In the absence of any news on the tesla modeler,
how about teaming up with Newercenter again?
Well, just to propose something different here:
In my opinion ViaCAD is the product which already is quite close to what EIM was or Tesla should be. It's ACIS based, offers usable modeling tools, a working CAD import, an existing FACT export, and runs on Win and Mac. Files exported from ViaCAD shade fine in EIAS (once "use polygon color" is disabled). And it's available for $99, which really makes it a candidate for adding it to another application like EIAS.
It has its limitations, sure. For me the worst thing about ViaCAD is the missing ability to create hierarchically sorted groups or assemblies, which both EIM and FormZ can do (and every other CAD application out there, too). But maybe this is something that can be requested from Tim (Olson), when talking about teaming up forces…
What I'd love to see even more is bringing together what was an unbeatable team years ago. FormZ or Bonzai3D as a companion for EIAS. Again, something should be done with the current FormZ FACT export, it's quite difficult to get a good shading of objects (although it's possible). But again, maybe the "teaming up" offer could help to get things fixed.
Anyway, these are all existing products, and all include FACT support. Tools like Silo are without any use for me (personally), because I mostly work with CAD files from clients. An SDS modeler is simply the wrong tool for this, and even EIM/Tesla were or are (probably) not designed as an SDS modeler.
Bernd
