Architosh Staff ([email protected])

16 Oct 2002

 

TidBits: Strata and Tenon news, CGarchitect scholarship, Revit vs ADT Discussion

Strata News

Strata 3Dpro 3.6 wins "MacAddict Spiffy Award". The company has won over 30 awards for its 3D and video software and is considered one of the longest running 3D software packages on the Mac.

Also, the October 6th Challange at the StrataCafe is called "Ancient Civilizations" and the entries are available to view here. Entry number 13 is particularly good, among the crowd.

CGarchitect and ART VPS Partner to Establish the First Architectural CG Scholarship

Companies will support, encourage and reward the next generation of talented architectural visualization artists.

CGarchitect.com and ART VPs Ltd, developers of leading edge virtual photography solutions, have announced their exclusive partnership in the formation of the first ever architectural computer graphics scholarship. The scholarship, which is to be awarded once per academic year, "was established to encourage the advancement and development of the art of architectural visualization," says CGarchitectt.com company president Jeff Mottle.

"Architectural visualization is one of the fastest growing CG markets and to date has seen very little public exposure and support. There is some phenomenal work being produced by the next generation of architectural visualization artists, and in recognition of this work, CGarchitect is partnering with ART VPs Ltd. to ensure that those who work to promote and push the limits of the industry will be rewarded for their efforts."

To learn more and submit an entry: http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/article030.asp

Tenon News: MachTen Closeout Sale

As many expected in the industry, Tenon will be discontinuing development and support of MachTen, its excellent UNIX environment for the Macintosh. However, the company will be offering a closeout sale on MachTen and the product is of value for those with pre-G3/G4 hardware that cannot run Apple's UNIX-based Mac OS X.

MachTen contains a complete UNIX software development environment with a source-level debugger and C, C++, Objective-C, Ada95, Java and Fortran77 compilers all generating native PPC code. Because MachTen creates binary PowerPC Executable Format (PEF) files that can integrate directly with other Macintosh development tools, software developers can combine Macintosh debuggers and compilers with the MachTen tool suite to get the best of both the Macintosh and UNIX worlds. MachTen also includes Internet scripting tools (Perl and tcl/tk) for web developers.

Power MachTen (for PowerPC Macs), Professional MachTen (for 68K Macs) and MachTen CodeBuilder (a subset of Power MachTen) come on CD with BSD UNIX source code and on-line documentation. Both Power MachTen and Professional MachTen are $99 and MachTen CodeBuilder is $49. Every MachTen or CodeBuilder CD will ship with a FREE Tenon T-shirt.

To learn more please visit Tenon's website: http://www.tenon.com

Revit and Architectural Desktop Debate

Though of little use to Mac-only users, since Autocad and Revit both only support Windows at the moment, the debate between these two systems has reached critical mass ever since Autocad maker, Autodesk Inc., purchased rival Revit by Revit Corporation this year.

A good article in Jerry Laiserin's The LaiserinLetter™ talks about the fact that Autodesk is essentially now changing—or should we say "shifting"—their tune about what CAD product building design professionals should be thinking about supporting. In other words, they recommend that design firms begin using Autodesk Revit (not Autocad ADT). To read the whole article go here: http://www.laiserin.com/features/issue11/feature02.php

Architosh Analysis: We are not surprised to say the least. While some readers and observers questioned Autodesk's true intentions with purchasing Revit (some thought they planned to kill it off rather than use it) many others, including us at Architosh, believed their true intentions were to kill off Autocad in the building design market over time, thus phasing existing customers over to Revit (a model-based CAD program).

The interesting thing is, while Autodesk may have 200,000 seats for ADT, how many do they have for just Autodesk and what percentage are for building design professionals? And of the 200,000 so seats of ADT, how many are using it fully? The real percentage of potential Revit Switchers is the more interesting question that will determine how quickly or slowly such a Revit migration may take in the AEC world. If one can ever be pulled off in the first place. One thing is becoming clear: if you are an architect using Autocad, Autodesk wants you to move to Revit over time. That means moving to a model-centric world.

If there is a large pressure on migration to model-centric CAD in the AEC world, this will affect all CAD players, but it should affect existing model-centric players in a more positive manner. At least theoretically.

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