition training for the FMX. It was amazing what we learned during the session and it was big fun to work with such an energetic and smart guy like Christian.

Preparation is everything and visit us at the FMX (Steinbeis-Foyer / Artek):

http://www.fmx.de/E.2451.html

In addition to the booth, we would love to see you at our Workshop Procedural Urban Modelling with the CityEngine on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 @ List-Saal: Turm B (10:00am - 11:00am). Drop us an e-mail (dominik.tarolli[at]procedural.com) if you plan to come to the FMX! We would appreciate to see you there!

This is my third and last opportunity to publish some findings about my research on the 3D web on this blog. Besides the question of potential killer application of the 3D web about which I wrote last time, my second focus were potential key players of the 3D web. Those players could play a major role in the near future by providing those applications or by providing resources for certain 3D web applications. This opinion of potential key players reflects the interviews with 45 opinion leaders, venture capitalists and researchers I met during my research as well as my own view.

The graph below visualises this probable scenario of potential key players of the 3D web. On the one hand, the graph shows 12 big companies which are considered as key players according to their present activities and their assumed strategy towards the 3D web. Google is important because of current applications like Google Earth, SketchUp or their 3D Warehouse and furthermore according to rumours about activities to build virtual worlds. IBM and Sun Microsystems are interested and investing in open source projects for the 3D web (e.g. IBM's “Open Sim” project or Sun's “Project Wonderland”). Microsoft with its mirror world “Microsoft Virtual Earth” and further companies like Nokia, Intel, Nvidia, HP and Autodesk are all considered as important future players. Finally, Sony with its upcoming “Sony Home” as well as further game / content companies like Nintendo and EA could be major players for the 3D web.

On the other hand the graph shows a box with a few very interesting small companies focusing on 3D web applications. The question at this stage is, if any of these small companies would have the potential to grow like a second Google as soon as the 3D web market is growing too (btw, Google wouldn't have been on this graph five years ago either..). So some people believe that a Linden Lab, a Forterra or a Multiverse could grow significantly in the near future, other people believe that big players like IBM or Sun will play a major role for the 3D web and further people believe that for instance, Google could acquire Linden Lab sooner or later to maintain a strong market position. Who will win? Well, I am sure that it will be an interesting time, I let you judge, however, here is my suggestion of the 3D web key players for the near future:


I hope I could give some insights, some inputs and maybe some food for thought with these three posts on Procedural's corporate blog. Should you be interested to read my summary of this research, it will be available to download on www.procedural.com. Thanks for your interest,

Cheers, Daniel

• Update: See the clip online, and don't laught about the Swiss German language (scroll down to “Cyberwalk durch Pompeij”): http://www.sf.tv/sf1/einstein/index.php?docid=20080417

Tonight on 9pm (CEST), we are on Swiss Television with project Cyberwalk. Don't worry if you don't get Swiss TV. You can watch the report online (by tomorrow!):

http://www.sf.tv/sf1/einstein/index.php?docid=20080417