Tidbits: SIGGRAPH 2014 news bits, plus Nemetschek and Graphisoft items

SIGGRAPH News from UpFront

Ralph Grabowski writing over at UpFront.ezine has some interesting notes on SIGGRAPH Vancouver, which is in, basically, Ralph’s backyard, Canadian terrority-wise. Ralph opens his latest eZine with a quote from Lorde, the music group:

“Everyone’s competing for the love they won’t receive.”

That is the lead-in to the fact that three years ago at SIGGRAPH the news was about the emerging market for 3D TVs. That never quite happened. These days, Ralph writes, the action is all in mobile with a focus on gaming and entertainment. The big GPU chipmakers were all at SIGGRAPH including ARM, Imagination Technologies (by the way both of these two companies have had investment backing from Apple at some point in their history and Apple currently works with them), Nvidia and Qualcomm. Intel of course is also a player but a more minor one in this space.

Visualizer for SketchUp

Imagination Technology was showing off their new Visualizer, a SketchUp ray-tracing add-on that goes for 20.USD and if you haven’t noticed the company is currently advertising this product now on Architosh. The company reports to Grabowski that they were surprised their biggest customer for Visualizer is architects.

To read more of Ralph Grabowski’s news items from SIGGRAPH visit here: http://www.upfrontezine.com/2014/upf-827.htm

Graphisoft Pushes Out Android Update

Early this month Graphisoft announced that they have released their award-winning mobile app BIMx Docs for Android devices. The latest BIMx Docs for Android hosts the same functionality as their iOS version, but with a simplified license structure:

• There is only one app available to download, which is free and opens Hyper-models in demo mode (3D only)
• The full BIMx Docs functionality (for a limited number of models) can be purchased inside the app for 50.USD

To learn more about BIMx Docs for Android visit here.

Nemetschek says buy Vectorworks 2014 and get Vectorworks 2015 Free

Nemetschek Vectorworks is clearly getting close to its annual update period. The company is saying that those who buy Vectorworks 2014 today and going forward will also get version 2015 free when it is released. This offer is not valid after 15 September 2014. That is likely the time version 2015 will be available in some markets.

This offer is only valid for new users and not available to those who are upgrading from previous versions. It is also only available in the United States.

Users can call 888-646-4223 or email them here for more information.