MCAD Tech News #166

CoCreate Comes to Visit

OneSpace product suite: New versions and visions for 3D

A couple of technical marketing folks from CoCreate just left my office after demonstrating some of the features and capabilities of the new 2006 versions of its 3D design tools of CoCreate’s OneSpace 2006 product suite – Designer Modeling 2006 and Model Manager 2006.

The products they demonstrated were new 64-bit versions of the software and were run on a 64-bit HP xw9300 workstation with dual AMD Opteron processors and 6GB RAM, under Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The processing speed based on the CPUs and the RAM was quickly evident and impressive, especially when larger assemblies were added to the mix.

Also helping to speed things up are CoCreate’s so-called lightweight models, which are graphical representations of models that require only a fraction of system resources compared with “rich” models. However, if you work with models of varying complexity, you can switch relatively easily between lightweight and rich models.

CoCreate says it has customers who routinely handle assemblies of 200,000-plus parts, so the 64-bit versions of the software, combined with lightweight models, should significantly benefit those who deal with assemblies of this magnitude. Read more >>

It's that time again! Autodesk released 3ds Max 8, which includes a number of features that users have been waiting for.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated features in 3ds Max 8 is pelt mapping, which reduces mapping time from hours to minutes by allowing users to quickly unwrap the UV coordinates of geometry using custom-placed seams. New Relax methods remove distortion for stretch-free mapping.

3ds Max 8 also adds an integrated user interface to asset-tracking systems such as Autodesk Vault and other tools that support the MSSCC API (Microsoft Source Code Control) standard, including Microsoft SourceSafe and Perforce. This feature lets users centralize data assets and control user access, while sharing and managing assets with other Autodesk products. Read more >>

Mark Your Calendar: MCAD Events

Autodesk Inventor Workshops
February 10, 2006
Des Moines, Greensboro, Houston, Lexington, St. Paul, Virginia Beach and Denver
Free half-day introductory workshops hosted at offices of Avatech Solutions.

Autodesk Inventor Workshops
February 17, 2006
Baltimore, Cedar Rapids, Charlotte, Dallas, Omaha, Richmond and Raleigh
Free half-day introductory workshops hosted at offices of Avatech Solutions.

AUGI CAD Camp -- Omaha
February 21, 2006
Omaha, Nebraska
Hosted by Avatech Solutions, training event will offer productivity tips and software shortcuts from Avatech certified training professionals.

COFES 2006
April 20-23, 2006
Scottsdale Plaza Resort, Scottsdale, Arizona
Presented by Cyon Research, the seventh-annual Congress on the Future of Engineering Software will bring together executives from engineering, design, development, architecture and technology companies to explore new engineering technology and discuss its effects on the future of business. 

For Cadalyst's full calendar of events, click here>>