Multiframe News November 1996

One of the most impressive projects in which Multiframe has played a crucial part, has been the design and construction of the 50 story Century Tower in Sydney, Australia. Since 1989, structural design consultants, Bert Taylor and Karl Matezic have used Multiframe on a wide range of structures ranging from a small timber replica of Monet's footbridge through to formwork structures for a giant gravity oil platform. None however has provided as great a design challenge and requirement for computational power as the Century Tower project.

Section Maker was also used extensively with a complete library of custom shapes being developed to model many of the beam and slab components in the structure. The end result as shown was a complete model which could be rendered for checking and presentation purposes.

Formation Design Systems is very pleased to announce that after a lengthy development period, we are now near to releasing Multiframe for the Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems. Featuring the same totally graphical interface as Multiframe for Macintosh, Multiframe for Windows is a fully 32 bit implementation which takes maximum advantage of the Windows environment.

Prior to the official release in late 1996, we will be conducting an extensive beta test program to field test the software. Whether you are an existing user of Multiframe for Macintosh or you are new to the system, we would like to offer you the opportunity to be one of the first group of engineers to use Multiframe for Windows. Participating in the beta program gives you a very significant discount off the normal price, a free upgrade to the final version and free maintenance for 12 months after the program is completed.

Both Multiframe for Windows and the next release of Multiframe for Macintosh utilize the new QuickDraw 3D rendering system. This provides real time 3D graphics and automatic support for any 3D graphics chips which are becoming standard on many PC's.

Also, Multiframe for Windows is completely data and file compatible with Multiframe for Macintosh. This means you can move Multiframe files from one system to the other and even share the same sections library across a network comprising both Windows and Macintosh computers. For those existing users who add Windows versions of Multiframe to their Macintosh environment, this means your existing structures and sections libraries can be copied over to Windows with no changes and be used in the new system.

While performance tuning of the Windows version is continuing, we expect the calculation speed of the release version of Multiframe for Windows on a Pentium machine to be similar to a PowerPC based Macintosh of equivalent clock speed.

For more information on Multiframe for Windows and our beta test program, please contact your nearest Formation office or Multiframe distributor.

As you will know by now, our company name has changed from Graphic Magic to Formation Design Systems. Although the Graphic Magic name has served us well for the past 12 years, we felt it was time to use a name which reflects the fact that we don't do just graphics but complete design systems including analysis and construction.

Following on from our name change, we are pleased to advise that our new site on the World Wide Web is now up and running. You can find it at http://www.formsys.com

The new site contains product information, downloadable demos, downloadable sample files, all the latest technical notes, and links to other sites of interest on the Web. We will be updating the web site on a regular basis to provide you with up to the minute information on all Multiframe related matters. If there is something in particular you would like to have available on-line for immediate download, please let us know.

Power Computing, one of the first makers of Macintosh clone machines has announced what is the fastest personal computer ever, a 225 MHz PowerPC equipped Macintosh in a tower case.

This makes it faster than any other PowerPC or Pentium based machine yet shipped. This is probably the best system imaginable to run Multiframe and our other products. The sheer computational speed of this machine is quite remarkable and in the US it is selling for around US$4000.

You may have seen mention of a new product named Neoform on our company name change postcard you received recently. Neoform is Formation Design System's third product line (after Multiframe and Maxsurf) and is a new system for use by industrial designers for product design and prototyping.

Neoform is based on the same NURB surface modelling technology found in Maxsurf and also supports Apple's new QuickDraw3D rendering system. We expect Neoform to be used in conjunction with rapid prototyping systems like desktop milling machines and stereo-lithography model making systems to provide rapid evaluation of new product designs. Neoform is not a rendering or animation system but exports 3DMF data to the many such systems which now support QuickDraw 3D.

We have recently released an update to Section Maker, version 4.02. This update includes a number of enhancements including improved tapered section design and installation, calculation of shear areas and automatic detection of flange and web thicknesses.

The tapered section command now automatically calculates the digitised section shape at each point along the member and does an exact calculation of section properties at each point. This gives exact results for all properties at every location. When the tapered section is installed in the library, the digitised shape is installed at each point allowing rendering of the tapered sections in Multiframe and also allowing the individual sections to be placed in Section Maker.

With the new Shear Area option in Multiframe, the calculation of shear areas for custom sections becomes important. The new Asx and Asy values in the Properties window calculate these values. This is achieved using some new shape recognition within the software which determines whether the shape is an I beam, channel etc and determines shear areas accordingly. This technique is also now used for identifying the web and flange thicknesses for drawn shapes. This automatically sets up all of the fields in the library when the Install command is used.