Bonzai 3D offering the modeler more options in precision location of key vertices that begin or end modeling operations, especially within the field of a given surface. Because of the underlying geometry engine Bonzai 3D can create complex combinations of spline-based 3D surfaces and more importantly solids and can provide editing modality options that are not existent in SketchUp. Bonzai 3D was auto-des-sys’s primary focus at AIA this year, the entire team wearing bright red Bonzai 3D tee-shirts at the booth. Interestingly, Bonzai 3D was being shown right next door to the Google booth, which of course focused on SketchUp, Bonzai’s primary competitor.
Bonzai 3D’s uses a combination of ACIS for advanced curved forms and similar items and auto-des-sys’s own proprietary modeling geometry engine for everything else. This topic of speed at the geometry kernel has real teeth when one considers what is really happening inside of Bonzai 3D.
Bonzai 3D is a real first class NURBS modeling program, just like formZ but with less functionality than its big sister app. Because Bonzai 3D has push-pull technology that works just like SketchUp. Yessios explained to me that essentially what is happening when you push out a cube, for instance, off the surface of a bigger cube, the program is actually performing a Boolean operation (addition, substration, union, etc.), so the user has the ability to show or hide that line between what was added or taken away. As our Baltimore Vectorworks 2009 reports indicate in a chart Nemetschek North America put together for that press day event, SketchUp is not a true solids modeler.
With a combination of strengths ranging from robust modeling kernel technologies to advantages in modeling creation and editing–to solid strengths in learning the application–Bonzai 3D is clearly the front-runner rival to Google’s popular SketchUp, and is well worth reviewing for anyone interested in an easy-to-use but powerful modeling application.
Read more about Bonzai3D
.
0 comments