Michael Wong

Hewlett-Packard recently unveiled its VEDA (virtual environment design automation) project to the press. The OpenGL and XML-based application is used as a visualization database that can be viewed in 3D to create online stores that you can walk through on your monitor, browsing through rooms of items sorted by your category of choice. Inspired by first-person video games, the demo showed some eerily similar qualities to shooting games like Doom and Quake. The demo simulated a trip through HP's product catalogue including cameras and other materials that could be viewed 360-degrees. The virtual store could also be approached at the floor level or from a third-person overhead advantage point, allowing the user to skip to other sections without getting lost. While the application could currently be used as a plug-in on a standard Web browser like Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape, the short-term solution is to put the database on a CD first. Currently, the Lab plans testing the system in the real world with retailers like Wal-Mart. [Full story: HP Thinks in 3D for Web Browsing - Ecommerce Guide]

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