Virtual Reality and AI? - next challenge for a retiree

Yes but my license for SolidWorks has expired. So I don't know exactly what the SW files contain. I found two folders with SW data. Probably you'll find a lot of double geometry because I worked with different trials. Just check it:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eUERQOOpu46MEvqtOxvhdYqn_1sCd-F7/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-dyNBpaLSWr2XbXQodaJAUGw9wlfk8Kc
Since it was meant for 3D-print (STL) I switched to Rhino soon. Especially because I wanted to build the body from the grabbed model. That wasn't a job for SolidWorks but for Rhino.

 

Oha, the guy with the uboat model answered. He asked for mail contact to talk about details. Let's see ...

Parallel I went back to another old project:
Jamira's ship. It's a flying ship, 12 meters long

with kind of antigrav engine at its bottom

To tell the truth it was original a glass panel for a car from Ford during the nineties ... 25 years ago ;-)

 

There are two main differences:
SW is a solid modeler, Rhino a surface modeler and SW is parametric, Rhino isn't.
The big advantage of Rhino is that it can handle polygons, even very large polygons. Good for 3D print and VR.

 

HURRAH!
I will get the U-boat model. For free. It's not finished yet and the starboard side will miss several elements because it is the cutaway side. Doesn't matter much. I can complete it by myself. Even better than do everything from the scratch. And I doubt I would have been patient enough to model all the details like he did:

 

Now I have to learn to bring a bit interactivity to the model. It seems to be easier in SimLab. But the SimLab renderer isn't very good. And such actions like drive a vehicle needs another version wich is more expensive. That's better in Unity. And Unity is for free as long as I earn less than $100.000 per year. LOL!

If it works I will make another U-boat for VR: Wilhelm Bauer's "Brandtaucher" (1851). Wasn't really a success. But Bauer's concept was good. He just couldn't build the boat he wanted and it sunk at the first attempt. Too sad. But the original boat was salvaged and can be viewed in Dresden:

If all this turns out to good VR-experiance I will have a look for a partner to bring a VR history of U-boats online.

 

Next would be to start another section at Wikipedia: The Virtual Museum.

I am a mechanical engineer and had several moments to notice astonishing machines of any kind from history. CSS Hunley, Wright brothers, Graf Zeppelin, Dornier DO X, Aggregat 4 (V2), Saturn V and Apollo program or all the way from Thomas Newcomen's first steam-engine to the giant Fat Boy locomotives. Or scans of historical places like Pompeiji with different versions of reconstruction. Or even the boat of Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's "20.000 leagues under the sea" or Jeff Bezos' vision of a moon project in 2024. Just to name a few. It would be really interesting to make a virtaul interactive showroom of all this highlights of technology, wouldn't it? Well, it's possible meanwhile to make this interactive, walk-through in 3D on a flat screen or dive into it with VR.

Way too big for one single person I think. But worth to start at a small level. With some good examples one can start search for potent partners. Probably Wikipedia itself ... Kinda Wiki of technological visions and highlights. This would directly point to Unity3D and blender, because they are for free and have a wide community.

What do you think?

 

LOL! The smell must have been breathtaking. Fortunataly we can avoid it. I got the 3D-model today. Parallel we had a baloon-ride this evening and I had not much time to deal with it. But I got all the details as far as I can see:

Unfortunately I wasn't able to import textures. So I could stand in the central room but only with some psychodelic colours:

1969 instead of 1939? Next days will bring up better results.

 

Okay, mail sent to Wikipedia if they are interested in such projects. I got a better version of the sub and could explore the whole model meanwhile:

Not good but a bit better. The guy who made it gave permission to me to use it for public.

Folks imagine what this means: I stood IN this boat and was able to walk through.

 

I got a pretty stupid answer from a hobbyist at German Wikimedia-Support-Team. Seriously, it would be breathtaking to get a link to a special Wikipedia entry with a 3D-model. Either to view it at desktop or with a VR-headset. They allow STL only atm. That's bullshit. I will ask the central in USA next days.

 

It won't work. Mark used a lot of procedural textures in blender. No way to export such textures as far as I know. Additional I think about accuracy. There are several differences between our models. Especially his bulkheads arn't at the right places and don't have the right dimensions. Work of today was to seperate all his interior. That's really tricky. I will treat all parts a bit in Rhino to make the model smarter and put some basic colors to them. I will delete parts one couldn't see in VR. And I have to finish the starboard side wich is the open side at his model. So first choice for me is to use my bulkheads and pressure hull and place all his unbelievable work on the interior into it. This will take a while. Don't know if I'm patient enough to bring it to a good end.

 

Found an intresting video:

Well, neither I own a license for Photoshop nor do I like it. But the idea with the hight map sounds promising. Question one from my side: Is it possible to export a textured 3d-model from that plugin? At least the guy who made the video didn't turn it to check different views. Additional it looks very isometric. We didn't see any sun simulation. I assume it's not possible, it would be pretty useless. Just for some illustrations wich could become tricky very quick because of copyrights.

But I can make a really 3d-model from a hightmap in Rhino. And I can add pictures as textures as well. Okay, probably not that comfortable but this would be a really 3d-model wich could be used in VR and elsewhere. Even for a 3d-print. And as long as it is for private purpose it shouldn't cause problems of any kind.

The only problem I see atm is the resolution. As for instance for a VR model where one stands on the ground. The 3d-model will be rough and the texture as well. I can make a 3d-model of a small area with high details in Rhino. But I cannot improve the texture. It is limited by the quality of the sattelite photo. Pixel is pixel. It's the same for the hight map and the texture. Question is what this means in meters. I have to check this soon. Probably I can smooth such a model later. But I'm not sure. Obvisiously Unity3D offers tools to improve the simple geometry and the rough textures. It's a typical issue to make games ...

 

Well, Wiki NL:
https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wiki_Techstorm
Application sent immediately. 60 partiticipants only. Let's see ...

Three days in Amsterdam would be better than hang out at home and play TESO I think ;-) Even in November.

 

Mark Alloway runs an outstanding job with his model of Type VIIC U-boat:

Unfortunately he works with blender. I couldn't find a way to export/import the blender model without loss of textures into any of my apps. But watching his progress I must say it would really be stupid to rework it. So I found this:
https://blendervr.limsi.fr/doku.php
I will test it. For VR such model doesn't need high accuracy. It should look good and realistic. That's it.

 

Haha! Okay, had a try to install BlenderVR. There are guides for the installation.

Wait ... guides for the installation of an app? Yes, it's true. Okay, I followed them (several internet sites with different themes) from link to link. Each time I read about something new that I have to download and install. Many names I didn't understand. Finally I got the first "basic" screen set. Took some time to understand that I have to edit the app-paths manually in the configuration file. No hint that I have to do this. And why do I have to do it manually at all?

At one point at another site I got this:
Oculus Rift DK2
This section guides you through the installation required to run the Oculus Rift DK2 with BlenderVR. The install procedure involves to:

• Make sure you followed the instructions to add the Oculus Python Library to BlenderVR sources
• Install and test the Oculus Runtime for your architecture: version 0.6 on Windows (to support Extended mode) and 0.5 on Linux/OSX (last version available on these architectures).

I need a developer kit for this? An Oculus Python Library installed in the correct folder and an Oculus Runtime? Seriously? That was the point I said: "Okay folks, you're fired." I will deinstall all this bullshit.

In Germany we would say: "Diese Typen haben echt Matsch in der Birne!"

 

Next try to explore a blender model in VR:
https://www.marui-plugin.com/blender-xr/
Relatively easy to install. The demoreel shows HTC Vive controllers I assume. I see my Oculus Touch controllers as well. But I can't neither move nor turn with them. No clue to get a rendered view. Even the simple shaded (not rendered) view is very very slow. This is not a simple plugin but a complete reworked version of Blender to enable VR. I had to install this version parallel to my original Blender. It is somehow meant to work in Blender in VR. Stupid! Completely useless for me. But I will keep it for the moment because it's still under development and probably I can contact the developers and ask for changes.

 

All in all I must say all this GNU - "General Public License" - is pretty strange. Even OpenOffice, although I use it daily meanwhile. I open Blender, GIMP or others of these strange apps (if I manage to install them!) and am completely helpless. Way back in 2000 it took just one week to learn the basics of SolidWorks under Windows and start with my first project. I needed approximately one week to learn the basics of 3D Studio R2 under DOS in 1994 and started my first project. But I gave up after three hours with Blender because it's so different compared to everything else I know. And by the way in the past I switched from Catia, Tebis and SolidWorks to Rhino3D. That was crazy enough because Rhino wants to be especially intuitive somehow. That's not helpful for experianced 3D operators ;-) At least my SpacePilot works in Blender without plugins or additional downloads. Hurrah! But in the opposite way. It steers the camera instead the object. So I do everytime the exact contrary movement. That's simply to arduous. Why the hell do they do such things? All others keep the rule: move/rotate the object. Some like 3D Studio Max offer to decide between camera-mode and object-mode.

Okay, Blender, GIMP & Co are free software. Really nice for folks who didn't work with several other software of this kind since ages. But for me it's all a big desaster so far. This stupid adventure with BlenderVR alone took me three hours of my remaining life time and ended with deinstallation. Wasted time. This BlenderXR is so slow! I mean I can run and handle this model of an U-boaot on my minimum-computer with Rhino. I could work on it out there at the loggia. And this BlenderXR can't even handle the shaded version of it on my new supah-dupah computer? Not to speak of the rendered version! I run 3D- and 2D-software of all kind since 1987. I've seen a lot. But I won't use this GNU-software anymore. It's simply way too strange.

Conclusion:
I will continue to put all the detailed interior Mark developed into my pressure hull, with simple colours for the first step and add textures probably when I find a way to do this either in Rhino or in SimLab. Parallel I will probably check the abilities of Unity.

Again I am at the point: Just pay some money for serious software (Rhino 800€ forever, SimLab Composer $200 per year atm or probably $300 forever next year). I buy cigarettes for 180€ and beer for 60€ each month. So what? Avoid stress, just have fun.

 

Today I saw that the presentation of the U-boat in Laboe contains a VR part:

My Oculus Rift started automatically and worked pretty well. Okay, looks nice but there are just a few 360°-pictures.
https://www.kubische-panoramen.de/index.php?id_id=5373&p=i
Neither you can walk through or jump to the next section nor does it offer any interactivity. And it looks like standing in an cathedral. It's giant. Contrary to my model it delivers not the feeling of a claustrophobic steel pipe. It's the viewpoint of a four years old child. Nevertheless it shows a lot of details way better than still images do. So I canceled my trip to Laboe for now and will continue with merging Marks parts with my pressure hull.

Interactivity could be an important part of such a model (keyword museum). SimLab Composer offers a rudimentary interactivity (open doors, change colours). I think Unity3D offers significant more opportunities. Problem is: I am soo lazy ...