formZ 6.5 Mac/Win
formZ is an award winning general purpose solid and surface modeller
and animator with an extensive set of 2D/3D form manipulating and
sculpting capabilities, many of which are unique. It is an effective
design tool for architects, landscape architects, urban designers,
engineers, animators and illustrators, industrial and interior
designers and all design fields that deal with the articulation of 3D
spaces and forms. formZ is highly responsive to the needs of mature
designers and, at the same time, novices can use it with ease.
Object-centric animation
Among a number of new unique features, form·Z 6.5 offers a seamlessly integrated animation environment, where objects, lights, cameras and surface styles (colours) can be animated and transformed over time. The new animation features are object-centric and are applied as modeling operations, which, in addition to supporting the production of animated visualizations, also support dynamic modeling and the creation of forms that go significantly beyond the repertoire of conventional modeling tools.
Capturing 3D forms from animations
The new animation tools have also added to the modelling repertoire of form·Z by allowing animated states of objects to be captured as fully defined new objects, rather than simply as images. Animated lights and cameras can also be captured.
The S-Loft tool
The S-Loft tool executes skinned lofting, an operation that combines skinning and lofting, by using explicit or implicit paths, as it threads sets of selected source shapes. The most impressive among the variety of shapes it can generate are objects that branch.
The Cap tool
The Cap tool allows you to pick a set of edges that form a closed loop in 3D space and create a surface from them. Given that these edges can be either free (open) or edges common to two neighboring faces and that the tool can be optionally instructed to generate surfaces that extend the curvatures of neighboring surfaces, the possibilities for form generation are enormous.
The Morph tool
The Morph tool allows you to pick two objects, the source and the destination, and have the shape of the former change to the shape of the other by a certain percent. The operation can be executed dynamically or in one step. It can be used as part of an animation or by itself.
The Deform tool
The Deform tool has been drastically extended and has become a controlled operation that allows multiple types of deformations to be applied simultaneously. These can be subsequently edited and revised thus offering great opportunities for experimentation and design explorations. The new Deform tool can be used by itself or as part of an animation sequence.
The Reconstruct Curve and Reconstruct Nurbz tools
The Reconstruct Curve and Reconstruct Nurbz tools have been extended and can now optionally display the differences between the original and the new curves and surfaces.
The Text Search and Replace tool
The Text Search and Replace tool can search all objects in a project or only selected objects and match a specified string. When matches are found, they are replaced with a replacement string, which may be a completely different string or the same string in a different format, including font, size and style.
The Model Doctor tool
The Model Doctor tool has been enhanced and it can now heal incompletely formed smooth objects by filling in faces that may be missing.
The new Transform tool
The new Transform tool can be used to change the location, scale and rotation of an object by transforming an object's axes graphically. That is, it is a tool that combines all the other transformation tools, namely Translate, Rotate and Scale.
The Attach and Extend tools
The Attach and Extend tools have been enhanced and now they also work with smooth objects, which adds some special flavour to these operations, such as attaching the face of one object to a curved face of another object causes the former face to take the shape of the latter.
Exporting colour to 3D printers
Import/export support has been added for the ZPR format to facilitate prototyping. ZPR is the format of the Z Corp 3D printers and has the unique ability to carry color information. Thus physical prototype models can now be generated in full colour and textures from virtual form·Z models.
Automatic updates
A new automatic update option has been added to keep your form·Z installation up to date with the latest adjustments and corrections. form·Z checks for new versions based on a preference setting and automatically downloads and updates itself.
Specifications
OS X
- OS - Minimum version: 10.2, Recommended version: 10.3.6 or later
- Memory - Minimum: 128 Mb, Recommended: 512 Mb.
- Hard Disk Space - Minimum: 50 Mb, Recommended: 200 Mb
- Drive: Required for installation only.
Windows
- OS - Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows XP home edition, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows XP
- Computer with USB port (or USB hub) or Parallel port.OS - Minimum version: 10.2, Recommended version: 10.3.6 or later
- Memory - Minimum: 128 Mb, Recommended: 512 Mb.
- Hard Disk Space - Minimum: 50 Mb, Recommended: 200 Mb
- Drive: Required for installation only.
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