One of the great things about Autodesk Showcase is it's ease of use and ability to create great imagery with a minimal amount of artisitc talent.
However anyone that's worked with Showcase for some time will be aware that it's origins were aimed at the Automotive design market, with the application being used for presentations and concept review. One of the key benefits was the capability to work with high resolution powerwalls and the the ability to view 1:1 digital mockups of vehicles. In this environment, although Showcase has a simple interface, not every company wants the user to be exposed to the application and the various tools needed to drive it.
For example in a design review meeting or a vehicle showroom scenario, it is much more straight forward to drive the display from a remote workstation and control it from a fixed web page that could be displayed on any device that supports web browsing. This could be a touch screen terminal, a tablet such as an iPad OR even most modern mobile phones.
To prove what's possible, we recently developed a web interface to demonstrate the flexibiliy you have when wanting to present your idea within Showcase. There are a number of references in the help system that points users in the right direction. But in summary, you only need to add a single plugin that's available as part of the base install. With this enabled you can create a HTML file the drives the available controls commands such as alternates, storyboards, shots, etc. Place the created page on the system running Showcase in the predefined location documented in the help (this can be modified).
Then using any web enabled device browse to the hostname with the specified port (again in the help and it can be changed for security) and bobs your uncle you can drive your showcase scene options without touching the system running the application. Also Showcase can be started in fullscreen kiosk mode via a shortcut to restrict user input on the application itself.
See our rough and ready video on youtube.
