Tidbits: ArchiCAD, 3D camera for iPhone, ATI Radeon news

3D Camera for iPhone and iPod touch

Juicy Bits released an update to its 3D camera this month that takes advantage of iOS 4 and the Retina Display on the new iPhone 4. 3D Camera is an app that makes it easy to create 3D photos and share them with friends on Facebook or Twitter. 3D Camera, which earned 4.5 mice (out of five) from Macworld magazine is one of the top 100 photography apps worldwide.

To create 3D images left and right photos are captured using the built-in camera on the Apple devices. The software does the rest to align the images and create the 3D images. 3D Camera creates stereogram images that are viewed without glasses (parallel and cross-eyed) and “wigglegram” images that produce a simulated 3D effect. To learn more visit them online here.

ArchiCAD Training Events

Graphisoft has numerous ArchiCAD 14 training events coming up in France and Austria. Here’s a brief schedule:

• Free ArchiCAD training, Vienna, Austria – Jan 10, 2011.
• Free ArchiCAD training, France, Jan 11, 2011.
• Free Artlantis training, France, Jan 11, 2011.
• ArchiCAD Basic Training, Austria, Jan 11-13, 2011.

Click here to link over to these events and register.

ArchiCAD 14 Released for Switzerland

Graphisoft has also announced that the Swiss version of ArchiCAD 14 has been released. This marks the 26th localized version of the leading BIM software application. To learn more about the Swiss version visit: www.idc.ch/archicad

Macs Only Tests ATI Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Card

The website Macs Only has a test review of the latest ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards, comparing it to the EVGA GeForce (Nvidia-based) card in a 2008 Mac Pro. This is an interesting article for those of you out there that have older Mac Pro hardware and are curious about ATI’s latest GPUs for Mac Pros.

01 - Apple's latest Mac Pros can utilize ATI's ultra fast Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards, but so can older Mac Pros.

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 is the fastest graphics card currently available for a Mac Pro and are shipping options for the current 2010 Mac Pro workstations. The HD 5870 comes with 1 GB of ultra fast GDDR5 memory, which is actually faster memory than the memory shipping in the expensive Nvidia Quadro card options for the Mac Pros. The card works on older Mac Pros but readers should verify their exact requirements with information on the Apple website.

The Maxon Cinebench and Xbench OpenGL scores are interesting. The HD 5870 is not terribly faster than the EVGA GeForce card, which features 1 GB of slower DDR3 memory. The speed improvement is faster however, ranging from OpenGL score improvements from 19-44 percent faster. To read the full article go here.