NeXT Nugget News Digest (vol. 4, issue 17, September 15, 1992) TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Stone Design Announces 3D Modeler for NeXTSTEP II. Announcing CIC - ComposeInColor for NeXTSTEP III. Software Ventures Ships Microphone Pro for NeXT IV. Talus announces pVisor, 3D molecular visualization ____________________________________________________________________ This is vol. 4, issue 17 of the 1992 NeXT NUGGET NEWS DIGEST - a collection of items of interest for the NeXT User Group members. There are more than 379 NeXT User Groups in 38 countries on all continents around the world. To submit articles or announcements to appear in the Nugget Digest, please send your contributions to the following address: user_groups@next.com. Conrad Geiger Manager, International NeXT User Groups ____________________________________________________________________ I. Stone Design Announces 3D Modeler for NeXTSTEP News For Immediate Release For more info contact: Cliff Baltzley Phone: 505-345-4800 Stone Design Announces 3D Modeler for NeXTSTEP ALBUQUERQUE, NM, Sept. 8, 1992 - Stone Design Corp. introduced today 3D Reality(TM), a 3D modeling and picture-creating program for NeXTSTEP computers that sets a new standard for ease of use and flexibility. Just as Stone Design's revolutionary graphics package Create provided a user interface that makes all the power of PostScript accessible to mere mortals, so 3D Reality allows users to take advantage of the myriad of features provided by the 3DKit in NeXTSTEP 3.0 as well as the underlying RenderMan architecture. 3D Reality will be shown in the NeXT Computer Inc. booth at the Seybold Conference & Exposition, September 22-24 in San Francisco. "Reality revolutionizes the way 3D graphics are made," said Andrew Stone, CEO of Stone Design. "Our goal was to create an environment that allowed first-time users to make fantastic graphics by just dragging and dropping icons, but to also provide experts with the entire power of Interactive and PhotoRealistic RenderMan. And to really bring this power to the end user, we are introducing this product for only until the end of 1992." "3D Reality is a beautiful example of an application that utilizes the 3DKit, one of the four new object kits in NeXTSTEP Release 3.0," said David Springer, Project Manager of 3D Software at NeXT Computer. Based on a RenderMan standard, 3DKit allows developers to both add three-dimensional graphics to existing NeXTSTEP applications and build 3D applications from scratch. "With 3D Reality, Stone Design takes full advantage of 3DKit's object and rendering framework to create a very sophisticated 3D package from the ground up in record time," Springer said. With an easy-to-understand and powerful drag-and-drop user environment, 3D Reality will make the joys of 3D modeling and rendering available to a wide variety of users for creation of everything from logos, ads, headlines and flashy graphics to entire scenes. 3D Reality offers: o Basic features: - lathe for turning objects - extrusion of 2D objects into 3D objects - direct inspection of shape hierarchy - full drag-and-drop interface for shaders,textures,shapes,RIB code - multiple perspective or orthographic views of 3D world - grouping/ungrouping of objects - scaling of individual objects and entire scene. o Text rendering 3D Reality supports full 3D extruded text with special text effects such as letter bloating, movement of individual letters, shaders, textures and so on. It can also turn any PostScript font into a 3D font. o Drag and drop of RIB-format clip 3D artwork Users can drag and drop RIB code from any external source. 3D Reality adds the RIB (whether it is a single object or a whole scene) code as if it were an object in the hierarchy. o Composite Solid Geometry Combine primitives, use one to "cut away" part of another, or take the intersection of the two. Composite groups can be used within another composite group; one shape can modify another for effects such as drilling and cut-outs. o Powerful texture and shader environment Create RenderMan textures from any EPS or TIFF source. Textures are automatically installed in the texture library and can be applied to any object by dragging and dropping. Users can apply any of six different kinds of shaders to an object (Surface, Light, Displacement, Image, Volume and a surprise shader), save favorite shader parameters into a shader library, and drag and drop saved shaders from the library onto shapes in the image. 3D Reality also supports creation of custom shaders and textures, bump-mapping and texture wrap around any object. o Powerful control and constraints environment Constrain motion (scaling, rotation or translation) to any axis or combination of axes, or to a 3D grid. Users can also constrain to any coordinate system that exists within the scene. o Previewing Stone Design's unique InstyRender(TM) allows users to easily render all or part of a scene in varying levels of accuracy, providing an extremely fast method of previewing an image. o Network rendering Selection rendering can be done either on the local machine or within the network pool. An Image Manager allows users to view all currently active and finished jobs as well as non-image-oriented jobs. o Interapplication Communication Services provided by 3D Reality include the ability to send 32-bit color images to applications such as Create, Mail and Edit, or accept any EPS or TIFF file for wrapping as a texture. o Full access to RenderMan programming environment For the serious RenderMan user, 3D Reality provides an extensible, customizable RIB management and development environment. Users can develop shaders and textures quickly for use in complex scenes. A programmer's API will provide endless number of ways to customize and augment 3D Reality's functionality through direct access to underlying RenderMan functionality. 3D Reality supports dynamic loading of objects. Included with the package are several 3D geometry projects with full source code, to demonstrate how easy it is to make custom shapes. 3D Reality has a suggested retail price of and will be available directly from Stone Design or your local NeXT dealer in the fourth quarter of 1992. The program will carry a special introductory price of until January 1. Stone Design Corporation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, founded in 1984, develops a variety of business and design productivity applications for NeXTSTEP computers. # # # 3D Reality, InstyRender and Create are trademarks of Stone Design Corporation. NeXT is a trademark of NeXT Computer, Inc. All other brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. ____________________________________________________________________ II. Announcing CIC - ComposeInColor for NeXTSTEP CIC - ComposeInColor is the first application for professional image processing and retouching on NeXT computers. In addition to the usual features of an image processing and retouching application, features include a special low-resolution technology, freely definable retouching tools, scripts and databases. CIC is available at sonata (128.210.15.30). 'sonata.cc.purdue.edu:/pub/next/submissions' or 'sonata.cc.purdue.edu:/pub/next/2.0-release/demos' Note: the file size is 10.3 mb. CIC will run in demo mode until you enter an activation code. There is also an update for users of the previous demo versions. 'ComposeInColor_1.0.update.tar.Z' File size: 1.7 mb Enjoy! UNTER ECKER SOFTWARE Email: untereck@vipmzk.physik.uni-mainz.de ____________________________________________________________________ III. Software Ventures Ships Microphone Pro for NeXT For Immediate Release Contact: Eileen Ebner McLean Public Relations 415-358-8535 Paul P. Schmidman Software Ventures 510-644-3232 SOFTWARE VENTURES SHIPS MICROPHONE PRO FOR NEXT -- POPULAR COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR NEXTSTEP Offers Interface Builder Support, Other Tools to Build Graphical Interfaces Berkeley, Calif., Sept. 1, 1992 -- Software Ventures Corporation today announced that it is shipping MicroPhone(TM) Pro Version 1.0 for NeXT, the only commercially available communications software program that takes full advantage of the advanced features of the NeXTSTEP operating system, including Interface Builder, Drag and Drop, and Services. MicroPhone Pro for NeXT gives NeXT computer users an unprecedented set of tools to transfer data, communicate with remote computers, build custom scripts and design graphical interfaces. One noteworthy example is Loran, a MicroPhone Pro settings document, which was created using a combination of MicroPhone Pro scripting tools and the NeXT Interface Builder. Loran gives users a consistent graphical front end, which shields them from unfriendly interfaces and arcane commands when communicating with remote hosts. Presently, Loran includes a graphical mail interface to CompuServe mail, Internet mail and Software Ventures' BBS. A single interface connects a user to all three. MICROPHONE PRO SCRIPTING AND OTHER KEY FEATURES AUTOMATE DAILY COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES "Corporations look for the best computing platforms to accomplish tasks," said David Hindawi, president of Software Ventures. "The NeXT platform is an important, emerging platform for corporate sites. We've now developed MicroPhone for three platforms -- NeXT, Macintosh and Windows -- and incorporated script compatibility across them, which is very important for corporations with mixed environments." MicroPhone Pro for NeXT automates communications, freeing users from memorizing log-in and navigation sequences to information services. Two innovative tools harness MicroPhone Pro's scripting power: * Watch Me. Records any communications action for later replay at the touch of a button. Users don't have to learn a single script command to build their own custom scripts. * Built-in script editor. Offers users more than 300 prewritten commands and functions to create or edit scripts, simply by pointing and clicking. This eliminates script syntax errors. MicroPhone Pro for NeXT supports the key features of the NeXTSTEP operating system. With NeXT Services, users can designate MicroPhone Pro to send and receive information directly from other applications. For example, Services could use MicroPhone Pro to send a page layout document to a type output bureau for printing. NeXTSTEP also includes spell checking capabilities so that users can ensure the accuracy of their messages before sending them. With NeXTSTEP's Interface Builder and MicroPhone Pro's extensive script language, users have a complete set of tools to create custom front ends for communicating with remote computers. They can build simple log-in script files or sophisticated front ends like Loran. Software Ventures provides documentation and examples that permit users and value added resellers (VARs) to build custom front ends. Multi-session capability in MicroPhone Pro for NeXT allows interaction with more than one information service at a time. For example, users can automate MicroPhone Pro to download the day's stock quotes from the Dow Jones News Service and place the information in a spreadsheet, while retrieving messages from CompuServe and sending the weekly sales report to the head office. They can launch these scripts using the drag and drop capabilities of NeXTSTEP, dragging and dropping an iconized file onto MicroPhone Pro's Icon Bar. MicroPhone Pro for NeXT implements a comprehensive set of file transfer protocols to send text, graphics and sound files -- anything stored on a NeXT computer can be quickly and reliably transmitted. Protocols supported include Text/ASCII, XMODEM, YMODEM, ZMODEM and Kermit. Terminal emulation includes TTY, VT100, VT102 and VT220. By virtue of being a UNIX-based product, MicroPhone Pro for NeXT includes full TCP/IP support, allowing users to connect directly to a TCP/IP network, such as the Internet. "Having just introduced Telnet connectivity for our MicroPhone Pro for the Macintosh communications package, Software Ventures is poised to become a dominant force in the TCP/IP community, the fastest growing networking arena," Hindawi said. "We also intend to add TCP/IP connectivity to our Windows communications package." OWNERS OF PRERELEASE VERSIONS OF MICROPHONE II WILL RECEIVE FREE UPGRADES TO VERSION 1.0 Because of user demand, Software Ventures earlier this year offered prerelease versions of MicroPhone II for NeXT. Initial feedback allowed Software Ventures to incorporate several key features critical to NeXT users into the final 1.0 release of MicroPhone Pro for NeXT, including: * Kermit file transfer protocol. * Remappable keyboards. * International character sets. MicroPhone Pro, version 1.0, for NeXT is available immediately through NeXTConnection and Software Ventures dealers and distributors. Registered users of MicroPhone II 0.9 and 0.91, the prerelease versions, will receive version 1.0 at no charge. For further information, including corporate site licensing, contact Software Ventures at (510) 644-3232. ABOUT SOFTWARE VENTURES CORPORATION Founded in 1985 as a privately held corporation, Software Ventures Corporation of Berkeley, Calif., is the leading developer and supplier of interactive communications software and internetworking solutions for the most popular graphical environments. They include the Apple Macintosh, IBM PCs and compatibles running Microsoft Windows, and the NeXT workstation. Software Ventures also develops customized, private label versions of its programs for corporate environments. With a history of technological firsts, Software Ventures enjoys the largest installed base of communications software for the Macintosh. MicroPhone II for the Macintosh has won consecutive (1990-1992) World Class awards from Macworld and the first (1991) Target Award for telecommunications excellence from MacWeek. In the United States and Canada, Software Ventures markets MicroPhone products through Ingram Micro, Kenfil, Tech Data and Merisel distributors, dealers, Value Added Resellers and OEMs; worldwide distribution is through a network of international distributors. ### For more information about Software Ventures and its products, call (510)644-3232 or fax to (510) 848-0885. MicroPhone is a trademark of Software Ventures Corporation. All other product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. ____________________________________________________________________ IV. Talus Corporation announces pVisor, 3D molecular visualization Talus Corporation and the Electronic & Computer Science Center (ECSC) of the Moscow Institute of Physics & Technology are happy to announce the beta release of the first program written in Russia for the NeXT computer. Their first program, "pVisor", is a 3D molecular visualization program that allows the user to display any complex-molecule on the screen, rotate the molecule in space and clip the molecule. There are several ways to display the molecule using the surfacing mode, lines, and balls, in any combination. It uses a very fast renderer and gives the user extremely flexible control over the molecule display. pVisor will read Cambridge Structural Database, Protein Data Bank, Alchemy, and pVisor proprietary formats. The French version of pVisor was ready for beta testing on August 15th, and was followed by the German version in late August. A Kanji version of pVisor will be released to coincide with the release of the Kanji version of NeXTSTEP 3.0. The ECSC expects to have their second program, PhysicsED, released to beta sites in September. PhysicsED is a course consisting of a physics guide and a group of simulation programs designed to demonstrate various physical processes and phenomena. The course targets universities and secondary education, and was designed for use in both lecture demonstrations as well as for individual study. Talus Corporation will distribute and support ECSC products in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Talus Corporation expects to release a new Russian written NeXTSTEP software product every two months through 1992. New product releases for September and October are already scheduled. If you're interested in assisting us in the beta testing process, please send us the following information: 1) Name & position 2) Name of school or company 3) Address 4) Office & home phone 5) E-mail address 6) The NeXT hardware that you'll be testing it on. 7) Your profession, along with a brief description of your field of expertise and how you might make use of a molecular visualization program. Please send your information to: ed@talus.mipt.su The final release of pVisor is scheduled for September 15th, 1992. Thanks for your help and please feel free to drop us a line in Moscow...just to say hi. -- Erik DASQUE Systems Engineer, Talus Corp. Seattle-Moscow-Houston MOSCOW: Tel : (+7-095) 255 9698 E-Mail : ed@talus.mipt.su (NeXTmail happily accepted...) HOUSTON: Tel : (713) 561-0700 E-mail: info@talus.com (NeXTmail happily accepted...) ____________________________________________________________________ end