Auto.des.sys formZ 6.0 released and shipping

- 20.6.06 - formZ is an award winning general purpose solid and surface modeller with an extensive set of 2D/3D form manipulating and sculpting capabilities. It is an effective design tool for architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers, animators and illustrators, industrial and interior designers and all design fields that deal with the articulation of 3D spaces and forms.

form·Z 6.0 offers a seamlessly integrated animation environment, where objects, lights, cameras, and surface styles (colours) can be animated and transformed over time. The new animation features are object-centric and are applied as modelling operations, which, in addition to supporting the production of animated visualisations, they also support dynamic modelling and the creation of forms that go significantly beyond the repertoire of conventional modelling tools.

Capturing 3D forms from animations: The new animation tools have also added to the modelling repertoire of form·Z by allowing animated states of objects to be captured as fully defined new objects, rather than simply as images. Animated lights and cameras can also be captured.

Exporting colour to 3D printers: Import/export support has been added for the ZPR format to facilitate prototyping. ZPR is the format of the Z Corp 3D printers and has the unique ability to carry colour information. Thus physical prototype models can now be generated in full colour and textures from virtual form·Z models.

Object-centric animation: Among a number of new unique features, form·Z 6.0 offers a seamlessly integrated animation environment, where objects, lights, cameras, and surface styles (colours) can be animated and transformed over time. The new animation features are object-centric and are applied as modelling operations, which, in addition to supporting the production of animated visualisations, they also support dynamic modelling and the creation of forms that go significantly beyond the repertoire of conventional modelling tools. This offers a powerful new avenue for design explorations. Once animations have been set and refined, they can be played back in preview mode from within form·Z, then rendered, saved, and played in their final form. Animation settings can be developed.

The Attach and Extend tools: The Attach and Extend tools have been enhanced and now they also work with smooth objects, which adds some special flavour to these operations, such as attaching the face of one object to a curved face of another object causes the former face to take the shape of the latter.

The Cap tool: The Cap tool allows you to pick a set of edges that form a closed loop in 3D space and create a surface from them. Given that these edges can be either free (open) or edges common to two neighboring faces and that the tool can be optionally instructed to generate surfaces that extend the curvatures of neighboring surfaces, the possibilities for form generation are enormous.

The Deform tool: The Deform tool has been drastically extended and has become a controlled operation that allows multiple types of deformations to be applied simultaneously. These can be subsequently edited and revised thus offering great opportunities for experimentation and design explorations. The new Deform tool can be used by itself or as part of an animation sequence.

The Model Doctor: The Model Doctor tool has been enhanced and it can now heal incompletely formed smooth objects by filling in faces that may be missing.

The Morph tool: The Morph tool allows you to pick two objects, the source and the destination, and have the shape of the former change to the shape of the other by a certain percent. The operation can be executed dynamically or in one step. It can be used as part of an animation or by itself.

The Reconstruct Curve and Reconstruct Nurbz tools: The Reconstruct Curve and Reconstruct Nurbz tools have been extended and can now optionally display the differences between the original and the new curves and surfaces.

The S-Loft tool: The S-Loft tool executes skinned lofting, an operation that combines skinning and lofting, by using explicit or implicit paths, as it threads sets of selected source shapes. The most impressive among the variety of shapes it can generate are objects that branch.

The Text Search and Replace tool:The Text Search and Replace tool can search all objects in a project or only selected objects and match a specified string. When matches are found, they are replaced with a replacement string, which may be a completely different string or the same string in a different format, including font, size, and style.

The new Transform tool: The new Transform tool can be used to change the location, scale, and rotation of an object by transforming an object's axes graphically. That is, it is a tool that combines all the other transformation tools, namely Translate, Rotate, and Scale.

Automatic updates: A new automatic update option has been added to keep your form·Z installation up to date with the latest adjustments and corrections. form·Z checks for new versions based on a preference setting and automatically downloads and updates itself.

About auto.des.sys
auto·des·sys, Inc. (automated design systems) is a privately held company, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, USA. auto·des·sys functions on the philosophy of product quality coupled with user satisfaction. It believes in offering solutions, rather than simply tools. Numerous enhancements to form·Z are based on suggestions from users who have come to respect the company for its responsiveness to their requests and needs. The goal of auto·des·sys is to continue to offer advanced modelling and design tools at a very affordable cost. For more information about auto.des.sys www.formz.com

About CU's 3D Group:
Computers Unlimited's 3D Design Group focuses on specialist products from a number of vendors including Nemetschek N.A., Abvent, autodessys, NewTek, @Last Software, AEC Software, Informatix and Ashlar Vellum.