Toronto, Ontario – April 27th 2010 -- Okino Computer Graphics, a leading provider and pioneer of data translation solutions to the DCC/Animation and professional production markets, announced today that its long standing 3D DCC/Animation/Skinning and CAD/MCAD/Architectural conversion software PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max (for 3ds Max 2011 & 3ds Max Design 2011), and PolyTrans-for-Maya (for Maya 2011), are now fully qualified and shipping to customers.

PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max and PolyTrans-for-Maya have provided the defacto conversion systems for 3ds Max and Maya, since their original software releases, that allows these programs to freely exchange 3D scene data with all key 3D software packages or file formats, such as:

Autodesk Softimage and dotXSI, ACIS SAT, Autodesk Inventor, BVH/Acclaim, CATIA v4 & v5, Cinema-4D, Collada, DirectX, DXF/DWG, DWF-3D (Revit), ESRI, FACT, FBX, HOOPS, IGES, JT, Lightwave, NGRAIN 3KO, OpenFlight, OpenGL C code, Parasolid, PDB, PLY, Pro/Engineer (using an embedded copy of PTC’s Pro/Engineer), Rhino, RIB, Solid Edge, SolidWorks, SketchUp, STEP, STL, SW3D, U3D, Wavefront OBJ, VET, VRML, XAML, X3D, XGL and others. Third party plug-ins and integrations are also available from companies/products such as Act-3D/Quest-3D, CATS/Pytha, Maxon/Cinema-4D, Realicon/VirTools-Exporter and Visual Components/3Dcreate.

Each file format has been developed over years to decades, and are full reference implementations. We are well known for providing exacting, professional-level conversions and very good, hands-on support for the software. While there are many formats listed above, and all are supported equally well, our software has been particular popular: for Pro/Engineer  (using an embedded copy of PTC Pro/E), SolidWorks and CATIA v4/v5 since 1997; as the only dedicated and bidirectional professional 3ds Max <-> Maya conversion system on the market; for guaranteed animation & skinning conversions between 3ds Max, Maya, Lightwave, Softimage, DirectX, FBX, Collada and U3D; and our long term staple conversions of: Autodesk Inventor, DirectX, IGES/Parasolid/STEP, Lightwave, OpenFlight and Softimage dotXSI. Newly popular conversion pipelines over the last few years have been: SketchUp, DWF-3D (Revit/AutoCAD), Collada, U3D and XAML-3D all of which Okino has spent several years on each converter’s development. All Okino file formats are fully documented online with hours of reading material.

PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max and PolyTrans-for-Maya are two of the most complex technologies developed and deeply integrated into 3ds Max and Maya, having been developed daily by Okino for well over 15 years under the constant use and testing from tens of thousands of the world’s best known companies, from ILM to Disney to Boeing to BMW and almost every top named company, as broken out here: http://www.okino.com/conv/users.htm. This is extremely stable and well refined conversion software.


"As something I have long wanted to do, I would like to dedicate this press release, and the 14th yearly release of our mirror twin PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max and PolyTrans-for-Maya products, to the Internet forum readers," said Robert Lansdale, CEO & founder of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. "I have been actively reading the 3ds Max and Maya forums since their beginnings, and there isn’t a week that goes by when someone doesn’t ask the questions: ‘How does one read in Pro/Engineer data’, ‘I can’t get my Maya data into 3ds Max properly – how do I do it?’, ‘Getting Maya skinned meshes into DirectX does not work – what program will do this?’ and ‘How do I get full SolidWorks assemblies into 3ds Max without owning a copy of SolidWorks?’ and many other common questions.

While few initially know of, or believe, that one program exists which does all of these conversions, we have spent 22 years developing the industry standard conversion system for both 3ds Max and Maya that does everything from bidirectional Max/Maya conversions, ideal CAD import from ProE/SolidWorks/CATIA/Inventor/etc, guaranteed animation + skinning conversions, and much more. These are statements of functionality and robustness personally made by the development team at Okino, not a marketing person, and only come about from having this software used in mission critical production pipelines for decades. That is the comforting aspect of using Okino software, knowing that the software has been made stable long ago in real production environments.”


Customer Usage Comments

"Intel Labs was faced with the difficult task of getting a very complex Softimage XSI scene into Maya quickly and accurately for rendering, including morphing, running robotic characters, textured and animated toys, and camera tracking," said Inga Vailionis, Tech Program Manager at Intel Labs. "Okino worked with us to show how their PolyTrans-for-Maya software could provide the lengthy conversion as an automatic 'one button press' process, resulting in a fully animated and textured Maya scene."

"We have been using PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max for 13 years now," said Vic Cherubini, President, EPIC Software Group, Inc. “Two days before Christmas CBI Engineering contracted us to animate an absolutely gargantuan oil refinery modeled in AutoCAD, in all its fine detail (see rendered image below). We could not open it, far less convert it and do animation without the computer crashing. We contacted Okino's Robert Lansdale, who analyzed and worked on it for 2 days, returning it to us on Christmas Eve as a fully optimized 3ds Max scene that we could manipulate in real time, and instructions on how to repeat the process ourselves! And at what cost? None, other than to upgrade to the newest software release. Needless to say Okino now has a customer for life. While their software is great, their customer service is unbelievable!” ( http://www.okino.com/customer_case_study_e.htm )

“In my more than 11 years in the 3D visualization business I have come to depend on PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max and Okino for their technical excellence and outstanding customer service,” said Bill Judge, Technical Animation Director of Applied Research Associates Inc. “When they say they 'set the standard for conversion between visualization packages' it is not an idle boast. If you are not using their products today then you are doing things the hard way!”

"I am the writer, director and visual effects supervisor for my latest 2009 CG film 'Bohemibot'," said Brendan Bellomo, VFX director Bohemibot. "PolyTrans-for-Maya has been a huge help on this latest film. There were 450 fx shots handled by 80 artists. We could not have implemented such a complex multi-animation-package workflow so easily and robustly without Okino's fantastic software. I enjoy recommending it to my colleagues. Thanks for doing such a great job developing it."

"As a technical 3D illustrator and animator I often work with different applications and found out that Okino's PolyTrans-for-Maya made it easy to exchange data between them,“ said Pieter Suur, CEO of Suur Graphics. “I often have to integrate files together in Maya from such programs as One Space Designer, AutoCAD, SolidWorks and Rhino. Okino's PolyTrans-for-Maya + CAD converters were the solution for effortless translation of all this data into Maya. Spending less time for converting the data meant that I could pay more attention to the final image."


Major Benefits  to 3ds Max and Maya Users

- The most robust, efficient and highest quality 3D production-proven converters for 3ds Max and Maya.

- The mirror twin PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max and PolyTrans-for-Maya plug-in systems form the most technically accurate and robust bi-directional conversion system between 3ds Max and Maya for well over the last decade. A staple Okino product.

- Resulting translated files are 'Render Ready' meaning that they can be loaded and rendered in the destination program with little or no changes necessary. The translation process accommodates polygonal meshes, trimmed NURBS in and out (Maya), skinning/bones/joints,  hierarchy, vertex normals/colors/texture-coordinates, material and texture mapping parameters, lights, cameras, frame-accurate camera lock-ups between 3ds Max and Maya, animation conversion and automatic 2D bitmap conversion.

- Okino pioneered the process and methods of animation cross conversions between 3ds Max, Maya, Collada, DirectX, FBX, Lightwave, Softimage, VRML2/X3D, U3D, XAML and more. Robust and well refined.

- Proper conversion of skeletons and bones between 3ds Max, Maya, Lightwave, Softimage, DirectX, FBX, Collada, U3D & other DCC formats. See http://www.okino.com/conv/skinning.htm. A core Okino competency in the DCC world.

- Over the last 22 years Okino has pioneered the concept of bringing complex CAD assemblies into 3ds Max, Maya and its predecessors. These are well refined and efficient CAD pipelines. A typical complex CAD conversion process only takes a few minutes or less, including full scene optimizations. There is no concept of spending days or weeks “trying” or “struggling” to get CAD data into these programs, a myth wrongly and purposely propagated by others.

- 2 decades of very strong CAD file support: ACIS, Autodesk Inventor, CATIA v4, CATIA v5, DXF/DWG, DWF-3D, IGES solids, JT, Parasolid, native Pro/Engineer (which uses an embedded copy of PTC Pro/E for perfect translations), Rhino, Solid Edge, Solid Works, STEP, STL, U3D, VDA-FS, VRML & X3D.

- The hidden magic in the conversion process is Okino’s unique and proprietary CAD optimization processor, integrated into each of our CAD importers. This processor is by far the most complex aspect of our entire 3D CAD conversion software pipeline. Turn it on and it’ll wrangle large and unwieldy CAD assemblies into refined datasets for efficient animation, rendering or interactive viewing.

- Most importantly, Okino does not use reverse engineered CAD modules as is done by others, but rather licenses, utilizes and/or accesses the industry standard CAD geometry engines from Autodesk (Inventor), Dassault Systemes (CATIA), PTC (Pro/E), Solid Edge, SolidWorks, Spatial (ACIS solids engine), UGS/Siemens (JT Open toolkit) and others.

- Import parts, assemblies, hierarchy and materials directly from a running copy or native file of Autodesk Inventor, Solid Edge or Solid Works into any Autodesk product. Unique!

- Strong ties to the visual simulation (VisSim) community with proven OpenFlight, VRML 1.0 +2.0 and X3D support.

- Controllable via a MEL-script interface (Maya) or MaxScript (for 3ds Max) for both importing and exporting of files.

- Dozens and dozens of options are provided via multi-pane dialog boxes inside PolyTrans-for-Maya and PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max to finely control the data conversion process.

- Automatic conversion of foreign 2d bitmap image file formats to/from those recognized by 3ds Max and Maya.

- Access to robust polygon processing tools which can take impossible-to-render datasets and turn them into renderable models (auto-weld, auto-unification, reorientation of normals, polygon reduction).

- We actively support 9 legacy + 2 current versions of : 3ds Max 8.x/9.x/2008/2009/2010/2011 and Maya 8.x/2008/2009/2010/2011. This would allow, for example, a company with Maya 8 to migrate to 3ds Max 2011.

- Okino provides free, quick and highly educated support for its software direct from the main management team and senior developers, and not from online forums or untrained front-line tech support people. Unlike faceless companies where support may be non-existent, we personally know our customers by first name, email address and company background.

Applicable WEB pages

The following are pertinent pages on the Okino WEB site relating to this press release:

PolyTrans-for-Maya home page. http://www.okino.com/conv/pt4maya.htm
PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max home page. http://www.okino.com/conv/pt4max.htm
PolyTrans-for-Softimage home page, http://www.okino.com/conv/pt4xsi.htm
Okino PolyTrans home page, http://www.okino.com/conv/conv.htm
Supported file formats, http://www.okino.com/conv/filefrmt.htm
Okino’s CAD compatibility chart, http://www.okino.com/conv/filefrmt_cad.htm
List of notable users, http://www.okino.com/conv/users.htm
Customer testimonials and product reviews, http://www.okino.com/testimon.htm
Recent Okino press releases, http://www.okino.com/press/releases.htm
Recent customer related imagery, http://www.okino.com/mainpic13.htm

 
About Okino Computer Graphics

Okino Computer Graphics can best be understood as two distinct sub-companies: one which specializes in the CAD market, CAD products and CAD users, and one which specializes in the animation/DCC/VisSim markets. We excel at providing the industry standard converters to an extensive user base for these distinct, yet often overlapping, markets. If you are new to Okino and our software then please take a moment to review http://www.okino.com/conv/users.htm which enumerates what has made our software's usage wide spread throughout the 3D industry.

With development starting January 28th 1988, Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. (Toronto, Canada) is an industry leader + pioneer in the development and deployment of 3D data re-purposing software that allows professional 3D software users to intelligently and accurately convert/view/render/modify 3D data and assets between most major CAD, DCC and VisSim software packages. Okino software is used the world over by all major Fortune 1000 companies, 21 of the top defense contractors, the top 17 automotive manufacturers, and tens of thousands of production studios, 3D content creation, game development, CAD, engineering and product design companies. For more information about Okino, please visit http://www.okino.com.

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Attention editors. This document, as well as screen snapshots and related documents for the press, can be obtained electronically by visiting http://www.okino.com/press/magpics.htm

NuGraf and PolyTrans are registered trademarks of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. Okino is a trademark of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. SolidWorks is a registered trademark of SolidWorks Corporation. 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, FBX, AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor are registered trademarks of Autodesk Inc. Lightwave is a registered trademark of Newtek Inc. CINEMA 4D is a registered trademark of MAXON Computer. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.  All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.