CASE STUDY: BORM-Informatik AG
MARKET: Architecture, interior & product design
PRODUCT: 3D ACIS Modeler/HOOPS
“We are extremely pleased with the way ACIS and the HOOPS 3D Viewing Engine have integrated into our product, and love the powerful, reliable, high quality performance we receive from these products. We are confi dent in our choice of implementing these products into our software, and are happy to see that we are able to continuously deliver new and high quality features to our customers.”
–Hermann Amthor, Head of Development, Borm-Informatik AG.
COMPANY
Borm-Informatik AG is a European company that develops and distributes CAD/PPS software for the wood manufacturing and design industries. Their product PointLine is a complete and extensive CAD system that provides advanced 2D/3D design and layout functionality along with integrated rendering. Users can benefit from predefined and Intelligent Libraries in the fields of architecture, interior construction, kitchen design, lab design, exhibition stand construction, laboratory design and more.
CHALLENGE
Borm-Informatik AG’s product PointLine has been on the market since 1983. It is an established product in the CAD market with approximately 4500 licenses in Europe. Two years ago, Borm-Informatik released the 19th version of PointLine. Following this release, the management and development teams met and decided it was time for a change. They decided to rebuild PointLine using the latest technology to give their customers an even better product that would stay competitive in the market today. The challenge was how to deliver a new state-of-the-art product in the shortest amount of time without having to build their product from scratch.
SOLUTION
Borm-Informatik contemplated their options, and decided that the best plan was to work with a 3rd party modeling and viewing engine. This would give them the tools they needed to build upon, and would take out the labor and time it would take to develop these components themselves. They chose Spatial’s 3D ACIS® Modeler and Tech Soft America’s HOOPS 3D Viewing Engine (resold by Spatial). With ACIS, they wanted the advanced modeling capabilities and unique functionality that would set new standards in the field. They also used ACIS’ repository of useful functions and classes to make their product as user-friendly as possible. With HOOPS, they were able to implement a powerful and easy to integrate Graphic Engine that would give their users the ability to work in real time with shaded, textured and/or hidden line objects, instead of only wireframed models.
ADVANTAGES
Two years after the beginning of development, Borm-Informatik is pleased with their work with Spatial. By using ACIS and HOOPS, they have cut the cost of development, shortened the time for delivering new features, and provided leading edge modeling technology to their customers. They have also found that with ACIS’ fl exibility and C++ object oriented architecture it takes their developers little time and effort to upgrade to a new version when it arrives on the market. It gives them the advantage of always having the latest technology to give to their customers.
