• Home
• Products
• Services
• Support
• Company
• Events
• Community

• Dynamite VSP | Home
• Key Features
• Data Import
• Swept Objects
• Object Placement
• Road Markings
• Rail Objects
• Building Objects
• Feature Interpretation
• Parameter Instancing

• Sales FAQ
• Case Studies
• Testimonials
• Customer Showcase
• Customer Showreel
• Sample Animations
• Software Maintenance
• Licensing Options

• Release Notes (V3.6)
• Release Notes (V3.51)
• Release Notes (V3.5)
• Release Notes (V3.1)
• Release Notes (V3.0)
• Release Notes (V2.1)
• Release Notes (V2.0)

Dynamite VSP Version 3.5 | Release Notes

Primary areas of focus in this release include dedicated and comprehensive new support for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008, and full support for Autodesk 3ds Max 2008.

Release Date

20th November 2007

Availability

Dynamite VSP Version 3.5 is available as a downloadable service pack for Dynamite VSP Version 3.1. This upgrade is available free to users currently holding valid annual software maintenance contracts for Dynamite VSP.

This service pack may be downloaded from the User Support Centre.

Major New Features

• Dedicated and comprehensive support for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008. A new proprietary intermediate file format (*.vsp3d) has been developed by 3am Solutions specifically for the intelligent and efficient transfer of 3D geometry from AutoCAD Civil 3D to Dynamite VSP.
• Multiple geo-referenced ortho-photos may be now draped across imported surface terrain objects. The previous restriction of ortho-photo draping controls to a material ID of 31 has been removed.
• A new Railing Profile type has been added for generating simple fence panel geometry.
• Start and End Chainages may now be specified by picking 3D points in the viewports. Applies to Object Placement Style Editor and Swept Object Style Editor.
• Animation associated with placed objects which use dynamic parent shape and surface tracking may now be "baked" for performance purposes. Instead of always maintaining a permanent dynamic relationship between animated objects and their respective parent shapes and surfaces, a one-off "snapshot" of the current state of this parent object tracking can be taken. The dynamic relationship between these objects is then permanently removed. This feature has a dramatic effect on animation playback performance in the viewports at the expense of losing the benefits of inter-object dynamic relationships in Dynamite VSP.
• Dedicated support has been added for Archvision RPC content. (NOTE: Requires updated RPC plugin from Archvision - please contact us for further details).

Other Improvements

Swept Object Style Editor

• The Create Multispline Parent Shape sub-panel now allows independent start and end chainages to be specified for each donor shape object. This feature is extremely useful for the construction of asymmetrical bridge decks when used in conjunction with the existing swept object skew parameter.
• New feature added for specifying start and end chainages from picked viewpoint points.
• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which prevented new multispline parent shapes from being defined.
• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which caused chainage spinners to have no effect in some versions of 3ds Max.

Object Placement Style Editor

• New feature added for specifying start and end chainages from picked viewpoint points.
• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which caused Chainage Looping feature to have no effect when used in conjunction with negative speeds.
• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which caused chainage spinners to have no effect in some versions of 3ds Max.
• The current Chainage Looping status is now indicated within Object Placement Style Editor and may be temporarily overridden without affecting the global setting in the Dynamite VSP Preferences Panel.
• Added dedicated support for Archvision RPC content in the vehicle and tree object categories. (NOTE: Requires updated RPC plugin from Archvision - please contact us for further details).

Placed Object Manager Panel

New right-click Animation Tools menu added providing instant control over:

• Instantly reverse the direction of animation applied to selected objects.
• Instantly scale the speed of animation applied to selected objects.
• Instantly remove animation applied to selected objects.
• Instantly add animation to selected objects.
• New feature added to allow selected objects to be moved to a different spline on the selected parent shape.
• New clone to parent shape feature added to allow a series of placed objects to be instantly cloned to another parent shape.
• New randomisation feature added to allow horizontal and vertical offsets to be instantly randomised between a specified minimum and maximum value. This feature is useful for quickly varying the horizontal placement of a series of animated vehicles - to prevent them from always driving in the centre of each lane.
• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which caused Placed Object Manager panel to crash when an object was selected which had no parent shape.
• Animation associated with placed objects which use dynamic parent shape and surface tracking may now be "baked" for performance purposes. Instead of always maintaining a permanent dynamic relationship between animated objects and their respective parent shapes and surfaces, a one-off "snapshot" of the current state of this parent object tracking can be taken. The dynamic relationship between these objects is then permanently removed. This feature has a dramatic effect on animation playback performance in the viewports at the expense of losing the benefits of inter-object dynamic relationships in Dynamite VSP.

Rail Object Style Editor

• New Railing Profile type added for creating simple fence panels.
• The status of the multiple rails per parent shape parameter may now be temporarily overridden in this panel without affecting the global setting in Dynamite VSP Preferences panel.

Road Markings Style Editor

• New marking type preview pane added to the Road Markings Style Editor which allows instant feedback of the effect of mark and gap length modifications.
• The status of the multiple marks per parent shape parameter may now be temporarily overridden in this panel without affecting the global setting in Dynamite VSP Preferences panel.

Country Kit Resource Manager Panel

• Support has been added for the automatic detection of alpha channels in opacity maps. When an image containing an alpha channel is selected as an opacity map, the alpha channel is used to define the level of object transparency rather than the whiteness of the image.
• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which prevented sign defaults from being correctly read from INI files. Affected Autodesk VIZ 2008 and 3ds Max 9 (or higher) only.
• Added dedicated support for Archvision RPC content in the vehicle and tree object categories. (NOTE: Requires updated RPC plugin from Archvision - please contact us for further details).

Dynamite VSP Explorer Rollouts

• The CSP Rail Parameters Rollout now correctly remembers the last used Rail Object Style.
• The CSP Swept Object Parameters Rollout now remembers the last used Swept Object Style.
• The CSP Swept Object Parameters Rollout now indicates permanent face/vertex count information.
• In the CSP Surface Parameters Rollout, a texture map preview panel is now displayed when modifying material assignments.
• Resolved bug in the Version 3.1 CSP Surface Parameters Rollout which caused geo-referencing coordinates for draped ortho-photos to be calculated incorrectly in certain circumstances.
• In the CSP Surface Parameters Rollout, ortho-photos may now be draped on any material channel.
• The CSP Gantry Parameters Rollout, a new feature has been added to allow sign face maps to be easily applied to standard matrix signal geometry within the NL gantry definition.

Dynamite VSP Preferences Panel

• The Dynamite VSP Chainage Looping feature is now enabled by default.
• The default setting for vehicle Shadow Casting may now be controlled from the Dynamite VSP Preferences Panel.

Data Import

• A new dedicated Import Panel has been implemented for VSP3D files derived from Dynamite EXPORT for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008. This panel reads a new proprietary intermediate file format (*.vsp3d) developed by 3am Solutions specifically for the intelligent and efficient transfer of 3D geometry from AutoCAD Civil 3D to Dynamite VSP.

Imported Object Manager Panel

• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which prevented status highlighting in the Imported Object Manager panel from being displayed correctly.

Feature Interpretation Style Editor

• Resolved bug in Version 3.1 which prevented Swept Object Styles from being included in Feature Interpretation Styles.

Supported Host Applications

• Autodesk 3ds Max 7
• Autodesk 3ds Max 8
• Autodesk 3ds Max 9 (32-bit)
• Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 (32-bit)
• Autodesk VIZ 2006
• Autodesk VIZ 2007
• Autodesk VIZ 2008

© Copyright 2001-2008. 3am Solutions (UK) Limited. All rights reserved.
Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, AutoCAD, 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. MX and Arenium are registered trademarks of Infrasoft Limited. Infrasoft Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bentley Systems, Incorporated. All other trademarks or product names are the property of their respective owners.