Features & Benefits

	• You start with a smart interface that senses what you intend to do and protects you from unwanted actions. This includes automatic picking and automatic guides that assist you in drawing accurately. • Fully parametric and dynamic generation of 3D forms that can be further manipulated at any time after their initial generation. • A Reshape tool that, by capitalizing on real time Boolean operations, offers more sculpting actions that produce robust solid models that can easily be fabricated.
	• Totally overhauled suite of NURBS tools combines unprecedented ease of use and power. The new NURBS analysis features aid in the evaluation and refinement of your design • Powerful formula tools create complex curves and surfaces based on mathematical formulas with ease. The included predefined library of shapes is a launching point for a whole new method of form creation. • Components are enhanced symbols that include the ability to edit the component directly where it is placed. Components are also embedded in project’s making them less dependant on external library files.
	• The complete interface and the tool palettes are fully customizable, including the newly introduced favorites palette, where you may place the tools you use frequently for instant access. • Newly introduced workspaces group related tools and palettes together making it easy to switch between tasks. User defined workspaces allow for creation of custom workspaces. • The traditional form•Z drafting and modeling environments found in previous versions have been merged combining the power of both in a unified environment. This powerful combi-nation yields long desired features such as dimensions, hatching and line styles to 3D.
	• Layout sheets can be used to compose different views of a model and/or sections and/ or construction details together with notes and dimensions and have it printed to send to the construction site. • The modeling interface has been enhanced with a new shaded working environment. Traditional wire frame, hidden line, shaded full and doodle rendering are included. Photorealistic, global Illumination and sketch rendering is available with the optional RenderZone plugin. • Dynamic clipping planes allow for non-destructive cutting of models. This real-time dynamic interface allows for complete inspection of a design.
	• The new Sun Palette enables the quick evaluation of natural light in a building on any given day or time. Quickly create animation of the sun light through a day or an entire year. • Present your designs interactively on line with the new VR creation features. These allow you to create web ready interactive panoramic and 360 object movies of your design. • Interoperability, a traditional strength of form•Z, has further been enhanced with updated translators and a new Rhino import feature. Models can be animated within form•Z to produce movies for presentation purposes. Or they can be fabricated using any of the contemporary 3D Printing, Rapid Prototyping, CNC, or Milling machines.

New in form•Z 8 Pro

form•Z 8 introduces subdivision modeling as a new personality to form•Z's diverse modeling capabilities. Subdivision modeling is a method for creating unique organic forms. These organic models start from a simple base cage that can be dynamically manipulated and reformed with a new suite of tools that provide operations like grow, stretch, bridge, squeeze and offset. Subdivision models are parametric allowing for continued manipulation as well as dynamic control of the surface resolution.

The subdivision tools are also useful for quickly smoothing or softening a facetted model. Subdivision objects can be converted to NURBS for additional manipulation and evaluation using form•Z’s extensive NURBS tools. Subdivision objects work great with 3D printing as they produce regular meshes that tend to give excellent results with popular 3D printers. Useful for tensile structures, organic surfaces ranging from exotic roofs to character meshes, these new tools make form•Z more versatile than ever before!

The new Round to Holdline tool generates a round between two (or more) faces of an object. The object can be a surface or a solid object. The round is defined with a holdline curve that lies on the surface. The variable radius of the round along the edge will be determined by the holdline, see example below.

The form•Z interactive display modes have been completely rewritten to take advantage of modern OpenGL capabilities. This is most noticeable in Shaded Full display mode with new real-time ambient occlusion, bump mapping, soft shadows and multi sampling features. These improvements aid in real-time visualization and design evaluation as they yield better depth perception and spatial definition. The image to the right illustrates the effect of these new features.

Sketchfab.com is a website that allows you to share your 3D models so others can view and navigate around the model in real time. You can publish your models through Sketchfab.com, or you can embed them into your own web pages. There is a new Sketchfab upload option in the Extensions menu that allows for uploads to Sketchfab directly from form•Z.

form•Z for OS X is now a native 64-bit application making it possible to work with projects that need over 4GB of memory. 32 and 64 bit versions continue to be supported for Windows.

System Requirements

Resources

Trial Version: http://www.formz.com/home/trialLanding.html
Purchase: http://www.mmhk.com/contact
Full List of Features: http://www.formz.com/featureslist/FeatureComparisonChart.html
Documentation: http://www.formz.com/products/formz/formzDocumentation.html
Product Registration: http://www.formz.com/products/formz/product_registration.html