Microstation and SolidWorks 2011 Friendly

SES 2 comes with a variety of HDRI spherical images complete with ground planes and professional lighting. This second SES set is ideal for people who want to visualize smaller sized objects

“The ability to render an animation and see all 50 environments with zero setup time takes all of the guess work out of studio lighting,”

said Branden Coker, Creative Multimedia Specialist at Analytical Graphics Inc.

01 - SES 2 for modo 501. SES 2 ships with over 50 HDRI images for spherical mapping. Image by Jan Ove Rust. (Courtesy, Luxology LLC).

“The variety of environments in this set is stellar. It makes studio lighting so easy, it’s almost an afterthought.”

Typical users of SES 2 are architects, artists, industrial and product designers, engineers, packaging designers and CAD specialists. It is compatible with modo 501 on both Mac and Windows and works with Microstation and SolidWorks on Windows. Retails for 69.00USD.

For more information

The Australian company, Design+Industry was asked by Strike Motors to turn a concept of a three-wheeled “trike” into a commercially manufacturable vehicle. What was born was ‘the Trike’, half-car, half-motorcycle, this two seater combines cornering capability and high stopping power. With stability and speed, this car is estimated to catch car enthusiasts and collectors, for its sleek futuristic design.

“We began using modo when clients started requesting features we were not able to provide with the visualisation software we were using at the time,” said Ben Carroll, industrial designer at Design+Industry.

He continued to say, ”We have had clients ask to see the physical prototype after our presentation based solely on a picture done in modo and that ‘wow’ factor has always served us well.”

For more info on the Trike.

To learn more about Luxology’s modo go here: www.luxology.com

Having recently won the 2006 Good Design Award for Electronics, Ashlar-Vellum is proud to have designers like Nelson Au as a cutting edge customer. Nelson was up to Seagate Technologies’ challenge.

And it shows in the images below of this innovative solution to portable storage.

01 - USB Pocket Drive was created using Ashlar's 3D design software.

“My coworkers use Rhino, Alias, SolidWorks, or Pro/E and then whine a lot about their software. I use Ashlar-Vellum software without all of the aggravation, and can still exchange information with all these applications using Cobalt’s built-in translators.”
says Au.

Au admits to struggling with the initial design. But by using Colbalt to create an outer enclosure for the retractable cord, and an inner portion to house the memory and electronic components, he at last came to a solution.

“Using Cobalt’s transparency features, he was able to show that the design and inner workings of the drive would fit and work together perfectly.” Says Au,

02 - Cobalt's transparency helps this design communicate its inner workings.

03 - Here is a finished view of the Seagate device.

To learn more about this Seagate Technologies

To learn more visit Ashlar online at: http://www.ashlar.com

The latest version of solidThinking has over 900 improvements, ranging from small user-interface changes and workflow improvements to significant new features and capabilities in both the core product and the Inspired version with morphogenesis technology.

solidThinking 8.5, we will remind readers, is one of the world’s top class-A NURBS modeling programs. As Alex Mazzardo noted, “solidThinking is a real idea generator that promotes innovation due to its powerful modeling, easy-to-use rendering environment and interoperability with leading engineering applications.”  The product is aimed at product designers, industrial designers, style centers, marketing departments and architects and engineers.

New Capabilities

Version 8.5 is now a faster modeler, with up to 3x performance speed. Loading time with models, especially larger complex models, is halved. Frames per second shading of the model in real-time is 3x faster and select and deselect are quicker as well. There is a new improved Round tool, in most other similar applications known as a fillet tool. With the improved Round tool you get better handling of overflow and overlapping rounded surfaces, plus advanced options for shape control. (see image 01)

01 - solidThinking 8.5 has a new and improved round tool, with advanced options for dealing with overlapping rounded surfaces.

Another new feature is a new Face Extraction tool, for the creation of new faces from existing objects. There are now more snap shortcuts and construction aids, including a revised snap to tangent tool. These all make modeling faster and easier.

A new feature we really liked was the three-level selection methodology. Now in solidThinking 8.5 the first double-click on an object selects objects. A second double-click allows you to access parameters for those objects, and a third double-click allows you to edit vertices or control points.

The user-interface has been simplified for better navigation and scene organization. It is now possible to visualize if the selected objects are part of some groups in the Hierarchy Browser. And there is new and improved selection technology through the use of selection filters with the ability to sort for curves, surfaces, polymesh and pointmesh, et cetera, as well as clarifying selection of dependent and source objects for easier scene organization.

Better Rendering in solidThinking 8.5

One of the largest areas of improvement in solidThinking 8.5 is in the area of rendering. The accuracy of lighting is a major improvement and this includes its progressive, real-time rendering as well. (see images 02-03) In 8.5 there are new real-time photorealistic rendering options integrating raytracing and progressive rendering.

02 - solidThinking 8.5 has a greatly improved real-time rendering functionality, plus improved photorealistic rendering.

New reflection catcher technology adds a reflection below the model in a photorealistic rendering when the model is added to a back plate image. A new improved algorithm improves anti-aliasing in final renders and there is improved support for the calculation of indirect lighting.

03-solidThinking's interactive rendering shows improved handling of light.

You can play with this Flash-based web page to see the difference in rendering quality between version 8 and version 8.5 of solidThinking. Go ahead, we encourage you to explore this interactive graphic. For exploring the difference between version 8 and 8.5 with regard to anti-aliasing go to this page here. The difference is quite dramatic in this particular sample image.

New in version 8.5 are pre-built interior sets and ready-to-render lighting setups. This pre-setup work is very helpful to designers looking to quickly drop their model into an environment and do quick renders for study and evaluation. (see image 04)

04 - new pre-built sets with ready to go lighting help designers quickly test their models in fully rendered environments.

And the render materials library has been enhanced in solidThinking 8.5 with more than 300 new apply-and-render materials with default settings optimized for best rendering results. In an era where there is increased development activity in the area of simplified and instant photorealistic rendering, this new library enhancement is a timely response.

Next page: CAD Connections and Inspired 8.5 >

The company’s next release for solidThinking and solidThinking Inspired will focus primarily on delivering solutions based on user feedback and designed to create a more intuitive user interface. Additionally, solidThinking Inspired will offer new computational tools and flexible features aimed at enriching the design process and accelerating product design and development.

For more information about solidThinking visit their website here. For more information on the IDSA International Conference visit:

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.

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.

“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.

There are other troubling aspects of this rumor post as well. The writer seems to think that Solidworks competes with ArchiCAD, a fully native — since the beginning of its existence — BIM program for the architectural market. It doesn’t!

However, the source of this story on Hardmac.com is this blog post from coverage of Solidworks World 2010 where up on stage we seem to be looking at Solidworks presenters showing us something (which we relate to the screen shot) on an Apple iMac computer.

What is this iMac doing on stage at Solidworks World?

It seems to us that Solidworks Corporation clearly has some reason for that iMac on stage but it doesn’t necessarily mean new native Mac software. The company already makes some viewing software native on the Mac now and it could be related to that. We’ll have to dig into this further but we definitely wanted to post this interesting nugget now!

To more information about Solidworks go here. http://www.solidworks.com/

This agreement is the latest international VAR partnership signed by solidThinking to increase the software’s adoption throughout the global industrial design/styling market.

SiliconStudio Korea provides the latest technology and software developments to the digital design, 3D visualization, computer graphics and virtual reality industries in South Korea to meet their concept-development needs.

“SiliconStudio Korea is a well-known design technology resource and consultant in its market,” said Jim Hassberger, vice president of business development and customer relations for solidThinking. “Our agreement with SiliconStudio Korea expands our market presence in South Korea and further positions solidThinking for continued growth throughout Asia and other international markets.

solidThinking, Inc. has recently made big news in the computer design software market with its latest innovative solidThinking Inspired product with ground-breaking morphogenesis technology. To learn more visit them here: www.solidthinking.com

Kyle Houchens, owner of The Outside Digital Art and Design and designer of over 1000 vehicles for the toy and entertainment industries, will demonstrate techniques about how T-Splines can be a timesaving tool for adding detail to a car model.

Kyle Houchens is an authorized T-Splines trainer and will be joined by T-Splines co-founder Matt Sederberg who will introduce powerful tips for maximizing the latest release of T-Splines 2.2 for Rhino.

01 - Free Webinar on T-Splines 2.2 for Rhino focused on Vehicle Design.

Matt will also demo solutions to “user-submitted” questions about how to use T-Splines for vehicular design. If you would like us to answer your questions you are requested to send them to T-Splines now. You can register for the free webinar here.

Where and When

The webinar takes place November 4, 2009, at 12:00pm – 12:45pm EST. Register here.

solidThinking at Industrial Design Society of America Conference

One of the most important product and industrial design events in the world, the IDSA Conference will be host to solidThinking’s new products, including its new morphogenesis technology in its solidThinking Inspired 8.0 product. 

morphogenesis™, which draws its principles from nature and biomimicry, allows designers and architects to experiment with form generation while exploring and developing their designs. It is a key new technology that gives solidThinking a unique advantage in the product design software market. 

“solidThinking seeks to empower the design community with tools that will maximize creativity and design intuition,” said Alex Mazzardo, vice president of product strategy and marketing for solidThinking. “The annual IDSA conference provides the ideal international setting for thought leaders to bring to market fresh ideas and design concepts, and we’re particularly gratified to share the new and extensive capabilities of our recently launched software with the community.”

The new design and styling tools will be displayed at booths 1 and 2. solidThinking Inc. president Robert Little and Vice President of Product Development James Dagg will present the conference breakout session, titled, “Human Thinking and Computational Inspiration, New Challenges and Opportunities for Product Design” on Saturday, September 26, from 11:30am to 12:30pm in room Poinciana 2. The presentation’s corresponding white paper can be requested at:

www.solidthinking.com/morphogenesis and is also printed in the 2009 Conference Proceedings for show attendees. 

To learn more about solidThinking 8.0 and morphogenesis read some of the related reports here on Architosh (see below) and click here for a recent Product In-Depth feature article.

The new solidThinking version 8 base product has several important big new features and substantial improvements. At the heart of it, solidThinking’s class-A NURBS modeling capabilities are already tops but they too gain some important new functions. The new 3D manipulators were demoed for us and our impression was this was a key new improvement that existing solidThinking users were going to really like. You can work with the 3D manipulators on one, two or three axes and you can also give the exact size of the bounding box in all three axes. We especially liked the user interface components of these manipulators for translation and rotation. (see image 01 below)

01 - New 3D Manipulators make the modeling process easier and faster.

“The new 3D manipulators will make modeling faster for our customers,” said Alex Mazzardo, “which aligns with our product philosophy of helping designers investigate formal options quicker so they can advance their designs through design iteration.” And the enhancements to point, curve and surface representation during modeling creation is much improved.

An example of solidThinking 8.0’s power came through in a demo showing us how a curve that is the basis of a rotated element (like a bottle or vase) can be modified or edited vertex by vertex–or by any combination of segments of vertices–and get real-time rendered updates. (see 02-03 below). And you have point-editing with complete freedom even if you are keeping the Construction Tree.

02 - solidThinking allows vertex-by-vertex modeling editing while retaining the full functionality of the product

The combination of explicit modeling freedom combined with solidThinking’s unique Construction Tree history is one of the program’s strongest selling points. “You can still go back to the profile of an object and modify its parameters even though you have edited direct points,” said Mazzardo. In solidThinking you have both history-based parametrics and explicit modeling combined.

03 - A group of vertices can be edited and manipulated at once...in this case we are seeing a twist manipulation effect transform the bottle design.

Rendering is also a key new area for the improvements in version 8.0. There are new interactive visualization options, including wireframe on a shaded model and you have new options for applying environmental maps. This gives the designer additional levels of feedback. One of the new things you can do is render a window with partial completeness so you can get a sense of the quality of the design and/or render. We were impressed with the ease in which you can setup render quality levels for partial renders.

For example, you may choose to render a partial section of say a motorcycle and focus on the chrome areas at a higher level because of their reflections and refractions; on the otherhand you can quickly change those settings for another partial area for something less important. “The important thing is to give the designer the option to spend the time where it is needed,” said Mazzardo, “that way he can focus more on design.”

Next page we delve into morphogenesis and Architecture >

“Through our latest release, we offer new ways for industrial designers to enrich and accelerate design inspiration,” said Alex Mazzardo, solidThinking, Inc.’s vice president of product strategy and marketing. “In addition to inviting users to free their minds from technological constraints, solidThinking aims to maximize value and provide cost-saving 3D design solutions.”

Many of the world’s leading brands and companies use solidThinking to design and develop their products, including companies like: Bulgari, Cartier, Diesel, Fujitsu, Merck, Nikon, Toshiba, Volkswagen and Volvo. 

01 - solidThinking version 8. A sample of the incredible realistic rendering quality of a product design-developed entirely within solidThinking.

solidThinking version 8.0

“We have seen a number of companies significantly increase and even double the speed of their product development lifecycles using solidThinking,” added Mario Mazzardo, vice president of product strategy and management. “We are eager to help the global industrial design community realize similar benefits and more, thanks to several new productivity boosting features in version 8.0.”  

Key new features include:

• A completely restyled and more streamlined UI (user-interface) enabling a better workflow
• New 3D manipulators for translation, scaling and rotation of objects
• Enhancements to point, curve and surface representation
• New Interactive Visualization options, including wireframe on shaded model and environmental maps
• Real-time rendering during review and visualization phases of design
• Progressive Rendering for immediate feedback on the final image
• Re-rendering of selected subregions of an existing image
• A new materials library functionality — users can now also setup multiple materials libraries
• Optimized Final Gather for increased rendering speeds and lighting accuracy
• Ambient Occlusion for greater depth, performance and realism in the photorealistic rendering phase
• New complex reflectance shaders for generating lifelike visual elements, including the ability to integrate and create glossy and blurred reflections, frosted glass, car paints, plastic and metallic effects
• High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) capabilities and the ability to create spherical images that can be visualized in the background of perspective views while modeling
• Many smaller features and improvements…

solidThinking 8.0 embodies all of the features that current users love, including its first-glass NURBS-based surface and solids modeling and best-in-class Construction Tree technology. 

Longtime solidThinking customer, Italian design firm, Pininfarina Extra, is extremely impressed with the new solidThinking 8. 

“Every time I start solidThinking, I access a 3D world that makes product design a dynamic and flexible process disclosing new horizons,” said Piero Pifferi, designer CAS and rendering for Pininfarina Extra. “The results are gratifying for both the designer and the customer.”

solidThinking 8.0 Inspired Debuts with morphogenesis technology

solidThinking 8.0 Inspired is a brand new product, an enhanced version of solidThinking that comes with brand new software technology. Inspired adds new morphogenesis technology which is a unique computational-based capability to design and form generation, very useful to product designers and architects.

Principles of Biomimicry

Drawing on the principles of biomimicry, the premier release of solidThinking 8.0 Inspired mimics the processes and physical laws in nature to help designers and architects generate forms and structures in response to environmental conditions, and leverage the results to stimulate their designs. 

01 - morphogenesis technology in solidThinking 8.0 Inspired - Technology mimics how nature reactions to environmental forces.

“Designers and architects have looked to nature for inspiration for some time, but until now they have been limited to visual studies,” said James Dagg, vice president of software development for solidThinking, Inc. “Because the processes and physical laws that influence natural forms are so complex, designers have had to rely on intuition when selecting and adapting biological forms as their sources of inspiration. With the debut of morphogenesis form generation in solidThinking 8.0 Inspired, designers are provided with an environment to replicate biological growth processes in nature where structure develops and takes shape in response to environmental stimuli.”

Using solidThinking 8.0 Inspired, designers can create design space models or import them from other systems. After defining environments around the models, designers can run the software’s morphogenesis feature to grow efficient shapes in response to these environments and form controls. Results can be used as loosely or literally as users wish while formalizing their designs. The morphogenesis feature ultimately acts as a complementary idea generator and inspiration for form.

02 - Coliseum design based on morphogenesis technology.

“The time is right for a 3D modeling software to take the conceptual design space to the next level,” said Alex Mazzardo, vice president of product strategy and marketing for solidThinking, Inc. “solidThinking software has always served as a vehicle for designers to generate, explore and interpret form in their own creative language. solidThinking 8.0 Inspired now brings nature and natural growth processes, the most fundamental sources of design inspiration, to the fingertips of industrial designers and architects – something that has never been done before – allowing users to springboard their ideas in directions they may have never previously considered.”

By getting nature to work for them using the technology within solidThinking 8.0 Inspired, designers and architects will be able to discover forms that are aesthetically interesting, unique and often unexpected while being well-adapted to their intended structural function. Forms created in solidThinking 8.0 Inspired are also typically very efficient due to an economized use of material and are less likely to be radically changed by engineers later in the product development process.

“solidThinking 8.0 Inspired is a testament to our objective to develop and market flexible, user-centric design/styling tools to aid in the industrial design process,” said Robert Little, president of solidThinking, Inc. “We are very excited to unveil a new dynamic that will surprise and intrigue designers and further stimulate their creativity. This is the beginning of much more to come.”

To further explore solidThinking 8.0 Inspired with morphogenesis technology visit the following links:

www.solidthinking.com

http://www.facebook.com/solidThinking

http://www.twitter.com/solidThinking

http://www.youtube.com/solidThinking

New Features in Cinema 4D R 11.5

• Superior Rendering Improvements – New bucket rendering and a significant retooling of the render engine itself lead to vastly improved render speeds an quality. R11.5 takes true advantage of the latest state-of-the-art multi-core processors and adds new render instancing.
• Enhanced Picture Viewer – the new Picture Viewer in R11.5 offers a vast set of new creative tools to reviewing and editing images and animations, including features like Render History with the ability to compare renders, plus image filters and adjustments, post filter effects and layer management. The RAM player enables users to play back animations with sound even while the rest of the job is being rendered.
• New MoGraph 2 – the new features for motion graphics include new MoDynamics, an optimized physics simulation package with hundred of objects that can be easily be made to collide or be affected by such forces as gravity or friction; plus PolyFX for providing quick and easy explosion effects; plus MoSpline for cloning existing splines and animating them with forces and effectors.
• Improved Interoperability – numerous improvements with R11.5 offer users better integration with programs like Adobe’s After Effects, including support for additional object types; support for Apple’s Motion now includes export of 3D data; plus support for Autodesk FBX 2010 allows for quick and easy interchange between a variety of 3D applications.
• Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Support – with R11.5 the company continues to build on its legacy of leading-edge support of the very latest operating systems. R11.5 is fully compatible with Apple’s Mac OS X Snow Leopard, including access to up to 64 GB of virtual memory. 

“MAXON is committed to providing powerful enhancements to CINEMA 4D that really improve the productivity of users across various disciplines, including film, broadcast, architecture, product visualization, games, multimedia and more,” states Harald Egel, MAXON co-founder and CEO. “The many improvements in the new Release 11.5 will help all customers gain even better results, save valuable time and resources.”

“CINEMA 4D gives my design team the ability to make miracles happen within ridiculously tight deadlines,” said John LePore, associate creative director for Perception NYC. “The new features and enhancements in Release 11.5, especially those in MoGraph 2, truly augment an already mind-blowing arsenal of creative tools.”

Cinema 4D R11.5 is available now, including the new MoGraph 2 module. To learn more visit them online or visit your nearest MAXON dealer.

To read a recent product review of Cinema 4D go here.

The Interview

Anthony Frausto-Robledo (AFR): Emilio, can you tell me a little about what led you into industrial design as a career? Did you grow up always wanting to design objects and things, or did you have other ideas about what you might do when you grew up?

Emilio Cassani (EC): I always wanted to design objects and things since I was a kid. My first desire (when I used to play Lego) was to become an “engineer” for Lego products. Then I entered mechanical engineering when I went to university, but I soon realized that it wasn’t my real desire. By chance I then saw the advertisement of Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan underground trains. I visited the school and I realized that industrial design, which I had never heard of before, was my real interest.

AFR: Going to school in Milan would have put you in the center of action in the design world, what influences did Milan play on you as a young designer in college?

EC: Milano is the center of the world when you speak about design. I started meeting people from all over the world since my first day at the design school and I liked it a lot: attending to lessons with students from very different cultures was a continuously stimulating experience.

AFR: You began collaborating with Isao Hosoe Design in Milan very early after graduating from college, what did you take away from that collaboration and how has that contributed to your success being on your own?

EC: I first entered Isao Hosoe Design in Milano on an internship during summer vacations before the last school year. I then continued frequenting Isao’s studio during the last school year so I started my full time collaboration the day after my final exam and it lasted for seven years. I then made a few projects as an external consultant for IHD. Again the most important aspect was the international pattern that led me to work with people from all over the world enriching my experience. That collaboration was fundamental to create my whole ability of designing.

AFR: You have won several design awards for your industrial design. How important are design awards for obtaining new work in the field of industrial design? 

EC: I am afraid I must say very little. Company owners and managers are very practical people that judge on their own the quality of the project you show to them.

01 - The BRIO is one of Cassani's most noted industrial designed products. Milan-educated, Emilio Cassani works across a range of industrial design segments but enjoys industrial machinery the most.

AFR: You involve yourself in many parts of industrial design, such as packaging, lighting, appliances, furniture and industry. Do you have a favorite activity? And have you ever been interested in car and transportation design, for example?

EC: My favorite activity is industrial machine design as often it is a completely virgin territory for design and the designer has the chance to really improve the quality of the products in all design aspects: ergonomics, usability, communication and so on. I faced car design only in a school project, unfortunately, but I found some of my unripe ideas implemented by other designers the next years. At Isao Hosoe Design I was part of teams to design twisting seats for Japan Rail West and a concept of car interiors for Fiat.

AFR: Your work on the BRIO, QIK and FBP are really quite fascinating. How would you describe your challenges and successes with those projects? Those systems seem very complicated compared to designing a table or light, how does that complexity change the design process or your way of thinking and working?

Nature has always been a source of inspiration, and particularly biological forms. While biological forms tend to be aesthetically interesting, they also tend to be efficient and highly functional because they are the product of environmental pressures. 

Today, new technologies enable architects and product designers to simulate some of the processes and physical laws in nature with software algorithms, thus helping to generate forms in response to environmental stimuli. 

solidThinking Workshop at CAAD Futures 2009

solidThinking will be hosting a free half-day workshop that will describe and demonstrate practical and visual examples of exciting new methods for architects and product designers to generate and explore biological forms that are aesthetically pleasing, often unexpected, and at the same time well adapted to their intended purpose. Each participant should bring their own laptop. 

Attendees at this workshop will be granted a 3-month license to solidThinking.

IDSA Northeast District

solidThinking will kick off its IDSA tour by presenting at the Northeast District Conference (27-29 March) on March 28. Jim Hassberger, solidThinking, Inc.’s vice president of business development and customer relations, will speak about the challenges and opportunities in product design arising from the combination of human thinking and computational inspiration.

solidThinking: enjoyed a good presence at its first Macworld Expo. The CAID company will be a major sponsor of the IDSA regional conferences throughout the USA this spring. solidThinking is gaining much traction due to its ability to run superbly on Apple's Mac OS X platform (in addition to Microsoft Windows) where a lot of younger designers revere Apple and are already Apple product users. Their ability to run a design tool like solidThinking on a MacBook Pro or Mac Pro combining its world class feature set with their favorite computer platform is a strong pull for them.

solidThinking will be demonstrating exciting new techniques in CAID (computer-aided industrial design) technology that enables today’s designers to explore and generate exciting new forms that are aesthetically pleasing as well as functional and adapted product engineering requirements. solidThinking has been gaining much attention in the USA market over the past year as the company has made great gains in academia and has caught the attention of today’s young designers. The product is one the just a few of the most advanced software programs specifically written for product and industrial designers that works natively on the Mac OS X platform–what Apple refers to as the “platform for creatives.” 

In fact there is so much interest by younger designers today in working on the Mac OS X platform that Autodesk has taken its famed AliasStudio Tools to the Mac OS X platform too, with a native release planned for later this year. 

Hassberger will be demonstrating to IDSA audiences some of the unique and industry-first technology in solidThinking, such as its powerful and unique History Tree functionalities.