We have a great contest for you this month. We’re doing this contest together with AutoDesSys the makers of Bonzai3D. The contest will run from August 4th until September 4th. The theme for the contest is “make your dream home or anything in it.” So this is a contest for architects and aspiring product designers. What kind of dream items would be in your dream home? What would your dream home look like?
We really upped the ante in prizes also this time. Together with AutoDesSys we’re giving away:
$300 in 3D printing and Form.Z RenderZone Plus(Prize valued at $1800) for the first placed winner.
$200 in 3D printing and Bonzai3D($700) for the second placed winner.
$100 in 3D printing and a Bonzai T-shirt(priceless!) for the third placed winner.
You can enter by using Bonzai 3D to make your model. You can download the free trial version of it here. The tag you add to your model is: b3d. The competing models will be added to this gallery page. AutoDesSys management will together with Shapeways decide which model is the best “dream home” or dream item for in a dream home.
Have fun guys!
Just a double check – it is a pre-requisite to the competition (requirement) to use Bonzai3D?
Yep, AutoDesSys really wants you guys to try it out. And we’d like to hear your feedback on it too.
Well the download was very unimpressive, they could have at least put an installer for it rather than telling users to unzip to “Program Files”. Maybe you can send them that suggestion.
Usability wise, its not bad but seems like a streamlined/buffed up Google Sketchup to me with some built in parts for quick house layouts. Might give it a try to see if I can model up a little house.
Well at least you got a stab at it. Any way you could put the fills on a share site for me.
I agree. In these times where any little software has it’s own installer, the drag and drop method is awkward, especially for a software in that price range…
John & Felix,
Many software manufacturers are actually moving away from installers, because virus detection can corrupt the actions of the installer, resulting in an application that does not run properly.
(We considered making an installer as we have done for our applications in the past, but decided to simply allow the user to copy the full installation instead for this reason.)
Best Regards,
support@bonzai3d.com
The download keeps failing, and the support button they sent me with the trial goes to a pay for support site.
Michael,
I will check!
Thanks, I went to the site and found their support email. They suggested using DAP. Still no dice.
Michael,
After further investigation, we have found that certain hardware firewall solutions are blocking our ZIP download. As such we have updated our download link to provide a self extracting (exe) archive that should not be blocked by these firewalls. Please give this a try and let us know if you have any trouble with it.
(There was also typo in the initial email for the support link that took you to an incorrect location. The address should be: support@bonzai3d.com . Thanks for bringing this to our attention, it has been corrected.)
Any size restrictions?
Any cost restrictions?
Nope, this time there are no size or cost restrictions. Dream homes and dream things for in dream homes should not have a budget.
Joris
Dear 3d Printing Community!
We here at bonzai3d support are currently working with our ISP to get download problems addressed. The download does work for most machines, there appear to be a few machine configurations that experience server errors.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We will post back here when we can say for sure that we have the problem worked out.
We are looking forward to seeing the contest entires!
bonzai3d support team
After further investigation, we have found that certain hardware firewall solutions may be blocking our Windows ZIP download. As such we have updated our download link to provide an additional self extracting (exe) archive link that should not be blocked by these firewalls.
Please give this a try and let us know if you have any trouble with it.
support@bonzai3d.com
I have both a Mac and a Windows machine, and I downloaded bonzai trial on both platforms. The software is pretty cool. I suppose models have to be solid and all that? I think I’ll go look at the tutorial videos. ;>).
StrikeThree,
Glad you are liking bonzai3d!
As you guessed, you do need to make your models solid. (Shapeways also does not like faces or edges of separate objects that touch each other perfectly. If you need such a case, you should either put a very small separation, or Union the two objects into a single object. Otherwise you will get a non-manifold error from Shapeways diagnostics…)
We have an instructional / demo video available for formZ that generally applies to bonzai3d as well, and you can see this video from the link below if you like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG1Gp6Ag9Gg
(If you want, you can also see more formZ videos here: http://www.formz.com/downloads/video/video.php )
The program looks very cool, but I find the demo extremely unstable–it crashes constantly. Is this uniquely my experience, or is this a general problem with the software?
Maybe you should e-mail support? mine works fine, i’m using the Mac version. I’ve made a house pretty quick. I drew the outside line, and extruded this as a wall that already had thickness. I clicked the roof tool and then on the top of the walls and it made a roof!
I am putting in windows and doors now.
Terra Cotta,
Sorry to hear that you are having trouble. Problems like you report are not normal, but we have found that outdated video drivers can cause some problems, so we would definitely recommend updating your video driver.
Most video card manufacturers recommend downloading the latest driver from their web site. (Certain laptop manufacturers such as Dell do recommend downloading drivers for laptops directly from their site.) Once the latest driver is downloaded, you should go to Add / Remove Programs and uninstall the existing driver, reboot, disable virus detection, and then install the current driver.
If you continue to have any problems, we have also seen a few rare cases where certain Windows Theme settings were not handled properly. Right click on your desktop, select Properties, and from the Theme Tab, Save your current Theme. Then (temporarily) change it to any Windows Standard Theme. If this solves the problem, please email your theme to support@bonzai3d.com so we can investigate this further.
If neither of these is the cause of the problem, please email support@bonzai3d.com and let us know what you are doing when these problems occur — especially if you are able to reproduce the problem when you repeat your steps.
Does updating your video driver, or changing your Theme fix your problems?
Best Regards,
support@bonzai3d.com
My opinion after some modelling with Bonzai3D:
Modelling on this software could be a nice experience if the 30 days demo was not so unstable and subject to various crashes 🙁 (at least on my winXP laptop. On the other hand, it runs parametric 3D CAD software without problems).
For instance, Bonzai3D crashes if I try to modify a material property. The undo file crashes frequently, too. I noticed several other random (IMHO) crashes. I sincerely hope the Mac version is more stable !
About the contest: Do the house needs to have interiors with furniture (chairs,…) to look more alive 🙂 ? I guess the windows glasses should be removed from the stl model in order to show the interior 😉 ?
Felix,
You can make the house however you want. Open would help if you wanted to concentrate on the interior. However if the architecture of the house itself is your goal then it is not necessary.
Joris
Felix,
Sorry to hear that you are having trouble. Problems like you report are not normal, but we have found that outdated video drivers can cause some problems, so we would definitely recommend updating your video driver.
Most video card manufacturers recommend downloading the latest driver from their web site. (Certain laptop manufacturers such as Dell do recommend downloading drivers for laptops directly from their site.) Once the latest driver is downloaded, you should go to Add / Remove Programs and uninstall the existing driver, reboot, disable virus detection, and then install the current driver.
If you continue to have any problems, we have also seen a few rare cases where certain Windows Theme settings were not handled properly. Right click on your desktop, select Properties, and from the Theme Tab, Save your current Theme. Then (temporarily) change it to any Windows Standard Theme. If this solves the problem, please email your theme to support@bonzai3d.com so we can investigate this further.
If neither of these is the cause of the problem, please email support@bonzai3d.com and let us know what you are doing when these problems occur — especially if you are able to reproduce the problem when you repeat your steps.
Does updating your video driver, or changing your Theme fix your problems?
Best Regards,
support@bonzai3d.com
I updated the video card driver and Bonzai 3D seems to work just fine with no crash 🙂 ! Thank you for the advice ! 🙂
Great! Glad to hear it!
Ladies & Gentlemen,
After further investigation, we have found that certain hardware firewall solutions may be blocking our Windows ZIP download. As such we have updated our download link to provide an additional self extracting (exe) archive link that should not be blocked by these firewalls.
Please give this a try and let us know if you have any trouble with it.
support@bonzai3d.com
Hello,
any linux version planed?
thx
Cyrille,
A Linux version is currently under review, but currently bonzai3d works on Windows XP and Vista, or OS X 10.5.
thanks for the answer.
i don’t have any of this OS, so i’ll have to wait.
Ehm…the “added to this gallery page” link above leads to a gallery of H.O. railroad models?
http://www.shapeways.com/themes/bonzai3d
Any news about this contest ?
The current contest has reminded me that results for this contest have not yet been published. Any update?
Sincerely,
Jeff Coleman
Terra Cotta Personal Fabricators
Regretfully, this contest did not complete due to a miscommunication that led to entries with different software than its original intent.
The good news is that we have just updated bonzai3d once again and version 2.2 is better than ever. You can check it out here:
http://www.bonzai3d.com/products/bonzai3d.html
Click on Videos to see it in action — or click on Trial version to download a fully function 30 day copy!