2008-12-09

Press Release: iLava Application Launch (technical version)

This press release announces the launching by Gotham Wave Games of the iLava application for the iPhone. The application simulates a lava lamp and is interactive. The press release includes details of the product's features and history. Please note that this press release is intended for technical publications. A shorter, less technical version is available here for less technical media.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, NY - December 9, 2008 - Ilya Rosenberg & Julien Beguin's virtual lava lamp has come a long way. It started off as a final project for Princeton's notorious "Death Graphics" class. It later took the form of a screen saver - LavaLamp3D. It gained fame when presented at SIGGRAPH to demonstrate Jeff Han's Perceptive Pixel multi-touch display wall. Now it has made its way to the iPhone.

The iLava application offers the most diminutive version to date of the fluid-dynamics-simulating, isosurface-rendering, groovily-mesmerizing program... but it is certainly no demotion. The innovative app uses the iPhone's multi-touch display and accelerometer to full effect, letting users interact with it in ways they could not on a PC or even on the display wall. In addition to pushing around blobs of virtual lava with their fingers, users can manipulate the phone itself. Tilting it changes the direction of gravity. Shaking causes the lava to slosh around. Users can also heat up blobs of lava by holding down fingers. The heated blobs glow satisfyingly and float towards whichever direction is "up" at the moment.

"We wanted to make the end product as much like a physical object as possible," explains Rosenberg, who implemented the rendering (a proprietary variant of the marching cubes algorithm), "and the iPhone made that possible." Beguin, who designed the interaction features, elaborated: "The iPhone combines so many different interface options; it really opens doors for developers and let's them create experiences that just aren't possible on other platforms." Ticking off the features of the virtual lava lamp, he continued, "You can swipe the screen and the lava moves. You can tilt the phone to change the direction of gravity. You can shake it and the lava wobbles. You can hold down with up to five fingers and see the lava glow with heat in five different places. It's very cool!"

The most challenging aspect of the project was getting code designed for desktop machines with powerful graphics cards to run on the iPhone's ARM processor. "We did a lot of optimization, but in the end we still had to strike a balance between frame rate and render quality," admits Rosenberg. "We also spent a lot of time on the aesthetics," adds Beguin. "We hired an artist and did a lot of tweaking to the look-and-feel because we wanted to have a well-polished, quality product. There are so many applications on the App Store right now that you have to offer real value to stand out."

Kris Schlachter, CEO of iLava publisher Gotham Wave Games, is optimistic about the app's prospects. "We've had a great response since the release," he said, noting the four-plus star rating and positive reviews in the app store. "Literally the day after it came out, we had people all over the world downloading it, there was a review on a Japanese website, and a YouTube video was posted overnight. We've had a lot of great feedback from users on features they'd like to see, and we're really looking forward to implementing some of them in our updates."

Does the virtual lava respond to music? "Not yet," says Schlachter, "but that could definitely be a part of future versions. Since the iPhone is also a music player, though, you can listen to your favorite music while running iLava." And that is, after all, the best way to enjoy a lava lamp - real or virtual.

The iLava application can be download from the App Store on iTunes for 99 cents. It runs on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

(585 words)