With Canoma you can create photorealistic 3-D models from scanned or digital photographs quickly and without extensive 3-D skills. Using a push-pin metaphor, Canoma lets you attach 3-D, wire-frame primitives on top of objects in a 2-D image such as a scanned photograph, piece of stock photography, or even a digital drawing or painting. With the click of a button, Canoma renders a 3-D image by wrapping the 2-D surfaces around the 3-D primitives. You can either mirror textures to fill in the "invisible" sides of objects or use multiple photographs of a single scene.
This method of modeling allows you to create realistic 3-D models without any previous 3-D modeling experience. Create furniture, interiors, buildings, or whole city blocks, and even walk-through models or animations.
Canoma can take any 2-D digital source image as input, whether from a digital camera, historical materials, artwork, or hand-drawn sketches.
Canoma can generate 3-D models in MetaStream format and can also write VRML 2 output. Users can apply their MetaCreations Painter or Adobe PhotoShop skills to prepare and retouch photographs and textures.
Here are some potential uses: Online catalog customers can preview hard goods such as furniture or appliances. Travel, tourism, and real estate Web sites can provide 3-D previews of the destinations and properties. Graphic designers can modify packaging, designs, and environments. Artists can quickly create photorealistic "clip objects." Architects, urban planners, and property developers can interactively preview the urban context in which their new building is placed. Interior designers can quickly generate "what if" scenarios, changing carpets, wall colors, tiles, and furniture to easily create 3-D interiors of buildings for interactive walk-throughs. Game developers and level builders can create low-polygon-count 3-D models and environments with realistic textures, suitable for rendering in real time on today s hardware.
Canoma imports 2-D files in GIF, JPEG, PICT, PNG, PSD, and TIFF formats. It exports 2-D files in the same formats, plus QuickTime animation and sequential PCT. Canoma exports 3-D files in AutoCAD (DXF), MetaStream (MTS), Poser Prop (PP2), Truespace (SCN), VRML 2 (WRL), and Wavefront (OBJ) formats.
