User:Aaron Lamb/sandbox

'''Founded in 1964, Microspot develops Macintosh and Windows software. In addition to its established range of large format printer and plotter drivers, Microspot also develops and markets applications for 3D modeling and animation, interior design, 2D drawing and drafting, image editing, and media management. Microspot's affordable and easy-to-use applications enable business and home users to quickly achieve professional results. In august 1980 after 16 years of making various electronic gadgets Microspot Ltd. became Apple Computer dealers and started developing software for the Apple II. Thus began a 30year association with Apple which saw us developing software for CNC machining, plotter and printer drivers, 3D kitchen design, photo-editing and organizing, and continued to where they are now with MacDraft and Interiors for 2D CAD and 3D Interior design. In over 30 years they have sold thousands of products in hundreds of countries worldwide.'''

CNC Talker - 1980

CNC Talker was the company’s first software product. It enabled programs for the Computer Numerically Controlled machine tools such as the Bridgeport vertical milling machine to be transferred between the machine’s built in computer and an Apple II, it could be written and edited in the Apple. Where one off or small production runs were needed, the machine could be busy machining whilst the operator was programming the next task for the machine on the Apple. There was also a facility to plot the programmed tool path on the Apples screen or on a pen plotter for verification before risking trying the program on the real machine.

Planit - 1983

Planit was developed for a customer to do kitchen design. Back in the early eighties 3D design was near the limits of what microcomputers could do and the original Apple 3 version was rapidly moved to the Apple Lisa as soon as these 16/32 bit computers became available. Subsequently moved to the much cheaper and faster Apple Mac the program was sold around the world before development was taken in house by the original customer. With this agreement, Microspot made spin off products mac Interiors and Mac I.D. (Interior Design). These were later totally re-written using QuickDraw3D and became 3DWorld which was once demonstrated in a keynote speech at MacWorld SF, to show what Apple’s 3D technology was capable of and it was also bundled with one of Apple’s Mac computers.

MacPlot - 1984

About the same time as Planit was moved to Mac, Microspot introduced a pen plotter driver program to go with it called MacPlot. This was subsequently developed into a full driver and under contract to Apple, was bundled with MacDraw 2 (aka Claris Draw) and MacProject as well as being sold as a stand alone product to work with any raster drawing product such as MacDraft and MiniCAD which became VectorWorks. When large format raster printers became available, special versions of MacPlot were produced for them, driving electrostatic, laser, thermal transfer, dye sublimation and ink jet printers. The name was changed to Graphic Pack and Ultra Graphic Pack.

MacPalette - 1986

Microspot also made one small format driver called MacPalette. When Apple introduced the ImageWriter 2 they only had a black and white driver for it despite it being color capable. Microspot saw this as a golden opportunity, albeit a short lived one as Apple would surely soon bring out their own color driver. Using the source code od Microspot’s other products, a driver was produced in only two weeks and was so successful that Apple never produced their own color driver.

Interiors - 1990

From 1990 to present, Microspot Interiors is still a current product in the Microspot inventory. Developed from the early 3D World and MacInteriors, it has become an impressive tool for designing your interiors, rendering and creating movies. Interiors was improved and redeveloped and new features were added to create a professional version. These included 3D modeling tools and also the user could create near photo-realistic renders of 3D models and Interiors.

PhotoFix - 1995

Microspot were distributors of a French company called LePixel which made photo editing software called Grey Station and Color Station. Microspot bought the products outright, renamed them PhotoFix and they became very successful being bundled with many cameras and scanners, often under the name PhotoStudio for Mac in a partnership with a Windows developer who bundled their Windows software with the same cameras.

MacDraft - 1996

In 1996 Microspot bought MacDraft from the authors IDD, who had virtually stopped development and started a program of improvements for it. A cut down version called MacDraft P.E. (Personal Edition) was also launched. Microspot recently released version 6.0 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the product.

DWG Viewer - 2004

Microspot DWG Viewer is a product based on Microspot MacDraft Professional which enables AutoCAD files produced on a PC to be opened and viewed on Apple Macintosh Computers. You can open files directly on your machine without size restriction.

MACDRAFT



In 1985 a company called IDD succeeded in the development of the first version of MacDraft. They continued to develop the software until the early 90’s when Microspot stepped in and purchased the entire product from them and soon began developing it into what you see today. Over the years the MacDraft range has developed and grown in many ways, offering huge improvements with each version release and precise and consistent support and services. After years of improvements and increased market awareness, in 2002 Microspot decided to release a Personal Edition of MacDraft offering customers a more cost effective and cut down version of the full product. Soon after the development and successful release of the Personal Edition of MacDraft, Microspot endeavored to create a DWG Viewer to enable the viewing of AutoCAD DWG files from the PC on the MAC, bridging the gap between Windows and OSX. So the MacDraft family was born with MacDraft Professional, MacDraft Personal Edition and DWG Viewer, all still going strong today.

1985 - version 1.0

The first of the major releases for MacDraft. IDD being the developer of this software, started to work on what was going to be a highly successful and widely used product in the design industry. Nobody could have known at that stage how popular MacDraft was going to be, not only for home users but for CAD designers and professionals across the market.

1990-1996 - version 2.0-4.0

This period saw a number of releases, some bring major and others simply bring incremental. Throughout this time bug fixes and improvements were made to the software, giving the building blocks for what we have today. Towards the end of this period Microspot began showing interest in the MacDraft software after noticing it’s slowed progress and swiftly moved onto purchasing the complete product. 1996 saw the last of the IDD developed MacDraft versions, being 4.2.2 and paved the way for what was to be the Microspot MacDraft we know today.

1998 - version 4.3

After purchasing the MacDraft product from IDD, Microspot released their first version of MacDraft. This version saw a huge amount of changed, not only bug related issues but improvements and new features were added.

2000 - version 4.4

After releasing many versions between 1998 and 2000, Microspot began working on version 4.4, which was the precursor for the development of the MacDraft Personal Edition. Version 4.4 saw many new features such as keyboard shortcuts and export file commands alongside bug fixes from previous versions.

2001 - version 5.0

This version saw a huge amount of new features and improvements to MacDraft. It was also with this version that the new Microspot MacDraft Personal Edition was released, opening the CAD market to those who wanted MacDraft but did not require all of its functionality, giving the market a low cost and effective answer to the CAD design need on the Mac.

2003 - version 5.5 OSX

After many years of developing the MacDraft software on the OSX Classic operating system. Microspot released a version that was for the new OSX operating system. With this new re-write came a number of improvements and new features as the new code base gave added benefits to what was developed for the classic system. New features included Quartz graphics with transparency, ATSUI text, import picture as well as the ability to use the resize palette with pixel maps and paragraph text.

2007 - version 5.6

This version of MacDraft brought about the intel compatability and the file format change that made future releases more up to date, and bring the ability to add new features. The release was the precursor for the latest MacDraft 6.0. Without the 5.6 release 6.0 would not have been possible.

2010 - version 6.0

The latest version of MacDraft was released in the year of its 25th anniversary. The new version had huge improvements and many new features and functionality. Version 6.0 opens up the way for further developments in not only CAD design, but also illustration and document layout. This is the start of many new and improved versions of the largely successful Microspot product.

Interiors & Interiors Pro

Take 3D interior design and 3D modelling to a whole new level with Interiors Pro. Quickly and easily put together your designs. With the host of modelling tools you will have the flexibility you need to be truly creative without the computer slowing you down. By providing Interior space and modelling space in the same application with a shared furniture library Interiors Pro gives professionals the ideal environment for interior design and professional 3D modelling. Use the advanced wall drawing tools to layout the shape of your room, color or texture walls, floors and ceilings, add windows, doors and lighting, then simply drag and drop in the furniture you require, finally why not export a hi-resolution rendered image or create a walk through movie! Interiors makes it simple for even the 3D novice to quickly produce impressive results. While Interiors contains many furniture items and accessories, users will always find they need something different for that new design they are working on. That is why Interiors has support for importing both the 3DS file format and also Google Sketchup files! This gives you access to the many thousands of FREE 3D models available in this format on the internet. Of course all the Interiors furniture can be un-grouped, edited, colored or textured giving you the flexibility to match items in the real world. Interiors Professional takes interior design to a whole new level with a host of modeling tools. It contains 14 modeling tools and four modeling palettes. The tools include 6 primitive shapes, cube, sphere, cone, pyramid, cylinder and regular polygon and four more complex tools for pipes, torroids, lathed shapes and irregular polygons. The other tools include a 3D Text tool and an edit path tool which enables coils and threads to be modeled. The extra palettes include a section palette for adjusting the section of lathed objects, polygons and many more, and a construct palette for boolean operations. Once you have finished laying out your room designs in Interiors Pro the final stage will be to render the room to show shadows and lighting ready for high resolution export. For this we provide the Microspot Renderer and now for reflections we have the new RayShade renderer. Once rendered you have the option to export your room as a high resolution image i.e. jpeg, gif, tiff etc Once you have created your design masterpiece you are going to want to show it off right?! Interiors Pro lets you do just that using our Animation tools, not only do they enable you to set a path for the camera to follow through your designs but you can also animate individual objects to create some great effects. Once your animation is ready you can export it as a Quicktime movie. Just take a look at the examples in our gallery.