A couple of years back, Ted Iannuzzi was on a technology transfer mission to Sweden with the Canadian government. At the time, he was developing virtual reality applications for medical education.

The Canadian government exposed Iannuzzi to the Swedes, who were very impressed with his package. In fact, this exposure led Iannuzzi to Cycore, a Swedish company with a background in the special effects industry.

‘I showed him mine and he showed me his,’ Iannuzzi says of his meeting with Jerry Petterson, the founder of Cycore. The result was a new position for Iannuzzi – ceo of Cycore Canada.

Cycore, which started in 1996, arrived in Canada two years ago, docking its ship in Halifax harbor. Then, the high-tech special effects software shop progressed to open offices in Vancouver and now in Toronto, where the company is establishing its head office.

Cycore Canada’s arrival in Toronto four months ago positioned it to take advantage of the growing demand for its suite of plug-in filters for such programs as Adobe After Effects. Cycore is responsible for Final Effects, Studio Effects and Cult Effects, three popular plug-ins for the program. Most recently, Cycore developed Cult 3D, another plug-in with heavy applications in a number of markets, including the broadcast and entertainment industries.

Iannuzzi explains how the Cult 3D system works: ‘Our software requires a plug-in which is actually a software rendering engine in order to move the objects in realtime on the Net. Normally, you need hardware acceleration to do that. But we’ve developed a software rendering engine that basically fools your computer into thinking it’s got a hardware card.

‘It’s a one-time download that’s free and given out to anybody who visits a site with 3D models on it.

‘The other piece of the puzzle is the development software,’ Iannuzzi continues. ‘It’s called 3D Designer, and it’s also free. We give that out to Web developers, model makers and companies interested in putting 3D on their site.’

For Cycore, free software to view its models makes sense – the more people who have access to the models, the more valuable its product becomes. However, 3D Designer is also free for the purpose of penetrating the developer market. Thus, the revenue stream from this project is derived solely from licence fees, of which the company has already sold ‘more than 300.’

Iannuzzi explains: ‘The [development] software that is free has a little disclaimer on it. It is sort of a watermark that goes over the models. In order to remove the watermark, in the free software, you need a site licence number.’

A licence to webcast the 3D models lasts for one year and allows the client to create and display as many models as they like. The licence cost is determined by the number of unique visitors who attend the site. Prices range from us$500 ($733) for sites with 10,000 or fewer unique visitors to us$15,000 ($22,000) for more than 50,000 hits in a month.

The applications of the Cult 3D software are varied. Iannuzzi points to several ‘vertical applications’ for the product. ‘We’re pushing the market more and more all the time,’ Iannuzzi says. ‘Our goal, of course, is to become the de facto standard for 3D on the Web.’

The first, most obvious application for the software is e-commerce. The Cult 3D software allows merchants to display their products online in ways they never had access to before. Not only can a 3D model create a ‘touchy-feely’ experience for the customer, but customers can go even further than any brick-and-mortar, countertop experience would allow them. With Cult 3D, merchants can allow customers to virtually dismantle products, look inside them and therefore make a more thorough investigation before purchasing. No more tentative fondling of display models – the customer can virtually rip the product apart if they like.

‘No salesmen, no little pieces of paper – we don’t even have to speak English! So here’s a way the Web is actually outperforming [brick-and-mortar], beyond just convenience,’ says Iannuzzi.

The e-commerce market, according to Cycore, is responding well. In fact, as soon as one merchant gets a licence, all their competitors are fast on their heels trying to keep up. Iannuzzi has several examples of competitor companies approaching Cycore one by one in a domino effect.

Iannuzzi has also found broadcasters such as the cbc making use of the software for training and education. In fact, the cbc has used its Cult 3D webcast licence for several projects already.

‘The first one was for the Everest expedition,’ Iannuzzi begins. ‘They modeled the mountain so you can see the elevations, and just by using different buttons it would show you the trails the guys were going on, and where the base camps were. There were even little cameras set up on the mountain at certain spots and you could click on the camera and see thumbnails [clickable mini-pictures that call up a larger image].

‘A lot of schools and students used it and followed the trek on a daily basis. We even did another section of the [cbc.ca] site that showed how to tie knots using the technology – there are six or seven knots in there climbers use on a regular basis. [With Cult 3D] you can program the keyboard. You can make all the different numbers and letters do different things to the model. You could go through a five- or six-step process using 1-6 on the keypad to show the different steps to tie a particular knot. Teachers were giving out little pieces of rope and they were using the website to teach kids how these knots are put together.

‘Another model the cbc just did was the Stanley Cup. If you go to cbc.ca/sports, the Stanley Cup is there.’

Iannuzzi hopes the cbc will also take advantage of its licence to supplement its newscasts. He suggests anchors ‘pull up the website to click and manipulate [modeled objects] to show how it works. You know, explain the black box when the unfortunate plane goes down, like what it looks like and how it works.’

Besides educational applications, Iannuzzi feels the potential for Cult 3D in entertainment is outstanding. Halifax’s Cochran Entertainment has already purchased and used a Cult 3D webcast licence to support its children’s program Theodore Tugboat (cbc and pbs).

‘They’re one of the first companies trying to implement it in an online entertainment application,’ Iannuzzi says. ‘Kids see the show and really like Theodore and Emily and all the little characters that move around in the harbor, and now they can go to the webpage and actually interact with the models. They can move them around through the harbor, and, using the keyboard, control them. They can make Theodore’s eyes move left and right and press ‘H’ on the keyboard and his horn goes.’

Iannuzzi believes Cycore’s product stands out from other vector-based Web modeling and animation software. Effectively, with the Cycore software, the user becomes the director to whatever extent the developer wishes.

‘Unlike a Flash or Shockwave application, Cult 3D does not follow a path like a movie does. [The user] can spin it around while it’s moving and see the other side of it,’ Iannuzzi says.

Cycore is pleased that despite the complexity of the software, one does not need a fast connection for downloading models. ‘The file size is just like a jpeg, so [the time it takes is] however long it takes you to download 40k, 60k, 100k – whatever size the model is when it’s finished,’ Iannuzzi explains.

He adds that the viewer plug-in is easy to acquire. ‘When they go to a site there will be a little icon that says ‘Would you like to see this in 3D?’ and you click there to say ‘yes’. We’ve found that 98% of the people who visit and click ‘yes’ download the plug-in and stay. They stay an average of two to five minutes per object, playing with and listening to those objects [the models can also be given a voice and speak.] While they’re playing, you’ve got lots of room for banner advertising and other things to be delivered to the user.’

The models also have numerous applications outside of the Internet. Iannuzzi says they are also compatible with Microsoft Power Point, Word documents, e-mail, and pdf (Adobe Acrobat) files.

Cycore employs about 140 people across the globe, with eight offices in several countries, and, according to Iannuzzi, it is ‘constantly adding and developing product.’

Iannuzzi explains that Cycore Canada’s current projects include ‘a 3D graphical representation and visualization tool for Web portals, which is sort of like a 3D browser. And we’re constantly adding to Cult 3D to make it faster and smaller, and finding ways to take out the need to download the plug-in.’

See what a little Swedish exposure can do for you?

www.cult3d.com