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“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” –Henry Ford
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Some deals just need to be shared!
CAVEAT: Neither myself, or anyone associated with Bridge City Tool Works has an interest in the product/company which is the subject of this post, we are simply passing on a limited-time opportunity. We are however intimately familiar with the capabilities.
When you discuss the use of CAD amongst woodoworkers, the conversation almost always centers around Google’s SketchUp–afterall it is free (the non-Pro version).
The biggest advantage to SketchUp from my perspective (I have been using CAD exclusively since 1988) is the relative user friendliness. And by that I mean the initial learning curve is not as intimidating as other CAD alternatives. It also may be the only CAD software you will ever need, particularly if you have made an investment in yourself and use it regularly.
For those of you who have yet to venture into the amazing possibilities of employing CAD in your workflow, take a peek at CAD image below of the new JMP Precision Fence system;
There are over 250 modeled components in this file and this entire assembly can be re-created exactly as we made it, using the exact same tools with ViaCad 2D/3D v8, a brand new release that contains about 90% of the functionality that the pros require.
If you are looking to take the next step and make your projects on the computer first as a prototype, as opposed to making “finished prototypes” in the shop… I assure you the quality of your work will not only improve, but you will become more productive. Yes, there is a learning curve, but learning should be fun. And to assist you, there is an avid user forum for this software and plenty of hand-holding tutorials. We think it is a great tool and a great deal.
Down the road, if there is enough interest, we will consider offering classes, but first you need to decide if this fits your plans, it certainly is budget friendly. You can learn all about ViaCAD 2d/3D here.
Have fun!
–John
PS: For those of you who purchase Shark v7 when it went on sale, you are sitting pretty. Ignore this post.
John,
I just downloaded it; hard to go wrong at the price. Just out of curiosity, what is the difference between this package and the Cobalt program? This one and Sketch-up?
Thanks,
Rutager
Finally!
A post on this blog about a product I could ignore.
🙂
Hi John,
I’m kicking myself for not taking the $495 Shark FX v7. Now I jump over and see $1295 Shark FX v8.
I can get a difference in feature lists from the site, but what can I not do with the ViaCAD that can be done with the Shark FX? Is it more on the rendering where you get the more photo-realistic rendering or is it something more critical like a parts library?
Also, do you “simulate” motion within the cad tools? Like the CT-17 plane’s blade locking – you taunted us with a clue that was related to it’s motion. Is that automated based on solid objects or do you have to move/rotate every object manually?
Cory/Rutager;
The movie on this link is informative;
http://www.punchcad.com/p-9-viacad-2d3d-v8.aspx
If you use any of the Ashlar 3D products, the user interface will be almost identical with the exception of the icons. Both programs have the same core design.
Parametric modeling is not available in ViaCad (the ability to change a solid using equations). Regarding kinematics, you can MANUALLY simulate range of motion by making copies of the part that moves and manually re-position each copy–this is useful for checking interference and other design issues.
We use a separate rendering/animation engine to do our little movies. Works nicely, but we had to spend almost 10K on a workstation to do it in a time frame that did not interrupt my productivity. It is CPU intense-the new box is a dual Xeon with 24 gig of Ram and it is fast. FYI, what used to take an hour now takes 5 minutes to output.
–John
Roger;
Confirming that you made me laugh over coffee this AM.
-John
John,
The “push pull” feature looks super cool and very useful, is it? Is parametric modeling ability like when we modeled our house key in Colbalt and we were able to change the cut of the key up until the very end, where as in Argon I would have to go back to the wire frame to make that change? Does the top level Shark allow parametric modeling?
Thanks,
Rutager
P.S. is the new CPU the one Michael plays solitare on when he should be working?
Rutager;
Shark FX does do parametrics (constraint based modeling) as does Cobalt. The big difference as far as I can tell is that Shark is more robust than ViaCad when modeling surfaces, the solid tools are almost identical. Push/Pull is indeed useful!
Imagine you are a kitchen cabinet designer and you have designed a bank of cabinets that fit a wall that is 8′-7″ (103″). Imagine it is a killer design. Now you run into a customer who wants exactly the same kitchen cabinet design, only their wall is a total of 105.5″. If you had set up your initial CAD file to use parametrics, where every cabinet and component related to the OAL of the wall, all you would need to do is change 103 to 105.5 and your entire kitchen redraws itself to the new constraint–including the prints! That is incredibly powerful, and moderately expensive.
-John
I tried the Shark beta out a few months ago – I got about 75% through the included tutorial videos. It did help me get a feel for how some of the features are used.
It looks like this might still be available, at least the link is still up:
http://www.punchcadlabs.com/
“Finally!
A post on this blog about a product I could ignore.”
LOL…me too buddy. Although I would prefer John would stop posting pretty pictures of the fence and actually started kicking some butt to get it done faster… 🙂