CADalyst articles from February 2000

CADalyst archives from February 2000

Business.
February 1, 2000... Visio's shareholders approved the company's merger agreement with Microsoft Corp. The deal is expected to close in January 2000 pending completion of regulatory review by the U.S. Department of Justice. MSC.Software Corp. plans to expand...

220 CRT monitor.(from Mitsubishi)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Mitsubishi Display Products released the Diamond Pro 2040u 220 flat-screen CRT monitor ($1,329). Mitsubishi's Natural Flat technology incorporates a patented uni-pitch aperture grille with deflection yoke for improved beam landing in the...

190 short-neck monitor.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2000... MGC Technologies, Inc., unveiled the MGC-997SN 190 short-neck CRT monitor ($399) that is 16.40 deep. This PC- and Macintosh-compatible monitor is USB-ready, and you can daisy-chain as many as 127 peripheral devices to a single computer. It...

733MHz system.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Micronpc.com introduced the Millennia MAX 733 workstation with hard drives as large as 34GB. Based on VIA's Apollo Pro 133a chipset, the workstation incorporates a 133MHz front side bus, AGP 43, and ATA 66. It comes with nVidia's geForce256 AGP...

190 and 210 monitors.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Nokia Display Products released two CRT monitors with FlatAG technology. The 446Pro ($649) 190 monitor delivers a 230MHz bandwidth, 0.24-0.25mm aperture-grille pitch, and resolutions as high as 160031200. A password- protected on-screen menu...

CPU upgrade.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Evergreen Technologies, Inc., announced the Spectra 400 ($199). The Spectra 400 lets you upgrade your 75MHz and higher Pentium systems to 400MHz performance. The upgrade is Windows 95-certified and is powered by the 400MHz AMD K6-2 processor...

18.10 LCD monitor.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Eizo Nanao Technologies announced the FlexScan L661 18.10 (18.070 viewable) LCD monitor (beige, $3,129; black, $3,329). This monitor offers a 0.28mm pixel pitch, horizontal scanning range of 30-80KHz, vertical scanning range of 55-85Hz,...

700- and 600MHz workstations.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Intergraph Computer Systems announced the Zx1 ViZual Workstation (pricing starts at $2,545) with Pentium III 700- and 600MHz processors, 32KB Level 1 cache, and 512KB Level 2 cache. It offers 70 SIMD extensions for media and memory streaming,...

Cordless pen and mouse.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Wacom Technology introduced its Graphire computer input system ($99.95) with cordless mouse and pen. The Graphire Mouse has a resolution of 1,015 lines per inch, contains no rolling ball on the bottom, and has a scrolling wheel. The Graphire...

Monochrome scanner.
February 1, 2000... ALTEK Corp. announced its ALSCAN II line of monochrome scanners ($9,000- 15,000) for documents up to 380 wide. The ALSCAN II scans 0.50 per second at 400dpi and 10 per second at 200dpi. It offers adaptive area thresholding technology for clear...

SOUTH-TEC Charlotte 2000 Advanced Productivity Expo.
February 1, 2000... February 29-March 2 Charlotte Convention Center Charlotte, NC 800.733.4763 www.sme.org RI/SME Student Robotic Challenge 2000 March 19-20 Robert Morris College Pittsburgh, PA 313.271.1500, x1704 www.manufacturingiscool.com WESTEC 2000 Advanced...

Solid Edge dynamic simulation.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... The Design Technologies Division of Mechanical Dynamics, Inc., unveiled its Dynamic Designer/Motion mechanical design simulation software for Solid Edge ($4,995). Dynamic Designer/Motion provides fully embedded 3D dynamic simulation...

MDT solids.(EMT Software's Auto-Z 3.0 CAD software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Auto-Z 3.0 from EMT Software, Inc., makes Mechanical Desktop 4.0 solids and features from 2D AutoCAD drawings ($495; Auto-Z for AutoCAD Release 14 and 2000 only is $99). When Auto-Z generates a partial model, manual tools let you create...

Animated product design.(Immersive Design's Interactive Product Animator 6.0)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Immersive Design, Inc., announced IPA (Interactive Product Animator) 6.0 ($2,495), 3D animation software for mechanical product design communication. IPA 6.0 transforms CAD information from SolidWorks 99, Solid Edge v7.0, Pro/ENGINEER 2000i,...

CAD/CAM.(NC Polaris-Pro Machinist CAD/CAM software from NC Microproducts, Autodesk)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... NC Microproducts joined technologies with Autodesk to announce NC Polaris-Pro Machinist CAD/CAM software for production machining. The software offers a complete set of traditional AutoCAD tools for 2D design and drafting and 3D solid modeling....

Sheet-metal models.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... AutoPOL 7DT from CIMLOGIC, Inc., creates parametric sheet-metal models with Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 4. Unfolding capability incorporates bend factors for automatic bend compensation. New features in AutoPOL 7DT let you create flat patterns...

Hardware happenings.(Fall Comdex)(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2000... As usual, fall COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada, was a madhouse. In two days, I met with eleven hardware vendors and covered the basics-monitors (Eizo, NEC, Nokia, Princeton Graphics, ViewSonic), workstations (Dell, Hewlett-Packard, SGI), graphics...

Compaq Graphics Summit.(Graphics Excellent Program)(Company Business and Marketing)
February 1, 2000... Compaq invited me to a Graphics Summit on December 1 (Littleton, Massausetts) to unveil its GEP (Graphics Excellence Program), which is designed to meet four key customer requirements: broader choice of graphics products, leading performance,...

Scripting utility.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 1, 2000... Scripro 8.0 ($53) from Cedars Software is a shareware scripting utility for AutoCAD. It supports AutoCAD 2000's e-plot function and lets you plot to any printer, plotter, file, and DWF. It offers five custom fields to enter the page setup name,...

Strand drafting.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Avatech Solutions Inc. announced AvaStrand ($1,495), custom AutoCAD- based software that streamlines the strand-drafting process. It automates data entry and validation as well as drawing and project standards according to each project's unique...

2D CAD.(Audodesk's AutoSketch 7.0)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Autodesk, Inc., announced AutoSketch v7 ($99) and QuickCAD Millennium Edition 7 ($59) 2D CAD solutions. Both offer a Content Librarian to access drag-and-drop hatch patterns and solid fills to automatically fill an enclosed area. AutoSnap lets...

On the Job: Hurricane evacuations.(South Carolina Department of Transportation, Intergraph)(Government Activity)
February 1, 2000... Before 1999's hurricane season, SCDOT (South Carolina Department of Transportation) turned to Intergraph to develop a Hurricane Evacuation Decision Support Solution for its emergency weather system. SCDOT implemented Intergraph's GeoMedia...

Data management.(NEC Systems' Obbligato II workgroup software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... NEC Systems, Inc., unveiled Obbligato II (call for pricing), its modular and scalable suite of applications to manage drawings, documents, and design data within a single workgroup or across an internationally distributed enterprise. Standard...

Civil engineering.(Intergraph's Survey SelectCAD)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Intergraph Corp. introduced Survey SelectCAD civil engineering software ($1,500) to integrate EFBs (electronic field books) and GPS latitude and longitude data into the CAD environment and produce plot-ready graphics. You can display...

CAD geometry repair.(ITI's CADfix 3.0)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... ITI announced CADfix v3.0 ($4,995) to detect and repair geometry and topology imperfections found in CAD models. Version 3.0 imports, repairs, converts, and exports IGES, STEP, ACIS v5.0, Parasolid, and CADDS5 files. It also outputs IGES files...

AutoCAD acceleration.(Soft Engine 4 Unleashed)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Vibrant Graphics released Soft Engine 4 Unleashed ($149; updates from Soft Engine are $99; updates from Soft Engine 4 are $39) 2D and 3D acceleration for AutoCAD Release 14, AutoCAD Map, Mechanical Desktop, and AutoCAD LT 97/98. The Unleashed...

Manufacturing design.(Innovative CAD Software's CAMtastic! 99)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Innovative CAD Software, Inc., announced CAMtastic! 99 v2.1 ($295), its Gerber/DXF/DWG/HPGL/Drill Data viewing, printing, conversion, and editing tool. It offers new features such as drill, router, mill, and assembly tools. Other features...

Visualization.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Informatix Software International Limited announced Piranesi 2 ($740; upgrades $320) with a new EPix format that preserves 3D information in the image. Version 2 lets you calculate and paint reflections and cut out image shadows. An...

3D visualization.(Rebis' AutoPLANT Explorer/ID CAD software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Rebis introduced AutoPLANT Explorer/ID (call for pricing) with new 3D visualization technology from LightWork Design. This visualization and collaboration software lets you review large 3D CAD plant models. AutoPLANT Explorer ID lets you select...

Piping software.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Peri-Tech introduced HPPIPE V3.0 for AutoCAD Release 14 and 2000 ($300, upgrades are $50). A new AutoCAD pick selection indicates a piping component when you move your cursor over an HPPIPE entity. You can use the information obtained from the...

Block management.(Code Zebra's Titlezone)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... Code Zebra, Inc., released Titlezone ($89) title block and project data management software for AutoCAD Release 14 and 2000. Titlezone provides a single dialog box for inserting and filling out title blocks, and lets you switch between sheet...

AutoCAD blocks.(MBG Solutions' Block Controller for AutoCAD 12 - 2000)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... MBG Solutions released Block Controller ($79) for AutoCAD Releases 12- 2000 for block manipulation and cataloging. Features include BC Reporter to print out contents of your libraries using several built-in forms and Multiple Block Insert mode...

On the Job: High-tech relief.(Company Operations)
February 1, 2000... On August 17, 1999, a devastating earthquake measuring 6.8-7.0 on the Richter scale struck Turkey. Turkish authorities estimate that the government needs to build 100,000-120,000 new homes to accommodate the victims. Tony Ruiz, president and...

Coming next month in Cadalyst.
February 1, 2000... Workstation review CADALYST Labs reviews systems from Compaq, Core Microsystems, Dell, IBM, Polywell Computers, Sys Technology, Tri-Star, and XI Computers. CAD Spectrum We review VDS' IronCAD v2, plus Mark Middlebrook's CAD Manager...

Cornerstone f1800.(compact LCD monitor)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... A high-quality 180 compact LCD monitor. Cornerstone has long been known for producing high-quality and well- designed displays. The f1800 is certainly an outstanding monitor. The Cornerstone f1800 monitor has an 18.10 flat display that...

PRO Menu : AutoCAD customization tools.(MultiCIM's PRO Menu)(Product Information)
February 1, 2000... AutoCAD's open architecture has always been one of its strong points- Autodesk estimates that at least half of AutoCAD installations worldwide have some degree of customization. For many, it's difficult to imagine AutoCAD without at least a few...

100 Plus Hatch Pattern Library.(CompugraphX's 100 Plus Hatch Pattern Library 6.0)(Product Information)
February 1, 2000... 300 hatch patterns for AutoCAD 2000. AutoCAD 2000 ships with some 69 predefined hatch patterns. Although that may seem adequate, sometimes you want a pattern not represented. Unless you have a brain like Euclid's, it's difficult to define...

HiJaak Professional 5.0.(from IMSI)(Software Review)(Evaluation)
February 1, 2000... File translation utility. If you're involved with graphics applications, you know that Adobe Illustrator creates AI files and Photoshop creates PSD. Similarly, CAD users associate DWG, DXF, and DWF with AutoCAD. But what on earth is a NIF...

ALPS MD-5000: 2400dpi color printer.(Hardware Review)(Evaluation)
February 1, 2000... Many of the reasonably priced color printers currently on the market are amazingly good. Knowing this, I recently did several months of research to determine which of these economical printers produced the best prints. Quality of reproduction...

3D View : Stand-alone AutoCAD viewer.(from Actify)(Software Review)(Evaluation)
February 1, 2000... 3D View from Actify is the ideal tool if you need a stand-alone viewer and annotator that supports multiple drawing formats. 3D View 3.5 ($160) imports 3DS, IGES, ISO-G, RAW, STL, and VDA-FS file formats. A plug-in for AutoCAD 2000 and earlier,...

Key West Makeover.(Technology Information)
February 1, 2000... "Applying 20th century technology to 19th century architecture" is how Peter Pike of Peter Pike and Associates in Key West, Florida, describes his latest project. The architect recently completed restoration work on an 1840's two-story bungalow...

Solid Edge leads users to 3D.(Product Information)
February 1, 2000... Unigraphics Solutions, Inc., develops and markets Solid Edge. With almost four years of maturity, Solid Edge is used by tens of thousands of mechanical CAD designers worldwide. For more information, visit www.solid-edge.com. The migration...

ALLPLAN FT Architecture v15 : Germany's top package for AEC CAD combines great drawing tools with an analytical backbone.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
February 1, 2000... ALLPLAN was developed for structural engineers and architects by German developer Nemetschek, best known in the United States for its Palladio series of modular products. With ALLPLAN, you can sketch out a design feature, hard-line draft it,...

ProjectPoint supports project collaboration : Autodesk spin-off buzzsaw.com centralizes project management on-line.(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... ProjectPoint from buzzsaw.com centralizes the management of project drawings, documents, and communications. You set up a project folder on a remote server, where you store all of your project files: AutoCAD files, text documents, spreadsheets,...

Organize your CAD projects before you start work.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2000... In the CAD Manager column we typically discuss issues related to CAD management on a firm-wide basis, such as developing and implementing CAD standards, CAD planning, and training. To successfully resolve these issues, you must disseminate...

3Dmodelserver translates and heals models via the Web.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 1, 2000... The bane of CAD technology from day one has been translation. System A can't communicate directly with System B because their native database structures and supported data types differ. Efforts to alleviate the problem include neutral formats...

INTERNET.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 1, 2000... So phenomenal is the growth rate of Internet collaboration startups, the industry language hasn't had time to keep up. Terms such as hosted, in- house, and application service provider clutter the playing field, yet provide very little...

Internet collaboration tools.
February 1, 2000... Table 1 Internet collaboration tools Program | Company Cost General features Contact information C-Talk Design Review $2/minute/user, l l l l l l Advanced Collaborative Solutions free...

So you want to be a CAD manager?(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2000... How many of you hold the title of CAD manager? A recent cadonline.com survey showed that about half of our Web site visitors manage CAD groups. A recent visit to the Autodesk CAD Manager Cafe (news://adesknews.autodesk.com/pn.cadmanager) showed...

TRACK YOUR PLOTS: Plot-Logging Tools.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
February 1, 2000... Michael Lennox is a technical writer and trainer who specializes in AutoCAD, particularly printing, plotting, and configuration. Do you know how often you plot? Do you know how much paper you use? Would you like to track that information,...

Make your move or copy in AutoCAD.(Product Support)(Tutorial)
February 1, 2000... Don't you just hate it when the computer does exactly what you ask it to do? Two cases in point are the Move and Copy commands. These two commands are extremely similar. Move is essentially a Copy followed by an Erase of the original objects....

Illuminate objects in 3D Studio VIZ R3.(Product Information)
February 1, 2000... Like most 3D rendering tools, 3D Studio VIZ lets you create light sources that illuminate 3D objects. However, as most users quickly discover, these light sources do not perfectly emulate light sources in the real world. An inadequate...

Copy and increment alphanumber text in AutoCAD.(Product Support)
February 1, 2000... Helder Goncalves from Portugal requests a routine that copies and increments joined text and numbers. He must copy "ABC123" at any displaced position with a user-supplied numerical increment to become "ABC124." The solution is an-inc.lsp....

Tips from our readers Compiled by Art Liddle.
February 1, 2000... $50 BONUS WINNER Keep Color and Linetype Tip #1589 [KEEPITAL.LSP] I often create enlarged details of street intersections. I want these details to maintain the same color and linetype as the main drawing, but I need the details on a single...

Aggravating attributes.
February 1, 2000... When we inserted blocks in a particular drawing in AutoCAD Release 14.01, AutoCAD prompted us for the attribute values. Now, AutoCAD 2000 never asks us to enter the attribute values as we insert the block. ATTDIA and ATTDISP are both on. If I...

Dialog Box.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2000... Design on-line I'm closely involved in project collaboration over the Internet and have found two main challenges. While the Internet is great at increasing the amount of surface communication, much of the communication happens below the...

Corrections.
February 1, 2000... We incorrectly stated in the features box (p. 37, CADALYST Labs review, January 2000) that Compaq's AP550 does not support dual-memory channels. Also in our January Cardboard to Computer feature, p. 55, we printed two pictures twice. The...

Intergraph's Wahoo technology delivers faster graphics.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2000... Computer maker Intergraph recently announced its Wahoo technology, a new systems architecture designed to improve basic system throughput, as well as 2D/3D graphics pipeline performance. A unique streaming multiport architecture provides a...

Autodesk targets electric utilities.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
February 1, 2000... In January Autodesk announced the first of several planned industry- specific enterprise-level software applications. Based on MapGuide 4.1, Autodesk PowerLine is a Web-based spatial data portal application built for electric utilities. Pricing...

MetaCreations to drop graphics programs.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2000... MetaCreations Corp. has focused its business strategy on visualization solutions for the Web and as a consquence will divest its nonessential professional graphics software. The company didn't specify which products will go, but plans to...

CAD pioneer Bezier dies.(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2000... Pierre Bezier, who conceived the mathematical curves that bear his name, died in France on November 25 at the age of 89. While working at automaker Renault in the early 1960s, he developed a digital representation of S-shaped complex forms...

3D graphics cards continue strong sales.(Company Financial Information)
February 1, 2000... Jon Peddie Associates' third-quarter report on the graphics chip and add-in board market finds that desktop graphics controller shipments grew by 3% during the quarter. 3D continues to account for the majority of shipments, up 11% from the...

Products.
February 1, 2000... The latest version of Spatial Technology's solid modeling kernel, ACIS 6.0 features improvements in surfacing and tolerant modeling operations, along with increased sophistication in ACIS Husks such as Deformable Modeling and Healing. ...