Review by Focus, December 2001 During the presentation of the Nikon Coolpix 775 and 885 by the Dutch importer of Nikon products, we attended also a demonstration of a new and sensational software product called “Realview 3D Home”. The software enables the user to create interactive (3D) content for the internet based on digital images. The visitor of the website with Realview animations is able to rotate and zoom the products which are shown on the website by using the mouse and the mouse buttons. A lot of websites actually use this new technology. Obviously the biggest advantage is the improved “look and feel” of a product compared to ordinary 2D images. If we have to believe the company, probably many webdesigners will be fired soon, because everyone can create 3D animations within a couple of minutes. But let’s check this out. Review We used the Home version of Realview 3D, which has a filesize of only 5 MB, so the installation on our PC went fast and easy. Unfortunately there is no MAC version, so the target group of (i)Mac users is not being served. You can use the manual by clicking on the “Help” function in the program. To work with the program is quite simple. You start with taking a number of pictures of an object from different angles by turning the object. Of course this job is much easier with small objects compared to (much) larger ones. We took a Nikon camera as our object and put the camera on a little turntable. With our own Nikon digital camera on a tripod we took eight pictures from eight different angles of our object by turning the turntable 8 times 40 degrees. It is important to place your object against a white background, because this will save you a lot of time. Don’t forget also to place your object exactly in the middle of the turntable, otherwise your object will move sideways when you are going to show your animation. We think eight pictures is enough to show a smooth rotation. Now you can import your eight images into Realview directly if you want, and you are able to control if the sequence of the pictures is correct. If you push the “preview” button you can actually see the final result and basically you are already done! The software allows you also to adjust a lot of movie and HTML settings like the resolution and the size of your animation, your zoom settings etc… Adding textfiles and adjusting the size for your website is quick and easy. The last step is either to upload directly to your website with the built in FTP client, or to save the animation on your harddisk. If you choose to save your animation first, you can change it by using photo editing software, or by adding logos for instance, before you publish your animation to your website. Because the software is Java based, it is browser independent and the visitor of your website doesn’t need any player or plugin. If you want to see some results of (3D) animations made with Realview 3D we suggest you to watch www.porsche.de, www.footlocker.nl and www.hippieskivvies.com Conclusion Apart from making the pictures, we agree that it is possible to create interactive (3D) animations for the web within a couple of minutes. The software is very easy to use and doesn’t require any special skills. And the price (USD 39,95) is very competitive too. Flash users, eat your heart out! | 
