T-Splines replacement?

I’m with Cadjunkie on this one. I am 100% absolutely certain that Autodesk will come in with the fee hammer when (if?) it gains sufficient traction in industry. They could kill Inventor off with it even.
They will 100% be asking for over £1k a year for Fusion 360 one day, but that is impossible given their current market share. Enjoy it while it’s free and cheap - it won’t be forever.
As far as I am aware a lot of people plan to stick with Rhino 5 and whatever the last tsplines version will be.

Alternatively look at buying a Power Surfacing license for SolidWorks for about $1,000.

I’ve no doubt they will increase the price in a few years time, right now they are promoting it. The thing is, it works so well. You can actually delete surfaces on a CAD mesh and it can figure out if you wish to delete an excess over extrusion or decrease the complexity of an existing surface. In Solidworks you can’t that, you have to extrude up to surface and hope it works and if a created surface has deformities in it you wish to remove it’s usually quicker to start from scratch. Plus, in Solidworks if you make one adjustment you usually have to go back about a dozen steps to fixed other changes, usually minor things like relations in the sketch.

How do you find Power Surfacing? I feel Fusion is in post Beta and they are using feedback from users to figure out how to make it a better program.

I don’t know if Autodesk is going to come in with the fee hammer. Their management seems to want to bridge the maker-corporate client divide. I read that the CEO is really into sculpture and carpentry and wants to support hobbiests. It kinda fits with the Innovator’s Dilemma too. 3D is bound to become cheaper and cheaper so the 3D software companies need to get ahead of this by adopting a low cost strategy.

Lastly, I’m pretty sure students will be the first to adopt Fusion. In five years, when there are 100,000 Fusion experts on the market with no SW or Rhino experience, companies will start buying a couple of seats.

People will always want to make money where they can, with that said, the whole world (not just software) has been transitioning to the subscription model over the past decade. In general, that means much lower costs in the long run, especially when you factor what it used to cost for a permanent seat of something, followed by bi-annual upgrades. I remember the old days of “Oh you saved that in CS3? Could you save a CS2 file for me?”

Yea, Fusion taking over, that’s not going to happen for a whole host of reasons. All autodesk products for students have been free, so by that notion Alias or Inventor should be #1 all over the world and that’s just not the case. Though within the Auto Industry Alias really is one of the heavier hitters, it’s not the only one. Also if the level of functionality keep rising it will supplant Inventor which has it’s only middle of the ground engineering market share and they definitely aren’t going to give up the small amount charged for Fusion 360 SAAS over what Inventor cost (which is the same as Solidworks and SolidEdge). Fusion doesn’t have Grasshopper, though there is Dynamo, but that is not a seamless integration.

But here is an aside for you that is from first hand experience. Student comes into a company saying I know software “X”. If you buy it for me then I will be able to do my job. The may or may not start to run up the food chain of command depending on the level of red tape, IT people, types of computers, etc etc etc. This same company also has a certain way of doing things and said students has no clue about this companies current process. So the price of the requested software is potentially considered but wait…oh no, it’s not in this years budget. I’ve got more stories like this than I can even remember.

I’m not trying to tell you not to like whatever software you like there’s just this real world component to things that far out strips it. By some of the things that you’ve written I’d say this…Blender is an AMAZING piece of software, it’s free yet it is not an “industry standard” anywhere. Why? It can most certainly run circles around Sketch Up, or in some cases compete with the likes of Maya, C4d, 3D Max. You have to ask yourself why a software that is free and opensource hasn’t become #1?

My group at work has been attempting to make a concerted effort to at least learn some Fusion 360. For all the disdain that people could level at Autodesk, I get the sense that they are trying hard - meaning, resources, people, programmers, money - to make a SolidWorks killer. I heard something like 1/4 of the people at Autodesk are working on Fusion, that’s how big of a deal it is.
The subscription model, well it keeps things relatively inexpensive, and lowers barriers to entry which can later be raised. We’ve had some issues with the online portion not working, and you can’t get your models. That’s a broken experience. Autodesk runs on AWS so I imagine last week’s outage could have affected many designers, engineers, and architects using their cloud-based products.
Modeling-wise I think it would solve the OP’s tasks quite well, once you learn enough about how to use it. The interface is really nice and it seems robust and stable.
I’m just so so sick of using SolidWorks for industrial design surfacing, that any viable new program that can do organic surfaces better/quicker and can talk to the engineers will get a look. We use Rhino for some things too, but again I’m more impressed by Fusion as a “fresh start” or way things will be in ten years.

Well, I don’t know what to say here. I want to believe this is the case but it really hasn’t happened yet, as cadjunkie explains with the Blender example above. Who knows when it will.
Even if you look at 2-D CAD there are a number of free or very cheap alternatives which are equivalent to AutoCAD, yet AutoCAD is still industry standard. Gimp and Krita are as good as Photoshop and yet Photoshop is industry standard, Inkscape vs Illustrator, etc, etc.
Fusion 360 will probably hurt Rhino for organic modellers than it will effect major CAD for a good few years yet.

I’ve pointed this out in other places but I keep telling people that pound for pound you can look at multiple platforms Fusion, Key Shot, Rhino, or Solidworks, nPower Surfacing, Keyshot but Modo by itself is just a better solution if organic modeling is what you’re wanting to achieve.

Having “dynamics” as part of the mix of design bring something to the table that most ppl are thinking about. Imagine having to fill a gumball machine so that it looks like it is naturally filled with…yea gum balls. You’d have to “model” that is Fusion, SW, Rhino…etc. Or got a soft fabric WHY…please tell me WHY model it rather than let the physics engine create it. And this isn’t limited to Modo only it’s a different way of thinking with the software. Using Dynamics as part of the process is really an evolution in the industrial design side of software. Sure in SW, Pro/E, NX, and IV and the likes you get assemblies and you can test for moving parts but that’s not the sames as physical dynamics as part of the process.

It’s bound to get cheaper, because it already has. When I was in uni (2000), it was right at the end of the time you needed to buy a Silicon Graphics terminal to run Alias ($30k+). Now, you can get Alias Design for $3k / year.

As for students and software, it does happen that they are a catalyst for change. There is a transportation company that was using only Rhino, but one of their new hires from CCS showed them Alias on his laptop a few times. They were impressed and I believe they bought a license to try it out.

Closer to home, my first job was using an old license of Inventor. We switched to SolidWorks within 6 months of me starting!

Creo has Sub’D in it’s base package (comes stock) and SW is working on a Catia Kernel (not sure if they gave up yet) that will run a Sub’D utility. Catia and UG already have that as a module that costs 10k +

SolidWorks SubD with Catia kernel launched a long time ago, called SolidWorks Industrial Designer.
Don’t know how well uptake is… hope it fails because I am still disappointed they refuse to put SubD in SolidWorks.

Hi Adam,
We use the usual Solidworks, Rhino, Keyshot combo here. I am very interested in trying Modo, but ultimately I need to send data to engineering, or to overseas factories for tooling.
Can you export the SubD parts as real data (for lack of a better word) or can you only export meshes? I haven’t really been able to get a good answer, or maybe the answer has changed with newer releases?
It does look like an amazing piece of software.
If you can export solids that Solidworks/ProE can work with then that makes Modo something to really consider

Yes SW-ID failed the day it launched for a whole host of reasons. If you haven’t taken a look at nPower Surfacing as an alternative then you might was to kick the tires on it.

  • Pro = it is a Gold partner meaning that it is inside of SW like all other tools and has some really decent tools. It’s at least on Par with what you get in F360 and if you get nPower Surfacing RE then you get by far one of the better tools for dealing with mesh data in SW than what SW-HQ provides.

  • Con = Price point. They are charging WAY too much for this plug in. If they were ever looking for winder adoption of this tool then they are going to need to come down by more than 1/2 on the two versions of their software.

Hi Adam,
We use the usual Solidworks, Rhino, Keyshot combo here. I am very interested in trying Modo, but ultimately I need to send data to engineering, or to overseas factories for tooling.
Can you export the SubD parts as real data (for lack of a better word) or can you only export meshes? I haven’t really been able to get a good answer, or maybe the answer has changed with newer releases?
It does look like an amazing piece of software.
If you can export solids that Solidworks/ProE can work with then that makes Modo something to really consider[/quote]

I’m not Adam…but it is a complement…:slight_smile:

Yes you can go from Modo 100% to manufacturing… there’s a plug-in called Power Translators which gives you the option to output as a STEP, SAT, Rhino, and IGES. Now just to be clear it’s not just a simple file—>export not because it won’t work but more so you have to understand that there are big differences between a SubD models and CAD model. Here are some screen shots that show the model in Modo and opened in Rhino and SW… there are some flaws here and there but for the most part it’s all good.

If you are really looking for a two way street between Modo and the CAD world then there is also the Power SubD-Nurbs plug-in as well. This helps convert CAD models into SubD models. Now this also isn’t 100% but it’s “ok” solution. Much of this comes down to what kind of workflow you intend to use. (i.e For adding details to a model or to bring a model in and render and/or animate.



Yeah, I know of Power Surfacing but I still think that they need to at least pay nPower and put this in as standard. Otherwise they are lagging behind the competition massively now.
Fusion 360, Inventor, Creo all have sub-D. Not sure about SolidEdge.

Now I work in education Power Surfacing is not an option for us. We are giving serious consideration to switching to Fusion 360, and I have already seen numerous UK universities making this switch. Dassault cannot continue with their arrogance or it is going to bite them in the ass in a few years time when everyone is teaching F360 in college and university.

@MK19: Honestly I would really say that Modo is in many ways a better bet to go in. The SubD modeling blows away the others hands down. Add in Mesh Fusion, dynamics, and renderings into the mix and you have a much more comprehensive solution.

It’s just the whole learning yet another piece of software, remembering another UI and shortcuts that really puts me off.

Physical dynamics can be simulated in Rhino using Grasshopper and kangaroo that are free plugins for Rhino.

The thing here is that the industry will adopt the software that companies can afford and that satisfy it’s specific needs, we can’t say if some software it’s better than te other in a single phrase without explaining the use case for each one, NURBS software’s are more commonly use for production and manufacturing pieces where you need more control on dimensions, in that case modo would fart short on tools like surface analysis and unfolding surfaces, 2D parts Drawings and such. which are a essential part of the industrial design modeling.

I also recently notice that Autodesk discontinued the t-spline plugin for rhino, it did the same thing with the amazing VSR Shape modeling Plugin, it bought the company, implemented the tools in Autodesk alias and got rid of the rhino plugin, t-splines it’s now part of Fusion 360 and Alias Design,

Right now i think that your best option it’s Rhino 3D for what you said you need to design, Rhino it’s adopted by many ID firms, and you could complement it with Clayoo (an alternative sub-d modeling plugin for Rhino still with support and constant improvements), with Rhino you can also create drawings of your models for the production point of view. McNeel it’s about to release Rhino 6 with great new features and fixed some geometric controls to better adapt the software to the industry standards, Cycles will be the default render engine of Rhino 6 version and also there’s a new Vray plugin version for Rhino that it’s amazing (vray it’s one of the biggest standards in realistic rendering). plus you have Grasshopper for a very unique innovative way of 3D modeling you couldn’t do in any other place.

I haven’t personally tried Fusion 360, jet, but I think has lot of potencial, it seems very versatile like Rhino but with the experience of Autodesk to create profesional tools and Geometric precision, it seems Autodesk it’s gathering the best of its software’s into one tool, I’ll give it a shot specifically looking for the surface modeling tools, but I’m just scared about this Autodek big monster that could change it’s licencing prices at any time.

Do you guys have heard about Clayoo for Rhino? it appears to be a great Sub-D replacement of T-Splines, there’s also a Sub-D feature on the Rhino WIP project that looks very promising, but wont be released with in the Rhino 6 version.

Physical dynamics can be simulated in Rhino using Grasshopper and kangaroo that are free plugins for Rhino.

Yes this is a decent solution when it comes to dynamics but even Blender offers a wider deep range of solutions when it comes to this aspect.

The thing here is that the industry will adopt the software that companies can afford and that satisfy it’s specific needs, we can’t say if some software it’s better than te other in a single phrase without explaining the use case for each one, NURBS software’s are more commonly use for production and manufacturing pieces where you need more control on dimensions, in that case modo would fart short on tools like surface analysis and unfolding surfaces, 2D parts Drawings and such. which are a essential part of the industrial design modeling.

Any company that only stays in one software is again short sighted. Let’s put it this way, no company would ONLY manufacture with just one output in mind (i.e just sheet metal or just injection molding). Software has to be looked at in much the same way. Not saying that every software needs to be purchased Rhino will never be Pro/E and Solidworks will never be zBrush. Modo is every bit as accurate as Solidworks but I agree that it is not a drafting tool. There are many times when a design/engineering director is behind the times and are not always keeping their eye out for the ever changing landscape that is 3D software.