I have been looking for ways to get mesh geometry from design models into Revit as NURBS for quite some time now . Then I remembered when I was in school I was told about Geomagic by Roland Snooks. So, I called them up and requested a demo to see if it would work as a tool for architects. It turns out this program has some amazing functionality when it comes to converting mesh objects to NURBS. It’s not like Rhino’s MeshToNurbs command where each mesh face is turned into a NURBS surface, that is way too heavy. What Geomagic allows you to do is essentially paint seams into your mesh (from an .stl or many other 3d formats) which become the seams for your NURBS surfaces. My original interest came from converting a sub division surface I made in 3ds Max to Revit. I made a pretty simple form for a project I’m working on at SHoP (can’t post images, sorry…) to check it out and it works very well. It would have worked better had I known what I was doing with the program (I watched a couple of videos on their site and that was about all the training I had). I’m in the process of getting more information from then directly and I’ll post more as soon as I know more but in the spirit of this post series I just want to expose people to application that they might not have seen before.

These images are from a white paper on the Geomagic site explaining how geomagic was used to scan a motorcycle part and make a physical copy.

Read more »

This is a program i used quite a bit while i was in school. I threw some crazy .stl files and it always fixed them. It’s a bit pricey so i haven’t been able to get a copy at work but we’re working on it. Many of the rapid prototyping machines require “water tight” models. Even though i can clean my models up bunch by modeling cleanly there are times when you are going to need this program. if your spending $3000 on a model you don’t want to run the risk of it coming back all messed up. (i don’t get paid to say this stuff, just sharing a resources) If you can try to down the trial version and give if a shot. Magics can pretty much boolean anything you throw at it. When i download the demo I’ll make a video tutorial showing how to use the fix wizard.

Read more »

For anyone that has not used this plugin before you HAVE to check this out. I tend to abuse 3ds Max pretty well but this plugin really advances the modeling capabilities of 3ds Max. Also if you find your self saying “i wish max could do this” PolyBoost probably has it.

This Relax Loop feature alone makes it worth buying (it’s not very expensive)

RelaxLoop

I posted images of a few more of the features but you’re better off checking out the site (i don’t get paid by them it’s just an awesome plugin that everyone should know about!)

Read more »

Software :VRMesh
URL:www.VRMesh.com
Industries : Medical, 3d Scanning, Civil
Primary use : Mesh Repair
Product Description: VRMesh is an advanced free-form 3d mesh modeling software for arbitrary triangle mesh creation and processing. Our innovative technologies are aimed to provide powerful, easy, and affordable solutions for engineering industries. The entire family of VRMesh consists of three packages targeted to different customers.

Read more »

This is the first post of many where i will be finding softwares that other industries use for design, fabrication and management. The first software I am writing about is shipconstructor. Being in the AEC industry it’s amazing how far behind we are, or at least that we are not further. This programs seems to do all things BIM is promising, and it’s all in one package. Im not sure when they say “AutoCAD-based 3D product” if it is built on top of Autocad (like a plugin) or if it behaves like autocad in that it is drafting based. For this write up i did not get a chance to Demo the software but in the further i will be writing about either program i use or i will request demo versions.



Software :ShipConstructor
URL:www.shipconstructor.com
Industry : Ship building
Primary use : 3d modeling for fabrication and assembly
Product Description: ShipConstructor is the dominant AutoCAD-based 3D product modeling and production planning software for the marine industry. ShipConstructor 2006 marries AutoCAD’s ease-of-drafting with the logical powers of a sleek SQL Server database design. This will bring you unprecedented savings, and opportunities to improve your design process. It also gives you the tools to streamline your entire production process.

Here are a few images from the website:
Read more »

TopMod Seems to be a pretty cool program. below is the text from there site as well as link to check it out.
Yet another new version of TopMod available on the Google Code Repository. Here is a brief summary of the new features/changes:

• Python version available (requires Python 2.5)
• The program should remember where your script editor window was last placed each time you close TopMod
• Fixed some translation issues
• Added a “twist” factor to doo sabin extrusion
• Added more decimal precision to all tool options that might require more accuracy (floating point values)
• Consolidated some file menu options into an “export” submenu
• Other minor changes I can’t seem to remember off the top of my head

LINK

Autodesk released the new subscription for 3d studio max 9, productivity booster.

I’ve read that Vray has a few issues with it but i would imagine that the final release the Vray 1.5 RC4 with fix the issues.

Autodesk Link