SOFTWARE
Canoma turns photos of buildings, home interiors, or solid objects into 3-D models you can explore in virtual space or look at from different angles on a computer. When I started using the software package from MetaCreations, the hardest part was acquiring enough photographic images - you need at least two angles to capture all the surfaces. But once I had scanned some pictures of my neighborhood and put the software to work, I felt like I had captured a piece of the real world and shrunk it down to snow-globe dimensions. On the screen was a 3-D image of my block, which I could flip over like a book, inspecting it from all sides. I half expected tiny people to lean out of the windows and shake their fists at me: "Stop spinning us around!"
Canoma is especially good at making 3-D models that you can post to the Web. To make a fully rotatable 3-D model of Skylab, for example, you first take a couple of photos of it, scan them, and use Canoma to define its geometry. Once you've built Skylab's wire frame, a single click on the interface applies surface textures to the model and automatically pastes together adjoining surfaces. Exporting objects to the MetaStream format results in small files that can be viewed on the Web by anyone with the free plug-in. Or you can use the built-in animation tools to generate a canned movie in QuickTime. (Why not use Apple's QuickTime VR for all of this instead? For starters, you might need special turntable equipment to rotate and photograph objects.)
Sometimes the edges of a completed model look a little funky, so Canoma lets you retouch surfaces using 2-D imaging software. I couldn't check out this feature - Canoma is such a memory pig (48-plus megs recommended) that Ididn't have enough RAM left to run Photoshop. Luckily, most of my results looked fine.
Like other MetaCreations products (Kai's Power Tools, Bryce, Kai's Photo Soap, Goo), Canoma has an otherworldly user interface that's an enjoyable departure from typical Mac and Windows apps. Not many people will buy the $499 Canoma as a toy, as they would Goo. But the software wasn't made with the masses in mind - it's for hard-goods retailers, real estate companies, and travel agencies that want to deliver a compelling buying experience. But if you've got the bucks to burn and want to show off your swank pad or collection of medieval humour-drainage implements to homepage visitors, Canoma will really wow 'em.
Canoma: $499. MetaCreations: (800) 846 0111, www.metacreations.com.
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