AC3D
-
Platform, Price, and Company
- Windows, Linux, and SGI-IRIX
- $49.95
- Author: Andy Colebourne at Lancaster University, England: http://www.ac3d.org/
- Copyright: Inivis Limited, developers of 3D design software
-
Applications
- AC3D is a popular 3D object/scene modeler. It's is very easy to use but
powerful too - anyone can create good looking 3d objects in minutes. It
outputs POV-Ray, VRML (1 and 2), RenderMan, Dive, Massive and other formats.
- AC3DTM is used to create 3D models for:
- games
- virtual reality and flight simulation
- scientific, medical and general data visualisation
- rapid prototypes of 3D designs
- high resolution 3D renderings
-
Examples/Samples
-
Functions
- Multi platform program - AC3D file format compatible across platforms
- Easy to use intuitive interface.
- 4 views - 3 orthographic and one 3D at once or individual views.
- 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
- 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.
- Headlight and up to 7 other positionable lights
- 24-bit colour palette with adjustable diffuse; ambient; emissive; specular;
shininess and transparency
- Texture mapping support with real-time rendering.
- Adjustable 2D and 3D grid guide lines with grid-snap function
- Edit at different granularity - groups, objects, vertices
- Full polygon editing. Not just sphere's, cubes etc - make a sphere and
move the points (vertices) to deform the shape.
- Manipulate individual surfaces:
- insert/remove vertices
- make holes
- spike
- spline
- bevel
- triangulate
- flip
- group into new objects
- 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.
- Attach 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
- Lightwave
- Alias triangle
- DXF
- VRML1 and 2 and Inventor
- Povray
- RIB
- Triangles
- Direct X (via plugin)
- 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
- Optimize duplicate vertices and surfaces
- Simple documented file formats allow easy conversion from other forms
of data - ideal for visualizing your own data in 3D.
- Plugin interface (registered versions only) with source code for existing
plugins and a software development kit.
- Web Resources