form•Z v10 runs on macOS 10.15 and later. macOS 12 or later is recommended.
The form•Z is now built as a Universal Application making it native on both Apple Silicon and previous generation Intel Processors. This significantly improves the performance on M-series Macintosh hardware.
The Interactive rendering modes (Wire Frame, Shaded Work) have been rewritten to use Apple’s Metal rendering API. These offer similar features as the previous OpenGL-based versions, but perform significantly better, especially on “M-series” processors.
form•Z now supports macOS Dark Mode. The form•Z dark mode implementation presents a neutral gray interface, reducing eye strain and aiding critical color decisions.
form•Z v10 runs on Windows 10 or Windows 11. The user interface on Windows has been improved with better quality icon display and support High-resolution displays.
In Pro and Core.
• form•Z uses ACIS 2023 which provides several performance fixes and improved internal smooth modeling features.
• Python scripting has been updated to support Python 3.
In Pro and Core.
• New H264 and MPG-4 animation export (in all animation exports)
• Updated STEP translator
• Updated SAT translator
• Updated DWG/DXF translators
• Updated SKP translator with 2023 support
• Updated 3DM OpenNURBS translator
form•Z integrates with Twinmotion out of the box on both macOS and Windows. It’s easy to export your project to Twinmotion using the included Datasmith plugin. In form•Z 10, you can synchronize your project with Direct Link so that changes made in form•Z are immediately reflected in Twinmotion. In Pro and Core.
Use Twinmotion’s asset libraries to quickly add context and realism to your project. Drag-and-drop from the thousands of included materials and entourage objects, including Smart Assets like trees that grow, doors that automatically open, and animated pedestrians and vehicles that will follow a path you define. Set up skies, weather effects, and lighting effortlessly. The best part is that rendering is done live. High-quality images and animations have never been this fast. You can even present your project as a live walkthrough right in Twinmotion. For projects requiring more accurate lighting effects, there’s an easy-to-use path tracer rendering option.
The Assistant is an easy way to find anything in form•Z — even if you’re not sure what it’s called. The assistant is accessed by opening the Favorites Palette (spacebar by default) and then typing a key to start a search. The assistant can find tools, menu commands, layers, materials, views and more. In Pro and Core.
A new option has been added to Copy Reference Files with the project. In Pro and Core.
This command increments your project file name with a number and saves the project in its current location. (Or, to the Documents folder for unnamed projects). Use this liberally, and you will never lose a good design. In Pro and Core.
This command pastes attributes from a previously copied object (via File > Copy or CMD/CTRL-C), into any currently selected objects. When selected, the Paste Attributes Options dialog is presented which allows you to choose which attributes you want to replace in the selected objects. In Pro and Core.
This command makes it easier to organize Object’ Layers. It places all of the selected objects on a Layer (and optionally make the new Layer active). When selected, the New Layer From Selection dialog is presented for defining the layer name and options. If a Group is selected, the new Layer is created in the selected Layer Group. You can also control the visibility of the new layer and make it active. In Pro and Core.
Well-named objects clarify your design intent and aid collaboration with architects, designers and fabricators. Cleaning up those names also eliminates frustration when searching through the objects palette. This command provides a powerful suite of batch renaming methods. In Pro.
This command accelerates the process of building new materials from large collections of texture maps (image files). It can be used to speed up the process of recreating materials originally built in another renderer or to quickly ingest brand or packaging graphics provided by a client.
When provided a collection of image maps (jpg, png, tif, etc.), New Materials from Images will create a new material for each as the color, transparency, or bump map. Optionally, the command can infer from the filename how each image should be mapped to each channel. New Materials from Images offers a table-based preview indicating how the channels of each new material will be mapped, so you can be sure you’ll get your desired result before clicking ‘Create.’ In Pro.
In previous versions updating a view and scenes was cumbersome as you had to create a new view, delete the old, and rename and re-order. The list. This can now be achieved in a single step. The Views and Scenes palettes have a new options ”Update View” and ”Update Scene”. When selected, the current view or scene settings are saved into the active item in the palette (overwriting the current setting). In Pro and Core.
Effortlessly create cables, conduit runs, and upholstery piping. Select one or more input curves, set the radius — or, optionally, diameter — and click to create Pipe objects. Pipe objects are parametric. Edit the diameter after creation by way of the object’s parameter tab in Inspector. In Pro.
The Structural Shape object type introduces parametrically defined common structural materials, including rod, round tube, rectangular bar, rectangular tube, hexagonal bar, hexagonal tube, H-beam, I-beam, angle (90 degree), U-channel, T-bar, and Z-bar. As parametric objects, it’s easy to later edit the type, dimensions, or rounding of multiple Structural Shape objects at once. In Pro.
A chain, hanging under its own weight with both ends anchored, forms the characteristic curve known as the catenary. An overhead utility wire, a tram cable, and a chain connecting two posts will each assume this form.
With the Catenary tool, you can construct these curves in a natural, interactive manner. Choose a hanging or inverted curve, click anywhere in 3D space to establish the curve endpoints, then drag up and down to control the depth. There’s also an option to control the catenary by the length of the curve: the catenary will maintain the length you’ve specified as you drag the two endpoints about. The resulting Catenaries are parametric objects, so you can adjust their controls at any time after creation.
Catenaries can be used as inputs to derivative object types such as extrusions, sweeps, and NURBS surfaces. In Pro.
The Boundary Slice tool identifies all objects inside and outside of a 2D shape or a 3D volume and splits objects that lie on the boundary. The Boundary Slice tool can optionally delete all objects on the outside or inside, or sort them onto unique layers.
Boundary Slice works on virtually all object types, including lines, surfaces, and solids. It can be used in any context but excels in isolating parts of large imported files. It has a mode where it will work on the entire project without the need for pre-picking or temporarily enabling hidden layers. In Pro.
Paint Objects is an artist-friendly tool for creating convincingly natural distributions of entourage. It adopts a spray-paint metaphor to dynamically place copies of a set of objects onto any surface.
Use this tool to paint trees, plants, and stones in a landscape, pedestrians and vehicles in an urban environment, and chocolates in an advertisement— any scene requiring a natural-looking, organic distribution. In Pro.
