NPC 5/10/13 Featured Presentation: Touching the Real World

Below is an edited transcript of the May 3rd, 2013 NonProfit Commons in Second Life meeting, featuring Kyle Gomboy of G23D studios.

 

You can view the full transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-x7TVozxre8Egmi25ahN82SiLrwhcAbMZz4pBDSqKoQ/edit?usp=sharing and photos at: https://plus.google.com/events/ctgm7n8tf2goh4omnn1ndp1h6l0/110353386787346569643/5876444427319068082

 

Today for our featured presentation we are happy to feature Kyle Gomboy of G23D Studios who will present about his latest work involving virtual spaces, 3D printing, Unity3D, and the "No School or Good Cause Left Behind" initiative.

 

About Kyle Gomboy:

Kyle "G" of G23D Studios is a former aerospace test and measurement engineer for RF Microwave/Millimeter wave components that have been used on such platforms as the Cassini space probe, F22 Raptor Superfighter, Space Shuttle and geostationary satellites such as GPS to name a few.

 

For such projects as deep space probes, military applications such as phased array honeycomb radar systems and similar complex electrical and electronic systems he found 3D visualizations to be crucial and universal in understanding such information and educating users on assembly, purpose and functionality.

 

He is now CEO of G23D Studios, which currently has four major in-house projects underway including the Virtual Manufacturing Plant, Virtual Hospital, Virtual Engineering and The Telemetric Robot. These projects have caught the attention of other similar companies and individuals who have brought G23D their own ideas to produce and thus revolutionize the way we interpret and analyze data using 3D.

 • www.3dg2.com

 • http://3dg2.azurewebsites.net

 • https://www.facebook.com/G23DS

 • https://www.facebook.com/groups/virtualpioneers/

 

Let's welcome Kyle / G2 Proto

 

          Buffy Beale: yay G2!!!

          Xon Emoto: Kyle hello!

          Zinnia Zauber: Rah Kyle!

          Andy Evans: I am already "wowed"!

          Gentle Heron: Welcome Kyle.

          Oronoque Westland: hi Kyle

          Bevan Whitfield: ya Kyle !

 

G2 Proto: hello friends!

G2 Proto: I'll fix that wow!

 

          Andy Evans: LOL

          Frans Charming: Ji

          Hour Destiny: Data mining FTW.

 

G2 Proto: OK so I'll start with 2Cube, 2Cube is a Unity3D/Photon Server/Kinect/Mobile application. As a former Aerospace engineer I was often confused by expensive and complicated CAD/Design software for 3D. Lately with the drop in 3D printers this problem is especially glaring. How do we get kids and adults to make their own models and structures easily and fun?

 

So using Kinect cameras from Microsoft I thought we could create a paradigm for modeling using your body. After all it is more natural, especially in terms of sculpting. 

 

The next slide shows our alpha of the app made in the last 4 days. What you see is a sphere which has had a dimple put in it by moving your hands forward towards Kinect

 

          Hour Destiny: http://www.123dapp.com/ "Make amazing things with Autodesk 123D apps"

          Dae Miami: I want to know more about Photon servers, just heard about them for unity

 

G2 Proto: yes Hour!

 

The next video will show it better but basically Kinect paints red anything too close to it in Unity3D, green pixels for the active zone and purple if just beyond the green paint zone. 

 

When you push your hands forward it begins to morph the mesh, in this case a sphere but any mesh works the shape of your hands and their distance apart effects the mesh in various ways

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrsHnXfthJ8&list=UUdNYvbgMIILpTsFJeAex7oQ&index=1 if you want to view it in youtube directly

          Buffy Beale: so cool!

          Hour Destiny: http://kinesis-io.github.io/ A Kinect simulator for Windows.

 

G2 Proto: also if you hold "tools" in your hand you begin to effect the shape based on what you hold, so it becomes very similar to sculpting in the real world, add sterescopic 3d glasses or Oculus and you really get a vibe of sculpting

 

The video is rushed and kinda horribly done. it was for a request from ABC's SHarkTank show to have us on and needed by yesterday. They said to have fun with it so we did! A better one will be up in days but you will see how my body is purple in Unity3D

 

          Joel Savard: iron man cad is already here - way to go, kyle ;)

          Buffy Beale: yay Joel!

          CarmenLittleFawn: hehehe

 

G2 Proto: lol ty

 

So my purple body read from Kinect indicates I am out of the modeling zone, I push my hands forward they turn green in Unity3D thus effecting the shape. The further I press my hands or shaping tools forward the more impact they have. Then I can rotate the model and change it more. When the model is done you can use Kinect to click the "Save" button and it exports currently to .obj mesh format, but soon to .stl for directt CNC/3D printer use

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: for those that aren't as deep into virtual or 3D building, you can convert an .obj to use in Second Life or Open Sim

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: and 3D printers use the .stl file type to pritn from

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: tell us more about that, must have been interesting to get an invite from the TV show Shark Tank to be able to pitch this idea?

 

G2 Proto: it was very exciting to get the invite yes but also now I'm frightened. it isn't called Minnow Tank! but ABC expressed a lot of excitement as has Unity3D for Unite 2013

 

          Joel Savard: how can we get notified when you're on the show?

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: great, and yes the show can be intense...key seems to be convincing the sharks of the value of your project/service/tool

          Beth Ghostraven: haha Rhiannon

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: thats great

 

G2 Proto: my http://facebook.com/g23ds page Joel

 

Now what's really cool is Photon networking, our next iteration will network the model changes so you can invite friends or peers in and you can both sculpt or engineer collaboratively.

 

For CAD stil functionality you can use voice commands with Kinect to make hard edge shapes, then fit that shape with others

 

Yes .stl creates a "toolpath", which drives the CNC cutting head or 3D printer extrusion head. We have this done automatically for you. 3D Printers can be had for under $500 USD now. When networked all your changes are in real time and you can add images surrounding your model for reference

 

          JoJa Dhara: ;)

          Joel Savard: g2 - just heard that you'll be able to get 3d printers at STAPLES in the next month!

          Buffy Beale: no kidding?

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: nods to JoJa, JoJa is working with a Fab lab in the Netherlands btw and Fab is just short for Fabrication

          Joel Savard: online at first, and then in "selected markets" by end of june was the announcement i saw

 

G2 Proto: of course you don't have to 3D print you can use the models in any game engine. yes to Staples! You can also use http://shapeways.com to print it for you. This will initially act as a lite modelor/CAD app so kids and adults can use it but later it can become more sophisticated.

 

          Joel Savard: i think it's one of the ~$1300 range models, but seems like once it hits staples... things are about to change in a big way

          Sarvana Haalan: 3D printing has been featured on the national news a lot lately

          JoJa Dhara: yes..cool to do

          Andy Evans: What will consumers buy these 3D printers for first?

          Merry ChaseMerry Chase wonders how large is a ream of 3D printer paper...?

          Beth Ghostraven: and naturally, what the public sees on the news is 3D printers used to make weapons

          Joel Savard: from slashgear http://www.slashgear.com/staples-becomes-first-us-retailer-to-sell-3d-printers-03280524/

          Sarvana Haalan: and medical devices

 

G2 Proto: its actually an ABS plastic spool, it is about $25 and comes in many colors, so it is the ultimate "rezz"

 

          JoJa Dhara: or pla?

 

G2 Proto: yes pla too!

 

          Buffy Beale: ty Joel

          Joel Savard: i'm going to have to jump for meeting, but great stuff kyle - thanks!

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: yes or PLA

          JoJa Dhara: i notice more people in art or business are buying for prototyping but when they realize they can print out that missing part of kitchen thing... more will buy I guess

 

G2 Proto: cool Joel

 

in testing the app has been very well received expecially after you practice some. I am looking for beta testers when we do a limited release in a few weeks

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: btw ABS and PLA are types of plastic that is used in the 3D printers, it basically is low temp enough to melt and be extruded to print your objects

          Oronoque Westland: 3D printing sounds like RL rezzing

 

G2 Proto: imagine your kid breaks a part from his RC toy or you break your glasses, now you can use a micrometer to gauge it or Kinect can capture a reference model and you can fix it yourself. There are even RGBY color printers now for full color models and more expensive metal and porceline substrate models even huma biological models

 

          JoJa Dhara: and on is best for nature pla is made frm sugar thingy

          JoJa Dhara: wow

          JoJa Dhara: and and leap motion

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: Oronoque, it is in a way like real life rezzing

          JoJa Dhara: ?

          Thynka Little: Moms will be printing homemade party favors for their kids' birthdays and posting the pictures on Pinterest :)

          Dae Miami: how does this differ from 3d scanners?

 

G2 Proto: Kinect is a sort of 3D scanner

 

          Beth Ghostraven: does anyone else remember the Plasti-goop toy for making shapes out of plastic?

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: and if we can get to a point where we could easily and collaboratively build something here in a virtual space and then print to make it real - and have that be a fluid / easy process ...would be magic

 

G2 Proto: though not as precise as expensive ones it does work well, so we're making modeling simpler and fun. any questions so far?

 

          Rhiannon thats exactly right!

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: no Beth? Though some people refer to it as almost like those Playdoh toys that would extrude to make things.. just a more permanent variant

 

G2 Proto: yes!

 

          Hour Destiny: Figurines for trading/collectible card games.

          Em Ellsmere: how do we get in the beta tester group?

          Beth Ghostraven: yes, that too, Rhiannon

 

G2 Proto: or do it yourself legos is another accurate analogy

 

          Stylianos Mystakidis: Read the Stevenson's Diamond Age to see teh possible future of 3d printing

          Beth Ghostraven: Neal Stephenson, STylianos?

 

G2 Proto: the entire system will be under $1,000 including software, a printer and Kinect in a bundle with just the software being anywhere from $25 to $150 if you have your own printer and camera. It will also soon work on all mobile touch screen devices.

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: I have had that comment come up before in convos Sylianos!

          Stylianos Mystakidis: @Beth yes -> http://www.nealstephenson.com/diamond/

          Hour Destiny: http://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D and http://www.reddit.com/r/unity_tutorials

          Rebekah Cavan: How can we become part of your beta test group?

          Buffy Beale: amazing G2

 

G2 Proto: you can find it form http://facebook.com/g23ds, 

 

          Hour Destiny: G2 Pronto, ever thought of taking your idea to E3?

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: I know I have seen you take requests for beta testers on your Facebook group

          Beth Ghostraven: Hope, what's E3?

          Jen: RL is dragging me back. Great info today. Thanks

          Hour Destiny: Electronics Entertainment Expo.

          Em Ellsmere: is the camera the same one as the kinect on xbox?

          Rebekah Cavan: thanks!

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: a big Entertainment focused convention Beth

          Andy Evans: Rhi, beta testers should be invited to report back here! With pics or video

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: indeed!

 

G2 Proto: Hour to nest it was just a cobbled together proof of concept 4 days ago, now it works and works far better than expected as I hired a genius programmer who used to write drivers for scanners/OCR because it was so well received I'm getting messages from Microsoft's Kinect group and others and MS Kinect even had great ideas about using their new SDK which allows you to grab and twist and has finger recognition

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: You had also mentioned the "No School or Good Cause Left Behind" initiative.. can you chat some on that and your Open Source focus on some of this.

 

G2 Proto: yes, I am merging 2Cube with the G-Motion kit a Unity3D/Photon networked multi user project kit. It will be 100% free and open source under MIT license. I am down to coding the avatar selection system which will be done in days. This avatar selection system will allow you to customize your avatar in CMS or LMS systems so you can hop from world to world and look the same

 

          Pamala Clift: That is really quite awesome of you

          Hour Destiny: www.leapmotion.com The Leap Motion Controller is $80 and is similar to the Kinect, but more for your hands and more precise.

          Beth Ghostraven: oh, that's awesome!

          Sarvana Haalan: cool

 

G2 Proto: I was always bothered by the fact teachers had to pay for virtual worlds often out of their pocket and students couldn't take their work with them so the G-Motion kit will be paid for by things like 2Cube and given for free to all

 

Andy Evans: We could make 3D statues of our avatar!

 

G2 Proto: yes! You could scan in your own body using Kinect and make your own avatar

 

          Sarvana Haalan: scan me!!!!!

          Sarvana Haalan: :-)

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: lol

          Beth Ghostraven: yes, but could you find mesh clothes to fit?

          Buffy Beale: that is so fun

 

G2 Proto: Im too skinny so I'll use 2Cube to add some more muscles ;)

 

          Merry Chase: you could modify once in-world, to fit your mesh outfits

          Rebekah Cavan: :)

 

G2 Proto: you could in fact 2Cube will later allow for clothing as we have a project underway now with a major clothing retailer. You can even use 2Cube to create custom items like belt buckles, jewelry etc, and pick them up at the store

 

          Beth Ghostraven: RL clothing retailer?

 

G2 Proto: I'm under NDA with the retailer but suffice to say you will be using 2Cube in a store near you this year

 

          Merry Chase: Could you potentially scan an entire endangered historic building for example and model it?

 

G2 Proto: yes!

 

          Andy Evans: I could envision a "Flash Print" mob where people create the same jewelry to get into an event within a specific time frame

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: architecture is sometimes easier if there are any plans still left to model from, but there are large scale scanners out there or using photo data to do such ... Google has put thought into this with their Google earth that also had Sketchup data, etc

          Beth Ghostraven: cool idea, Andy!

 

G2 Proto: FInally a quick note on "G-Telemetric" work is underway to allow G-Motion to talk with Arduino, robots, SCADA, medical machines, industrial test and measurement to remotely controol and capture and visualize data in 3D

 

          Merry Chase: I remember that toy that created little plastic objects - plastiform or something? Anyhow one fear is that this becomes like that, a mere generator of soon-unwanted clutter for landfill.

 

G2 Proto: exactly 2Cube is a similar concept to Sketchup make it simple easy and most importanly fun so people think "I can do this"

 

          Sarvana Haalan: will be share this transcript with our Baltimore Tech group... great info G2Proto

          Thynka Little: Yep, that party favor notion...

          Sarvana Haalan: *sharing

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: PLA and ABS are recyclable

          Merry Chase: recyclable is good, biodegradable is better

 

G2 Proto: That's it for me just friend me up g23dstudios@gmail.com or FB for beta testers

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: before you finish up, you might also want to mention the courses you have been leading

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: incase anyone is interested in learning some Unity3D skills

 

G2 Proto: G-Motion will be out in a couple of weeks 2Cube shortly after for beta a trials

G2 Proto: Ahh yes. each week I do free Unity3D course. Next week it will feature the Zigfu Kinect plugin/package, so you can play with Kinect too.

 

          Thynka Little: Printer ink is expensive, wondering how expensive is the "stuff" used by the consumer model 3D printers?

          Sarvana Haalan: Kudos to G2 Protos... great presentation. Thanks for sharing!

          Ux Hax: its great Unity

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: do you have the link to your schedule on your site?

          Dae Miami: where can we get information on your unity 3d classes?

 

G2 Proto: I do a beginner, intermediate and advanced course perpetually. I hosed up my recurrence on my site http://3dg2.com I'll fix it today. But thats where you can find it along with http://facebook.com/g23ds

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: great, so if this is interesting, and you want to try to set up your own Unity virtual space or maybe work on a game.. they are good to check out. Any other last questions/thoughts for Kyele?

          Hour Destiny: G2 Proto is also on Twitter at @g23ds.

          Thynka Little: Will you be presenting at Unite in Vancouver?

 

G2 Proto: yes combining the free G-Motion Unity kit with the classes also free means we get everyone onvolved

 

          Thynka it looks like it I was late with entering but they seem to be going to squeeze me in  ;)

 

G2 Proto: I'll keep you posted on that and SharkTank on the FB and Twitter pages, if I missed any questions let me know

 

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: great, yes pass me any updates :)

 

G2 Proto: will do Rhiannon and thanks everyone for the time and excellent feedback. PS 2Cube will worth mouse and keyboard too just not as cool

 

          Rebekah Cavan: thank you! this is very exciting!

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: Let's thank Kyle / G2 Proto for presenting today!

          Buffy Beale: cheering for you G2, it really is exciting!

          Merry Chase: ...Kicking my slow connection and bad graphics card that barely allow me to use SL - wondering what tech requirements would be to do some dreams up educational dreams - looking for the grants info!

          CarmenLittleFawn: ty so much for sharing G2, sorry every body I need to leave, my time seclude has changed, I am trying to make as many of the meetings as I can right now and participate in the group as a whole, tc :-)

 

G2 Proto: haha thanks my firneds looking forward to you trying these things out

 

          JoJa Dhara: yeh cool...

          Zinnia Zauber: Thank you G2! This is wonderful!

          JoJa Dhara: thkss

          Andy Evans: You had me at hello

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: that Andy

          Frans CharmingFrans Charming applauds

          Rhiannon Chatnoir: lol

          Xon Emoto: Thank you Kyle! Keep it coming:)

          Zinnia Zauber: lol Andy!

          Merry Chase: bravo

          Zotarah ShepherdZotarah Shepherd claps

          CarmenLittleFawn: mmhmm bye every body, peace

          Gentle Heron: Thanks G2. There are some interesting possibilities here.

 

G2 Proto: cheers Carmen

lol ty Andy/Xon, You guys made my day

Thanks Gentle and thank you for the project tips, I'll use Herons advice for G-Motion and 2Cube projects.

 


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