3D IN THE CLOUD Ray Kaplan - synglyphx

My background My career has been all about 3D software development Including internships I have been involved in 3D software development since the late 90s I have been involved in 3D software development for 3D medical visualization, 3D GIS, defense, and now 3D data visualization Currently the Senior Developer for Product Development at SynGlyphX

My first Time with 3D in the Cloud Back in 2002 when working for a 3D medical visualization software company They had custom hardware similar to graphics cards for 3D medical visualization Plan was to have a server product with many of their cards to do the rendering for clients on a LAN and remote clients Didn’t work out since various technologies (i.e. WebGL) were not present yet To make it work with remote clients had to send them compressed JPEG images The full rendering path had to happen on the server due to the nature of the hardware Conceptually, similar to how 3D in the cloud works now

How that MIGHT Look now The server would have many GPUs to do pre-processing and caching GPUs may not do any rendering, just pre-processing Final rendering would be done client side with the processed results from the server using WebGL or a desktop application Still may want to use 3D cloud technologies even with a desktop application Even with access to a powerful GPU in a desktop 3D application, (almost) no one has many GPUs on their machine like a server could

3D in the Cloud is still useful without a continuous connection to the cloud WebGL can be a good way of visualizing 3D content disconnected from the cloud Ex. DOD agencies send 3D content to users with limited internet connections Before WebGL, 3D PDF was the de facto standard for this (and still is in a lot of cases) Works in some cases, but interaction is poor in cases like wanting to walk through a 3D scene WebGL allows for more flexibility in interaction and how the application works so 3D content can be distributed in a more flexible manner than reflects your application Also good for sending out snapshots of 3D content to anyone who can’t connect to your cloud, etc.

3D Is moving into areas it has not been used before Between WebGL and other cloud technologies, 3D is moving into areas it has not been used before or being used by users who have not used 3D before Creates a new set of challenges Drivers – particularly at the enterprise level Not used to keeping up with graphics card driver updates Users of 3D applications were often put in a silo and given local admin rights WebGL does not eliminate the need for the correct drivers

OPPORTUNITIES when using 3D for Something Where 3d hasn’t been used BEFORE It may require something extra than just using 3D (i.e. the SynGlyphX data visualization technique) – 3D is more than just the z axis If your 3D content has geographic info it’s a good time to use 3D GIS (Use Cesium) May be able to benefit from using 3D techniques for handling big data with high performance (i.e. level of detail, spatial data structures & formats, etc.) May need to adapt these techniques for your 3D content/application 2D & 3D can work together SynGlyphX 3D visualization plus 2D data visualization concepts & libraries (i.e. D3.js)

synglyphx SynGlyphX creates data visualization software for visualizing complex data (visualizing lots of dimensions/fields in a single view) Our technique is unique for data visualization It requires 3D and shows the power of 3D More than just the z axis Currently our software is all desktop applications but we are expanding into using the cloud/WebGL (& mobile) An example of 3D moving into an area that traditionally doesn’t use 3D much

2D vs. 3d data visualization A lot of info data visualization is either 2D or 3D that does not exploit 3D Some in the data visualization community argue that data visualization should be 2D only Treemap (2D only) “Layered” 3D Bar Chart

Synglyphx INFO & Demo SynGlyphX will be hiring at various points this year SynGlyphX can help with your data visualization Website: http://www.synglyphx.com More demos & more in depth information about our 3D data visualization software Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SynGlyphX Email: ray@synglyph.com & info@synglyphx.com