Management
VISUALIZATION 2005: Virtual Visions Table
31 Jul, 2005 By: Cadalyst Staff CadalystVISUALIZATION 2005: Virtual Visions | ||||||||
Autodesk, Inc. | Caligari | Informatix Software International | Luxology | NavisWorks Ltd. | Okino Computer Graphics | Robert McNeel & Associates | Robert McNeel & Associates | |
| Product | VIZ 2006 | trueSpace6.6 | Piranesi 4 | modo 102 | NavisWorks | NuGraf | AccuRender 3.1 | Flamingo |
| N/A | sales@caligari.com | info@informatix.co.uk | dion@luxology.com | info@navisworks.com | sales@okino.com | sales@mcneel.com | sales@mcneel.com | |
| Web site | www.autodesk.com | www.caligari.com | www.informatix.co.uk | www.luxology.com | www.navisworks.com | www.okino.com | www.accurender.com | www.flamingo3d.com |
Price | $1,995
| $595 (list price)
| $750 (US RRP)
| $695
| The full solution AKA PRO | $495 (NuGraf), $395 (PolyTrans) | $495
| $495
|
| Operating systems supported | Windows 2000 Professional/XP Professional SP2 | Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP | Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, | Windows OSX | Windows 98 to XP | Windows | Same as AutoCAD | Same as Rhinoceros |
| Operating system reviewed | Windows XP Professional SP2 | Windows XP Professional SP2 | Windows XP Professional SP2 | Windows XP Professional SP2 | Windows XP Professional, SP2 | Windows XP Professiona,l SP2 | Windows XP Professional, SP2 | Windows XP Professional, SP2 |
| Modeling | Yes | Polygon, selective subdivision surfaces, NURBS, metaballs | N/A | Yes | No | No | AutoCAD | Rhinoceros |
| NURBS | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Full support for import/export/display/conversion of trimmed NURBS; NURBS conversion between IGES, Softimage, Maya, XSI, Renderman RIB, OpenNURBS (Rhino-3D), etc. | AutoCAD | Yes |
| Refraction | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reflection | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Planar/spherical/cubical reflection mapping and automatic reflection mapping (simulated ray tracing). | Yes | Yes |
| Anti-aliasing | Yes | Yes (draft, none, adaptive, 2x, 3x, and 4x) | No | No | Yes | Done by oversampling with the scanline renderer and 25x25 sub-pixel ray shooting and ray averging in the ray tracer. | Yes | Yes |
| Rendering methods | Open GL or LightWorks | Multi-threaded ray trace and oversampling scanline renderers | ||||||
| Radiosity | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Photon mapping, photon mapping + "Final Gather", hemispherical sampling | Yes | Yes |
| Ray-tracing | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Multi-thread ray tracer; planar/spherical/cubical reflection mapping and automatic reflection mapping (simulated ray tracing) | Yes | Yes |
| Shade/Render (Gouraud) | Yes | No | No (Piranesi is a rendering product, but uses painting effects) | No | Yes | Phong/Gouraud/Flat shading modes | Yes | Yes |
| Animations | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes; export to AVI [rendered Open GL or LightWorks] | No | Plug-in | Plug-in |
| Panoramas | Yes | Yes (Quicktime) | Yes | No | Quick Time Panoramic Movie | No | Yes | No |
| Base file formats | 3ds Max | SCN, COB | Epix | LWO, MA, OBJ | NWD, NWF, NWC | DWG | Rhinoceros | |
| Import file formats: | DWG, DXF, 3ds Max, others | SOB, WRL 1.0, GZ, WRZ, DXF, 3DS, ASC, PRJ, LWO, OBJ, LWB, IOB, GEO (others available via plug-ins) | Epix, 3DS, DXF (others available via plug-ins) | LWO, MA, OBJ | All popular 3D CAD (see www.navisworks.com/support/ | All AutoCAD imports | ||
| Export file formats | 3ds Max, ASCII | CAN, WRL 1.0 & 2.0, DXF, ASC, 3DS, X (others available via plug-ins) | BMP, Epix, JPG, Targa, TIFF, PNG | LWO, MA, OBJ | NWD, NWF, NWC | All AutoCAD exports | ||
| Network rendering | Yes | Yes, via separate plug-in, tSNet | N/A | No | No | No | No | No |
| OpenGL support | Yes | Yes, and DirectX | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Real-time preview | Yes | Yes: OpenGL and DirectX; wire, solid, transparent, solid with wire, transparent with wire, radiosity) | N/A | No | Yes | Yes, OpenGL Visualizations | Yes | Yes |
| Models included | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Examples are included | Yes, limited | No | No |
| Materials included | Yes | Yes | Yes, including an extensive library of "cut out" entourage | Yes | Yes extensive achives | Yes | 5,000+ | 5,000+ |
| Extensible via plug-ins | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes, full API | Extensible via import, export and system-level plug-ins | Yes | Yes |
| Hardware lock (dongle) | No | No | No | No | No | No, software | No | No |
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