CAD, BIM & 3D

After Microsoft bought Caligari, it turned Truespace free. But apparently, the crisis is having an effect on the future of Truespace. It is assumed that the Truespace software and everything around it will be cancelled. Read a notice from the founder of Truespace: http://www.caligari.com/News/news_200905/LetterFromTheFounder.html .

According to the Novedge blog, CadSoft releases a free version of their CAD software for residential design, called Envisioneer Express. Read more at http://blog.novedge.com/2009/05/cadsoft-releases-envisioneerexpress-50-free-download.html . Direct link to the product page for this software at http://www.envisioneerexpress.com .

http://www.3dworldmag.com/page/3dworld?entry=houdini_10_released The new release of Houdini 10 is (luckily) still available in commercial, cheap and free editions, for all major platforms (Windows, OSX and Linux).

After "Elephants Dream" and "Big Buck Bunny", the third Open Movie project tied to the Blender Foundation developments to improve Blender in a real project is announced: http://durian.blender.org/

In a slight reversal of most of the mails on this blog, it appears that both Kerkythea and Indigo renderers will try the commercial route. They were not Open Source, but free. Let's see if they can stand up against the other commercial engines... http://www.blendernation.com/2009/05/16/kerkythea-renderer-going-commercial/ http://www.blendernation.com/2009/05/01/indigo-renderer-is-going-commercial/

If you are a current Rhino 4.0 for Windows user, you can (with your CD-key) register for the public test version of the upcoming Rhino 5.0. http://download.rhino3d.com/whatsnew.asp?rel=501 This Work-In-Progress version gives you a sneak peak to what Rhino 5.0 will be and allows full testing on a time-limited but unrestricted version. The Mac OSX version of Rhino 4.0 is also free to try, by the way, if you did not know already.

At least in Belgium and the Netherlands, students and schools can request a free license of Cinema4D (any edition: XL, Studio, Architecture, Engineering). It is compatible with Windows and OSX and is a very decent modeller, rendering and animation workhorse. http://www.cinema4d.nl/CAP C4D rendering from Palais Stoclet (Hoffmann) modeled by Kristof Lesaffre. C4D rendering from Vitra Pavillion (Tadao Ando) modeled by Leentje Verfaillie.

Nemetschek is more and more opening their software tools for educational users. Register at the http://allplan-campus.com , provide a copy of your student ID and they will see if you qualify. You can download the software Allplan for free and access forums and e-learning courses. Last time I checked, the Allplan software was Windows-only.