3D/EYE

From: Terry Wohlers (Wohlers Associates), Peter Gien (Pogo  International, Inc.)
To: RP-ML
Date: Thursday, November 16, 1995
Subject: 3D/EYE
> I have tried the 3D Eye solid modeling software ...  
> Has anyone else on this mailing list tried this software ...

Al - I have worked some with the TriSpectives software from 3D/EYE.  The
following are non-edited excerpts from a product review published in the
November 1995 issue of Computer Graphics World (CGW).  I say non-edited because
these paragraphs were submitted to the editor at CGW in the following form. 
The editor then performed his magic before the story went to press.  The
published version is much better and longer. :)

I hope the following comments are helpful.  New CAD solid modeling products,
such as TriSpectives, SolidWorks, and Solid Edge, will undoubtedly help expand
the RP industry, especially among small companies and schools.

Here goes ...

     TriSpectives Professional is an ACIS-based, parametric design program that 
combines 3D modeling, illustration, and animation features.  For the price 
($500), TriSpectives offers almost unbelievable set of capabilities.  Plus, 
it's one of the few 3D modeling products that I genuinely enjoyed learning and 
using.  
     Unlike many design products, TriSpectives encourages experimentation, which I 
believe promotes creativity.  It doesn't burden the user with command names and 
options, and lots of keyboard entry.  After only a few hours with it, I could 
create interesting, realistic, and precise models.
     TriSpectives offers a shell feature that I found very impressive and powerful. 
Many products, such as electronic devices, house the internal components in a 
plastic shell.  When designing these products, designers usually begin by 
creating an external shape, followed by hollowing the shape. You can do this 
easily with TriSpectives.  With the right mouse button, you select the shape 
you've designed, pick the shell tab in the pop-up menu, and specify a wall 
thickness.  TriSpectives then creates a shell of the part.  AutoCAD Designer 
doesn't offer a shell feature, although one is available in Pro/ENGINEER and 
Pro/JR.
     I especially liked the ease of changing the size and shape of the features on 
the solid model.  When you want to edit a feature, such as a hole, slot, or 
fillet, you just click on it.  This highlights the feature using solid lines 
for visible edges and hidden lines for hidden edges.  The selection adds 
handles to each of its dimensions, permitting you to grab and drag to change 
sizes dynamically.  You can also drive the size of a feature by pointing to one 
of the handles on the feature and then clicking the right mouse button.  Its 
dimension displays in a box that you can change quickly by typing a new number. The feature on the model changes to reflect the changed dimension.  I don't 
know how they could have made this easier.
     TriSpectives supports a number of file formats including 3DS (3D Studio), AVI, 
BMP (Windows bitmap), DWG (AutoCAD), DXF (2D and 3D), EPS, HPGL, IGES (2D and 
3D), JPEG, OBJ (Wavefront), PCD, PCX, SAT (ACIS), STEP (Class 6), STL (for 
rapid prototyping), TGA, TIFF, VRML, and WMF.  Using the SAT file format, 
TriSpectives can translate models to/from other solid modeling products 
(AutoCAD, Aries, and HP) using the ACIS modeling engine which 3D/EYE has 
licensed from Spatial Technology (Boulder, Colorado).
     Budget $8,000 (it's now $5,000) and $20,000, for Pro/JR. and Pro/ENGINEER 
respectively.  AutoCAD Designer costs $1,500, but you need the $3,750 AutoCAD 
product to run it, so budget $5,250 for them.  For both Pro/E and AutoCAD 
Designer, also budget plenty of dollars and time for training and learning, an 
expense that should be minimal for TriSpectives' customers.
     For a first release product, TriSpectives shows incredible promise.  If I were 
Parametric Technology Corp. or Autodesk, I'd be a little nervous.  Correction: 
Very nervous.  Its strength is product design and assembly modeling, coupled 
with breadth.  It's easy and enjoyable to use.  It's weakness is production 
drafting, although this may not be a problem for many organizations.

Contact Michelle Lendway at michelll@pennwell.com to obtain the November issue
of CGW.  To subscribe, send a note to cary@pennwell.com.  You can reach 3D/EYE
at 1050 Craft Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 USA, phone (800) 946-9533 in the US,
or (607) 266-7000, ext. 7337, fax (607) 257-7335.  I don't have an e-mail
address for the company.  As a sidenote, 3D/EYE was founded in 1981 by two
Cornell University professors.  In April of this year, the company gained
financial support from Paul G. Allen, the guy who co-founded Microsoft with
Bill Gates in 1975.  I'm not affiliated with 3D/EYE.

Terry Wohlers
Wohlers Associates

Date: 18 Nov 95 12:39:01 EST
From: Peter Gien <71773.3150@compuserve.com>
Subject: 3D/EYE and OLE
Terry Wohlers  wrote:
>TriSpectives Professional is an ACIS-based, parametric design program that
>combines 3D modeling, illustration, and animation features.  For the price
>($500), TriSpectives offers almost unbelievable set of capabilities. 
     In my opinion, the most important aspect of the 3D/EYE product is that it is 
entirely OLE based. In addition 3D/EYE is one of the few 3D modelors designed 
from the ground up as a Win95 application. The result is that 3D/EYE models can 
be shared, embedded and manipulated by other OLE complient apps. What we are 
seeing here are the underpinnings of a truly concurrent product development 
tool.
     Another interesting development is that Spatial Technologies has announced a SAT 
clipboard format for Windows. This means that objects can be transferred between 
ACIS applications using the Windows clipboard.
     These developments, together with the popularity of ACIS, lead me to conclude 
that the CAD operating environment of the next decade is not UNIX, but Windows 
NT or Win95.  
Regards,
Peter H. Gien
POGO International, Inc.

Date: 20 Nov 95 18:10:12 EST
From: Terry Wohlers <73417.1465@compuserve.com>
Peter Gien wrote:
> In my opinion, the most important aspect of the 3D/EYE product is that it 
> is entirely OLE based.
     Good point!  
> In addition 3D/EYE is one of the few 3D modelors designed from the ground 
> up as a Win95 application.
     CAD systems based on code written 10-15 years may have difficulty competing 
against new generation products, such as TriSpectives and SolidWorks.  Both are 
based on fresh code designed specifically for a 32-bit GUI environment.  
> the CAD operating environment of the next decade is not UNIX, but Windows
> NT or Win95.  
     I agree!  UNIX vendors may experience hard times over the next few years. 
While NT and 95 are not as mature as UNIX, both offer advantages to software 
developers and users.  Plus, there's strength in numbers.  I read that 
Microsoft has sold about 20 million copies of Windows 95.  As for Windows NT, 
Intergraph has bet the farm on it.  Intergraph is the second largest CAD 
company in the world.  The company claims that their new 200-MHz Pentium Pro 
graphics workstations running NT outperform SGI's Indy and Indigo2 
workstations, even with SGI's High IMPACT graphics, yet the Intergraph systems 
cost thousands less.  
Terry Wohlers
Wohlers Associates