Google 3D warehouse as content provider: readymade bricks to feed croquet

Hi

I tried croquet today, and i have to say it's pretty amazing ! I feel
it's no ordinary program.

Anyway, the only thing that lacks to make populating the environment
easily is easy access to a big readymade 3D objects database, ...
which obviously is google 3D warehouse. Considering croquet's
noncommercial nature, it would not be a violation of therms.

There are tons of things in it, and would add this very need that most
of pioneering open source program lacks: a massive artistic content
collection. I know you didn't put too many effort in the existing
modelized objects/scenes, but if we could manage to do the following,
we could start assembling :)

Let me explain:

There could be a special function/activity in croquet, which starts by
browsing google 3D warehouse within croquet using your preferred
webbrowser (so far, quite easy right?). Choose the helper app to
import it to croquet (or using a switch like "croquet -importkml"),
and it's converted and added to your 3D library. It's
featureless/generic for now.

This would require:
- a conversion/importation script/utility/helper app from kml to
croquet's supported format
- a dedicated virtual space called "the 3D library", in which you have
all the local available 3D objects. Cast a window to this space, enter
this "hypergate", choose an object and choose to add it to the scene
where the "library hypergate" was casted from (special button
available in the library)
- afterwards, just drag the object to place it (the same way one can
move the windows already)
- i don't really know how this works already, but once imported into
croquet, there's the "scripting" to add to the object (giving features
to the 3D object); it would be awesome to be able to take an existing
scripted object, and easily drag and drop one of it's implemented
fonctionalities (ex: in this mode, the 3D object shows a developable
functional tree representing the embedded routines), resulting in code
copy-paste. Afterwards, manual editing is needed, but for adding
graphical effects or interaction effects, it would accelerate
development time.

What do you think?

Florent

Florent's idea is an excellent one!  I'm working a lot in SL and
although that environment looks richer now, having easy access to 3D
objects as outlined in Florent's email would make Croquet more
attractive to my SL designers and our future clients.  The personal
warehouse of 3D objects would be much more efficient than slogging
through a large inventory of poorly named objects in the SL inventory.
John Grozik

On 3/31/07, Florent THIERY <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think it's a great idea.

We built an object repository a couple of years ago (in a previous  
version of Croquet) as a research project. But I like the Google  
approach better.

Right now, you can find stuff you like (e.g., with Google) EXTERNALLY  
to Croquet and save the media (3D, 2D, sound, whatever) to your  
operating system desktop. Then you can drag it in to Croquet from  
your desktop (or use New->From File...).

[I'm describing the KAT demo here, which currently does just .ASE  
files for 3D. But there are also already .obj and .vrml importers  
available for Croquet.  (I realize this is the "croquet-user" list,  
but Croquet is distributed as a Software Developer's Kit. I encourage  
you to explore "development" ideas.) Qwaq mentions in its Forums  
brochure that it handles Google SketchUp files. ]

That's fine, but I think it would be very nice to have an EmbeddedApp  
within a Croquet space that was a specialized Web browser visiting  
Google. When you clicked some kinds of links, it would add the media  
to the Croquet space (as if you had first downloaded it and then  
added it).

By the way, one of the other things done at the time of the object  
repository was to have a "private" space called a pocket. You could  
carry things around in there that others couldn't see.  You could  
reach through the portal to your pocket and select an object to add  
to the world.

See
http://atsosxdev.doit.wisc.edu/croquet/NICT-I-UWFinalReport.doc
or http://atsosxdev.doit.wisc.edu/croquet/NICT-I-presentation.zip

As for scripting, there are several approaches:
* Of course, a programmer can create whatever scripting they like  
using Squeak.
* The Qwaq Forums brochure mentions Python scripting, and I know of a  
few people who are working on various other scripting languages for  
Croquet.
* The University of Minnesota has developed some neat input capture  
stuff that has the potential to let you manipulate stuff like a  
puppet, and then capture the results to be played back. See http://
croquet-bento.blogspot.com/2006/07/living-dead-robotsanimatronic.html
* We've also done some work (in an earlier version of Croquet) on  
exactly the same direct manipulation of script behaviors that you  
describe. (But without manual editing.) See http://opencroquet.org/ 
images/c/c4/2006_BrieUserExperience.pdf (particularly section 6.4.3).

On Mar 31, 2007, at 2:30 PM, Florent THIERY wrote: