Berg, 2007-12-21

New Release BS Contact 7.1 supports physics, COLLADA, Flash and multi-user - offering instant interactivity

New Release BS Contact 7.1 supports physics, COLLADA, Flash and multi-user - offering instant interactivity

BS Contact release 7.1 is now available for trial download / In combination with the new server product "BS Collaborate",multi-user applications are now supported / easy use improves online applications for end-users

Berg near Munich, December 21, 2007- “Based on our comprehensive and expanding product portfolio we are in a robust position to provide our customers with an even greater depth of capabilities and support in developing high quality, professional 3D applications”, states CEO of Bitmanagement Peter Schickel. Amongst numerous additions,Bitmanagement now offers five key advances in the new release 7.1 of its 3D software BS Contact.

• The most significant development is the release of the BS Collaborate server which, when teamed with the BS Contact client, powers sophisticated multi-user virtual worlds with an avatar functionality. According to Bitmanagement, BS Collaborate will prove itself in the engineering arena, in marketing, as well as in the game industry (for massively multiplayer online games). The multi-user client-server pairing of BS Contact 7.1 and BS Collaborate are available now for testing from the Download Center.
• The addition of COLLADA support for BS Contact makes the Bitmanagement software “multi-lingual”. The digital content data exchange format COLLADA joins the existing VRML and X3D modeling language support. Many professional designers can now prepare their 3D models for visualization and online distribution from their favourite tools like Google Sketchup, Cinema 4D, Maya, and many more which provide COLLADA export. Support for the COLLADA file format adds another another 3D syntax to Bitmanagement's real-time 3D client software.
• In support of physically accurate animations that closely resemble reality, Bitmanagement has interfaced BS Contact with the high-speed physics engines from Ageia and ODE. With physics, behaviours and reactions of objects no longer need to be pre-programmed because objects react naturally based on their physical properties and environment. The use of physics is popular for instance in games, as well as simulations such as “virtual factory” applications.
• Flash now can be applied as textures to 3D objects in the new 7.1 version, with optional transparency.
• Finally, Bitmanagement offers an “Instant Interactivity” possibility. The 7.1 release makes it even simpler to utilize the visualization software BS Contact. A new installation mechanism enables the user to install the Bitmanagement viewer (plug-in) and stand-alone application instantly and simultaneously. Under Windows XP an application can be started by a simple click on a picture of the application and can then be used interactively, without any previous knowledge of how to install the application. In a first customer application of the new feature the Bitmanagement viewer, which in this case has been branded in the customer´s look and feel, more than 100,000 viewers have been installed and used without issue, within just one week of the application's launch. This has high relevance for online consumer acceptance of this technology. From now on, web3D is differentiated clearly against online video, because web3D offers important advantages such as interactivity and generally lower data volume.

3D software from Bitmanagement: fully in sync with market trends

Many of these new features open the door for more consumer applications and allow our customers to capitalize on the current trend towards interactive virtual worlds, in which many users can immerse themselves in the form of avatars - their digital "alter egos". These days such applications are often refered to as the "Metaverse". Bitmanagement has already developed projects for their customers within metaverse related niches such as "virtual worlds", "mirror worlds", "augmented reality" and "lifelogging". Our metaverse projects include an interactive soccer game within a virtual stadium, a detailed 3D world atlas linked to encyclopedic content, augmented reality applications, which we created jointly with Metaio (whom by the way is the winner of the German Internet prize for 2007), and finally security applications in the lifelogging range.

Für Ihren Presse-Kontakt:
Norbert Böcker, Press und PR

Norbert Böcker
Bitmanagement Software GmbH
Oberlandstrasse 26
D-82335 Berg

Tel: 08151 97170-8
Mobil: 0171 3337719
norbert.boecker@bitmanagement.de
www.bitmanagement.com