Strata Design 3D CXi 7.5

Our Mac App Store Edition of Design 3D CX for Creative Designers

Professional level 3D design with a user-friendly interface – Design 3D CXi gives you the power to create whatever you can imagine. Design for packaging, products, exhibits, architecture and more. Create illustrations, graphic designs and animations – all with photo-real results. And connect to the rest of the world with Photoshop 3D layers, add 3D to iBooks – and even do 3D printing. Strata Design 3D CXi supplies you with most of the features found in Design 3D CX, but was tailored to meet the needs of the Mac App Store.

OverviewFeaturesSystem RequirementsReviews & AwardsCompare VersionsCase Studies

Simplified 3D Learning Curve

Strata Design 3D CXi eases the learning curve for 2D designers who are new to 3D. Quick start templates, libraries, predefined effects, backgrounds, environments and more allow designers to create complex scenes in minutes. With a user interface and tools that are familiar to today’s 2D designers, you invest your time learning 3D design concepts rather than a new design paradigm.

Model Anything in 3D or Import Existing 3D Assets

For many, the thought of 3D modeling is a daunting task. Design 3D offers an extremely friendly modeling toolset and environment for manipulating your polygons, splines, and primitives into any 3D object or scene you can imagine. If you’re working with existing 3D assets, Strata Design 3D CXi utilizes a host of filters and options to accurately import third-party 3D models and scenes.

Apply Surface Textures with Precision

In the world of 3D, texturing may just be the most important component in creating convincing final renderings. Once you have designed your 3D model, Strata Design 3D CXi gives you powerful tools to create, apply and manipulate surface textures with beautifully accurate results.

Set-Up Your Scene with Lighting, Backgrounds, Cameras

Scene composition is a critical step in producing stunning images. Design 3D CXi makes it easier to control the environment than any photography studio you could imagine. Position your 3D objects and then place lights, reflection panels, cameras, backgrounds, environments, reflection elements and more produce a superior final render or animation for your design project.

Render Photo-Real Images and Animations at Blazing Speeds

Design 3D is well known for its extraordinary rendering technology. Whether you’re after photo-realistic results or some other style for your static or motion graphics, you will find the rendering options to suit your needs and output the results using one of the fastest rendering engines in the industry. After all, it’s all about the final results and Design 3D delivers.

Learn Design 3D CXi Online at Strata 3D University

Learning 3D doesn’t have to be difficult. Especially with Strata’s online training library at your fingertips, covering every aspect of Strata Design 3D CXi and the entire 3D design workflow. Strata 3D University makes it simple to find the subject of interest and quickly get up to speed with short, informative videos created by professional 3D designers. Visit the University

Connect To The World

With a host of 2D and 3D export formats, Design 3D makes it easy to connect to the rest of the world. This includes rendering to layers in the Photoshop .psd file format, export Collada files tailor-made for Apple’s iBooks Author app, and even print to 3D with the included file formats that are accepted by popular 3D printing services.

NEW! Strata Design 3D CXi 7.5 – Get the most highly requested features to help you build, texture and output your models.

Strata Design 3D CXi 7.5 is a powerful modeling and texturing application, which includes many of the most requested features from long-time Strata Design 3D users. We’ve combined new UV texturing components that allow you to more easily visualize the exact layout and placement of your textures, with polygon manipulation features that provide a new level of control over your 3D objects, and added in some very useful import and export options to make version 7.5 more compatible with CAD programs and 3D printing services.

New Feature Videos And Wrench Tutorials

As part of the Version 7.5 launch, Chris Tyler developed a tutorial series around modeling, texturing and rendering the wrench that is used throughout the product launch materials. This series is free to everyone at the Strata 3D University and covers some of the new 7.5 features. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business. View the Tutorial Series.

Modeling and Edge Control Features and Enhancements

Strata Design 3D Version 7.5 provides a range of new features designed to give more control while polygonal modeling and to make modeling and editing easier and more intuitive. Many of the new options are also used for the new UV enhancements, such as defining seams for flattening UV textures. Driven by our most frequently requested user suggestions, we’ve bolstered Design 3D’s toolset and functionality.

UV Editing and Texturing Features and Enhancements

Least Squares Conformal Maps or Conform to Mesh LSCM helps reduce texture distortion and produce better rendering results. In Design 3D 7.5, this feature is called Conform to Mesh. When used in conjunction with the other texturing enhancements, you can literally unwrap your 3D objects onto a 2D plane and see exactly how your textures look. Even better, you can create the cutting seams that define how your object is unwrapped.

3D Print, File Import and File Export Options

Import and Export flexibility is important to every 3D designer and we’ve heard your call for the ability to import CAD models and export to the STL format for 3D printing. New import / export features in Design 3D Version 7.5 include STL Import and Export and Collada File Import Improvement.

Decimation / Polygon Reduction

Decimation is used to reduce polygon count in models, while minimizing the visual distortion on the outward appearance of the rendered image. Decimation is often used on imported models with very high polygon counts, which may cause performance issues, slow rendering, or editing difficulty. It’s also useful for lowering polygon counts for online 3D games, mobile and other applications that require low polygon counts for performance reasons.

In-Depth Feature List

Drawing Features
Strata Design 3D CX makes it easy for 2D designers to get started in 3D. You can import 2D elements from applications like Adobe Illustrator or you can draw 2D objects directly in Strata Design 3D CX.

2D/3D Text
3D Primitives
2D Drawing Tools
Bezier Lines/Regions

Modeling Features
Strata Design 3D CX offers an incredible array of modeling options. You can model using familiar Bezier splines, but now in 3D: traditional polys- but now with Quad Polysplines; MetaSurfaces to meld objects together; Extrude and Lathe; Boolean to combine or subtract: Skin; Mirror and more!

Polyspline SDS
Meld MetaSurfaces
Bezier Surfaces
Extrude
Lathe
Boolean
Skin
Polygonal Modeling
Path Extrude
Construction Objects
Shy Objects
Shape Instancing
Replicate / Duplicate
Object Manipulation
Drop a Curve
Hide Objects
Fillet
Thickness
Mirror
Hull Surface
Deformation Lattice
Grids – World, Custom & View
Smooth Mesh
Decimation (v7.5)
Segment Edge Command (v7.5)
Show Face Normals (v7.5)
Point Snap

View Features
Unlike you favorite 2D applications, Strata Design 3D CX gives you the opportunity to examine artwork from any angle. With the power of 3D perspective comes new challenges for control. Strata 3D rises to the occasion with split-able views, multiple views, depth cueing and even special views for cameras and light sources.

Familiar Interface
Split Views
Camera View
Multi-Views
Depth Cueing
Image/Movie Backdrop
Spotlight Views

Environment Features
Sometimes great design is about the “negative space” – the area that surrounds your 3D model. Strata Design 3D CX gives you many options and an easy to use interface to control your “environment”.

Ground Plane
Air Refraction
Visible Backgrounds
Reflective Backgrounds
Atmosphere
Gravity
Wind

Lighting Features
You’ve heard of “looks good in any light” – now you’ve found the tool that gives you that elusive “any light”. Strata Design 3D CX gives you point lights, spotlights, global sun-style lights, environment based lightdomes, High Dynamic Range Image lighting, glowing surfaces, gels – all unlimited and fully controllable.

Point Lights
Spot Lights
Directional Lights
Glowing Surfaces
Lightdome HDRI
Intensity
Host Object
Soft Edges
Ambient Light
Gels
Animatable Lights
Overflow Handling
Spotlight Window View
Effects Applied to Light
Direct Manipulation Interface

Special Effects Features
Any image or animation can be spiced up with special effects like Lens Flare, Auras, Particles – and the new Script FX. Add multiple effect. Place effects on any object. Even animate the effects.

Lens Flares
Particle Collision Detection
Script FX
Auras
Caustics
Fountain Effects
Global Gravity Control
Global Wind Force Control
Global Air Control
Fire & Smoke
Hair
Hotspots
Pixie Dust

Camera Features
A great camera can make even the novice photographer look good. Just think of what Strata Design 3D CX will do for you with all these imaging options at your finger tips.

Scripting
Hierarchial
Visible Paths
QTVR
Motion Blur
Depth of Field
Boom
Pan
Dolly
Arc
Pitch
Yaw
Roll
Host Object
Target Object
Focal Distance
View Angle
Panorama Camera
Spherical Camera
Cubic Camera
Shutter Speed
Stereoscopic
Live Window Updates

Rendering Features
The core of what makes Strata Design 3D CX so good – and what it’s famous for – is the high quality rendering. Rendering is the process of taking the design you worked to put together and creating the final image.

Toon
Photons
Raytracing
Raydiosity
Render to Layers
Flat Shaded
Hidden Line
Outline
Pointcloud
Smooth Shaded
Wireframe
Scanline
Transparency
Alpha Channel
Anti-Aliasing
Oversampling
Glow
Reflectivity
Blurry Transparency and Reflectivity
Instance Rendering
Anti-Matter Effect
Field Rendering
Atmospheric Effects
Shadows
MIP Mapping
Soft Shadows
Stereoscopic
Custom Environments
Specular Highlights
Suspend Rendering
Marquee Select Rendering

Animation Features
Strata Design 3D CX takes a simple approach to animation: Everything can be animated. And it takes a simple approach to controlling animation: keyframes, a timeline, and scripting. Even if you’ve never booted it up, you already know how to use it.

Scripting
Hierarchial
Visible Paths
Everything Time Variable
Animation Preview
Shatter
Explode
Jiggle
Convert to Path Event-Based
Cycle Back & Forth
Key Frames
Velocity Graphs
Life Checkbox
Align to Path
IK (Inverse Kinematics)
FK (Forward Kinematics)
TCB, Spline & Natural Paths
Proportional Event Scaling

Texturing Features
“What if” is as simple as drag-and-drop in Strata Design 3D CX. Select from the palette of hundreds of pre-made surface textures or make your own using features like live-linking to native Photoshop files – make a change in Photoshop and Strata Design 3D CX automatically updates the model surface. Older CX Version Photoshop plug ins require Adobe CS 4 or CS 5.x. Design 3D CX no longer includes Photoshop plug-ins, but maintains tight integration with Adobe Photoshop.

Native UV Mapping
Burn UV
New Conform to Mesh option; using Least Squares Conformal Maps technology (v7.5)
LSCM unwrap (Conform, Conform Connected) Unwrap entire objects, single UV island or just selected polygons (v7.5)
Pin UVs (Toggle pinned vertices on or off) (v7.5)
Fit (to UV, U or V) (v7.5)
Fit Each (to UV, U or V) (v7.5)
Rotate Connected (to Grid, U or V) (v7.5)
Move (to U, V; Center to U, V) (v7.5)
Select Perimeter (v7.5)
Select Pinned UVs (v7.5)
UV Edge Seam Assignment (v7.5)
Select UV Seam Edge (v7.5)
Scripting
Hierarchical
Visible Paths
Photoshop Linking
Displacement
Box Wrapper
Normal Maps
Mist
Image Textures
Corrosion
Starfield
Rainbow Reflection
Mock Tile
Shadow Catcher
Ripples
Solid Brick
Silk
Solid Candy
Solid Concrete
Solid Marble
Solid Moonscape
Solid Rock
Solid Stone
Solid Terrain
Solid Wood
Wildlife
Mock Plank
Surface, Solid & Volume
Layer & Mix
Fog
Haze
Clouds

File Import/Export Features
Being able to talk to other programs in your design studio is an important issue. Strata Design 3D CX offers a number of options in this area.

Collada (in/out)
Illustrator/EPS v8 (in)
Photoshop PSD (in/out)
STL (in/out version 7.5 only)
XMM (out)
Quicktime (in/out)
TGA (in/out)
TIFF (in/out)
BMP (in/out)
JPEG (in/out)
3DS (in)
DXF (in/out)
MiniCAD (in)
Amapi (in/out)
OBJ (in/out)
VRML 1 & 2 (in/out)
Flash SWF (out)
True Type Fonts (in)

Scripting Features
Strata Design 3D CX includes a Lua based scripting language. Lua is a widely used language, particularly in gaming, with companies like Blizzard (World of Warcraft), Criterion Studios (NBA Ballers, ESPN Major League Baseball), BioWare (Neverwinter Nights), UbiSoft (Far Cry), Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts), Nival Interactive (Blitzkrieg) and many more. Even new favorites, such as Adobe Lightroom, utilize Lua.

With Lua you can script shaders and textures to: access the rendering pipeline; lens scripting for the creation of custom lenses, effects and warps; Filter FX which allows you to write custom Lua scripts to apply filters based on an object’s surface normal, direction, lighting, volume, and by pixel color, depth, transparency, layer within the psd file – and much, much more. In fact, Design 3D comes with a whole series of special effect shaders created using Lua. These “Script FX” let you do things like bounce, vibrate, alter acceleration and more. Each of these Script FX provide full source so you can edit them if you like.

Additional features are implemented directly in Lua throughout Design 3D such as Match Motion and Instance Node Control. If you’re somebody who’s interested in scripting, Lua gives you the opportunity to extend Design 3D in a variety of important ways.

System Requirements

Macintosh
Minimum System Requirements

Intel Processor(s)
Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later
2GB of RAM (more highly recommended)
1.7 GB of available hard-disk space for install
1024 x 768 capable display

Windows
Minimum System Requirements

Windows 7 or Vista recommended (64-bit preferable)
Windows XP (some limitations, requires all latest service packs)
Pentium 4, Athlon, Intel or better
4GB of RAM (more highly recommended)
1.7 GB of available hard-disk space for full installation
1024 x 768 capable display

Photoshop User

“Strata Design CD CX is a great product for anyone who’s looking for a 3D app that will enhance their productivity, creativity, and integrate with the Adobe products to help create projects.”

MacWorld UK | Editor’s Choice Award

“This could be the Adobe-devoted designer’s must-have modeler… Seamless integration with Photoshop, user interface familiar to Adobe users, robust, stable and mature.”

Layers Magazine, Four and a Half Stars

“Strata has clearly paid attention to Adobe aficionados with its robust Strata 3D CX flagship product, as Adobe users will recognize many of the core tools in the main palette.”

Digit Magazine

“Strata is a 3D application aimed at giving designers the kind of simplicity they experience on the likes of Photoshop and Illustrator… Strata is one of the most straightforward 3D packages available, and offers impressive power at an affordable price.”

MacUser UK

“Strata Design 3D provides 99% of your 3D modeling needs within an intuitive, comprehensive environment. Integration with Photoshop is seamless and occasionally inspired. Whether you’re a seasoned 3D modeler, or a dedicated Photoshop user who only wants to import and render models found in the Google 3D Warehouse, Strata Design 3D will revolutionize the way you work.”

Compare Design 3D Versions

FEATURES	DESIGN 3D CX 7	DESIGN 3D SE 7	DESIGN 3D CXi 7
Basic Tools Move, rotate, scale, grids and guides, history stack
Environmental Tools Ground plane, visible and reflected backgrounds
Lighting / Basic Point lights, spot lights, directional lights
Lighting / Advanced Lightdomes
3D & 2D Primitives
Import / Basic EPS (v8), S3D, OBJ, Collada, VRML, 3DS and more
Import / Advanced AI, PDF and U3D
Export Collada(DAE), S3D, OBJ, VRML, BMP, JPG, SWF, PCT, TIF, TGA
Export / Advanced Quicktime
Bezier Modeling Tools Pen tool, extrude, lathe, path extrude, skin
Bezier Modeling Tools / Advanced Hull, thickness, fillet
Text Tool
Boolean Operations Subtract, intersect, union, cut
Polygon Modeling Tools / Basic Move, rotate, scale, bevel, extrude
Polygon Modeling Tools / Advanced Magic wand selections, inset, inflate, flatten
Advanced Smoothing Techniques Subdivision surfaces
Advanced Smoothing Techniques 2 Meld
Deformation Tools Deformation lattice, bones
Animation Keyframing, animated textures
Animation Effects Shatter, explode
ScriptFX Heartbeat, bounce, rotate, etc.
Texturing Tools / Basic Multi-channel stackable textures, stone, wood
Texturing Tools / Advanced Linked PSD textures, most procedural texture types
Rendering / Basic Raytracing, raydiosity, openGL, toon
Rendering / Advanced Suspended renderings, fields, stereo, panoramic, motion blur, render to layers

Case Study | A Virtual Fleet of Aircraft

Illustrating the world of flight can be a tremendous challenge. Photographs can be the wrong angle, low quality or simply not available. For the aviation enthusiasts that read the Greek magazine “Remove Before Flight” the visuals are just as important as the technical articles. As Art Direcetor of 11 Aviation Publications, Nasos Vlachos turned to Strata Design 3D CX, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to solve the problem.
Read More…

Case Study | A Market Bull’s Eye for Kraft

What do you do when you get a new sauce? You get a new bottle of course. Starting in late 2007, Kraft’s Bull’s-Eye BBQ Sauce marketing team undertook an extensive review of the BBQ category and the BBQ consumer. In 2008 this hard work resulted in a killer new sauce. With superior taste and more authentic BBQ flavor, the team at Kraft went on to develop a new brand position to go with the new flavor. This required new packaging to bring all these elements together.
Read More…

Design 3D CXi – Professional 3D Modeling and Animation Software for the Mac