HOW RELATES ULTRAMUNDUM TO ULTRAPEG?
Ultramundum is the full project for the diffusion of Ultravision, UltraPeg is the technology at the base of the service. More or less like the DVD delivers movies on a disk and laser technology is used to read those disks.

WHAT IS UltraPeg?
a revolutionary and newly patented technology involving the storing and representation of three-dimensional environment data. Some examples of UltraPeg application fields are: videogames, 3D interactive documentary, synthesis movies and TV movies, 3D interactive TV (Ultravision) and, in general, all those cases where allowing full 3D exploration by any user is the main goal.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Compared to the known standard techniques, the substantial difference is represented by the memorization of data as concepts, not as collections of digital infos.
Ultramundum actually suggests to develop a huge 'construction box' where any 'little brick' required to make the scene can be found.
In this way only the list of serial numbers of scene elements is stored. By this system, the overall data dimension of a 3D environment is strongly reduced, making Internet real time transmission possible.
Elementary little bricks can be either single elements or very complex aggregates. Whole buildings can be taken and used (as the Mole Antonelliana or Palazzo Madama), parts of them (as porticos, arches, portals) or single elements (as friezes, capitals, simple bricks). Every brick is 'intelligent', that is it can fit any particular application.
Not being a mere collection of fixed data but a proper program, a portico can, for instance,enlarge or stretch itself to suit the desired scene.
Being the environment a series of references to the basic collection elements, it can improve automatically in time. In fact, if an author decides to use the Mole Antonelliana in a specifical point, he stores the element serial number and not its actual data. If the Mole 'brick' is improved, all channels related to it are automatically improved, without any further author's work.

WHAT ARE UltraPeg ADVANTAGES?

• Internet transmission is possible with TV-like channel switching times, no lengthy delays, no 'please wait' messages. Even with low-speed connections, time to enter detailed, rich virtual worlds is extremely reduced.

• 3D elements can be created faster than using conventional techniques, are totally reusable and must not be  rewritten as consumer electronics possibilities grow. Any 'Brick' can be written once and reused forever.

• Development times and costs are dramatically reduced, allowing for the creation of complex contents in a fraction of the time (and of the cost) usually needed for standard-mode productions. This is a key advantage for development of next-generation (but available 2006) entertainment platforms.

• Public databases can be used for entertainment purposes, exploiting the huge amount of data already available and never used until now.

  

WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT FOR VIDEOGAMES APPLICATIONS?
Current and, most of all, next-generation entertainment platforms will face a big problem: production of contents for videogames will be more and more expensive. Current titles cost around 5 million dollars and the trend is toward 10 millions or mode. Revenues from many titles, on the other hand, are around 1-2 millions. We see bankruptcy events almost every week, due to this highly risky and competitive market.
UltraPeg is a technology that will allow costs to be reduced by a factor of 10. If a new title costs around 500.000, even a 1 million return will mean profits, not losses.
By reusing components developed one time and able to run forever, capable of adaptive quality and so scalable when new platforms are available, organizations using the Foundation technology will experience a dramatic reduction in time-to-market and development costs. Worlds produced is this way will be dynamic, with details adapted to the users's point of view, delivering an extremely high quality of simulation, required by customer using new powerful hardwares.
Videogames will be ready for download form the Internet at amazingly high speeds, cutting distribution costs and allowing customers to buy any title on the fly, without even leaving their chair.

WHY IS IT PATENTED?
not to cut off someboy, but not to be cutted off. Today, large companies patent everything. UltraPeg should be available to everybody if it is to became a standard. So we thought about patenting it to ensure it is really free. The Foundation will never cut off anybody from using its contents and technologis.

IF UltraPeg IS SO INTERESTING, WHY IS IT NOT CARRIED ON BY SOME LARGE AND POWERFUL COMPANY?
large companies are profit. No company would spend great resources to develop a new technology and then give it away for free. On the other hand, Internet was born in this way, and that's why it is own by nobody.
Large videogames, movies and 3D software companies do not share any of their assets with anybody; on the contrary, they sue whoever uses even small parts of their works. Try to use, if you find it, the 3D model of Shrek for a movie of your own. Try to create a digital world with some parts of a videogame to do with it as you wish, even sell it if you want. Try to use, if you find it, the model of some monument on-line, even made by some university.

They are all copyrighted, even those made by academic organizations.

Nobody gives away anything for free, isn't it? So mankind progress is slow. Nobody shares anything with the others and so even powerful companies are weak. We, anyway, are not against copyrighted works, we respect this as well as any other law.

Put simply, we think it is time to work togheter to produce new contents, that is the only way to allow us and anybody else to use, if we need it, the 3D model of the Coliseum, of animated characters, of chemical models, of the entire universe. We want to start a new model, working togheter, sharing and nontheless earning all the money wanted.

Maybe we are dreamers, but hope to became many more and build togheter a better world with new, joyful "mass construction weapons".

WHAT IS UltraPort?
UltraPort is the client part of the whole client-server system allowing any user interactive exploration in ultravision of Ultramundum channels.
UltraPort is the free software distributed by the Foundation to explore ultravision channels. It is similar to a browser like Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape or Mozilla, but it is more a small operating system like Windows or Linux than a program like Mozilla. We call it an "explorating system", equivalent to an operating system but aimed only to the exploration of interactive three-dimensional worlds.

WHAT IS THE ADIUTOR?
the UltraPort equivalent of a classic Operating System desktop. While in Windows, Linux, MacOS and other Operating Systems the dektop is the first page shown to the user at computer start, in UltraPort the user is inside the digital world and has not (for immersive systems) a specific screen to interact with. Adiutor (the latin name for "helper") is shown inside a floating Console (the UltraPort equivalent of a window in space), only when it is needed, to deliver, inside the 3D experience, the interface toward the "computer beneath the simulation".

WHAT ARE THE TABULAE?
a Tabula (name derived from that of the documents in the ancient Rome) is the base element of all UltraPeg technology. It must be seen as a "brick" of a construction box game. Inside a Tabula you can store a three-dimensional element (a door, a column, a car), a sound, an animation or any other type of data. A Tabula can be seen as a record of a binary database (the Tabularium), that can be downloaded by UltraPort from the central Ultramundum database (the Primum Tabularium) After being downloaded, each Tabula is stored in a database on the computer disk (the Local Tabularium) for future use. Each Tabula is uniquely identified by it serial number. Inside a Tabula it is possible to store only data, executable code (Carmina code) or both.

WHAT ARE THE STAMINAL TABULAE?
particular types of Tabulae, able to generate details of specific cathegories using euristic functions. They are the base of automatic details generators.

WHAT ARE THE AUTOMATIC DETAIL GENERATORS?
one of the powerful features of the UltraPeg patent. Think about our Virtual Mars project: today it is only possible to create the surface of the ground and 'glue' pictures on it. Google Earth, for instance, works this way. We think it is not enough. In our project we want to show even the small stones on the surface of Mars. For places where probes landed on the surface have sent us pictures, we will craft extremely precise models. But for the large areas where we do not have ground images? To try to create all the requested details by hand would be a gigantic work and the resulting model would be huge. Thanks to automatic details generators, instead, the ground details will be generated "on the fly" when the user approaches any place, and for that area only. This technology allows us to create endless universes, explorable down to the subatomic level, inside a simple personal computer.

WHAT IS THE TABULARIUM?
its the database holding all available Tabulae. There are two: local and global:
Local Tabularium holds alla Tabulae installed with UltraPort and those subsequently added during installation of new Ultravision channels distributed with phisical supports or during Internet exploration. It is modifiable and can be browsed with its application, located in the Adiutor SDK page.
Global Tabularium (called Primum Tabularium) is on the Ultraserver, in the Foundation headquarters, and holds all available Tabulae, ready to be downloaded inside the local Tabularium of each UltraPort.

WHY ALL THESE LATIN NAMES?
because we wanted to do something new, while still preserving our cultural heritage. We think that Ultramundum will promote new cultural, artistical and scientifical contents, so latin seemed a beautiful choice. Last but not least, latin sounds good in english, because there are many latin words in this language, especially for science.
All the names of elements and components of our thechnologies are in latin.