Let me first apologize for not writing this entry in German. I could write something in German but it would be simple and lacking emotion and this entry needs to be representative of my stay here with Queo.

„The remedy is the experiance.“  Jason Mraz
Before my Queo-Media internship, I did not know for sure which career path I would travel down. This uncertainty was cured by my experiance with all of you, with Queo. I learned to love marketing and the open creativity experianced daily. The open and friendly atmosphere in the office allows comfortable learning for an intern and I thank each and every one of you for your respect and kindness you have shown me. You have, honestly, made this internship one of the most memorable and valuable learning experiances of my life.

What I have learned on my internship:

1. German powerpoint presentations are a hundred times better than any American college presentation.

2. Afri-Cola is the holygrail.

3. The daily marketing atmosphere contains long hours and many head-aches but those who do it love it and are motivated by the migraine.

4. Never, I mean Never, be willing to do a project for Tobi on Adobe Illustrator.

5. Creativity is important but being able to actualize creativity is essential.

6. Do not try an unfamilier item on menu at a restaurant in Germany. I did and I got Sülze. Lesson learned.

7. This is a small world and the commonalities between Americans and Germans are endless. However, there is one big difference for me, the language. Uh… J

8. Trains and buses are only useful when you get on the correct one.

9. A tourist only needs to be fluent with one sentence in German „Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch.“ The accent will give them away and will be responded to in English, every single time.

10. I learn more when I fail or misguide myself in a project. This amount of learning I experiance when I mess up is amazing, it feels good to be that much smarter. Therefore, I hope I continue to fail as long as I do not fail twice at the same thing. Abraham Lincoln lost every single election of his life until he ran for United States presidency.

Once again I would like to thank all of you for this experiance.
I will leave you with a quote by the same person I started this entry with, Jason Mraz.
„Go make your next choice be your best choice.“

Matt Chapman

I was recently following the promising ideas of Areae Inc. They gathered developers from Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy, to mention only a few. Their idea is an environment for Online Plattforms. Everbody will be able to create something like Second Life, World of Warcraft or The Sims Online. But have a look yourselves:

The Metaplace Website

Metaplace Demo on Youtube

Finally, here is the current progress on the 3d module of SUSL. I have finished the class diagram and a description of the algorithm to explain the structure and the way I hope to find SL-Primitives in a 3d mesh. The diagram is not very exact, I used it to structure my thoughts and group the elements I need.

I will try to explain the algorithm. I hope it will be comprehensible. If not, tell me and I will explain it more deeply.

(mehr…)

After having verified the tools we will use, we started to analyze and design the SUSL project. Our approach on SUSL is a kind of three-tier-architecture. We use an input layer which is represented by the SketchUp framework. You are able to import various data types and SketchUp represents the mesh data in a 3D environment. Furthermore there is the processing layer. It is constructed modularly so that you are able to add new modules like a sculptie module. You need to create a new folder in the “/plugins/susl/” folder of SketchUp. After creating a “*.susl” file you only have to define your methods. The 2D and 3D Module are the ones we will implement in our thesis. The modules are able to write onto the third layer, the Second-Life-export-layer (output layer). A SL-container will be filled with SL Primitives by the modules. The export layer has to verify that no Second Life restrictions are violated (like 10*10*10 m restriction, 16kb script restriction and stuff like that) and it has to write a file which is copied and pasted into Second Life.

This is our current progress in the 2D Module. You are able to let SketchUp build up walls out of edges and export them into a text file in the SketchUp working directory. The script is “Copy & Pasted” into Second Life. Now you only need to touch the “Builder” and it will build the ground plan to walls. It is a prototype to test the technologies we like to use. Here are the pictures:

In the context of our studies we are developing a Google SketchUp to Second Life exporter called SUSL, which should be capable of exporting buildings and objects out of 2D CAD data and 3D SketchUp data into the Second Life environment. We are supported by Queo and the Dresden University of Technology where we pursue our studies. After having completed the thesis it is our intention to make this small project Open Source, so that others are able to enhance the work we have started. We like to present our current process on the SUSL-Project in this Blog.

So if you are interested please coment on it.