For example, suppose the originating designer of a dollhouse kit draws two walls that must meet at a joint. Those images, as well as 3-D files, might then go to the assembly process designer, who would use them to locate and size the tabs and slots needed to make the connection. They might then help manufacturing organize all the tabs on the same sheet of paper, vendors design the most appealing product displays, and customers see what the product looks like before assembly (from any angle they like).
After purchase, customers might assemble the kit by following an animated assembly sequence on the vendor's Web site. If they still had problems, customer support would use the same images to walk them through the process. (MYski already reuses in a small way: When a customer has designed a pair of skis on the MYski Web site, the specifications go from the site right to the factory floor.)
Animation can also be used to show--in a clear and graphic way that could never be duplicated with static images--how ordinary data changes with time. For instance, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., in Torrance, Calif., contracted Digital Evolution to build a corporate intranet that uses animation technology such as Java. The intranet's graphic interface allows managers to perform tasks such as monitoring inventory at a glance.
An even more ambitious example is an information display system announced last October by Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. The system organizes all published science pieces into a single animated landscape. The program examines a list of publications and creates a virtual landscape in which articles that are closely related to one another are placed more closely together in the display. The display is then animated to show how the relationship between articles changes over time. Over the course of a year, you could build up an animated landscape that shows trends in research as rising and falling waves; a scientist might follow the progress of an experimental technique by looking at the peaks and valleys in the landscape. Instruments such as these might one day be essential to navigating the information highway.
Finally, animation is potentially more flexible than video because every aspect of the medium can be controlled. "You don't see video footage even in arcade games" (where bandwidth is not an issue), points out Aaron Shi of AniMagicians. "People see video every day. The look is too common. What they want are fantasy environments." It is particularly useful to employ moving pictures rather than words at Web sites whose visitors might have a weak command of English.
The constraints on animation are fast processors, large memories, universal standards, and creation software--obstacles the industry is attempting to overcome. In 1996, chip companies shipped over 8 million 3-D graphics accelerator chips. In January, Intel announced a microprocessor designed to work with multimedia applications. By the end of the decade, every new computer sold will come with some level of 3-D rendering capability that at the beginning of 1996 was available only on "visualization" workstations and supercomputers.
In 1995, a committee of 60 companies, including Sun Microsystems, Netscape Communications, and Silicon Graphics, came together and agreed on a standard set of programming terms (VRML 2.0) for recognizing and executing animation, which make it possible for everyone to write, send, and receive animation without first buying into some proprietary scheme. As of this writing, Netscape Communications is planning a second-quarter release of VRML-capable browsers, and Microsoft will follow soon after. Finally, the Java applet system being promoted throughout the Web is ideal for transmitting animated "objects" to desktops.
The one constraint in animation that as yet has no quick fix is production cost. Programs that allow lay persons to design and manage animated sequences are only now beginning to appear. Silicon Graphics Cosmos suite (Mountain View, Calif., $2,300 for Silicon Graphics version, but a Windows NT version was just released, pricing to be determined, 800-800-7441, www.sgi.com), which converts 3-D CAD designs into VRML for distribution over intranets and the Internet, is one professional entry. The program WebPainter, by Totally Hip Software (Vancouver, B.C. $99.95, 604-685-6525, www.totallyhip.com), is an entry-level tool for exploring the options.
Sooner or later, someone is going to figure out how to generate imagery that a computer understands at least well enough to figure out the faces and edges directly from a videocam. Once that happens, the wall between video and animation will collapse; video will require no more bandwidth than animation, and animation will have the cheap production costs of video. All the applications that can be served by either medium will combine into the same product stream.
That should make for some pretty exciting Web sites.
Animation Versus Video
Bandwidth requirements:
Video: Video requires at least 10 times the current speed for reasonably fast downloading of video clips.
Animation: Once a "library" of images is stored on a PC, complex animations can be conjured up in seconds via a standard connection.
Interactivity:
Video: A video clip is fixed; there is no good way for a user to interact with images nor for images to respond to other programs.
Animation: Animation can be controlled by the user video-game style, or it can be made to interact with other programs and data.
Reusability:
Video: Video can't be adapted to illustrate different points and serve different functions.
Animation: A single animation can be easily modified to fit different applications, such as engineering design and customer training.
Fred Hapgood is a freelance writer based in Boston.
