Lightworks technology has long been held in high regard for the application of interior design applications. Many of the leading software applications used by professional interior designers utilize this software technology. Key to KBB visitors will be able to see new products based on the latest Lightworks technology:

• ArtiCAD (H28) will be demonstrating ArtiCAD HD lighting module which incorporates global illumination and other advanced rendering technology
• 2020 Fusion (K44) will be launching Fusion Bathrooms Solution
• Vision House Software (E60) will be launching their brand new ‘Nexus Snapshot’ visualizationi and rendering application which is based on the very latest Lightworks Artisan technology

For more information about Lightworks go to: www.lightworkdesign.com.

For more information about KBB follow this link here.

Each session is a free one-hour long webcast that will show you Vectorworks 2010 and how to save valuable time accomplishing various tasks and processes. Some of the topics for this series include:

• Unified 3D modeling environment
• Use of new Dimensional Constraint Manager from Siemens PLM
• New architectural and landscape architectural design features
• New rendering functionality
• Key new usability changes, all built upon the Siemens Parasolid modeling kernel

The schedule of events is:

• Vectorworks Architect with Renderworks – March 23 – register here
• Vectorworks Spotlight with Renderworks – March 23 – register here
• Vectorworks Landmark with Renderworks – March 24 – register here
• Vectorworks Fundamentals with Renderworks – March 24 – register here

For more information on Vectorworks 2010 series products go here.

This has been a busy week for new announcements with the game development show and other items around the web. Apple’s subsidiary FileMaker also chose this week to introduce its new FileMaker Pro 11 database product lineup. FileMaker is the leading database program used by Mac and cross-platform architecture and creative firms according to Architosh’s research.

The new product lineup includes FileMaker Pro 11, FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced, FileMaker Server 11 and FileMaker Server 11 Advanced. FileMaker is also the developer of the hit consumer-friendly database product Bento. Additionally, FileMaker products two Apple iPhone applications solutions, including Bento for iPhone and FileMaker iPhone template which comes with the PHP Site Assistant in FileMaker Server 11. For more information go here.

Khronos Group Intros COLLADA Adopters Package

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Khronos made a series of announcements, including the delivery of a COLLADA Adopters Package and Conformance Tests.  COLLADA is one of the industry’s top 3D file formats.

The COLLADA 1.4 Adopters Package is complete and under final review prior to public release next month. It contains both conformance testing software and documentation intended to drive rapid evaluation, deployment and acceptance of the COLLADA specification in 3D content creation software. More info can be found here.

Nominations Sought for Annual CAD Society Awards

Every year at COFES in April the Annual CAD Society presents three awards. Nominations for these awards are open for submittal to the Society. The three CAD Society Award categories are:

• Joe Greco Community Award: For outstanding work in improving communication and developing community within the CAD industry. Past recipients have included: Chris Yessios (formZ), Lynn Allen (Autodesk), Kristine Fallon (Kristine Fallon & Associates), Ralph Grabowski (CAD journalist) and many others;
• Leadership Award: For outstanding technical and business leadership in the CAD industry, and focus and dedication to the needs of CAD users. Robert McNeel (of Rhino fame) is a past recipient.
• Lifetime Award: For a lifetime of outstanding technical and business contributions to the CAD industry. Past recipients have included Dean Kamen and Dr. Joel Orr.

Only members of the CAD Society will be allowed to vote for nominations received. To join the CAD Society visit this link.

OpenGL 4.0 and OpenCL

Apple-invented open industry standard OpenCL is now more closely aligned and interoperable with OpenGL via OpenGL 4.0. New new features in OpenGL 4.0 include:

• Core and Compatibility OpenGL 3.2 profiles retain backwards compatibility;
• two new shader stages that enable the GPU to offload geometry tessellation from the CPU;
• per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shaders,
• drawing of data generated by OpenGL or external APIs such as OpenCL without main CPU intervention;
• shader subroutines for better programming flexibility;
• new object type called “sampler objects” provide separation of texture state and texture data;
• 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations and quality;
• performance improvements, included instanced geometry, instanced shaders, instanced arrays and a new timer query.

The Khronos Group has also released an OpenGL 3.3 specification, together with the set of ARB extensions, to enable some OpenGL 4.0 functionality in previous generation GPU hardware.

It is unclear at this time when operating systems vendors will support the new OpenGL 4.0 standard. For more information visit this link.

Key New Features in Maya 2011

There are several key new features in Maya 2011 some of which are specifically aimed at Mac OS X users. Starting with the Mac features first:

• Mac OS X 64-bit Availability – Mac users can now access considerably larger memory to handle complex scenes with a new 64-bit executable.
• FBX technologies have been brought up to speed with Maya 2011 format
• Redesigned User Interface – Nokia’s Qt software development technology is behind Maya 2011’s modern user interface, offering more power and flexibility.
• High Performance Core – Maya 2011 has a brand new graphics pipeline that helps speed up overall performance, especially related to the feedback speed in viewports.
• Improved Maya Composite – A new Vector Paint feature in Maya Composite dramatically improves its painting and rotoscoping capabilities.
• Accelerated 3D Editorial Workflow – new Camera Sequencer adds powerful multicamera editorial capabilities to help facilitate pre-visualization and virtual movie-making production using the Maya timeline. The Camera Sequencer supports import of both AAF and Apple Final Cut Pro EDLs.
• Enhanced Skinning Workflow – A new dual quaternion option for smooth skinning, interactive volume binding and enhancements to Paint Skin Weights tool.

Maya 2011 will be available in English and Japanese in April 2010. (SRP) for Autodesk Maya 2011 stand-alone license is 3,495.USD while the (SRP) for the upgrade is 1,745.USD.

You can check out some features on Autodesk’s YouTube channel here.

Internationally renowned photographer David Burgess has used Luxion’s new KeyShot technology to create the press images for the new 2012 Ford Focus. This car is still a few years away but Ford’s advanced, forward-looking cars need to be presented and communicated to the market.

2012 Ford Focus design communicated using Luxion's KeyShot 3D rendering technology.

The 2012 Ford Focus made its worldwide debut at the 2012 North American Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. Since 2006 critically acclaimed car photographer David Burgess has repeatedly used Luxion’s technology to deliver photographic masterpieces of many vehicles, right from his studio, hotel room or wherever he may be.

Luxion’s KeyShot is an interactive raytracing and global illumination rendering program for both Mac and Windows and breaks down the complicated process of creating stunning photo-realistic images into simple steps. You can bring in data from multiple popular file formats such as: SolidWorks, Rhino, SketchUp, OBJ, IGES and STEP. To learn more visit them here: www.luxion.com or www.keyshot.com

BIM Webinars – ArchiCAD 13

Anyone considering BIM should know their options. Upcoming BIM Webinars by ARCHVISTA (Graphisoft West) and by Graphisoft in the US will be focused on discussing and introducing Building Information Modeling (BIM). The events have varied focus related to BIM, are free, and take place online (webinar). Upcoming events include:

• March 11 – 12:00 – 1:00 pm EST – register here.
• March 16 – 3:00 – 4:30 pm EST – register here
• April 8 – 3:00 – 4:30 pm EST – register here

You can also see Graphisoft’s ArchiCAD 13 at the upcoming Residential Design & Construction show hosted by the Boston Society of Architects, April 14-15, 2010, at booth #563.

DAZ 3D and Gizmoz have merged companies recently and are now bringing together DAZ’s 3D technology and Gizmoz’s leading face recognition technology to create the industry’s best personal avatar platform. DAZ 3D has been the software house for DAZ Studio, Bryce, Carrara and Hexagon.

DAZ 3D and Gizmoz join forces to create ultimate personal avatar platform.

With Gizmoz’s photo-realistic head reconstruction technology the two companies can better serve the virtual goods market which is expected to be in the $3 billion dollar range by the end of 2010. To learn more visit them online and read the full press release here.

Unity releases Third Generation of Powerful Game Platform

Unity Technologies has released Unity 3.0, the next generation of its market-leading Unity development platform for 3D interactive content on multiple platforms, including Web, PC, Mac, Wii and iPhone. The company will showcase its latest wares at Game Developers Conference (GDC) this week. (GDC takes place March 9-13, 2010).

Unity and iPad, et al

Unity will be expanding its target platforms for Apple’s new iPad as well as Google Android and Sony Playstation 3. With XBox 360 support announced last year the company’s mantra “Author Once, Deploy Anywhere” vision now includes all major consoles and two of the fastest growing platforms in the mobile space.

Unity 3 with full pixel shaders on iPhone 3GS. The Apple iPhone is fast emerging as the leading most technologically advanced mobile gaming platform in the world.

“Since our first version in 2005, Unity Technologies has been focused on the democratization of interactive 3D and delivering an impressive list of technological advances making it the technology of choice for more than 100,000 developers today,” said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. For more info.

Spatial Launches Industry Partner Program

Spatial has launched an industry partner program aimed at supporting third-party developers who integrate its Spatial 3D modeling components into their program. Some key customers Architosh readers may recognize include Lightwork Design and T-Splines, Inc.

The program is aimed at bolstering the Spatial community of developers enabling them to understand the technology needs of third-party developers and improving cooperation. An example case is the use of both Spatial technologies with Lightworks. To read the full story go here.

The Participants version of the report is the first of three versions to ship this month. A special ISV (independent software developers) version will be the most comprehensive and includes a dozen detailed and informative interviews, including discussion with some of the United States’ leading architectural firms.

You can get the full details of this BIM report in our feature report here. A separate story details the table of contents between all three reports so readers can learn about each.

Those who have signed up recently to the ToshLetter will be receiving your electronic PDF version shortly. If you were previously a subscriber to the ToshLetter you will receive the new ToshLetter today. If you do not receive it please email us and verify your email address. We can change you in the database.

For those who wish to read the Table of Contents of the latest ToshLetter focused on BIM please see this report here. Notable items in this issue include a special interview segment with Graphisoft CEO Viktor Varkonyi who talks briefly about the future of ArchiCAD as well as a discussion of its user interface. If you have been wondering if the ArchiCAD 14 user interface is going to be dramatically different next year your answer is inside the latest ToshLetter.

Another special article includes Scia Engineer and the company’s push in North America. We have two ToolTalk articles one of which is focused on five cool apps for the iPhone for architects.

[Editor's note: 21 Mar 2010 - For those who signed up between Mar 3 rd and the 21st. you will have received your ToshLetter today. If you have signed up after 21st you will receive your ToshLetter within a 2-3 weeks. We send them out in batches to new sign-ups. ]

Each report was tailored for a particular audience segment. A special ISV (independent software developer) version of the report was crafted for those related to BIM software development. This is the most complete version of the report, while the Full Report delves into all areas of the survey and its findings, exclusive of issues pertaining to BIM software.

There are three versions of the report as noted below:

Architosh 2010 BIM Survey Participants Report – TOC

Part 1 – Introduction

Part 2 – BIM Survey Results

Appendix A – Architosh BIM Survey Questions

Appendix B – Table of Contents of Reports

Pricing/Availability: Free and available only to participants. For more info see here.

Architosh 2010 BIM Survey Full Report – TOC

Part 1 – Introduction

Part 2 – BIM Survey Results

Part 3 – BIM Adoption: Definition and Challenges

Part 4 – BIM and the Business of Architecture

Part 5 – BIM and the Societal Value of Architecture

Part 6 – Conclusions

Part 7 – Three Interviews

Russ Sanders – Orcutt Winslow Partnership

David Fujiwara – David Fujiwara Architects

Robert Buss – Conen + Buss Architekten

Appendix A – Architosh BIM Survey Questions

Appendix B – Table of Contents of Reports

Pricing/Availability: $199.USD, pre-order now. For more info see here.

Architosh 2010 BIM Survey ISV Report – TOC

Part 1 – Introduction

Part 2 – BIM Survey Results

Part 3 – BIM Adoption: Definition and Challenges

Part 4 – BIM and the Business of Architecture

Part 5 – BIM and the Societal Value of Architecture

Part 6 – Apple + BIM: Generating Discussion

Part 7 – Conclusions

Part 8 – The Interviews

Russ Sanders – Orcutt Winslow Partnership

David Fujiwara – David Fujiwara Architects

Robert Buss – Conen + Buss Architekten

Eric Blackburn – NBBJ

Stanley Paul Rostas – Shook Kelley

Phil Read – HNTB

Charles Good-Man – Irwin-Pancake Architects

Ion Webster – Steven D. Polts, AIA, & Associates

Neal Pann – Hunt Hale Jones Architects

Jason Cassel – Sproule & Associates

Craig Gorsuch – Omniplan

Ralph Martin – Baylis Architects

Markku Allison of the American Institute of Architects

Appendix A – Architosh BIM Survey Questions

Appendix B – Table of Contents of Reports

Appendix C – Apple + BIM Quotes from Participants

Pricing/Availability: $399.USD, pre-order now. For more info see here.

For more information read the full announcement feature story here.

The BIM report is based on “opt-in” survey data that, by-and-large, accurately reflects the industry in regards to firm-size, a key factor in understanding the adoption of BIM software within the architectural industry. Demographically more than 50 percent of the firms in the survey are from the United States with these top five foreign countries represented: United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Canada and Norway.

While an opt-in survey on Architosh will always generate a disproportionate share of Mac-based professionals, the 2010 BIM Survey Report is based on a very large share of Windows-based firms. Just under 50 percent of all participants’ firms were utilizing Windows operating systems, while approximately 75 percent of all firms were utilizing the Mac. Many firms utilized both operating systems.

Many of the industry’s top architectural firms are participants in this survey report. Readers will quickly recognize and value the input and information from some of the nation’s best and largest architectural leaders.

Participants will receive a free PDF version of the report while those who did not take the report can obtain one of two printed versions (pricing is located below in this article). The three tiered versions of the report are:

• architosh 2010 BIM Survey Participant Report
• architosh 2010 BIM Survey Full Report
• architosh 2010 BIM Survey ISV Report

A table of contents for each report is listed in a separate article.

Key Findings & Emerging Themes

There are eight key findings discussed in detail in the report summarized as follows:

1. Autodesk Revit and Graphisoft ArchiCAD were the two leading discussed BIM programs by participants in the survey. They both appear to capture more of the following: mind share, evaluation share, and adoption share are greater than their key rivals.
2. Autodesk Revit, Graphisoft ArchiCAD and Nemetschek Vectorworks Architect all appear to have upward momentum in the BIM market as compared to rivals and as firms leave behind key 2D CAD systems. Autodesk AutoCAD is the single largest exit CAD program.
3. Participants in this opt-in BIM survey as a whole were much more aggressive in the adoption of  new innovative information technologies than the industry as a whole. The percentage of those who identified with Innovator or Early Adopter status on the Rogers Diffusion of Innovation Curve was surprisingly high.
4. Just over 60 percent of participants said their firms had adopted BIM in some BIM-usage capacity.
5. The number one reason why both firms and individuals were interested in BIM adoption is because they believe it leads to better design of buildings than just 2D CAD alone. Improving efficiency of design documentation was a clear second priority.
6. 42 percent of participants do not believe BIM adoption within architecture will lead to greater pay or salary within the field of architecture, despite the efficiency promises and assumptions of BIM. This turned out to be a paradoxical result compared to other key results in the data.
7. 66 percent of participants said they were extremely interested in evaluating an Apple BIM program if it met the generalized description in the survey question. Bear in mind that 50 percent of the firms in this survey were using Windows in their majority capacity.
8. The survey results clearly indicate a growing demand for multi-platform (Windows and Mac) support from industry software leaders, particularly Autodesk. More larger firms like NBBJ (see interview in ISV Report) are finding both increased demand and use of Apple Mac computers, particularly laptops, within their organizations (see ISV Report for an entire section devoted to the discussion of Apple in relation to BIM in the architectural industry).

Both analytic and synthetic discussion centers around several key themes from the report. They are detailed in full in the Full and ISV Report versions. They are:

• BIM Adoption: Definition and Challenges — The definition of BIM is still loose enough as to seriously challenge architects to know whether they are truly doing BIM or not. Without a baseline definition of BIM the determination of BIM adoption becomes murky at best.
• BIM and the Business of Architecture — The “I” in BIM could equally stand for Investment, Innovation and Income, insofar as what BIM means to the “business of architecture.” BIM is both imposing positive and negative pressure simultaneously on the bottom lines of architecture firms. A rich array of the complexity of this issue is discussed in detail and reported in the key interviews in particular.
• BIM and the Social Value of Architectural Practice — Based on commentary and survey results we address how BIM can come to bear on how society views architects and the services they provide.
• Apple + BIM: Generating Discussion — Putting Apple into the discussion helped generate a wide-ranging discussion about BIM software: what’s wrong with it; what’s right with it; and what it could and should be.

The table of contents of the three-tiered 2010 BIM Survey Report is listed in a separate Architosh story here. Please refer to it to gain an understanding of what is contained in each version of the report. Pricing information is also conveniently duplicated in that story.

2010 BIM Survey Reports – Three Versions

The Architosh 2010 BIM Survey Report comes in three versions as detailed below. The Participants version has shipped out today. It was free to all those who qualified to participate in the report. If you were a participant and did not receive your report please email us (info@architosh.com) so we can look into your situation.

The Full and ISV Report versions will ship out later this month. Refer to the details below for more information:

Report Details, Pricing & Shipping

2010 BIM Survey Participants Report

• Audience: Only Survey Participants (qualified)
• Format: Adobe PDF
• Cost: Free
• Shipping: Electronic Email
• Availability: Shipped March 3, 2010

2010 BIM Survey Full Report

• Audience: Industry and Academia (table of contents here)
• Format: 8.5 x 11 inch color printed booklet
• Cost: $199.USD
• Shipping: US and Foreign Mail Options
• Availability: Late March, 2010

2010 BIM Survey ISV Report

• Audience: Industry and Academia  (table of contents here)
• Format: 8.5 x 11 inch color printed booklet
• Cost: $399.USD
• Shipping: US and Foreign Mail Options
• Availability: Late March 2010

Special note: Participants can obtain both the Full and ISV versions of the report for $35.USD and $75.USD, respectively.

Pre-Order Discount

For those who pre-order the Full and ISV versions of the report prior to March 25, 2010, they can obtain a 20 percent discount on each report. Please email us directly to order your report and take advantage of early order discounts, we will send you an invoice and arrange for payment. Email us at: info@architosh.com.

Pre-order does not apply to Participant discounts. For all questions about the report please feel free to email its authors:

Anthony Frausto-Robledo, LEED AP

Pete Evans, AIA

SHOT to run on Mac

The newly licensed iray technology from mental images, as well as other core technology behind the new Bunkspeed SHOT, does support the Mac, says Lunn. “Since 95 percent of our HyperShot business was on the PC,” adds Lunn, “we have focused on that first, for obvious business reasons.” SHOT will run on Mac but not in the next-up release. It is not clear when the Mac version will ship as the company is focusing its attention on the general release of SHOT.

Bunkspeed SHOT’s new rendering engine will be iray by mental images GmbH of Berlin, Germany. This is a company with a prestigious background in rendering technology and its branch offices include San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia.

mental images and the Mac

Early on mental images powered the rendering in Softimage and Wavefront’s 3D animation technology packages. Today its rendering engine technology are used in many of the world’s leading CAD and DCC applications.

mental images’ flagship produce is mental ray, which is offered both as a stand-alone application and as an OEM integration software technology. Today it is integrated into many of Autodesk’s products, including AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor, as well as those products from Alias (Maya) and Softimage (Softimage). It is also integrated into SolidWorks, and Dassault Systemes Catia v4 and v5.

mental ray is supported on both Windows, Mac, Linux and Sun Solaris operating systems, both 32 and 64 bit. It is Intel only for the Mac platform (no PowerPC support).

iray technology is a bit different from mental ray. The company’s description says that iray is a high-performance global illumination rendering technology that achieves its high performance by taking full advantage of the Nvidia CUDA architecture programming model, allowing interactive previewing on a single GPU and scaling almost linearly on multi-GPU platforms. There is an iray “rendering mode” in mental ray 3.8 and is supported in mental images’ RealityServer 2.4. It is also inside a product named SceniX but mental images’ documentation says details and a release date for that product to be announced.

Answering the question “who needs iray,” the company says it is ideal for programs that need a “push button” renderer of final frame photorealistic images with correct global illuminations. That would basically be the philosophy behind Bunkspeed’s SHOT (formerly HyperShot).

Thinking of iray in Architecture

A quick “push button” approach to excellent global illumination (GI) based rendering would also be ideal for architectural visualization programs, especially those tied to conceptual modeling or CAD or BIM where the final image needs call for accurate lighting more than a particular edited and enhanced final render approach.

iray technology is dependent on CUDA-enabled GPUs and memory requirements will make Nvidia Quadro, QuadroPlex and Tesla units particularly helpful. iray wil also run on GeForce and Tesla.

To learn more about iray go here.

FEN of Australia has a news blurb on Siemens’ NX PLM software running on Mac. This isn’t really big news the way FEN states it as Architosh has covered the Siemens PLM story on Mac for quite some time in much detail. In any case, there is a nice little graphic showing it running on a Mac Pro. The latest version NX 6 for Mac OS X has been out since last summer. NX 7 is the very latest release. We have put in a call to ascertain the latest Mac-related news from Siemens PLM.

Cheetah true 64-bit App

Martin Wengenmayer has announced that Cheetah 3D 5.3 is now a true 64-bit application and there are also new video tutorials. “Cheetah 3D 5.3 was released today,” read their announcement. On Intel Macs Cheetah 3D 5.3 runs as a true 64-bit application utilizing all the memory installed on your Mac.

This is indeed an important milestone for the application as the additional capacity to support 64-bit Macs adds tremendous capability. To deal with complex scenes the Cheetah 3D raytracing core has been accelerated considerably, and AltiVec/SSE optimized.

Also new in version 5.3: a newly rewritten Render Manager with thumbnail preview of older render jobs. And lastly there are new video tutorials produced by Andrew Heyworth. To learn more visit the Cheetah 3D site.

At SolidWorks World 2010 what as shown was what Fielder Hiss called “technology components” or pieces of software that are demonstrating the technology that SolidWorks is developing in its labs. “They are not products or future products,” said Hiss. Those components were shown to demonstrate how SolidWorks is trying understand and solve customer problems…by looking at “what is core to what customers are really trying to do.” Specifically in terms of the Mac or what was shown with the iMac at SolidWorks World was technology components which leverage the cloud or cloud-based computing.

Clarifying the Mac

What people saw off the Mac was being run from a cloud server. It was running a design tool that “does not have a name” according to Hiss. “We are trying to find the best way to deliver solutions when the cloud becomes a common solution for our customers and the industry.”

“The component technology we are developing in the labs is future oriented.” said Hiss. “We are architecting these components in a way where we can deliver not just cloud-based solutions but deliver to native platforms if and when the market needs that.” These component technologies according to Hiss are 3-5 years off before they become products that ship. “We do not have clear plans today to deliver our flagship product (SolidWorks) to the Mac.” he said.

Fielder Hiss noted that the Mac is a in-demand item with their customers, especially in the home. “I’m a Mac user at home to be honest,” he said, “there is a lot more excitement about the Mac out there in the community.”

The Future is Flexibility

For SolidWorks the future is about being flexible. Mr. Hiss gave a wonderful example of a typical dad working on a product and rushing off to see his daughter’s soccer game late in the afternoon, then returning to his design later in the evening from home (possibly from a Mac) to continue further work. The future is about being flexible, about having options for how you can access information from different devices from anywhere in the world through the Internet. The cloud-based technologies SolidWorks showed at SolidWorks World are aimed at meeting that kind of flexibility.

As for native versions of SolidWorks? The company is officially saying there is no commitment to ship a native Mac version of its flagship SolidWorks application. What was said on stage and to other press was that they are studying concepts for native Mac software–thus some of the confusion.

Nemetschek North America will be hosting a BIM event on March 3, 2010 in Boston. The event invitation reads: “Join us for this ‘big picture’ presentation about Building Information Modeling (BIM) and its historical and technological precedents.”

This event aims to teach the audience the difference between CAD and BIM and how BIM affects the design and construction team.

The event is free and takes place at the Boston Society of Architects/AIA building at 52 Broad Street, 5th Floor Conference Room, Boston, MA 02109. Event runs from 6 – 7pm with an hour long Q&A session. To sign-up go to:

http://bimperspectiveboston.eventbrite.com/

ArchiCAD behind BrightBuilt Barn

The BrightBuilt Barn is an innovative “net zero” home that needs no furnace, is easy to repair/upgrade, and is designed to last for centuries. It is also a major innovation award winner by the US Green Building Council (USGBC).

The BrightBuilt Barn was designed by Kaplan Thompson Architects in ArchiCAD by Graphisoft. Bensonwood Homes built the home which won the 2009 LEED for Homes Innovative Project Award. To read the full statement go here.

The New KeyShot

KeyShot is a realtime, interactive ray tracing rendering program. It utilizes physically correct and CIE verified rendering engine technology featuring many innovations developed by 2004 Academy Award Winner Dr. Henrik Wann Jensen. The program is available immediately for purchase for both Mac and PC operating systems.

KeyShot breaks down the complexity of producing high-end photo-realistic rendered images and is particularly valuable to auto-design studios and product designers. It has also been used in architecture thanks to its SketchUp file support, though it is less ideal to that discipline. The program utilizes unbiased sampling techniques that compute mathematically correct results, generates scientifically accurate materials, multi-core photons and more.

01 - The new KeyShot by Luxion, advanced realtime rendering on Mac OS X.

KeyShot has a technology called Dynamic Light Core that allows users to see results at the same time as changes are being made. Combined with its general ease of use KeyShot gives users remarkable rendering power and speed, independent of the model size. The program supports many native file formats, including: SolidWorks, Rhino, OBJ, IGES, STEP, SketchUp and more.

KeyShot is the next advancement in the last evolution of HyperShot and includes these following key improvements:

• Certification for Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)
• Faster rendering speed
• Improved overall image quality
• Support for direct import of SolidWorks 2010 data
• All new importer platform that includes support for IGES and STEP on Mac OS X
• New high-quality HDRIs from www.hdri-locations.com and www.hdrlightstudio.com

“KeyShot is based on more than a decade of research in efficient rendering algorithms,” said Dr. Henrik Wann Jensen, Chief Scientist of Luxion. “Being able to create amazing images in realtime on any computer without specific requirements such as special graphics cards is the goal of our research. We have developed several novel algorithms that take full advantage of all the cores in modern CPUs in order to deliver the ultimate rendering tool for end users.”

KeyShot pricing starts at 995.USD, while KeyShot Pro begins at 1,995.USD. Educational and floating license versions are also available. Please contact sales@luxion.com or for more information visit them on the web here: www.keyshot.com or www.luxion.com

“We’re working on several concepts. One of those concepts is definitely running SolidWorks as a native Mac app, in addition to the no-install (browser-based) version…So you can run it on a Mac or run on a Mac machine using a browser–take your pick.”

We are here and available to talk to SolidWorks Corporation about what their future product plans are. I guess the word “working” is the key verb in the remark by Joe Dunne of SolidWorks above. How does one work on the concept of a native Mac application? That could just involve non-programming planning. More likely however it involves software programmers digging into the technical details of making such a port over to Mac OS X feasible.

I personally had the chance to talk to a software developer last night who utilizes the Parasolid geometry modeling kernel. The same kernel behind SolidWorks. He noted that changes to that kernel that could affect his Mac application are important. Some types of key changes could very well indicate that another licensee of the kernel is at work in the Mac space. He noted that some such changes have been recognized in the recent past.

Keeping it Fair to the Community

We weren’t at SolidWorks World. We’ll take Kenneth Wong’s word that the eruption of applause concerning Jeff Ray’s comments about cloud, multi-touch and Mac futures with SolidWorks’ technology was indeed correct. The blog posts seem to back up the enthusiasm that the product design and SolidWorks community does indeed wish to see a Mac version in the future.

The way SolidWorks is handling this is consistent with what we have seen with developers in the past who were working on Mac versions of their software in secrecy and wished to “manage” that process. Of course the community loves it when companies say they will do “X” and deliver it. Their care in managing this is likely an indication of just how complex their initiatives really are and they wish to not promise the community anything they can’t in the end deliver. Not because they can’t but because they may have chosen not to. Not letting a customer base down is an important part of what you say about your company and its products.

On the other hand, SolidWorks may simply wish to keep its main competitors in the dark as much as possible. And every company deserves the right to its secrecy. We expect to hear from the company later today. We look forward to sharing what we learn.

SolidWorks Community Cheers Loudly About Mac

Desktop Engineering reports that the 5000 plus attendees cheered loudly when SolidWorks CEO, Jeff Ray announced support for the Mac. “Clearly he hit a nerve,” writes Desktop Engineering’s Kenneth Wong. “The spontaneous applause that erupted in the audience was louder and longer than the initial one he received when he first walked in.”

Later this year SolidWorks Corporation will release a new cloud-based computing solution for SolidWorks customers. “A web-hosted CAD modeler is bound to be accessible to both Windows and Mac users,” writes Wong, “but addressing the demand for a Mac-compatible CAD in such a fashion may not fully satisify dedicated Mac fans, because this approach doesn’t take advantage of Apple’s hardware and OS.”

Solidworks World showed Mac and multi-platform Cloud future for SolidWorks. (image courtesy of Desktop Engineering)

The mandate to push for future technologies and compute models was delivered to SolidWorks research and development (R&D) three years ago by Jeff Ray. Now the first fruits of that multi-year effort are being delivered later this year. It is not clear yet when a native SolidWorks for the Mac will be ready, but based on the feedback in applause to Jeff Ray’s news it should be readily apparent that the demand for this is out there. And now that this news is out, what will Autodesk’s response be? Will the CAD giant and chief SolidWorks rival sit back or will they respond with Mac versions also?

To read the Desktop Engineering article go here. There’s a few pictures too.

The new CINEBENCH 11.5 can more accurately test the industry’s latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads and the test environment better reflects the expectations of today’s production demands. The user interface has also been streamlined to make the reading of results more straightforward.

CINEBENCH 11.5 is immediately available free for users to download from the Maxon web site and can be utilized on Windows and Macintosh operating systems.

“As a leading innovator of high-performance workstations and rendering systems, BOXX Technologies relies on CINEBENCH benchmarking analysis to clearly demonstrate how our solutions will perform in real-world scenarios,” said Shoaib Mohammad, Director of Marketing and Business Development at BOXX. “CINEBENCH is a tremendous asset, providing reliable and consistent data, ensuring us that our hardware is performing at its peak, and giving our customers confidence that when they choose BOXX they are making the most informed decision possible.”

To learn more click here.

Architosh is bringing the popular ToshLetter PDF-based newsletter back to its readers. The latest ToshLetter will be sent out March 3, 2010, and is loaded with some premier CAD industry content — including a special exclusive segment of our Architosh interview with Viktor Varkoyni, CEO of Graphisoft, which touches on the future of ArchiCAD. Other exclusive items include details and reasons about Scia’s plans for North America and an analysis and self-analysis of our BIM report.

The ToshLetter was originally created and delivered back in 2005. The PDF-based and hyper-linked newsletter addresses the Mac CAD and 3D industries and brings a unique focus with original content aimed at executive-level discussion, feature articles, interviews and news. Each newsletter is organized around a topical range of issues and includes intelligent hyperlinks for further resources on the web. Some sample back-issues are available here for you to download and read. The newsletter is free but you must complete a brief subscription signup form.

ToshLetter 2010 – No. 1

This issue of the ToshLetter is focused on BIM (Building Information Modeling) and the architectural industry. A brief description of the table of contents (TOC) follows below:

• Discussions about ArchiCAD: Interface and Future Focus —  this exclusive segment of our Architosh feature interview with Viktor Varkonyi, CEO of Graphisoft, touches on rare comments about how the company views its flagship BIM program’s user-interface and notes about the future production direction.
• MarketFocus: Nemetschek Scia and BIM in America — article talks about Scia, one of the world’s premier software programs for structural engineers, and its new push here in the United States to be a leader in structural BIM integration.
• Perspective: What we learned in Architosh’s first BIM report – article covers aspects of our multi-year effort to gain insight into BIM adoption today.
• ToolTalk: Managing Teamwork 2 Projects in ArchiCAD 13 — article delves into many of the smaller details of setting up Teamwork 2 in ArchiCAD 13 and covers aspects often not mentioned in other articles on the subject.
• ToolTalk: Cool iPhone Apps for Architects — we look at some of the best applications for the iPhone for busy architects on the job site.
• News Analysis
• Architosh and Social Media
• Events

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