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  Featured News: Dynamite VSP relaunches as Autodesk Civil View

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3ds Max Design Quick Tutorials

These tutorials cover a broad range of topics covering key concepts in the use of Autodesk 3ds Max Design in the AEC community. Presented by Jamie Gwilliam of Autodesk.

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Welcome to the Civil View User Community

The Civil View User 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 Autodesk Civil View (formally Dynamite VSP) and associated technologies to share and contribute information to help improve visualisation skills throughout the civil engineering design community.

New Nordic Distributor Appointed

I am delighted to announce that with immediate effect, CityData Future CAD AB is now appointed as distributor for Dynamite VSP throughout Scandinavia. This appointment marks yet another important step in 3am Solutions ongoing plan to further expand international market share in the civil visualisation arena.

Established as the Swedish distributor for Autodesk products for over 15 years, Future CAD is uniquely placed to develop the growing potential for Dynamite VSP in the Nordic market. Future CAD will apply their extensive knowledge of the Nordic civil engineering industry to help fulfil the needs of Civil Engineering Consultants and local Authorities that wish to add high-end civil visualisation to their portfolio of services. This commitment will be supported by a number of new Dynamite VSP resellers across Sweden, Norway, and Iceland including AEC, CAD-Q, CAD Software AB, Moratech, NTI Nestor AS, Snertill, Tekis AB, and Tyréns AB.

About CityData Future CAD

Future CAD is the distributor for Autodesk’s AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction), Geospacial, Manufacturing, and Media and Entertainment products in Scandinavia, working through the Autodesk Authorised Reseller Channel.

More information: www.futurecad.se

R.I.P. Autodesk VIZ

Hot on the heels of Autodesk’s announcement of 3ds Max Design, Autodesk has today confirmed the end of development for Autodesk VIZ. There will be no Autodesk VIZ 2009.

As part of this announcment, Autodesk has confirmed the launch of a highly attractive one-off crossgrade promotion to enable current Autodesk VIZ users to crossgrade to 3ds Max Design for a negligible fee. This is an excellent “once in a lifetime” opportunity to convert your Autodesk VIZ licences into 3ds Max licences, but the offer only applies for customers who purchased Autodesk VIZ prior to 12th February 2008, and only applies for a limited period.

This news obviously has important implications for Autodesk VIZ users, and we will shortly be contacting customers who purchased Autodesk VIZ from 3am Solutions in order to outline what this means for you. 

In basic terms, if you are currently an Autodesk VIZ user you will fall into one of three categories:

• Autodesk VIZ 2008 user with Autodesk Subscription: For these customers, a highly attractive crossgrade promotion will be offered by Autodesk from 31st March 2008 allowing users to easily crossgrade to 3ds Max Design 2009. The crossgrade is expected to cost in the region of EUR300. Autodesk VIZ subscription will automatically be converted to 3ds Max Design subscription - there will be no further subscription fees to pay until your next normal renewal date.
• Autodesk VIZ 2008 user without Autodesk Subscription: These customers may also make use of the above mentioned crossgrade promotion, but must also purchase subscription for 3ds Max Design at the time of ordering the crossgrade. The combined cost of the crossgrade and subscription for 3ds Max Design is expected to cost in the region of EUR1100.
• Autodesk VIZ 2007 user without Autodesk Subscription: Please contact us for further details if you are in this situation.

This crossgrade promotion will run from 31st March 2008 to 17th July 2008

In many ways, this is great news for Autodesk VIZ users as this opportunity provides the chance to benefit from the more advanced features of 3ds Max without the normal cost of crossgrading. Two valuable features in 3ds Max that immediately spring to mind are sub-object animation capabilities and full network rendering with Mental Ray.

From our point of view, this is also fantastic news as it means all Dynamite VSP users will be using the same host application, which allows us re-double our efforts on supporting the full benefits of 3ds Max Design from this point on.

Here is the full text of today’s press release from Autodesk:

Autodesk announces “3ds Max Design”

Autodesk has just announced that from March 31st 2008, two flavours of 3ds Max will be available - 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design. The key difference between the two flavours of 3ds Max is that each product is tailored specifically for customers in different industries. 3ds Max Design is aimed at architects, designers and visualisation specialists, while 3ds Max is a tool of choice for professionals in the games, film, and television industries.

So what does all this mean for existing 3ds Max users?

What is 3ds Max Design?

3ds Max Design 2009 is essentially a customised installation of 3ds Max 2009, which is designed to provide an optimised user experience for architects, designers, engineers and visualisation specialists. 3ds Max Design 2009 has the same functionality as 3ds Max, with the addition of new Exposure™ lighting analysis technology. The 3ds Max Software Development Kit (SDK) is not provided. Other differences between the two products include user interface and application defaults, tutorials, sample files, and product websites.

Compared to 3ds Max 2008, 3ds Max Design 2009 introduces a number of key new and enhanced features, including Exposure technology for lighting analysis to assist with LEED 8.1 certification. New rendering functionality includes the Reveal™ rendering toolset, which streamlines iterative workflows and gives designers dramatically faster, finished renderings, and the ProMaterials™, a library of manufacturer-related materials. 3ds Max Design 2009 also delivers updated user interface and workflow features, which, together with improved data compatibility, enhance digital continuity between 3ds Max Design and products from the Revit® and AutoCAD® software families. This includes Recognize™ scene loading technology that significantly improves inter-application workflows with Revit Architecture 2009, through the accurate import of lights, materials and cameras.

“Vanilla” 3ds Max will be aimed at entertainment based industries from this point on.

Why is Autodesk creating two “flavours” or versions of 3ds Max?

In order to optimise the user experience for both entertainment and design visualisation customers, it has been decided to create two flavors of 3ds Max. Entertainment users commonly specialise in areas such as character rigging, lighting, texturing, and animation. For these customers, 3ds Max 2009 continues to build on its legacy as an industry-leading content creation tool in the games, film, television industries. 3ds Max Design is directed towards maximizing a high-quality “out of the box” design visualisation experience for generalists in the architecture, civil engineering, industrial and manufacturing industries.

Each “flavour” of 3ds Max will be specifically tailored for its intended audience; from learning resources and sample files, to application defaults and even carefully selected features such as the Exposure lighting analysis technology for designers and visualisation specialists.

What features are the same between 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design?

With the exception of the SDK, 3ds Max Design has 100% of the features in 3ds Max. This means that both applications will be able to simultaneously advance from a technological perspective. Dynamite VSP will support both versions of 3ds Max.

Can I run 3ds Max Design and 3ds Max side-by-side?

Not on the same computer system. You must uninstall one product to install the other product.

Is there a crossgrade path from Autodesk VIZ 2008 to 3ds Max Design 2009

We understand that Autodesk is planning some one-off promotions for Autodesk VIZ users to migrate to 3ds Max Design, but we don’t have details at this time. Please contact us if you would like further information.

New Irish Distributor Appointed

I am delighted to announce that with effect from 1st February 2008, Cadco is now appointed as distributor for Dynamite VSP throughout Ireland. This is another important step in 3am Solutions ongoing plan to further expand international market share in the civil visualisation arena.

Established as the Irish distributor for Autodesk products for over 17 years, Cadco is uniquely placed to develop the growing potential for Dynamite VSP in the Irish market. Cadco will apply their extensive knowledge of the Irish civil engineering industry to help fulfil the needs of Civil Engineering Consultants and local Authorities that wish to add high-end civil visualisation to their portfolio of services. This commitment will be supported by a number of new Dynamite VSP resellers in Ireland; Amicus Technology, C-Cad Computing, Diatec, Paradigm Technology and Pentagon Solutions.

About Cadco

Cadco is the distributor for Autodesk’s AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction), Geospatial, Manufacturing, and Media and Entertainment products in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, working through the Autodesk Authorised Reseller Channel.

Cadco also provides technology training, project costing software (Exactal’s CostX), drafting services, design visualisation services, and CAD consultancy through its reseller channel and directly to architects, engineers, designers and quantity surveyors to help them get the most from engineering technology.

Cadco is also an Authorised Autodesk Training Center, ATC.

More information: www.cadco.ie

Release News - Dynamite VSP 3.5 and Civil 3D 2008

Having already established a worldwide user base consisting predominately of Bentley MX and InRoads users, we recently decided to look at whether AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 specific functionality could be incorporated into the next Dynamite VSP release. Our R&D project which ran through the summer involved input from Autodesk and a number of Civil 3D resellers and distributors. I’d particularly like to single out Prodesk in Antwerp in Belgium for a special mention - their knowledge and support has been invaluable.

The result of all this hard work, is today’s announcment of the release of Dynamite VSP 3.5.

If you are already a Civil 3D user or have been thinking about taking a closer look the product for your civil design needs, I’d definitely recommend taking a look at what we have achieved in this new release of Dynamite VSP. The results really are stunning - and far exceed my original expectations.

Sowing the seed

If you currently generate your terrain surfaces in MX, you’ll be only too familiar with the most painful part of the process - seeding/grouping the triangles in MX. Not only does this process take quite some time to master, but it has to be re-applied every time a design changes. The use of input files can help ease the pain, but unless you are a veteran MX user this can be a daunting prospect to say the least.

Corridors, assemblies, and a new dedicated exporter

There are two key reasons that our Civil 3D based support has turned out to be such a strong solution.

Firstly, Civil 3D takes an “object oriented” approach to highway modelling. “Corridor” objects (roads) are built from assemblies (very sophisticated cross section templates, basically). Assemblies are built from sub-assemblies - each representing typical highway components such as kerbs, lanes, verges, etc.  We can hook into this information and intelligently build fully textured triangulated surfaces for use in Dynamite VSP. The process is entirely automated.

Secondly, we opted to build a dedicated exporter specifically to handle the data transfer process to Dynamite VSP. This exporter actually sits inside Civil 3D, and it´s sole purpose in life is to generate a proprietary intermediate file format which we have designed specifically for the job of passing Civil 3D design data into Dynamite VSP. The use of this binary file format - known as VSP3D - puts us in direct control of the way in which Civil 3D design data is interpreted for visualisation purposes. It also allows us to permanently retain a high degree of design intelligence in the visualisation after the civil model is transferred to Dynamite VSP.

The new exporter - known as Dynamite EXPORT for Civil 3D 2008 has a thorough understanding of the hierarchy within Civil 3D design elements and is capable of filtering out parts of the civil design which would be completely redundant in a visualisation environment. Importantly, corridor sub-assemblies are interrogated by name to ensure that material assignments are carried out automatically to each component of a corridor surface upon import into Dynamite VSP.

News of our planned support for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 certainly travels fast - we have received a steady stream of phone calls and e-mails on the subject since we started discussing our plans with a few key resellers and users back in the summer. I´m delighted that this latest version of Dynamite VSP is finally released, and the timing couldn’t be better - it’s just in time for our attendance at the forthcoming Autodesk University event in Las Vegas next week.

So where can I get it?

Even if you are not a Civil 3D user, there are plenty of other new features to interest you in Dynamite VSP Version 3.5. For a full set of release notes, please visit:

http://www.3am-solutions.com/products/dvsp3/releaseNotes35.asp

To download Version 3.5 in service pack form, please visit our User Support Centre on the main 3am Solutions web site:

http://www.3am-solutions.com/support/downloads.asp

Conference Delivered!

Thanks to all who attended our Dynamite VSP Civil Visualisation Conference yesterday, and a particular thanks to our sponsors - Autodesk, Geonius, Nedgraphics, Issue, Movares, and CAD User Magazine.

It was a really fantastic day, and judging by the feedback we have received so far it was well received and thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended. 

I’ll be reporting more about the conference in the coming days, and photos of the day will also appear here shortly. But for today, I am exhausted - and looking forward to a day off - something that has been in short supply for the past few months… 

New Benelux Distributor Appointed

I am delighted to announce that with effect from 1st September 2007, ProDesk is now appointed as distributor for Dynamite VSP throughout the Benelux area. Through this agreement, 3am Solutions reaffirms its ambition to grow internationally and to further expand their market share in the civil visualisation arena.

Established as a Benelux distributor of Autodesk products for over 10 years, Prodesk is well placed to exploit the growing potential for Dynamite VSP in the Benelux region. Prodesk will apply their extensive knowledge of the Benelux civil engineering marketplace to the needs of the more progressive civil design companies in the region that wish to add high-end civil visualisation to their portfolio of services.

The signing of this agreement means that a number of new resellers will shortly be appointed in the Benelux to operate through the new Prodesk distributor channel. Our existing resellers in the Benelux - GEoNIUS - will also continue to represent us in this region.

About ProDesk nv

ProDesk NV is a Belgian company with over a decade of experience in distribution for Autodesk, 3Dconnexion and other technology vendors. They add value to their reseller channel by driving sales, providing training courses for technical and sales people and supporting reseller initiatives.

More information: www.prodesk.biz

As One Door Closes…

The wonderful thing about this business is the unexpected way in which things take off sometimes, and in a direction that you could never have anticipated.

Having experienced well documented problems exhibiting at the recent BE Conference in London this year (apparently we are perceived as competitors rather than partners at Bentley these days), we decided to put on our own event - specifically for Dynamite VSP users.

The result is our first major Dynamite VSP Civil Visualisation Conference which will be held in Utrecht, The Netherlands on Tuesday October 9th this year. Rather unexpectedly, within a couple of days of devising the idea to host our own event, we had our first major sponsor in place – Autodesk.

With over seven million users worldwide, Autodesk is undoubtedly the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the building and construction, and media and entertainment markets, and we extremely proud to have them on board as major sponsors of this event.

For Autodesk, our event provides an important opportunity to demonstrate the production of high end visualisations from Civil 3D using Dynamite VSP – which obviously adds great value to Civil 3D datasets. 

For 3am Solutions, Autodesk’s support means that we can hold a far bigger and better event than we would otherwise be able to host, and above all we can deliver an event which is free to attend for our Dynamite VSP user base.

Another key benefit of Autodesk’s involvement is that we have direct access to their Media and Entertainment division which allows us to tap directly into their intimate knowledge of Autodesk VIZ and 3ds max.  This means that we will have some highly knowledgeable representatives from Autodesk in attendance showing the latest developments in 3ds Max and answering your technical questions about both Max and Viz. Autodesk will also be showing of the latest Mental Ray based daylight rendering techniques in Max and Viz which can truly revolutionise your rendering capabilities in terms of ease of use, performance, and most importantly realism. Believe me - this session is not to be missed!

As well as Autodesk, we will have guest speakers from across Europe - many of whom have been using Dynamite VSP with other civil design applications such as Bentley MX in many innovative ways.

So, after an entertaining but unpredictable journey this year, our first major Dynamite VSP user conference is underway, and it promises to be a great event. 

Finally, although this event is free to attend - places are strictly limited so I would advise you to book your place early to avoid disappointment.

See you in October in Utrecht!

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! 

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