RE: Form Z, Rhino and No accounting for taste

From: Jim Carruthers (jcarruth@leevalley.com)
Date: Mon Sep 28 1998 - 21:08:20 EEST


On Monday, September 28, 1998 12:48 PM, michael rees
[SMTP:zedand00@sound.net] wrote:
> Dear Mr. Carruthers,
>
> In my last email, I did state, imho(in my humble opinion). I went to
> lengths in that email to clarify that. For example my first paragraph
> stated
>
> "Its kind
> of silly when people defend the program they are using as superior in
> all respects. The fact is, different tools for different purposes. "
>
> >who love Form Z(mostly
> >'cause they're Mac addicts so there isn't really anything else,)
>
> I run Form Z on an Alpha windows NT platform, and have used solid works
> and pro E(though I'm not a whiz in either).
>
> >You obviously havnen't used it in a long time,
>
> Its true, its been about 6 months since I evaluated Rhino.
>
> >and/or are trying to >sell
> >your own product.
>
> I don't care if anyone ever buys form Z from me. I'm not in the software
> business. I do think Form Z is a package that could be succesfully used
> in wider industrial application. It is my desire not to knock rhino but
> rather to open possibilities for other less capitally endowed companies
> or individuals. After all, the promise of rapid prototyping is that it
> will become desktop manufacturing. To do that, simple, inexpensive cad
> tools must be available.
>
> I'm sure there are a bunch of engineers out there who've dreamed of
> making rp objects on their own time who don't have the capital to buy
> the big buck programs. Here are two alternatives Form Z and Rhino. A
> third is coming from Electric image, the electric image modeler and a
> forth, which is a facet modeler is available from Nichimen graphics for
> around 150$!!

Hey, whatever. Nichimen's product is supposed to be very good, but it's
meant for making low-polygon figures for games. I've had sme bad
experiences with Form Z and have a hard time understanding why anyone would
recommend it. I'm sure it's a great polygon modeler, it's got a lot of
features for architects, and if you like Macs it's about the only game in
town, but none of that will help with product development aside from
patching up the screwed-up STL meshes other CAD packages put out. Rhino
makes every other piece of sofware I've ever used--and I don't just mean
CAD packages--look like half-finished buggy bloatware. If you want to
model some geometry, and do it precisely, there's pretty much nothing else
that's faster (unless it's a square thing with holes, in which case a
parametric solid modeler would be more suitable.) And why put yourself
through the hassles of polygon modeling--or a whole buch of
half-implemented methods that aren't integrated properly--when you can get
full-strength NURBS for less? I'm not saying it's the best at everything.
For example, it can't make a decent expresso to save it's life, or wash my
car, and it's booleans and fillets are only about as good as Alias, which
is not bad but not close to Pro/E(we'll have to wait for V2 for that.)

Jim
----------------------------------------------------------------------
James Carruthers Canica Design
jcarrut@vsynth.carleton.ca jcarruth@leevalley.com
Hydraulic Design
http://vsynth.carleton.ca/~jcarrut/
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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