Interview with Eric Pinkel (Npower Software)
Hello Eric, please tell me something about your nature of job and NPower software.
 Being the product designer a NPower my #1 goal is to work with software engineering to brainstorm, define and realize the nPower family of products. I am responsible for look and feel of everything nPower, this includes, all of product branding logos, colors, type, web design etc…. I am also actively involved in assisting with customer support, advertising and marketing. In addition, I am responsible for demonstrating the product to customers at trade shows and reseller events as well as, developing all of advanced training material for our customers. NPower software is a division of Integrityware.
As you said, NPower software is a division of Integrityware. Please tell us what the difference in the business structure of these is.
Integrityware, parent software company, is focused on developing Solid++ the next generation geometry engine for advanced modeling. Solids++ customers
license the Kernel via. OEM agreement. The Solids++ Kernal is currently integrated into a wide range of tier one manufacturing and 3d software around the globe and is the core of nPower tools.
Npower Software is the name of the “End User” products division of IW. It was created to help expand the functionality of the Solids++ core by pushing the very edge of consumer based NURBS and Solid modeling through working directly with customers. Gary Crocker says, “The IntegrityWare and the nPower part of our business tend to be very complementary. The nPower customers give us tremendous volume of feedback. This feedback comes both in terms of improving functionality and adding new functionality to the end user products. To satisfy these requirements usually requires additions and or changes to the Solids++ kernel. The other extremely valuable thing that that nPower gives us is the experience of integrating the SOLIDS++ kernel with a real end user system, in this case 3DS Max and Rhino. Then when a Solids++ customer comes and asks “What’s the best way to ….” we can usually either tell him directly or give him some sample code from the nPower products.
Please tell in brief about all your products and how can they fit in our workflow and makes our life easy?
Power NURBS is an advanced surface and solids modeling plug-in for 3ds max. It is designed to replace the current Max NURBS core and provide artist and designers with the most advanced NURBS modeling tools in the market. While it is primarily intended for use by Industrial designers Power NURBS is very Max centric allowing any artist who is spending hours box modeling complex mechanical shapes a much faster construction solution.
Power Solids is a subset of Power NURBS and is the next generation of our award winning Power Booleans, now integrated into Max as Pro Booleans. Power Solids provides 3ds Max artists with powerful solids modeling capabilities found in tools like Soildworks and Inventor. Power Solids is designed to give artists easy to use procedural Booleans and filleting of complex mechanical models in a resolution independent environment free of polygon artifacts.
Power Translators are some of the most unique Max cad translators on the market. The nPower NURBS/Solid 3ds Max geometry core allows you to import Rhino IGES, STEP, SAT SolidWorks, Catia and UG files directly into 3ds Max in a native NURBS/Solid format. No more wasting hours and hours of your valuable time dealing with inaccurate pre-tessellated polygon problems. Power Translator resolution independent NURBS core gives the artist the ability to change the polygon resolution of the model on the fly plus it gives you all the tools you need to quickly orient surface patches and repair crack and seams that often plague translated NURBS models. Both the 32 and the 64 bit Power Translator NURBS cores are designed to handle the most complex CAD data on the market. Time and time again our Professional Visualization customers, artists, designers and engineers at companies from Boeing to IDEO have proven it in production.
How you feel when Power Booleans added in the 3ds max as a plug-in? How your new product Power solids different from Power Booleans?
When Autodesk phoned us and told us they we considering integrating Power Booleans we all jumped for joy. It was a major step forward for nPower and since then our relation ship with Autodesk has really blossomed. Our goal at npower has always been to provide artists with geometry solutions that fill the gap in the 3ds modeling and visualization workflow.
Power Solids is the natural evolution of Power Booleans. My favorite difference between Power Booleans and Power Solids is the ability of Power Solids to easily fillet the edge of a Boolean intersection or round any set of edges on even the most complex model. Plus, The Power Solids model is polygon independent meaning you can increase or decrease the detail of the model with the push of a button. Power Solids is not just a single feature like Pro Booleans but instead is a full modeling environment shipping with deformable solid NURBS primitives, Power Sketch NURBS curve creator, as well as an extensive creation toolset with Solids extrudes, revolutions, sweeps, lofts, helixes and more.
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