Techno Babble

Another marketing campaign -

http://www.solidworkspilot.com/

- design a paper plane and see how far it will fly.

“If you’re not an Origami master use SolidWorks to design your products”

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/programs/torimoto/index.htm

An alternative title is “how to make a mouse work in mid-air”

If you always wanted to make one of these, here are the instructions:

This weeks video picks:

Microsoft Research – Play Anywhere, a portable combined projection and sensing device that enables interactions on everyday surfaces.

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Touchlight is an imaging touch screen and display for gesture-based interaction.

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For all followers of the trend for multi-touch systems you must read the article Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved which provides extensive coverage of available multi-touch technology and some of the associated history.

Dojo is an Open Source DHTML toolkit written in JavaScript.

3 Sections of code are required for using dojo:

1. Flags

   <script type="text/javascript">
   
   	djConfig = { isDebug: false };
   
   </script>

   The flags control various options of dojo; often developers will set isDebug to true in order to get debugging output on their page. (There are also some other flags related to debugging; see the Debugging section of the code for details.)

2. Include the dojo bootstrap

   <script type="text/javascript" src="/path/to/dojo/dojo.js" mce_src="/path/to/dojo/dojo.js"></script>

   This includes the bootstrap section of dojo, and if you are using a release build, then dojo.js will also include code for some of the dojo modules.

3. Define what resources you are using

   <script type="text/javascript">
   
     dojo.require("dojo.event.*");
   
     dojo.require("dojo.io.*");
   
     dojo.require("dojo.widget.*");
   
   </script>

   This section is much like java’s “import” statement. You specify every resources that you are using in your code. However, note that widgets are a special case and don’t need to be declared explicitly, assuming that (as is the case with the built-in dojo widgets), a manifest file defines which widget is in which resource file.

Full documentation is available at http://dojotoolkit.org/documentation/ and there is also an API Reference Tool available

How can you draw in a browser ?

There are 2 main contenders with the W3C promoting the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format and the Canvas API (format) driven by Apple, Mozilla and others.

dojo.gfx is provided as part of the dojo Toolkit and aims to provide support for drawing vector graphics across all browsers, using an easy to understand Javascript API.

A useful article describing the technology is available HERE

However, a couple of the strong contenders for future “web” applications include

• SilverLight (http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/) (formerly known as wpf/e) from Microsoft. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web.
• Apollo (http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo) from Adobe. Apollo is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIA’s.

Note: both these latter toolkits require addtional plugins to the browser before the “rich” web pages can be viewed correctly, although with Silverlight the necessary support will come as part of Windows Vista and for Apollo the additional support is provided by the “flash” plugin which has general acceptance everywhere.

I recently obtained a preview copy of Acrobat 3D which is currently (Apr 2) available from Adobe Labs

( http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/acrobat3d_version8/ ).

Adobe® Acrobat® 3D Version 8 software empowers CAD, CAM, and CAE application users to rapidly convert virtually any CAD file into highly compressed, more secure, ubiquitous PDF files that can be used by customers, suppliers, and co-workers to quickly and easily review and mark up 3D designs with free Adobe Reader® software. The same PDF can also be leveraged by manufacturers for downstream CAD, CAM or CAE based processes without having to buy expensive CAD translators

Incorporating technology acquired from TTF (Trade and Technologies France), Acrobat® 3D Version 8 can import data from a number of CAD systems and export the 3D content to PRC, an intelligent, high-compression format that can preserve precise data and a high-level of accuracy.

Supported 3D Formats

Other programs that came along with Acrobat 3D v8 include:

Acrobat 8 Distiller
Acrobat 3D Version 8 Toolkit
Acrobat LiveCycle Designer 8.0

Acrobat 3D, Sample Web Page

All in all a powerful collection of utilities that provide a user with all they need to create documentation associated with their design process.