True UNIX

While Windows-based systems have some tools available that can mimic a Unix-like environment, they often come with limitations to their capabilities, especially when working with large files. Mac OS X however is a true Unix operating system and can handle large files exceptionally well.

01 - HyperWorks now available for Mac OS X. Future iOS apps in the making.

“Much of my work deals with being able to transfer data from very large files into formats that allow further specialized analysis and visualization,” says Mary Leibolt, a structural acoustics analyst at the Naval Warfare Center, Carderock Division. “Having the capability to use the Mac OS X operating system allows me to get my work done on one machine without having to deal with compatibility, transfer media issues, et cetera.”

HyperWorks for Mac OS X offers users more flexibility in choosing which platform to use for their CAE work. Moreover, it opens the world of CAE to a broader range of industries and professions that traditionally work with Mac systems. “With this platform, we extend the availability of HyperWorks to designers and other creative professionals,” says Paolo Sansalvadore, senior vice president of modeling and visualization, Altair, “people who don’t crunch numbers but who interact with the software to visualize their creations and can benefit from the HyperWorks user experience. Altair’s concept and industrial design products, solidThinking Evolve and Inspire, are already available on both Windows and Mac OS X.”

Scientists comprise another important user group that will be able to take advantage of HyperWorks running on the Mac, since much of their work is designed and executed on Mac computers. Last but not least, the new software version also makes CAE more accessible to a broader range of computer-aided design professionals conceiving products largely on Mac systems.

Extending Platforms: iOS and Mac

The extension of HyperWorks to the Mac OS is part of the evolution of Altair software to new devices and platforms. A cloud-based software-as-a-service, HyperWorks On-Demand, is now available through a modern service oriented architecture web-app for running, monitoring and managing simulation workloads and results (Altair Compute Manager). Altair will also offer enhanced mobility through several iOS apps currently under development.

To learn more visit: http://www.altairhyperworks.com/

Transition Instance

Unique to Apple’s plans is to utilize within a full 3D version of the desktop metaphor an “instance translation.” In essence this means a small icon object (of a file or folder) can transition within the 3D user space through a zoom effect which will reveal high-level view or functionality information of that object. This is similar to the Mac’s current preview functionality in the Mac OS today but far more extensive.

In essence the user can opt not to click on an object to open it just to read it or view it completely. Instead the user will be able to view, read and likely play files with what appears a single-action translation within the UI.

To see the patent images and learn more visit PatentlyApple.com. The article is here.

The ARM Rationale

Architosh is not privy to any information that would lead us to believe this. It is just a matter of understanding Jobsian Logic. Such logic would inform you that Apple will take–when it has the reasonable opportunity–any path that allows it to gain unique advantages on their hardware and software fronts. Especially if this path enables them added control, first mover advantage or unique IP strengths.

This is the path it took with the iPad. When Architosh put together its final predictions on what the first iPad would hold we narrowed down on the fact that Apple had acquired PA Semi for a reason. We knew ARM was in the iPad…but what ARM chip?

“What would be really stunning today is if Apple has based the device on its own silicon design–namely that it has utilized its PA Semi group…”

(Read Architosh’s article that talked about an Apple touch device in the vertical markets...)

Control, First-Mover Advantage and IP Strengths

When Apple bought PA Semi it gained immediate intellectual property  (IP) strengths. Dan Dobberpuhl, who founded PA Semi was a lead designer for the well-regarded Alpha microprocessor as well as the StrongARM processor. Some speculated that Apple mainly wanted access to the PA Semi patents, not so much the 150 person strong PA Semi team.

As it turns out Dobberpuhl left Apple along with a small contingent of former PA Semi engineers and joined Amarjit Gill, a former principal at PA Semi who founded Silicon Valley start-up Agnilux. That company was since acquired by Google last year. And nobody knew exactly what Agnilux was actually doing, leaving a big mystery behind Google’s intentions.

The ARM processor was already highly involved in the smartphone market so adopting it wasn’t giving Apple any first-mover advantage. But it did come with some additional control since PA Semi had the highest level architectural license with ARM back in the UK. With it they could design their own modified ARM architectures. Apple’s A4 and A5 processors are unique ARM-based chips for Apple, thus the control issue and differentiation which many assumed Apple bought PA Semi for in the first place.

ARM the PCs

Going back to first-mover advantages, moving its personal computer business from Intel x86 over to ARM may or may not have any first-mover advantages for Apple. The Mac mainly competes with Windows. And Microsoft has already announced it is moving Windows to ARM processors. However, Microsoft’s moves are not entirely clear either. They appear to be moving over to ARM for Windows on slates.

Regardless, Apple can likely see the writing is on the wall when it comes to the future of ARM. ARM processors top Intel in the area of power consumption over performance. They are very efficient. ARM also has more momentum than Intel (see this chart over at this Cnet article).

(see this great Wikipedia article on the history of the ARM Architecture here.)

Even Nvidia has announced an ARM-based CPU for future supercomputing and high-end PCs. Nvidia announced at CES 2011 this year that they are taking aim at Intel with “Project Denver.”

And just this week IDC predicted ARM would capture 13 percent of the PC processor market by 2015. That assumes we can still “uniformly differentiate” the PC market from the MID market (mobile internet device market).

The Mac on ARM

So combined with what we know about ARM today, and what those like IDC are predicting about ARM tomorrow, and with a common sense approach to extrapolating Jobsian logic, it would appear more likely than not that Apple has already started the move to ARM for the Mac.

Iterative Design Professionals

The world of architecture is a world of iteration. It starts in architecture school, an indoctrination in the back and forth process of iteration, revision, refinement and finalization. This design process is not unique to architects but architects in today’s practice have particular challenges facing iteration in their field.

What are these challenges?

Quite simply, buildings can be vastly complicated. Even today’s luxury-level custom homes can be remarkably technical and challenging–and architects do struggle to keep their design process rigorous and orderly. The orderly part is there to help them keep track of the myriad decisions, responses and inputs into the architectural design process itself. And Mac OS X Lion will help them do this better.

This Lion Can Walk Backwards

It is routine for architects to create multiple design iterations, as noted above. Once schematic level design settles down into production it is still common for remaining smaller design tasks to go through multiple stages of design change and evolution. And this says nothing about issues that spring up in the field and force architects to revisit previously concluded areas of a building’s design.

Keeping track of all these changes typically forces architects to save and store multiple versions of documents with elaborate file-naming conventions to keep them orderly and meaningful for future search. In comes Mac OS X Lion. The Lion to the rescue!

01 - Mac OS X Lion features Versions. This is a screen shot of Apple's Mac OS X Lion Preview web page. Versions will be very popular with design professionals who iterate highly in their normal course of creative work, saving them stress and time and file directories.

Mac OS X Lion will feature something called Versions at the file disk level. It is essentially Time Machine built into the end user’s experience. And architects are going to be some of the happiest users of this new feature. What Mac OS X Lion does is “record” the evolution of a document as you create it. This will relieve architects (and other similar creatives) from the burden of feeling like they need to track every single major or minor design iteration into a separate “save-as” version–cluttering up directories with files that are essentially only holding small deltas in design differences.

Versions

With “versioning” built in architects can actually change design elements freely and if they want to go back and capture that older design iteration they can use Lion’s Versions to do that. (see screen shot above, image 01). Versions shows you the current document (state of) next to a cascade of previous versions–in an interface similar to Time Machine. You can see how your design work looked at any given time, you can revert entirely back to it or quickly copy and paste work from a previous version into the current version.

Now that last ability with Lion’s Versions is going to be very useful. Say you are an architect and you designed the layout for a master bathroom in a home. Later you developed a more creative approach and moved forward with that layout instead, only to discover that the client seemed to be more interested in features of the design not present in the second design but the one you did earlier. Did you save it? Not likely–as you believed you had created a much better solution.

With Mac OS X Lion you can quickly go back to that previous version and copy and paste all or part of that earlier design into the current design. Walla! Time saved!

To learn more about Mac OS X Lion and other useful features to creatives working under intense time pressure (film, architecture, publishing, etc) daily, visit this page. Lion will also have a feature called Auto Save.

Learn more here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

Alias 2010 Adds to Autodesk’s Growing Mac Design Tools

Since shipping in April of this year, Autodesk Alias Design 2010 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro 2010–part of the solution for Digital Prototyping–have drawn accolades from designers and creative professionals within the Mac community. The 2010 release marks the first time that Alias Design has offered native support for the Mac OS X operating system. 

“Designers from all over the world have given us enthusiastic feedback on the Mac version of Alias Design and SketchBook Pro,” said Samir Hanna, vice president, Digital Factory and Industrial Design, at Autodesk. “We look forward to providing our growing community of Mac users with increased ability to use Autodesk Digital Prototyping software to improve time to market and increase competitive advantage.”

 “With Alias Design now available for Mac OS X, the best designer software now runs on the best designed hardware,” said Joshua Maruska of Teague Design, a pioneer in industrial design.

01 - View of Alias Design on Mac OS X, showing clean interface and wide workspace for this helmut design. Autodesk has dramatically changed its view on Apple and is increasing its development resources for the production of native Mac software.

“SketchBook Pro completely replicates the feel of paper for me and also fits in perfectly with my Mac environment,” said Andrew Meehan of Viacelli, creator of iconic technical illustrations. “I used to scan sketches, clean them up in Photoshop, then save them as jpegs and send them off. Now I just use SketchBook Pro as my integrated ideation center.”

Alias Design software provides consumer product designers with control over the entire design process–from ideation to the final surfaces that are passed to engineering. Designers can rapidly develop and communicate product design concepts using sketches, illustrations, photo-realistic renderings and animations.

Autodesk Leads Key Rivals to Mac Platform

Announced earlier this year at Macworld in San Francisco, Autodesk intends to grow its portfolio of Mac native software for creative and technical professionals. It currently leads several key rivals like SolidWorks and Bentley in making the first moves to address Apple’s resurgent Mac platform. 

To learn more visit: www.autodesk.com

Other Autodesk tools for Mac include, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Mudbox, Autodesk Toxik, Autodesk ImageModeler and Autodesk Stitcher.

Imagine an updated version of this machine in all aluminum.

• All aluminum updated version of the original Macintosh – The product would be a “limited edition” run modern Mac redone that had a full blown emulator of all the classic software available on the original Mac. Part collector’s item, part novelty, part modern computer, such a machine would enable you run the old classic stuff side by side with the modern environment of OS X. Original Macs are collectors items; a special aluminum version would be both a homage to the Mac’s beginnings and to its current success and shiny future! How much could such a machine really fetch?  It depends on the size of the limited run. A 100k limited run might see machines fly off the shelf at very high prices, while a larger limited run at reasonable prices could see it become a “must have” Mac darling for macolytes around the globe. 
• New Mac Pro Ultra -  A dream power machine that would represent the “state-of-the-art” in technical capabilities possible. For starters it wouldn’t ship until Snow Leopard because it would need Grand Central and OpenCL. It would be the fastest computer in the world and hold that title for more than a year. Why? Because the PA Semi guys crafted an amazing energy efficient, multi-core processor based on the Power Architecture for which they hold unique expertise and capability. It would feature not four but eight (8) multi-core processors and run so cool you would think Apple found a way to pack the North Pole into it. It would feature multiple Nvidia Quadro GPU’s (making it the ultimate OpenCL dream machine) and it would come with new multi-touch capable monitors that could be positioned for touch-based drawing and input functionalities or run in conventional stand-up mode. Every engineer, scientist and architect would drool and lust for one. And though very expensive…they would sell like hot cakes! 
• New Mac touch – Back to a more Earth-based dream scenario, what Apple very well might introduce at Macworld Expo this January is the Mac touch. We have written about it here. The multi-touch patents that keep coming up in expanded and more elaborate form are, we think, somehow connected to the very existence of this machine. The Mac touch would be Apple’s answer to the rapid rise in the popularity of Netbooks. It would be very affordable. It would be multi-touch based but have a keyboard like an iPhone has a keyboard. It would make a wonderful media entertainment machine and work beautifully in ruggedized mode for specific industries like medicine and AEC (architecture/engineering/construction). We think the Mac touch has serious legs in verticals that need touch-based computing but today are poorly served by a clunky and worrisome Windows OS infrastructure. They would be much better served by OS X and Apple’s future. 

The Quadra had a special feeling to it. It was the ultimate Macintosh...wouldn't a new ultimate Mac be fitting for a Silver Anniversary?

 

Based on cutting edge Swedish Research, Craft Director Tools is used to help create what the company and industry refer to as process-driven animation, also known as “desktop mocap.” 

Craft Animations

The results of Craft Director Tools are animations based on neural networks, artificial intelligence and autonomous control systems, simulating complex physical behavior of sophisticated moving objects like helicopters, cars in traffic, airplanes and more. 

Craft Director Tools are a series of plugins for Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya and are targeted at various fields such as: Forensics, Previz, Broadcast, and Architecture Visualization. Craft Director Tools vary in price from $129.USD to $599.USD based on the specific plugin you buy. There are 10 total plugins. 

To learn more visit: www.craftanimations.com

(Bob McNeel): Not much that isn’t already available in Rhino Labs. We have a few things we might be showing that aren’t stable enough to post on Labs.

Will you be showing Rhino for Mac OS X?

Yes, Rhino OS X, and hopefully with new advanced rendering, Flamingo 2.0, new Rhino 5 features, Grasshopper, Brazil and a few other things.

What is the status of Mac version of Rhino?

Everything is moving along as expected. We are still getting the core moved over and we are trying to make sure enough of the core is working so that users can get work done — otherwise it won’t get field tested. We don’t want to get distracted right now by the Mac OS X user interface issues. We can deal with that later.

When will you have time to address the Mac user interface?

Hopefully we can start on the UI overhaul in a few months.

AFR: I know the Rhino for OS X beta project has gone better than expected for your company. Clearly there was a big interest in Rhino on OS X. Can you tell me how many beta testers you have thus far?

(Bob McNeel): We have nearly 12,000 beta users so far…and the list is still growing at a good rate.

Are there any key customers of Rhino that are beta testing the Mac version? Do they specifically want to switch to the Mac version once it is done?

About 60% of the beta users are current Rhino users on Windows. I expect most will want to switch. I don’t think we’ll attract many non-Rhino users until we have a real Mac OS X interface.

AFR: How robust will Rhino for the Mac be in terms of third-party support once you get parity between the platforms?

(Bob McNeel): All of our third-party developer support tools are based on what comes with the operating system. We haven’t focused on this issue yet, so I really don’t know how OS X compares to Windows. I do know the development tools are very different but I don’t know if one platform will be more robust than the other. I expect they will be about the same level but very different.

Let’s talk about the new Grasshopper a bit. Has there been any demand for a Mac version of Grasshopper?

Liquid Dream Solutions’ ButterflyNetRender 4.03 is actually two applications shipping in various configurations, from Personal Edition to Pro Studio and Internet Node. The two applications include the BNR Controller (Windows only) and the BNR- Client, which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in several of the configurations. Personal Edition only ships as a Windows product. BNR Standard and Standard Studio, BNR Pro (5 nodes) and BNR Pro (15 nodes) all support Mac OS X clients, in addition to Linux.

To learn more visit them here: http://www.liquiddreamsolutions.com/