I originally discovered Okino's PolyTrans|CAD during a project over a decade ago. A marketing firm contacted me with an engineering client who had just developed a new tabletop spectrometer. The story was familiar: the engineers had spent 4 years developing and designing this new tool (in Unigraphics) and on the virtual eve of production release, the one-offs and prototypes were of little to no use to the marketing people. Their precious new machine lay trapped in the technically intimidating world of Unigraphics' Open GL Previews. They needed pre-sales tools and a way of explaining how their device worked across a variety of deliverables.

After a few exploratory calls I learned of PolyTrans|CAD and wrote for more information. After the initial purchase of PolyTrans with the IGES import module, Robert Lansdale worked closely with me developing a "custom" solution for the specific task that lie ahead. One of the main challenges with this project was defining polygonal meshes from the UG/IGES trim curves. Control over tessellation settings was important as was smoothing and control over the normals, but more importantly I needed control over specifically grouped surfaces. In other cases, an IGES export can generate hopelessly confusing meshes with millions of individual polygons the designer would then need to (impossibly) pick through and stitch back together. The goal was to achieve a high-fidelity model that could still be rendered and animated in LightWave. PolyTrans was indispensable. After trying a direct IGES import through two other leading applications, PolyTrans|CAD produced the highest-quality results with the most control over surfacing, smoothness, and tessellation. Without PolyTrans I would not have been able to meet the tight timeline.

Since this initial project I've used PolyTrans|CAD for countless projects, moving seamlessly between 3ds Max, LightWave and Softimage. PolyTrans|CAD handles ProE/Creo files extremely well, as evidenced by the project shown for Waterpik. Why move between applications? Sometimes it's as simple as a slightly different look a client is after. Sometimes it's more complicated, like creating a motion, object or affect more easily in one application than another. Sometimes a client will already have Max files and want that to be the starting point. With PolyTrans|CAD, moving between different worlds is a reliable, "promisable" task. Without it my life would be far more difficult.

For more information about CraneDigital, please visit www.cranedigital.com, or call (970) 229-1463. E-mail: jbcrane@cranedigital.com."

ProE/Creo is the primary engineering modeling and documentation package used at Brooks Stevens. Although it is used in some cases as a conceptual industrial design tool, it's main application is documenting our designs through mechanical engineering and part/assembly development to final production.

All along the process, from initial concept development through final engineering, we need to develop images that communicate a designs' status and configuration to clients, vendors, researchers, and ourselves. It's not enough to create shaded isometric views. We find it extremely valuable, when possible, to create images that look REAL and convey the detail, accuracy, and excitement that we bring to products in our design process. At times, we also create images for sales and marketing purposes; images of the designs which must look very realistic (even photographic), but have not yet been produced. These are the reasons NuGraf has been a valuable asset to us. Yes, there are other packages that produce some great images, but nothing I've seen works as well with ProE/Creo in terms of simplicity, consistency, and speed to get to those realistic images we are looking for.

We've been using Okino's NuGraf for about 3 years now, ProE/Creo for more than 10. NuGraf proved to be an excellent choice for generating great images of our designs created in ProE/Creo. It proved to be so easy to use we lost the manual early on and didn't even bother to find it. Go figure. We have other very robust rendering packages in house, but NuGraf proves to be the fastest and easiest renderer to use in conjunction with ProE/Creo. I can't say enough about how much faster it is. As an example, we did a rendering test about 2 years ago, comparing NuGraf with a renderer in one of our surface packages. The difference was 4 hours vs. 15 minutes for NuGraf - all variables being kept as close as possible. That's a big difference when you have 24 hours to crank out a full presentation for a client."

We have been making computer animations for almost 10 years. We began with Alias and now we use Autodesk Maya. We have a customer Bonardier-ROTAX GmbH in Austria, who are making motor engines for Ski-Doo, Sea-Doo, ATV, Light Airplanes, Kart and Motorcycles (Aprilia and BMW). They developed a completely new engine generation named 4-TEC. They have constructed it in ProE/Creo. For marketing presentation of this new engine they wanted to show their custumers the "high-tec" of this engine.

We exported the engine data from ProE/Creo via large IGES files. However, we had a problem: the IGES data was really really big! Maya could read small IGES parts but it could not import big parts (100MB with thousand of parts); Maya just hung up. So we performed the conversion with PolyTrans|CAD. It worked very well and fast. In meantime we also use VRML data format, epecially for parts, that are not so important. The Bombardier-ROTAX company uses VRML data for their preview discussions. Thanks to the PolyTrans VRML importer we are able to read this data, too and they are much smaller."

The oil ring consisted of 5700 different parts and 1,908,464 polygons. The final rendering consisted of 75% data from SolidWorks and 25% created in 3ds Max. The 7500x7500 pixel image took 9 hours to render in 3ds Max. The final poster was used in "Oil and Gas Journal", a Pennwell magazine. The models and technical instructions were provided by Rowan Companies, Inc."

About a year ago, staff artist, Will Coats, began using PolyTrans in their production pipeline to import and optimize ProE/Creo geometry data over to 3ds Max for final rendering and animation. The resulting images speak for themselves."

We have focused mainly on scientific instruments and use 3D CAD modeling on a daily basis. Just recently we were contracted to do a really exciting project. The US government wanted to explore the possibility of restoring an old hotel while adding a new building to it. Our job was to recreate the hotel and lobby with its fantastic columns and provide a walk-through.

We obtained old black and white photos of the hotel façade and lobby from the local historical society and worked under the direction of an architect for the new building concept. Everything, except for the Mercedes, was modeled in SDRC’s Master Series 3D CAD software and LightWave. The final model was exported to Okino's NuGraf. NuGraf is a package we have been using for several years and for which Okino has provided personal support and updates to us directly. We imported the data via IGES and LightWave objects, and ended up with a 950,000 polygon count model of the interior and 1,200,000 polygon count of the exterior scene. NuGraf rendered the images in a short time.

The models use about 100 texture maps, 30 light sources for the interior and 6 lights for the exterior.

We would like to thank DeEspona Infografica for the fantastic Mercedes model."

The production tools we typically use are:

• ProE/Creo solids modeling
• Rhino-3D 3D NURBS surfacing modeler
• Okino's conversion software
• SolidWorks solids modeler

The IDE production pipeline: IDE use a combination of solid modeling software from PTC (ProE/Creo) and Robert McNeel's Associates NURBS surfacing software, Rhino-3D. Okino's NuGraf is used for final presentation imagery. If the final surfaces are very complex then it is exported as an IGES file for refinement in Rhino. In Rhino the surfaces are interactively tessellated to insure design intent and high image quality in the final rendered images. Product graphics are applied in NuGraf or using Adobe Photoshop. NuGraf is used for visualization purposes in presentations and often supports 2D image manipulation tools in the creative process.

1. Silicon Film - A digital film cartridge that allows some existing, non-digital, SLR cameras to take pure digital images. It is a modular system comprised of 3 components. Created concurrently in both Rhinoceros and Pro-e, then rendered in NuGraf for presentation to the client before display models, color studies and prototypes were developed. The final Rendering was done in NRS with all product graphics being projected onto the polygon meshes using NuGraf.
   
   
2. Colorado Micro Display - IDE developed a prototype for technology presentation. A Pro-E solid model was exported as an IGES file. The IGES file was interactively tessellated in Rhino. A mesh was imported from Poser. The head was scaled to fit the Pro-E Solid model. The image was rendered in NuGraf.
   
   
3. Anritsu Synthesized CW Generator MG3690A - An RF and Microwave signal synthesizer. The exterior surfaces were all modeled in Rhino. These surfaces were rendered in NuGraf. IDE used a combination of Adobe  Illustrator and Rhino to develop the interface and bezel graphics/markings. When the final concept was selected the surfaces were exported from Rhino and then imported into Pro-E for mechanical design. The final Rendering was done in NuGraf with only a few problematic product graphics being applied in Adobe Photoshop, otherwise all graphics were projected onto the polygon meshes using NuGraf.
   
   
4. Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox - A digital music jukebox holding up to 150 CDs of music. Created concurrently in both fRhinoceros and Pro-e, then rendered in NuGraf for presentation to the client before display models, color studies and prototypes were developed. The final Rendering was done in NuGraf with all product graphics being projected onto the polygon meshes using NuGraf.
   
   
5. "Okino Camera" - The camera model was created by Deam Amir Depay (of IDE Inc.) using AutoCAD's solid modeling capabilities. This converter allows solid models to be imported into NuGraf or PolyTrans from any modeling package based on the ACIS 3D toolkit from Spatial Technology. The turn-around time from import to final rendering was about 40mins, most of which was consumed in deciding what materials and what colors to assign to the object.
   
   
6. PDA Concept Rendering - The PDA model was created by Deam Amir Depay (of IDE Inc.) using AutoCAD's solid modeling capabilities. It was then exported to NuGraf as an ACIS SAT model and triangulated from a solid into polygons using the ACIS toolkit contained within the NuGraf software. An interesting variety of textures, bump maps and lighting give an overall soft look to this image.
   
   
7. Ziatech Computer Server - The Ziatech server bezels were created using two programs. The Industrial designed exterior surfaces were created using the NURBS surface modeler Rhino and the mechanical design was created with ProE/Creo. The rendering was created with Okino's NuGraf. The image uses 8 different texture maps and 3 light sources.

My reasons for exporting out of ProE/Creo were that this device had parts that showed refraction and I also needed better control of surface detail. Alias Studio has ray tracing and finer control of things like specular highlights and texture mapping. I'd say the key points for moving out of ProE/Creo are: better control of shaders, lights, cameras, etc. Raytracing for transparent parts. Simpler user interfaces.

ProE/Creo does I fine job of handling surface shading and creating basic animation for use in an engineering environment but for higher quality, hyper-realistic presentations, the parts need to be exported to a true rendering and/or animation software. It's like the difference between carpenters tools and watchmakers tools."

The model was created in ProE/Creo then imported into Okino's NuGraf software, via IGES, for final rendering. The clean conversion of trimmed NURBS (in IGES) to polygon data via Okino's IGES importer makes it easy to render large production files, complete with all of the internal detail, for otherwise raw NURBS would be far too heavy.

The graphics are mapped on with a technique I use that combines Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop."