3pointD.com

VRoot flags a press release from the Caligari Corporation about their trueSpace7 collaborative 3D design software, which is being showcased at Siggraph 2006. Caligari calls it the “first and only 3D software application to feature real-time collaborative authoring technology, allowing remote product design teams, and graphic artists to create, manipulate and edit 3D objects within a shared virtual workspace, over the broadband internet.” (Although we blogged about this tool from Autodesk that seems to pre-date it.) With a $595 price point and what looks like support for the 3DS format, it sounds pretty useful, though the real-time collaboration is what’s most exciting here. Too high-end for most virtual-world residents? Maybe. But as the ability to import objects into virtual worlds grows, stuff made in apps like this is going to become increasingly tough competition for the designers who work only with tools native to those worlds — tools that are orders of magnitude less sophisticated.