3dcast

Since 2000. Role: project leader, architect, developer.

3dcast is a software platform dedicated to real time adaptive streaming, animation and rendering of high quality interactive digital contents. Contents can be streamed from local drives or through Gbit LAN, ADSL, WiFi and cellular networks. Animation, interaction and rendering can be performed on many devices, ranging from Android phones and tablets to Windows/Linux workstations, laptops, PC clusters, and even set top boxes. Highly optimized for multi-core and many-core architectures, the 3dcast engine leverages 100% of the hardware for best experience. 3dcast also comes with a handy editor, specially designed for content assembly and optimization. It is mainly used to load and optimize the assets, edit the scripts and shaders in a click. The visual execution graph helps orchestrate the interactive application.

While 3dCast aim is not at modeling assets it comes with a powerfull set of plugins for Autodesk Maya. Those provide real-time high quality renders in Maya viewports that can be directly exported to 3dCast. The quality of the viewport renders is such that it can be used for Previz on VFX and Animation production workflows.

History: In 2001 I started to develop the Magellan platform at IRISA/INRIA Rennes, SIAMES team. Mainly focusing on streaming and rendering of large scenes during my Ph.D. In 2005 Magellan is adopted by IPARLA team at LaBRI/INRIA Bordeaux. A new fork is created and named Elkano. It is extended for mobile devices, PC Clusters and terrains (My postdoc results). In 2006 Technicolor (formerly Thomson) buys a license. A new fork is created and named 3dcast. Support of animation is added and many other components are created (e.g. live video and scripting support). Since then, the platform is in constant evolution, and optimization, used in most of the projects listed on this site.

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