Author: Kaspar Koov

We have revealed new pricing plans for 3D Wayfinder to support usage of 3D Wayfinder also in other areas than wayfinding. Simplest plan is now only $9 per month. This allows to create 1 project and access 3D Wayfinder CMS and API. This plan is suitable to get your 3D project started.

First two plans don’t include Pathfinding add-on anymore. Pathfinding module can be ordered additionally if needed. Pathfinding functionality is necessary mainly for wayfinding solutions. For other areas like smart building UI-s, architecture visualization etc. our customers prefer to pay for it as they need this. The same way be added other additional functionality like statistics, user management and 2D rendering  to your selected service plan.

Our existing 3D Wayfinder customers will start paying according to new price-list, but they will get also Pathfinding add-on as an extra gift.

For detailed overview and comparison see our Plans and Pricing section. There is trial period of 14 days with all our service plans, so you can try before you buy.

For wayfinding software we still encourage you to contact us. We will make a special offer for you according to your needs with all necessary 3D Wayfinder add-ons and functionality.

This week saw among other things a refactor of the FRAK Engine’s TextComponent. It now has support for unicode. Also basic styling options used by the canvas text drawing API. It means better text handling on 3D scene.

The working principle is simple. Text is render to an off-screen 2D canvas element and upload as a texture. Which is later render on a quad somewhere in the scene.

The text can be updated in runtime (see the text example). It doesn’t seem to cause any significant speed decrease in both Chromium and Firefox.

We have published 3D floor plan ordering and pricing form . It will make easier to order floor plans from us and give the price estimation right away  when selecting options and checking input materials.

We are offering 3 different detail levels:
1) Lite – simple floor plan, but still in 3D. Suitable for large buildings to keep the model file size smaller.
2) Standard – More detailed 3D model, with textures, entrances etc. This is compromise between details and model sizes and it is the most common choice from our customers.
3) Premium – Lifelike 3D model of the actual building. All additional objects like trees, cars, benches etc are included, to make the floor plan more realistic.

Besides the level of detail, modelling price depends on number of rooms, floors and buildings. Modelling time also depends on given materials, so having good materials also affects the price. If possible, we would like to get CAD-drawings and photos of the building.

Floor plan ordering form can be found from here.

Recently we introduced improved transparency in 3D Wayfinder handling to FRAK engine. It can now be configured between three transparency rendering modes: sorted, blended and stochastic.

The sorted mode is what used to be the default earlier. There is mainly for backwards compatibility and fallback reasons. This can be used for decent transparency. But the geometry has to be modeled while keeping in mind that transparent meshes are compared by their centers.

Failure case for the old algorithm:

The first of the new modes is blended and it uses the weighted blended order-independent transparency algorithm. Also with a few modifications related to handling alpha-mapped surfaces. This mode is the new default for the engine. Since floating point textures seem to be supported by most browsers these days.

Weighted Blended Order-independent Transparency:

The second new mode is stochastic. It is still a work in progress. But a viable alternative for certain situations. Stochastic transparency in 3D Wayfinder works by using random noise to give each transparent surface a proportional probability of getting through to the camera. This provides slightly more physically correct results. Currently is a bit too noisy.

Stochastic Transparency:

We have done many improvements and there are new features in 3D Wayfinder.
It is possible now to upload image files for floor plans. In 3D mode, the floor plans are rendered as planes. When using 2D mode, floor plan images are shown the same way as renderings from 3D models. This makes easier to start using the software, as there is no need to model the floor plans. Supported image files are JPG and PNG. To use uploaded images for 2D map view, images should be 4096px x 4096px.

Another important feature is walk-through view in 3D. To enable walk-through view change the “Enable first-person view” in the settings page. This switches path drawing to first person view mode and gives a “Real 3D experience” for users and this enables new possibilities for using 3D Wayfinder – virtual tours, simulations, etc.

Next important developments will include:
1) Template management
2) New editor features to manage 3D objects and map layers
3) Skybox and screensaver for 3D