Immersion 3D, a division of Immersion Corp, announced a 30 day trial offer of Immersion's new VirtualHand Studio software available for download at Immersion's Website, www.immersion.com/products/3d/interaction/virtualhandstudio.shtml. VirtualHand Studio is an intuitive software tool used by designers for verifying, testing and evaluating 3D digital models in real-time. This software converts data from the subtle movement of the physical hand into a graphical hand, letting the user interact with 3D objects.

Germany-based EGISYS AG is set to release its 3D Content Brokerage system later this year. It will be integrated within Curious Labs' Poser and Poser Pro Pack, and also be available as a standalone product. The database targets professional modelers, Web designers, animators, multimedia artists and hobbyists. With the Content Brokerage system, all 3D content and components developed and submitted through the system by individual artists will be available as commercial offerings or shareware to the entire 3D community.

Electric Image has announced a new version of Universe 3D animation system. The software is expected to begin shipping this fall for Windows NT/2000, Macintosh/OS X and Sun Solaris platforms. The update price for the new version has not yet been announced. New features include a new constraint system, paint-on weight mapping, an advanced skinning system, previews for motion blurs and depth-of-field rendering, global illuminator lighting options and optimized OpenGL support in its Modeler.

MorphInk has announced their commercial release of MorphInk 2.0, a Web-animation authoring tool. MorphInk 2.0 enables the creation and publishing of high-resolution animations playing at high frame rates (up to 30 frames per second) without increase in file size. In addition to its own ANC animation format, MorphInk 2.0 also supports other Web formats. MorphInk animations can be converted to Flash or Animated GIF. The MorphInk 2.0 package includes a stand-alone player, a Java player and ActiveX/Plug-In Web players.

DigiCel, Inc. has announced the release of DigiCel FlipBook Lite, a full-featured 2D animation program with all the same features, resolution and image quality of their higher-end broadcast quality products. Artists can use either a camera or the program's built-in light table feature to create their animations. The drawings are automatically positioned in a traditional style exposure sheet. While the scene plays, animators can experiment with timing changes by editing the exposure sheet, immediately updating the preview.

Visual effects software developer eyeon Software and effects facility Frantic Films have signed a strategic agreement to provide next-generation applications for eyeon's award-winning Digital Fusion product line. Frantic Film’s in-house programming talent will use the highly optimized modular Digital Fusion architecture on specific production solutions, which will then be incorporated by eyeon into future product versions. "Frantic Films helps eyeon Software return to its roots.

REALVIZ, a leading developer of image processing software solutions, has announced the preview of SceneWe@ver, an application that enables users to view 3D models in Web-based 360° panoramas. Combining technology from REALVIZ' ImageModeler and Stitcher, SceneWe@ver offers multimedia artists, Web designers and Webmasters that use Macromedia Director a complete solution to creating photo-real, 3D environments that export to Director.

LIPSinc has announced of the release of AniMeter, its latest facial animation application for creation of talking digital characters. The software is a metered, batch processing application that uses the pre-recorded voice to generate facial animation data, including lip-synchronization and corresponding speech gestures for 2D and 3D talking digital characters. The product gives animators great results at first pass for automated lip-synchronization, while giving production managers more control over costs on a per project basis.

Curious Labs, developers of 3D character and design tools Poser and Poser Pro Pack, has signed an agreement with Adobe Systems where the two companies have agreed to work together on technology, content and marketing activities for Adobe Atmosphere software and Curious Labs' avatar-creation tools. Atmosphere world builders will have an easy system for building custom avatars. Additionally, both Adobe and Curious Labs incorporate Viewpoint technology, resulting in smooth skinned, bending 3D characters from Poser Pro Pack that can be used as avatars in Atmosphere 3D worlds.

Softimage Co. has announced the release of SOFTIMAGE|3D v4.0 and SOFTIMAGE|XSI 2.0. "SOFTIMAGE|3D, an industry-standard for more than 10 years, has been used extensively by more than 13,000 customers in the animation, special effects and games development industry. The product's great success is a direct result of our long history of listening and responding to our customers' needs," said Michael Stojda, managing director, Softimage.