After reviewing TurboViewer 2.0, our previous view that Farros was already speaking our language, was further confirmed. It is not just that he is making a bold prediction about the impact of a game-changing device–anyone can do that! But rather that IMSI/Design is clearly showing what they mean by “inflection point” in the CAD industry.

The Key is Immediacy

On a personal note, I’ve been toting around an Apple iPad 2 since it came out. I couldn’t wait to use it as a tool for practicing architecture. I was very excited about what I could possibly do out in the field and what older processes could be replaced by this new tool. I was particularly interested in “speeding up” work flow processes that normally were tied down to limitations in the field or repetition back at the office or both. But here is what I learned: if the new process on the iPad isn’t fast enough to keep up with the old analog process, it doesn’t matter all that much if you are speeding up workflows downstream.

Let me explain it more clearly. Say you typically take field meeting notes on a pad of paper. Then you type up those notes back at the office. Say you often sketch up details and ideas for the client or the contractor as part of those notes on paper. Now you have an iPad. And you want to do all this work directly in the field and not burden yourself with the conversion from analog to digital back at the office. In theory, you should save time. But here is the rub. If the process on the iPad is anywhere more than 25 percent slower than the old analog process, you will not find the reward you are looking for. And if the process needs to keep pace with the flow of meetings, then it must be just as fast as analog or faster.

As it turns out, not a lot of iOS apps for AEC professionals meet this criteria yet. They offer streamlining by “everywhere access” and elimination of “double data entry” back at the office, but if you can’t keep up with others or an existing workflow it doesn’t matter how great the tool is–eventually you will stop using it.

Why TurboViewer Pro Succeeds

Given that criteria then, the reason why TurboViewer and TurboViewer Pro succeed as top notch tools in the new mobile app space is this: They are simple viewers that provide the market with CAD file viewing needs that normally have been served with mobile laptops. But they exceed laptops because they view the data faster, provide easier mobility, and also provide unique “one-of-a-kind” viewing experiences.

01 - Pixar's Wall-E robot is the star of this CAD file. The Views menu is shown in TurboViewer Pro 2.0. Selecting a view choice switches to that saved view.

Let’s start with the uniqueness factor. With TurboViewer and its Pro sister app you have the power to spin 3D models around effortlessly with your finger tip. It is like having the object in your hand. The combination of Apple’s Multi-touch user-interface and CAD/3D is wonderful when it is delivered this smoothly. And it is very smooth! Take the Wall-E.dwg file shown in the image above. (see image 01). TurboViewer Pro gives you an excellent Views menu with easy to understand icons and viewing options. It is so easy to reach out and touch the object on the screen and start spinning little Wall-E around.

If you get to where you have lost control and spun the model around in a way you don’t like (sometimes that can happen) you simply re-choose a typical view from the Views menu. (image 01) From there you have the option of axon, and all the various sides of an object. And with the Pro version you get Perspective options as well, giving you preconfigured lens starting at 28mm Landscape mode up to 50mm Object mode. (see image 03)

02 - Visual styles are available and the Pro version features X-ray mode, which is very useful for architecture urban design model files. You also have Perspective as an option.

03 - In the Pro version you have "Perspective" in addition to side and axon views. Camera options are available, including Custom.

Other unique things that are not so easy to do in a CAD application on a laptop are the simple way you can switch to various visual styles. You can easily toggle between line view, hidden line view, X-ray mode, shaded openGL and more. The X-ray mode is particularly cool for buildings; SketchUp users in particular with be at home with this viewing method. (see images 02)

next page: Other Details & Closing Comments

With the ability to import Creo Parametric (formerly known as Pro/ENGINEER®) data into KeyShot on both PC and Mac operating systems, Luxion will support PTC customer needs. Luxion also offers a plug-in that provides a dynamic link between Creo Parametric and KeyShot. This plug-in is available to all KeyShot customers free of charge on www.keyshot.com.

In addition, Luxion offers a free plug-in for all Creo customers that will connect Creo directly with KeyShot.

01 - Sample rendering with KeyShot by Luxion.

KeyShot is available for both PC and Mac operating systems; KeyShot 2.3 is available for immediate download

For more information on Luxion

The new import filters allow sailmakers to make use of TouchCAD’s special image unfolding features. TouchCAD allows the user to apply high resolution images on any 3D shape, and automatically translate and transform the image into a ready to print in-scale unfolded image.

01 - TouchCAD can support the import of 3D sail file formats.

The unfolded image is deformed on a pixel level, over any number of panels with absolute edge to edge fit between the panels. The image unfolds come out nested panels, that matches the vector based equivalent.

Supported Formats

There are several supported forms for TouchCAD’s 3D sail feature. These include:

• Sails Science ASC 3D format
• Quantum Sails Spinnaker – now supports spinnakers to TouchCAD via DXF
• Sail Pack Mouldslize XYZ
• Azur can be imported via DXF
• North Sails PAN files
• Autometrix VRML files
• Prosail VRML files
• XYZ Point Clouds in ASC format

The company has a tutorial movie that shows the procedures for mapping images on sails. You can view that here.

TouchCAD’s image unfolding features can also be used for other uses, including tents, awnings, inflatables, exhibition signs, etc. To see examples go here.

AEC Infosystems is an ArchiCAD value-added reseller serving the middle Atlantic region of the US.

Abvent’s New Artlantis Studio – Details

French-based Abvent has been producing Artlantis for years as one of the premier easy-to-use, full-featured rendering programs focused on the needs of architectural professionals. Architosh has covered the Artlantis Road Show in detail in this feature report. There are several images and animations showcasing what the latest Artlantis software can produce.

01 - Artlantis can produce still renderings, animations, and QuickTimeVR panorama and object movies so you can fully immerse yourself inside your creation. The software features plugins for ArchiCAD, Revit and Vectorworks so users can model in their BIM software and then move their models to Artlantis simply for rendering. There is round-trip functionality that enables you to alter the model back in the BIM software and then bring it back to Artlantis without losing valuable rendering settings.

The Road Show features two types of events, including both paid and free. The free event features a general overview session on the Artlantis program and its capabilities, including how it works with other leading BIM/CAD programs such as ArchiCAD, Revit or Vectorworks. The paid sessions are training oriented, open to anyone but ideally suited for advancing the capabilities of existing Artlantis users.

Next up on the Road Show stops are:

• 02 June 2011 – Washington DC: 12:30 – 2:00 PM
• 03 June 2011 – Alexandria, VA: 9:30 – 11:00 AM
• 04 June 2011 – Alexandria, VA: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
• 06 June 2011 – Philadelphia: 2:30 – 4:00 PM
• 07 June 2011 – Baltimore: 9:00 – 10:30 AM

To see the whole schedule for more details and to sign up go here and click on schedule on the left.

Artlantis Render 3.0 and Artlantis Studio 3 are some of the most capable software programs in their respective class and they are designed specifically for the visual needs of architectural professionals. Yet the French company behind the software has at times taken a somewhat laissez-faire approach toward the giant US market. This is about to change.

Road Show Details

AFR (Anthony Frausto-Robledo): What is the “Road Show” about? Why is Abvent and Objects Online doing this event now?

Chris Stringer, GM (CS): The Road Show is about showcasing Artlantis, a world-class rendering and animation software. It’s about getting the message out to the US market that Artlantis has the best combination of rendering and animation features available for architects, in an easy-to-use but powerful formula and that it works seamlessly with all the major CAD platforms, including Autodesk Revit, ArchiCAD, Vectorworks and others.

This is an example of the type of animation you can produce in Abvent’s Artlantis 3 Studio. Video courtesy of Abvent / Objects Online.

The Road Show will help us establish closer ties with our reseller network, bring in current customers for further training to make sure they are using the program’s full features to their advantage, and help us spread the word more about Artlantis’ great capabilities.

AFR: What kinds of things will the Road Show offer architects and designers? What will they learn?

CS: We are focusing on two types of events. The first event is the demo event which will present a detailed and captivating overview of Artlantis to the architectural community. There will also be an opportunity for questions and answers so architects can learn just how easy it is for Artlantis to fit into their design workflow and what advantages it offers.

The second event is longer and involves hands-on training for our current customers. Though it could also be valuable for advanced rendering users who are just starting with Artlantis. We will go through four to five exercises covering key elements on Artlantis, from setting up scenes, to working with textures and objects, to lighting and to economizing models.

About Artlantis

AFR: What do you feel are some of the best features in Artlantis Studio in the latest release?

CS: I would say that Artlantis has always been built on the strength of its preview render window. You always had that immediate interaction between changes to your scene and the results of those changes. You can drop in people, trees, change textures, lights, et cetera and right there in the preview window you get instant results.

AFR: This with Radiosity too?

CS: Yes, you have Artlantis’ superb Radiosity engine results…right there in the preview window. This is what makes Artlantis unique in the market.

AFR: Do you have to use Radiosity? Can you use another lighting method for even faster results?

Chris Stringer (CS): You don’t have to use Radiosity, but using it gives superior results, due in part to the way it now automatically balances light levels, much like the human eye does. You can use the faster global illumination engine instead, but you have to set up your lighting levels differently if you intend to create final renderings using that engine. The difference in quality is dramatic, though, and most users will probably prefer Radiosity. The expert rendering parameters give users the ability to create faster, lower-quality Radiosity renderings before it comes time to create the final renderings. There are also some new built-in post-processing rendering filters that generate some of the same quality effects offered in image-editing applications like Photoshop.

AFR: What are the system requirements like with Artlantis? Can you get great results with moderate-level Mac and Windows machines?

Next page: Continued more about Artlantis in detail and the Road Show

Maxon reported an earnings increase of 23.3 percent in 2010 compared to 2009’s results, marking unprecedented growth and market penetration. The company is celebrating its 25 years in business.

Award Winning CINEMA 4D Package Leads Results

A major factor impacting Maxon’s strong results was the reorganization of the company’s award-winning, professional 3D software application, CINEMA 4D. The new product portfolio makes it easier for re-sellers and customers to select the best product suited for their industry needs. Maxon has also done exceptionally well increasing the number of Maxon Service Agreements (MSA) among its user base, with nearly a third of all customers electing for annual licensing, which includes all updates at no charge.

01 - An image from Maxon's Architectural Reel

Uwe Bärtels, Managing Director and co-founder of MAXON, noted, “The standout results are even more significant given that MAXON’s price structure remained practically unchanged last year. MAXON continues to view our customers as partners and strives to assess and anticipate their digital creative experiences. Delivering top-quality products and excellent service at a fair price is a winning combination that is favorably fueling our growth from a product and financial standpoint as we continue into 2011.”

Hollywood Loves Maxon

Over the past 25 years Maxon has evolved into a major software developer serving film and special effects studios around the world. Hollywood’s biggest names–like Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney ABC Studios, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, MTV and Pixar Animation Studios, to name a few–all rely on CINEMA 4D in their production pipelines.

Maxon sells CINEMA 4D and its related products through resellers in over 80 countries, from its headquarters in Germany. In 2011 Maxon will be opening its 5th international office, this time in Singapore, Asia. It will join the ranks of Maxon’s other international offices in the USA, Great Britain, Japan and France.

Maxon’s parent company, Nemetschek AG, of Germany–the same parent company of Graphisoft Inc. and Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc.–is pleased with Maxon’s 2010 results. Ernst Homolka, CEO, Nemetschek AG commented, “Maxon’s record turnover in 2010 is a strong indication that the company’s strategy and groundbreaking technologies will continue to track towards profitability, reflecting positively on Nemetschek’s planned growth for 2011.”

To learn more visit them here.

During the event we tweeted key comments during both of their talks on our Architosh Twitter feed. You can revisit that now here.

Huw Roberts

Huw Roberts AIA is an architect who has been with Bentley for many years now. He has a deep understanding of practice and its many forms and orientations. He also understands the many challenges all AEC firms face in a global economy where practice is increasingly complex and often geographically dispersed.

01 - Huw Roberts AIA of Bentley, speaking at Smartgeometry 2011 Copenhagen.

During his talk he mentioned that Bentley is the world’s largest software company dedicated to all of the AEC market. Bentley has a diverse product portfolio that goes far beyond building design and engineering to civil and plant design, facilities and more. They are the world’s number one software company for structural engineering solutions. And the company’s annual revenue is now at half billion US dollars.

One of the more interesting things Huw said was that Bentley spends up to 20 percent of its annual revenue on research and development. And Generative Components is not actually apart of that figure. Generative Components, he said, is actually free software and therefore is placed outside those figures. Certainly there is ongoing R&D for GC as well but there was no mention of a dollar figure.

Why GC? Why Smartgeometry Conference?

Huw explained that the company is invested in advancing Generative Components because as a product it aligns with the company’s overall visions for innovation. And Bentley is interested in “open information…sharing data.” And the types of projects and problems firms around the world are facing and using GC to solve critically inform Bentley’s full line of software solutions. Generative Components dovetails with Bentley’s software for architects and engineers and Huw noted that going forward it will continue to inform and impact the development of other products.

Huw said the company is doing “syndicated development” projects, whereby Bentley works in a co-op way with major firms or institutions in addressing new challenges through software. Today the company is working on a $24 billion ultimate integration project. And this summer the company will be introducing something they call Model Documentation.

Generative Components is advanced 3D software for design that goes beyond just complex geometry creation or solving. It enables designers to capture and define relationships, set up rules and algorithms, and iterate using numerical methods and rule-based interdependencies.

In a slide Huw showed a building with a complex steel frame holding up a skylight system. Bentley created an algorithm that addressed two inter-related issues and setup a relationship. One issue was that of energy loss (heat gain/loss) through the skylight, while the other issue was that of steel weight. The last issue affects cost directly for the structure. The first issue affects operations costs. How do architects design so that they can solve both sets of problems simultaneously? (see image 01)

02 - Makai Smith, who heads up Generative Components at Bentley gave an engaging talk. In this slide he shows an architecture from form say 1970 and compares it to one today. Not much has changed, he contends. The future of practice will need to change the formation of firms.

Huw said these are the types of problems the technology in Bentley’s product suites address, and will continue to address in more complexity.

Finally, Smartgeometry is something Bentley has been very proud to be involved in and sponsoring for many years. The conference frames and addresses many of the most technically challenging AEC problems in the world, using the latest computational research and practice methodologies. GC is a key component tool for those participating in Smartgeometry.

Next page > Makai’s Talk, Future of GC

Electric Image Animation System Version 9

The new company behind EIAS is aggressively planning the biggest update to the 3D suite in a long time. Some key new items included a full 64-bit, multi-treaded, multi-platform EIAS Camera 9. EIAS Animator 9 will also have a new 3D model import system, and there is a new EIAS 9 Developer Kit for plugin and shader developers. EIAS Renderama 9 will also have improvements. The new company is also now selling, supporting and developing the Konkeptoine Tools, a series of plugins and shader plugins.

With all this change comes a new website for Electric Image Animation System, including a built-in online store where you can purchase or upgrade to EIAS v.8 (895.USD new) or obtain plugins.

02 - Electric Image Animation Systesm v8. Screen shot sample.

Exact dates for the new Electric Image Animation System 9 release have not been made clear but Architosh will follow this development closely. To learn more visit: http://www.eias3d.com/

01 - The new EIAS logo. It's very cool!

“Vue 9 includes a wide array of new features and performance improvements for creating Digital Nature scenery with more precision and power than ever before,” said Nicholas Phelps, President of e-on Software. “We believe our valued customers will find that Vue 9 continues to set the pace as the leading Digital Nature solution across the many diverse markets we serve including architecture, animation, special effects, broadcast, art and illustration, and scientific.”

You can check out many of the new features in three YouTube videos here:

• Flicker Reduction – video here
• Animated EcoSystems – video here
• Relighting – video here

01 - The new Vue 9 series of 3D software packages for Mac and Windows.

To learn more about Vue 9 series 3D products visit them online here: www.e-onsoftware.com

New Technology – New Product Names

“We’ve changed the format of our product names for our latest release which reflects our goal to continue offering enhanced new functionality to our customers,” said David Forrester, Manager Director of Lightworks. “We already know how important new features are to customers and our new Perceptual Tone Mapper and Real-time Image Based Lighting will be of tremendous benefit to them as they strive to add that extra touch of realism to their work.”

01 - Example of Image Based Lighting in Real-Time, with Lightworks Author 2011.

The key developments in Lightworks Author 2011 include:

• Perceptual Tone Mapper – This latest shader technology closely mimics the action of the human eye in converting the real-world luminance levels calculated by Lightworks Global Illumination (GI) to those which can be displayed and viewed on a computer screen.
• Image Based Lighting – Support for environmental lights in image based lighting has been added to the Lightworks Real time product.

To learn more about all the new technology in Lightworks Author 2011 visit them online here.

“Today’s release marks a significant milestone in the development of Maxon’s professional 3D software and is a testament to more than two decades of programming excellence,” remarked Harald Schneider, CEO and co-founder of Maxon Computer. “Our development team made every effort to bring customer requested features that are easy to use, stable powerful.”

Key New Features

• Powerful New Dynamics: Release 12 introduces a comprehensive and easy to use rigid body dynamics system based on the production-proven Bullet engine.
• Enhanced Rendering Features: Linear workflow and color profiles, IES lights, True Units of Measure, Render Queue and Picture Viewer. In particular C4D R12’s new Picture Viewer includes full-screen playback, a histogram display and navigator.
• New Character Tools – Inverse Kinematics (IK) system featuring new dynamics properties.
• New Deformers
• Python – Extensive support of powerful Python language now fully integrated into C4D R12
• OpenGL 3 and new Architectural Shaders and a parametric spline L-system

New Product LineUp

“The product line reorganization is a practical step that gives all customers, from hobbyist to studio professional, clear choices when deciding on the features they need to deliver high impact, creative results,” said Paul Babb, CEO of Maxon USA.

The new CINEMA 4D Editions include the following:

• CINEMA 4D Prime – New core professional 3D graphics package that includes all the basic modeling, animation and rendering functionality. Release 12 now includes Ambient Occlusion and many deformers formerly found in the MOCCA and MoGraph modules.
• CINEMA 4D Broadcast – Builds on Prime and offers a powerhouse of features and toolsets for broadcast design professionals. This edition includes functionality previously included in MoGraph module, GI rendering and features an extensive library of objects, materials and presets.
• CINEMA 4D Visualize – The professional solution for architects and designers. This version includes all the functionality of the previous Architecture and Engineering Editions, such as Advanced Render, Sketch and Toon, Net Render 3 module plus extensive object and material libraries for these professionals.
• CINEMA 4D Studion – This is the most comprehensive edition and includes everything from Broadcast and Visualize editions.
• BodyPaint 3D R12 – 3D Painting, Texturing and UV Editing package. BodyPaint 3D Release 12 benefits from all the new developments of its sister application, CINEMA 4D Prime, to offer a full complement of 3D painting and texturing tools unmatched by any other package on the market. New features in Release 12 include color profiles, the option to render Ambient Occlusion into a texture, and the Cineman connection to RenderMan including preview renders directly inside BodyPaint 3D. It also boasts updated exchanges with 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage and LightWave 3D

A product comparison chart is available here. System requirements for the Mac OS X platform include OS X 10.5.8 or higher on Intel-based Macs, 1024 MB of RAM and DVD ROM drive. Contact a Maxon distributor for pricing, availability and upgrade paths.

KeyShot 2 is built on Luxion’s production-proven interactive realtime raytracing and global illumination technology. Now even faster, KeyShot 2 breaks down the complexity of creating photographic images from 3D models. Key new features in KeyShot 2 include:

• Drag and Drop import of digital data
• Scene tree for better scene management
• Library for all assets (materials, environments, textures, backplates and renderings) with drag and drop capabilities
• Interactive material and environmental adjustments with realtime feedback
• Dynamic camera interaction with precise position control

There are also several new rendering improvements and capabilities including:

• Unlimited label placement on any material
• Ligt emitting materials with intensity, color and appearance control
• Ground caustics without need for a physical plane
• Merging of previously saved scenes with current scene

Performance improvements include 50 percent faster renders. The program has been optimized to run even faster on Macs and PCs without the need for special graphics cards. KeyShot is 50 percent faster than HyperShot.

KeyShot has been optimized for round-trip fidelity between itself and Pro/ENGINEER. Models can be re-imported from ProE and previously made material assignments are maintained.

To learn more visit Luxion online here: http://www.luxion.com/

PixPlant 2 for Mac is software application for generating seamless 3D textures for your visualization needs. Based on photos you can easily generate seamless, repeatable 3D textures for your 3D modeling and rendering needs. PixPlant comes in a standalone application for Windows and Mac and a Photoshop add-on plugin for Windows. PixPlant 2 for Mac OS X is 195.USD. To learn more visit this page.

T-Splines News

T-Splines has announced a new partnership between RhinoCAM and itself. The two companies have partnered to provide best-in-class surface modeling and machining solutions, all inside Rhino 3D. RhinoCAD is a powerful, easy-to-use, and affordable machining program. There is afree webinar on this topic on July 21 (register here).

Also the company has announced five new T-Spline videos.

Lightworks at SIGGRAPH

Lightworks, the world’s leading supplier of rendering software solutions to application developers in the 3D computer graphics industry, will be presenting a paper at the SIGGRAPH Conference later in July.

Manuel Gamito, one of the company’s developers, will be presenting the paper at this year’s event in Los Angeles. The SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Conference is renowned for being the leading conference in its field and Lightworks is delighted that Manuel will be taking part in this important event. His paper, entitled, “Accurate Multi-Dimensional Poisson-Disk Sampling” is co-authored with Steve Maddock from the University of Sheffield, UK, and presents research on techniques for increasing the performance of Global Illumination and Anti-Aliasing processes in real-world situations.

Manuel commented: “The technique that I will be presenting has already been implemented in the new rendering software that Lightworks is developing. It addresses the efficient generation of Poisson-disk sample distribution in a space, with any number of dimensions.”

To learn more visit this page.

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.

New items include Blurred Reflections. With Blurred Reflections you assign reflections to a face or faces that are blurred. With SU Podium’s “normal” reflections, faces will directly reflect surrounding geometry and textures. If however you apply blurred reflections to a face the reflections will be subtle and less “glossy”. This new feature can help you soften reflections on objects whose materials are less glossy but still highly reflective. 

Podium 1.7 includes Podium Wizard, which has two functions. One function is to check the SketchUp model for the number of reflective faces, lights (LEM) and omni lights that exist in the model. The other function is to reset the model so that all reflective faces, LEDs, and omni lights are deleted from the model. This beta update for SU Podium 1.7 is for Windows only but the Mac version will be coming shortly. 

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

EIAS v8 – Key Items

The famous software that made numerous key moments possible in movies such as Star Wars and Terminator, is now at its 8th major version. Well regarded for its rendering speeds and render quality, EIAS v8 has several new features and key technology which is summarized below:

• The biggest upgrade in 10 years
• Area lights
• Photon mapping
• Light objects
• Fast Software Shadows in rendering
• Environmental Rotoscopes
• Workflow improvements, including texturing and weight map painting improvements
• New plug-ins and shaders and much more. 

Dusseldorf Hafen at Night, created by Markus Groeteke, copyright, EI technology Group LLC.

EIAS v8 is now shipping for both Mac Universal Binary (PowerPC and Intel Macs) and for Windows 2000/XP/Vista. Upgrade pricing starts at 395.USD. And the full new version is 895.USD. 

For more information visit them on the web at: www.eitechnologygroup.com

With ZBrush 3.12b, Pixologic continues to demonstrate its commitment to meeting the demands of 3D production artists in film, television, games, pre-visualization as well as concept design. This important update contains many optimizations and feature enhancements for the previously released ZBrush 3.12. The update is free to all registered ZBrush users on Mac OS X and can be downloaded now. 

A Mac ZBrush demo will also be available shortly, the company says. 

To learn more visit them at: www.pixologic.com

Houdini 10

Houdini 10 is the first commercially available software to slice up and distribute fluid simulations over a network of computers. 3D artists will benefit from faster simulation times and the ability to create super-sized and scaled simulations. 

“The ability to slice up and distribute fluid sims lets studios assign a smaller memory load to each computer in the simulation farm” says Cristin Barghiel, Director of Product Development, Side Effects. “At the same time, they can take advantage of multi-threading on each node to make things run even faster.”

Such simulations can be integrated into existing pipelines or distributed to work with HQueue, a new python-based job manager which can also distribute Mantra renderings. HQueue is initially being released by Side Effects Software for just Linux as a free public beta, but planned releases for for July 2009 will see it come to both Mac OS X and Windows systems. The new HQueue will be a free add-on to Houdini Escape and Houdini Master licensees. 

Also new in Houdini 10 include the new Pyro FX tools that enable smoke and fire effects. A new res-up technology enables users to plan out shots with fire and smoke effects at lower resolutions and then scale up at final render times. A listing of some of the best new features follows:

• Motion FX gives artist-friendly access to procedural channel operators (CHOPS) to enable advanced motion capabilities
• Improved Network Usability
• Physically Based Rendering (PBR) in Houdini’s multi-threaded shading language
• Deep Camera Maps, which makes it possible to render volumes and objects into separate passes then combine them perfectly later
• Rigid Body Solver
• Houdini’s cloth solver – can be used to simulate crumpling and tearing of dentable and elastic surfaces
• Wire solver now supports Parting
• New Knife and Edge Loop modeling tools
• And more…

The company will be demonstrating its new plugin at GDC 2009 Chalk Talk session titled, “New COLLADA I/O Plugin for modo 401.” Presented by Luxology’s David Vasquez, the session will take place at the Intel Visual Adrenaline Lounge from 1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 26.

“There should be no barriers between different applications in a 3D workflow,” says Brad Peebler, president and founder of Luxology. “With our new COLLADA support, modo users will enjoy a transparent workflow that allows them to preserve crucial attributes of 3D files both into and out of modo.”

COLLADA is an open-source, XML-based file format for 3D content creation tools and forms a rival exchange format to Autodesk’s FBX. It is widely used in streamlining mixed-application 3D workflows (also known as pipelines in the VFX industry). 

To learn more visit Luxology here.