>To pick up on Stephen's glowing remark about SGI, I attach a
>mouth-watering description of the firms latest supercomputer
>which is outselling all others around the world -- beating
>Cray, NEC, IBM, and the Big Boy lot -- and totally compatible
>with the consumer appliances at Coumbia.
>
>
>Our firm hopes to get one of these soon.
>
John:
More supercomp dreams?
In my experience, conventional CADD is rendered obsolete to varying degrees
by solid and surface modeling software. Solid and surface models can be
used directly by fabricators and contractors to produce shop drawings and
numerically controlled manufacturing data. The character and scope of
drawings included with computer models can be redefined based upon this
capability. We have reduced construction document sets on very large and
complex projects to: 1. specifications; 2. details and wall sections; and
3. computer models.
Solid and surface models may also be shaded and manipulated in realtime on
UNIX platforms. (Working in real time was a conversion experience for me
... the substance of constructed geometry is as substaantial as the
substance of the maquette on the table. This leads me to ponder cyborg
reality, or body/(dis)embodiment.)
The utility of plans and sections is a conceptual issue having to do with
design intent and method as well as the requirements of consultants and
governmental agencies.
As for which CADD system is "best," I would think that depends upon your
intentions. Software is the fundamental choice. As a general rule, I
advise people to buy the most powerful software and as much processor speed
and real memory as they can afford.
UNIX is great; high end software such as Softimage, Alias, Wavefront, Pro
Engineer, Catia, and Lightscape are all native to UNIX environments.
Decide upon the software suite which you would like to use and buy hardware
to match.
form*Z, StudioPro, and Electric Image are all native to Macintosh, and can
do the same job as high end software (more or less.)
Autodesk has a variety of good packages (all extensions of Autocad:)
Designer and Autosurf are the most interesting to me, but are buggy at this
time. 3D-Studio can make cool images, but must be ported to another
software to exploit the direct utility of geometry for construction. These
all run native on PCs. Parametric Technologies has introduced a parametric
solid modeler which is also native to DOS: Pro-E Lite is an excellent
product.
Of course, it really doesn't matter which flavor computer one uses. Media
is only instrumental to the transformation of the poetic impulse into
physical being (if one buys into the tripartite model under discussion on
Semios-L.)
Let's see what can be expressed with them.
Regards,
David
p.s. Does anyone here know anything about VRML (virtual reality markup
language,) or where more information about it and related issues may be
found?
>mouth-watering description of the firms latest supercomputer
>which is outselling all others around the world -- beating
>Cray, NEC, IBM, and the Big Boy lot -- and totally compatible
>with the consumer appliances at Coumbia.
>
>
>Our firm hopes to get one of these soon.
>
John:
More supercomp dreams?
In my experience, conventional CADD is rendered obsolete to varying degrees
by solid and surface modeling software. Solid and surface models can be
used directly by fabricators and contractors to produce shop drawings and
numerically controlled manufacturing data. The character and scope of
drawings included with computer models can be redefined based upon this
capability. We have reduced construction document sets on very large and
complex projects to: 1. specifications; 2. details and wall sections; and
3. computer models.
Solid and surface models may also be shaded and manipulated in realtime on
UNIX platforms. (Working in real time was a conversion experience for me
... the substance of constructed geometry is as substaantial as the
substance of the maquette on the table. This leads me to ponder cyborg
reality, or body/(dis)embodiment.)
The utility of plans and sections is a conceptual issue having to do with
design intent and method as well as the requirements of consultants and
governmental agencies.
As for which CADD system is "best," I would think that depends upon your
intentions. Software is the fundamental choice. As a general rule, I
advise people to buy the most powerful software and as much processor speed
and real memory as they can afford.
UNIX is great; high end software such as Softimage, Alias, Wavefront, Pro
Engineer, Catia, and Lightscape are all native to UNIX environments.
Decide upon the software suite which you would like to use and buy hardware
to match.
form*Z, StudioPro, and Electric Image are all native to Macintosh, and can
do the same job as high end software (more or less.)
Autodesk has a variety of good packages (all extensions of Autocad:)
Designer and Autosurf are the most interesting to me, but are buggy at this
time. 3D-Studio can make cool images, but must be ported to another
software to exploit the direct utility of geometry for construction. These
all run native on PCs. Parametric Technologies has introduced a parametric
solid modeler which is also native to DOS: Pro-E Lite is an excellent
product.
Of course, it really doesn't matter which flavor computer one uses. Media
is only instrumental to the transformation of the poetic impulse into
physical being (if one buys into the tripartite model under discussion on
Semios-L.)
Let's see what can be expressed with them.
Regards,
David
p.s. Does anyone here know anything about VRML (virtual reality markup
language,) or where more information about it and related issues may be
found?