CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

13 October 2004

Product News

Autodesk Licenses Tech Soft America's HOOPS Toolkits for 3D DWF Format and Viewer

Tech Soft America (TSA) announced the licensing of its HOOPS® 3D technology to Autodesk . The HOOPS 3D Application Framework (HOOPS/3dAF) and HOOPS Stream Toolkit (HOOPS/Stream) help power the 3D viewing capability in Autodesk's recently released Autodesk® DWFT Viewer 5, and help enable the 3D compression in the DWF (Design Web FormatT) file format. DWF complements Autodesk's flagship 3D design technology, making it easy for engineers to create, manage and share 3D product models with other departments, and help customers and suppliers better understand complex design concepts.

By incorporating HOOPS/3dAF, Autodesk has added 3D rendering capabilities to the latest version of its DWF Viewer. In addition, by leveraging HOOPS/Stream and published HSF format, Autodesk was able to add highly compressed 3D data to its popular DWF format. The new DWF format may be created from Autodesk's 3D design software, Autodesk Inventor® 9, and from the beta releases of Autodesk® Architectural Desktop 2005 and Autodesk® Building Systems 2005, available to subscription customers. Users can view and print 3D DWF files, with the free, downloadable Autodesk DWF Viewer 5.

"Three-dimensional viewing capabilities are crucial for manufacturers, architects and engineers to create, manage and share their designs efficiently and cost-effectively," said Diane Li, product manager at Autodesk. "Working with Tech Soft America, we've enhanced our popular DWF solution so that our customers can present complex design concepts in a way that's intuitive for other departments, clients and partners regardless of technical capabilities."

DWF is the format offering sharing of complex drawings, maps, and models in both 2D and 3D. DWF files preserve all the rich detail of native CAD files, yet they're far more compact then native files or alternatives such as PDF. Furthermore, they're free to create - DWF publishing is built into all Autodesk design applications or is available with the free, Autodesk® DWFT Writer ( http://www.autodesk.com/dwfwriter ).

Small, fast, and secure, Autodesk DWF Viewer ( http://www.autodesk.com/dwfviewer ) is a free viewing application that allows anyone to share complex design data in DWF. DWF Viewer gives users the ability to view and print complex 2D and 3D drawings, maps, and models without the originating design application. The application delivers high performance and preserves the fidelity and integrity of 2D and 3D designs for viewing and printing. Even complex, embedded design information such as object and sheet properties, measurements, and 3D coordinates are accessible with Autodesk DWF Viewer.

 

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