Modeling Software includes multiple animation options.
Press Release Summary:
Along with 3D printing with color and textures, form.Z v6.0 features various capabilities for object-centric animation. Cross-platform, design-oriented 3D modeler combines surface and solid modeling, polygonal and smooth modeling, NURBS, and parametrics. In addition to combined skinning and lofting operation, capping operation, and deformations, software provides morphing, Reconstruct Curve, and Reconstruct Nurbz tools.
Original Press Release:
form.Z 6.0 Introduced at AIA
June 7, 2006 - AIA National Convention and Design Exposition 2006, Los Angeles, California: AutoDesSys, is pleased to announce the introduction of form.Z 6.0 at the AIA National Convention 2006.
Slated for release later in the month of June of form.Z 6.0 introduces object animation and 3D printing with color and textures.
"Although these are the top heavyweight features of this release, these developments should not overshadow other very important new capabilities that extend form.Z's modeling power", said Chris Yessios, President of AutoDesSys. This release includes a number of new tools and features, a newsworthy selection of which are highlighted below.
Object-centric Animation
What this means is that the object retains its integrity and remains the "king" during the animation process. Rather than animating images or decomposed entities, form.Z animates well defined objects complete with their parameters and attributes, that can also be freely animated. This potentially makes the animation process a modeling venue that can generate forms beyond what is possible with conventional means. At any stage during the animation process, models can even be captured as different types of objects, including some of the special types, such as nurbz and metaformz. form.Z 6.0 offers a seamlessly integrated animation environment, where objects, lights, and cameras can be animated and transformed over time. To see sample animations go to http://formz.com/downloads/sample_animations.html
Animations can be generated either by key framing or relative to paths, each method offering specific advantages. Animations can also be created by simply dragging the name of an object, light, or view from the respective palette into an animation palette. The parameters of an entity can be animated at the same time its motion and/or size may be animated, which offers extensive possibilities in manipulating forms. Also, surface styles can be animated, which offers the ability to play movies within movies. Once animations have been set and refined, they can be played back in preview mode from within form.Z then rendered, saved, and played in their final form.
Animation settings can be developed in form.Z or imported from other programs.
3D Printing With Color and Textures
It is particularly exciting for AutoDesSys to be the only software company to offer its customers a venue to prototype their objects not only in color but with textures as well. Thanks to Z Corp's new ZPR file format (http://www.zcorp.com) which is optimized to support geometry and color capabilities of modern 3DP systems, engineers from the two companies were able to work together to deliver a first to all those who deal with the articulation of 3D forms and shapes and need a tangible example of their projects in color and with textures.
form.Z takes the process a step further by offering a new 3D print preparation tool and helps users prepare an object for 3D printing by identifying parts of a model that will not print properly, and a complete suite of tools for resolving issues that prepares a model for printing. You can see an example of this at formz.com/products/version_6_0/version_6_0.html
More modeling power:
Skinned lofting is an operation that combines skinning and lofting, by using explicit or implicit paths, as it threads sets of selected profile shapes. The most notable among the variety of shapes it can generate are objects that branch.
The capping operation creates a surface from a set of edges that form a closed loop in 3D space. These edges can be either free (open) or edges common to two neighboring faces and you can optionally instruct the program to generate surfaces that extend the curvatures of neighboring surfaces. This results in immense possibilities for form generation.
Morphing allows you to pick two objects, the source and the destination, and have the shape of the former change to the shape of the other by a certain percent. The operation can be executed dynamically or in one step. It can be used as part of an animation or by itself.
The deformations have been drastically extended and have become controlled operations that allow multiple types of deformations to be applied simultaneously. These can be subsequently edited and revised thus offering great opportunities for experimentation and design explorations. The new deformations can be used independently or as parts of an animation sequence.
The Reconstruct Curve and Reconstruct Nurbz tools can display the differences between the original and the new curves and surfaces if so desired.
- Existing text strings can be replaced after searching either all objects in a project or only selected objects and matching a specified string. When matches are found, they are replaced by a replacement string, which may be a completely different string or the same one in a different format, including font, size, and style.
A number of operations have been extended and now also work with smooth objects, rather than polygonal only. This includes transformations of points, edges, and faces, hole filling, attaching, and edge extending.
Visit formz.com/products/version_6_0/version_6_0.html to see examples of the new features and tools.
Automatic updates
A new automatic update option has been added to keep your form.Z installation up to date with the latest adjustments and corrections.
form.Z checks for new versions based on a preference setting and automatically downloads and updates itself.
form.Z is a cross platform design oriented 3D modeler that combines surface and solid modeling, polygonal and smooth (resolution independent) modeling, NURBS and parametrics. form.Z includes 2D drafting, information management, raytrace and radiosity rendering, animation, an open architecture with an API and script language that offer further means for customization.
For additional information you may contact Alexandra Yessios, VP of Sales and Marketing mailto:ayessios@formz.com www.formz.com
