Nemetschek North America, formerly Diehl Graphsoft Inc., has been a customer of SMS for a year and a half, and in that time, they have integrated SMLib into their industry-leading product VectorWorks Version 9. Richard Diehl is CEO of Nemetschek NA and is the founder of Diehl Graphsoft Inc. and served as its President and CEO since its inception in 1985. Back then, Diehl realized that engineers, architects, and other design professionals urgently needed powerful and easy to use software, and he wanted to found a company that could offer them this software at an affordable price. The result was VectorWorks and its family of applications.

Diehl was instrumental in making the business decision to use SMLib. His technical team did an extensive analysis of SMLib, Richard did the business analysis, and the decision in mid-1999 was to launch a development collaboration. "For starters, it is more flexible in a lot of ways including its source code and, from a business side, its licensing scheme. But perhaps more important is that it isn’t just suited for mechanical design. It can, in fact it has, already been used in other AEC applications (MegaCADD). This is perfect for us, because we have users in both disciplines currently with VectorWorks." Diehl feels that SMLib leads to better implementations with robust geometry algorithms.

SMS and Nemetschek NA have been working very closely in utilizing the existing capabilities as well as in extending the functionality as needed to enhance the VectorWorks product line. Close collaboration with SMS developers have enabled VectorWorks 9 developers to take advantage of the SMLib functionality, uncover and correct problems within days, and bring about solutions in a very productive working arrangement.

Descriptions of VectorWorks and its associated products can be found on their website at www.nemetschek.net/vectorworks/index.html. A gallery of applications are found at www.nemetschek.net/gallery/index.html illustrating application to commercial architecture, residential building, landscape design, theatrical lighting, mechanical engineering, and other design areas. Some fascinating case studies can be viewed at www.nemetschek.net/news/casestudies.html.

An example of the collaboration between SMS and Nemetschek NA came about as a result of the most recent update to maintenance release 3.1. VectorWorks 9 Beta users identified a urgent performance problem with legacy polygon data. Nemetschek NA provided the SMS testing team with a benchmark. Working together they identified optimizations in both the creation and Boolean operation. SMS developers were able to achieve a 5-to-1 performance improvement to satisfy the benchmark requirements within a two week time frame. Nemetschek was able to address a major issue late in the Beta cycle without having to substantially delay their release schedule.

The close working relationship with Nemetschek NA began back in 1999 with Diehl Graphsoft, and it is just another example of the world-class approach SMS takes in supporting its customer base. SMS considers itself to be part of the customer’s development team, extending it with industry-proven software and supported by established and proven industry leaders in the field of geometry kernels. Nemetschek has worked closely with the dedicated and highly capable SMLib development team, a team of experts with many years of experience in solving highly technical geometry problems. Both SMLib and VectorWorks have benefited from this collaborative approach that is both unique and highly effective. "This demonstrates the importance of having not only the SMLib source code but also of having access to the expertise of the developers of the library," says Diehl.

All the NURBS functionality of SMLib is based on the Nlib product from GeomWare. Dr. Wayne Tiller is the developer of Nlib and a co-author of The NURBS Book. He is offering a NURBS training course in May.

• Where:  The Wingate Inn, Tyler, TX (100 miles East of Dallas)



• When:  May 7-11, Mon.-Thurs.: 8:30 5:00, Fri.: 8:30 12:00



• Instructor:  Dr. Wayne Tiller, President, GeomWare, Inc.



• Fee:  $1,100 with registration on or before April 20, $1,300 thereafter



• Course Goal:



• To impart to the participant an understanding of how to take an extensive set of low level NURBS tools, such as those found in the NLib Libraries, and apply these to solve complex, high level geometric problems in a most efficient manner. This often requires a deep understanding of concepts such as knots, control points, weights, parameterization, and continuity.


• Course Goal:



• The NURBS Book, by Piegl & Tiller, will be used to teach NURBS fundamentals. In particular, Chapters 1-4 for the basic theory, and Chapters 9-10 for data fitting and advanced surface constructions. Participants will receive a free copy of The NURBS Book. Newer material from more recent research will also be covered, particularly in the areas of interpolation, approximation, and advanced surface constructions (see the list of published papers on www.geomware.com).

For more details, please contact Dr. Wayne Tiller by email at geomware@gower.net or by telephone at 903-839-5042.

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