Look Out, Autodesk!Adobe Step Further into CAD

Adobe got all us editors writing about Acrobat 3D last week, but curiously enough ignored telling us about their dipping-a-second-toe-into-CAD software program. The information is vague, but it appears that Photoshop CS3 Extended supports the photoshopping of CAD files.

Here is some of the vaguely worded feature list:

* Render and incorporate 3D images into your 2D composites.
* Probe your images with measurement, analysis, and visualization tools.
* Film and video specialists can perform 3-D model visualization and texture editing, paint and clone over multiple video frames.
* Ideal for manufacturing professionals, architects and engineers (AEC professionals), and others.

After reading a variety of sources, it appears that the Extended edition reads files specific to verticals, such as CAD, medicine, and so on. This press release provides few details. (Warning: includes comments of a sickly-sweet self-patting-on-the-back nature: "We never imagined that Photoshop would someday help make major motion pictures, let alone save lives.")

The software was formally announced yesterday, will be formally introduced later this month, and will be formally shipped "in the Spring."

This vagueness is not surprising, given that Adobe doesn't have a definitive list of CAD formats read by Acrobat 3D 8. When I interviewed Adobe a couple of weeks back, I asked if the CAD-reading abilities of their TTF acquisition would make its way into other Adobe software. "I am being kicked under the table," was the response, which I took at the time to mean, "Yes."

So what's the angst for Autodesk? The Extended edition of PhotoShop appears to take aim at:

* Autodesk's Impression post-CAD software (still in beta).
* Autodesk's plans to move its Alias software into the CAD world (still just a gleam in Buzz Kross' eye).
* And, I assume, Autodesk's vision of incorporating CAD into Maya video presentations (still just a data point in my imagination).

Comments

[Nobody]

I've seen it. 3ds files, obj's, udf's all imported and displayed on a 3D layer in Photoshop. Basically allows you to spin the models and then lock them down as pixels. Didn't have any textured sample files with me, but the version I saw showed solid, hidden line, and other rendering types pretty well. I instantly thought this was a tech pubs must have upgrade, but it actually has a lot of potential and will no doubt be shaking up the CAD companies.

[Wiley E. Surveyor]

Uh Oh