Belfast-based developer CanDo Interactive has been awarded a contract to deliver an online interactive 3D art exhibition for creative media companies based in Northern Ireland. The deal was struck following a tender issued by Invest NI.
The initial proof of concept exhibition, due to last for six months, will be used to view the effectiveness of 3D in displaying various pieces of art online in a gallery-style layout. Built using Macromedia’s Shockwave plugin, it is designed to be easy to navigate with single mouseclicks. It also offers an effective alternative to using thumbnail graphics to represents pieces of art, photography or sculpture.
CanDo Interactive also intends to take the system it has developed for the Invest NI tender and create standalone commercially available software with it. The product will be aimed at artists who sell their work below a certain price, as well as at consumers who may want to put their digital pictures online in a gallery format quickly and easily. “With our technology it’s single-click; it’s very intuitive,” explained Mal Duffin, a director with CanDo Interactive.
According to Duffin, it is envisaged that the product will enable users to load their pictures and ‘hang’ them in a virtual room. “We’re trying to bring out a product that would allow everyone to create their own 3D gallery,” he said. Users can assign details to various pictures, which visitors to the site would see when they clicked on a picture. For example, artists could include information such as a description of a piece of work, details of its actual size or the purchase price if it is for sale.
Previews of the real-time 3D gallery, which does not have a product name yet, can be viewed online at www.candointeractive.com/art.
This contains two separate demonstrations, one showing how art could be displayed in a 3D environment, and navigated using a single mouse click. The other shows how physical 3D sculptures can be viewed.
Duffin confirmed that the web art pioneer Pygoya is also creating a new site using the technology developed by CanDo Interactive.
By Gordon Smith
