Understood, thank you. I will rock it in Bootcamp then. - or just demo it on my instructor workstation.

re: how it is going so far and a little bit more about the strategy:

The "computer" courses I teach are CAD/CAM for Metals/Jewelry Design and Digital Fabrication (which is kind of a CAD course for sculpture and non-jewelry 3D majors at the college that I developed). And I have always had a desire, and I think there is a need, to have them function as "intro to computer" courses or more to the point "intro to using the computer as a creative platform" courses for all of these students. Some of them need this, badly, and of course some don't.

Anyway, I used to start with Illustrator, teachining essentially drawing, (where we would deal with output such as photo-etching, laser cutting, waterjet, wire EDM etc through DWG exports) then move into 2.5D with ArtCam (and deal with CNC maching output), and then spend a little less that half the class in Rhino (and 3D printing of various sorts). Which is a little much of course, but I only have a semester in which to concentrate on these things.

So, instead of trying scale back what we are doing, I have decided this semester to do add more software, but have them switch back and forth all semester long. We are going to concentrate on Curves and Drawing, then Surfaces and Basic Modeling, then Solids and Advanced Modeling. And we are going to switch between pieces of software multiple times in each area. The goal is to get them comfortable with the basic idea of drawing, for instance, in vectors/curves on a computer; so they will practice how this is enabled in different packages. I am hoping this variety makes them more flexible/quicker learners if they decide (or need or want) to switch software packages for any reason.

So we started the week with the history of hardware and software concepts in computing, as well as some reading on the history of CAD etc. And then they started drawing in MOI. Next week they will draw, similar things and then more advanced things, in Sketchup, Illustrator, and Rhino - at least. The next week, while they are drawing an "original" sample in the software of their choice, I will show and talk about the output techniques. And we will repeat that with more difficult modelling concepts until they begin their final 3D work, again in the software(s) of their choice. And I am hoping/encouraging that they will be moving projects from one piece of software to another, using each for their skill in it or it's particular toolset which matches their idea.

They seemed to really like using MOI. I had far far fewer questions about "where is the trim command?" etc. I do wish that we had tablets at every workstation, but we do have enough in the library across the hall that I will have them check-out soon, and we have one Cintiq monitor that 1 student at a time can take advantage of. I think a few of them who already started learning Rhino on their own miss the command line, but most of them sure don't. Anyway, I will try to get them to write some posts here later in the semester to give their overall impressions - but I think they like it. It's actually easier to draw in than Illustrator - which is saying something. PS - are their bezier handles? Anyway more on how it's going later.

The software we will/will try to teach, learn, and use this semester include:
Rhino
SharpConstruct (I want to teach Zbrush, but there just isn't the budget for it, so opensource is nice)
SketchUp
MOI
ArtCam
Illustrator
And of course a touch of Photoshop to tweak the Flamingo Renderings

We'll see...

_PHIL
jewelry.kcad.edu