ShapeShop B5 has been released. What’s new and exciting in this beta? Hold on to your pants:

• COLLADA and STL mesh export. And since ShapeShop models are always water-tight, you can 3D print your mesh at ShapeWays.I would use COLLADA for ShapeWays, I haven’t had much luck with STL…
• Hollow Operator. Hollowing a solid model means removing the interior so that it uses less material to 3D print (and hence is cheaper at ShapeWays). Basically hollowing converts a solid volume into a thin shell, so you might find it useful for other modeling tasks, too. The Hollow operator is not documented yet, but you’ll find it in the menu at Shapes > Operators > Hollow Operator, or in the right-click context menu in the tree.
• Bug Fixes. If your save files were loading models with weirdly-rotated parts, that bug should now be squashed. Also, the most recent NVidia driver seems to have introduced an OpenGL bug, but it was easy to work-around. And last but not least, for those of you with Intel GMA950 cards whose strokes were not showing up when you sketched, I think I have that licked.
• Mirror Operator. That’s right - the most requested feature in the ShapeShop forums is now implemented. And because ShapeShop is volumetric and procedural, you can arbitrarily mirror basically anything, including multiple-mirroring. Naturally, I have yet to document this feature in the manual, but I have created the tutorial video. I embedded it below, but you’ll have to head over to Vimeo to see the full-resolution version (make sure you go full-screen, so that you can read the text!).

And finally, a delightful scuplture created by ShapeShop user Andusan, with ShapeShop and Modo:

What are you waiting for? Go download ShapeShop B5!

ShapeShop B4 is up. The big changes are 1) Decal texturing is back and 2) my highly experimental Layered Surface Editing tools have been enabled.

Decal Texturing has been re-enabled in this version. Any scene files you made in ShapeShop 002 that have decals in them should now load properly, and you should be able to save and load new scenes with decal textures. (At least, in theory - I did just hack this in for a demo a few weeks ago, so your mileage may vary.)

But the big news is that I have enabled the Layered Surface Editing tools that I implemented as part of my PhD research at the University of Toronto. The idea is to extend the procedural style of creating 3D volumes that ShapeShop uses to more traditional surface editing, like you would find in more conventional 3D modeling tools. But unlike those tools, when you apply a surface edit in ShapeShop, you can always go back and change it later. We call this a Surface Tree. Here is an example of what you can do with layered surface edits:

If you want to know more, check out the research paper. If you aren’t interested in the “science”, the YouTube video below has all the key info, like what sort of edits ShapeShop supports, and how to make them. I haven’t had time to update the manual yet, so this video is the only documentation you’re going to have. But the basic approach is very similar to existing ShapeShop tools - you draw something on the object, and you get options in the suggestion toolbar. Oh, and because this is a new and not-very-stable feature, I have disabled it by default. To turn on surface edits, check Suggest Surface Edits in the Shapes menu.

Please keep in mind that this stuff is extremely experimental. It will cause ShapeShop to crash and hang, frequently. Some things (like the linking between copies) will not be saved.

I have also enabled .OBJ mesh import (File->Import->Import Mesh). Be warned that this feature only works with layered edits. You won’t be able to perform regular ShapeShop blending, cutting, or remeshing on an imported mesh. You also won’t be able to create any other “base” shapes - once you’ve imported a mesh, all you can do is apply layered edits to it, and then export the new .OBJ mesh. Don’t bother trying to save the scene, it won’t load. But you will be able to play with layered edits on meshes you made with other tools. Good luck!

As always, I love hearing from artists, so don’t hesitate to let me know what you think at feedback@shapeshop3d.com. I am particularly interested in what you have to say about the layered surface editing, as well as the gestural 3D manipulation from B3, because I will be presenting them next week at the Eurographics 2008 computer graphics conference in Crete. So, feedback - please!

What are you waiting for? Download it!

When I released ShapeShop B1, I said I was going to try to keep posting monthly beta updates. Clearly, that didn’t happen. But, at long last, ShapeShop B3 is available.

This one took a while because you’re getting a major new feature - I’ve completely re-designed the 3D manipulation widgets and interface. The new system is based on gestures, which can be combined to do 3D rotation / translation / scaling (yes, scaling, at long last!), easy access to world/object coordinate systems, transformation around arbitrary pivots points (with their own frames), snapping, etc - the list goes on. To demonstrate, here is a YouTube video:

Pretty neat, huh? Well, I hope you like it, anyway. If you do like it, or even if you don’t like it, and especially if you completely love it or absolutely hate it (no! never!), please let me know your thoughts at feedback@shapeshop3d.com. If you’re interested in the “science” behind it, you can check out the paper that I will be presenting at Eurographics 2008 in Crete.

Other new stuff in B3:

• As mentioned, support for scaling. Note that scaling is limited to object-space axes of individual primitives
• Flip (again, only object axes for now)
• Bug fixes, including a major bug with file loading that
• Visual & UI enhancements

So, what are you waiting for? Head over the download area!

OK, as promised, ShapeShop B2 is available on the download page, just in time for DemoCamp16. There aren’t any major new features in this one, I just found (and fixed) some pretty major problems in the file loader. If you have saved models that weren’t loading properly before, they might load now. (And if you have saved models that used to load and don’t, well, drop me a line).

There is one change that you might notice. It seems like one of the hardest things for new ShapeShop users to understand is that if they make a stroke they don’t want to use, they have to clear it, otherwise the system is going to try to add it to the next stroke they draw. Essentially, once a stroke is drawn, the system goes into “drawing mode” until all the strokes are cleared. To try and get this message across, I’ve added some feedback - the 3D view is tinted red whenever there are any existing strokes. I tried to make the effect as subtle as possible, while also making it impossible for a new user to miss. I’ve had it turned on for a month or so, and barely notice it anymore, so….you’ll get used to it =).

Soooo…according to David Crow’s blog, I will be demo-ing ShapeShop at DemoCamp16. What is DemoCamp? I quote:

“DemoCamp is a variation of the un-conference style of event, started by the TorCamp group as an excuse to have more regular meetings where community members share what they’ve been working on, demo their products, meet others (and share a drink or 3).”

I will be showing the sketch-based modeling, decal texturing, and gestural interface aspects of ShapeShop, and if you’re lucky I’ll toss in previews of two top-secret unreleased ShapeShop features. Also, I’m going to (fingers crossed) release a new Beta on the weekend which fixes some rather nasty bugs I’ve fixed. Exciting times, ShapeShop fans (all 7 of you…)

So, if you’re in the Toronto area on the evening of Monday, December 3rd, why not come check out DemoCamp16 - free tickets are still available.

Ok, so the installer I released last week did not include the “merge modules” for the Microsoft C runtime libraries (CRT) and MFC. Normally these should already exist on your system, but since I’ve switched to Visual Studio 2005, which uses version 8.0 of the CRT, which didn’t exist when XP shipped, I have to include them. And now I have.

So, if you tried B1 last week and it wouldn’t run, please try again. And if you still get an error message, please post it in the forum so I can try to debug it. Thanks!

Ok, ShapeShop B1 (the first beta of version 003) is available on the download page. I am planning on doing beta releases on a monthly-ish cycle, although if some critical bugs pop up (and I fix them) I will publish a new version ASAP. This first beta has not been heavily tested (surprise! it’s a beta…), but it is based on the code I have been using for the last year. So hopefully nothing bad will happen for you. Any existing save files should load without problems, if they don’t, drop me an e-mail (and the zipped-up save file, if you can).

Ok, now for the good and bad news.

Good News (aka new and improved stuff):

• Support for AMD Athlon processors, and installer now works in Vista (I hope!)
• Massively improved view/camera controls (described in this post)
• More shape parameters exposed as UI widgets
• (most) UI widgets now give user some feedback
• Simplified mesh refinement tools, including adaptive subdivision (see the manual)
• Updated manual, now included in installer (this is a work-in-progress, so not everything is updated yet…)
• Simplified menus and toolbars (aka I got rid of all the research cruft)
• Delete-Everything menu item (File Menu->New Scene)
• Initial image plane support (Shapes Menu->Add Billboard. Currently cannot be saved…coming soon!)
• Titlebar actually says “ShapeShop” now…

Bad News (aka old stuff that is currently broken):

• Decal texturing
• NPR rendering
• “Surface Tubes” (if you used this, let me know and I can add it back. I just think it didn’t work very well…)

That’s it for now. You might notice that there aren’t many significant new features listed up there. That will change. There are some major new features in development, but they aren’t quite ready to be released yet. I’m going to hold back on new features until I feel like they are stable enough. In the meantime, you benefit from the UI and stability improvements.

Now head over to the download page and try it out!