Competition

Vizard and other high-level VR creation libraries

The single most important feature distinguishing Vizard from all other products is its rich Python-based development environment. Not only does Vizard offer Python as its core development language, it augments Python with a concise and powerful set of C-optimized 3D graphics functions that bring to Python the entire world of interactive, real-time immersive 3D graphics. If you’re not already familiar with Python, then all you need to know is that it’s a popular open-source language with an enormous and continually expanding user community. By building upon Python, Vizard makes it truly possible for non-expert programmers to start using a powerful VR toolkit and building real interactive 3D content with far less time investment than any other tool.

Vizard also purposefully avoids the extreme opposite of programming, namely purely visually-based programming in which the development effort is overburdened by a cumbersome graphical interface that obscures good, logical programming. Instead, Vizard offers a clean graphical user interface and visual tools that smartly augment those tasks best handled through scripting. Our customers quickly discover that our Python-based development environment greatly accelerates the development cycle, promoting fast prototyping and project updates. With these advantages, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that all the underlying code of Vizard's graphics engine is all built in C/C++ and based on OpenGL, so the end-to-end efficiency of a Vizard application is nearly identical to one written in pure C/C++ (e.g., a WorldToolkit application). When an expert user has specialty requirements not addressed by our core library, our freely available API gives complete access to our entire internal scenegraph making it possible to add nearly any addition feature via C/C++ code.

Performance and compatibility are the cornerstones to Vizard design architecture. As a modern rendering environment, Vizard uses all the latest OpenGL extensions. In terms of hardware compatibility, Vizard communicates natively to nearly all common VR peripherals, and when it does not, either our free VRPN plug-in will take care of the need or our team will rapidly write a new driver for free (as long as it is a standard commercial device). As is the case with our API to the scene graph, our API to our sensor plug-in architecture is free, so users can easily connect to even their own custom hardware when necessary by writing their own plug-ins. Vizard offers numerous other pleasant surprises, such as the fact that it’s the only toolkit available that comes standard with sophisticated (and extensible) avatar support and powerful networking features. You’ll be ready to start building networked multi-user environments from the very start with your Vizard toolkit.

Vizard is particularly compatible to the needs of academic institutions. Our LITE edition priced at US$49 provides all the functionality necessary for developing complete and professional virtual environments. Our full license is only required for those dedicated workstations needing a non-branded viewer.

Finally, for power users the Enterprise edition of Vizard provides capabilities to enhance your ability to deploy large scale visual simulation infrastructures (e.g., CAVEs), produce royalty-free content for redistribution, and protect your assets with the "Publish as EXE" process. For instance, the development effort needed to distribute your simulation across a multi-machine cluster is a project that'll be measured in days rather than months thanks to the power of Vizard's internal high-level architecture for sharing and synchronizing practically any simulation. Then, when a simulation is complete, you can build a stand-alone application that can be distributed to commercial customers without any further licensing by either party to WorldViz. To protect your 2D and 3D art assets, Vizard's Enterprise edition includes the ability to apply encryption to your application's asset vault to further protect your commercial interests.