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It's also for those of us that need access to applications like AutoCAD from time-to-time or some other application that only runs under Windows.

I didn't see that Autodesk had AutoCAD for Macs, it does have AutoCAD LT ported to Macs though. Also there are other CAD packages for Macs, Architosh is a community of Mac based architects and other CAD users. There may be a specific requirement to use AutoCAD but there are CAD programs for Macs if there isn't a requirement. Otherwise I agree with your post.

Most CS instructors will cram down students' throats that if they concentrate on principles they can pick up any language/platform as if it's nothing at all. It's a lie, but that's what they say.

Actually, it's not a lie. I'm a CS undergrad at GA Tech, and from classes I have experience in Scheme, Java, C (with UNIX), and Smalltalk. Anyway, I got a job this summer programming in a C++ .NET and ObjectARX environment using Visual Studio, even though I had absolutely zero prior experience with any of it.

Long story short, it took me about a week to figure it all out. It was cake.

They're planning to migrate their whole program to C# soon; I figure learning that language will take me about a day and a half.

Most of my 2D animation has been done either with Flash or Adobe After Effects.

After Effects is an industry standard package, and it costs about the same as Flash, last I checked. One of it's most powerful features is the scripting language. It helps to create procedural animations which can be difficult to do by hand.

You also might want to consider doing 2D animation with a 3D package. Most of my time 3D time was spent learning Maya. The strength that 3D animation packages have, is that they get used more often for character animation than the 2D packages, therefore they have a lot more tools forcharacter animators such as bone structures and deformations. A lot of them have physics packages that can help automate certain types of animation. Most 3D packages also come with built in scripting languages for procedural animation.

The down side to 3D packages is the intense learning curve. At last count, I heard that Maya had over 80,000 commands. These are huge and complex software packages. The proprietary ones also tend to cost quite a bit, although Blender is free as well as open source.

A lot of what software to use depends on what kind of animation you want to do. Are you doing short character animations? Are you doing experimental stuff? Are you Rotoscoping? If you tell us a bit more about the type of animation you want to do, we could be a bit more specific in recommending specific packages.

Other thoughts:
--I know that Photoshop and ImageReady can be used to animate between layers ( but involves a bit of hackery to get it to work well).
--The integration between Photoshop and After Effects is really nice. It's one of the reasons AFX is used so much in television.
--FilmGimp/Cinepaint has been used for wire removal and image clean up for a while in the FX industry, I have no experience with it.
--I know that there are also some animation plugins for the Gimp that have been written. Again, I have no experience with these.

Regardless of the tools, there is always a steep learning curve, and there's always seems to be a lot of work coaxing the software program to do what you want it to do. If it's not coming easily, it's because we still have a lot of work to do in developing great animation software.

Good luck, and have fun.

I imagine Autodesk were very aware this was going to happen sooner or later, so they've ported Inferno to linux

So you have people at your company who spend all their time gaming?

LOL, I know you're probably joking... But here it goes anyway. We currently implement Windows for the following:

- Lotus Notes Client
- Macola Progression
- ACT! Premium for Workgroups
- AutoCAD Mechanical
- Macromedia Studio

Those are just the apps off the top of my head. And I work in the manufacturing industry, so my scope is even limited in that respect. I'm sure there are other companies running Windows only apps.

Again, you're comment was probably in jest... At least I hope so! =)

"AutoCAD (and all other Autodesk products save Maya[maybe not for long...]): not available on a Mac."

Except for:

DWF And, from the same article, Express Viewer.

"In fact, ANY CAM software: not available on a Mac."

True. Except for stuff like Cenon.

Again, this is what I was complaining about. "Oh, I learned the name of this software package and it's not on the Mac. Thus, there's no software for the Mac."

I guess you've never heard of these products, which currently dominate the PC desktop for video effects/compositing in the pro area where it matters;

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 722&siteID=123112
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 744&siteID=123112
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 767&siteID=123112

But you're correct when comparing AE to Combustion, but even it's gaining ground. I love AE 6.5 Pro and would like to see evidence stating it's the king of the hill on the PC, so please point me to this good news?

I guess you've never heard of these products, which currently dominate the PC desktop for video effects/compositing in the pro area where it matters;

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 722&siteID=123112
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 744&siteID=123112
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 767&siteID=123112

But you're correct when comparing AE to Combustion, but even it's gaining ground. I love AE 6.5 Pro and would like to see evidence stating it's the king of the hill on the PC, so please point me to this good news?

I guess you've never heard of these products, which currently dominate the PC desktop for video effects/compositing in the pro area where it matters;

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 722&siteID=123112
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 744&siteID=123112
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 767&siteID=123112

But you're correct when comparing AE to Combustion, but even it's gaining ground. I love AE 6.5 Pro and would like to see evidence stating it's the king of the hill on the PC, so please point me to this good news?

Their product webpage is crap too. http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 182&siteID=123112 Along the right side they've got 6 links - each one is a separate flash application - just to draw the link a bit more pretty.

To be honest, if you know what you're doing with computers, there's no reason to stick with Windows on your desktop in a Windows environment.

No reason? I'll give you a few that apply in my office:

Rockwell Software

Wonderware

GE Fanuc

PI

AutoCAD

SolidWorks

If we can't use those tools, we go out of business. Plain and simple.

Moderators, please consider such things before moderating blanket statements like the parent up to +5. There are a lot of workstations out there that aren't just Word/Excel/Access/Outlook/IE boxes. When you start using dedicated software packages like the stuff I've described above, you're using Windows, and you don't have a choice (PI being a partial exception, you can get the server for Unix but many client tools are Windows-only). Does that suck? Yeah, kinda. But that's the reality, and wishing it were different doesn't change it.

This is getting ridiculous. I used both Blackboard and WebCT as an Astronomy Masters student a couple of years ago. Both were awful and I never did understand why anyone paid money for these solutions when this is one area where open source can easily provide the basic functionality, but...

What's with all the mergers lately? In 3D graphics, Autodesk aquired Discreet (3ds Max, GMax) a while back, and then Alias (Maya) days ago. They then promptly killed the free GMax product which a lot of game developers (both paid and hobby) use. There are also now very few competing products in the 3D market to compete. (Killing GMax is actually quite big news but I haven't been able to get an article on this accepted on /. - These days if it doesn't contain the company names Google or Apple, good luck...)

I thought there was suppose to be some kind of government control to prevent monopolies from springing up. I guess they're too busy with the "war on terrorism" and prosecuting music/movie/software "pirates" to actually police these laws...and there's no money in it!

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5562 445&siteID=123112

"As of October 6, 2005, Autodesk will no longer offer Gmax® software as a stand-alone product. If you are interested in other 3D animation, modeling, and rendering applications from Autodesk please check out Autodesk® 3ds Max® software."

I've been trying to post a story on this for 2 days but the /. editors don't seem to think it's news.

This is already affecting people. Knife Edge Software makers of Realflight G3 have been promising a new custom aircraft editor based on GMax for some months now. They've had to announce that they'll be releasing it for 3ds Max instead due to "licensing issues"...issue being GMax is dead.

Q5: Will planned product releases for Alias or Autodesk be affected and will Autodesk continue to support Alias' products?
A5: We do not anticipate any changes with respect to planned product releases for both companies. And yes, Autodesk plans to continue to develop Alias products and utilize the strength of the combined organization to provide customers with continued innovation and technology development.

Q18: Will Autodesk sell all of Alias' products?
A18: After the transaction closes, Autodesk plans to continue to sell all of the products currently offered by both organizations.

Q23: What platforms do the Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Alias' Maya software support?
A23: 3ds Max and Maya software products differ greatly in supported platforms. Maya software supports Linux®, Windows® and Macintosh® operating systems, making it the top choice for platform-sensitive segments like high-end film, whereas 3ds Max software is a Windows application that is used most often in world-building for games. We expect customers to benefit from the wide range of platforms upon which the combined company will offer its products.

From this info, it looks like they consider Maya and 3DS Max to be in separate market segments - which indeed they are. For cryin' out loud, Pixar uses parts of Maya in their workflow. Who would want to kill that? Maya's the crown jewel of Alias. You can't compare this to the Macromedia acquisition. This would be more akin to Macromedia buying out Adobe to get Photoshop.

From: Alias
To: bryn
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 00:49:17 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Autodesk Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Alias

Dear Alias Customer,

Today Autodesk and Alias announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Autodesk to acquire Alias.

Alias is a leading developer of 3D graphics technology, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Alias develops and delivers software and services for film and video, interactive games, media and the Web. It also develops software and services for consumer products, industrial design, automotive, architecture and visualization customers.

With more than six million users, Autodesk is the world's leading software and services company for the manufacturing, infrastructure, building, digital media and wireless data services fields. Autodesk's solutions help customers to create, manage and share their digital assets more effectively. The acquisition of Alias will continue to round out our product lines across industry segments.

As many of you are aware, in the media and entertainment industry, most leading film studios, game developers and high-end visual effects companies use Alias' Maya®, MotionBuilder® and FBX® software. Most also use Autodesk's complementary Inferno®, Flame®, Lustre® and 3ds Max® products. The most demanding industrial designers in the world use Alias' StudioTools(TM), primarily in the automotive and consumer products segments. Bringing this technology to Autodesk will strengthen the manufacturing business by integrating conceptual design as a front-end to Inventor Series and the PLM solution.

The acquisition also brings to Autodesk a highly talented group of individuals, a wealth of technologies and a great set of products. By combining the technology and talents of two successful, financially healthy companies, we will be better able to continue delivering solutions that address your ever-changing and increasingly complex needs. And yes, Autodesk plans to continue to support and develop Alias products as well as utilize the strength of the combined organization to provide customers with continued innovation and technology development.

The transaction is expected to close in the next four to six months. Until that time, Autodesk and Alias will continue operating as independent companies and will remain focused on our current customer needs. We do not anticipate any changes with respect to planned product releases for either company. Please continue using your existing contacts for sales, services and support. We will update you on the progress of this acquisition, both directly and online at http://www.autodesk.com/autodeskandalias.

On behalf of Autodesk and Alias, we would like to thank you for your business and reiterate our commitment to ensuring that this event which is exciting for both our companies will prove even more so for you.

Sincerely,

Carol Bartz
Chairman and CEO
Autodesk, Inc.

Doug Walker
President and CEO
Alias

So what is Autodesk's alias ? PS: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5970 886&siteID=123112

I mean, there exist many fast IMAP clients. Certainly Pine is fast, some (e.g. myself) find it very convenient, and it should be easy to recompile for OS X. It is not free software though.

More seriously, today's software market is such that selling a small app for money is not likely to be profitable. Too many people will write email clients, editors, OS kernels ... and give them away at no cost ("free as in beer"). Most of that software is actually Free Software (TM), but that's beside the point here. This is not dissimilar from the period in the 80s and early 90s when anytime someone would start selling a nice utility Microsoft would bundle similar functionality into DOS or Windows (anyone remember SideKick?). Today that means taht if your piece of software does something not too complicated, and many people would like to have this functionality, then someone will develop a free alternative. When it comes to web-browsing or e-mail reading, you have to content with massive efforts like the , which is even worse.

This is not to say there's room for commercial software today -- but it's in a different market. Since the cost of distributing software is now about zero, and the cost of writing it is effectively small (in the sense that many projects find many people are willing to donate their effots), to charge for software it must embody something more -- some kind of expensive research or expertise that is difficult to duplicate in a community project.

For example, GCC is a great cross-platform compiler, but if you need a good optimizing compiler you will pay for the real thing: 's ICC, or Sun's compilers. In a different field, there is little competition for AutoCAD.

Cinelerra is for sure the BEST video editor on Linux.

Wrong.
You obviously don't know what you're talking about.
First of all there is MainActor - a commercial 'Home User' NLE. With all the features you'll ever need and much less resource hungry I presume.

Then there is Shake (http://www.apple.com/shake/). A compositing tool, not a NLE, yes, but I'd guess the built in NLE capabilities pound every OSS NLE into the ground.

Then there is the discreet/Autodesk Line of Tools. Smoke and the High End Effect Kit "Flint" both run on Linux. Flint even exclusively (http://www.autodesk.com/flint).

Then there is Blender, which has a sort-of NLE built in that's called 'Video Sequencer'. That's an OSS tool I trust to be usable without requireing a quad opteron -allthough I've never tested it.

I could go on, but I guess the point is driven Home: Cinelerra may be fine, but it is not the best Video NLE for Linux.

You mean apps like
http://www.spectsoft.com/wiki/RaveManual/Products/ RaveHD
http://www.autodesk.com/flint
http://www.autodesk.com/smoke

to name three video apps off the top of my head. Just because you can't afford the apps doesn't mean they don't exist

You mean apps like
http://www.spectsoft.com/wiki/RaveManual/Products/ RaveHD
http://www.autodesk.com/flint
http://www.autodesk.com/smoke

to name three video apps off the top of my head. Just because you can't afford the apps doesn't mean they don't exist

Still doesnt beat ANY Apple OS with or without patches :P

So, your Apple system runs AutoCAD? Or supports a Cincinnati laser control?

In the real world people don't always have a choice. Please don't be snotty just because you do.

One fairly nice, inexpensive program you missed is Autocad's Autosketch. http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID= 123112&id=2753027

"Those groups are believed responsible for stealing and distributing copyrighted works including... and Autodesk's Autocad 2006 and Adobe's Photoshop software."
--AP

Autocad 2006 is $3,750. Photoshop is equally prohibitively expensive. And yet, the worth of the product itself (a $0.50 disc) as well as the research that went into is only worth a fraction of what they're charging.

It's the equivalent of someone selling you a $4 paintbrush for $600. Since no one person in their right mind is able to afford that, the individual decides to copy the paintbrush and produce their own [at their expense]. The original maker did not loose a paintbrush in the process.

So when this article makes claims of theft; I ask in return: Who is stealing from who exactly? I am against "piracy"; but I am more against companies that blatantly rip off their consumers every which way.

It seems like neither Google nor MS is really innovating much on this; granted the scrolling ability is cool with Google, but web-based GIS systems have been around for a long time, such as ESRI's ArcIMS, Autodesk's MapGuide and myriad others that support Web Mapping Services (WMS)

If I wanted to, I can download ortho photos of the entire United States from the USGS or from the USDA's NAIP program.

I guess is seems that these days it's actually pretty easy to build and manipulate web based GIS systems, so I'm curious to see what the next Big Thing will be. Maybe better integration with mobile devices?

Now - I'm just an end-user, sitting here working with a large project in Revit, an application that brings even fast PCs stacked with RAM to their knees. It's basically a database with a graphical interface and so every little operation results in refreshes and an element of regeneration of the display. It's a good tool, with great potential, yet that lag is a total patience-killer.

If the vector operations which all that rendering must involve could be usefully offloaded to a videocard well-stocked with RAM however... our little company would buy dozens today.

.

There is no correlation between pricing and piracy, and I challenge you to find any evidence to the contrary.

Yeah, I suppose all those penniless students studying in fields that are gonna require AutoCAD skills really have the option to buy AutoCAD for the low, low price of $3,470. Which, I might add, is more than most students pay for a car, a computer and all the software on it-- combined.

You can't really be so stupid to forget that not all software costs $99.95 or less...

Buzzsaw is an amazing piece of software that many companies in the A/E industry use. It's not free, but if you're rolling you own it's a good place to get some ideas.

Autodesk Buzzsaw

But Sonic Foundry doesn't sell it anymore and they were just bought by Sony. Will Sony issue me a new activation code in the future if/when I move to a new computer?

Boy, you said it.

I bought a copy of Lightscape 3.0 in 1998. Lightscape (the company) was then purchased by Autodesk, which slowly starved the product to death. So now the infrastructure necessary for product activation (which involved putting a serial number into Lightscape, getting another number back, calling a human being and reading them that number, getting yet another number from them, and putting that into Lightscape) no longer exists.

So what does that leave me with? A $500 coaster. (And I was a poor man in 1998! That's like $1500 in adjusted 2003 no-longer-poor dollars.)

But really, the worst part is that the product wasn't replaced with anything. There's nothing out there (that I know of) that does what Lightscape did as well as it did it. And it's lost in time because of a kooky, useless activation scheme. (Well, again... virtually "lost" because I'm holding the CD in my hand right now.)

ThinkSecret posted an article about this back in May... Eric Stover from AutoDesk is interested in receiving email from people interested in a port of AutoCAD to OS X... According to the story, you can email him here (be sure to include "AutoCAD for OS X" in the subject line). He'll send you a survey which takes a few minutes to fill out... Even though I'm a student who can't afford the full version of AutoCAD, I filled it out anyway. Send it in and hope for the best!

John Walker, the founder of Autodesk, has made a system like that, from which offers random bits:

Or to use a corollary closer to home:

Software will not be able to be resold. If you need new software, you will have to buy a new copy from some evil company. This will ensure you get the highest quality software that will ensure the maximum life of your computer. A lawyer will prevent manual reselling.

Sorry if this was offtopic.

No, it is actually in the 12 minute Digital Grading section of the special edition DVD. Director Peter Jackson and DP Andrew Lesnie were actively involved in the color grading decisions of the movie. You may not like the result, but as you know, Lesnie did receive the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on the Fellowship.

The color grading was done at The Posthouse in New Zealand, under the supervision of Peter Doyle, and using software developed by a Hungarian company Colorfront. The software was later introduced to the general market by London based 5D Solutions as 5D Colossus. 5D later went into liquidation in October 2002. Colorfront has since signed an agreement with Montreal based Discreet, who will introduce their digital film grading system in Las Vegas at NAB 2003 in April. Colorfront software has been used to digitally color grade more than a dozen features including We Were Soldiers, Frida, Blue Crush, Stuart Little 2, xXx, Daredevil and Finding Nemo.

The Posthouse has just started work on the digital color grading of The Return of the King.

I wondered why that sub had autodesk written all over it. A little googling and here is the reason: Inventor

A company I worked for in the mid-nineties wrote an ODMA integration module for AutoCAD which required that the user complete the title block of the drawing before they could save the file. The pertinent attributes were extracted from the drawing and passed on to the document management system (DMS).

With most DMSs, the file to be saved is full-text indexed as well (often this work is done as a background task during slower periods) so that you can locate a document with fuzzy searches, even if you do not no what attributes were used to store it.

Novell Groupwise includes an ODMA compliant DMS which also includes viewer modules for many common file formats, and with the web interface can allow a user on the road to search an entire library, view the results via a web browser, and download or checkout the desired documents.

It would be wonderful if someone could come up with a standards based way to provide similar functionality in a Free Software based DMS. I know of a few companies who cannot switch away from Windows/Novell because of the need for a robust DMS, and the clients to integrate with it. This is especially important in fields like Medicine and Legal, where large numbers of documents are generated on a regular basis.

There's currently a discussion on this very topic on MacSlash, but a few /. people may be interested in some Apple ramblings too:

Strategy: Buy Low, Sell High.
How low can the stock values of companies go? Since last fall, many in the tech sector have certainly been trying to find out. This is a great time to buy companies or technologies and lately Apple has been wisely acting when opportunities arise. Even if Emagic GmbH, Spruce Technologies, Nothing Real, and Zayante in the last year had all been privately held, they would have still been sold at a favourable price compared to buying them before the .bomb bubble burst.

Strategy: Niche Market Growth.
It's clear that Apple wants to defend the Macintosh strength as a music & audio creation tool in the long term. Since pro audio software has been lagging on the march to MacOS X, Apple is at least applying heat to developers if not exactly lighting a fire under them. Logic and associated software & hardware on the Mac will mean that Digidesign, Twelve Tone Systems(Cakewalk), MOTU and Steinberg will have to take the market segment more seriously (although MOTU & Digidesign have historically been great friends of the Mac already). The way it's looking is that a larger majority of pro audio will be done on the Mac. Can Steinberg, Twelve Tone et al. risk being caught with their pants around their ankles if this happens?

Strategy: Technology Cross-Pollination.
Now that Apple has a substantial video-production, streaming, compression, audio & other technologies, they may consider adding many good features from one to another and developing truly feature-rich packages. It dosen't take a dreamer to see the possibilities, from unheard-of professional solutions to trickle-down pro capabilities in new iSoftware (eg. look how technologies purchased from Marcromedia were crafted into Final Cut Pro & iMovie). This is one area that users, down the road, can really cash out with if Apple encourages the flow of technologies between it's new divisions.

Strategy: Sorry, Mac-Only.
One thing that is a bit sad about this, ironically enough, is the immediate cancellation of the Windows versions of some software (notably Shake & Logic) with this strategy. While perhaps more upfront than an MS-style purchase and feature-deprivation in non-Windows versions, Apple still isn't making any friends (and perhaps losing potentially loyal customers & money) by doing this. Still, one cannot say that it's not what happened to Mac users through the late 1990s (even now - look at Bungie) but it would be better karma to be more merciful once the shoe is on the other foot. Apple would be smart to mitigate the anger of Windows users by offering discounts on upgrades to the next Mac version.

Next Strategy: More Vertical Markets.
The Macintosh still has a real chance at gaining significant market share if it can be a strong alternative in enough vertical market segments. Apple is rightly building on it's strenghts, but should diversify enough so that the Macintosh is not pegged as only good for those niches (remember what happened to the Amiga? Games machine!)

A Holy Grail almost as worthy as dominating the business market for Apple is the scientific & engineering markets, often with high software margins all around. A purchase or substantial investment in Autodesk à la the MS $150M in Apple would make Apple a huge player in the professional engineering, architecture, and manufacturing industries overnight. Considering Autodesk is not the most expensive stock right now, with a market cap of approximately USD$1.4B, Apple could conceivably purchase the entire operations in cash and still have about $2B in the bank. Autodesk's Design Segment develops AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Architectural Studio, Autodesk Map, Lightscape, and Autodesk Land Desktop, to name a few (most industry-standard in their fields) and the Discreet Segment develops 3D Studio MAX, Animator Studio, flame, inferno, smoke, combustion, cinestream, plasma, cleaner, MPEG supercharger, Topper, and many others.

With a stable of industry-dominating software products as great as this, such a purchase (or even investment ensuring MacOS X compatibility) would send massive shockwaves across the engineering & architectural markets, and ripples in the scientific & pro graphics markets who are by now used to this. No immediate cancellation of the Windows version would be posible here, rather a years-long strategy to ensure first Mac versions and then Mac feature-parity. A purchase like this too rich for Apple's blood? Try something smaller like privatley-held ESRI (makers of ArcINFO, ArcView, ArcGIS & associated imaging systems), or continue to add strength in the crucial areas of coming scientific importance such as biotech and bioinformatics, in which Macs already have a growing following as you can see.

There's currently a discussion on this very topic on MacSlash, but a few /. people may be interested in some Apple ramblings too:

Strategy: Buy Low, Sell High.
How low can the stock values of companies go? Since last fall, many in the tech sector have certainly been trying to find out. This is a great time to buy companies or technologies and lately Apple has been wisely acting when opportunities arise. Even if Emagic GmbH, Spruce Technologies, Nothing Real, and Zayante in the last year had all been privately held, they would have still been sold at a favourable price compared to buying them before the .bomb bubble burst.

Strategy: Niche Market Growth.
It's clear that Apple wants to defend the Macintosh strength as a music & audio creation tool in the long term. Since pro audio software has been lagging on the march to MacOS X, Apple is at least applying heat to developers if not exactly lighting a fire under them. Logic and associated software & hardware on the Mac will mean that Digidesign, Twelve Tone Systems(Cakewalk), MOTU and Steinberg will have to take the market segment more seriously (although MOTU & Digidesign have historically been great friends of the Mac already). The way it's looking is that a larger majority of pro audio will be done on the Mac. Can Steinberg, Twelve Tone et al. risk being caught with their pants around their ankles if this happens?

Strategy: Technology Cross-Pollination.
Now that Apple has a substantial video-production, streaming, compression, audio & other technologies, they may consider adding many good features from one to another and developing truly feature-rich packages. It dosen't take a dreamer to see the possibilities, from unheard-of professional solutions to trickle-down pro capabilities in new iSoftware (eg. look how technologies purchased from Marcromedia were crafted into Final Cut Pro & iMovie). This is one area that users, down the road, can really cash out with if Apple encourages the flow of technologies between it's new divisions.

Strategy: Sorry, Mac-Only.
One thing that is a bit sad about this, ironically enough, is the immediate cancellation of the Windows versions of some software (notably Shake & Logic) with this strategy. While perhaps more upfront than an MS-style purchase and feature-deprivation in non-Windows versions, Apple still isn't making any friends (and perhaps losing potentially loyal customers & money) by doing this. Still, one cannot say that it's not what happened to Mac users through the late 1990s (even now - look at Bungie) but it would be better karma to be more merciful once the shoe is on the other foot. Apple would be smart to mitigate the anger of Windows users by offering discounts on upgrades to the next Mac version.

Next Strategy: More Vertical Markets.
The Macintosh still has a real chance at gaining significant market share if it can be a strong alternative in enough vertical market segments. Apple is rightly building on it's strenghts, but should diversify enough so that the Macintosh is not pegged as only good for those niches (remember what happened to the Amiga? Games machine!)

A Holy Grail almost as worthy as dominating the business market for Apple is the scientific & engineering markets, often with high software margins all around. A purchase or substantial investment in Autodesk à la the MS $150M in Apple would make Apple a huge player in the professional engineering, architecture, and manufacturing industries overnight. Considering Autodesk is not the most expensive stock right now, with a market cap of approximately USD$1.4B, Apple could conceivably purchase the entire operations in cash and still have about $2B in the bank. Autodesk's Design Segment develops AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Architectural Studio, Autodesk Map, Lightscape, and Autodesk Land Desktop, to name a few (most industry-standard in their fields) and the Discreet Segment develops 3D Studio MAX, Animator Studio, flame, inferno, smoke, combustion, cinestream, plasma, cleaner, MPEG supercharger, Topper, and many others.

With a stable of industry-dominating software products as great as this, such a purchase (or even investment ensuring MacOS X compatibility) would send massive shockwaves across the engineering & architectural markets, and ripples in the scientific & pro graphics markets who are by now used to this. No immediate cancellation of the Windows version would be posible here, rather a years-long strategy to ensure first Mac versions and then Mac feature-parity. A purchase like this too rich for Apple's blood? Try something smaller like privatley-held ESRI (makers of ArcINFO, ArcView, ArcGIS & associated imaging systems), or continue to add strength in the crucial areas of coming scientific importance such as biotech and bioinformatics, in which Macs already have a growing following as you can see.

Many companies, including 3D Studio Max

3D Studio MAX is a product, not a company. Discreet is the name of the company currently making MAX, a subsidiary of Autodesk

• http://www.nikontechusa.com/Nikontechnicalnote9.ht m

It also hurts the competition -- are you as likely to buy Carrara, Cinema 4D, or Bryce now that you can get Maya Personal Edition for free? What about using/trying/buying Autodesk or Lightwave?

It's like Solaris x86 -- a great way to get Solaris experience on a tight budget.

Hi,

The way it's setup here, it works with anything that can print. We do use AutoCAD LT 98 with it too. It's quite transparent for the users, and for the application.

If you want details on how to implement it, email me (same slashdot username, @rf.com.br)

Another option for sharing the DWGs and other AutoDesk formats is asking people to download the free DWG viewer from AutoDesk at:
their site
or
their ftp

Joao

Hi,

The way it's setup here, it works with anything that can print. We do use AutoCAD LT 98 with it too. It's quite transparent for the users, and for the application.

If you want details on how to implement it, email me (same slashdot username, @rf.com.br)

Another option for sharing the DWGs and other AutoDesk formats is asking people to download the free DWG viewer from AutoDesk at:
their site
or
their ftp

Joao

I have one of those $3000 cards from a few years ago, and the new Nvidia GEForce 3, at $250, is better. In fact, right now it's hard to spend $3000 on a graphics board and get something significantly better than the consumer products, because the high-end graphics companies are money starved (or gone) and aren't keeping up.

This photon rendering may be doable like radiosity - render the radiosity map once, then view from different angles. This allows real-time walk-throughs of static scenes.

Adobe's a member of the BSA.

The BSA has an interesting statement on the DMCA here. This is a response to a Library of Congress rule available here.

Members of the BSA include Adobe, Apple Computer, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, Compaq, Corel Corporation, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Lotus Development, Macromedia, Microsoft, Network Associates, Novell, Sybase, Symantec, and Walker Digital; i.e. most of /.'s favourite hate companies, plus some extras.

These are the guys to line up against. They've been around since the '80s. I suspect that Adobe's lawyers are all BSA stooges. Certainly Adobe's PR department doesn't seem to be toeing the BSA line.

I implement Autodesk Mapguide for a living, and Mapserver is very close in features and performs comparably to Mapguide with the LiteView extension.

I looked at the GRASS package for a bit, and it is very complicated, even for someone who does GIS professionally.
If you want to do basic GIS manipulation, get a copy of ArcView, MapInfo or Autocad Map.

FME from Safe Software is a fantastic converter for most data formats, and has an 15 day trial.
It rocks.

Whatcha doooo with those rollin' papers?
Make doooooobieees?

I have a Rainbow dongle for my copy of Lightwave. AutoCAD in the single user version (not networked) also comes with a dongle.

Well, Lisp isn't really based of anything, at least, not off of any other programming langauges. It is based on the concept of the Lambda Calculus, which is something of a way to describe programs in a mathematical way. Or, something like that. <g> Honestly, I've never gotten a great definition of lambda calculus, but I'm content that Lisp is cool. ;-)

Now, as to why you haven't heard of it before, my guess is because you are either not a University Computer Science graduate, or you haven't branched into functional programming. Most universities will cover it at least very briefly in some sort of programming languages class, though rarely do they do it justice.

As for functional programming, it's a programming paradigm, like imperative or object oriented programming. It tends to be very powerful, often makes use of constructs which are terse (fewer lines of code to do the the same thing than required in other langauges) and generally makes extensive use of recursion.

Lisp is very interesting, however. Even though it is usually thought of as a functional language, it actually provides excellent support for functional, imperative, and object oriented programming. In fact, many people think the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is one of the best Object Oriented Programming implementations available. It was also the first object oriented langauge that was standardized (by ANSI or ISO, I don't remember for sure which one).

It's also been around for a while. In fact, Lisp is one of the oldest programming langauges still in somewhat common use today. (The only older language being Fortran, which predates it by about 5 years, as I recall.)

If you've never had any experience with functional programming, I strongly encourage you to investigate and study[1] it a little, even if you never really use it, because you will learn a great deal about programming in general for your time invested.

Now, as for what applications have been written in it, the canonical example is GNU Emacs. At it's core, Emacs is basically a lisp interpreter, and most of the editor is then written in Lisp.

While applications that are written entirely in Lisp are perhaps not as well known, one of the most common places to find Lisp is as an extension language for other programs. Here are a handfull that make impressive use of Lisp:

The GIMP uses Scheme, a dialect of Lisp for it's Script-Fu, which can be used to programatically execute anything that can be done by hand.

Autodesk, the makers of the industry leading CAD software AutoCAD use their own dialect of Lisp, called AutoLISP, for programming and customising the AutoCAD software.

Siag Office is a free small, Open Source, and very impressive, Office Suite making extensive use of Scheme. (SIAG == Scheme In A Grid). It includes a very cool Spreadsheet program, as well as others, and is highly customisable.

GnuCash makes use of the Guile library to provide Scheme as an extension and scripting language for the application.

Speaking of Guile, Guile is the official extension language library of the GNU project. Using Guile to provide Scheme scripting, you can add support for scripting and extensibility to any application. Guile is used in many applications including GnuCash (mentioned above), the SCWM Window Manager, the TeXmacs editor (integrating Tex support into an Emacs like editor), and many others.

One last example is the Sawfish Window Manager, which seems to be among the most popular Window Managers around these days. It makes use of an Emacs-ish philosophy, having a very small core program, including a lisp interpreter, and implementing most of its feature set on top of that with lisp.

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of applications written in, or making use of, Lisp, however I think everyone here will prolly recognise a few names there. ;-)

[1] If you're interested in learning more about Lisp, I strong suggest you take a look the book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. The full text is available online at the link here, and it is one of the best books ever written about Computer Science. It's also used as an early CS text book at MIT.

Well, Lisp isn't really based of anything, at least, not off of any other programming langauges. It is based on the concept of the Lambda Calculus, which is something of a way to describe programs in a mathematical way. Or, something like that. <g> Honestly, I've never gotten a great definition of lambda calculus, but I'm content that Lisp is cool. ;-)

Now, as to why you haven't heard of it before, my guess is because you are either not a University Computer Science graduate, or you haven't branched into functional programming. Most universities will cover it at least very briefly in some sort of programming languages class, though rarely do they do it justice.

As for functional programming, it's a programming paradigm, like imperative or object oriented programming. It tends to be very powerful, often makes use of constructs which are terse (fewer lines of code to do the the same thing than required in other langauges) and generally makes extensive use of recursion.

Lisp is very interesting, however. Even though it is usually thought of as a functional language, it actually provides excellent support for functional, imperative, and object oriented programming. In fact, many people think the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is one of the best Object Oriented Programming implementations available. It was also the first object oriented langauge that was standardized (by ANSI or ISO, I don't remember for sure which one).

It's also been around for a while. In fact, Lisp is one of the oldest programming langauges still in somewhat common use today. (The only older language being Fortran, which predates it by about 5 years, as I recall.)

If you've never had any experience with functional programming, I strongly encourage you to investigate and study[1] it a little, even if you never really use it, because you will learn a great deal about programming in general for your time invested.

Now, as for what applications have been written in it, the canonical example is GNU Emacs. At it's core, Emacs is basically a lisp interpreter, and most of the editor is then written in Lisp.

While applications that are written entirely in Lisp are perhaps not as well known, one of the most common places to find Lisp is as an extension language for other programs. Here are a handfull that make impressive use of Lisp:

The GIMP uses Scheme, a dialect of Lisp for it's Script-Fu, which can be used to programatically execute anything that can be done by hand.

Autodesk, the makers of the industry leading CAD software AutoCAD use their own dialect of Lisp, called AutoLISP, for programming and customising the AutoCAD software.

Siag Office is a free small, Open Source, and very impressive, Office Suite making extensive use of Scheme. (SIAG == Scheme In A Grid). It includes a very cool Spreadsheet program, as well as others, and is highly customisable.

GnuCash makes use of the Guile library to provide Scheme as an extension and scripting language for the application.

Speaking of Guile, Guile is the official extension language library of the GNU project. Using Guile to provide Scheme scripting, you can add support for scripting and extensibility to any application. Guile is used in many applications including GnuCash (mentioned above), the SCWM Window Manager, the TeXmacs editor (integrating Tex support into an Emacs like editor), and many others.

One last example is the Sawfish Window Manager, which seems to be among the most popular Window Managers around these days. It makes use of an Emacs-ish philosophy, having a very small core program, including a lisp interpreter, and implementing most of its feature set on top of that with lisp.

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of applications written in, or making use of, Lisp, however I think everyone here will prolly recognise a few names there. ;-)

[1] If you're interested in learning more about Lisp, I strong suggest you take a look the book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. The full text is available online at the link here, and it is one of the best books ever written about Computer Science. It's also used as an early CS text book at MIT.

Not even AutoCAD is safe. Their new "i" versions are "Internet Driven" Its new features have drawn the ire of our CAD people.
And to think that they actually charged full price for this "upgrade!"

zsazsa

Actually the software goes back before then, but 1987 is when I joined the company (since defunct, the technology has passed on through several hands, more below.)

The product (then) had two versions (some overlapping code), AMS (Advanced Mapping System) and GIS (Geographic Information System), the company was GeoVision Systems Ltd (in the US, parent corp was GeoVision Corporation in Canada), spun off from SystemHouse Graphics. Later the products were slightly rearchitected and made more flexible, and renamed to "VISION*" under which name it's still sold.

The core technology comprised a relational database -- primarily Oracle (Oracle 6, back then, Oracle 8 now), but we briefly flirted with Ingres and one other. The display technology was X Windows, X 10 back then, migrating to X 11 sometime around 1989 or 1990. The application code inbetween included various components such as a database-interface layer (which also added the spatial component), various form managers, display list managers, graphic editors, and a scripting language (we called it a "macro language" - GML, GeoVision Macro Language - but it wasn't really) to customize it and tie all the pieces together.

Pretty neat actually, and with potential beyond the cartographic/GIS/etc domain (I once prototyped a CASE tool based on it in about a day). (In fact, so neat I'm working on an open source reimplementation of it -- see www.cavor.org -- but there's a lot to go yet).

As far as documenting it goes -- there ought to be some documents, old manuals, etc around although I don't have any. We had a number of large companies, municipal governments, and other government organizations as customers.

The original company, GeoVision (not to be confused with another GIS company of the same name) went bankrupt back in 1993. The VISION* technology was bought by SystemHouse Ltd, (and most of the customers had source in escrow), traded hands a few times as companies were bought and sold, and is now owned by Autodesk who still markets the software.

Depending on the details of this patent, it could well threaten Autodesk's marketing of VISION*, so assuming they acquired whatever historical documents were around, they might be the people to talk to.