formZ 6.7 Mac/Win

FormZ - a General purpose 3D solids and surface modeller

form•Z, the 3D form synthesizer, is above all a 3D modeling program, even though it also includes drafting, rendering and animation. Additional photorealistic rendering is offered by form•Z RenderZone Plus.

It is a general purpose modeler that designers from a variety of different fields can use to create and visualize 3D forms. A few samples of what users from distinctly different fields are doing are shown above. 

It combines solids and surface modeling. It also combines faceted (boundary) representations with parametric spline representations, NURBS, patches, and metaballs. This unique mixture of modeling personalities allows you to create any form, existing or imaginary, while working in a single package.

It is a design oriented program that, not only allows you to visualize existing forms, but also to create new ones, which remain soft and tentative while they are generated. form•Z is above all a 3D form synthesizer.

form·Z features a highly interactive graphic interface that allows you to use the mouse both to select operations and to draw as if it were a pencil. At the same time, if you prefer, you can also select all of the operations through key commands, and you can create your objects by entering their dimensions and other parameters through the keyboard. As a matter of fact, you can even mix the two methods, and generate part of an object graphically and another part through numeric input.

Interactivity means that, when you generate objects, they are typically soft and are rubber banded, and you can manipulate them as they are being created. In other words, "you get what you see." The final results of your operations appear on your screen as soon as an operation is executed. Even after you create objects, they are never absolutely final, and you can still edit and change them through graphic interaction.

When you create objects graphically, you can work directly in 3D space through axonometric, perspective, isometric, panoramic, or oblique views. Objects are created (edited and transformed) relative to one of the three Cartesian planes (XY, YX, or ZX) or to a user defined and arbitrarily positioned reference plane. In addition, objects can also be drawn relative to a surface of a previously generated object.

You can also work on an orthographic projection view, which feels like you are working in 2D space while you are actually creating entities in 3D space. Or you can work in the traditional engineering fashion, by combining three different orthographic views from the top, the front, and the side, together with a 3D view. The latter is done through four tiled windows which are associated: what you draw in one of them is also reflected in the others. Needless to say, the multiple windows that you can open for a form·Z project are always associated, even when they are not tiled. Each of these windows can be set to a different view, which can be a 3D or an orthographic view, they are all continuously updated as an object is being created or edited, and taken together they can be used to look at a modeling scene from different sides and viewing angles. 

Splines and c-curves
A variety of splines, such as quadratic Bezier, cubic Bezier, cubic b-spline, and NURBS, can be generated by deriving directly. Being parametric, they can be freely edited after their initial generation.

Splines can also be generated from previously drawn vector lines, where they are more specifically called controlled curves or c-curves. The control lines are saved with the curves, which can later be edited to change their shape. The available range of c-curves includes a variety of Bezier curves, B-splines, and NURBS.

Examples of some of the available curve types: (1) Third degree NURBS with variable weights. (2) Third degree Spline. (3) Bezier. (4) Broken Bezier (2nd degree). (5) Continuous Bezier (2nd degree). (6) Third degree Quick curve. (7) Second degree Quick curve. (8) Tangent.  

Nurbz
While the c-meshes include NURBS surfaces, they are frequently of a mixed character and also include facetted parts. In form•Z it is also possible to generate pure NURBS surfaces, which are specifically called nurbz. These are generated from control lines in ways similar to but also different from c-meshes. Available generation methods are by lofting, from boundary curves, from UV curves, and by points.