by Jacob Heller - Contributing Editor Each DCC Weekly Review delivers to its readers news concerning the latest developments in the DCC industry, DCC product and company news, featured downloads, customer wins, and coming events, along with a selection of other articles that we feel you might find interesting. Brought to you by DCCCafe.com. If we miss a story or subject that you feel deserves to be included, or you just want to suggest a future topic, please contact us! Questions? Feedback? Click here. Thank-you!

What the new 3D addition to Adobe will mean for the DCC industry

Over the last week, Adobe came out with a rather significant announcement. For around $1,000, you can purchase Adobe software that integrates 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) into Adobe Acrobat documents. Although you need to purchase Adobe Acrobat 3D, the software that allows you to put CAD designs into the Acrobat document, others can view the design for free as long as they have the free Acrobat reader. This will not only change the CAD industry, but will likely spill over into the DCC market, and will have significant impacts there.

Acrobat 3D

This is big news for the CAD industry. Designers used to have two options when collaborating on projects: either share a 2D image or give the 3D CAD version to your collaborators. Both don’t work terribly well. The 2D image is usually devoid of all the information you would like to share. The 3D version requires the other side to have the expensive CAD program the design was created in, and it also requires you to share your valuable design information that can easily be copied and sent all over the web. (There is one notable exception to this: Autodesk’s DWF file format allows users to share AutoCAD files freely, without much risk of trade secret theft. However, Adobe has the advantage of working with all CAD formats, not just Autodesk’s.)

The Adobe innovation also allows users to do many things. For example, they can leave notes or ask for input on particular parts of the design. Designers can also draw on and mark up the 3D CAD design. The Acrobat file can also have an expiration date set. The collaboration is therefore safe and effective.

The implications for the CAD industry are incredible. Finally, designers can send instructions to a factory to ask if they could follow the manufacturing process, but without sacrificing large trade secrets. It also means that sharing all information regarding the creation of any CAD file will be much easier.

Usually, things that happen in the CAD industry spill over into the DCC industry (and vice versa). This is especially true now that large CAD producers are also leading DCC toolmakers (even more so with Autodesk’s Alias purchase). Although there have been no formal announcements as of yet, we can expect Adobe to make DCC files easily shared through their Adobe Acrobat product line. We can expect that mainly because of the myriad advantages it would offer to the industry, which Adobe can definitely profit from.

Acrobat 3D in action

The first and most obvious benefit the Acrobat 3D can bring to DCC is in tool learning. Oftentimes, the best tutorials come in PDF format (or are hard books, but this is becoming less frequent). The only problem is, you can’t see what you’re trying to imitate in three dimensions. The end result is usually just an angled 2D representation of what you are trying to model, which is no good at all if you are trying to truly imitate the steps in the tutorial. This is especially helpful for DCC since the DCC community shares ideas openly online through discussion forums and free tutorials. If Acrobat 3D comes to DCC, all digital content creators will be a lot more educated.

It will also aid collaboration. Oftentimes, 3D animators are working with multiple formats in many locations around the globe. The ability to quickly share design ideas through Adobe’s easy PDF format will greatly enhance the ability for animators to work together, even when they are miles apart. This is especially true because you can add feedback and notes to the PDF document, which enables users to make suggestions and communicate ideas more effectively.

Overall, the easier it is to share ideas without those ideas being stolen, the better the entire industry will get. There will be better and more education and collaboration, something the DCC industry desperately needs. I hope that Adobe doesn’t take long in bringing Acrobat 3D to DCC.

[*Correction: Adobe PDFs now support most standard DCC formats, working with programs like Maya, 3ds Max, Lightwave, and Softimage. Thank you to the people from Right Hemisphere for clearing this up for me!*]


Last Week’s DCC News in Brief

3D Design Tools

Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc., announced that New York-based design and effects company Spontaneous used Softimage® character animation technology to create the latest music video for the Grammy® Award-winning rock band U2. The video for Original of the Species features a digital version of Bono, the band’s lead singer, accompanied by a computer generated woman. Both characters were created using SOFTIMAGE|XSI® v.5.0 and animated with an alpha version of SOFTIMAGE|FACE ROBOTTM, the revolutionary new digital acting technology that allows 3D artists to achieve realistic, lifelike facial animation for high-end film, post and games projects. The music video was conceived and directed by long-time U2 collaborator, Catherine Owens, who has worked with Spontaneous on several of U2’s in-concert animations for the band’s current Vertigo tour. [ Read more...]

Side Effects Software, developer of the award-winning Houdini family of 3D software, announced that three of the films competing in the visual effects industry "Bake-off" on Jan. 25, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia, used Houdini. The Bake-off involves a 15-minute presentation to the Visual Effects Award Nominating committee who will then create the final nomination list for the Visual Effects Oscar® awarded each year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [ Read more...]


Financial Matters

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced it will Webcast its 2006 Financial Analyst Meeting being held in New York on Tuesday, January 31, 2006. [ Read more...]

Sonic Foundry(R) Inc., a leader in automated rich media communications technology, announced it will release results for its first quarter of fiscal 2006 on Thursday, February 2 before the open of the market. [ Read more...]

NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today announced that the Company will host its Analyst Day at its headquarters in Santa Clara, California on March 23, 2006 from 9:30 AM Pacific Time to approximately 3:00 PM Pacific Time. [ Read more...]


Workstations

Alienware(R) -- the leading manufacturer of high-performance desktop, notebook, media center, server and professional systems -- released two new workstations fully equipped to take on the demands of today's top creative professionals: the Intel(R)-based MJ-12(R) 7500i and the AMD-based MJ-12 7500a. The MJ-12 7500i and MJ-12 7500a are loaded with a cutting-edge NVIDIA(R) nForce(R)4 SLI X16-based motherboard featuring two full bandwidth16-lane PCI Express slots to ensure optimized and scalable performance for digital content creators and developers. [ Read more...]


Acquisitions

Furthering its strategy of delivering outstanding creative content, Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company , announced that Disney has agreed to acquire computer animation leader Pixar in an all-stock transaction, expected to be completed by this summer. Under terms of the agreement, 2.3 Disney shares will be issued for each Pixar share. Based on Pixar's fully diluted shares outstanding, the transaction value is $7.4 billion ($6.3 billion net of Pixar's cash of just over $1 billion)(a). [ Read more...]


Graphics Cards

As a technology leader in the workstation graphics market, ATI Technologies Inc. is dedicated to developing and supporting key industry transitions such as the movement to 64-bit computing to enable a more highly developed experience for end users. As the complexity of design and content creation grows exponentially, the movement to 64-bit computing will open up new opportunities for customers to create elaborate projects without significantly affecting production timelines. [ Read more... ]



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-- Jacob Heller, DCCCafe.com Contributing Editor.

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