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From mark-up to practice management
By Lee Anne Smith

SoftPlan’s reView tool lets users look over and mark up design drawings on either PCs or handheld organizers.

SoftPlan reView
SoftPlan Systems
www.softplan.com
Windows only

SoftPlan, a CAD package geared to residential and light commercial construction, has recently released this addendum: A viewer and mark-up tool for non-SoftPlan users. Intended for on-site use and increased client and contractor communication during design, SoftPlan allows users to create reView files from SoftPlan drawings, then pass them on to the client, project team, builders, contractors, or others who need the information.

Mark-ups, comments, and sketches can be made directly to the reView file and then communicated through a PC or compatible handheld organizer to designers, who can then amend the original drawing files. When saving reView files from SoftPlan, users may allow viewers to print files to scale, include logos or photos, and add other “permissions” for various features. Designers can also create punch lists directly within reView files, making the add-on a handy portable tool for on-site management. To author reView files, users must purchase the plug-in for SoftPlan Version 12.5; to view and mark-up the files, a free viewer is available at the company’s Web site.

Users can leverage MediaPro’s asset-management features to organize large libraries of digital photos and animation files. .

MediaPro 2.5
iView
www.iview-multimedia.com
Windows and Mac

For firms in search of a digital asset-management tool, MediaPro 2.5 is a program for browsing, organizing, presenting, and cataloging large image and animation libraries. Once available only for Macs, the new Windows-compatible version has made it a more feasible option for design firms.

The software is capable of handling 130 different file formats, including JPEGs, Photoshop documents, EPS files, QuickTime videos, and others. Files may be imported into MediaPro catalogs through a simple drag-and-drop technique. Users may then add tags to each file to make them readily searchable and retrievable. Tags can include keywords, dates, project numbers, location information, and even voice and audio annotations.

Once files are imported into a MediaPro catalog, users can organize them into folders and create custom slide shows, Web galleries, movies, PDF composites, and contact sheets directly from the software. Each catalog created in MediaPro can be exported directly to CDs or other storage media for backup. Each catalog can contain up to 128,000 files. Individual files can be viewed one by one or, alternately, shown as a file list or a set of thumbnails. A “folder-watching” feature lets users know when files have been added or updated. If desired, the tool can also be used to manipulate images—digital touch-ups are possible, as are color conversions and corrections for individual files or groups of similar files.

Buildings modeled in SketchUp can be overlaid onto existing photographs.

SketchUp 4.0
@Last Software
www.sketch3d.com
Windows and Mac

SketchUp 4.0 is the latest version of this popular, reasonably priced 3D sketching tool. New features in this release include one called “Follow Me” that allows users to extrude or push a surface along a known path; “The Intersector,” which lets designers connect and intersect different 3D shapes with a single mouse click; a “Texture Tweaker,” in which photographs or textures can be overlaid and stretched along continuous 2D or 3D surfaces; and a new scripting interface for advanced users. The program also instinctively “fills” edges in order to render easy-to-manipulate geometries. And for projects where crisp line quality is not a necessity, such as initial concept drawings, there are options for softening the look of modeled objects.

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