Inivis AC3D 6

AC3D is a 3D object and scene modeler, that is easy to use, yet powerful enough to create professional looking 3D designs. Whether you want to design 3d objects for games or build your dream home in virtual reality, AC3D allows you to to quickly turn your ideas into great 3D models. It outputs POV-Ray, VRML (1 and 2), RenderMan and other formats and you can import file from 3D Studio, Lightwave, DXF, Alias triangle and other formats.

In addition, AC3D offers various plug-ins to further extend its functionality. It offers you simple, intuitive 'click and drag' user interface, Truetype font 2D and 3D text generator, Integrated graphical texture coordinate editor, Subdivision surface modeling, Boolean operations and more...

What's new in AC3D 6

Fully-integrated subdivision surfaces

Now it's easy to create professional-looking models, giving a real 'wow' factor to your 3D designs.
AC3D 6 is a fully-integrated subdivision surface modeler. Subdivision surfaces allow smooth 3D shapes to be described using simple underlying polygon objects.

Any object in AC3D, including lines and polylines, can now be instantly subdivided. AC3D's fast integrated subdivision engine calculates subdivisions only when required, and allows you to display and edit the underlying mesh at any time, as well as allowing full editing of the subdivided geometry with the same ease. Subdivision in AC3D is easy to control. The two buttons on the toolbar increase and decrease the level of an object's subdivision. This works whether you have a whole object/s or part of an object/s selected.
You can also instantly switch on and off the display of subdivisions by pressing the 'd' key (or by using the controls in the main Orth/3D menus). With this, you can choose to work with the underlying polygons or the subdivision. If you prefer to, you can, for example, choose to view subdivisions in the 3D view and non-subdivided versions in the orth views.

Faster real-time 3D

Now totally rewritten, AC3D's real-time 3D graphics engine provides you with a super-fast view onto your 3D world. Speed optimisations have been made for the rendering of individual objects with many surfaces, as well as for large numbers of objects in the whole scene. Interaction is faster and benefits from surface-normals (including crease angle information) being calculated in real-time. So, whether you're creating a single creature or a whole city, you'll instantly see an improvement.

Extrude along path

Used in conjunction with AC3D's subdivision surfaces, this function makes it easy to create smooth shapes from simple profiles. Found on the Object menu, this function allows you to create three dimensional objects by 'sweeping' a profile along a given path.

View inspect mode

Here at Inivis Limited, we pride ourselves on listening and responding to our users' needs. Due to popular demand, a switch above each view window quickly puts the view into 'classic AC3D' 3D view mode. The model will be cleanly drawn (no surface outlines, vertices etc). Dragging the mouse navigates (usually spin or walk) without the need to press down the alt key - useful if you want to quickly capture a clean view image (from the View's Camera menu). This is also great if you have an extra screen attached to your computer as you can now dedicate that to viewing/navigating your final model.

New-look controls and basic 'block' object

Select the control you see quickly with our intuitive new icons. The new 'Block' object, a single cuboid with each dimension divided a desired number of times, is ideal as a initial base for use with AC3D's subdivision surfaces.

Easy positioning in 3D

Now there's no need to hold down the control key to constrain movement whilst dragging a selection in 3D - simply pull or push the green arrow handles. nose before drag nose after drag

Better selection

Paint select

Faster and more precise selections can now be achieved by simply holding down the shift and control keys, then dragging the mouse over the surfaces/vertices/objects to highlight a selection. Using the right mouse button removes items from the selection.

Select-through

The new 'Select-through' option can be switched from selecting everything under a rectangular area, to only selecting those items (objects, surfaces, vertices) that are directly visible.

Vertex loops

After selecting two or more vertices, Select-Loop (on Edit menu, or just press the 'L' key) allows vertex loops to be quickly selected.

Improved file handling

The 3D Studio (3DS) and Lightwave (LWO) importers have been updated, better Wavefront OBJ and DXF support implemented and speed optimisations have been made to many of AC3D's comprehensive list of supported file formats.

A new Lightwave (LWO) exporter has been added.
There's now an option for automatically creating backup files when you overwrite your work.

Improved Texture Coordinate Editor

AC3D's highly-acclaimed UV mapper has been improved to make it easy to 'unwrap' models for texturing.

Proportional mapping makes it easy for you to select part of a 3D model and instantly create a 2D map on the TCE.
Holding the control key and resizing the TCE's selection scales proportionately.

Foldable hierarchy

You can now view your model's structure, fold/unfold the groups and hide/lock sections of your model, all from a convenient interface.

Inivis AC3D 6 includes:

• Fast real-time OpenGL graphics views (2D and 3D)
• Multipoint polygon and line editing down to vertex level
• No polygon limits
• Extrusion and surface revolution
• Software development kit and plugin interface.
• Fast and memory efficient, compact program binary.
• Built-in fast OpenGL 3D renderer with adjustable field-of-view - instantly see results of your actions in 3D. Spin the model or switch into 'walk mode' for Quake-style control.
• Edit at different granularity - groups, objects, surfaces, vertices
• Full polygon editing. e.g create a sphere and easily move the points (vertices) to deform the shape.
• Create and edit multi-point polygons and lines - not just triangles.
• Manipulate individual surfaces
  • insert/remove vertices
  • make holes
  • spike
  • spline
  • bevel
  • triangulate
  • flip
  • subdivide

• Texture mapping support with real-time rendering.
• Texture/background image file formats supported:
  • GIF
  • JPG
  • PNG
  • BMP
  • DDS
  • PPM
  • TGA (Targa)
  • TIF

• Graphical Texture Coordinate Editor (UV Mapper)
• Assemble surfaces into new objects
• 4 views - 3 orthographic and one 3D. All at once or individually.
• Named objects can be searched for within a scene
• Navigate/Zoom around the 2d views with cursor keys and other single key presses
• Hierarchical view window
• Hide/unhide objects for easier/faster editing of complicated scenes
• Headlight and up to 7 other positionable lights
• 24-bit colour palette with adjustable diffuse; ambient; emissive; specular; shininess and transparency
• Adjustable 2D and 3D grid guide lines with grid-snap function
• Create new surfaces/objects around any selection (Convex hull)
• Configurable to use external renderers such as Povray and BMRT - just select Tools->Render to start.
• Multi platform program - AC3D file format compatible across platformsAttach URLs to objects for use in VRML files
• Attach string data to objects to be used as scripting in Dive or special directives for POV or renderman
• Supports many output/input formats including
  • 3D-studio 3DS
  • Lightwave LWO
  • Alias triangle
  • DXF
  • VRML1 and 2 and Inventor
  • Povray
  • Renderman RIB
  • Triangles
  • Direct X
  • Milkshape
  • Quake 3 bsp
  • MD2
  • Wavefront OBJ
  • OFF
  • stl (ascii)
  • sof (airfoil)
  • SMF
  • T3D
  • LDRAW .ldr (Lego)
• Extrude and revolve 2D lines to make 3D shapes.
• scale a selection to a specific size
• flip a selection (mirror) about X, Y or Z axis
• Remove duplicate vertices and surfaces ('optimize')
• Simple documented file formats allow easy conversion from other forms of data - ideal for visualizing your own data in 3D.
• Developer SDK.

AC3D System Requirements:

• Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4, 2000, XP or Linux x86
• Pentium 120 (or equiv) minimum
• 64 MB RAM minimum
• 10 MB free hard disk space
• preferable, but not necessary - 3D accelerated video card with OpenGL drivers

• Mac OS X 10.3 or later