Developed by Cooliris Inc, PicLens combines a “Cover Flow” style with a 3D Image wall to present a novel way for viewing photos and videos across the web via your web-browser.
Plugins are available for Internet Explorer and Firefox and PicLens works with a number of websites. A search feature is built-in to the viewer which allows you to easily search and browse for images on sites such as Flickr and Google Web Albums.
PicLens is a free download, free to use, quick and easy to install and contains no spyware, adware or malware.
Additional tools are provided that allow users to enable their own websites for Piclens and there is also a WordPress plugin available – so watch this space, I’ll be experimenting with these tools on this blog in the near future.
One of the more interesting applications using Silverlight to appear recently.
Tafiti, which means “do research” in Swahili, is an experimental search front-end from Microsoft, designed to help people use the Web for research projects that span multiple search queries and sessions by helping visualize, store, and share research results. Tafiti uses both Microsoft Silverlight and Live Search to explore the intersection of richer experiences on the Web and the increasing specialization of search.
If you already have Silverlight installed (or don’t mind installing it) find out more at
Using http://3D-Seek.com , users can
simply doodle (draw freehand sketch) a shape of the desired part/product on
the doodle pad or upload a 2D drawing/3D model of a part/product as search
input to locate a supplier who produces that part or has the capability to
manufacture it.
First announced as a software library of functions for finding parts based on the 3D data 3DSearchIT from Geometric Software Solutions is a search engine that allows you to search for 3D models based on the shape or from textual attributes.
Features include:
Shape/Geometry base Indexing and search of 3D data
Search based on textual attributes
Independent of CAD file formats
Supports Automatic crawling and indexing in local machine/network
Supports Interactive modifications to pre-clustering results
Rename clusters according to industry standards or custom preferences
Automatically visualize clusters of similar models
User enabled search preferences and display of results
Platform flexibility and can be deployed over PDM systems, CAD, modelers, Standalone application or Web based servers
Microsoft have recently announced Live Search as a replacement for MSN Search.
Microsoft’s share in the search engine market was 11 percent last January, but dropped to 9.6 percent in July, forcing Microsoft into third place after Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft also plans to launch local search engines called “Live Local Search” in the U.S. and Britain. Extensive map services will also be included in the program, now in its testing period
I guess they had to respond in some way to their relatively low percentage share in the search market (and also gearing up for the release of Vista?)
A “live search blog” is available which contains additonal useful information.
I really like some of the features including the image searching, and academic searching capabilites available in the new “Live” search – reckon they’ve done a good job. (Built using the MSN SOAP API ?).
Also check out the Windows Live Toolbar, details at
The product re-named Geolus Search (from its original geolus SHAPE) is a “shape search” application which allows users to quickly locate 3D models from large databases on the basis of geometric similarity.
This technology earned sd&m the “Innovator of the Year, 2004″ award from CADCAM magazine.
It claims to have the “unique” ability to build a searchable parts database across multi-CAD systems (further investigation shows that it supports JT, VRML and STL formats).
Essentially, the product will allow you to find both 2D drawings and 3D models from a sketch drawn in SolidWorks. Once a part, or similar part, has been found it can then be loaded directly into SolidWorks.
Another follow up – this time regarding 3D Search techniques.
Back in October I reported on a research project being undertaken by researchers at Purdue University about Engineering Shape Searching
A recent report in a news article from the National Science Foundation describes how this technology appears to have evolved into the 3D-Seek product, developed by Imaginestics (a Purdue Research Park based company).
Recent Comments