Yes, the blog has been quiet recently… it’s been a pretty busy spring, we are preparing an exciting new product release for June. We continue to provide nice innovations and new tools to help you get your job done more quickly.
Expect a lot of activity, along with the new release of 3DVIA Composer, we have been creating a LOT of video tips over the past year, and they will be available very soon.
In the meantime, did you know that 3DVIA has a powerful gaming engine, that can be used for both casual gaming, as well as “serious games”? And did you know that it has some very interesting uses in the Life Sciences industry to help people learn about health concerns and to actually help them with phobias and other health challenges?
Check out this mention from the Boston Globe:
In other games, such as those designed to help battlefield veterans overcome post-traumatic stress disorder, having a health care professional on hand seems even more important. In simulations developed by Seattle-based Firsthand Technology Inc., veterans with post traumatic stress disorder slowly revisit the scenes of bus bombings and other attacks.
In Firsthand’s simulations, crowded city streets and buses packed with civilians can bring a veteran back, virtually, to his most traumatic experiences, slowly helping him to cope with what he went through during wartime.
“At first, a soldier might just sit in the Humvee, and that’s all he does,’’ said Firsthand president Howard Rose.
The company also develops educational games using a software platform from Concord-based 3DVia, part of the French company Dassault Systemes.
In the battlefield simulations, “a therapist can mediate the patient’s experience, so they are not traumatized again,’’ Rose said.
(I always bite my tongue when journalists don’t spell 3DVIA in uppercase… 
)
Firsthand also created a nice kids introduction to oral health care called “Attack of the S. Mutans” where “Dentisha” the hero teches kids how to fight the evils of bacteria and other dental villans. See the press release for more information. Who says games are bad for you? 
Attack of the S. mutans! is designed to offer a positive learning experience that also satisfies this audience’s sophisticated tastes and high expectations in electronic gaming. “Computer games help change the learning dynamic from passive to active learning in ways which children find welcome and familiar,“ says Firsthand CEO Ari Hollander.
For more interesting “serious games” developed in 3DVIA Virtools by Firsthand technologies, check out their website www.firsthand.com. They have a very impressive usage to help pain management for burn victims, it is truly revolutionary and impressive stuff, and research is showing the power of virtual reality to change perception of pain.
More updates to come!
