Krishnan Ramaswami, 3D Solid Compression: 3D platform enabling interactive applications on the mobile

YourStory recently caught up with entrepreneur Krishnan Ramaswami to know more about his venture, 3D Solid Compression (or 3DSoc). Here are the excerpts from a conversation about this interesting business idea, built around the development of 3D products.Krishnan, please tell us what 3D Solid compression is all about.

3D Solid Compression (3DSoC) is basically a 3D product development company. We have developed a 3D Interactive platform enabling interactive applications on the mobile. Powered by VIS, the world’s most concise 3D representation, our platform and applications enable easy consumption and sharing of 3D content.

Our first application, CardzCreator enables creation of customized 3D greeting cards on the mobile and it has clocked 1.5+ million downloads across 200 countries. CardzCreator is available on Android and Java platforms.

How did the idea for 3D Solid Compression come about? How much capital was required to implement the idea?

We were working on a joint research project on finite element mesh generation between Stanford University and Indian Institute of Science. During the course of the project, we found that significant time was lost in transferring 3D models and results between the teams. We decided to look into this problem and the idea for VIS was born.We realized that this technology has a wide range of applications in enterprise publishing, e-learning, telemedicine, manufacturing and mobile applications. 3D Solid Compression was formed to commercialize this technology

VIS technology compresses 3D models by over 1000 times and hence, the name 3D Solid Compression. We needed about 2 crore rupees to develop and implement the idea.

Tell us about your background.

I have a PhD in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. I have been working in the area of 3D graphics and geometric modeling from 1992. I have been a research consultant with the Rapid Prototyping Lab at Stanford University and a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Science.

Where do you see the software development firm and 3D Solid Compression five years from now?

3DSoC’s vision is 3D for all. We will realize that vision in the next five years. 3DSoC will be the de facto leader in enabling creation, collaboration, communication and consumption of interactive 3D content across all platforms.

What is 3D Solid Compression revenue model? We understand that you’ve been funded.

We generate revenue through sale of our products. Our applications are ad supported and generate revenues through ads. In addition, we have built our own virtual currency and plan to generate revenues through in-app purchase. And yes, we have been funded by IDG Ventures and another investor.What are the challenges that you faced while developing your solutions? How did you overcome those challenges?

One of the key challenges has been finding talent. Since 3D graphics is a niche area, it is hard to find engineers with 3D graphics background. We have been hiring some fresh talent from the leading technical institutes in the country and training them and we always keep our eyes open for any good talent. The other challenge has been to focus on a single domain.

Since this technology has a wide range of applications, we were initially looking at multiple domains – enterprise publishing, eLearning and mobile applications. We also got paying customers in each of those domains. But given the size and stage of our company, it was getting difficult to manage all the domains. Now, we have decided to focus on mobile applications and even in mobile applications, we are focusing on creating the world’s first 3D visual messaging solution.

How big is the team behind 3D Solid Compression? Are you looking at hiring?We have a 22 member team with an engineering team of 14 and UI/content teams of 4.we are looking to hire talented new engineers with preferably a background in 3D graphics.

How has the journey been so far? Let us know about your expansion plans.

Our apps CardzCreator and LoveCardz are available in 21 different app stores consisting of operator app stores, OEM app stores and neutral app stores. CardzCreator and LoveCardz have been downloaded by 1.5+ million users. The top five countries in which our app is downloaded are India, USA, Nigeria, Indonesia and Philippines. As of today, we have close to 200 Cardz available for users to download. More than 1 lakh cards created with CardzCreator were sent during Christmas-New-year season. 85,000+ CardzCreator cards were sent during Valentine’s Day.

We plan to have an office in US in the next few months with other offices planned in Europe, Singapore, Japan and some more south Asian countries. We plan to add 15-20 people before the end of this financial year.

We at YourStory.in wish Krishnan and 3D Solid Compression much success. To know more about this venture, check out http://3dsoc.com/.

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