The Co-Founders of the new Halifax startup Modest Tree Media Inc. want to make printed training manuals — whether for assembling an Ikea bookshelf or operating a state-of-the-art jet engine — a thing of the past.

These entrepreneurs — chief executive officer Saman Sannandeji, chief operating officer Emily Sannandeji and chief technology officer Steven Vermeulen — are designing a software-as-a-service product that will reduce the cost and time involved in making 3-D training programs by as much as 80 per cent.

Modest 3D, as the product is called, lets instruction designers or subject matter experts create 3-D interactive training programs and publish them on any device. The software enables users to take a 3-D model, apply built-in animation and create a step-by-step lesson to train people on the maintenance, assembly and/or operation of an object or machine.

“We enable users with knowledge to create a 3-D interactive training tool without needing a programmer,” Saman said in an interview at Halifax’s Volta co-working space, where Modest Tree has an office.

“We said, ‘We’re going to create a visual storyboarder that takes away the need for a programmer or 3-D animator to be involved in the process.’”

Saman had been working for a company that created 3-D interactive courseware for the military when last year he realized that the process of creating such products was needlessly time-consuming and expensive.

He conceived software that would let people create courseware online without any need for coding or animation expertise.

Last September, he, Emily, who is a certified management accountant, and Vermeulen started Modest Tree with the goal of commercializing such a product. They now have a total of four programmers (including Saman and Vermeulen) working on the project, and they have produced a basic prototype.

Modest Tree hopes to move on to beta-tests for select customers in the autumn. The company plans to put the technology on the cloud and is aiming for a full release in February.

The prototype contains a library that includes 3-D models, prebuilt animation and a selection of actions. End-users can add other models, either from their own library or from the Internet. The prototype deals with the assembly of an engine, so the models are nuts, bolts, spark plugs and the like.

End-users can manipulate the models in several ways — enlarging or rotating them, changing their position or direction. Once they, for example, screw in a bolt, in the program, that action can be used repeatedly so the end-user doesn’t have to undertake the same tasks several times.

“There is no product like it at all on the market now,” said Saman.

The Sannandejis are planning to launch Modest 3D in the military and aerospace industry, and are also doing some contract work in that space to generate cash flow during the development phase. But Emily said there are several applications, such as the assembly of furniture by consumers or instruction in the automotive or health care industries.

So far, Modest Tree has received financing from National Research Council Canada’s industrial research assistance program and from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The company will soon seek a seed round of funding and will need a total of about $700,000 in equity investments and money from other sources.