How to use Apple's Magic Mouse with CAD!
Back in
October 2009, Apple surprised us with a new
introduction to the mac peripherals, the Magic
Mouse the world’s first multi-touch mouse. In the
past Apple hasn’t been very successful with its
mice, but many are starting to come around now
that the company has seemed to have nailed it.
The drawback has been
for us CAD users that there’s one tiny thing
missing..... the essential middle scroll
wheel...! Without it to pan + zoom, and orbit
around a model, it just takes ages to model
anything really - thus rendering the device quite
useuless for 3D design.
Well despair no longer, there is a
way.....
Viewing PSD files on iPad? Adobe wants your input
Adobe + Apple may not have the greatest relationship of late - due to the neverending “no flash on the iPhone or iPad” grudge - but it seems Adobe is trying to sneak their way in again, as they first did by collaborating with Wired to create a very interactive and immersive version of the magazine for the iPad with InDesign CS5.
Continue Reading....
BIM on iPad shown off by Bentley systems
A great find for today, Laura Handler of bimX has had an interesting encounter at the annual Bentley conference - BE Community Live - with some tablet technology + a bit of augmented reality in the mix.
Continue Reading....
archiCADmonkey musings on iPad
Hey everyone, just a quick update. If you’ve been following me on twitter @acmonkey you probably noticed that on Friday (which coincidently was the day of the iPad launch in the UK) I went out for a quick jog, having no intention of going by my nearest Apple store (Manchester Arndale) but somehow ended up there, and I thought I may as well try the iPad out to actually see if it’s any good.
Suffices to say, after a half hour of controlling myself my tech geek side overpowered me and I gave in. Continue Reading....
Autocad finally coming to the Mac!
It seems the Fates have not forsaken us!
A couple of months ago I had mentioned that Autodesk had conducted an online survey which suggested the company was evaluating the interest of Mac CAD users, and possibly even alpha testing a Mac version of Autocad! Now it seems the rumours may have actually been true thanks to a sneaky beta tester from Italy....
Continue Reading....
Integrated versus discrete graphics, which one?!
It’s a bit confusing which choice to make if you’re buying a new Mac or PC to get high quality and fast processing graphics needed for 3D design. Do you go with an integrated graphics card - meaning that it’s built directly into the motherboard (or logic-board for macs) circuitry - or with a “discrete” one, which is a separate dedicated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) usually hooked up directly to the board ?
Continue Reading....
Mac Architect - Thomas A. Heinz
The Chicago architect Thomas A. Heinz has been featured in Apple’s Pro profiles section, speaking about how he uses Archicad with his Mac. As a renowned Frank Lloyd Wright scholar he was approached to construct the Massaro house, which was never finished by the original architect. Wright designed the house to stand on an amazing location in upstate New York - on Petre Island on Lake Mahopac - in the 1950s, only to have stopped after understanding that his dramatic structure would be exceedingly costly and complicated to build.
Heinz was the author of 30 books on Wright, and had experience in restoring + rebuilding many of Wright’s designs, so he was the best person for this major task. Heinz had to develop the design from only 5 original sketches by Wright.
He explains in the profile how he used Archicad and his mac to create the whole site + building step by step (...pun definitely intended), while exploring the virtual building process that was later mirrored at the actual construction phase. It’s worth reading his story about creating of such a beautiful structure.
Petra Productions Ltd. even produced a 90-minute documentary on the Massaro project and Frank Lloyd Wright’s design philosophies, called “Building Wright.” Check out the trailer here
The Mac in Toy Story 3
The new Toy Story 3 trailer shows Apple appearing a lot more than usual in a Pixar movie. We get the occasional cameo, like when Wall-E plays the classic boot-up sound when recharging from the sun rays, or when he’s watching scenes from “Hello Dolly” on a video iPod, even the spinning beach-ball appeared between the hundreds of balloons in the movie “UP” .
But never have they
had such an “in your face” approach as it seems
with Toy Story 3. Over at Macenstein
there’s
a breakdown of all of Apple’s cameos in the
Toy Story trailer, ranging from Safari +
iTunes, For the cherry on top, on
Cult of Mac
there’s
a picture of the the Director’s (Lee
Unkrich)
tweeted screenshot - @leeUnkrich
- from
his airplane seat, when he was editing the
movie on his MacBook Pro!
This comes of no real
surprise as Steve Jobs - founder + CEO of Apple -
was the owner + big boss CEO at
Pixar, having also
co-founded it, until it was acquired by Disney
in 2005. He is still on the Disney Company
Board of Director’s and the largest individual
Disney shareholder, playing an active role in
the company. Toy Story was Pixar’s big debut
film, and though the 3D graphics were
revolutionary in 1995, the bar has been
significanlty raised by films like “Wall-E”,
“Ratatouille” and “Up”, so it will be very
exciting to see how they can improve on the
classic and how much more Apple may pop up in
the film.
DISCUSSION
Will Archicad be the first true CAD app on the iPad?
There are many rumours going around about which will get to be the first official CAD application on the magical iPad. I discussed in a previous article about the possibility of the tablet device having 3D technology, as many recent Apple patents are steering to such a conclusion.
Of course there are a few CAD-ish apps on the iPhone - like Mark on Call (iTunes link) or CADTouch (iTunes link) - but these are mostly vector based drawing applications similar to Adobe Illustrator , only less advanced of course.
“...maybe
VectorWorks or ArchiCAD” says Randall Newton
as
they are both established CAD + BIM
applications on the MacOS X platform. Both
programs are now under the umbrella of
Nemetschek
-
one of the leading companies for the AEC
software sector - having matured to a position
where it wouldn’t take as much work to get
onto the iPad as say the highly
anticipated Autocad for Mac
which
is still in alpha testing. Autodesk is mainly
a Windows based company, though their amazing
sketching application Autodesk SketchBook
Pro was
met with great praise on the Mac and
the iPhone|iPod Touch
(iTunes
Link). They’ve taken a good step towards
possibly edging their way in with
Project Butterfly
which
makes it easy to view + even edit Autocad
drawings via an internet browser, making it
technically cross-platform.
If Graphisoft could bring out a native iPad
application or at least an Archicad project
viewer like Virtual Building
Explorer, it
would become a great tool to show off and
describe designs anywhere with a great touch
interface easy enough for anyone to understand
the design over coffee or on the building
site.
5Y2D2KR59BRS
Apple finally unveils the iPad
The pieces of the keynote I was able to see -
before nearly every site reporting the event live
crashed from the overwhelming bandwith - were
very exciting. When
Steve Jobs was
unveiling
it and strolling on the stage, it reminded me of
something from my final year university project.
I designed a multi-sensory education environment,
where students + tutors could present their
lectures, exhibit their work, and communicate
interactively all in one massive “ambi-theatre”.
To exhibit the concept I wanted to show how a
lecturer could achieve this interactivity without
a podium to rest his laptop on. As the rumours of
the mythical tablet had started a few months
earlier, it was the obvious solution. I imagined
a LED-floodlit Steve doing what he does best.
Will Apple's fabled Tablet have 3D technology?
For those of you who have missed a few steps - or have been living in a cave with no WiFi for the past year - check out the definitive rumour roundup (via TechRadar) + the awesome concept 3D renderings (via DVice)
This type of multi-touch device can obviously be beneficial in many fields but especially CAD; from sketching + annotating drawings, or by providing a more interactive user interface for viewing / editing 3D models + navigating through CGI environments. Imagine having a supersize iPhone while “pinching” + “flicking” through a Sketchup file, or even just tilting it 360° to view a 3D rendered environment - creating a more “natural” experience. The possibilities are mind-blowing if you could integrate this with 360cities or even better - 3D video panoramas!
Another potential revolution could be on the way from Apple, as a recent patent surfaced not long ago about 3D head-tracking technology. The logic is that an embedded camera with face-detection would track the user’s movement and adapt accordingly, creating even more realism to 3D objects and spaces:
“Using the detected position of the user, the electronic device may use any suitable approach to transform the perspective of three-dimensional objects displayed on the display.”
“It’s
a new level of virtual reality, meshing the real
world with a nonexistent one, but giving the
visual perception that an object is
real.” (via
AppleInsider)
If the Tablet also has a camera on the back as
well (doubtful as the iPhone only has one), this
concept could pair well with some form of
augmented reality
apps
that have surfaced on the iPhone in the past
year, blurring the boundaries between virtual +
reality even further.
The rumours keep multiplying every day and will
undeniably increase until Apple’s special event.
Then, we will be at peace knowing that most of
the rumours were actually true ...of course the
peace will not last long, the second it’s over
we’ll be scouring the net to find any way to
guarantee we get our hands on...whatever it is.
As fun as it is speculating - don’t get me wrong,
as any tech geek may admit I could do it for
hours - it seems 2010 is going to be a great year
full of more gadget goodies, a year full of
possibilities.