MakeVR is a name you might not have heard in some time. Created by STEM System developer, Sixense, this is a 3D modelling app that’s been in development for some years. Longer, in fact, than the platform its debuting on today, the HTC Vive.
Since a cancelled Kickstarter campaign in early 2014 — which raised $66,294 of its $250,000 goal — Sixense has refined MakeVR, expanding beyond its initial Oculus Rift support and adapting its controller support to include the HTC Vive wands. It’s also now a Vive Studios title, meaning its development has been assisted by HTC. From today, however, the app is actually available from Viveport, HTC’s digital storefront for VR experiences, as a commercial product. It costs $19.99.
MakeVR is designed to open the doors to 3D content creation for just about anyone with accessible design that can get even inexperienced CAD modellers or random Vive users up and running with it in a short amount of time. 3D printing support allows you to bring your creations to life, and the app allows for real-time scaling of creations.
HTC and Sixense hope that MakeVR becomes an industry standard tool, using a “professional CAD engine” to provide users with advanced tools. This is a hotly contested use for VR right now, though. MakeVR isn’t competing with other creative apps like Tilt Brush and Oculus Medium so much as it is VR4CAD and others that aim to capture the professional market too.
Of course when MakeVR was originally announced it was intended to be used with Sixense’s own position-tracked controllers, the STEM System. The controllers have had a troubled life since successfully closing a Kickstarter campaign in late 2013, though, and still haven’t been shipped out to backers. When we caught up with the company earlier this month we still couldn’t get a clear picture of when they might become available.
