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| Architosh News Reports | |
| Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com) |
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Macintosh AEC at Siggraph '99 - Part 2/2 - page 2
New 3D Applications, AEC Software for UNIX MerlinVR Digital Immersion announced their new general 3D application at Siggraph as well. MerlinVR is expected to be released in the forth quarter of 1999 for the Windows 95/98 market. MerlinVR is directed at the general CAD and graphics markets. MerlinVR is supposedly an excellent modeler and renderer on just about any common home PC hardware, and for a remarkable low cost. Riva 3D said:
"What if I told you you could do some serious modeling, seeing every change you make in real time with your home PC with just about any 3D hardware card? Okay, most 3D modeling programs will allow you to do that in wireframe already, and some with simple shading, and some with gauraud shading with higher end systems. But did I mention that you can now do it in real time with full shading, texturing, transparency, specular highlights, etc.? You heard it right, folks. There's a new kid in 3D town, and his name is Merlin VR, and he's gonna shake things up a LOT when the word gets around." For CAD users there is a special version of MerlinVR which includes the ACIS file format (.sat) by Spatial Technologies. Spatial's 3D kernels run on the Macintosh. You can try out this application now in a "try before you buy" program. To learn more click here.
GESTEL officially announced that their award-winning solidThinking 3D application is coming to the Macintosh operating system. Currently it is available on Windows 95 and NT. Earlier versions are supported on multiple platforms (see below).
"We had planned on starting the complete porting of solidThinking to Mac OS in the year 2000 but we've received so many requests for a Mac OS version of solidThinking that, at the end, we had to set our plans aside and start", said Alex Mazzardo, GESTEL's managing director. Thanks to the introduction of OpenGL for Macintosh, solidThinking for the Mac OS will combine its award-winning user-interface with the famous Apple look and feel. The first beta of the software is due by the end of October 1999. Version 3.5, currently being offered to Win95/NT pros only, makes big steps forward in features ID pros need. Data exchange includes most popular CAD and animation programs as well as I/O support of: 3D Studio Max, Adobe Illustrator, DXF, IGES, LighWave, Maya, RIB, STL, VRML Many architects and other AEC pros have probably never heard of GESTEL. The company was a discovery for us as well. And a good one! Aside from bring solidThinking -- which is geared for advanced 3D professionals in the fields of industrial design, automotive design and multimedia -- the company also makes a series of UNIX-based 3D applications for vertical markets in AEC. Read below to learn more. GESTEL has offices in Italy and France and is based in Italy. Tilery Tilery is a professional application for designing, tiling and visualizing interior tiled environments like bathrooms and kitchens in a natural and intuitive way. Starting with a 2D plan the user can generate a 3D space with a few easy commands, allowing the user to tile walls, floors and ceilings and compute the precise number of tiles to be used and all their material attributes. The user can input furniture and fixtures to complete the space. The product consist of three modules. Tile Builder - allows the user to create parametric catalogues of materials in different shapes and sizes including the surface properties of each material. Tile 2D - the heart of the system - basically a CAD package for designing the space in 2D. And thirdly, solidThinking - the 3D modeling and rendering environment, which enables you to create stunning rendered environments of your tiled interiors. Tilery is a product that could have only been born out of a country like Italy, where extravagantly designed tiled environments are still common, and where tile work is a large part of historic preservation. The program is excellent for architects, designers, tile installers and contractors who do large tiled environments or important historic preservation work. Tilery is currently available on any NeXTSTEP / OPENSTEP platform, including Intel based PC's HP-PA RISC, Sun SPARC, and NeXT boxes. All of these are various flavors or derivatives of UNIX which means that it is possible that this program may be available for Mac OS X when it comes out next year. For your information, solidThinking 2.6 was available on the following platforms: Intel 486 or Pentium class, HP-PA RISC, Sun Microsystems SPARC workstations, NeXTSTEP 3.2 or higher and OPENSTEP 4.0 or higher. Since Mac OS X Server and Consumer are based on both UNIX and NeXTSTEP, moving solidThinking over to Mac OS X should not be too difficult. Giotto Giotto is another GESTEL product with a vertical market focus. Giotto is for professional stone masons, artists, and manufactures. Giotto is a 3D environment for the production of stone designs like sculptures, columns, and other building landscape elements. Giotto is currently only available on the OPENSTEP platform running on: Intel, HP-PA RISC, Sun SPARC, or NeXT).
Other Mac OS 3D Software Announced at Siggraph Both of these products have had Macintosh versions for awhile and have been mentioned in other Siggraph news on other sites. Lightwave 6.0 Lightwave 6 by NewTek was introduced and demonstrated at Siggraph. The 3D modeling, rendering and animation program is a leading multimedia production tool. The company has announced that it is the most significant update to LightWave in over ten years. NewTek has completely redesigned the software's architecture and animation processes. Significant changes include a comprehensive set of groundbreaking character animation tools, advanced rendering capabilities, and a refined work environment. NewTek has upgraded their cross-platform tool kit so that their Macintosh and Intel versions are more similar than ever. "We are especially excited about the recent resurgence of support for the Apple G3's in the graphics industry", remarked NewTek.
3D Nature's World Construction Set World Construction Set is an industry-leading professional full-world terrain modeling and rendering application. You can virtually render any environment on the planet with this tool. Applications for its use include computer games simulation, visualization for the natural sciences, architecture and landscape architecture, GIS, broadcast quality video and film, and illustration , to name just a few. [Editors note: this is an application I highly recommend people take a look at, just to see it] The program is supported on Intel and Alpha NT boxes, as well as Power Macintosh. An older version runs on Amiga In the near future platform support will include SGI's UNIX, Linux and other flavors of UNIX. With so much planned emphasis on supporting UNIX's a Mac OS X version should come rather quickly given that it already runs on Macintosh.
3D Magazines at Siggraph Computer Graphics World Computer Graphics World is a monthly publication for visual computing, highlighting the newest technologies for film, broadcast television, video, animation, interactive entertainment and CAD/CAM. The magazine is not platform specific but covers all applications in this category.
More Resources for your Mac Siggraph pleasure For more information go to Macintosh News Network's Siggraph Report.
> Go to Page 1/2 of this AEC Siggraph Report - Part 2/2 Other Architosh News RenderDrive Hardware Appliance, Macintosh Support Notes [aug 26] AppleCool: What's Cool at Apple.com Now! [26] Multimedia Training for MiniCAD VectorWorks [26]
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