17. July 2002
About the PHOTOgraphical.NET 3D Gallery
The 3D Gallery is a virtual space in which you can walk around and look at photographs.
It's a quite unique gallery "building" in which different exhibitions will be presented.

What is it? How does it work?
The gallery is build using the Adobe^® Atmosphere™ technology. It's a new technology currently in beta test, in which virtual 3D worlds can be constructed and viewed.
You need to download a plug-in for your browser (currently only the Windows platform is supported) in order to see the 3D gallery world.
The plug-in is simply a "3D internet browser" - instead of viewing html-files you'll view 3D worlds.

Community
In addition to being a 3D browser, the Atmosphere™ plug-in also works as a chat client. This means that you can chat with any person who happens to be inside the gallery. Yourself and other visitors to the 3D Gallery becomes so-called "avatars" inside the 3D world. Other visitors will be able to see you and you can change your visual appearance to other avatars using the Atmosphere™ plug-in.

You can read more about this exciting new technology from Adobe^® here.

Inside the world
After you've downloaded the plug-in, the 3D Gallery starts to load. It contains quite a number of pictures and textures, so please be patient if you are using a modem connection.
When the world it ready you can navigate around in it using the arrow keys or the mouse.
Here are some views inside the 3D Gallery:

The lobby.	Looking out from the 2nd floor.
The Grand Canyon panorama.	The lounge on the 3rd floor.

Why make a 3D gallery?
I guess mostly for the obvious reason : It's fun both for me and you as a visitor to this site.
When presenting pictures on a computer monitor you sometimes get a bit restricted by the aspect ratio of the screen. In the 3D world, on the other hand, you are free to make any size you like - even wide panoramic images.
Of course the image quality will suffer (as it often does when viewed on a monitor), but the fun and the viewing experience is still there and perhaps even enhanced!
It's my intention to the let the 3D Gallery exhibit images independent of the other galleries on this site.

The design and architecture
Making a 3D gallery gives me a small opportunity to play with one of my other, very low prioritized interests, namely design and architecture.
Of course the entire gallery including the furniture are designed by me. I tend to make rather "heavy" and robust furniture, which are easy to use in a 3D world.
Here are some examples:



If you have any comments or suggestions to the gallery, feel free to e-mail me about it.

Have fun in the 3D Gallery!

Technical issues
If you are behind a proxy server, you must type in the proxy hostname and port in the Atmosphere™ browser itself. This is done using the "Preferences" tab:




[10.09.02] IMPORTANT!
Some users are having problems seeing the gallery with the newest plug-in from Adobe!
I'll get back with information as soon as I know more about the problems.

Chat
The community server that allow you to chat with other "Avatars" is using a protocol called YACP which stands for "Yet Another Communication Protocol".
This protocol allows the browser to communicate with the "chat server". However, if you are using a proxy server or are behind a firewall, you might need to set either up to communicate through the ports 5555 and 5560 to 5569.
This should likely be done by your network administrator.

Links
• See the gallery now
• Read about the current exhibition
Visit Adobe^®:
• Read about the Atmosphere™ technology
• Read about the Atmosphere™ browser (plug-in)