I’ve been a fan of trueSpace for years (I’ve been using it since version 2 hit the shelves!), the software from Caligari Corp is a medium to low end (cost wise) 3D modeling and rendering package that has an excellent feature set, is compatible with most industry standard file formats and is extensible through addons. I’ve used it both personally and professionally for various purposes. I just got an email from Caligari this morning stating that the latest version, tureSpace7.6, has been released to everyone for free! Not only that, but the training videos and manual are included as well! AWESOME!!

trueSpace may be daunting for those who are not familiar with it’s user interface, but once you get used to how tools and tool bars are arranged, it becomes much more intuitive than you may originally think. Since I haven’t used a new version since trueSpace 5.5, looks like I’ve got some catching up to do. They’ve added tabbed interfaces for views so that you can switch between workspaces and multi-angled model views and a panel with library browser and settings tabs. One of the reasons I’ve stuck with version 5.5 for so long has been that it can import stl, igs and other industrial modeling files. I use these at work to render products that are in concept phases of production or that we can’t get samples of in time for photos we may need. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be supported under the new version. Guess I’ll have to keep digging to see if I can find out anything more about this.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted. There’s been a lot going on - school, work, home, you get the point. Anyway, I’ve been trying to keep my last post on how to make extensions compatible with Prism up-to-date, but this is turning out to be a difficult task. So I’m just going to post new instructions as needed. Basically, everything remains the same but the version string changes. The DOM inspector is the key to figuring out the correct target to put into your extension’s install.rdf. Clear as mud yet? Well, let me lay out the steps for you again here.

Step 1
Navigate to the Prism installation directory, in Windows this is:
C:\Program Files\Prism\

Open up the extensions folder, then the DOM inspector extension folder:
C:\Program Files\Prism\extensions\inspector@mozilla.org

Now open the “install.rdf” file and find this section of code which can be used (usually) as-is in most extensions pasted in the right place (just use the extension’s preconfigured targets as your guide on where to place it):

<em:targetApplication>
<!– Prism –>
<Description>
<em:id>prism@developer.mozilla.org</em:id>
<em:minVersion>0.4</em:minVersion>
<em:maxVersion>1.0.0.*</em:maxVersion>
</Description>
</em:targetApplication>

Step 2
Open up your extension’s xpi file using 7zip or your favorite archiving tool and extract the install.rdf file.

Open that install.rdf file with a text editor (other than notepad which doesn’t understand the line breaks used by other editors) and find the area where it lists the installation targets and insert your copied text into that or modify one of the install targets with the appropriate information from the DOM inspector extension install.rdf file.

Step 3
Install the extension. This will get tricky due to the way Prism’s developers have modified the profiles and what not. Well, I say that, but it really only gets that tricky if you’re manually installing the extension. Prism developers have seen fit to include the Addons menu item from the Prism menu in the lower right of Prism’s window to help things go more smoothly.

One of the ways to use this new install feature for an extension is globally, which means all webapps will be able to use the extension. This is the least preferred manner due to the fact that you won’t want all extensions available for all webapps in most cases. An example would be having the Better Gmail extension available for Bloglines - don’t think that’s real necessary, do you? So plan accordingly.

Using the second, and more preferred method, you just open your webapp. Open your webapp’s Addons panel, then install by either dragging and dropping the extension onto it, or by clicking the “Install…” button and navigating to the extension and selecting it for installation.

Conclusion
That should be about it. My next Prism post will be about how to make one of two stand alone Firefox/Prism exention webapps - POW local server or Scribefire standalone webapp. Stay tuned, we get to play with chrome!!

Links:

Prism

Another great post on Jon Taplin’s Blog that’s well worth the read. In it he points out some of the current administrations delusions of joblessness (look at the chart!), and other political stagnations that are affecting our current state of economic affairs.

One of the major points of his post is how our economy has shifted to a service base, which is largely non-exportable (at least to smaller, more locally oriented businesses). This also means we’re not manufacturing as much as we used to, and therefore don’t have the export power we’ve had in the past. In other words, as the dollar has fallen against the Euro and other currencies, we’ve not seen an increase in exported manufactured goods as you’d expect.

This is an extremely important point to take in. If the current administration can’t see that the single most important thing we need to do in order to help the economy is to save/rejuvenate manufacturing jobs (read as: jobs that create exportable products and services) in the US, then we’re really sunk.

I tend to think, however, that the market will correct for this. We’ve already heard of some manufacturers moving operations to the US from the EU as a means to cut manufacturing costs. This is a trend that will probably continue, but only if businesses wake up to the fact that the current downturn in the economy isn’t a short term anomaly. Rather, it’s a long term (think several years) condition.

Link