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.
Dynamite VSP Bonus Tools - Now Available
We have launched some exclusive new content for members of the 3am Solutions Online Community - downloadable Bonus Tools for Dynamite VSP.
Bonus tools are a series of free, easy to install productivity enhancements for Dynamite VSP. These add-ons typically represent initial implementations of frequently requested features or solutions for specialist applications which are of interest only to a specific audience. Ultimately, it is intended that the most popular bonus tools will find their way into the full product at some stage.
The implementation of new functionality in this way allows us to rapidly develop and distribute useful new features without the need to wait for a full new release of Dynamite VSP.
If you are a registered user of Dynamite VSP and you have a valid Dynamite VSP annual maintenance contract, these bonus tools may be downloaded free of charge. There is no need to install these tools - simply unzip the tool to the BonusTools folder in the Dynamite VSP installation directory, and you’ll be up and running instantly.
We are launching this section of the site with two extremely useful tools to get things up and running - a spline draping tool, and a chainage text placement tool.
Let us know what you think of these new tools either through the comments form or the discussion forum, and if you have any ideas of your own for other bonus tools, please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Dynamite VSP Version 3.1 - Now Shipping
I am delighted to kick off our new Development News section by announcing that Dynamite VSP Version 3.1 for 3ds Max and Autodesk VIZ is now shipping.
Primary areas of focus in this release include support for 3ds Max 9 and Autodesk VIZ 2008, improved LandXML support, a new Swept Object skew parameter for the creation of asymmetrical bridge decks, more comprehensive material libraries, productivity enhancements, and much more.
For further information, please refer to the full release notes which have recently been published on the 3am Solutions web site.
Availability
Dynamite VSP Version 3.1 CDROMs will be shipped automatically throughout April to all existing users holding valid Dynamite VSP maintenance contracts. If you have not received your automatic upgrade by 30th April 2007, please contact us by e-mail at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
The need to ship new CDROMs for this release has been necessitated by the fact that some modifications have been made to the Dynamite VSP installation script in order to provide support for Autodesk VIZ 2008 and 3ds max 9.0.
Community Driven Feedback
Much of the feature list for this latest release has been derived directly from user feedback received via the discussion forum on this site, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank those members who have actively contributed to the discussion forum in recent months. From our point of view, user feedback is one of the most valuable aspects of running a community site like this, and ensures that the product evolves into something that is of even more value to our users.
So, I urge you all to make your voice heard by making regular use of the discussion forum. As many community members have already discovered - the system definitely works, and in many cases you will see results far quicker than you might expect from other software vendors.
I won’t say another word… 
Licence File Format
IMPORTANT: Please note that the licence file format has changed for Dynamite VSP Version 3.1. This means that existing users will need to request an updated licence file from 3am Solutions prior to running Dynamite VSP Version 3.1 for the first time.
Additional Information
Exclusively for community members, here is a list of other product enhancements in Version 3.1 that didn’t make it into the release notes.
- The standard asphalt textures in the DynamiteSurfaces material have been improved.
- The DynamiteSurfaces material now features 50 channels by default (increased from 34 channels in Version 3.0). New channels feature a range of new block paving, asphalt, sand, grass, and concrete textures. This new material definition will not be loaded into existing DVSP scenes automatically. To use this new material definition in existing DVSP scenes, you must reset the material definition by right-clicking the “DynamiteSurfaces” entry in DVSP Explorer and selecting the “reset material” option. Only do this if you are happy to lose any manual changes that have been made to the DynamiteSurfaces material definition in the current scene.
- A new folder has been added to the standard DVSP installation which contains new diffuse and opacity maps for generating distant treelines. These are useful for mapping across a distant horizon. These new maps can be found in the Globals/TreeLineMaps folder under the main DVSP root installation folder.
- 5 new sky maps have been added to the Globals/skyMaps folder under the Dynamite VSP root installation folder. These new maps will automatically be visible in the Sky Parameters rollout in DVSP Explorer.
- The resolution of all tree maps in the standard country kits supplied with DVSP has been increased by 150%. Some new tree maps have also been added.
- New manhole and drain cover maps have been added to all standard country kits supplied with DVSP. These are visible under the signs category in the Object Placement Style Editor. We realised very recently that manhole covers can be placed on a highway using the same technique currently used to create road marking symbols such as arrows and text from the Object Placement Style Editor.
- There is now an automatic feed from the 3am Solutions Online Community site directly into DVSP. Recently posted forum entries and other new content are displayed to DVSP users when the product is started in Autodesk VIZ 2008 or 3ds max 9.0 (or higher). This ensures that users do not need to visit the site to be informed when new content is added.
So what’s next?
This year is an exciting time for 3am Solutions. With more and more companies choosing Dynamite VSP for their visualisation needs, several great new products in the pipeline, the launch of our new community site, and the dawn of new technology such as 64-bit computing in 3ds max - we are very excited about the future for our business and for civils visualisation in general.
So, please continue to check back here regularly to find out about the latest developments at 3am Solutions. We have many plans for our business, and at this stage we’ve really only just begun!
