I've always been in love with 3D modelling. I figured that a 3D virtual model of our apartman in Finland
would be a great way to show my son where we lived, when he was born.
I had worked on this project for about a year before we left Finland. I don't have the exact figure,
but I guess I spent somewhere between 500 and 600 hours on this project. I spent a lot of time with
building 3D models of the various objects (this is when I got deeply involved with the tape measure :-).
But I spent even more time taking pictures of everything in the apartment and properly texture-mapping
the objects. And of course I had to dig into the mysteries of VRML.
Ok, enough talking, let me prove that it really looks cool.
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Screenshots
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Bathroom
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Bedroom / 1
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Bedroom / 2
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Kitchen
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Livingroom / 1
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Livingroom / 2
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Livingroom / 3
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Window from Outside
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VRML Clients
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For this you'll need a VRML client installed on your machine. Here I have some tips for you:
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You can use Parallel
Graphics' Cortona VRML client. Click the logo to get to Cortona's site.
This client works fine on- and offline with the home project.
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This is an other nice viewer from Parallel
Graphics. But this is for Windows Mobile powered mobile devices.
You need a high-end mobile device to get a reasonable quality and frame-rate.
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Microsoft
has it's own VRML viewer that you can download by clicking the logo on the left.
This client works fine on- and offline with the home project. Under Windows XP user interaction is not working.
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If you're still missing a player, check out the VRML repository by clicking its logo on the left.
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Tips
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- The "list of views" has preset camera settings, you can use those to
move around quickly.
- If the image is not sharp enough, turn on or off the headlights (refer to
your viewer's manual or help).
- You can click on doors, that's the way to open them. After a short
delay they'll close automatically.
- Try to click on some of the other objects around. They might just come
alive.
- Wanna take a bath? Go ahead and jump into the bathtub. Afraid that there's no
water? Oh yes, there is. Sometimes more, sometimes less. You'll also
find a towel there.
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View Online
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Most VRML viewers install an internet browser plug-in. By browsing to the following links you can view the project online (of course only if you have a viewer installed).
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Download
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If you'd like to download the project for offline viewing, use the following link to download the zip'd project. It contains 2 VRML files (both scenarios from above) and all the necessary texture and helper files.
Upon unzipping, the bitmap and texture files go into a maps subdirectory and the VRML files in a
VRML subdirectory. You just need to use your favorite file browser (like Windows Explorer in Windows) to open the WRL files.
If you have installed your viewer, it will start loading the project right away.
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