Anarkik3D announced a Mac version of their popular 3D design tool, but why won’t other vendors do the same?
Anarkik3D produces an unusual 3D modeling package, Anarkik3D Design, which uses haptic feedback. It’s like having a touch interface where you can, to some extent, physically interact with the 3D model under development. Of course, you’ll need a suitable haptic device for their software to interact with.
The tool is particularly appropriate for those designing organic shapes for fashion, art or jewelry applications. It may be the closest digital analogy to hand sculpting one can obtain today. Though not for everyone, it fills an important niche in the 3D industry.
This week the company announced they’ve developed a Mac version of Anarkik3D Design, where previously they had marketed only a Windows version. They explain:
We believe this is a FIRST and HUGE because it seems from our searches that Anarkik3D Design is the first haptic 3D modelling software for MACs on the market!
We have pushed this development for a long time and it has been quite a journey. We’ve worked and collaborated with Glastonbridge Software and so pleased to celebrate this achievement with them.
That’s terrific news for Mac users, and I reflected on this development, being a Mac user myself.
While some companies market Windows, Mac and even Linux versions of their software, some simply stick with Windows versions and ignore other platforms entirely. Autodesk, for example, provides different platform versions of Fusion 360, but Solidworks operates only on Windows.
Generally there is almost always a Windows version of a software tool, but hit and miss whether it versions for other platforms exist.
Yes, Windows is a near-standard for industrial work, so one could argue that a tool like Solidworks is best used from Windows and other platforms don’t matter.
However, there are a vast number of creative types that do use the Mac platform, and many highly inventive techs using Linux, who both sometimes must search for lesser alternative tools when confronted with a Windows-only situation.
I feel that some of the creativity and ability of the non-Windows platform users is being lost due to tool constraints, and that we would all see benefits if tools were more frequently offered in multiple platforms, as Anarkik3D has done.
But for companies, supporting an “extra” platform is often considered an expense, and sometimes an unnecessary expense, thus we get stuck in single-platform situations. These companies will engage in alternate platforms if they perceive a demand.
Therefore it is important for any non-Windows users to specifically ask vendors to say when they might support alternative platforms. It’s not sufficient to simply read their FAQ that says “we are not working on a Linux version”; you have to actually ask them so they know there is truly some demand.
Via Anarkik3D
