[Maximus3D]

G'day

I got this email today saying there's a SolidThinking plugin released now, not that i ever used this program before and most likely never will use it but it'd still be interesting to see screenshots of it's integration and maybe even a video or two of how it behaves in the wild.

Got anything to show and/or any more info to reveal about this baby NL ?

/ Max

[lllab]

as far as i know it was not made by NL but by the makers of solidthinkin'
i guess you should look there...

cheers
stefan

[sandykoufax]

solidthinking? it's unfamilir to me. interesting but looks very expensive tool.

http://www.solidthinking.com/index_en.htm

[chrisvconley]

That's funny 'cause SolidThinking is an old, but very exciting program to me. Came out first on the NeXT platform in the early 90's. I bought it because NeXT had Renderman built in and you could render out of Solidthinking with it!

I made some early renders that blew me away. And I didn't know what I was doing!

I'm glad they have stuck with their development. Basically a easier to use Alias. Very well done. i see they now have animation in their high end version...

Chris

[Mihai]

Looks very powerful, anybody know how much the ModelerXL is?

[Miles]

There's an introductory offer, here: http://www.solidthinking.com/news/070228b.htm

Presumably for Modeler, though it's not very clear...

[aitraaz]

Looks like a good offer. Solidthinking's been around for ages, a very good option for mac users...

[valerio]

Vicenza, March 1, 2007 – EVOQE is pleased to announce the availability of a newly developed plug-in for solidThinking 7.5 providing a direct interface to Maxwell Render, the Light Simulator.

The combination of solidThinking 7.5 and Maxwell Render provides engineers, architects and designers with an incredibly powerful tool, allowing for a smooth and natural workflow inside solidThinking, with direct connectivity to Maxwell Render.

“We are proud to be able to include a new plug-in to the Maxwell Render arsenal, and we are even prouder that it concerns the plug-in for the amazing new version of solidThinking,” said Next Limit CEO Victor Gonzalez. “We would like to thank the entire EVOQE team for their dedicated work on this plug-in.”

“solidThinking fully history-based modeling combined with Maxwell Render state-of-the-art light simulation provides users an explosive mix we are excited about.” said EVOQE President Mario Mazzardo.

[hyltom]

This is a very good news, and the deal is very reasonable. I'm looking at this software since two years, more or less seriously, but with this deal and the new maxwell plugin it become very interesting. I always found that the features was better than rhino, even with the new version. Can someone (maybe from Next Limit or Evoqe) tell us more about the maxwell plugin. And why is there no section in this forum open to Solidthinking?

[Mihai]

Well I think the solidThinking plugin will be supported by Evoqe, so any questions about it will have to be adressed to them. But perhaps something can be worked out, once 7.5 is released two weeks from now.

It would be great if somebody proficient with Rhino could give the 7.5 demo a test, a fair test Solidthinking looks very powerful and seems to have a much more solid construction history than Rhino.

[Thomas An.]

Well I think the solidThinking plugin will be supported by Evoqe, so any questions about it will have to be adressed to them. But perhaps something can be worked out, once 7.5 is released two weeks from now.

It would be great if somebody proficient with Rhino could give the 7.5 demo a test, a fair test Solidthinking looks very powerful and seems to have a much more solid construction history than Rhino.

... but ... at $2000 it is more expensive than Rhino. No ?
Is it really that much more productive ? ... I would be curious if someone had some hands-on evaluation thoughts.

From previous discussions when some Rhino users gave it a try the basic impression was:

Good on paper ... but ... prone to crashing too often on simple things. The interface doesn't "flow" right compared to Rhino

[Mihai]

You can download a 30 day eval Thomas I would be interested in your thoughts about it. I'd be more interested in the capabilities of the tools, I know you're a big fan of Rhino UI

[JDHill]

Let's be fair now...solidThinking is already on version 7.5, and Rhino has only just made it to version 4.

[aitraaz]

Actually an interesting story behind Solidthinking, developed originally by Gestel in Italy for NeXt workstations, its creator (s) left in order to work for Pixar, kind of left in pandemonium for quite some time, then picked up and developed by EVOQE. Have used it a few years ago - Thomas's quote describing it is rather accurate, at least up until a few years ago. Great idea, very powerful, rather quirky, rather buggy. Would be interesting to see what its become. For 7.5, the price is quite reasonable...

[dutch_designer]

Man, I remember Solidthinking from this tutorial here that I tried to mimic in Rhino a long time ago, I think that's what got me interested in nurbs modeling in the first place
http://www.kotanezu.com/ (click the tutorials button)