A Play Date in 3D

Want to kill some time on Thursday nights? All you CAD-using lovers of 3D design now have a couple of places to share models and shoot the breeze over all things three-dimensional.

Caligari, the makers of collaborative 3D technology, announced its Thursday Night Live!, a weekly online discussion open to all members of the 3D community around the globe. The first session, slated for tomorrow night at 5pm PT, will feature Caligari CEO Roman Omandy, who will deliver his insights on the future of 3D technology. Participants to the forum will meet in Caligari’s truePlace shared online 3D space and can communicate using voice- or text-based chat. Visitors will need to install or use Caligari’s trueSpace 7.5 3D modeling software or work with the free truePlay application. TruePlay 7.5 users will be able to model collaboratively, while truePlay users can participate in discussions, but can’t do any modeling.

Autodesk is also doing its part to promote collaboration and 3D modeling sharing in the design community. It has just updated its Project Freewheel, a free Web service from Autodesk Labs that lets users share designs via a built-in messaging tool.  With Project Freewheel, users can pan, zoom and orbit on designs as well as make comments using sketch and markup tools. A built-in messaging tool lets participants chat in real-time.