Alibre Design Standard is on offer for just £150 until December 31st. That’s a jaw dropping £450 off! Alibre Design is parametric 3D design and 2D drafting software. Check out Alibre’s website for a free trial or to take advantage of this special offer.
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Turbosquid, a popular storehouse of 3D content have just announced an exclusive deal to host user generated content for Autodesk’s CAD products. It sounds reminiscent of Google SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse which was launched in 2006. So three years later, Autodesk has decided that shared content, downloaded straight into the users CAD program, might be a desirable feature after all. So why the long wait?
Analysing the above graph of search terms Turbosquid and 3D Warehouse reveals that whilst Google’s 3D Warehouse set off from a standing start, Autodesk’s won’t have to. Turbosquid already has roughly a third of the interest 3DW has. This appears to be the reasoning behind Autodesk’s deal with Turbosquid, rather than going with their own technology. However, this appears to be a rather late attempt at copying something Google has been doing successfully for years and was able to launch to immediate popularity. Will Turbosquid’s blue line jump drastically upwards like 3D Warehouse did in 2006, or is it a case of too little too late? After a very, very long wait, SketchUp dimensioning has come of age. Not only does SketchUp Pro 7.1 have dimensioning tools as part of its bundled 2D presentation software (Layout), but a free 2D CAD package has emerged firm favourite for SketchUp interoperability. DoubleCAD XT is based on the familiar style of Autocad and Autocad Lt, but has SketchUp users very much in mind. SketchUp (skp) files can be directly imported into DoubleCAD with Layers, Scenes and Components all selectable. To see what this functionality looks like check out this link to the SketchUp import showcase. Google have just announced their release of SketchUp Pro 7.1. So what does that mean to me? Surely a “point release” as opposed to a full release won’t change much? You might be a long way off the mark there. Here’s my quick analysis of the changes: Dimensioning Ever since SketchUp was born Architects and Engineers have been crying out – nay screaming for dimensioning of 2D views. We’ve been ignored and ignored for five years. Suddenly it’s here. I’m mind-boggled and reeling from this I must say. We always thought the reason for Google not releasing dimensioning tools was because they had a secret little agreement with you-know-who so that designers still had to buy 2D CAD. This appears to have been un-founded, especially in view of the next paragraph… Collada in. DWG out Google have announced their intention to support Collada as their main open file format (the one you can use to transfer CAD files from one app to another). This is a major blow for dwg and dxf (AutoCAD’s file formats) especially when you consider SketchUp Free won’t be supporting them any more. Anyone for Autodesk shares? Anyone? Handling large models Along with dimensioning and flickering shadows in animations, handling large models has been at the top of the wish-list for years. Thank you Google. Thankyou! Get Photo Texture / Nearby Models Driving ever forward the integration of Google Earth with SketchUp, these two functions are a major, major leap. It means that SketchUp is the only 3D Modelling application with full 2-way sharing between Google Earth at the click of a button. Analysis of Google’s intentions What seems clear from this release is that Google wants there to be a larger distinction between Free and Pro versions. This would be to drive up sales of Pro from an already massive Free user base. They are doing this by offering further enhancements to Pro, especially in terms of CAD dimensioning capability within Layout 7.1. Furthermore, closing down DWG/DXF capability in Free and moving to Collada breaks Autodesk’s hold on the CAD market, allowing other CAD applications to jump into the breach.  Import SketchUp into Vue Once in a blue moon e-on software comes up with an outstanding offer. This is one of them. Vue 7 Pro studio is half price. How good an offer is that? Well, put it this way, Pro Studio contains all the Vue Esprit expansion packs (seven of them) and they cost between $39 and $129 each. Pro studio is just $199, the same price as Esprit… Check out the offer and further details on the e-on website. Didn’t think SketchUp was up to much compared to 3dMax? To find out how to do this within SketchUp, head over to www.twilightrender.com and purchase a copy before the trial price expires! Working as a freelance consultant I’ve come accross lots of time sheet software. All of it bad. Some of it badder. Sometimes it took so long to fill in what I’d done with my time, I had to allocate an hour in my time sheet for time-sheet time… Now that I run my own business I can choose what software I use. I did a search on Google for “free time tracking tool” and came accross Cratchit.org TimeTool. It’s just a window with jobs listed in it. You select the one you’re working on. At the end of the week you save a report. Done. Simple CAD standards will be followed When setting up CAD standards for your team, don’t fall into the complexity trap. Complexity does not equal quality. Often the more you write the less will be understood. The more you stipulate and legislate the less will be willingly implemented. On the other hand, if you succeed in writing a simple, easy to follow, short manual for your team, you may actually find it increases productivity. SketchUp has topped a poll beating nearest rival 3dsMax by twice as many votes. The poll was taken on the website for new rendering software, Thea Render, the forthcoming “pay-for” version of the popular Kerkythea software. The poll asked the question “I would like to see a Thea Render plugin for:” Out of 1787 responses, 617 went to SketchUp, 268 to 3dsMax and 213 for Blender. Surprisingly, CAD offerings such as Revit and ArchiCAD both obtained under 5% of votes. Information about the forthcoming release of Thea Render can be found on their website www.thearender.com I’ve just read yet another article pushing BIM, immersive environments, multimedia and 3D printing in the AEC industries. What’s with this continuous obsession with complex and expensive technology? We’re in the grip of a massive worldwide recession, but we’re constantly hearing solutions reasoned like this:
Am I born yesterday, or is this type of marketing actually based on a falacy? In business, increasing efficiency only ever helps when we’ve got a full order book. When we’re already working at full capacity we can free up resources to do even more work, and bring in even more money. If, however, our workforce are already standing around, how will it help to increase efficiency? |
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