CADalyst articles from December 2004

CADalyst archives from December 2004

Correction.(Correction Notice)
December 1, 2004... In the November issue we inadvertently forgot to list the author of Hot Tip Harry Tip #1991, Line to Wall. A thank you and an apology goes out to the author, Justin Werner.

One is not enough: Graphisoft rounds out building model with construction model.(plans of Graphisoft U.S. Inc. )
December 1, 2004... This month, Graphisoft plans to expand into the construction software market with a set of products for construction modeling, model-based estimating, and sequencing. The plan is more ambitious than the typical new product launch--Graphisoft...

Rebuilding Iraq: ESRI and Bentley help clean the water.(Tech Trends)(Bentley Systems Inc., Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
December 1, 2004... Much of the world's focus today is on war-torn Iraq. Newspapers and airwaves are awash in stark images of warfare and destruction. With sweeping photos of destroyed buildings topping nightly news broadcasts, it's hard to imagine how some of...

Premier products: Cadalyst's top picks for the second half of 2004.
December 1, 2004... Once again we undertake our semiannual search for the top products of the preceding six months. Candidates for Editors' Wow! awards are drawn from the many new product announcements we receive each day, augmented by what we find on display at...

NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400.(All-Stars Awards)
December 1, 2004... In our first look at graphics cards based on the new PCI Express standard (October, p. 26), the most impressive entrant was a midrange card that retails for around $650. With benchmark scores more in line with those turned in by high-end cards,...

COSMOSWorks.(All-Stars Awards)
December 1, 2004... COSMOSWorks from SolidWorks exemplifies the ongoing trend toward analysis for the desktop--tools that integrate directly with CAD software so designers can run quick design checks and what-if simulations as they work. COSMOSWorks performs FEA...

Dell Precision M60 Mobile Workstation.(All-Stars Awards)
December 1, 2004... Relatively few vendors are brave enough to enter the mobile workstation arena, where constraints on size, weight, and battery life amplify the challenge of maximizing CAD performance. The top performer in our July roundup (p. 17) was the Dell...

@Xi Systems 3600E MTower Workstation.(All-Stars Awards)
December 1, 2004... Perennial prize-winner @Xi Computer once again gets the glory for its 3600E MTower. It's hard to beat a system that delivers both the highest performance figures and the lowest price--$3,499--in our November roundup of single-processor...

MicroStation V8 2004 Edition.(All-Stars Awards)
December 1, 2004... The latest version of MicroStation, V8 2004 Edition (July, p. 26), is not on the same level of technological revolution as other releases, but it incorporates many of the elements we've come to expect and admire in MicroStation updates....

Vrcontext Walkinside.(Editor's Wow! Awards)
December 1, 2004... VRcontext's Walkinside (contact company for pricing) is a design review tool for the energy, plant, and manufacturing segments, but its value extends beyond that to serve as a training tool for production, maintenance, and HSE departments as...

AutoVue SolidModel Professional v18.(Editor's Wow! Awards)
December 1, 2004... AutoVue SolidModel Professional v18 from Cimmetry Systems takes viewer technology to the next level by implementing what the company calls digital mockup capabilities, with which you can display several files, in different formats, in the same...

AMC GPS2CAD.(Editor's Wow! Awards)
December 1, 2004... AMC's GPS2CAD v3 ($345) is a handy, low-cost way to survey a site using a handheld GPS unit. Enter waypoints at the site into your GPS receiver, then connect to your computer, download the points, and plot them in AutoCAD. You can overlay...

Sharp Actius RD3D AutoStereo notebook computer.(Editor's Wow! Awards)
December 1, 2004... 3D without the funky glasses is the promise of the Sharp Actius RD3D AutoStereo notebook computer ($2,999). A button toggles between 2D and 3D display. To create viewable 3D images, you need special software such as that included with the...

GeoPraxis Green Building Studio.(Editor's Wow! Awards)
December 1, 2004... One of the more polished applications to take advantage of the building information model created by such applications as Graphisoft ArchiCAD and Autodesk Revit is Green Building Studio from GeoPraxis. This free Web site conducts building...

GEOMATE's ToleranceCalc.(Editor's Wow! Awards)
December 1, 2004... GEOMATE's ToleranceCalc v3 offers tolerance analysis tools for the eminently affordable price of $95 per seat. Its minimalist interface presents four tabs through which you access a variety of powerful analysis tools for stack-up and...

IntelliRoof, IntelliWall.(Editor's Wow! Awards)
December 1, 2004... DSI Digital impressed us at the AIA Convention with its IntelliRoof and IntelliWall software for AutoCAD. These products are designed for metal roof trussing, wood framing and trussing, tilt-up construction, concrete and masonry construction,...

Search engines for sketches.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Finding data in drawings has always been limited by the text-based nature of most search engines. If it's not text, it won't be found. Various entities are working on a solution in the form of sketch-based search engines. You simply draw what...

3D format frenzy: options for publishing 3D models.(cadalyst labs review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Although the basic premise behind all of the applications included in this article is essentially the same--providing a way to publish 3D data--the approaches vary tremendously, showing the diversity and vigor in this particular segment of the...

How we tested.(cadalyst labs review)(Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks 2005)
December 1, 2004... To test the applications, we selected model files that represent production work that Cadalyst readers might deal with on a daily basis. The selected files were all moderately complex, although not so much so that they would bring the most...

Spinfire Pro 2004 v2.(new engineering software from Actify Inc.)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... Actify Price: $499, specific CAD importers $99-$599 415.227.3800 www.actify.com Actify's SpinFire Professional 2004 v2 is designed to make CAD data more easily accessible to both technical and nontechnical users, providing...

ModelPress.(new software from Informative Graphics Corp.)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... Informative Graphics Corp. Price: Free 800.398.7005 / 602.971.6061 www.infograph.com During the course of producing this article, Informative Graphics Corp. released v4.3 of its ModelPress software. ModelPress and its...

Studio, PlayerPro, WebMaster, NoteBook.(Lattice3D, n engineering software)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... Lattice3D Price: Contact company 650.623.0891 www.lattice3d.com Lattice3D is an enterprise-level solution for sharing 3D design data. It encompasses a variety of applications that provide different services so that users can...

PDFs go 3D with Adobe Acrobat 7 professional.(cadalyst labs review)(Portable Document Format)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... While there is much to like about Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional, including enhanced functionality for users of Microsoft Outlook, the most popular addition among CAD and engineering users will be the ability to include 3D graphics in Adobe's PDF...

Raider3D collaboration & publication suite.(a software from OKYZ)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... OKYZ Price: $1600 Raider3D Capture, $700 Live, $400 Publish, Free Viewer 240.674.5547 www.okyz.com Among the diverse 3D publishing applications included in this article, OKYZ is unique in how it creates files. Instead of...

Notes3D.(QuadriSpace Corp.)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... QuadriSpace Corp. Price: $495 972.359.6700 www.quadrispace.com QuadriSpace Corp. offers a range of applications geared toward publishing, distributing, and sharing 3D data. The Document3D Suite includes Notes3D, Publisher3D,...

Deep Exploration.(a software from Right Hemisphere)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... Right Hemisphere Price: $149 Deep Exploration, $495 CADtools, $595 CoreCAD, $595 Illustration, $149 Deep Publish 510.818.2880 www.righthemisphere.com Deep Exploration is a stand-alone application used to manage 2D, 3D,...

HP Remote Graphics compresses 3D data for network transmission.(cadalyst labs review)
December 1, 2004... Another method for sharing 3D data is Hewlett-Packard's Remote Graphics, which transmits 2D and 3D images across standard computer networks to remote users. Users can interact with the desktop and applications as if they were working on them...

SolidWorks Office Professional.(new drawing software from SolidWorks Corp.)
December 1, 2004... SolidWorks Corp. Price: $5,495 (includes modeling program) 800.693.9000 www.solidworks.com We typically think of SolidWorks as a capable and sophisticated solid modeling application, but it's also easy to produce...

TurboCAD Professional v10.2: all-purpose CAD program appeals to the cost-conscious.(cadalyst labs review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... TURBOCAD PROFESSIONAL IS ONE of many applications on the market that strive to be CAD Swiss Army knives. It handles both 2D and 3D as well as nongraphic tasks such as pricing and scheduling. It also provides application-specific tools for...

Eizo FlexScan l885: 20.1" LCD monitor.(first look reviews)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... THE FLEXSCAN L885 FROM Eizo is a 20.1y TFT LCD monitor that offers a native resolution of 1600X1200. The first thing I noticed about the L885, aside from its stylish appearance, is just how small it seems for a monitor with a screen of this...

3ds max 7: 3D visualization and animation.(first look reviews)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... DISCREET JUST SHIPPED a new version of 3ds max--version 7. It offers significant new features and, according to Discreet, is more stable. Good news for 3ds max 6 users is that plug-ins for that version remain compatible with this release. ...

ArchVision Composer & Adobe Photoshop CS: a winning combination for design professionals.(first look reviews)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2004... ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS, the premier photo editing and manipulation software application on the market, is the product against which other software is measured. ArchVision Composer is a recently introduced application that lets users add...

CAD Manager survey 2004: part 2: is the 3D software revolution underway yet?(CAD Manager)
December 1, 2004... IN LAST MONTH'S EDITION OF CAD Manager (http://man agement.cadalyst.com/2004survey1/), I began to examine the CAD Manager 2004 survey by analyzing salary data, who's performing CAD management within the organization, machine and personnel...

Scan this: reverse engineering starts with 3D scanning.(MCAD Modeling Methods)(use coordinate measuring machines tools)
December 1, 2004... MOST NEW PRODUCTS TODAY are redesigns of older products. Some of those old products weren't modeled in 3D and so pose a reverse-engineering problem that MCAD software developers have addressed through increased support for point-cloud data...

Manage AEC projects online: stay on schedule with these Internet-based options.(Architecture Engineering Construction)
December 1, 2004... EFFECTIVE COST CONTROL AND TIMELY completion of projects are vital in the construction industry. Today's construction market is highly competitive, driving profit margins down as risks increase. In this climate, one failed project can wipe out...

A standard approach: the state of open standards in GIS.(Spatial Technologies)
December 1, 2004... GIS IS EVERYWHERE. VIRTUALLY every city, county, and state has its own GIS data, and the same is true for most major agencies and organizations. Did you know that the Girl Scouts of America have a GIS Day, and that Girl Scouts can earn 10...

Tips from our readers: layer controls and tricks with text.(Hot Tip Harry)
December 1, 2004... "HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM HOT TIP HARRY," read the cover of the CD that arrived in a plain brown wrapper. I checked for a return address, but as usual there wasn't one. I dropped the CD into my workstation, and the automatic run started a video of...