Upnext.com 3D local search engine

[radvani]

Hi everyone,

I'm with a startup of 4 people, and we just launched our website, www.upnext.com. Please check it out, and be sure to maximize your window to view it in widescreen mode!

The idea was we wanted a better local search experience for the Manhattan area; something that would let us search for information visually. I started writing a 2D engine, but then after checking out the progress of LWJGL and JOGL, moved to 3D. The site became based around an applet, and makes heavy use of LiveConnect to interface with a GWT/Ajax based web-page. On the server-side is a full Spring/Hibernate stack. Our major achievement with Upnext.com was developing new compression techniques to get the loading times down.

Anyway, I'd like to thank everyone at LWJGL for putting out such a great library. As soon as time frees up, I'm going to work on documenting many of our techniques so others can avoid many of the pain points we had to overcome. For example, the IE/Intel address space conflict, the Mac 'bleeding tab' problem, as well as countless browser idiosyncrasies that made the dynamic resizing of the applet window quite a feat.

Compatibility work is still continuing, and I'd really appreciate any feedback, etc. you guys have! We're still crashing on some computers, particularly Vista ones, and are working around the clock to get it all working.

[Matzon]

WOW!

That was a pretty neat experience!!
I really like the way that the rest of the site was integrated using liveconnect. Very nice job!

I had an initial problem, where the applet didn't really start, because it was dependent on a liveconnect call, which never came through because I use the noscript addon.

The log looks like this:

Java Plug-in 1.6.0_02
Using JRE version 1.6.0_02 Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM

0: Java version: 2
0: Browser: 1 and platform: 3
netscape.javascript.JSException
   at netscape.javascript.JSObject.getWindow(Unknown Source)
   at com.viro.saraswan.client.launcher.browser.SwnEntryPoint.browserConnect(SwnEntryPoint.java:574)
   at com.viro.saraswan.client.launcher.browser.SwnEntryPoint.start(SwnEntryPoint.java:430)
   at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
31: Executing launch for view: 0, container: com.viro.saraswan.client.launcher.browser.SwnEntryPoint[panel0,0,0,675x450,hidden,layout=java.awt.BorderLayout], HWnd: -1, codebase: http://upnext.com/, appJar: livemap, appClass: com.viro.livemap.MainApplet, version: 24
2390: Launcher initialized
2390: Retrieving file (livemap, v. 24)...
2390: File (livemap, v. 24) found locally
2406: Retrieving file (textures, v. 4)...
2406: File (textures, v. 4) found locally
2500: Finished loading textures in 110ms
2500: Retrieving file (fonts, v. 3)...
2500: File (fonts, v. 3) found locally
2562: Retrieved pixel format (8, 8, 8, 2) from persistent settings
2625: Retrieving file (materials, v. 6)...
2625: File (materials, v. 6) found locally
2625: Loaded 135 materials in 0 ms
2625: Retrieving file (meshes, v. 6)...
2625: File (meshes, v. 6) found locally
2672: Retrieving file (models, v. 6)...
2672: File (models, v. 6) found locally
3531: Decompressed 8321 meshes in 828 ms
4000: No mesh with ID 8324 found for model 33830
4140: No mesh with ID 950 found for model 27525
4265: No mesh with ID 7814 found for model 22281
4469: Animator started after: 2079 ms
4469: Finished base initialization: 2079ms
Trace level set to 5: all ... completed.
network: Connecting http://upnext.com/live_update.upn with proxy=DIRECT
network: Connecting http://upnext.com/live_update.upn with cookie "JSESSIONID=BCC5912F1193E78C7679CEEA45DCC700"
network: Connecting http://upnext.com/live_update.upn with proxy=DIRECT
network: Connecting http://upnext.com/live_update.upn with cookie "JSESSIONID=BCC5912F1193E78C7679CEEA45DCC700"

The last 'Connecting http...' calls were repeated time and time again.

I shutdown the browser and fired up a new instance (though I had to kill firefox manually, seemed to hang - even though applet showed as "unloaded").

gave upnext permission - and it started with no problems.

I have no idea what the fps was - but it felt very high, at least 60-100 - and possibly 500
The ajax stuff worked wonderfully - no issues.
It polled http://upnext.com/live_update.upn rather often though ?

Once again, very nice job! I look forward to your post mortem

[Matzon]

uh, forgot the specs:
Windows XP, SP2
Core 2 Duo, E6750, GeForce 8600 GTS, 2 GB Ram, Java 1.6

[Matzon]

I just tried it with my Mac mini - Core Duo 1.66 GHz 1GB Ram
Worked perfectly. I couldn't say how performance was tho, since I was accessing it through VNC

Experienced the "bleeding" tab phenomenon too - most definitely a firefox issue - worked fine in Safari.