Second Life has become a business platform

August 27, according to "Business Week", "Second Life" virtual world is no longer just a community network, or playing a game platform. More and more enterprises to take advantage of these virtual world for product design, development and testing, to cost savings.

California, a toy design company Little Wonder Studio has recently become a "second life" of new users.

In the past the process of designing toys, the company will need to use Rhino 4.0,3 DS Max, ZBrush and Maxon Cinema 4D, such as number of commercial software. However, all these can now work through the "second life" in the free tools to complete.

The company owner Robert Curet said that through the "second life", he can just half an hour to complete the work of 3 D modeling, and this requires the past week's time. After the completion of modeling, Curet only to spend an hour and a half of the model textures, and use Photoshop and then be able to design programmes to the factory.

In such work is completed, there will be from Hong Kong factory engineers through the "second life" and Curet contact. The two sides will "second life" in the common assessment of the virtual model. They can spin model or the model for dismantling. Subsequently, engineers can create a real-life products, Curet and to provide an accurate cost of production.

Curet said: "All this is free and very interesting, to achieve social coordination. This makes you able to answer in a three-dimensional world of many problems and these problems through the plane difficult to diagram that clear."

At present, large companies are for the virtual world brings new meaning. Iowa State University associate professor of information management systems Brian Mennecke said that through the virtual world of the greatest advantage lies in the fact that the potential to enable more users interact with new products, even if these products have not been produced.

Forrester Research analyst at research institutions, said Paul Jackson, the use of the virtual world the cost is very low, this area "from the very beginning open to all." He also pointed out that even through collaboration with the software, sharing 3 D or 4 D model is still very difficult, especially when many of the data in the private system when. The virtual world to solve these problems.