The themes and news coming out of Autodesk University aren’t big surprises. The company focused heavily on AEC and zoomed in on construction. Well, why not? These conferences aren’t about surprises. Companies use conferences to telephone their customers. The message Autodesk wanted their users to think about now is the opportunity provided by an almost inherently inefficient construction industry. The … Read more
Mari, the Foundry’s tool for texturing and paint was born of the film industry. It stands out for its ability to handle very large models and support very high-resolution textures. Its users are primarily content creators in the film industry, but it is staking a claim in industrial design thanks to its sibling Luxology, which is also a member of … Read more
When it all comes together: HP has been working on the challenge of real-world 3D capture for some time. At Adobe Max, the company was able to show off the process from capture to print. That Dalek sitting next to the Z4 Workstation is HP’s new Captis device. (Source JPR) It's no secret that Adobe is growing its 3D … Read more
This material was a 2018 winner of the Insanity Award given by Allegorithmic to developers who push the software to extremes. Game developers can use textures to add detail to primitive shapes—sometimes to the point of crazy. This kind of work can make sense in the game world where polygons are expensive. (Source: Adobe Substance, material by Jonathan Benainous) … Read more
Unity has been promising the arrival of its Reflect platform for AEC visualization for several months. The game engine company and Autodesk had announced plans to collaborate in a marriage of game engine technology and BIM in 2017. The deal was made manifest in June at the AIA conference in Las Vegas with demonstrations of Unity’s Reflect Plugin. The plugin … Read more
Citilab’s CUBE simulation software provides predictive transportation technology, helping engineers and planners to design and optimize safe, efficient, effective, and environmentally sustainable mobility systems. Bentley's Year in Infrastructure (YII) is primarily a celebration and demonstration of the work the company’s customers are doing. Refreshingly, the company is able to demonstrate its tools at work in real-world applications and the … Read more
Graphisoft has achieved several significant milestones with its release of Archicad 23. The company claims to be the fastest BIM product in the industry. The company has had multi-processor support since 2017. That work has continued and in the ArchiCAD 23 release, the developers have worked in performance to speed startup, access large projects, and navigating through all the information … Read more
It’s been a busy fall in the design and engineering industry, but PTC and Onshape still managed to shake up the industry. PTC announced plans to acquire Onshape for $470 in cash. PTC used its financial call to talk about the acquisition. In his opening remarks, Heppelmann said the deal is part of a “near era of Software as a … Read more
It’s the season for new CAD releases and given that it’s also 2020, every release is feeling momentous in its own special way. Vectorworks has found strong points of differentiation for its tools and this release makes the most of them. Data visualization enables teams to communicate and understand design, its attributes, and the effects of changes. (Source: Vectorworks) … Read more
What a company says about its strategy and its attitude towards its customers is always important. SolidWorks says every new release is built around customer requests. With the release of SolidWorks 2020, the company’s PR says, it has dealt with “thousands of enhancement requests.” But, just as important, this new release is also “seamlessly connecting” to the 3DExperience platform meaning … Read more
Gemini Man will go down in movie history as a breakthrough film, it’s just too bad, it’s not a better movie. Gemini Man has come up against another not-great movie Joker, and it’s losing at the box office. The complaints about the movie target the dialog, story, and even acting. Some audiences aren’t up for too much Will Smith, apparently. … Read more
The European head of YouTube, Cecile Frot-Coutaz gave Google’s keynote presentation at IBC 2019. Six longstanding broadcast industry organizations which include standards bodies, professional engineering representatives, trade associations, and research organizations manage the IBC. They are the IABM (broadcast and media suppliers), BTS (IEEE Broadcast Technology Society), the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), the Royal Television Society, the SCTE … Read more
