DISQUS

Or just buy Modo 401 which reads native SW files. And export from Modo to blender (though why you would do that and not do it all in Modo I'm not sure).

Great model and process Nelson, looking forward to seeing more from you in the future! (Nelson is well known to all the Cobalt users as the rendering guru :-))

Well this is interesting. I pay for all my own software and hardware. I've currently got active licenses of SolidWorks Professional, VX Designer, Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt and Graphite, FormZ and many others. When I started my business in 1990 I stupidly bought the best machine I could find and the best software I could afford......so it was an Apple Mac IIfx (8MB RAM, 80MB hard drive) - £6k - monitor and graphics card was extra! Software was Microstation Mac, Modelshop and swivel3d. I ditched Microstation after 2 years and switched to MiniCad (now VectorWorks), and then FormZ a year later replaced Modelshop and Swivel3D.

As the years went on my machines changed but I stayed on macs as I had a very large investment in Mac software - much of which only ran on a Mac at the time (Quark Xpress, Photoshop, Freehand, FormZ, Vellum 3D, Minicad etc).

In 1999 I bought my first PC to run SolidWorks. So at that time I was running a SGI Visual NT workstation (which I picked up ex lease for £600 - a bargain!) to run a customer's copy of SolidWorks. Then a funny thing happened.

All the software that I was running as Mac only suddenly started to appear on Windows as well. What was more (and to this day only original Mac software does this) these same companies let users run the software on either Mac or Windows - at no extra cost! So by 2001 I was running FormZ, VectorWorks, Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt and Graphite on the PC. With no issues. faster than on the Mac.

I've asked many of these developers why they started offering Windows versions in the late 90s and they all say - because that is where the CAD market was and at the time Apple was in dire straits and in decline and Windows machines were a lot cheaper. It was only when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and OSX was released that Apple's rise started again - but by this time the CAD market had switched almost entirely to Windows.

So here's the thing now. I run 2 Macs (a G5 and an Intel iMac - I've also got an old Powerbook but its never used now), 3 PCs (a newish workstation and a workstation laptop that is on its last legs, and an old Dell workstation used as a print server).

Pretty much all the CAD is done on Windows machines. All the graphics and internet stuff is done on macs. I have CAD applications that run natively on Macs but I still choose to run them on Windows. Why? Well because they run better on windows. Why? I have no idea, but they just do. Take Ashlar-Vellum software as an example. It has always been Mac, but it runs far better on Windows - the graphics performance is significantly better. You could argue this is down to the programming - perhaps - but I see the same with FormZ and VectorWorks (in 3D).

Contrast this to graphics applications like Adobe CS4 and Quark Xpress. Here, the Mac is better. Everything is more fluid, better linked, more stable. I did dabble with CS1 on Windows for a while but compared to the Mac version it was crap.

When Apple announced Intel hardware I thought I would switch the hardware to Apple but having considered all this long and hard I just could not justify the cost vs the benefits. When I upgraded my main CAD machine last year I was faced with a choice of a Mac Pro at £2500 with 3 year Apple care warranty plus a new screen cost on top, or an HP xw4600 (XP/4GB RAM, Quad core) with more hard drive space, a decent certified Quadro card (FX1700), and an HP widescreen display....and a 5 year on site next day warranty.....all for £1300. As they say it was a no brainer. As much as I like Macs they are just too expensive at the entry level (which I always buy at).

When I replace my laptop soon will I opt for a new Apple MacBook Pro or a Dell? Now that is one I'm not sure about. On a laptop I can see the benefits of having it all. I can run all the graphics apps and the CAD apps under Bootcamp.....but.....I cannot get a certified system to run all the gizmos in SolidWorks.

So OK this is along post but it is not always a case of Macs are best, or Windows is better. There are benefits to both platforms. Would I switch to a new CAD system if it ran natively on macs? No. Platform is not the decider I use - it is the quality of the software. If SolidWorks ran natively would I switch? Possibly. Because this assumes that if it did run natively they would enable things like RealView etc to run on Mac hardware and typical graphics cards. Not only that I would have to be convinced that the performance is as good or better on mac - as knowing what I know about native Mac software I don't think this is always necessarily the case.

I knew I'd seen something similar.....

http://www.deucesnowboards.com/

Well you need to define mainstream here. Technically they are already mainstream in the design/development corporate market (name a company that doesn't have one?).

I think I've said before that £5000 is the mainstream kick off price - like black and white lasers, like colour lasers. If Desktop factory ever actually make anything (and the latest newsletter is a bit worrying as it was a request for funding help), and be profitable, then that will kick off the market and I can see prices start to drop.

Material price is a non issue. It costs me £300 for a complete set of new colour toners for my latest laser printer - the printer was £200! Fact is if you can get your bought in RP cost down from say £100 per part size to £10 per part size material cost are insignificant for commercial users.

So I can see mainstream mass market use (by this I mean every design business, every school, every hospital, every corporate engineering department, maybe even high street service bureau copy shops) within 5 years provided the entry level cost is below £5000 within 2 years. Are these machines really any more complex than a colour photocopier? No. Volume=lower cost.

For the kind of stuff Matt is talking about - part replication or spares - no that is a long way off - at least 30-40 years, and to be honest I don;t think it will be a process we know now. The problem with additive technologies is the surface finish and the materials are not uniform. I think the solution will be a combination of additive, subtractive and material technology.

But before that I can see a new breed of office machines - 3D copiers. 3D scan and 3D print in one.

Hey Josh, here's one I did earlier :-)

http://www.vandabaths.com/uk/bath.php?b=ravello

These were designed in SolidWorks!

As an exercise in design and process it is excellent, but as a practical product I'm really not sure. As a niche type product and gimmick value then sure why not - and skiing has a history of these - but as a mainstream product I can see too many obstacles.

Weight - big issue for recreational skiers - not so much for racing. But the problem is that the ski as it stands is illegal for FIS racing - and the whole object of ski racing like any costly activity is to sell skis. Whilst a race slalom ski might look like a recreational ski these won't.

The mechanism side worries me as well. Just more to go wrong, not to mention safety when they come off - this thing will need a whole new design for bindings and ski stoppers.

Personally I can see this kind of thing working for ski bikes or that kind of product (http://www.ski-bike.org/equipment-hybrid.html) but the mainstream ski industry focusses on other areas. An example is Atomic who brought out a new adaptive radius ski that changes as you ski on it - http://www.atomicsnow.com/doubledeck/#/en/Landi...

On the same subject...

http://i.gizmodo.com/5164434/the-holodeck-as-re...

Very slick videos, as you would expect. I much preferred these to the Dassault ones knocking around that were recently featured on Product Design Forums, but the essential hypothesis is that we will all be communicating all the time with touch technology at the core. I'm really not convinced. all these videos actually show is what Microsoft, Dassault and others are developing now for future release. You can be sure that when it arrives it will look nothing like that! These are concept cars.

But there are some good ideas in there that I think will become the norm in 10 years. Small hand held devices incorporating contactless payment systems (which are here now), large scale display incorporating scanning (I liked that), the classroom with the large interactive touch display (I don't think it will be transparent in 10 years but certainly slicker than the current whiteboards are).

But the whole point I think was missed in that there is still the big focus on corporate - as you have said. Well Microsoft makes its money selling to big enterprise so no surprises there, but have they missed the whole remote working thing?

I can tell you that as a small design company our largest cost is office premises. If I could reduce that and rely on high speed internet access ALL the time I could work anywhere. With this kind of large screen facility I could see a network of rent by the hour network centres popping up everywhere to hold brainstorming or progress meetings. Large corporates are looking to reduce costs and one way is to have smaller offices - less overhead. Less pollution, happier employees, and with this kind of stuff having remote meetings is not the jerking video affair we have now.

But then reliable ultra high speed communications is what we need to drive all this.If we don't have that then all this stuff is just a big fancy touchscreen display that offers little over what we use today. And Microsoft do infrastructure comms do they?

I think you need to look at the existing technologies to see where the future lies. ZCorp using basically HP inkjet heads "should" be cheaper. FDM machines "should" be cheap. SLS with nylon powder, again should be cheaper. SLA using photopolymers is never going to be cheap though.

The other issue is build size. Some processes are always going to be restricted. When you get over a certain size though CNC comes into its own. One thing I have been following with interest is the use of robots with FDM like technology extruding concrete for large scale house building or automised construction.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/09/concretejet_p...

Imagine this kind of thing combined with a 5 axes CNC head to apply the paste, then machine it away to create features. Size no object.

And when will Desktop factory EVER get into production!

Al always gets to play with the best toys!

Yoou know Josh I've been thinking for years "this year I'll buy a 3D printer", but then I look at the jobs I've done in the last year and I see reasons not to. Some years I do really tiny intricate products (like a lot of medical work), other times it's big and bulky (like bathtub size), but even the standard sized stuff varies becuase the customer needs it YESTERDAY or wants to get 5 of them, or wants to drill holes in it or wants it to be clear etc etc.

So the upshot is that another year goes by and I decide not to buy a 3D printer. Instead I buy in as required, and this way I get to use state of the art kit. RP has become commodity in recent years. RP providers are after your business - there are some great deals to be had.

Peronally I don't think 3D printing will hit the mass market until the machines hit the £5k mark. I liken it to printing technology. The first black and white lasers were about £5k (the first one I bought in 1990 was £2500!!). Colour lasers started to come in around the £5k mark about 1996-7. I bought a splendiferous IBM A4 colour laser with Fiery RIP and 500MB hard drive with the awesome capacity of 32MB RAM for £5000 at that time. Last year I bought a Xerox colour laser, duplex, postscript etc etc for £200. The consumables on the IBM were about £500 a set, about the same for the Xerox.

So when ZCorp sell the £5k machine I'm first in the queue. Until then.......well that new U Drive Dimension printer does look nice but you can be sure the first job I get after buying it will be soemthing that is either tiny or BIG.

Great post. As I have just spent the last few days watching my 9 year old building a STRUXX T-Rex I marvelled at the instruction manual. I would never have said the visuals in that originated in PhotoWorks! Amazing. Still, I really don;t fancy trying to mate up all those parts in an assembly :-)

Do you really see multi touch being used for CAD? I have a hard enough time keeping my screens clear as it is, without worrying about grubby finger marks all over it. I can really only see this applying to systems like the Cintiq, or for certain applications where direct input would help (like kiosks, or POS units).

Apple has had multi touch as part of OSX for some time and there are no (as far as I'm aware) desktop applications designed around that yet - iPhone sure, but thats a hand held device.

Maybe thats the future? Handheld screens like sketchpads?

Do you remember Think3 voice activated modelling from about 2000? I was a Think 3 user for a few years and dabbled with this and it did work once you had trained it to recognise your voice. Problem was it was no faster than using a mouse. It was good at finding obscure menu commands you rarely used (assuming you could remember the exact syntax - "assembly, explode". After playing with it for a few months I dropped back to standard mouse.

But in reality all the voice recognition stuff was built into Windows, and presumably still is, yet we don't see any mainstream applications using it. I suspect the same will be true for multi touch?

Give me a mouse any day! The mouse has to be the single most important interface advancement of the 20th century. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa081...

Remember if you have the full Acrobat package (and probably the clones) you can protect the pdf by adding security to whatever level you need - open by password, copy and paste, printing etc. also if you are part of a bigger company Adobe Live Cycle server will let you specifiy exactly who can view the pdf and apply things like time outs to it (mission impossible like - this pdf will self destruct in 10 minutes!).

Must admit for really sensitive stuff I either go visit in person and get NDAs signed or do a web conference after then send me a NDA that has been digitally signed (or faxed!).

Problem is even for some this is not enough - there is a market out there for the company that can prevent a viewer taking a screenshot of a new concept! An even bigger market for those who can prevent taking a digital photo or video of the screen! Maybe some special glasses that have some encryption to decode the screen display?

I'll vouch for the Edens - great resolution, very fast build times (my local bureau has two and offer a same day build service). Now $20k, so around £11k.........hmmmm....I wonder how much the materials cost.

I do object to paying over the odds for so called workstation graphics cards and it is interesting to note that a lot of the more niche applications in CGI like Cinema 4D don't recommend Quadros for example - stating that there are no performance advantages. I also recall from my days as a Think3 user speaking to one of the developers and them saying (this was 7 years ago) Think3 software was not optimised for workstation graphics anyway so a standard games spec card is fine.

And that is the issue. Regardless of the OpenGL or Direct 3D/X status it is down to the developers to write the applications to utilise whatever system they use. SolidWorks for example uses a lot of Nvidia technology, so you can be sure NVidia make certain that that technology is available ONLY in the quadros (hacks aside).

So who are the villains here? Microsoft? The CAD vendors? No I think the real villains are the card manufacturers who know damn well the hardware is pretty standard and what you are paying for is the driver software which, at the end of the day, needs to be tested in the chosen application by the CAD vendor.

The future? Well I think it will go round full circle. I once owned (still have it) an SGI Visual workstation which had a state of the art OpenGL based graphics system. The processing hardware and graphics systems were all integrated and shared RAM so it was tweakable to the nth degree (should you want to). That system had realtime rendering in 1999. These machines were expensive and they were phased out as the use of standard components took hold. Now with multi cores processing a lot of the graphics grunting can be off loaded to the main CPUs and system RAM - with no graphics performance hit.

Josh, I looked at Qudarispace a few years back but as a user of Adobe Creative Suite software going to Acrobat made more sense. Personally I don't like the Quadrispace Word/Powerpoint like approach to layout - I never use either as I use Indesign or Illustrator and Apple Keynote - it is just to gimmicky. Buts thats a personal opinion.

For me I'll stick to Acrobat Extended - it opens more file formats, it handles assemblies of all sizes, it lets you export parasolid or STEP (so you can treat it as a low cost CATIA v5 translator - not a lot of people will know that maybe), the flash and flash video tools in 9 are excellent. All in all you get more for your money I think.

Its a bit unfair to compare this to SketchUp. SU deals with a different market and in that market is by far the clear leader and has changed the way an entire profession uses 3D tools.....and this was before Google bought it. One of the key elements of SU is the presentation side - the sketch in fact. something that 3DVia doesn't address.

Personally I struggle to see the benefit 3DVia brings aside from maybe providing a test bed for new interface features in CATIA perhaps, and as you say the 3D tools are not pitched at any market in particular (whereas SU tools are pitched excactly at the AEC market).

$1295 a year is CHEAP!! In the UK we pay £1000 a year for STANDARD, £1250 for Office Pro and £1500 for premium. It has always been the case here that if you miss the subs you are penalised.

I would gladly pay USA prices, believe me.

Sorry meant to add. One of the areas where PhotoView scores over Hypershot is its ability to render out files of any size (Hypershot is sold on a resolution output basis), and, the fact that PhotoView has materials for LEDs, Area lights and so forth built in.

Hey Josh.

I was one of the alpha group with Rob R and co. and there a a few things the users need to know about. First off PhotoView will use as many processors as you can throw at it - I'm running a Quad Core and it flies. On an 8 core Mac it will run even faster. I'm not sure what the status is on 64 bit though.

PhotoView is designed to read the materials you apply in Solidworks. You might notice that many of the environments and materials available in RealView are the same? Thats the idea. Set up the materials in RealView and transfer to PhotoView for rendering and tweaking. There are a few minor issues still to be worked out but it is pretty accurate. There is no return from PhotoView to SolidWorks - so if you change the material in PhotoView it is not updated in SolidWorks.

Right now there is no support for decals or custom backgrounds or materials - probably due to the link with RealView, but I expect this will come.

If you save your image as a format that can handle an alpha channel (eg TIFF, PNG etc) PhotoView writes this into the file automatically to allow easy compositing in Photoshop, so that way you can get rid of the rendered background or merge into a photograph.

All in all this is my no.1 best feature in SolidWorks 2009. Yes it is similar to Hypershot. Hypershot does some things better, some not so good. The two can exist side by side.

I think the current plan is to include PhotoView with Professional and Premium but not Standard. This in itself opens the door to Hypershot for Standard users (especially in non USA areas). The BIG question for me though (as a Standard user) is whay Luxology are going to do with the partnership now. Presumably they can now handle the SolidWorks file format? Does this mean Modo will read and write the SolidWorks format? Modo is a $895 package - substantially LESS than a Standard user would pay to upgrade to Professional. Time will tell!

Devon, SolidWorks used to use LightWorks prior to Mental Ray. LightWorks is a component rendering system developed in the UK and is the rendering system utilised by a lot of the MCAD and architectural systems on the market including Seimens, Pro/E, FormZ, Think3, VectorWorks etc.

Lightwave is a full on animation.modelling and rendering system widely used for in the film and effects business.

The ultimate threat! Behave or I'll make you hold onto my JetPack!! Still its not much good really is it? Where do you put the shopping :) And it will get nicked the minute you leave it outside the shops!

Maybe we will need a new kind of retail experience - fly through (sorry fly-thru for you guys in the USA). Lets just hope the flame grilled whopper is not part of my anatomy!

So the 100k is for the pack plus the 2 guys needed to steer it :-)