Timeline 3d Review

It wasn’t so long ago that I reviewed Bee Docs’ Timeline application. In case you didn’t catch that review, it followed my general survey of OS X timeline applications and I found it the winner for the ease of use and the outstanding final product. I still use it often in my day job to great result.

Timeline is the brain child of Adam Behrenger. I have to admit I love using software developed by small companies like Adam’s. As a user, I know my comments and suggestions are going directly to the guys writing the code. As a result, the software seems tighter and you can feel the sense of pride in the final product that you often don’t get with software designed by committee.

As an example of this, Bee Docs has recently released Timeline 3d. The big difference with this new version is 3d presentation. A universal problem with using timelines is that you either have to dumb it down to a minimum number of events, or it gets too crowded and difficult to read. This is especially true when rendering in two dimensions. Adam came up with a way to take your timeline to 3 dimensions by virtually tilting it on your screen.

Once you drop your timeline into presentation mode you can press the spacebar that essentially tilts the timeline at an angle in a perspective view. You can then see much further down the page. It all looks very impressive, like something right out of CNN. You can then manually move forward or backward down the timeline and it advances the page and three dimensionally pops out the current event of focus.

These very advanced effects are stunning. Just a few years ago, this would have required some serious programming mojo. Using Timeline 3d, you just press the space bar.

Timeline 3D also will export your timeline to Keynote. It doesn’t draw out the animations but does allow you to snap between each step in your three dimensional timeline. I haven’t had an opportunity use this in the trenches yet but I’m thinking I’ll probably just leave the timeline active in Timeline 3D and command tab to it from Keynote when necessary. I like the more fluid transition and the ability to easily go backward and forward.

Timeline 3D can be found at beedocuments.com and is sold as a separate product from the standard Timeline application. You can download a trial and, if you have use for this sort of thing, I strongly recommend you give it a try. The standard edition costs $40 while the 3D version costs $65. There also is an excellent video at the BeeDocs website explaining how he came up with the idea for Timeline 3D on the Beedocs blog.

5 Comments → Timeline 3d Review

mzac@mac.com June 30, 2008 at 05:04

I share your opinion of the small developer having pride in their product, and it shows here. Timeline 3D is a great piece of coding. I’d seen it listed as a runner-up in the WWDC Apple Design Awards, and bought it (very) late one evening when I needed to add some pizzazz (but not too much) to a presentation due the next day. First time I’d ever received a *gasp* from the audience! 🙂

One note regarding the export to Keynote not providing the animated transitions between events: true – but if you export your timeline to a QT movie, and import *that* into Keynote, your Apple Remote will allow you to advance (forward only) through the events with the Play/Pause button (careful with the forward/back button, it will jump you to the next slide).