Welcome to the 3am Solutions Civil Visualisation Community
The 3am Solutions Civil Visualisation Community is designed to allow you to stay current with the latest developments in the civil visualisation industry.
The primary aim of this site is to empower users of Dynamite VSP and associated technologies to share and contribute information to help improve visualisation skills throughout the civil engineering design community. The community is open to all, although some areas of the site are restricted to Dynamite VSP users holding valid software maintenance contracts.
Point Clouds in 3ds Max Design
Just in case you missed Jamie’s blog this month, thanks to an Autodesk Labs project it’s now possible to import and manage point cloud data in 3ds Max Design. Here’s how:
This tool is available now. For more information visit the Autodesk Labs web site.
Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension now available
Following the acquisition of Dynamite VSP by Autodesk earlier this year, the product has today been relaunched by Autodesk as the Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension.
The Autodesk Civil Extension includes two components, which are now officially known as the Autodesk Dynamite VSP plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max Design, and the Autodesk Dynamite VSP Exporter for AutoCAD Civil 3D.
Importantly, the Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension is available now as a free download to all subscription based users of AutoCAD Civil 3D or Autodesk 3ds Max Design. The extension supports AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 and 2011, and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 and 2011. No support is being offered for 3ds Max users, unless you are already using the current 3AM Solutions release of Dynamite VSP.
If you are a subscription based AutoCAD Civil 3D user, 30-day trials of Autodesk 3ds Max Design are available to enable you to test drive the new Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension. Similarly, if you are a subscription based user of 3ds Max Design, 30-day trials of AutoCAD Civil 3D are also available.
It’s worth noting that Autodesk has no plans to offer trial versions of the Civil Visualization Extension to anyone who is not a subscription based user of either Autodesk 3ds Max Design or AutoCAD Civil 3D.
Here is the text of the full announcement from Autodesk:
Release Date: 2010-04-26
The Autodesk® Civil Visualization Extension provides an easy-to-use, purpose-built design visualization workflow for civil engineers using Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design with AutoCAD® Civil 3D® software or other civil design applications.
With this extension, civil engineers can create high-quality visualizations of their projects, enabling them to validate designs through simulations and communicate design intent during planning, zoning, and public involvement meetings.
Even if they have little-to-no experience with 3ds Max Design, engineers using the Civil Visualization Extension can:
• Establish a direct link between AutoCAD Civil 3D and 3ds Max Design so that visualizations can be automatically updated as the design evolves
• Enhance realism of the visualization with civil engineering-specific materials and content such as signage, vehicles, and road striping
• Visualize realistic traffic simulations in context
In addition to significantly improving the workflow between 3ds Max Design and AutoCAD Civil 3D, the Civil Visualization Extension also enables 3ds Max Design users to create visualizations from a range of civil engineering design file formats, including Bentley® MXROAD, Bentley® InRoads®, GENIO and Bentley® Geopak, along with 12D and LandXML.
The Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension includes two components:
• The Autodesk Dynamite VSP Plug-in for 3ds Max Design 2010 or 2011, which also integrates the Dynamite SIM traffic simulation technology
• The Autodesk Dynamite VSP Exporter for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 or 2011
Also included is an instructional whitepaper entitled, “Using the Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension for 3ds Max Design and AutoCAD Civil 3D.” New feature videos, customer stories, and additional resources can be found at http://www.autodesk.com/civilvis.
The extension is available in English only but will install on all language versions of AutoCAD Civil 3D and 3ds Max Design.
3ds Max Design Trial
Are you an AutoCAD Civil 3D user interested in creating high-quality, accurate visualizations of your projects? Download a 30-day trial of 3ds Max Design 2011* and try the Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension.
*The Civil Visualization Extension will only run when a valid copy of Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 or 2011, or a trial version of 3ds Max Design 2011 is present on the same machine. It will not install with Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2010 or 2011. Crossgrades from 3ds Max to 3ds Max Design are available through your reseller.
More Information
http://www.autodesk.com/civilvis
http://bimontherocks.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/04/civil-visualization-extension—live-on-the-subscription-center.html
http://www.facebook.com/autocadcivil3d
3AM Solutions releases Dynamite VSP 4.1 and Dynamite SIM 1.6
In line with our continuing commitment to existing customers of 3AM Solutions, I am delighted to announce the release of both Dynamite VSP 4.1 and Dynamite SIM 1.6. Both new releases are available for download immediately.
Dynamite VSP 4.1
Building on the success of Dynamite VSP 4.0, this release introduces support for 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design 2011, mental ray proxies, and includes a number of user interface enchancements.
This release is available as a downloadable service pack.
Dynamite SIM 1.6
Building on the success of Dynamite SIM 1.5, this release introduces support for 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design 2011, along with a number of productivity and user interface improvements including a reworked Surface Tracking Manager panel.
This release is available as a downloadable full product. We recommend uninstalling Dynamite SIM 1.5 before installing this product.
Download Instructions
These products are available immediately to any existing customers of 3AM Solutions who hold active annual maintenance contracts. To download either product, visit our User Support Center and have your serial number and cd key to hand.
Autodesk announces 3ds Max 2011
Autodesk has just announced the forthcoming release of 3ds Max 2011. Things to watch out for include a new schematic material editor, the ability to save scenes back to 3ds Max 2010, a new Quicksilver Hardware renderer which can render scenes amazingly quickly, 3ds Max Composite (removing the need for a separate animation composition tool such as Adobe Premiere) and the inclusion of Dynamite VSP for 3ds Max Design subscription customers only.
More information on Ken Pimentel’s blog: http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/3ds_max_2011_announced
Videos highlighting some of the new features, are available at: http://area.autodesk.com/3dsmax2011
Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM acquired by Autodesk
Today is a pivotal day here at 3AM Solutions – I have an important announcement to make.
As you may have already heard, Autodesk has today completed the acquisition of both Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM software products. For the next few months, the products will continue to be available as normal through our existing reseller channel. However, after this transition period they will no longer be available as standalone products under the 3AM Solutions brand.
Autodesk expects core technology from Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM to improve and accelerate the workflow between AutoCAD Civil 3D and Autodesk 3ds Max Design software products; giving civil engineers more powerful and tailored visualization and simulation capabilities. This will allow Autodesk to offer more efficient workflows for civil engineering visualisation projects. Existing users of Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM products are expected to benefit from Autodesk’s scale and research and development, providing exciting new opportunities for innovation and interoperability.
3AM Solutions itself is not being acquired, and will continue to operate as an independent business. However, we will be working with Autodesk to help the smooth integration of these products with 3ds Max Design. We will also continue to provide direct product support to our existing customers, honouring all existing annual maintenance contracts until they expire.
Autodesk’s plans are to improve and accelerate the workflow between AutoCAD Civil 3D and 3ds Max Design. However, they have no plans to drop support for any of the other civil design applications that Dynamite VSP currently supports.
I’m sure that this news will generate a few questions. Most of these should be answered in the more detailed documents which have been posted on the Autodesk and 3AM Solutions web sites:
www.3am-solutions.com/autodesk
www.autodesk.com/dynamite
I’d like to thank you all for your support, encouragement, wish lists, bug reports, and of course your business to date, and reiterate that 3AM Solutions is not going anywhere. We plan to continue our quest to develop great new products for the civil engineering industry, whilst working closely with Autodesk to further improve the capabilities of 3ds Max Design for civil engineers. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Merry Christmas
Thanks to Dynamite VSP user Colin Hanford of Arup in Cardiff for providing this fantastic festive image. Great work Colin, it brought a smile to our faces here at 3AM Solutions.
We would like to wish all our customers and partners a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you in 2010!
It’s A(U) Wrap!
Thanks to all who popped by the 3AM Solutions booth at Autodesk University in Las Vegas last week - it was great to put a face to many of the names I’ve become familiar with over the years. Also thanks particularly to all who attended the class I presented with Jack Strongitharm and Jamie Gwilliam of Autodesk. We presented a new dataset from Civil 3D which included some traffic data from VISSIM (thanks to Paul Brown and his colleagues at PB for helping us out with the data). The demo went through the process of incorporating design changes from Civil 3D into a Dynamite VSP based visualisation. Jamie Gwilliam then provided an excellent demonsration of how to create a realistic fly-through animation in 3ds Max Design. Well worth watching!
If you didn’t make it to Las Vegas this year, I have some great news for you. Those folks over at Autodesk University have just finished making all the classes from this year available online at au.autodesk.com. That means that if you missed our class, you can now watch it from the comfort of your own desk without the need to trawl through the very extensive Mandalay Bay Casino and Conference Center trying to find room “South Seas A” (it took me over an hour, btw!).
If you visit au.autodesk.com you can either search in the class list for Civil Engineering as the subject and Bruce Harfield as the presenter, or just go direct to the page for our class which you’ll find here.
I hope you find this useful. In the meantime, here are some pictures from the class, kindly provided by Ove Cervin from Autodesk in Sweden.
New Movie from Vejdirektoratet
Check out this great new movie produced by Dynamite VSP user Vejdirektoratet (The Danish Roads Directorate) in Denmark.
Autodesk Announces 3ds Max Design 2010 Hotfix 2009.09.22
Autodesk has just announced the release of a hotfix for 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design 2010, which will be of particular interest to Dynamite VSP users.
It fixes an issue which caused the new Sight Checker Tool in Dynamite VSP 4 to become unstable when rendering with Mental Ray. This hotfix is therefore an essential requirement for anybody using Dynamite VSP 4. Unfortunately, if you are using 3ds Max 2009 or 3ds Max Design 2009, you’ll need to upgrade to 2010 and install this hotfix to solve this issue.
To download this hotfix, visit one of the following links:
Other issues addressed in this hotfix include fixes for issues with stability and performance relating to Camera Maps, DirectX® Shader Material, double-byte file paths, InfoCenter, Material Editor, MAXScript, mental ray®, Non-Uniform Scale, ProCutter, Render Window, Vertex Color, and Viewport Performance.
Autodesk Announces 3ds Max Design 2010 Service Pack 1
Autodesk has announced the release of Service Pack 1 for 3ds Max 2010 and 3ds Max Design 2010.
This service pack includes nearly 30 fixes for issues relating to undo, performance, responsiveness, viewports, material workflow, and mental ray® software. Specific areas addressed are Biped, Bitmap Pager, Bitmap Proxies, Containers, Edit Poly, Interoperability, Licensing, Materials, mental ray, Particle Flow, Performance, Photometric Lights, ProOptimizer, Render To Texture (RTT), Rendering, UVW Unwrap, and Viewports. For more information, read the release notes.
To download this service pack, choose one of the following links:
Click here for 3ds Max 2010 sp1 32-bit
Click here for 3ds Max 2010 sp1 64-bit
Click here for 3ds Max Design 2010 sp1 32-bit
Click here for 3ds Max Design 2010 sp1 64-bit