Home in 3D

[jijo_robert]

I am planning to use Homeseer with custom built server.

I am planning to use a tocuh screen remote. I would like to see the house in 3D while making the selection in touch screen rather then text saying "Master Bed Room" or "Living Room" etc..,

Is there a software that would do this?

Thanks
Jijo

 

[upstatemike]

I am planning to use Homeseer with custom built server.

I am planning to use a tocuh screen remote. I would like to see the house in 3D while making the selection in touch screen rather then text saying "Master Bed Room" or "Living Room" etc..,

Is there a software that would do this?

Thanks
Jijo

Homeseer is about to release its HSTouch software in a month or so. You may want to see if it has the features you are looking for.

 

[DavidL]

Yes, MainLobby integrates with Homeseer and provides excellent touchscreen support with floorplan images. As far as "3D", you would need a swf, a jpg, a bmp, or other graphical reproduction of your floor plan. Cinemar creates custom floorplans from your house plans in Flash as an optional service for our customers.

Do you have architect plans? real estate plans? CAD drawings of your home? You will need "something" to get going.

 

[AnthonyZ]

DavidL, what does the Flash assistance run? In other words, if we sent plans, what would it cost to get back the .fla's that Cinemar builds. Are they dynamic or static? What all is available?

 

[DavidL]

DavidL, what does the Flash assistance run? In other words, if we sent plans, what would it cost to get back the .fla's that Cinemar builds. Are they dynamic or static? What all is available?

AnthonyZ, The service is a quoted service. Just depends on what you want to do, how large of a project it is. The SWFs are provided. Typically, they are similar to what ships with MainLobby where the house is "cut up" into rooms, and each room is an individual flash graphic that has hover / down / up states. When one clicks the room, typically MainLobby then changes the navigation to be room specific for control over a room's features (lights / fans / AV, whatever). The end results are for use within MainLobby user interface.

We build complete interfaces on request, or just the graphics, or somewhere in between. Commercial, for our Dealers, or for end users.

This is for where "discriminating" end users desire a flash based user interface presentation (that can be dynamic). This is not to confuse that and end user can add any graphic they want / own to MainLobby without hiring Cinemar and without requiring knowledge of Flash development software. One can always build their own flash graphics too. Cinemar provides Cinemar customers with a very easy to use software tool to do just that. Many options, hiring Cinemar for custom development is only one option.

 

[AnthonyZ]

Thanks, David. Good to know the service is there if I need it. It would be absolutely dependent on receiving .fla's, though as I personally would want to tweak if I wanted to.

 

[IVB]

Dunno if HS/ML is like this, but I found that it was best to do the following with my floor plan. This may help you on your quest.
1) Use .PNG files wherever possible. As it's png, it has transparency, so you don't have to worry about irregularly shaped images/etc. Very cool if you want any kind of layering/stacking of images for your 3D look.
2) Put as much in the background as possible. This leads to much better load times, as in, nearly instantaneous. With as much in the backgrond as possible, you minimize the # of different stuff you load, it all sits in memory

BTW, here's an idea for a very different type of 3D look&feel. Very interesting, wouldn't go with many people's styles, but definitely something fun to see. It was done by a CQC'ers 14 year old son using a free package called "Blender". here's some other screens in that series.

 

[jijo_robert]

Can someone shed some lights between Mainlobby and Homeseer? Is mainlobby a software that runs on top of Homeseer? or Mainlobby is peer to Homeseer and I only need one of those two? This is for full house automation including Audio, Video, Phone, Security, Windows drappers etc.

Thanks
Jijo

 

[DavidL]

Hi Jijo,
Homeseer and MainLobby and CQC are full boat software automation systems. Just add hardware and labor, with a dose of expertise.

Homeseer and MainLobby have a means to integrate the two systems which provides probably the most capable automation system anywhere. Not much that can't be done with the two.

But, there is a lot of overlap between the two. And, there is more to configure as you have to then learn two different systems. And, both sides have to be working well for a reliable system (not difficult in the scope of the overall tasks).

Homeseer historically has really lacked a polished user interface. That is why the MainLobby integration was originally developed as MainLobby (IMHO) has the best user interface capability and end result. When the integration was written, MainLobby didn't have as robust of a "back end". Since that time, MainLobby has had hundreds of updates and has a very capable "back end" now as well (that accomplishes just about anything one would typically automate in a home).

Homeseer is working on their own user interface application. No evidence on what it's capabilities or end results will look like yet. Suppose to be available to beta this or next month. I suspect it will take quite some time before it compares to MainLobby (again, IMHO).

MainLobby and Homeseer (and the integration component MLHSPlugin) are all available for demo. Give it a whirl.

 

[keepersg]

I am planning to use Homeseer with custom built server.

I am planning to use a tocuh screen remote. I would like to see the house in 3D while making the selection in touch screen rather then text saying "Master Bed Room" or "Living Room" etc..,

Is there a software that would do this?

Thanks
Jijo

Check out Google Sketch It. Its free and with a little effort will do 3D drawings of rooms etc.

 

[Ranger Digital]

YOu mean Sketch Up and not Sketch It, right?
http://www.sketchup.com/index.php?title=2

 

[rhughes]

YOu mean Sketch Up and not Sketch It, right?
http://www.sketchup.com/index.php?title=2

Here's my first floor I did using SketchUp. It's part of my touch panel display. I overlay light and motion icons/buttons over it in MainLobby and control them using HomeSeer.

 

[AnthonyZ]

Looks great RHughes. Very intuitive way to control the home (depending on the buttons overlayed). My mom-in-law would love something like that. As I'm going to be putting in a robust system for my old man over the next month or two (he's spoiled), I may consider something similar...

 

[DavidL]

Looks great RHughes. Very intuitive way to control the home (depending on the buttons overlayed). My mom-in-law would love something like that. As I'm going to be putting in a robust system for my old man over the next month or two (he's spoiled), I may consider something similar...

AnthonyZ,
With the setup that comes with MainLobby, a floorplan view is included. When the user clicks a "room", that room becomes highlited and a navigation overlay changes context to displaying the controllable devices in that room for context. When a device is chosen, the assumption is On or Off toggle. This can also be modified to clicking on the device puts device specific context, that another click chooses whether On / Off or a Dim level is requested (Dim can be selecte via a graphical touchscreen friendly slider as one UI option).

Of course, you could put a graphical button depicting a device in a given room and then control that device. This method can get busy looking if you have a lot of contollable devices, especially if in a single room (like a Theater).

Or, clicking on a room "zooms" into that room and it's devices to be controlled.

There are quite a few UI paths one can go down for intuitive UI design. Not sure which method RHughes is employing.

 

[TonyNo]

I just found that a previous version of the 3D software I use (Carrara 6 Pro) is currently being given away in 3D World magazine. It's $15.99 at Borders and includes a coupon code for 25% off of the upgrade to the current Pro version.