Cathay Pacific is showing off it’s new airplane cabins on a Web site that combines selecting a stand-in for yourself - male or female, the ability to tour the cabin in 3D, and artful use of Papervision in the interface.
The site is remarkably fast to load, immerses you in the environment of the aircraft, and gets down to the level of allowing you to test how the seats maneuver and lights adjust.
A flight simulator and an in-board movie allows you to watch trailers for what will be shown on board.
Of course - also has you dreaming of first class travel, but hey - that’s the nice thing about the 3D Internet - you don’t actually have to go anywhere to get the idea of what it must be like.
What I really like about this application is that it’s a well-designed user experience and it uses Papervision in integration with other elements. It feels like a “Flash site” in which you’re suddenly transported into the cabin of the airplane.
“The messaging is running in e-mail, banner ads, search and in print ads, all inviting customers to visit the airline’s new microsite. Cathay Pacific is also hosting YouTube and Facebook pages. The company has worked with a number of agency partners in the past, but Owens said there was no agency tied directly to this push.”
Hard to show in a few photos, so head over to the site to check it out. I’d still be interested to know who the agency is behind the specific application.
Dusan, while I share your excitement for the idea of flash based virtual worlds … and 3D spaces you can embed into web pages … Cathay Pacific’s cabin tour is a good example why this idea has to be applied with a lot of care.
The performance is pure horror on my 2 yr old Windows system (which runs SL perfectly). Movements are erratic and you have to concentrate heavily on what the screen does, when you move the mouse. There is no avatar with which to identify myself. There was not even a second where I “felt inside” the plane.
This might be technologically “cool”, but I don’t see much sense in it. Actually I expect that an aging technology like Quicktime3D or something similar would convey a much better impression of the actual looks within a Cathay Pacific plane.
Maybe it will get better with Flash 10 and GPU support. Lets hope for that …
Markus - Good points, although I don’t entirely mean to use this as an example of a ‘virtual world’ but rather the 3D Internet - and sure, subtle difference, but I think there are different facets of the “Metaverse” - avatars, 3D worlds (or micro worlds), 3D visualization, etc. Certainly Papervision isn’t ready for prime time when it comes to giving an experience of presence…in fact, as you point out, I’m not entirely sure it’s ready for prime time for certain visualizations because many of the apps you see using the platform could just as easily be done with clever use of Flash and, as you say, QuickTime or maybe Virtools (problem being the plug-in).
Flash 10 will unleash a whole new generation of approaches, there’s no question. What’s important about Papervision is its demonstration of ‘3D visualization’ without a client, ubiquity, etc. However, it’s just one thread in a much wider ecology of 3D apps and approaches.