Every once in a while a new software product surfaces that provides a significant new capability for particular applications. Swivel 3D provides more than just 3-D drawing and modeling, it also animates and allows you to create 3-D models of objects with moving parts.
Making object creation easy is one of Swivel 3D s greatest strengths, even though its 3D World View size is limited to a Cartesian three-dimensional space (a cube), which measures only plus or minus 455 inches in each dimension.
To create a new object, you begin with a default outline of a cube on the screen. Double-clicking on the cube brings up the Design Object View, actually a set of four views: Object, Cross Section, Top, and Side. The appropriate representation of the default cube now appears in each of these four views.
Swivel 3D provides five tools for turning the cube into the desired final shape. The Single Arrow Tool lets you drag single points in any view. The Double Arrow Tool enables you to edit an object's contour in any of the section views by dragging points on the object to new positions, changing its shape (symmetrically) in the process. You also have a choice of editing the side and top sections simultaneously or editing them separately. The Free Poly Tool draws a new object shape with a series of clicks; each click creates a point along the object contour. The N-gon Tool draws polygons with from 6 to 48 sides. By assigning a polygon 48 sides, you can, in effect, draw a circle in the cross-.section view with a single click. Lastly, the Rectangle Tool creates a four-sided section when you drag a rectangle in the Top and Side views.
With a little practice, you can freehand sketch complex 3-D shapes with these live tools. Even though Swivel 3D provides some snap-to-grid capabilities, the program is weak when it comes to working with precise sizes or dimensions. I'd like to see Paracomp add more numeric input capabilities to make defining exact sizes and shapes easier. And to make renderings of round objects look more realistic. I'd also like to see the N-gon Tool handle more than 48 sides.
Linking and Rendering
Using icons, you link one object to another object. For example, you can define a bicycle with wheels that rotate on their axles, pedals that turn on a crank, and handlebars that turn with the fork and front wheel. You can define the way parts of objects move and those movement definitions become part of the description of the object. You also set up a tree structure containing parent-child relationships that define how the moving parts relate to each other. Whenever you create a link, you are simultaneously creating a parent-child relationship between the two parts.
Swivel 3D provides three types of Linking Tools: Free Link, which allows the child object to move in all six degrees of freedom relative to its parent object; BallJoint Link, which con.strains the child object within the same x, y, and z positions, yet allows the object to swivel freely in all three degrees of orientation; and Locked Link, which completely constrains the child object in both position and orientation, effectively welding it to its parent. In addition, Position and Attitude dialog boxes let you define numerically the allowable amount of movement and the allowable range of attitudes of the parts of an object.
You use the standard Mac II color wheel to color an object. On a monochrome Mac, shaded renderings automatically produce either gray shades or dithered patterns, depending on how many gray shades your hardware can handle (Mac Pluses and SEs will always show dithered patterns).
You have a choice of getting wireframe, hidden-line wire-frame, shaded, shaded with outlines, or contour shaded renderings. On color Macs, the shaded renderings look lifelike. You can request automatic shadowing when you want, and you can move the single light source. Most 3-D products provide multiple light sources, so Swivel 3D is comparatively weak in this area. However, it makes up for this weakness by letting you add surface detail to a 3-D object. Swivel’s light source can project any pictorial image from the Scrapbook onto a flat surface or wrap the image around a 3-D object.
Move Over, Disney
Swivel 3D has many features for producing animations. Place an object at the beginning and end locations and orientations, tell Swivel 3D how many frames (cells) to create to get from here to there and off it goes. You can make the object grow or shrink, and you can change its World View orientation. Swivel then generates a series of images and either places them in the Scrapbook or creates a series of PICT files — one PICT file for each frame. You also have the choice of storing output in Paint-type or Draw-type formats.
These Scrapbook images or PICT files can then be used by other programs (such as VideoWorks II) to produce animated sequences of 3-D objects with moving parts.
A Tweening dialog facility gives you a number of options for creating and storing sequences, including a Fast Tween option that allows you to preview animation sequences in real time, albeit in outline form.
Paracomp also has a Command File Language capability that is described in a booklet provided by the company only on written request. Entitled “Script Command Set,” the booklet outlines how to create text lists that describe objects and their movements. It is similar to a programming language and could be useful to advanced users who want to do the keyboard input required.
Inside the Box
Swivel 3D comes with two disks and an excellent 146-page user manual. The Program Disk contains two versions of Swivel 3D: 1.00L is for systems with 2 megabytes or more of RAM; and 1.OOS is for users with less than 2MB.
The Image Libraries disk contains folders with finished sample images, tutorial files, and libraries entitled Alphabets, Components, and Simple Extruded Forms.
The Swivel 3D manual is concise and well-written; it’s well illustrated and contains numerous tutorials. Some tutorial sessions use the object libraries supplied with the program, others have you create new objects.
Would I Buy It?
Swivel 3D packs 3-D value and power in an inexpensive package. It is well designed and well documented. Swivel 3D's user interface is almost self-explanatory and can be mastered in one session, the linking capabilities have many uses in animation as well as in demonstrating or simulating how things operate. Even though Swivel 3D currently lacks numeric input for drawing objects, it should still be in your library if you deal with 3-D images.
Peltz, David A. (January 1988). Swivel 3D 1.00. Macworld. (pgs. 156, 158).
Young Harvill
Applications
out of 10 (0 vote)
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swivel3d.zip
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
