I had a PC decide to not boot, and while it wasn’t a major component to the farm it was used by others and while I asked people to backup to an external drive, they weren’t. PC crashed and someone lost a lot of files.

Enter solution. I have no desire to resurrect this machine but it was a good idea to retrieve the data. So, using PenDriveLinux I built a bootable USB stick and voila, boot mount drive and copy to the external USB drive.

Check it out, PenDriveLinux, nothing easier. Download installer, get a USB stick, download Ubunto (or some .iso of your Linux distro of choice). Run installer, follow directions.. done.

In the previous segment I outlined the issues that we are faced with moving geometry from a CAD application to a rendering application. In this segment, I am going to cover the topics related to preparing your CAD models to be export ready for a rendering application.

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You can now download Crosswalk 2.6 from Softimage. Crosswalk is a Softimage initiative to help transfer XSI content in and out of 3ds Max® and Maya® pipelines using the latest dotXSI, COLLADA, and FBX standards.

The Crosswalk components in XSI 6 have now been packaged as a standalone setup, complete with an installer that can automatically detect existing installations of 3ds Max®, Maya®, Face Robot and XSI, and install the appropriate plugins. The Crosswalk downloads contain updated Crosswalk software, featuring several bug fixes, as well as updated documentation in the Crosswalk guide, and updated Crosswalk examples.

A first in a series, the CAD files to Rendering is a documentation of issues and thoughts of how I recommend moving from a CAD application (I’ll be using Pro/ENGINEER) to a rendering application (I’ll be referencing Softimage XSI, Cinema 4D, PolyTrans).

To move our CAD files to a rendering application you will want to flavour the solutions based on the end use intent. Some examples:

1. Visualization (i.e. real-time) or gaming centric type applications you will be aiming for high polygon efficiency (low poly count) and good visual accuracy.
2. Photoreal rendering (stills) will require polygon precision (high poly count) and high visual accuracy. You will want to preserve features like fillets and chamfers, but this can drive poly counts insanely high.
3. Animation will typically require medium to high polygon precision (medium to high poly count) and high visual accuracy. If we are doing simulations it is important that we are trying to establish the proper ‘mass’ or body topology of the object(s) so that we can properly apply gravity, fluid and other physical effects.

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Windows and Linux see 32 and 64 bit versions of Crosswalk 2.5.2 available for download.

Sourceforge is showing a modo 302 Collada exporter is under works.