Issue #119: 8 September, 1998

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    • Autodesk Ships 2 Million AutoCADs

    Autodesk announced 1 September that it shipped the 2,000,000th copy of AutoCAD. The two millionth copy was purchased by Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV of the Netherlands. The current release, AutoCAD Release 14, has shipped 750,000 new and upgrade units in 15 months. Said Carol Bartz, Autodesk ceo: "This is also a great achievement for Autodesk, but we're not resting on our laurels."
     

    OpenDWG Alliance Party

    A beer and pretzel bash will take place Sunday, September 13 '98, in conjunction with Autodesk Design World. Join alliance chair Asa Trainer, OpenDWG ToolKit guru Matt Richards, board members, and alliance members for an informal gathering to celebrate the OpenDWG Alliance.  Time and place: 6pm-8pm, Clarion Suites, 1010 Race Street, Philadelphia PA USA. It doesn't cost anything and is open to anyone interested in open standards. Please RSVP to <stephaniek@mkinc.com>.

    Transmit 3D Models 15x Faster Over Web

    Adaptive Media announced Envision3D, which enables designers view, share, and manipulate complex 3D models 15x to 20x faster than traditional methods. The Web-based application is meant for visual collaboration and is a networked 3D streaming solution that delivers industrial-size 3D models in real-time over corporate intranets.  The software transmits models as complex as 800MB, or 960,000 objects, or 67M triangles to a desktop PC configured with 64MB of RAM. The software is built on DCOM and OpenGL, and supports ActiveX and Netscape’s plug-in architecture.  The software lets you view and collaborate in real- time, linking 3D complex geometry with multiple data types and formats, including audio, video, hyperlinked documents, graphics and text. It supports real-time markup and annotation. It is designed to interface with existing 3D databases and make the data available across a variety of PC platforms and network bandwidths. Envision3D consists of three components: The software costs US$24,995.00 and is due to be available 3Q98.

    SOLID MODELLING '99

    A conference and exhibition will be held April 20 - 21, 1999, in the National Motorcycle Museum located in West Midlands, England. The conference will cover important issues affecting solid modeling.  For additional information contact Geoff Walker or Ed Keohane on 0171 681 1000, Fax 0171 831 2057 or email <geoff@edaltd.co.uk> or write EDA Exhibitions 63/66 Hatton Garden, London EC1N 8SR.

    ISO 9001 Awarded

    Unigraphics Solutions is the first CAD/CAM/CAE vendor to be awarded ISO 9001/TickIT certification, the highest level of certification a company can receive. It encompasses all design, development, production, installation, and servicing processes involved in manufacturing and delivering products and services.

    MegaCAD'98: Advances in 3D CAD

    Presented by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers on Thursday, September 17 '98 at The Bold Knight, Sunnyvale CA USA. This is a a high-quality CAD show featuring the collaborative design and concurrent engineering processes. Contact Dan Zilai <Dan_Zilai@amat.com>

    Visio to Ship "Venice" in 4Q

    Visio's new software product code-named Venice (scheduled to ship 4Q this year for US$1,000.00) is said to be a complete graphical design and modeling tool for IT professionals who manage team-based development and maintenance of enterprise information systems.  Venice is meant for designing and modeling enterprise databases, software applications, and networks. Technology acquired by Visio this year from InfoModelers and Kaspia Systems is included in Venice. It will support Microsoft Visual Studio v6.0 to facilitate reverse engineering of existing Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C++ code into UML diagrams, as well as extend UML modeling functionality in Visual Studio v6.0.

    The first three months of sales for IntelliCAD were nearly 12,000 licenses through to the end of June, 1998, producing over US$3 million in gross revenue. [That works out to an average of US$250 per license - Ed.] http://www.visio.com/company/pr/releases/072398.html

    Solid Edge User Group Meeting

    Unigraphics Solutions plans its international Solid Edge User Group meeting for Oct. 5 - 6 '98 at the Renaissance Hotel/Nashville Convention Center in Nashville TN USA. The two-day event consists of training, product updates/futures, and user presentations. Third-party developers will display hardware and downstream software apps, such as analysis, CAM, PDM, kinematics, and rapid prototyping.

    NuGraf and PolyTrans v2.2

    Okino Computer Graphics released v2.2 of its NuGraf Rendering System and PolyTrans software products. (The two products are identical products except for added rendering and material editing capabilities of NuGraf.) The release includes animation conversion between 3D Studio MAX, Lightwave, Renderman, and DirectX; full support for trimmed NURBS internally and in import/export converters (IGES, Wavefront, Renderman, 3DS MAX and SoftImage); licensing of ACIS SAT v4.1 for importing, converting & viewing solid models; more import/export converters (OpenFlight, IGES v5.3, Renderware, Lightscape, Imagine and Detailer); native plug-in support for 3D Studio MAX 1.2/2/2.5 and multi- threaded ray tracing for NuGraf.

     Pricing for PolyTrans starts at US$395 (PC, Windows) and US$495 (UNIX); pricing for NuGraf starts at US$495 (PC, Windows).

    Y2K for CAD

    DataCAD LLC warrants that the current versions of its products do not have a year 2000 compliance problem. More info from +1 (860) 677-2829.

    Reader Jerry Bragstad passed on this advisory from Hewlett- Packard, who notes that problems can occur with archive tapes. In particular, HP warns that you should take care when:

    More info from http://www.hp.com/isgsupport/cms/year2000.html

    CAD and Internet News

    Artifice

    ModelPAK (US$195) is a set of professional-quality furniture and fittings for a variety of styles and settings, from craftsman oak to modern to traditional, and from bedroom to school room to pool-side.  These pieces are 100% ready-to- render, with detailed instructions, optional special textures. http://www.bytesyze.com/products/mpak/mpak.html and http://www.artifice.com/sales/order_form.html

    Ditek

    Advanced Tubular Technologies announced TubeCAD, a software package designed to provide tube fabricators with a tool for drawing and engineering tube shapes. TubeCAD uses DynaCADD from Ditek at its core.

    EaglePoint

    An IntelliCAD 98 demo at http://www.eaglepoint.com explains how to use IntelliCAD 98, and also shows the user how to perform certain commands and functions. Topics include: opening a file, DWG files, right-click functionality, toolbars, customization, tools, buttons, flyouts, menus, commands, multiple document interface, sharing objects, layers/elements, the Drawing Explorer, layer properties and block types.

    ManuSoft

    SuperPurge v2.04 (for AutoCAD Release 13 and Release 14) is an ARx utility with the ability to view and select database objects (via a dialog interface) for purging. options. A "lite" version is available as shareware from http://www.manusoft.com/spurge.htm

     CADLock software is distributed in France by Hi Tech Partners International.

    Moldflow

    Moldflow Center for Design Excellence established at Western Michigan University, USA. The company has donated US$2.9 million worth of computer hardware and software: five Intergraph workstations and 25 copies of Moldflow's Dynamic Series suite software used to optimize the design, tooling, and production of injection molded plastic parts.

    Straight Forward Software

    Archillustrator LT is a 3D modeling and illustration program for AutoCAD LT. If you are an LT user and would like to get into 3D modeling and high quality architectural illustration work, Archillustrator LT is the tool for you.

    Market News

    Diehl Graphsoft reported record revenues for 4Q of US$2,289,790 up 73%; net income was US$450,015.

    Notable Quotable

    "Through a process we call 'evilution,' media communes create their own constantly evolving definitions of who is evil, and who is good in our society -- Richard Nixon, O.J.Simpson, Hillary Clinton, trial lawyers, big business, meat-eaters."
         -- Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker in "The 500 Year Delta"

    Contact!

    All contents copyright XYZ Publishing, Ltd. Inc., 1998 and all rights are reserved. No material may be reproduced electronically or in print without written permission from XYZ Publishing, PO Box 3053, Sumas WA, 98295-3053, unless otherwise noted.