NOVEDGE blog

Autodesk Student Editions (Educational) Now Available from Novedge

Novedge has been selling Autodesk products for many years. During the last couple of years we have been promoting the educational section of our catalog by adding several new products from the most popular brands such as Solidworks, McNeel, Maxon, Nemetschek, SpaceClaiming, Alibre, etc.

Novedge have signed up with Autodesk to sell their educational products

Recently at Novedge we have signed up with Autodesk to sell an important group of their educational products, thus expanding even further our already rich catalog. Now I can proudly say that we are the best place online to buy 3D software for professionals as well as for students.
Our offering now includes:

• AutoCAD LT 2010 Educational
• 3ds Max 2010 Educational Superpack, which includes 3ds Max, Motion Builder, Mudbox, Cleaner, and Toxik
• Maya Unlimited 2009 Student Superpack, including Maya Unlimited 2009, Autodesk CleanerXL 1.5, Toxik 2009, and MotionBuilder 2009
• Mudbox 2009 Student Edition
• Autodesk SoftImage 7.5 Student Version

For each of those products Autodesk has two version, one with a perpetual non-expiring license and one with a time limitation (from 13 months for 3ds Max to 5 years for AutoCAD LT). If you are a student or a teacher and you are looking for an affordable edition of the most important 3D graphics tools, Novedge is the place to look.

Franco Folini

"Light Plot Deconstructed": A New Book for VectorWorks SpotLight Users

Just two days ago Vectorworks Press (Nemetschek NA) announced the publication of "Light Plot Deconstructed", a new book written by Greg Hillmar, an accomplished scenic and lighting designer based in Richmond, VA.

"Light Plot Deconstructed" is a great companion guide for anyone seeking to learn the fundamentals of lighting design

Over his more than 15 years of experience using Vectorworks, Greg has developed proven methods for drafting light plots. His successful techniques for designing with Vectorworks have been exhibited many times over the years, whether it was to fellow colleagues at tradeshows or in the classroom where he has taught scenic and lighting design to many aspiring professionals at Randolph-Macon College. Light Plot Deconstructed is a great companion guide for anyone seeking to learn the fundamentals of lighting design with Vectorworks SpotLight.

The book is written in a conversational style, taking the reader through the process of creating a light plot using Vectorworks SpotLight. If you are interested in learning more about the book you can download a PDF file with the Table of Contents and a Sample Chapter. To learn more about Greg Hillmar you can visit his website or follow him on Twitter at @ghillmar.

Franco Folini

UPDATE: an interesting review of Greg Hillmar's book has been published on the iSquint blog on June 18, 2009.

Interview with Lou Gallo, SolidWorks Power User and CAD Podcaster

In the past, if someone asked me to come up with improbable or strange combinations of technologies I would have suggested things such as 3D animations and Twitter or CAD and podcasts. I have since learned that if something looks improbable or strange to me it doesn't mean it's impossible or even wrong. Tackling those apparently impossible combinations requires both vision and determination, qualities which characterize Lou Gallo, the SolidWorks Power User who started a regular podcast about SolidWorks.
Not only is Lou Gallo proving the combination of a CAD podcast possible, he is also showing how this combination can be successful. While listening to his podcast in the morning drive to work, it becomes obvious that podcasting about SolidWorks makes perfect sense, but who could have seen this opportunity? I honestly didn't. Here is my interview with Lou to understand how he does it.

Lou can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

I began listening to podcasts, mostly on tech, in 2004...

Sure. I am a mechanical engineer from Wisconsin with a background in robotics and automation systems. My interest in CAE tools began in college. After graduation, I began working in the mechanical and semiconductor industry and am currently with Digital Dimensions, a SolidWorks reseller in Arizona, San Diego, Fresno and Sacramento. I have been in the CAD industry now since 2001 and enjoy visiting customers and helping solve problems within engineering and design. I began listening to podcasts, mostly on tech, in 2004 and realized that I wanted to provide tech content of my own back to the SolidWorks community. I started my own podcast in January of 2006. The podcast is now joined by a blog and a Twitter-like community called THE HEaRD. I have always been a bit of a technology junky so I tend to spend time discovering new technologies in web-based applications and CAD related tools.

While podcasting might seem to be an odd option for a graphic and visual context such as CAD, your success proves opposite. How did you get started, and how do you involve people?

[podcasting] can be challenging in selecting a topic that will not require a visual aid

This is a common question I am asked, but when I started the podcast, my goal was to provide SolidWorks and tech related content that users could take on the go. Since most of my podcast listening was done in the car on my commute to work, I figured this was a space that could be filled by news and tips on a CAD tool used not only by my customers, but any SolidWorks user worldwide. It can, however, be challenging in selecting a topic that will not require a visual aid like a blog or video. Another goal of mine is to bring awareness as well as useful tips, so if after listening you try or lookup how a feature or tool works, I have done what I set out to do. As far as involving the listenership, I try to get them to interact on THE HEaRD or Twitter, however I get a fair amount of interaction thru email and comments through the website.

Based on your experience, what are the main differences between a blog and a podcast from the end user point of view? What type of content fits best for each of the two channels?

It is all about the enclosure. A blog is really no different than a podcast as far as the "feed", except a podcast has an enclosure or something that the reader can then take with them. In my case, that is an MP3 which they can either listen to from the website, be consumed through an RSS reader, or more commonly through a podcatching client like iTunes. By publishing my content to my website, the user can choose to consume the content from the web, leave comments and read the show notes, just like a blog, or have it delivered automatically by subscribing. I started doing a blog as well since there were topics that required that platform to best communicate certain topics (pictures and/or video).

How do you interact with your listeners? What type of feedback are you getting from them?

I encourage my listeners after every show to send me feedback via email, comments, or the micro-blogs (Twitter or THE HEaRD). I get feedback from all of these outlets.

What did you learn moving from listener to author?

the first couple of shows took an hour to record a 5 - 10 minute show

Great question. A lot! Before my interest in podcasting, my audio recording experience could be summed up in three words, Windows Sound Recorder. I had been recording webcasts live and using video capture software but never mixed in music or tried to fade in/out transitions before. This took a lot of research to learn what equipment to use (mics and mixers) and what software was the best to use for recording. The other issue was the RSS creation. When I started there were very few people that podcasted and most were technical so building the feed was typically a manual process which I did in Notepad. This made it a lot of work but it was educational and helped me find a better workflow to get shows recorded and posted. The first couple of shows took an hour to record a 5 - 10 minute show, then an additional hour or so to get all the posting and feed creation done. Today a 20-30 minute show takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to record, write show notes and post!

Can you describe your audience, for instance - how large is it? Where are they located? What is their professional level?

the podcast has gotten over 100,000 downloads

The podcast has gotten over 100,000 downloads since I launched and the monthly downloads seem to be increasing as podcast awareness grows. I started this solely due to my love of the recording technology and my desire to share my SolidWorks and tech knowledge with the community. The size of my audience is really not important to me as long as I know I'm helping people.
The reach of the show is worldwide. A majority of the listeners are in the US & Canada but I have listeners across the globe in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

How do you select the content you provide to your subscribers?

Since 1-2 shows a month relate to tech news or new technologies, the industry will provide me content to cover. On the SolidWorks front, since so many of us use CAD tools a certain way every time, we tend to get into ruts. I try to choose new toolsets or useful tools that are typically missed by most users. I also spend time covering new toolsets as well as products released on the SolidWorks Labs site. I will occasionally get groups of Bloggers together to chat about tech topics and do a 15+ part series each year covering the What's New for new releases of SolidWorks. I have recently gotten into doing live coverage of events like SolidWorks World and COFES 2009. I am always interested in feedback or topics for future shows and will cover that when requests are sent in.

What type of integration do you have among Podcast, Twitter, and your blog?

The podcast is a weekly show which I have published every week since 1/1/06. It can be found in iTunes, but it is fed through Feedburner, so any mechanism that people have to download blog/podcast feeds will work. I also have links go out in my HEaRD account which echos to Twitter (@gol10dr). All podcasts are posted on my site along with their show notes at http://solidworksheard.com/podcast so listeners can leave feedback through the comment system. However they can also find me here at Novedge as well! Thanks Franco for the interview and the work you do at Novedge!

In my opinion CAD systems such as SolidWorks have been affected only marginally by the Internet and Internet technologies. What is your opinion and which web technologies and tools are more likely to have an impact on CAD systems from the end user point of view?

I am a huge fan of web applications and their success is typically enhanced by offering their users a local experience

I agree. In general most Desktop CAD systems are only marginally affected by Internet technologies but that is going to change as web-based applications become more ubiquitous. I am a huge fan of web applications and their success is typically enhanced by offering their users a local experience or Desktop integration. As design teams become more global, these web-based technologies are going to offer a bridge to unifying concurrent engineering efforts by allowing real time communication and data sync.
Tools are emerging now that allow in-CAD conversation like Vuuch Discussions but even tools like GoToMeeting are bringing remote teams closer and allowing real-time interaction that local design departments have at their dispose. Social technologies are also allowing engineers to get ideas and feedback right from the customer so this is an exciting time to be an engineer.

I would like to thank Lou for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Lou or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

Pixologic ZBrush Discovers Rapid Prototyping

Pixologic users can now finally join the group of Rapid Prototyping enthusiasts and start creating real 3D objects out of their ZBrush models. This is an important and very welcome step. It will help push Rapid Prototyping, or 3D Printing as Pixologic likes to call it, into the mainstream by increasing the number of users and lowering prices.

ZBrush users can now finally start creating real objects out of their 3D models

ZBrush is an incredible 3D virtual sculpturing system used by all sorts of digital artists to create the most astonishing models. Now those fantasy creatures can leave the computer screen and move out into the desktop.

This new feature has been made possible by two ZBrush plug-ins released by Pixologic and available for download from Novedge. The plug-ins are:

3DPrint Exporter plug-in (download)

With 3DPrint Exporter you will be able to export your favorite ZTool in STL and VRML file format, opening you to the world of the 3D Printing. Now it's possible for you to print your model: (1) Sculpt your art with ZBrush; (2) Optimize if needed your model with the Decimation Master plugin; (3) Export it with 3D Print Exporter.

Decimation Master plug-in (download)

With Decimation Master you will be able to easily reduce the polygon count of your models in a very efficient way while keeping all their sculpted details. This solution is one of the fastest available and is able to optimize your high polycount models from ZBrush, allowing you to export them to your other 3D software packages.

Franco Folini

CadSoft Releases EnvisioneerExpress 5.0 as a Free Download

CadSoft Corporation just released EnvisioneerExpress 5.0, a residential design program. EnvisoneerExpress is the free version of Envisioneer Professional 5.0, the well known architectural design system by CadSoft.

EnvisioneerExpress uses commands matching objects in the real world

EnvisioneerExpress has been specifically developed to introduce clients to the simple creation of floor plans, 3D models, and interior design concepts. EnvisioneerExpress uses commands matching objects in the real world such as walls, doors, windows, and stairs. This approach makes creative projects fast and easy.

EnvisioneerExpress can also be used to display and review professional models made by many other popular Design Software packages including Envisioneer and 3D Home Architect.

EnvisoneerExpress can be downloaded for free from the Novedge website.

Franco Folini

RandomControl (fryrender) Goes Realtime

RandomControl, the maker of fryrender and previously known as Feversoft, is joining other companies on the real-time rendering arena (Bunkspeed Hypershot, seac02 LinceoVR, etc.)
To prove the value of the technology they are working at, they are circulating this impressive video:

The video was recorded in real-time using RandomControl's engine RC5. The original scene was created in Autodesk 3ds Max and was exported and precomputed using fryrender RT.
The resulting data file (along with the camera animation created in 3ds Max) were played in RC5 using rc5player.exe in record mode.
The frames were output by rc5player in real-time (at a rate of over 20 frames per second). All effects precomputed by fryrender RT such as DOF, vignetting, Global Illumination and physical materials were interpreted by RC5 in real-time. The frames were assembled in a video editing software, and an audio track was added for greater effect.

Some of the RC5 features which can be seen in action in the video are:

• Full Global Illumination (as precomputed by fryrender RT)
• Depth Of Field (as configured in fryrender)
• Fullscreen Anti-Alias
• Interpreted fryrender physical materials
• Real-time tonemapping / fryrender-like quality (FP32 HDR)
• Camera vignetting
• Camera animation

Franco Folini

PS: If you are interested in knowing more about fryrender I would recommend to read the interview I did in March 2007 with Chema Guerra, the CEO of RandomControl.

Join Novedge for an Internship in San Francisco

Novedge and San Francisco. Can you think of a better combination?

For the past few months, I've been interning here at Novedge in San Francisco. As a Dutch student this has been an amazing opportunity for me, and I'm still enjoying every day of it. Novedge is a great and inspiring company to work with, and San Francisco is just an amazing and interesting city. Can you think of a better combination? But unfortunately, all great things have to come to an end at some time, which is also the case of my internship. After my final presentation in July, I will be graduated and ready to start working, which I will do at home in the Netherlands.

The tasks I am doing here at Novedge cannot be discontinued, you just can't abandon a successful community right? Therefore Novedge is looking for another intern that can continue my job. American or not, it doesn't matter. The previous intern was Italian, I am Dutch, so you are....?

How does a tweet help grow a community?

The main tasks of this internship are taking care of all the social media that Novedge is involved in, like Facebook, Twitter, the blog and several online communities Novedge hosts. How do you build an active community? How can a Facebook page lead to more visibility for a company? How does a tweet on Twitter help grow a community? Just some thoughts that kept me busy, and that are still not fully answered.

some basic Rhino or 3D modeling skills are desirable

Novedge is the world's largest and most rapidly growing online CAD/CAM store. Their office is located in downtown San Francisco where you will be exposed to all the aspects of running a business, which is really interesting. Because managing RhinoJungle will be one of the main responsibilities, some basic Rhino or 3D modeling skills are desirable. You also have to be fluent in English, both in speaking and in writing. The internship will be unpaid (yes, the financial crisis has also reached the west coast), but some expenses, such as the flights, will be reimbursed. Ideally, the internship starts as of July 2009 and lasts for at least 2 months.

If you are interested in this position please send your cover letter and resume to info@novedge.com.

Mirjam Hart

The Story Behind the Rhino3D Book

Since March 2009, Novedge has been giving away a free copy of the book Working with Rhinoceros 4.0 for every purchase of a new license of Rhino 4.0. The book is a beginner's user guide for learning Rhino 4.0 written by the Dutch designer Michiel van der Kley (website). Since I am Dutch myself, I was interested in learning more about Mr. Van Der Kley, so I asked him if he could write an article about his work and his new book. From the start the book has been very successful and we thought we'd share Michiel's story with its audience.

Mirjam Hart

I started as what was then called, a "self-producing designer" in the eighties of the last century, without any real computer skills. At that time it came down to making proper drawings of my designs, trying to find solutions for construction, and then building the thing myself. After a few years I was introduced by a colleague into the 3D world so to speak, with a DOS version of a program called 3dstudio4. I could not believe my eyes. Things that took me days were done in an hour. I desperately wanted to have the same skills, so I worked with that program, and bought almost every book there was to make sure I got to the bottom of the program. In the beginning I didn’t understand much of it, but in a year from that day I was able to produce pretty pictures and designs with the computer. Most of my colleagues thought I was going mad, not touching wood, hammering nails or whatever it was I did first.

the [3D] software helped me to broaden my world

The software helped me to broaden my world, it made me take the first steps into the world of producers and into the high-end design market.

There was one thing though. I was not able to draw exactly what I wanted for two reasons:

1. My design language tended more and more towards an organic style and it seemed the program I had was not suitable for that kind of job.
2. In order to get things done through the program, it felt as if you had to get into the head of the engineers and programmers that made the program, or else you would fail, and their logic steps weren’t the same as mine.

I tried to find another program that would fit my needs better, and to make a long story short, Rhino was the absolute winner.

I was so happy once I found out that the program actually worked the way I thought a program should have to work. To give a simple example: draw two funny shaped lines and let the program fill the space in between with a surface. Most Rhino users will think that that is not at all special, but believe me, exactly this kind of simplicity is lacking in most other programs I have tried.

After my great enthusiasm, I was puzzled by the fact that most of my colleagues were heavily seduced by or in the 3ds Max community, thinking that Rhino was just another attempt to yet another 3D program that could not come near this all-in-one program.

Rhino was the definite knock-out for product design and sculpting

For some parts of the industry, 3ds Max is maybe the best, I don’t know. And it is not that I think it’s a bad program (far from it) but Rhino was the definite knock-out for product design and sculpting in my belief, so I thought I had to try and convince all my colleagues.

In the end, after serious debate with other designers and sculptures that got the light, I decided to write a book, a kind of user guide. I live in Holland, where not everyone reads English and there was no Dutch book available then.

I started to write 6 chapters in Dutch, then stopped because it is quite a thing to do. After three years I picked it up again, rewriting the first 6 chapters and finishing the rest. I published the book myself. With the help of the McNeel community it drew a lot of attention, and the people from McNeel encouraged me to make an English version of the book as well. So I did.

That’s the book you can buy now.

I still use Rhino in almost every perspective

I still use Rhino in almost every perspective. As a quick sketchbook to get a grip on my preliminary ideas, to make the most convincing renderings, and to work things out, so they can be produced by the furniture industry. My work now is being produced by several leading furniture companies from Holland and abroad, amongst them Artifort, Arco, and even in my latest experience, a series of lights for Unseen Products. The lights are being produced in Nepal with a local paper, called Lokta paper. The paper is glued together with a special kind of glue in Nepal, placed in molds that are drawn and constructed in Rhino, CNC-milled in Holland, and shipped to Nepal. A real east-meets-west experience.

Michiel van der Kley

Future of CAD: What about the Internet?

I just finished reading Jeff Ray’s (SolidWorks CEO) article on the future of CAD and I cannot help noticing that something that should already have been in the past of CAD is not even prominently featured in its immediate future: the Internet!

Here is a question: how different would CAD systems be today if the Internet never happened?

My own answer: not very different.

How can that be? Everything in our life is different now that the Internet and the Web are mainstream but CAD is substantially the same as it would have been anyway.

What do you think?

Cristiano Sacchi