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Take a (3D) model, Miss Moneypenny

Original article date: February 1998

There is enhanced support for Microsoft Office applications and Internet Explorer web pages in Version 3.0 of Spatial Technology’s ACIS 3D Viewer.

The ACIS solid modeller is used in industry-leading 3D software products such as AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop (Autodesk), Bravo (Applicon), CADKEY (Baystate Technologies), CorelCAD (IMSI), TriSpectives (3D/EYE), TurboCAD (IMSI), ElectricImage 3D Modeler (Electric Image), and over a hundred others which support the industry-standard ACIS SAT file format, which is openly published and freely distributed. Now, this new development enables end users to seamlessly share a SAT file of a complete 3D model between any of these applications.

This means that sales, marketing, finance, technical writing, or other professionals can share their company’s 3D designs with customers, prospects or outside suppliers by embedding the objects in proposals, multi-media presentations, reports or web pages.

Applications for the viewer are seen in engineering design collaboration, supplier/vendor relations, sales/marketing presentations and proposals, technical documentation, customer support, document processing, or product reviews: wherever dynamic 3D models provide added value or visual impact.

ACIS 3D Viewer is ideal for both technical and business users who need to share 3D designs throughout the enterprise through Intranets or with suppliers through “Extranets”. It is most widely used in engineering and manufacturing companies, where ACIS-enabled products are most common and the bulk of the industry’s 3D model content currently exists. The Viewer works with models in the ACIS SAT file format, which is used in over 100 commercially available 3D applications by more than 750,000 users worldwide.

The software provides a direct link between 3D software and OLE-enabled software, as well as a 3D clipboard for cutting and pasting complete 3D models between applications, read/write capability for models created with different versions of ACIS and improved desktop manipulation and visualisation.

The ACIS 3D Viewer 3.0 reads and writes models created in all versions of ACIS, including the new ACIS 3.0, used in Mechanical Desktop (Autodesk) and CADKEY (Baystate Technologies), among others. The new “Save As” command allows file conversion to any ACIS version (from versions 1.6, 1.7, 2.0, 2.1 to 3.0) enabling users to exchange 3D model files with over 100 other ACIS enabled applications.

Multiple models can now be displayed within multiple viewer windows, or the same model can be viewed in multiple windows from different perspectives. Each window can have different camera settings. Standard viewing positions are left, right, top, and isometric, with support for parallel and perspective projections. Users can set their own views by manipulating the model with dynamic zoom, pan and orbit (rotate around the model) functions. The speed and direction of model spin is controlled by the mouse.

Visualisation enhancements include the ability to set the background colour and control entity colours (using the Windows palette), a choice of viewing models in wireframe or shaded (rendered solid) display mode and the ability to set ‘eye’ and ‘distance’ lights. Both lighting and entity colour information are saved with the 3D model in the SAT file.

As an Active Document Server, the ACIS 3D Viewer 3.0 can be used as a standalone application or directly embedded in any OLE-enabled application, like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, or in Intranet/Extranet web pages. The 3D Viewer works with Netscape Navigator, provided there is an active document server plug-in. Printing and print preview functions are now provided, with user-customisable scaling and printing/screen resolution controls, along with an undo feature which allows users to reverse previous actions.

The Viewer supports OpenGL, runs under Microsoft Windows 95 or NT 4.0 and requires a Pentium computer with 24MB RAM. The ACIS 3D Viewer is available now, free of charge, from Spatial Technology’s web site: www.spatial.com.

“ACIS 3D Viewer plays a key role in integrating the entire organization into the workflow process that drives design or manufacturing”, says Richard Sowar, founder and CEO of Spatial Technology. “Additionally, the Viewer opens new business opportunities for firms in the areas of pre-selling new product concepts to customers, improving customer support, and enabling worldwide engineering collaboration”.

Spatial introduced ACIS in 1989 as the world’s first commercial, object-oriented, 3D modelling toolkit. The company licenses its 3D modelling software development tools to application developers in technical, business and consumer markets.

February 1998

Added on 14 April 2009 at 4:18 pm | Read more cad articles