NOVEDGE blog

An Interview with Michael Gibson, MoI CEO and Founder

It's part of my daily job to stay in touch with new technologies and systems by reading CAD news and playing with trial versions. Over the years I've become immunized to most of the CAD marketing buzz. Despite the grand announcements, the CAD world evolves at a slow pace with few real advancements each year. This is why when I looked into MoI (Moment of Inspiration) the first time, I wasn't really expecting much. After a short while I noticed that the system created by Michael Gibson was not just another modeling system. With surprise I saw some new ideas and a strong effort to rethink the modeling problem with a fresh approach. In particular I appreciate a system that is easy to use and that manages to hide the complexity of the underlying mathematical model. I thought it would be interesting to get a first hand look into Michael's innovative ideas and vision. Here is the interview.

Michael, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

Hmmm, well I’ve had a long-time interest in computer graphics. The first 3D modeling program that I wrote was Sculptura, which was a project I started during summer vacation at college.

I created a program which I called Rhino which was a brand new CAD system

A little bit after that I started working at Robert McNeel & Associates, and there I created a program which I called Rhino which was a brand new CAD system based on the Applied Geometry kernel. I worked pretty much by myself on that for a few years while others at RMA were working on bringing the AG kernel to AutoCAD as a plug-in. Eventually my stand-alone project was looking more promising than the plug-in so the plug-in was dropped and the focus shifted to Rhino instead, and that has been a big part of RMA’s business ever since. I gained a whole lot of experience and background in CAD software design at this time.
After a while I decided to shift away from CAD for a while and went to work for Microsoft at MSN for about 5 years. I learned a lot of stuff at Microsoft, but eventually I decided that I wanted to return to CAD and try out some new ideas for my 3rd generation modeling software. So that’s how I ended up starting my own business and my new MoI project, which I’ve been working on now for the past 4 ½ years.

What makes MoI, the product, special and different from all other modeling systems?

There is actually quite a bit of unique stuff in MoI. It’s kind of a side effect of my own interest in pursuing new areas instead of just trying to clone features from existing programs.
When I started MoI I did a survey of current CAD programs, and other than SketchUp (which is great for Architecture but not so much for general Industrial Design) there just did not seem to be a whole lot of fundamental changes or new things available.

[CAD systems] tend to get more and more complex over time and harder and harder for beginning users to start with

Most of the stuff out there seemed to be the same bunch of well established programs. Those tend to get more and more complex over time and harder and harder for beginning users to start with. It really seemed to me like a beginning or casual user (by casual I mean someone who doesn’t have a lot of time to devote to the software) was just kind of “left behind” by the current CAD companies.
So I thought that would be a good area to focus on - making it quick and easy to do simple stuff. This would enable some people like artists to benefit from using CAD who would have otherwise found it out of reach either in cost or too high of a learning curve.
So just that whole intense focus on “ease of use” is one big different area.
Also to make an “artist friendly” CAD I wanted to make MoI work well with a pen drawing tablet – the standard type of CAD user interface tends to require lot of right-clicks and modifier keys, which can be awkward when using a pen tablet. A unique aspect of MoI is that it can be used without touching a keyboard - this makes it run a lot more smoothly when using a drawing tablet or Tablet PC.
Some other parts that are unique are the high quality graphical display (anti-aliased curves on low-end cards, and very fast display meshing to allow for a smoother less polygonalized display than typically used), and also a high quality polygon mesh export that supports creating n-gons with a clean wireframe instead of a whole bunch of triangles.

Who are your target customers? Who can benefit the most from the features of MoI?

Actually a lot of times I do tend not to focus so much on a single ideal target customer, and instead focus more on refining a particular task (like making it easier to sweep a shape, etc…) which may be useful to a fairly broad range of different people.

one factor in making things easy to use is streamlining operations and using fewer steps to get stuff done

But if I had to pick one I would probably say that it would be an artist who could use some basic solid modeling tools to help them do their work, but who have just not been successful doing that because everything they have tried has been too difficult to use. Someone like that would likely have the most to gain since they may not be currently using the computer to assist their work very much.
I kind of try not to pigeonhole it as _only_ for beginning users though - one factor in making things easy to use is streamlining operations and using fewer steps to get stuff done. That also brings a type of “modeling speed” increase along with it and that can be of interest to advanced users to get simple stuff done very quickly as well…

Despite the popularity of products such as Rhino, surface modeling systems are still very difficult to use, with only a few exceptions like MoI. Based on your experience, what do you think are the reasons for such a slow evolution?

It’s just a natural “path of least resistance” in software and UI development to adopt an already existing design or framework rather than build something new.

[Designing a UI] It’s really risky to build something totally brand new

It’s really risky to build something totally brand new. UI design is just not quite like a precise science – in many cases you can’t just follow a few specific steps or check stuff off of a list to then get “easy to use” automatically.
So rather than risk a big UI disaster, it is more normal for developers to say “just make it work like X” (MS Office, AutoCAD, etc…) and then we don’t have to worry about it.
That actually also saves a huge amount of development time as well. But at the same time it tends to make for very slow and more incremental progress instead of major improvements.
For a frame of reference, it took me about 1 entire year’s worth of work just purely on UI development for MoI. For me it was more interesting and fun to take the risks involved and I also had a catalyst of trying to get a tablet-friendly UI as well which helped to force me out of the more common path.

What are the reasons and implications of not having a proprietary file format?

It’s actually a strategic thing for me to be able to share data easily with other programs, because there are a lot of things that MoI does not currently do on its own like for example rendering.

using a proprietary format is just an extra piece of work that is nice to eliminate if possible

Instead of trying to build in a renderer to MoI right in the first version, it is just more practical for me to focus on doing a good job of data transfer to other programs that already do rendering. That lets the user accomplish what they need to do without me having to have the entire feature set for every possible thing all built into MoI at once, which is simply not feasible for me to do especially in a first release.
Once you have a focus on data transfer as a very important function, using a proprietary format is just an extra piece of work that is nice to eliminate if possible.

Steve Jobs as well as Henry Ford believe that to develop a product you have to listen to the users, but not do what they ask for. What is your experience on that?

I believe the concept there is that users will tend to ask for things that are within the framework of what they currently have. If you don’t dig in to understand more of the problem underlying what they are asking about, you may be missing a chance to make a much larger fundamental step forward rather than just an incremental step.

user feedback is a huge raw resource that is extremely valuable to tap into

But the whole area of incorporating user feedback is a rather complex and subtle thing.
It’s actually literally impossible to just do exactly what all users ask because different users can (and will) ask for mutually exclusive things.
But at the same time user feedback is a huge raw resource that is extremely valuable to tap into, it sort of builds a much larger pool of ideas to draw from than what I would have all on my own. That’s why I spend so much time interacting with my users.

Can you share with us some of you plans for the future of MoI?

At the moment I’m almost ready to release the first beta for MoI version 2.0. The first batch of new features are for pretty basic editing and drawing type tasks. There is a new edit frame that appears around selected objects so that you can quickly rotate or scale them, similar to how a 2D illustration program works, and also some new abilities to easily draw directly on surfaces.
I think it is really important to continue to refine the pretty basic “bread & butter” type functions.
Pretty soon I’ll be adding some additional file format support for SAT and STEP.
Another big focus for v2 will be some object organization tools, similar to layers and grouping type mechanisms, to make it easier to work with more complex models.
I have some interesting ideas to improve the history-editing type functionality.
Further out I do also want to add what I call “communication” oriented type features (because they will be for helping others understand your design), which will include some basic rendering and dimensioning.

I would like to thank Michael Gibson for taking the time to answer all my questions. If you have any questions for Michael or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.  Moment of Inspiration is available on the Novedge website along with a trial version.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Ron KC Cheng, CAD Writer

Ron KC Cheng is the author of a new book Inside Rhinoceros 4 published by Thomas Learning, an introduction to the latest release of Rhino, the popular NURBS modeling system by Robert McNeel and Associates. This is not the first book about Rhino written by Ron; he is also the author of Inside Rhinoceros 3, a sort of classic for the Rhino community. Despite the rich set of training and learning resources available over the Internet, many people like the idea of having a real book to browse through as a reference or even read sitting on the porch. Ron has plenty of experience with Rhino as a professional and as a teacher and I'm sure his book will help Rhino to reach an even wider audience. To learn more about Rhino and the book, I asked Ron for an interview.

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

Thomson Learning has published for me seventeen English books related to computer-aided design applications

Leading the Engineering Design and Communication Unit of the Industrial Center of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in addition to teaching, my main areas of interest are designing and product development related, in particular, to four kinds of projects (industrial, engineering, integrative, and manufacturing).
Over the years Thomson Learning of the United States of America has published for me seventeen English books related to computer-aided design applications. Among them, the Autodesk Inventor book was translated into Russian and the latest publication is the Inside Rhinoceros 4 book. In addition to the English books, the China Technology Press of Hong Kong also published for me computer aided design books in Chinese and a series of paper automata toys (Figure 1.)
Together with my team, through sensitive exploration, dynamic steering, critical changing, and strategic creation of needs, I continually develop and provide four major kinds of tangible products in terms of project works: industrial projects, engineering projects, integrated learning projects, and manufacturing projects. Basically, industrial projects and engineering projects are externally oriented, with clients mainly from the industry outside the university. These projects usually have clear definitions on what will be needed in the final product, in terms of aesthetic and functional requirements. In essence, they are similar in nature but differ only on emphasis, with industrial projects having more focus on aesthetic outcome and engineering projects having heavier engineering ingredients. In common, they are all unique, challenging, and interesting because they are dynamically driven by the market. The lead time for these projects is usually short and reaction to market enquiry has to be fast and immediate. Showing in figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 are some of the industrial and engineering projects.
Contrary to externally orientated projects, integrated learning projects and manufacturing projects are internally oriented, with clients being our students of the university. The common goal of these projects is to enable the students with different backgrounds to achieve specific learning outcomes, with the integrated learning projects being the primary projects and the manufacturing projects being the secondary projects. Here, primary and secondary refer to the stages in delivery in the course of learning but not their importance. As primary projects, integrated learning projects have to match individual program’s detail syllabus in terms of coverage in various processes, with preference on the balance of emphasis and leading to the advocating of product and process integration in the design and development of projects. Being secondary in the stage of learning, manufacturing projects are more flexible in nature and scope, as long as engineering application and problem solving techniques are properly emphasized. Figures 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are some examples of the integrative projects and manufacturing projects.

What is so special about Rhinoceros 4.0 to explain its great success?

Rhinoceros is very user-friendly and can be picked-up in a couple of hours

There are several points contributing to Rhinoceros 4’s success. First of all, as compared with other 3D modeling tools, Rhinoceros does not require heavy hardware configuration. We can run Rhinoceros 4 on a computer with a Celeron CPU with as low as 256M Ram. Naturally, we need to turn off History recording. Otherwise, memory requirement will become quite high. Part of my Rhinoceros book was written while I was traveling on trains, using an ultra mobile PC, as shown in Figure 12.
Rhinoceros is very user-friendly and can be picked-up in a couple of hours, because it allows users to input command through pull-down menus, toolbars, as well as command prompt area. In particular, it allows users to select command options by selecting them from the command prompt area. To facilitate 3D manipulation, there are three default construction planes. In conjunction with using the Control key, we can input 3D coordinates very easily. Naturally, we can always set up our own construction planes whenever necessary but that would need a bit more knowledge on Rhinoceros. In terms of surface modeling, it supports both NURBS surfaces as well as polygonal meshes. NURBS surfaces are powerful tools for building 3D free-form surfaces. Using Rhinoceros, the NURBS curves and surfaces can be easily built and manipulated. With Rhinoceros’s UDT (universal deformation technology), we can manipulate NURBS surface objects to obtain very free-form organic shapes. On the other hand, polygonal meshes are useful in rapid prototyping. We can use it as a tool to manipulate rapid prototyping files, such as the bubble car in my latest book and the penguin toy in Figure 13.

NURBS is a very powerful technology, but not the easiest one to grasp for end-users. What has been done and what could be done to make it more user-friendly?

Rhinoceros’ development team has done a great job to make the construction and manipulation of NURBS surfaces easy even for the beginners

Indeed, Rhinoceros’ development team has done a great job to make the construction and manipulation of NURBS surfaces easy even for the beginners. By laying one or more background images in the default construction planes, even the novice can use the curve tools to produce curves and use the curves to construct various kinds of surfaces. Using various tools, such as curves from objects tools and curve and surface rebuilding and improvising tools, NURBS surfaces can be built and improvised with great accuracy and smoothness.
To illustrate how easy it is to use Rhinoceros in surface modeling, I am going to present the rendered images  (Figure 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) of the car models produced by my students, with the models constructed by using Rhinoceros 4 and images rendered by using Flamingo. Among these models, apart from the Audi car model, which is produced by a student who has prior knowledge on using other CAD applications, the remaining models are done by students who are CAD novices, learning Rhinoceros in my intensive course of 8 meetings (three hours in each meeting) within four weeks. During the course, I first let them work on the bubble car case study delineated in my latest Rhinoceros book and subsequently on a series of tutorials. Then they work on their own to produce the car bodies which I require them to export to Autodesk Inventor, from there they continue to construct the solid model of a transformer toy, transforming a car to a robot (take a look at the video).

Each CAD system has its own personality. How would you describe Rhino's personality?

it is so easy to use that we can use it to construct even illogical curves

Rhinoceros is very user-friendly. As a surface modeling tool, it is so easy to use that we can use it to construct even illogical curves, illogical in such a way that the curves intersect themselves, and use the illogical curves to construct surfaces that cannot be produced physically by any manufacturing process. Sometime even the curves do not intersect, but because of the shape and radius of curvature of the curves, the surface produced from them intersects itself, preventing physical models to be produced from the surfaces. Naturally, this brings about fallacious negative criticism that Rhinoceros surfaces, collectively, are no good for making physical models. However, I still consider that allowing illogical surfaces to be produced is a good point in terms of learning because it allows us to experiment with organic free-form shapes as perceived in our mind.
Consequently, we need to emphasize a water-tight and non-self intersecting surface model, if we are going to use Rhinoceros models in down-stream computerized operations such as solid modeling and rapid prototyping. Naturally, models do not need to be water-tight and non-self intersecting if we concern only about visualization. Here, the car models my students are working on need to be water-tight and non-self intersecting because the models are required to be used in Autodesk Inventor for making a transformer toy. Showing in the video is the Audi car to robot toy constructed by my student Wing-Keung Li, using Rhinoceros to construct the surface model, exporting the Rhinoceros surface model to Autodesk Inventor, and using Autodesk Inventor to produce the solid model of the robot toy.

What has been your approach in writing your last book about Rhino?

CAD should be used in design in much the same way as we would use the word processor in writing an essay

To most people, it may be very unusual to start with a series of case studies and then follow by the main description delineating the application. Therefore, some may say that I have done my book in a strange sequence by beginning with level 2 training and then proceed to level 1 training, reversing the normal process. Frankly speaking, I do not quite agree on clear cut level division in training because nowadays, CAD is no longer a separated, isolated operation in the product development process in which someone produces the sketches or concept drawings and someone else constructs the CAD model. On the contrary, CAD should be used in design in much the same way as we would use the word processor in writing an essay, because more and more designers and architects would wish to construct the CAD model themselves to realize their concepts.
Over the years, I learned from many designers and architects and my students that they want to learn how to produce 3D models of their designs quickly, caring very little about the details of the commands and the options of the commands. This is similar to when we first learn word processing, we always have an immediate need to know about how to use it as a tool to write an essay; and very few of us would, from the onset, care about the many functions, like page making and web publishing, of the word processor. Realizing that construction of surfaces is simple but making the curves is not, I designed some interesting case studies and prepared the template files in the Case Studies of my book, encouraging the novice to taste the sweetness of making a model by using the surface construction tools on the curves provided. To let the students know more about why and how, I put the main chapters after the case studies. This is why I wrote my book in such a way, beginning with a series of case studies. In fact, I have more case studies placed in the CD accompanying the book because of page number limitation. Showing in Figure 24, 25, 26, and 27 are the case studies in my book and an additional case study developed after the book is published.

What has been the role of the Rhino community in your latest book about Rhino?

The good thing about such a long WIP and beta period is that it gave me ample time to think about what should be and what should not be included in the book

Writing of my latest book about Rhinoceros, in fact, started since Rhinoceros released its first WIP (work in progress) version, which I learned about from the editor of Thomson Learning, who urged me to complete the book as soon as possible, in order to catch up with the pace of the release of Rhinoceros 4. Ironically, the WIP lasted for years and there were so many WIP versions that I cannot recall how many versions have been released. Following the WIP versions were the Beta versions. It took me nearly two years to keep track on the changes of Rhinoceros and thus revise my book. The good thing about such a long WIP and beta period is that it gave me ample time to think about what should be and what should not be included in the book, as well as to try out the case studies with my students. The bad side of such a long period is that it tends to become boring to keep track on a single CAD system for such a long time, because I am also interested in other solid modeling systems such as Autodesk Inventor, using it in designing. Over the years, I met a lot of people from the Rhinoceros’s company and they gave me a lot of help and information about the development of Rhinoceros. Among them, special thanks go to Jerry Hambly (my old friend) and Yoko of McNeel company.

From your personal point of view, how do you see the future of CAD?

In the future there will remain two kinds of CAD systems: the surface modeling and the parametric feature-based

Many years ago in the early 80’s, when PC was starting to become popular, people debated about whether to move forward to using CAD instead of drafting manually because in those days, PC based CAD systems are mostly 2D in nature, which were only marginally more advantageous than drafting manually. Later on, there are more powerful PC based CAD systems capable of handling 3D. However, those PC based 3D objects were still quite primitive, with limited modeling functions, leading to the debate of whether to move forward from 2D CAD to 3D CAD. Over the years, advancement of PC based CAD systems has escalated in such a pace that they are now capable of representing and realizing various 3D objects electronically in the computer. Naturally, CAD has and will become a very fundamental skill for designers and architects, like word processing skill for everyone. In the future, I would perceive that, basically, there will still remain two major kinds of CAD systems, the surface modeling system such as Rhinoceros and the parametric feature-based solid modeling systems. Rhinoceros will still be used extensively because it is simple to use and it has cutting edge on providing a set of low cost and easy to manipulate tools for designers and architects for them to realize their conceptual ideas quickly.

I would like to thank Ron KC Cheng for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks to Janet Brock for help in arranging this interview. If you have any questions for Ron or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Joe Anand, CEO of MecSoft (VisualMill and RhinoCAM)

Joe Anand is the CEO of MecSoft, the company that makes the famous CAM products VisualMill and RhinoCAM.

we have been the first to use the OpenNurbs technology and to write a full-fledged CAM plug-in for Rhino

The CAM market is fragmented with several small players. Many of them are selling good technologies but having problems creating a friendly user interface and delivering a product that doesn't require the assistance of an expert in training and deployment. In this CAM world MecSoft is a bit of an exception: VisualMill and RhinoCAM are great products with an easy-to-use interface and one doesn't need to share a cubicle with Joe Anand for two weeks just to start working with them. In order to learn the secret behind MecSoft and its products, I invited Joe Anand for an interview.

Joe, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

Sure, let’s see - I got out of college with a masters degree in mechanical engineering with an emphasis on computer science. I remember the first computer program that I wrote was a design program for a rotary cam follower mechanism. This was early in the days of programming but that is when the CAD/CAM bug first bit me. After graduation, I got my first taste of commercial CAD/CAM with GE/Calma a company that pioneered 3D graphics systems in the early 80s in San Diego, CA.  After working with their Robot Simulation software, I moved on to work for a company in Denver called Auto-trol Technologies. I initially wrote a product for the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) industry for them and later worked on their CAM product.

I made a proposal to Tony Affuso to create a CAM for the PC. This was summarily dismissed and so I decided to do this on my own

My big break came when I was with Intergraph Corporation in the 90s when I somehow ended up to be in-charge of rewriting their entire surface milling product called MaxMill.  Maybe it was that nobody else wanted to touch this! 
Those were the heady days of new technical advances in both CAD and CAM. NURBS, Parametrics and a whole host of other advances made life quite exciting if you were a CAD/CAM techie then. In any case it was the right time to try new approaches to the problem of surface milling and we were able to produce a robust and fast surface milling product that emerged as one of their top selling product. After Intergraph started focusing on Solid Edge and moving resources away from their Unix based EMS product I moved back to the west coast to work for Unigraphics Solutions.  After 4 years of exciting work with one of the best CAM systems in the world, I saw an opportunity to create a workstation class CAM product on the then lowly PC. I made a proposal to Tony Affuso, who was then the VP of Development (who by the way is now, the President of Unigraphics Solutions) to create such a product. This was quickly and summarily dismissed for various reasons and so I decided to do this on my own. Armed with nothing more than a second mortgage, a supporting wife (I better say this or I will get into trouble) and a belief that there was a definite need for a high quality and yet affordable product on the PC and, I launched MecSoft in December of 1998.  It has been a fun ride since then - not much different from a roller coaster, I should say.

CAM software is traditionally expensive, difficult to use, and requires the support of a local reseller. MecSoft seems to be working to change that. Can you us tell how?

CAM systems can be treated as shrink-wrapped software and sold and supported as such

Interesting that you ask this question. This view of the CAM market is really something we have striven to change. I recall a conversation I had a few years ago with a CEO from another “traditional” CAM company. His view of the CAM market was that it was a “service software” market and that he required an extensive infrastructure to deliver, train and support customers on his CAM system. Our view at MecSoft is quite the opposite. We believe that if we designed the product, the delivery and the distribution systems correctly then CAM systems can be treated as “shrink-wrapped” software and sold and supported as such. This optimizes the entire supply chain in ways that a traditional CAM company simply cannot.

MecSoft is one of the few companies successfully selling CAM software through the online channel. Do you attribute this to the user friendliness of your products or to a better attitude of your customers?

the web is such a natural medium for software distribution, sale and support

This really goes back again to our view of the CAM market. The web is such a natural medium for software distribution, sale and support that we as CAM vendors would be foolish not to take advantage of it. We saw the value of this early on and have built our company around this opportunity. Any success we are seeing now is because it is indeed a very effective way of selling and supporting CAM systems - despite what some older stalwarts of the industry think!
And of course without customer acceptance of this model it would never work. Our first customers were early adopters who shared the same vision as us. But now with the advent of Web 2.0 this model is becoming the mainstream model and we are enjoying the benefits of perceiving this and acting on this before most others.

Your approach is not to implement CAD features but to facilitate the integration with CAD systems, for example, with the partnership with Alibre and the RhinoCAM product line. Do you have plans for further integrations?

our intent has always been to focus on our core-competency: creating world-class CAM solutions

We believe that there is a place for standalone CAM systems as well as fully integrated CAD/CAM systems. While we recognize a need for both such systems, our intent at MecSoft has always been to focus on our core-competency – that is – creating world-class CAM solutions. There are so many wonderful and talented CAD companies out there that it just does not make sense for us to try to compete with them. It is much better for our customers if we can leverage the synergies of best of breed organizations to create truly best of breed solutions. In the end the customer benefits and that really is our primary driver.

Rapid Prototyping technologies are becoming more affordable and therefore more commonly used. What will be the impact of those technologies on your products?

This is an interesting question. We are seeing some industries, which have traditionally used CNC machining for manufacturing parts, migrating towards these technologies. Jewelry manufacturing is a prime example. Various sources estimate that about 80-90% of all jewelry made in the world is manufactured using RP technologies today.   
However these technologies come with their own set of problems and so are not a panacea or the right technologies for all manufacturing applications. We see these technologies co-existing with more traditional machining technologies and methods. We at MecSoft view the emergence of these technologies as opportunities. A case in point - we recently released a product called RhinoART, which utilizes non-traditional modeling techniques to complement the powerful traditional modeling capabilities of Rhino. Models produced with this product can then be manufactured using such RP technologies.

RhinoCAM is a very successful product. What has been your experience so far in selling a product to the Rhino community?

we have been involved with the Rhino community from the early days of Rhino

We have been involved with the Rhino community from the early days of Rhino – even before the first version of Rhino was released. In fact we were the first company to create a data transfer plug-in for Rhino, the first to use the OpenNurbs technology and also the first CAM vendor to write a full-fledged CAM plug-in for Rhino. We find that Rhino users are passionate about the products they use and are early but discerning adopters of new technologies. It is always an interactive experience dealing with them, typically characterized by a spirit of openness and cooperation. This makes working with and serving them a truly satisfactory and gratifying experience. It has been a great ride so far!

I would like to thank Joe Anand for sharing his thoughts with me today. If you have any questions for Joe or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

The New Rendering Frontier: an Interview with Chema Guerra, Co-Director of Fryrender

Jose María Guerra García is co-founder and co-director, with Pedro Osma, of Feversoft, the Spanish company that is developing Fryrender. Fryrender is a new rendering engine strictly based on light simulation (it comes as a standalone product with plug-ins for 3ds Max, Maya, Rhino, LightWave, and Cinema 4D). Jose Maria's new software product is emerging from a long phase of beta testing as one of the most promising of the new generation rendering engines. According to legend, Jose and Pedro chose the name for the new product from the acronym Feversoft RaYtracer. Now that Fryrender is getting close to being released, it's a good time to ask Jose María -- or simply "Chema" -- for more information about his company and his new product. Here is the interview.

Jose María -- Chema -- can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

I am the Technical Director and the programmer behind the core of Fryrender

My name is Chema Guerra. I am the Technical Director at Feversoft, and the programmer behind the cores of Fryrender and RC4.
I studied Computer Engineering and co-founded Feversoft with my business partner Pedro Osma as soon as we both got our degrees (we studied together).
Since 2001 we've devoted all our efforts to the Research and Development of new visualization technologies, mostly in the real-time field. We have created a fully-featured Virtual Reality engine called Random Control 4 and several tools around it which we have used for custom projects for customers.
During the last year and a half we have focused on the release of all that technology in the form of two products:

1. Fryrender - physically-based render engine: a next-generation render engine which also features real-time data generation capabilities.
2. RC4 - virtual reality engine: a real-time engine for simulation, virtual walkthroughs, and advanced GPGPU rendering.

What do you believe is the most important feature in a rendering system?

Fryrender is aiming at the right balance between cutting-edge technology and the best usability and reliability

From a merely technical point of view one tends to be permanently obsessed with making the engine faster, capable of reproducing reality with the finest quality, more complete.
From a customer's point of view those aspects are a must as well. But there are also some other things that become obvious when you are exposed to a rather large customers base: usability, stability, reliability, control over the final output, a consistent, and friendly support.
So, all in all, I think that fryrender is aiming at CG professionals who are demanding the right balance between the most cutting-edge technology and the best usability and reliability.

Traditional rendering is a mature technology that most of the time comes embedded with the 3D modeling system. Why should a user invest in Fryrender or a similar product?

It is very difficult for a company to master different fields at the same time. Modeling and rendering technologies are two very different and complicated worlds. It's true that all the serious 3D modeling applications come with their own render system, but in most cases the render solution they provide is far from being their strongest feature.
For example, so far, no modeling package includes a physically-based rendering solution. So if you want the highest rendering quality and a powerful modeling package, you need to invest in two different products.

Fryrender is entering the rendering market with a strategy that was first pioneered by Robert McNeel: give away the beta version as early as possible, build a solid users' community, and involve the community in the evolution of the product. What’s the next step?

involving our customers in the development process has proven to be very very beautiful

In our experience, involving our customers in the development process has proven to be not only beneficial, but very very beautiful also. Not only from a technical perspective but also from a human one.  On the one hand, Fryrender is a product for our users. It needs to meet their requirements and make their job easier, so their feedback is FUNDAMENTAL. In fact, their requests and suggestions have a strong impact in the way the development tasks are scheduled.  On the other hand, this connection between our customers and the team offers to them a high degree of reliability that is of great value.
In some way you could say that by helping and listening to our customers they are helping us give the product the right shape in return. So it is our idea to let things be this way, no matter whether we're in beta or release.

Speed is the biggest challenge of in the Fryrender innovative approach. While Moore’s Law will provide the most significant help to address this problem, what else can users do to speed up the rendering?

The new generations of computers, with better architectures and more multiplicity in their units will definitely turn what are hours today into minutes tomorrow. But that's the future and users need to cope with the computers they own in the present. In fact, Moore's Law is not always taken into account in terms of programming or software technology development (not in our case at least). If you optimize your code for today's computers, it will be even faster on tomorrow's CPUs.
No matter how fast the code you write is, it's never fast enough.  In the particular case of fry there's still a lot of room for optimization, and also for technology leaps that we have planned for the mid-term future of the product.
In a shorter-term, we are planning to add many tutorials / video-tutorials on our website to train our users in how to fine-tune their scenes to achieve the best performance.

Is there any specific reason Spain is becoming a reference point for these new rendering technologies?

I've been asked this question many times, and I have even asked this question to myself, he he. But the only answer is that this is all a matter of coincidence. Arnold Renderer, Maxwell Render and Fryrender are Spanish products. Considering that there are not too many high-end engines in the industry, Spain adds up to a remarkable percent of all the rendering technology in the market. Which is an amazing coincidence since there's no connection at all between the three engines.
All that I can say is that I feel very proud of being part of this because it's probably very good for our country.

Many European companies experience difficulties entering the US market. European users and American users are different and have different expectations. How do you plan to address the two different markets?

our approach is very simple: honesty

May this sound naive, our approach is very simple: honesty.
Most of the people involved in the CG industry is people who know what they need from a CG tool. If a tool offers the functionality they need, and generates images with the quality they wish to achieve, they will be attracted by the product eventually. This idea should work internationally.
So far, a remarkable percentage of our customers are from the US, so the fact that the Internet breaks frontiers and that CG users are rather technical people seems to make target-oriented marketing not so urgent.
Anyway, it is our idea to build a strong reseller network overseas to reach deeper. We have been waiting for the right level of maturity in Fryrender to start taking these steps. After vBeta1.7 and with the upcoming release of Fryrender DEMO we feel that the right time has come. We are in fact contacting potential resellers world-wide already.

When do you expect Fryrender will be officially released, and how will it be packaged?

The official date for Fryrender's release is 'when it's done'. We're working full blast in that direction so it won't take too long, but it's been our strict policy since the beginning to keep our schedule in full secrecy.
The release date is given by the end of the core engine's task-list. The plug-ins development runs in parallel, so the final release will come with the plug-ins that we already have (3ds Max, Cinema 4D, LightWave, Rhino, Maya) plus the plug-ins that we manage to finish before the core is ready.  Anyway additional plug-ins will be given to our customers with no extra cost, as soon as they are available.
The licensing policy will not change. The price will be 795€ [about $1068] and for that price you will get a network dongle that will unlock up to 10 simultaneous IPs, without any CPU or core limitations.

I would like to thank Jose María Guerra García for taking the time to speak with me today. Novedge is currently considering to become a US reseller of fryrender. If you have any questions for Chema or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Giuseppe Massoni, Jewelry Designer and Rhino 3D Guru

Giuseppe Massoni is a jewelry designer and a Rhino 3D guru. He is a Tech Support Specialist as well as a Rhino Training Specialist for Robert McNeel & Associates (McNeel Europe), and is also in charge for the Italian Rhino Newsgroup. Giuseppe is a well-known and highly respected member of the Rhino community. He is also the author of "Modeling and Mold making for Jewelry Designers," a popular training CD published by Robert McNeel & Associates.
The recent release of Rhino 4.0 is consolidating the success of Rhino in the jewelry design industry.  Giuseppe Massoni is the right person to help us understand the reason behind the success of Rhino 3D and the evolution of jewelry design from its ancient traditions. Here is the interview:

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

Jewelry is a family business since 1790

47 years old, Industrial Designer with Jewelry as part of my DNA. Jewelry is a family business since 1790, so I guess there must be something genetic by now. I have been behind Design & Production since 1982. By the end of the eighties I started investigating if CG could be integrated in the jewelry design and production work flow at some point. It was the Amiga time. Few years later the scenario was more inviting with more productive software and finally I got involved with Rhinoceros. That was the turning point.
Aside from my activity within the McNeel family, jewelry design takes a large part of my work but I also freelance Industrial Design in other areas. Packaging and display material mostly.

Many of us still have this image of a jewelry designer as a traditional, old fashioned job, even though the reality is quite different. Coming from a family with a long history in the jewelry business, you have been part of this transformation. Can you share with us your experience?
Yes, transformation is the right term. But in reality it's been much less aggressive than one would expect. CG, rapid prototyping are just tools and they come in only at given stages of jewelry design/production. Basically the new tools will help up to a prototype. From this point on is all traditional work.
In a way modern casting and laser welding have impact the work flow more radically but with less glamor. As for all innovations you need to proof that they are a real, tangible advantage and honestly when you are experimenting them they are not. I asked my Company to invest in research and letting me try to integrate technologies not traditionally belonging to jewelry. I am happy they let me try. I think now everybody is happy about it. By 1995 we had a full CAD/CAM integrated work-flow for our production. Of course not everything needs to be computer designed. I try to use the right tool for a given task.

You are well-known as one of the most advanced Rhino users. What are the professional benefits for users interested in further training in Rhino?
As an Industrial Designer the benefit of being a skilled user of Rhino is that you have better chances to communicate with your partners. Rhino is sometimes used as data interchange platform, this is to say that if you can model professionally in Rhino almost everyone will be able to see your work and use it.
In jewelry design Rhino is becoming a standard. This is a fact.

The Rhino community is thriving and probably the best marketing tool for the all of the Robert McNeel & Associates products. As an active and prominent member of this community, what has been your experience? Do you believe the same model can be applied successfully to other types of businesses?
This is very interesting. I am not sure if the community is a marketing tool but it's out of the question that customer satisfaction is at the first place. The community it's rather a consequence of this. In this sense doing Tech Support is a fantastic experience. Being at the front end of a Company known for it's support is truly rewarding. A unique opportunity to learn from people doing the most incredible things with the software.
We have a very successful Newsgroup. The Italian one is the second most important after the English one. I am very proud of this because my goal, when we started splitting Newsgroups into language ones was to keep rolling the same enthusiasm and overall attitude between users that the original Newsgroup had. I have seen several cases of help needed where supposed competitors helped each other. I don't think it's a question of types of business, I would say it's a way of how you see the idea of business.

Rhino is seldom used as the only software product in a design and manufacturing process. What are the most common combinations seen and what are the benefits in combining Rhino with other software tools for the end-user?
The biggest advantage of having software combinations or plug-ins is that you can take the best from each part. There has been a great interest in the Rendering area and now Rhino can work in combination with the most advanced rendering engines. CAM is another big sector.
It is really amazing, even looking at this from the "inside", to see the number of new plug-ins coming out in the most different areas.

How do you combine the artistic talent of a jewelry designer with the technical talent of a Rhino trainer and expert?

if you can't sketch it on a piece of paper you wont be able to model it

Happily having fun.
I start from hand sketches, which usually come after preparatory work (books, research..study) then more hand sketches... and finally I start to model. When I teach Rhino I always say that the program con not do what the user is unable to see. In other words: if you can not sketch it on a piece of paper chances are you wont be able to model it. The artistic talent is what makes someone handle gracefully the curvature of a curve, as an example. Doing this with technological tools on the monitor just makes it more easy. A talented designer can do this on the sand with a stick just as well. One of the best advantages of Rhino is that it really asks for a minimal technical talent leaving you concentrate on the artistic part. There is one circumstance when I only use the software, no preliminary sketching. It's like "Rhino Design Aerobics". After all this is a fantastic tool to help investigate 3D space, so I sort of wonder into it ,experimenting modeling strategies with no final object fixed in my mind. I find it very relaxing and sometimes the result would be very hard to imagine before. It's like workout... but more fun.

Jewelry design is a well established tradition in some European countries like Italy and Spain. How is the European jewelry tradition different from the American one?
Jewelry is a big tradition in Italy. Design is pretty much in the same direction. I think that the majority of the production is focused on a certain degree of innovation in terms of design.
In the States there is a well established amount of "classic" jewelry or, on the opposite side, some very design oriented one. The "in between" is what you would most likely find in Italian production.

I would like to thank Giuseppe Massoni for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Giuseppe or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Robert McNeel, CEO of McNeel and Associates (Rhino 3D)

Robert McNeel is the CEO of Robert McNeel & Associates, the company that makes the famous CAD modeling software Rhinoceros, simply known as Rhino 3D. Novedge has been a McNeel reseller since the opening of our online store. The recent release of Rhino 4.0 was a great opportunity to learn more about Robert and the success of Rhino. I invited Bob to participate in the following interview:

Bob, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

the worldwide Rhino user base is well over 150,000

Founded in 1980, McNeel & Associates is a privately held company, employee owned self-funded corporation. My background is public accounting. Originally, we were developing accounting software for consulting firms (accounting, architecture, engineering, etc.). Around 1985 many of our clients were asking for help with AutoCAD. We signed up as an Autodesk reseller in 1985 and over the next few years, we shifted our focus to providing AutoCAD and AutoCAD related hardware, software, training, and support. We also started doing development on AutoCAD. Our most popular AutoCAD based product is AccuRender (Also, the renderer in Revit).
We started the Rhino development in about 1992 as an AutoCAD plug-in to help a few of our marine design clients. We soon found that the AutoCAD user interface was not adequate for 3‑D free-form design, so we moved the development to a standalone Windows application. The rest is history.
Today, we are no longer an Autodesk reseller. The worldwide Rhino user base is well over 150,000. We are still based in Seattle with regional offices in Miami, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Rome, Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, and Shanghai. There are nearly 700 resellers around the world. Rhino is available in 11 languages. There are thousands of third-party developers using the Rhino SDK to develop both in-house custom applications and wide range of commercial 3-D applications.

Robert McNeel & Associates was able to create one of the most loyal online communities in the CAD field. Can you share with us the secret of your success in building the Rhino community?
We don’t really have any secrets, so if I had a good idea of why the online Rhino community is so successful, I’d be happy to share. My guess is that we were just lucky. When we started the Rhino development the Internet was new and we just happened catch the wave. I’m not sure it would easy or even possible to do today.

In the last few months, there has been a lot of talk in the CAD community about proprietary file formats and how companies protect them. I would like to know how a CAD system like Rhino was able to succeed with a file format that is open, documented, and free (OpenNURBS).
The CAD users need and want open high-fidelity data exchange.
Unfortunately, open file formats are not in the best interest of investors. Investors would rather bet on companies that have a protected proprietary market.
Unlike most CAD companies, we are not a public company nor are we venture capital funded with plans to be public. That means that our only customer (and source of income) is our users.

Rhino users had to wait a few years between Rhino 3.0 and the new Rhino 4.0. In the mean time, they enjoyed a continuous stream of improvements and bug fixes delivered to their PCs by the Rhino automatic updating system. Based on how well this system has worked, are you considering moving from a release-based system to some sort of subscription-based system?

we don’t pay any attention to what other CAD companies are doing

No. Again, those systems are usually in the best interest of the investors. Our users have the luxury of not having to buy upgrades until we provide something that is actually useful to them. In addition, all current users get to be involved in the development process are every stage, not just for a couple of months at the end. Since we don’t pay any attention to what other CAD companies are doing, we rely on the users to provide the direction for each new release.
We just started shipping Rhino 4.0 this month, but we started Rhino 5.0 development last month, and that development was been available to users for a few months now on RhinoLabs.

According to your website, Rhino 4.0 includes more than 800 improvements over Rhino 3.0. Explaining 800 improvements to an existing Rhino 3.0 user can be a challenging task. Can you give our users the two or three most important reasons to upgrade?
Not in general, but in many market segments there are three to five “must have” new tools. For example, if you own a laser cutter, the new 2D layout tools alone are worth the price of an update. Other tools, like those based on the UDT (Universal Deformation Technology) technology, are more general and are of interest to most users.
We tried to summarize the highlights in video clips that you can find on this link. We will continue to refine the videos as more users tell us what they think the highlights are.

We know that your engineers are running several experiments for new tools. Can you give us some insight on what we are going to see as new products or new features for existing products?
We are tracking about 3,000 feature requests from users. We prioritize the requests based on how quickly we can bring the most benefit to the most users. Typically, if there are good solutions available in other products, they don’t get the highest priority.
We are expecting to start getting Rhino 4.0 users involved in the 5.0 development process within the next month or two. Once the first 5.0 Work-in-Progress (WIP) version is in the hands of users for a few weeks, we will have a much better idea of what to focus on for 5.0. My guess is that 5.0 will be primarily enhancements to the major new features in 4.0. Of course, we never know for sure until the users tell us what is most important.

I would like to thank Robert McNeel for taking the time to speak with me today. All McNeel products mentioned in this interview are available online from the Novedge website. If you have any questions for Bob or for Novedge, just leave a comment below, and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

The New Rhino 4.0 is Here!

After keeping us waiting for years, Robert McNeel finally released Rhino 4.0. It's a completely new version of the popular Rhinoceros 3.0 NURBS modeler, mostly known by its nickname: Rhino 3D.

Rhino 4.0 includes over 800 improvements based on users' feedback

The development team put a lot of effort and energy into improving a product that is already one of the most powerful of modeling systems. According to McNeel the product includes over 800 improvements based on users' feedback and several enhancements for almost every feature of the program.

I received the not-for-resale version and immediately installed it on my computer to see what was new. First of all the new Rhino comes in a different box - there is no longer the traditional heavy carton box, now it's a light DVD case.
Inside the case:

• One DVD with the installation program and the main documentation.
• One CD with additional documentation and a free service pack to upgrade Flamingo 1.1, Penguin 1.0, and Bongo 1.0 for full compatibility with the new Rhino 4.0.

The traditional 500 page printed manual is gone, replaced by a full set of users manuals in digital form. The installation is simple and the new Rhino can coexist with the old Rhino 3.0, without any side effects. Personally I do not recommend this configuration if you have any Rhino plug-ins installed on the the same computer.
Once you have the program installed you can start to enjoy all the improvements and enhancements in several areas, such as:

Modeling

Enhancements include robust variable blend tools, improved Booleans, and G-infinity blending.

Editing Tools

New Editing tools including UDT for free-form deformation of all geometry types, feature recognition for direct polysurface and solids editing and command history for editing surfaces by changing their input curves.

User Interface

Enhancements including SmartTrack technology and live help with video clips.

Display Pipeline

The new pipelines takes advantage of the latest graphic card technology to provide a major speed improvement, new advanced display modes, new analysis tools, dual-screen support, and support for new third-party applications.

Photorealistic Rendering

New rendering including new basic rendering technology, upgraded Flamingo and Penguin, Brazil r/s available, and new third-party renderers including V-Ray and Maxwell. Also included are texture mapping tools that can be used by all Rhino plug-in renderers.

2-D Drawing

Several enhancements including line styles, line weights, hidden lines, dimensions, hatching, page layout and printing/plotting.

Mesh modeling

Major enhancements in mesh creation and editing. Also many new tools for STL repair and 3-D printing.

Analysis

Also enhanced tools detecting problems and evaluating model quality so the problems downstream can be avoided.

Large Projects Support

Large project are now supported with hierarchical layer management, file locking, and enhanced support for worksessions, blocks, and reference files.

Compatibility (import /export)

Several improvements including improved PDF, AI 8+, STEP, DWG/DXF, PLY, DGN, FBX, SolidWorks, Google Earth, SketchUP, and WAMIT support.

Software Development

Enhancements for users and third-party developers.

The list price for Rhino 4.0 is higher than the old Rhino 3.0 price, and you can check on our Novedge website for the best deal. If you own a copy of Rhino 3.0 you can upgrade to 4.0. For a list of improvements and new features you can check the Robert McNeel website.

As with the previous version, Rhino 4.0 doesn't require any special hardware to run. Unless your PC is from the Dark Age you should be able to run the program with no problem. Rhino 4.0 is also compatible with the latest Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista.

Franco Folini