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A powerful product for designers of plastic parts.
In 2001, after much anticipation, a new player in the 3D solid modeling arena named ImpactXoft announced its first product-IX SPeeD. The capitalized SPD in the product's name stands for simultaneous product development. The word simultaneous refers to the collaboration capabilities of the program, and the word product refers to plastic parts, which are the specialty of the software.
Because IX SPeeD is a 3D solid modeler, with features such as fillets and holes, the product will very likely be compared to programs such as SolidWorks, Solid Edge, and Inventor. However, these products, especially the latter two, are primarily used for machine design, with product design being a secondary use. The opposite is probably true for solid-modeling products such as thinkdesign, Ashlar's new Argon/Xenon programs, and the product design module of VX CAD/CAM. These latter products are probably more appropriate "comparison compatriots" for IX SPeeD. But in truth, while it is still a bit rough around the edges, nothing that I have seen compares to IX SPeeD for plastic part design. However, before I get into the powerful and unique features of this software, let's take step back and look at the entire program, starting with the user interface.
User Interface
IX SPeeD's user interface, as shown in Figure 1, follows Microsoft Windows conventions with most of the menus, toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts you'd expect, but with some variation. Users of other CAD programs will find most of the toolbars located at the top of the screen to be familiar, such as those used to set the view, shading type or to navigate around the model. Some of the remaining toolbars on the top contain icons that are a bit obscure, but with the assistance of ToolTips and the useful prompts that automatically appear in the lower left whenever the mouse is passed over a tool's icon, most of them are not hard to figure out. On the right side of the display is the Organizer, which I'll discuss later.
Instead of using a series of separate toolbars for sketching, solids, surfaces, and so on, IX SPeeD employs what it calls a toolbox, located on the left side of the screen. This toolbox is divided into...