Simplygon

Sal, Here is something else I stumbled into last week that I wanted to share with you. I think I mentioned that I have been trying to help Amazon figure out how to get their home furnishing products into Homestyler. The idea is that when someone is designing their new kitchen, they would want to be able to select their favorite bar stools and put them (in 3D) around the kitchen counter bar. Instead of just selecting a random 'bar stool', why not actually shop for your favorite bar stool and then place the 3D image into your design. One of the challenges is that the manufacturers don't have 3D images that can easily be transported into Homestyler. The images they have typically provide are too data heavy and thus they can't be used inside of Homestyler (too clunky, too slow, etc.) That's where Simplygon comes into play. They have some special technology that solves this problem and it only takes about 30 seconds to convert your big clunky 3D image into something that can be quickly used on-line at very fast frame-rates. 

They currently only sell the technology to the gaming industry, but they are looking for other ways to monetize the product. (I bet Autodesk acquires this business at some point.) Anyway, I visited with the CEO Magnus Wennerholm - who is a good friend of my boss (Patrick Byrne) and we talked about the home furnishings industry and the Homestyler product. (Magnus is third from right on second row in the picture. He gave me a cool t-shirt to bring back to Lucy and if she reads this entire post and ask me about the shirt I will give it to her now, if not, she will have to wait until Christmas.) Note that they are a Swedish company and Magnus told me they have a partner in Sweden who does work in the furniture business and that they are using Simplygon to render their images.

This would be an example of how you might combine your love of interior design with your passion for technology. Think out side of the box!