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| Architosh Staff ([email protected]) |
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Special Expo Report: Part - 1
Macworld Expo today was nothing short of spectacular. The energy, anticipation, charge and excitement was the highest I have experienced at any previous Expo, including the Expo's during the transition years to PowerPC. This was largely due to the excitement over the new iBook -- Apple's best kept secret to-date! While we will be covering that exciting new product with original Architosh photography later in the week, Apple's site has everything you need to experience the excitement and learn about this awesome new product. In Part -1 the focus will be short and sweet but we will cover a lot more in the subsequent parts covering Expo over the next few days. Here's what up in Part - 1:
While the company representative admitted that Amapi was largely unknown in the architecture world, this was more a fault of marketing than a reflection of the Amapi software application itself. Certainly the examples shown were very impressive on screen and on print. And architects do use the application to render environments. The application background, from what the rep said, was that it was formerly a French software product which was purchased by TGS or Template Graphics Software Inc. TGS Europe, S.A. is their French company headquarters. Amapi 3D is a general-purpose modeler and is apparently very good at creating high-quality objects which consist of smooth surfaces. In fact, their product literature shows a high-quality architectural rendering with smooth surface roofs, incredible water, reflectivity and transparency. The program supports NURBS, skinning, fillets, deformation and full Boolean solids functionality. A feature is called Gordon Surfaces, an automatic "skin" function which wraps a set of open or closed curves for an "organic" look and feel. Amapi is considered an unmatched companion modeler to other applications such as Electric Image, 3D Studio Max, Softimage, Strata Studio Pro and other animation and rendering platforms. Extensive import/export capabilities make Amapi 3D a solid choice for design group use. The program allows DXF, VRML, 3DML and other common 3D file format imports typical in CAD programs. Exports include 3D Studio Max, Strata Studio Pro and RenderMan, to name just a few. Amapi's representative felt that as a compliment to other CAD and rendering programs, Amapi 3D was very affordable (at under $400.00). For more information, visit their web site.
Shade was a wonderful discovery at Expo! The application is developed by Expression Tools, Inc., based in Fukuoka, Japan. There is a free "Shade DEMO" at http://www.ex-tools.co.jp/download/index-e.html. Although most of the work shown at their booth consisted of what might be called "models of ideal female Asian beauty" in an aesthetic strangely similar to that great 70's cartoon Speed Racer but in three dimensions. Besides being an awesome tool for creating fantasy women -- a la Laura Croft -- and other creatures and humans, the program is simply awesome at creating all kinds of 3D models, including building environments. Shade uses Bezier Curves and Bezier Curved Surfaces, enabling the creation of smoother and more flexible surfaces than using Polygon mesh methods. The program groups modeling data into manageable groups via a hierarchical ordering system. It's rendering capabilities include Scan Line, Ray Tracing and Distribution Ray Tracing and can take advantage of multiprocessing rendering with multiple CPU's, and network rendering with both Macintosh Windows machines. Animation features include Morphing, Transformation, Character Motion Generation, Moving Mapping, Skip Rendering, and Fly-through and Walk-throughs. Inverse Kinematics is also featured. The program supports scripting and Plug-ins for advanced features and extensions. AppleScript is the language for scripting on the Macintosh and VBScript on Windows. Image data input includes PICT, TARGA, BMP, QuickTime and AVI Movie formats. Image data output includes PICT, TARGA, BMP for still images and QuickTime and AVI for animation. Object data input includes DXF, Shape, Pose and EPSF. Object data output includes 3DMF (Macintosh), DXF, RIB Animation Master, IGES 5.3, POV-Ray 3.0 and VRML 2.0. The program's rendering API's include QuickDraw 3D, OpenGL and Direct 3D (Windows). Included in the purchase of the program is the professional version of QuickTime 3.0 (free upgrade to professional version of QT 4 via Apple's site). Unfortunately we forgot to ask for a price on this application. For further info see their website.
MiniCAD VectorWorks: Update and Comments Diehl Graphsoft was the only CAD software vendor present at the Science and Technology pavilion. The current version of VectorWorks was being shown. Unfortunately, their upcoming Armadillo (architecture specific) application(s) were not shown in preview form. We asked a programmer and representative a number of questions about VectorWorks in general and its future in the Mac OS space. The good news is that Diehl Graphsoft is very committed to Macintosh and very much [a] "Mac at-heart" - type of company. Currently the company is between products with an expected free upgrade to VectorWorks 8.5 coming in the near future. A beta of that version is currently available for free download. Preparing for the future the source code for the Macintosh version of VectorWorks has been Carbon tested for Mac OS X compatibility. The representative said that if one takes out QuickDraw 3D, only about 10 to 15 percent of the application is not Carbon compatible -- a good standard for Mac OS applications. Apple's move to OpenGL has placed QuickDraw 3D in question and developers are assuming that Apple will stick to their intentions of not supporting any QuickDraw 3D technology. OpenGL is an industry standard and it will help Diehl Graphsoft with both the Windows and Macintosh versions allowing them to modify little amounts of code between the different versions. Currently, the Windows version of VectorWorks is also based on QuickDraw 3D API's. As VectorWorks is between major updates, it will most likely not be until this time next year (or perhaps earlier) that Diehl Graphsoft will be in a position to release a Mac OS X version of VectorWorks. As they stated, it really depends on Apple and its release schedule.
This concludes Part - 1 of our Expo Report Series. Check back often over the next few days to learn more about exciting Expo discoveries and hot technologies useful to AEC practice. Coming Up .... Exciting New Networking Products!
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