Interview with the creator of the 3d mouse Leonardo. Part 1
Hello! Today, Fabbers offers to meet Daniel Ratai, who is the inventor of the Leonardo System and the founder of the company Leonardo. Daniel began developing the product according to the original project while still in high school and due to family support. On the advice of his schoolmates, Daniel was able to win the first six prize awards at Intel ISEF, the world's largest international competition before the college of science, including the best in the computer science category and the best of the best awards. In addition, Daniel was invited to attend a lecture in Stockholm organized by SIYSS and attend the Nobel Prize at a ceremony in 2005.
In one well-known publication, comments by jury members were indicated that world-leading companies and research institutes spend billions of dollars to solve a problem, while a 19-year-old teenager comes in and fixes the system using straws, Christmas lights and a wire fence. Since the company was founded with his family in 2005 and the launch of the Leonardo product line in 2010, Mr. Ratay has retained the role of Development Director at Leonardo. Mr. Ratai, as a teenager, was and remains a fan of 3D culture. Mr. Ratay lives in Budapest, Hungary.
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For more convenience, we added video chat as well as
text of the interview under the spoiler.
-Daniel, as I understand it, you are the inventor of the Leonardo system, can you explain to us in simple words what the Leonardo system is?
- Yes, Leonardo is a device of complete Virtual reality in front of a computer. You see, the computer has a two-dimensional interface, I mean a 2D mouse, a 2D monitor, and we can turn this whole interface in 3D. That is, in front of the monitor we have a virtual environment, where we all see in three dimensions. And in this three-dimensional environment, we can freely interact with the environment, with our 3D mouse, we call it Bird, and with it we have a full-fledged three-dimensional environment in which we are completely free to do anything in space.
- How did you come up with this idea that inspired you?
- Honestly, the first time I had a desire to do it in kindergarten. There was a cartoon on TV about a little boy, and this boy was the hero of the cartoon and he had a magic pencil ... it seems it was the Polish cartoon "Magic Pencil" or "Magichny Ovek" or something like that ... And this little boy had this magic pencil and everything he drew with a magic pencil became a reality. It was the first time I dreamed ... "Wow, I should also have a similar pencil, then I can draw anything and it will become a reality." And I remember in kindergarten I dreamed of a pen with ink that weighed in the air, I thought, perhaps they could float in the air, and thought that it would not be very good, because they could blow off the wind. That's how I imagined it in kindergarten ...
Later, when I was 13, I remember, I was watching TV, they showed a very beautiful sports car that was traveling at a speed out of the screen, and suddenly decided that I should be a car designer. This was the second time that I dreamed of just drawing in space. Because I could draw on paper, but when I painted, the proportions that I wanted were never obtained. And even if I could draw the car correctly, there was always a problem ... OK, I had a picture of the car, but this is only one perspective, I cannot capture the form, I cannot turn it, I cannot process it. And it really upset me. All I wanted was to just draw a car in space, right so that I could see the car.
In high school we started learning programming, and it came naturally, how to use webcams and how to connect technologies and how, as a result, I can get a virtual device like this one.
- So, after the idea arose, how was your company founded?
Well, this is actually quite a complicated story, I created the first prototype, but it was not so easy. I remember that in high school, we initially had a “graduation” type of work, because there is no such thing in high school, well, like the final project in the last year of study.
I had a school curator and he told me, “Daniel, you are crazy, it’s not just for school, you have to go on and go to the competition with this idea,” and he told me which competition to participate in, where to start. Then I participated in a national competition for young inventors and researchers in Hungary and in 2005, a year later, he took me to the international finals, it was SIYSS (ed: Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar), which is actually the largest competition of universities for inventors and researchers. If you can imagine, there were 1,447 projects and about 1,000 judges. That is, it was huge and, fortunately, I was able to win 6 first places and it was great because no one had done it in Hungary before. This means that the media were interested and called, as well as people from the government, and people came from business, which made it possible to get the first investment to open a company. So together with my family, my father and my brother, we created a company to go to the product from the prototype and started in 2005. Of course, this is followed by a long history, as we received the first product, and after that - we entered the market ...
- Well thank you. Tell us a little about the team that works for your company - developers, programmers, designers, marketers.
Yes, so now we have about 20 people in the company and, of course, about half of them are developers, and the other part is sales, marketing, office workers, etc.
The company works and we have a very good team, and fortunately we have very good developers, so we can always come up with something new and good. Of course, it was very, very difficult to put together a good team and inspire a good team.
- There is a lot of talk about the missing link between the massive design and the massive introduction of 3D printing. How do you make up your system is the missing link that will allow the average person to be able to design, and ultimately, 3D print what they need?
- Well, 3D printing is an incredibly huge subject for conversation now. I think we are launching the third industrial revolution and I really think that this is our position in this whole business and all this process; which already has some very, very cheap 3D printers on the market.
And there is a huge problem that already everyone can buy a 3D printer at the price of a tablet, for example, but ok, how to create content for 3D printers? Because there are many applications, many programs on the market for graphic artists, engineers, etc. But there is still no really good solution on the market with which anyone can really create real 3D objects. I mean the average person.
In fact, with Leonardo is a very good experience in this, so, we sell Leonardo also to schools
For example, as recently as two weeks ago, I was in an elementary school in the outback where about 30 Leonardos were bought and it was shocking to see children of 13 or 14 years old who simply take Leonardo and create trees and houses, etc. They can make 3D models in a virtual reality environment.
The ability to create something in 3D is really difficult using 2 dimensional tools
because it is a flat screen, a flat mouse and anyway, you have to figure out how to create a 3D object on a 2D surface, but when you are in 3D you do not need to do this conversion from 2D to 3D. Simply, you can do everything that you need very, very naturally in three dimensions. I think that in fact this is one of the most serious points, which is a great advantage of Leonardo.
On the other hand, we also have a new product called Leopoli. In fact, Leopoli is a website, but on this website you can create objects in three dimensions.
That is, on the website you have a complete 3D modeling application integrated into the website. So you do not need to download it or, in general, something, you can simply go to leopoly.com, where there are a lot of objects already created by users. And you can start with other objects, but there are also a lot of very creative tools at your disposal. We also created it to make it as simple as possible. For example, we created a competition in high school that had a crazy result. For example, one schoolboy created the face of Bruce Willis and we were really shocked, wow, Bruce Willis - in Leopoli.
And on the other hand, another student later created Santa Claus based on Bruce Willis.
That is, they can make various types of modifications, and we even printed out Santa Claus with the face of Bruce Willis and we have him in the company, and it was very cool for Christmas. So everything is already possible.
- Whom do you see as the main target market for the base system?
- Well, I think that the main market is actually schools, that is, the market of educational services. With a 3D space like this, you can simply imagine that biology, physics, mathematics teaching can be put on a whole new level, so we also sell Leonardo mainly to schools. I think Leonardo has a very wide application in the field of education. Of course, there are several important (branches) where you need to make a real breakthrough, and I think this is education. On the other hand, there is a French company that has created an application for 3D welding on the basis of Leonardo, where they use poultry as a welding tool, and they weld on the monitor and teach welding.
There is also another company that has made an operation planning tool when they need it. For example, if you had an accident and your face is broken, they plan an operation with Leonardo how to fix your face. That is, there are many different areas of application, but I think that the main core is education. Especially for those new to Leopoli, of course, education is the base, and we are well connected with schools.
This is very interesting, we started talking to companies ... As an example, this is not a real example, it really did not happen, but there are similar companies. For example, let's say that there is Coca-Cola, and they want to make a drawing contest, but instead of a drawing contest, they can make a 3D creation contest, for example, a new bottle design for a cola, and someone makes the best new design for a cola and such In this way, they can interest people and encourage people to visit their site and share messages with them. So there are companies that already understand that 3D printing is coming, and 3D culture is growing, and they need to be on a wave and have to keep up with the world. And we work with those companies, making special applications for them based on Leopoli technology.
- Yes, Leonardo is a device of complete Virtual reality in front of a computer. You see, the computer has a two-dimensional interface, I mean a 2D mouse, a 2D monitor, and we can turn this whole interface in 3D. That is, in front of the monitor we have a virtual environment, where we all see in three dimensions. And in this three-dimensional environment, we can freely interact with the environment, with our 3D mouse, we call it Bird, and with it we have a full-fledged three-dimensional environment in which we are completely free to do anything in space.
- How did you come up with this idea that inspired you?
- Honestly, the first time I had a desire to do it in kindergarten. There was a cartoon on TV about a little boy, and this boy was the hero of the cartoon and he had a magic pencil ... it seems it was the Polish cartoon "Magic Pencil" or "Magichny Ovek" or something like that ... And this little boy had this magic pencil and everything he drew with a magic pencil became a reality. It was the first time I dreamed ... "Wow, I should also have a similar pencil, then I can draw anything and it will become a reality." And I remember in kindergarten I dreamed of a pen with ink that weighed in the air, I thought, perhaps they could float in the air, and thought that it would not be very good, because they could blow off the wind. That's how I imagined it in kindergarten ...
Later, when I was 13, I remember, I was watching TV, they showed a very beautiful sports car that was traveling at a speed out of the screen, and suddenly decided that I should be a car designer. This was the second time that I dreamed of just drawing in space. Because I could draw on paper, but when I painted, the proportions that I wanted were never obtained. And even if I could draw the car correctly, there was always a problem ... OK, I had a picture of the car, but this is only one perspective, I cannot capture the form, I cannot turn it, I cannot process it. And it really upset me. All I wanted was to just draw a car in space, right so that I could see the car.
In high school we started learning programming, and it came naturally, how to use webcams and how to connect technologies and how, as a result, I can get a virtual device like this one.
- So, after the idea arose, how was your company founded?
Well, this is actually quite a complicated story, I created the first prototype, but it was not so easy. I remember that in high school, we initially had a “graduation” type of work, because there is no such thing in high school, well, like the final project in the last year of study.
I had a school curator and he told me, “Daniel, you are crazy, it’s not just for school, you have to go on and go to the competition with this idea,” and he told me which competition to participate in, where to start. Then I participated in a national competition for young inventors and researchers in Hungary and in 2005, a year later, he took me to the international finals, it was SIYSS (ed: Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar), which is actually the largest competition of universities for inventors and researchers. If you can imagine, there were 1,447 projects and about 1,000 judges. That is, it was huge and, fortunately, I was able to win 6 first places and it was great because no one had done it in Hungary before. This means that the media were interested and called, as well as people from the government, and people came from business, which made it possible to get the first investment to open a company. So together with my family, my father and my brother, we created a company to go to the product from the prototype and started in 2005. Of course, this is followed by a long history, as we received the first product, and after that - we entered the market ...
- Well thank you. Tell us a little about the team that works for your company - developers, programmers, designers, marketers.
Yes, so now we have about 20 people in the company and, of course, about half of them are developers, and the other part is sales, marketing, office workers, etc.
The company works and we have a very good team, and fortunately we have very good developers, so we can always come up with something new and good. Of course, it was very, very difficult to put together a good team and inspire a good team.
- There is a lot of talk about the missing link between the massive design and the massive introduction of 3D printing. How do you make up your system is the missing link that will allow the average person to be able to design, and ultimately, 3D print what they need?
- Well, 3D printing is an incredibly huge subject for conversation now. I think we are launching the third industrial revolution and I really think that this is our position in this whole business and all this process; which already has some very, very cheap 3D printers on the market.
And there is a huge problem that already everyone can buy a 3D printer at the price of a tablet, for example, but ok, how to create content for 3D printers? Because there are many applications, many programs on the market for graphic artists, engineers, etc. But there is still no really good solution on the market with which anyone can really create real 3D objects. I mean the average person.
In fact, with Leonardo is a very good experience in this, so, we sell Leonardo also to schools
For example, as recently as two weeks ago, I was in an elementary school in the outback where about 30 Leonardos were bought and it was shocking to see children of 13 or 14 years old who simply take Leonardo and create trees and houses, etc. They can make 3D models in a virtual reality environment.
The ability to create something in 3D is really difficult using 2 dimensional tools
because it is a flat screen, a flat mouse and anyway, you have to figure out how to create a 3D object on a 2D surface, but when you are in 3D you do not need to do this conversion from 2D to 3D. Simply, you can do everything that you need very, very naturally in three dimensions. I think that in fact this is one of the most serious points, which is a great advantage of Leonardo.
On the other hand, we also have a new product called Leopoli. In fact, Leopoli is a website, but on this website you can create objects in three dimensions.
That is, on the website you have a complete 3D modeling application integrated into the website. So you do not need to download it or, in general, something, you can simply go to leopoly.com, where there are a lot of objects already created by users. And you can start with other objects, but there are also a lot of very creative tools at your disposal. We also created it to make it as simple as possible. For example, we created a competition in high school that had a crazy result. For example, one schoolboy created the face of Bruce Willis and we were really shocked, wow, Bruce Willis - in Leopoli.
And on the other hand, another student later created Santa Claus based on Bruce Willis.
That is, they can make various types of modifications, and we even printed out Santa Claus with the face of Bruce Willis and we have him in the company, and it was very cool for Christmas. So everything is already possible.
- Whom do you see as the main target market for the base system?
- Well, I think that the main market is actually schools, that is, the market of educational services. With a 3D space like this, you can simply imagine that biology, physics, mathematics teaching can be put on a whole new level, so we also sell Leonardo mainly to schools. I think Leonardo has a very wide application in the field of education. Of course, there are several important (branches) where you need to make a real breakthrough, and I think this is education. On the other hand, there is a French company that has created an application for 3D welding on the basis of Leonardo, where they use poultry as a welding tool, and they weld on the monitor and teach welding.
There is also another company that has made an operation planning tool when they need it. For example, if you had an accident and your face is broken, they plan an operation with Leonardo how to fix your face. That is, there are many different areas of application, but I think that the main core is education. Especially for those new to Leopoli, of course, education is the base, and we are well connected with schools.
This is very interesting, we started talking to companies ... As an example, this is not a real example, it really did not happen, but there are similar companies. For example, let's say that there is Coca-Cola, and they want to make a drawing contest, but instead of a drawing contest, they can make a 3D creation contest, for example, a new bottle design for a cola, and someone makes the best new design for a cola and such In this way, they can interest people and encourage people to visit their site and share messages with them. So there are companies that already understand that 3D printing is coming, and 3D culture is growing, and they need to be on a wave and have to keep up with the world. And we work with those companies, making special applications for them based on Leopoli technology.
Continued in the second part of the interview that we will post in the near future.
Thank you for being with us.
Especially for 3D printer shop
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/362007/
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