Ross Bishop is the founder of BrightLine Bags which specializes in the design and sales of pilot flight bags. This June, BrightLine Bags takes another step forward introducing their next generation of bags based on the FLEX System. The FLEX System provides many options that not only appeal to pilots but anyone needing a professional utility or field bag. In support of their design activities, BrightLine Bags uses Shark FX from concept to production design.
Encore is pleased to announce open beta testing of ViaCAD Pro v8 for Mac and PC platforms. Most notably, v8 introduces Push/Pull Modeling tools with intelligent face snapping via LogiCursor for intuitive positioning. Come visit our lab site to access the beta and join in on the discussion of this exciting upcoming release.
V8 New Features Videos
Check out the new Push/Pull modeling videos.
Download ViaCAD Pro v8
Download a fully functional beta.
ViaCAD Pro Product Overview
Feature overview of ViaCAD Pro that includes photorealistic rendering, modeling, and drafting.
PunchCAD Labs
News and activity regarding PunchCAD development.
Here is a tip that shows how to set up the scale relationship between an imported image and your drawing. Some key points:
1. Find a known distance in the image.
2. Create a line along the known distance.
3. Create a second line that represents the actual model distance.
4. Use the scale command to scale the image to the desired model scale.
Shark has been localized for French, Italian, German, Japanese, Dutch and now Polish languages. Falina, Shark’s authorized reseller in Poland supports the products at www.sharkcad.pl. Check out an example tutorial from Falina that demonstrates modeling a candlestick and rendering. Additional, this tutorial shows the general interface components and using your own library of symbols.
For more tutorials and videos of Shark FX from Falina visit:
We have many ViaCAD users who also include Adobe Illustrator in their tool chest. One common use is to create text in Adobe Illustrator using their advanced text tools (kerning/tracking) and then importing into ViaCAD. Once in ViaCAD you can extrude into 3D and perform operations such as blending and chamfering. This video shows how you can share data between the two applications.
Encore Software, Inc., a leading retail software publisher and wholly-owned subsidiary of Navarre Corporation, is pleased to announce the release and immediate availability of ViaCAD™ 2D/3D v8 in the Apple App Store. ViaCAD is a highly functional, low-cost 2D/3D design product that revolutionizes the entry point for sophisticated, precise, general-purpose design.
New Features: v8 introduces significant feature enhancements related to usability, 2D drafting, 3D modeling, performance, and data sharing. Specific features include:
• New Push/Pull tool for planar objects and faces of solids
• Interactively translate, rotate, scale faces with the Gripper
• Dynamically create linear and polar arrays of features
• Automatically create 3D walls, windows, and doors from 2D drawings
• Create 3D roofs and slabs
• Logicursor™ snapping updated to callout coplanar faces and cylinder axis alignments for intuitive part positioning
Full Featured CAD for All: ViaCAD 2D/3D includes a powerful array of design tools not normally seen at this price including an innovative user interface supporting the LogiCursor™ technology. Based upon the highly precise ACIS® modeling kernel from Dassault, ViaCAD provides over 300 design tools for hobbyist and professional designers. Featured among these tools are:
• Associative NURBS-based modeling with skins, covers, and nets
• Constant and variable radius blending and chamfering
• Twist, bend, boss, hole, Boolean, and shell features
• History based solid modeling
• Local face editing tools for designing independent of history tree
• Draft, annotate, and automatically generate 2D drawings from 3D
• Mass properties and interference checking
• Intelligent wall, door, and window tools
• Access 90 minutes of training videos, plus free phone support
Industry-Standard Interoperability: ViaCAD provides an extensive set of interoperability solutions for professional industry standard data sharing through IGES, STEP, and SAT. Additional formats include SketchUp®, AutoCAD® DXF/DWG, Adobe Illustrator, Rhinoceros®, STL, 3DS Max®, and more.
Pricing and Availability: ViaCAD is available from Apple’s App Store at http://www.itunes.com/appstore/ for $99. For more information including versions for PC visit http://www.punchcad.com/
ViaCAD 2D/3D v8 introduces some exciting new features that once again push the “value” bar higher in the CAD industry. Check out some of the new features and the video demonstrating v8 in action.
• New Push/Pull tool for planar objects and faces of solids
• Interactively translate, rotate, scale faces with the Gripper
• Dynamically create linear and polar arrays of faces
• Automatically create 3D walls, windows, and doors from 2D drawings
• Create 3D roofs and slabs
• Logicursor™ snapping updated to callout coplanar faces and cylinder axis alignments for intuitive part positioning
Visit www.punchcad.com for more information on this new product release.
ViaCAD’s automatic backup utility can help you in situations where your current file has become damaged.
The first thing that you must do is turn on “AutoSave”. If you don’t have the AutoSave setting turned on, there will be nothing to recover. To turn on Auto Save, go to the Preferences dialog box and click on the Filing category. Next click on Auto Save and select a “trigger” option. The trigger will automatically save files based on time or number of commands.
To recover a backup file, just visit your ViaCAD “BackUp” folder. This BackUp folder is located under your user documents folder within the ViaCAD folder.
One my favorite shortcuts is the “c” key. Hitting the “c” key with a snap point highlighted by LogiCursor will set the WorkPlane to the snap location. Hitting the “c” key repeatedly thereafter will toggle the WorkPlane orientation from:
Check out the video below where the “c” key is used to set the workplane for a profile to sweep along a 3D path.
A design practice taught to me while in the aerospace industry is to use construction and reference surfaces where I would later trim these surfaces back into a final surface. This practice seems to produce smoother surfaces. For me, this practice has extended outside the aerospace industry into any shape that may involve complex surfaces. However, when you have many surfaces, the final trimming can be a bit tedious. With that in mind, I’m exploring a new multi-surface split tool inside Shark FX for V8. This tool would allow the designer to select a large number of surfaces, find all intersections, and split accordingly.
Check out the video below where I create an interesting bottle bottom using the multi-surface split tool. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please drop me an email at tim.olson@evo-soft.net.
