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Filed under: Design, Fun, Photo, Utilities, Web services, Web

3DSee is 3D modeling made easy on the web

3DSee is a way to generate 3D models of real-life objects without doing a ton of complex drawing and tracing. You just need to take several digital photos of the object, and 3DSee can generate a greyscale "bump map" that it can use to render your object in three dimensions. Right now you can just get a low-res model textured from one of your images, but the software actually creates a higher-quality fully-textured model that might be available for download in the future.

3DSee's "coming soon" features look pretty impressive. In addition to high-def mesh models, the site also plans to support Second Life output files. If I'm reading that correctly, it would definitely save Second Life users a lot of time and trouble when it comes to getting their favorite real-life objects into the game as models. Although I'm sure it will take some time for users to get the hang of taking the right photos to get a good render, the concept behind 3DSee is very strong. A lot of non-artists would love to experiment with 3D, and 3DSee looks like a great chance to do that.

Filed under: Design, Internet, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, Web services, Google, Mobile Minute, iPhone

Why choose Mowser for mobile transcoding over Google?

MvsG
If you've ever used a mobile phone or PDA to surf the web, you've probably noticed that some sites render better than others on a small screen. That's because some web developers design special mobile versions of their pages. But there are also several web-based services that "mobilize" web sites by stripping some data and presenting you with a stripped down version of a web page.

Probably the most popular web-site mobilizing services are Google Mobile and Skweezer. Mowser is a less popular service, but it might be the best of the bunch. We first checked out Mowser earlier this year, but a recent article from Mowser creator Russel Beattie made us take another look.

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Filed under: Design, Google, Commercial

Google acquires SketchUp 3D drawing app

SketchUp
modelAnother day, another Google acquisition. Just in time for Pi Day, Google has scooped up @Last Software, makers of SketchUp, a 3D drawing app for Windows and Mac OS X. The @Last web site describes SketchUp as a "deceptively simple, amazingly powerful tool for creating, viewing, and modifying 3D ideas quickly and easily." In the announcement on the Official Google Blog, @Last's Jeff Martin describes how SketchUp can be used to create 3D models that can be imported into Google Earth, which I suspect has more than a little do to with this acquisition. For more insight, read the official announcement and FAQ at the SketchUp web site. SketchUp has a price tag of $495, but will Google start giving it away for free as it has so many of its other acquisitions?

[Via the Unofficial Google Weblog]

Filed under: Design, Developer, Web services, Apple

SafariTest: How does your web site look in Safari?

SafariTestEvery web designer who uses Windows goes through this: "Okay, it looks fine in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera; what about Safari?" Unless you have the resources to keep a Mac around solely for this purpose, chances are you have to call up a Mac-owning friend or borrow their PowerBook to help you debug. SafariTest aims to remedy that by showing you an image of what your web site looks like in Safari. Of course, it's not perfect: for one thing, you won't be able to preview things that require clicks like JavaScript or AJAX elements, and Flash and frame rendering are imperfect, but for it ought to save the Windows-only designer a bit of time anyhow.

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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