3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space
Published by 4th WAVE, Inc.
Issue #614 11/25/96
CONTENTS
As yet another entry into the quickly growing consumer 3D market, Intergraph's Reactor 3D seems to be gaining a fair amount of attention. In December issues, three leading industry magazines have awarded the Reactor 3D: PC Magazine recognized Reactor 3D with the Editor's Choice Award, Windows Sources awarded Reactor 3D their Stellar award, and Computer Gaming World has given Reactor a Five Star endorsement. As Intergraph's first foray into consumer 3D, the Reactor 3D actually incorporates Rendition's Verite V1000 chip rather than their own technology, providing both 2D and 3D acceleration. The card, which is available now at the special holiday price of $149 (usually $199), includes a full version of IndyCar 2, the shareware version of Quake, and trial versions of Monster Truck Madness and Hellbender.
Macromedia - ATI bundling Deal Announced for Extreme 3D
Continuing to press the envelope of establishing the largest number of 3D software packages shipped, Macromedia announced that ATI will bundle Extreme 3D Version 2.0 with ATI Technologies 3D PRO TURBO PC2TV. Available this month for only $299 with a 4MB and at $399 for 8MB.
Following the footsteps of initiatives such as MSNBC and CNN Interactive, Time Warner's NY1 News 24-hour news channel has made its debut on the Web. Differentiating itself from the other online news sources, NY1 News is focused on news local to New York; the broadcast arm of NY1 News, available on Channel 1 on most NY cable systems, reaches more than 1.4 million subscribers.
This Tuesday, Specular International announced that Infini-D 3.5 for Windows (reported in WAVE #609, 9/27) is now available. Infini-D for Windows, available for both Windows 95 and NT, is the first program to support QuickDraw3D on the PC, and supports all of the features found in the Macintosh version. The program is available now for $649.
There was not a coherent 3D story at COMDEX. Many customized game products, few new hardware and software introductions, not enough content and many end users playing games in booths.
With product cycles approaching 6 months the pace is brutal. It seems hard to believe but we could well be approaching 2 product cycles between Christmas seasons. In order to remain competitive companies must continually tune designs, raise clock speeds and have new generation designs ready before the competition.
In a significant turn around we picked up many indications that graphics acceleration may be going "up." That is, the major OEMs found they were burned by adopting 3D technology too soon only to find that their motherboards, with hard wired graphics chips, including 3D, were obsolete before the product life cycle ended. 3D technology is moving so fast that OEMs are being forced to go off the motherboard. This is counter to the current movement which increasingly has a larger percentage of graphics on the motherboard.
AGP plays a key role in providing OEMs with the flexibility to select 2D and 3D acceleration at the time of shipment. The playing field is now open to many companies who would otherwise find it difficult to gain major OEM design wins which would otherwise go on the motherboard. On the other hand, the competition for the best 3D at the lowest price will be dog eat dog. We expect rapid turns between those who have a competitive advantage as OEMs move from chip set to chip set which, in turn, makes the OEMs look best by having the highest quality 3D at the lowest cost.
Going up also underscores the need for a common API so that content, game and application developers are not faced with writing to many different chips. The current situation was dramatically illustrated in the 3D game and product catalogs being passed out which have products optimized for specific chips or proprietary APIs. Many regard it as Microsoft's responsibility with Direct3D to set the standard on Windows 95. Even here Microsoft is being challenged by Apple, SGI and indirectly by 3Dfx with Glide, if for no other reason than the number of titles 3Dfx is attracting. One of the reasons for this challenge is that many we talked to stated that Direct3D is at a distinct performance disadvantage compared to other accelerated APIs. Even Apple claimed that anyone can have better performance than Direct3D.
OpenGL appears to be gaining support as more than just a high level API for professional applications. We were surprised at the number of times OpenGL came up as a universal API. This even includes its use for games and especially VRML. It was hard to gauge if this was a backlash against what many developers described as Direct3D's limitations or the beginning of the emergence of a universal API based on OpenGL. At WAVE we consider this an important trend because it erodes the division between high end and low end 3D applications. Microsoft has been careful to position Direct3D as the low end real time solution but with the movement of OpenGL into Windows 95 and its support by a number of 3D accelerators it has the potential of reaching a point where Direct3D has a serious competitor in the mass market. If this trend continues the only distinguishing element between high end 3D and low end will be price and not the 3D APIs supported.
The combination of AGP, short OEM adoption cycles, and the potential of OpenGL spanning the high to low end of the market creates a very different 3D marketplace than what exists today. The market becomes API neutral and what ensues is an all out race for the best price performance. The market will naturally scale to the high end by price but the migration to lower prices will be rapid - as fast as process technology and 3D design innovation will allow. In fact, there are close parallels with the pace of innovation in microprocessor technology, except in 3D the competitive field is wide open.
The pace of 3D silicon developments is heartening, at least from a user perspective, but on the software side the rate of innovation and new product introduction is comparatively slow. One of the most encouraging products we saw was RealiMation by Datapath as discussed in this report. Yet, this is the exception and not the rule.
Thus, we came away from COMDEX with the sense that 3D has not found a stable niche from which to grow based on buyer demand or software supply. There are too many fits and starts and a general lack of coherence in the market. Hopefully by the next Fall COMDEX, such issues will have become an thing of the past and the memories of Fall COMDEX '96 will have been forgotten.
Andy Grove, Intel President, Highlights E&S Technology in Keynote
In an unexpected move Intel used unannounced Evans & Sutherland Harmony technology to show state-of-art 3D image generation. Andy Grove, CEO and President, Intel gave a wide ranging talk about the past and future of the microprocessor. As an illustration of the role which 3D will play in future computing 3D image generation was shown in 3 parts: software only, current 3D in a PC (using the E&S Real Image technology in the Mitsubishi 3DPro reference card) and the best of current technology. This latter was based on an unannounced product called Harmony which will be released in December at the I/ITSEC show in Orlando. In his keynote Andy stated Harmony has 11 Pentium Pro processors and custom ASICs from E&S. In response to a question during the Q&A afterward he stated that Intel used E&S because they "...did the best job of delivering the technology and were kind enough to supply the technology." It was unclear at the show why Intel did not use technology from Lockheed-Martin. In response to another question Intel stated that in a few years a significant portion of the role of the 3D processor would be incorporated into the microprocessor, however, it was likely that rendering will continue to require some acceleration. Andy Grove closed the news conference by complementing E&S executives present at the event with their technology which "...blew us away."
On the Friday before COMDEX E&S closed at 22 3/4 and one week later it was at 25 5/8. The 3 minute demo certainly did not hurt.
Andy Grove also gave an excellent overview of microprocessor technology. In 1989 Intel did a study called Microprocessor 2000 where they forecast the 1996 microprocessor as:
A bold prediction was made of the microprocessor of the year 2011:
This will require gate oxide thickness of only 20 Angstroms and an operating voltage of less than 1volt. The die imaging technology will be in soft X-Rays. Andy claimed it is doable but very expensive. Another major challenge it how to make these chips cheaper. Presently, the cost of fab facilities is rapidly escalating. Their first fab in Livermore cost only $3m and the latest fab, FAB 12, cost $2.5b and it is projected that the fab for 2011 will cost $10B.
The computer platform characteristics were just as interesting:
Andy issued a cautionary note. The growth which makes these rapid developments in microprocessors and computers possible only happens if the industry sustains a continuing demand for PCs. He characterized the major challenge ahead lies in the need to grow the number of computer users. In his view this challenge is really one of seizing consumer leisure time. The centerpiece of this battle is what Andy characterized as the "war for eyeballs." Consumers have a choice between the TV and the PC as a leisure appliance. In 1997 it is expected that the number of PCs shipped will exceed the number of TVs shipped. Thus, for the PC industry to succeed, it must continually gain more users and be more effective in gaining consumer time and attention than TV.
This was Andy's lead in to his demonstrations of PC video and 3D. He felt that PC video quality had approached TV quality, with MPEG-2, (100 on a scale of 100) however, even with Harmony is only at a 40 level in achieving the same level of natural realism which also is represented by 100. He concluded that visual computing will become a part of the PC just like video and that "we can do it again." A significant challenge to the PC and 3D communities.
Ziff-Davis Announces New Benchmarks Without 3D
At its Sunday evening rollout event prior to COMDEX Ziff-Davis released Winstone 97 and WinBench 97. Amid much audience interest the Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation (ZDBOp) was mum on 3D testing plans other than to say there will be something soon. It was hinted that they would release a test earlier than this time next year and WAVE estimates that by June tests will be released. The PC industry has come to rely on these tests as the foundation of performance measurement, with over 10M copies distributed worldwide. The tests fall in four categories: Application- based, Playback, Synthetic and Inspection.
New this year is High-End Winstone 97 which is focused on testing performance Application Development (Visual C++), CAD/3D (AVS, Microstation 95, and PV-WAVE) and Image Editing (Photoshop and Picture Publisher). These were described as early Application-based tests which will exercise some 3D features (assumed only in the CAD/3D). During questioning ZDBOp also stated that there is interest in testing for game performance but they differed to the need to complete the 3D tests first.
3Dfx - Another Benchmark Test - Wizmark
Hoping to "flush out the industry" on 3D benchmarking 3Dfx brazenly announced at COMDEX a benchmark based on the Wizard's Tower, which is a first person walkthrough. The measure of performance is frames/sec. The test is based on D3D and stresses both triangle and pixel fill rate. There are two modes: full and light. The light mode is for chips with less than the full features which include: Gouraud shading, perspective correction, bi-linear filtering, LOD MIP-Mapping, alpha blending and z- buffering. The system requirements include: 16MB of system memory, 1.5MB of texture memory, 2MB of display memory and z-buffer. It was claimed that Intergraph's Reactor (Rendition Verite) runs at 9.2f/s, Creative's 3D Blaster (Rendition Verite) at 8.1/s and the 3Dfx Obsidian at 29.8f/s. Wismark will be available soon on the 3Dfx Web site. 3Dfx recognizes that once ZDBOp announces its 3D tests this will rapidly become the benchmark standard. In the mean time, they are seeking to gain consumer awareness of the importance of 3D performance with a test which can readily be run by even consumers.
Operating System support at COMDEX
Apple - Moving an Apple Multimedia Solution to Windows
With the announcement of QuickDraw 3D 1.5 Apple is moving to seize the initiative for 3D developers on Windows. Addressing what they feel are weaknesses in Microsoft's approach Apple has defined a completely extensible approach which they call a framework for 3D which includes extensive support for plug in renders. Other capabilities which can be tailored include the geometry definition, the shading, rendering, animation and file I/O. There are 90 applications which support QD3D and 21 applications on the PC. At the center of the this flexibility is their 3DMF file format which has been designed to support such functionality as cut and paste. It is claimed that the power of this approach has been validated by the 300+ developers who support it.
3DMF was submitted, in conjunction with IBM and Paragraph, to be the file format for VRML. It appears that what will be used in VRML will be an adaptation of 3DMF, however, the VRML format will be separate and distinct from 3DMF.
Apple also unveiled its new initiative for multimedia, which will also be cross-platform. Calling it the Quick Time Media Layer (QTML) it is the combination of QTVR, QT 2.5 and QD3D. In the spring this full suite will be available for Windows. The details were not available but it is Apple's intent to integrate QT with 3D and an enhanced version of QTVR. As an example of the technology we were shown a synthetic waterfall and pond which appeared very realistic. The intent of the QTML is to provide a common architecture for multimedia across multiple platforms. Viewed in another way this is to be the universal container for digital media - both time based and spatial media.
3Dfx - Announces Voodoo Rush with Alliance Semiconductor
Using a reengineered PCfx chip, which goes from a 240 PQFP to a 208PQFP, 3Dfx has created the Voodoo Rush chip set (Texelfx and PCfx). By deleting redundant functions of DRAM refresh, the PCI interface and support for RGB, the scaled down PCfx has allowed the price point to also move to $45 in 10,000 unit quantities (January first quantity shipments). The performance is the same as the Voodoo chip set. APIs supported include: Glide, Direct3D, QuickDraw 3D, RenderWare and Brender. In an interesting turn, OpenGL support is expected in Q1 1997. The card reference design includes the Alliance Pro-Motion AT3D, also announced at COMDEX, which includes support for a 64 bit "VR" interface between the Alliance part on the main card and the 3Dfx parts on a daughter card. It was claimed that this approach would allow OEMs to have a scaled solution using as the low cost solution just the ProMotion AT3D and an easily upgradable add-on, even on a motherboard, with a daughter card which contains the Voodoo Rush chip set.
The target price for a card solution is $199 in the 2MB texture and 2MB frame buffer configuration (all EDO DRAM). Although buyers were not announced Hercules and Orchid Technologies were showing technology demonstrations in their booths. At WAVE we found it curious that the ProMotion AT3D includes on-chip hardware geometry setup but when integrated with Voodoo Rush this is disabled. Thus, Voodoo Rush, has the same limitations which created the heavy CPU loads in the Gemini benchmarking tests - the lack of geometry processing. Other companies who have shown support for Voodoo Rush include: Trident Microsystems, Macronix America and Media Reality Technologies.
Alliance Semiconductor - Announces ProMotion - AT3D Accelerator
Alliance Semiconductor announced the AT3D 3D, 2D and video accelerator which comes in a 208PQFP. The chip includes the following 3D functions: setup, D3D texture palette, per pixel perspective, lighting and fog, z- buffer support and Gouraud shading. No details were provided on the 3D performance. The RAMDAC runs at 175MHz and the chip will support up to 1600 X 1200 with 64K colors. The chip is priced at $29 in 10K quantities.
It appears the dealers will have to be very aggressive in pricing a $199 add-on card based on Voodoo Rush, where the three chips alone total $74, exclusive of memory. It is our view that the real power of this relation between 3Dfx and Alliance will come when there is a single chip AGP solution.
3Dfx - Expects to Ship 200,000+ Chips in 1996
At COMDEX 3Dfx stated with confidence that they will ship 200,000 Voodoo chips in 1996. For the chip set which has become the vacuum cleaner for real time 3D content this is an important milestone for the industry. By setting the high performance mark many other companies are striving to achieve the same or higher performance level, i.e., pixel fill rate. With the Rush announcement 3Dfx is now entering the mainstream market with a chipset which should reach much higher unit volumes.
3Dfx also released its first Game Catalog. With 24 titles it shows the breadth of content they have been able to attract.
Canopus - Makes Debut at COMDEX with Total3D using an Optimized Rendition Verite
Using the Rendition Verite chip Canopus announced what they claimed to be the highest performance 2D and 3D game accelerator. The company, in Japan, has 42% of the PC add-in card market while the US operation is focused on R&D. They have focused on optimizing the drivers and RISC microcode in the Verite. Citing a 20% - 30% improvement in 2D performance and 20%+ in 3D Canopus claimed performance on a par with 3Dfx. Total3D will go on sale at the end of November for $279. Included in the bundle are Quake, Indy Car Racing II, Descent II and Whiplash, all optimized for the Rendition chip and its API.
Oak - OTI-64217 EON DirectX GUI Accelerator Announced
Implementing what it calls support for software 3D Oak announced its first product for 3D. Intended as a DirectX accelerator this chip supports DirectDraw, ActiveMovie and Direct3D in addition to planar YUV for video compression and decompression.
LG Semicon - the Chromatic Research Mpact Multimedia Processor Highlighted
Responding to the poor 3D performance of the Mpact processor LG Semicon stated that a version with 2X the performance would be available by Mid- 1997. They claimed that this part would be competitive with the S3 ViRGE part - technical details not provided.
3DLabs - Much News Including Going Public
On Tuesday, November 19, 3DLabs (NASDAQ: TDDDF) made an initial public offering of 2,500,000 shares of its Common Stock at a price of $11 per share. By Friday the price closed at 17 3/8. One piece of news from the prospectus is that Intel invested $2m in the company in October 1996.
Faster Permedia: New versions of the Permedia and Permedia NT chips were announced this week, with faster clock speeds boosting performance to a 40% increase over current Permedia chips. The new chips can perform up to 800K polygons/sec (50-pixel, texture-mapped, perspectively corrected, bilinear filtered, fogged and dithered) and 42M texture-mapped pixels/sec. The new chips are available now to OEM customers at the same price as the original Permedia chips.
3DLabs commented that is sees product cycles reaching 6 - 9 months.
Direct3D driver for Permedia and GLINT: 3D Labs has made available a Direct3D binary driver for its entire range of accelerators, including the Permedia and GLINT processors. In addition, the Direct3D drivers support the optional Delta geometry processor. The driver is available for free download from 3D Lab's Web site.
Dual 500TX reference design: The new dual 500TX reference board design can provide performance of up to 1M polygons/sec (25-pixel, Gouraud shaded, Z-buffered, 32-bit color) and up to 25M texture-mapped perspectively correct pixels/sec. The price is $3,000.
Accelerated OpenGL and Heidi for Win95: With beta versions also being demonstrated at COMDEX, 3D Labs has announced that it will release OpenGL and Heidi driver support for Windows 95 for their entire range of accelerators. Both OpenGL and Heidi reference drivers are scheduled to be available in Q1 1997.
3DLabs views the presence of OpenGL on Windows 95 as critical. They see an end user expectation for OpenGL which can now be fulfilled. For example, they estimate that over 50% of the VRML browsers are written to use OpenGL.
TI manufactures Permedia: 3D Labs announced this week that Texas Instruments will now be an alternate source for the Permedia processors in addition to IBM. TI-sourced parts are expected to be available in Q1 1997. In addition, TI will also be jointly involved in marketing and selling Permedia processors, and is collaborating with 3D Labs on future product generations. The first spin from TI worked, which is consistent with the success which 3DLabs has had in getting products correct the first time.
As an illustration of one of the first business applications to make effective use of 3D they showed the network management tool - Unicenter - from Computer Associates. Built on Sense8 WorldToolKit, one could visualize a computer network geographically. Beginning, literally with a world view one could progressively view a network in progressive steps and level of detail to an individual PC. One could look at the network overlaid on the world then the U.S., then a state, a city and a building. The final view could be the inside of a specific PC. What is important is that various components of the network could be annotated with color to show its state. An impressive 3D application.
Partners showing 3DLabs products at COMDEX included: Canopus (Power Windows 500TX), Creative Labs (Falcon Graphics Blaster), Diamond Multimedia (Fire GL 3000 and Fire GL 1000), ELSA (Gloria-L), Leadtek (WinFAST 3D L2500, WinFAST 3D L3000, WinFAST 3D L2200), Newer Technology (Render Pix PCI/500, RenderPix PCI/502), Omnicomp (3Demon Pro88) and Radius (Thunder3D).
S3 - Announces 3,000,000 ViRGE Units Shipped
Also announced were two new enhanced versions called the ViRGE/DX for DRAM and ViRGE/GX for SGRAM. The clock speed has been raised from 50MHz to 66 MHz. Both the chips are claimed to perform at 20 MT/sec. An AGP part is now in process.
Being passed out was also a catalog with 23 games and applications.
nVIDIA - Early Indications of a New 3D Product Strategy
Following a less than spectacular first product nVIDIA is preparing to reenter the 3D market. Their focus is to dominate the high performance segment of the mainstream market. They feel that there are no parts which push the PC performance envelope today. nVIDIA calls their new part the NV3 and its specifications are such that they expect that all others will seek to emulate it.
Datapath - RealiMation 4.1 Shows its Striking Features
Datapath was showing RealiMation STE 4.1, its real time 3D authoring tool. It supports basic modeling, model imports, texture mapping application, and motion path development. The program is also a viewer in which one can interact with the scene, change the viewpoint and dynamically move about. The program supports multiple APIs including D3D, RenderWare, OpenGL, and Glide. Multiple windows are also supported where the user can turn on a display with a display card. The program also supports input of DXF, 3DS, VRML and even OpenFlight. The program was to ship at the end of October but it has been delayed to add user interface features. The price of the STE product is $499. RealiMation has features not seen on any other product. It is being bundled with the Diamond GLiNT products, Omnicomp, Leadtek, #9 and Virtuality. WAVE will be doing a product review and provide more details soon.
Version 5.0 features were disclosed and include: support for plug-ins, direct sound and Q sound; scene microphones; polygon reduction tools and an automatic LOD builder. The software should be ready for SIGGRAPH 1997.
TGS - Shows 3Space Technical and 3Space Publisher
Template Graphics showed two new 3D tools. The first 3Space Technical is a Visio add on which enables the editing and creation of 3D representations of 2D drawings. This enables rapid and easy-to-use space planning including architecture planning, home remodeling and even computer based training. At WAVE we see such a tool as being an important addition to Visio Professional 4.5 due in January.
3Space Publisher is a 3D graphics design tool. Using some of the easy to use interface design elements of Visio this product brings 3D creative tools to many. Output formats include: Animated GIF, 3D Active X, Pixar Renderman and VRML. Over 500 models are included. Pricing is to between $195 to $295. Shipment is in December.
VREAM was showing VRCreator 2.0 which will be shipping Jan. '97 at a retail price of $99. VRCreator can create 3D worlds with point and click ease. There is a modeler, an Import Wizard to bring in models from other 3D programs, a Floor Plan Editor, and the VREAMScript language. Any VRML 2.0 browser can view the worlds. Over 1,000 Viewpoint Datalabs models are included. The modeler has sophisticated functions including Booleans. Import models can come from DXF, 3DS, Calligari and Lightwave.
A high end version called VRCreator Pro is due Q1 1997. This package is geared to multimedia developers. The package will also allow developers access to the VREAM API. Developers will be able to even do games with Pro. In fact, the package is more like a toolkit that just an application to run.
A companion browser is called WIRL is available free for downloading. It is currently being bundled with cards from ATI, Matrox and Creative Labs.
Matrox - Extensive Software Developer Support Announced
Matrox announced a long list of developers for its Mystique card. A total of 91 on titles or applications are expected to be available between now and Q1 1997.
Real 3D - Applications Running on the R3D/100 are Shown
Aside from a number of games in the booth, Real 3D was able to show a number of applications which took advantage of its R3D/100. This included: Sense8's WorldUp, Newtek's Lightwave; Autodesk 3D Studio MAX, Lightscape with the Lightscape Visualization system and RealiMation from Datapath.
Creative Labs - Passport Technology Shown
In an impressive technology demonstration Creative Labs was showing a different interface to the Internet. Rather than recreate file formats or browsers Creative decided to "embrace it all." Passport is a multimedia front end which takes care of all multimedia technologies - audio and video. The interface is compatible with IE and Navigator and looks much like a radio or television. One defines preset channels to URLs and content. By selecting the channels music can be listened to, irrespective of format. Although it was a demonstration expect to see Version 1.0 in January 1997 and with a number of subsequent revisions coming in 1997.
614.3 1996 The Year Santa Delivers 3D? by Jonathan Sunberg
1995 Christmas was a year of high expectations for the 3D PC game market. 1995 was also disappointment - no consumer demand and too few acceleration cards. We sought to gain some insight - will 1995 be repeated in 1996. According to WAVE's recent research, companies feel the customer is ready for 3D. Yet, it still remains clouded if there is a 3D customer.
We recently surveyed 22 PC game publishers to determine their holiday season product plans. Of the 90 games to released between now and Christmas, nearly 60% have some type of 3D content. However, only 35%(19) utilize real-time 3D. To WAVE it seems that publishers feel association with 3D generates sales, even if it is not real-time 3D. We found many publishers advertised 3D characteristics, yet, it was only a few 3D rendered landscapes or pre-rendered 3D objects.
For the games which do contain real-time graphics, Microsoft's Direct3D is the accepted standard on the PC. Of the 19 games, 16 supported Direct3D. This is a good sign for 3D acceleration cards which support Direct3D. In the other 3 games, one supported the RenderWare API, and the others were not disclosed.
Shown below are some of the real-time 3D games that will be available for Christmas:
| Publisher | Game |
| 7th Level |
G-NOME Return to Krondor |
| Activision |
Hyperblade Time Commando |
| Eidos | Tomb Raider |
| Interplay |
Descent to Undermountain Realms of the Haunting |
| LucasArts | X-Wing VS. TIE Fighter |
| Microsoft | Monster Truck Madness |
| Mindscape |
Cyberspeed WarHammer |
| Psygnosis |
Destruction Derby 2 Twisted Metal 2 |
| Trimark Int. | MagZone |
| Viacom N.M. |
Aeon Flux Slamscape The Divide: Enemies Within |
| Virgin |
Scorched Planet Zone Raiders |
614.4 Review: Windows Draw 5 Graphics and Print Studio by David Lohse
Product Ratings (out of *****):
Micrografx, a supplier of consumer PC graphics products since 1982 (including the benchmark Print Shop program), has recently released the Windows Draw 5 Graphics and Print Studio package, offering image editing, vector drawing and 3D graphics capabilities. The package consists of three primary applications: Windows Draw (vector graphics), Photo Magic (image editing) and Instant3D (also available as a stand-alone application from Micrografx).
Targeted at the home and small business user with a low price tag of $49.95, Studio offers an impressive array of features and functionality. The user interface conforms to the Microsoft Office standard, making the program very easy to learn and use. Windows Draw offers an interface and feature set very similar to the higher-priced Adobe Illustrator, and the comprehensive help features and Wizards guide the user through the program without getting in the way. Similarly, Photo Magic inherits many of the characteristics of both its lower-end predecessors such as Paint as well as higher-end programs such as Photoshop, offering features such as filter, retouch and fill tools. Both programs can import and export in a wide variety of formats, including ai, gif, jpeg, tiff, Photoshop, png, pict, bmp and others.
3D graphics capabilities are provided through Instant3D, which allows users to create simple 3D scenes from a supplied library of over 90 objects, materials and lights, or by importing AutoCAD .dxf files. It also offers several features for creating 3D text along with deformations and texture mapping. The 3D scenes themselves can be viewed in wireframe or solid mode while creating, and two types of rendering (quick and full) are available.
While the three components all offer easy-to-use graphics capabilities for the typical end-user, the documentation and support are not ideal. The product manual offers a good introduction to PC graphics, but each of the three applications is not covered in much detail and the short tutorials supplied are not very comprehensive. Similarly, the support options may not be adequate for many end-users: after thirty days of free support, support is fee-based. On the other hand, with such an easy-to- use product, limited printed documentation and support may not be all that critical.
http://www.micrografx.com/products/windowsdraw/windraw.htm
614.5 IDA's IntraVISION by David Lohse
IDA (IGES Data Analysis, Inc.), a company specializing in managing product data in manufacturing and engineering environments for the last 14 years, recently announced the release of IntraVISION v2.0, "an engineering viewing and redlining product." Formerly called CALSVIEW, IntraVISION can view a wide range of engineering data types and supports on-line viewing, markup, measurement, comparison and conversion of various vector and raster formats. The program supports 3D vector formats including IGES, DXF/DWG, VDAFS, 2D vector formats including CGM and HPGL, 9 different raster formats, and 9 conversion output formats.
Targeted at CAD/CAM uses, IntraVISION provides viewing capabilities for a range of graphical data formats in both solid and wireframe, allowing accurate measurement and analysis of data. IDA promotes IntraVISION for a number of applications, including measurement and interrogation for design, product data management, shop floor/NC machining, system integration and technical publication design.
IntraVISION v2.0 is available now for Unix, Windows (3.1, 95 and NT) and OS/2 platforms, with prices ranging from $395 to $995. For a downloadable demo of the product, check out IDA's website at:
Copyright 1996 4th WAVE Inc.
May be redistributed in full for individual readership and posted to newsgroups, Web, and FTP sites. May not be reprinted or redistributed for profit. Short quotes are permitted but must be attributed to the WAVE Report on Digital Media.