3Dsolve has announced that it is now developing commercial software for the Croquet Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 3Dsolve will be the first third-party developer to create commercial software for Croquet.

Croquet enables the development of two- and three-dimensional graphical user interfaces in which representations of different types of data (Web sites included) are organized, customized, accessed, and shared by great numbers of people. The open-source computer software and network architecture define a framework for delivering a scalable, persistent, and extensible interface to network-delivered resources. One day, end users will be able to communicate via video, voice, and text and, individually or collaboratively, design complex shareable spaces.

Croquet’s development is sponsored in part by the Croquet Project, itself supported by the University of Wisconsin Division of Information Technology, the University of Minnesota, Viewpoints Research Institute, and Hewlett-Packard. Because the focus of the University of Wisconsin’s research is on developing the system for use within the university, the opportunity to develop it outward is welcome. “At the University of Wisconsin, a software development focus is in integrating peer-to-peer systems, especially Croquet, with existing authentication and identity management software solutions,” says Dr. Julian Lombardi, assistant director of the Division of Information Technology. “This will make Croquet particularly useful to the civilian government and military customers served by 3Dsolve. We anticipate working closely with 3Dsolve to develop and deploy Croquet in mission-critical applications over the coming years.”

Dr. Lombardi is a principal of the Croquet Project and a member of the 3Dsolve board of advisors. David A. Smith, chief technical officer of 3Dsolve, serves as a lead architect for Croquet.

3Dsolve creates collaborative simulation learning solutions with realistic, interactive 3D graphics. Plans for the now robust Croquet technology include applications for K-12 education, medical imaging, pharmaceutical industry training, and government, military, and corporate trainings.

 The Croquet Project has generated great interest within the software development community: the project Web site received more than one million page requests in the first two days after the Jasmine release of Croquet was made available in October 2004. The beta of Croquet is slated for release in the fall of 2005.