With TopSolid V6 I never cared much for rendering. But with the release of TopSolid 7 all that was about to change._
Missler Software claims the graphics and rendering in TopSolid 7 is blazing fast. In fact, Redway3d who develops the R.E.D. technology used in TopSolid 7 says that their new hybrid CPU/GPU ray tracing technology delivers an acceleration factor of 10+ compared to similar rendering technologies.
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Of course speed is not all that matters, you need to be able to deliver a high quality result aswell and i think TopSolid 7 combines the two factors in a way that puts it in the top of it´s game.
Moving from TopSolid V6 to TopSolid 7 you will notice that there have been some major improvements from V6 to TS7:
- The use of multithreaded algorithms to take advantage of multi-core processors. The graphics engine is also multithread
- A new faster graphics engine that is limited by the GPU and not by the CPU as it is the case in V6. It is now more interesting to have a powerful graphic card.
- The use of graphical “handles” on the screen in many functions. These handles are shortcuts that often saves the user from using the dialog boxes.
- The partial load of assemblies: loading an assembly only loads its display.
- The display also contains some minimal geometrical information which is enough to define positioning for example. So positioning parts in an assembly will not load the geometrical (Parasolid) data. This is a saving in speed and memory.
- The fast projection mode in drafting.
- A new ray-tracer which allows to make an ultra-fast hardware-accelerated simplified rendering, or a more classical software-made realistic rendering.
- A huge library of high-quality textures.
Some improvements made in the upcoming release, TopSolid 7.5 are:
- The background computation of realistic images: the user can keep on working while the image is computing.
- The ability to set the material and/or coating of several parts from the assembly in one shot.
- The decal command: the user can easily place a decal on a shape. This could be difficult in TopSolid v6.
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Source: Missler Software, Redway3d
