With ModelShop, Paracomp (maker of the top-rated Swivel 3D modeling program) has succeeded in creating a low-end version for sketching architectural designs — and has also failed. ModelShop achieves its goal with a $595 price and its ability to create true 3-D color models with good rendering speed. Unfortunately, it’s almost as if Paracomp had created a low-end product by disabling, rather than omitting, features.
Take the tools for measuring and labeling distances and angles. The measured dimensions appear on-screen, but there is no way to get dimensions on a printout. They also disappear from your screen when you redraw. Since Paracomp went to the trouble to give you these tools, why didn’t it allow the dimensions to be printed out? A small point, but this kind of thing is evident throughout the program.
PUNCHING HOLES This lack of detail is frustrating, because ModelShop has some useful features going for it. The best is the Hole tool, which is handy for creating windows in solid walls, a feature many higher-end CAD packages lack. There are some limitations, but without hole cutting, you have to create four separate walls and align them to define a window space. I wish I could buy this one tool separately for all the CAD packages that don’t have it.
You’ll also like the fact that you can select and edit objects in the rendered mode, which is called the Hidden Surfaces mode in ModelShop. Being able to do last-minute editing of solid objects can save you a great deal of time, compared with having to go to the wire-frame mode to make changes, as many other programs require.
The Extrude tool is another great time saver. After you select a 2-D object or group of objects, such as a floor plan, Extrude lets you create the third dimension by clicking and dragging the mouse.
ModelShop uses the click-and-drag approach for most operations, which can take some getting used to if you’ve been using other graphics programs — even those for the Mac. Instead of having buttons for changing a perspective view or light source, you have to perform a series of mouse clicks. Once you’ve learned ModelShop, some of these operations may become second nature, but you definitely need to read the manual.
Some aspects of the interface are unnecessarily un-Mac-like. For instance, ModelShop beeps at you when you do the right thing with your mouse clicks, instead of when you click on the wrong place, as is the case with the vast majority of Mac programs. Another deviation from the norm is the way you move objects. Instead of selecting an object and dragging it, as you do in MacDraw and other programs, you select the object, select the Move tool, and then draw the distance and direction you want it moved.
MORE STEPS The problem with the procedures in ModelShop is not just that they differ from what you're accustomed to, but also that they require more steps. Creating and changing a drawing’s view requires several steps every time. More-expensive programs such as DynaPerspective and StrataVision default to displaying four windows of different views (top, elevations, perspective, and axonometric), and let you change from there. Multiple views are practically requisite when working in 3-D. especially with complicated drawings. In ModelShop, you have to create every view except the Plan (top) view manually.
And creating views isn’t always straightforward. Whenever you switch to a perspective view in ModelShop, you get the Plan view. You then have to go through the view-selection procedure, which involves four mouse clicks. A Perspective View command should give you a real perspective view and let you change it from there. If you want to change the perspective view in ModelShop, the program automatically zooms to the farthest point out, requiring you to zoom in again. All this is unnecessary and a great hindrance. (Fortunately, you con stop a redraw with a mouse click, so you don't have to wait for multiple redraws.)
I also wish you didn’t have to reselect and redraw the grid every time you changed the view. The disappearing grid might make a nice option, but you should be able to keep the grid if you want it.
Another annoyance is the Tweaking tool, for editing the size and shape of objects. It’s a good feature, but you can alter only one corner at a time. If you want to stretch a rectangle, you have to tweak it twice, once for each of two comers.
Currently, ModelShop imports only PICT files, although a future release will import Swivel files as well. ModelShop can work with a megabyte of RAM, but I had to bump up the memory allotment under MultiFinder from the suggested 512K to 1 megabyte to open larger files.
THE BOTTOM LINE ModelShop is a quick program with a few time-saving features, but its lack of many other features will slow you down. While this handicaps ModelShop right now, the programming problems don’t seem difficult to overcome, so a better version may be coming in the future.
Rizzo, John. (April 1990). ModelShop. MacUser. (pg. 57).
Paracomp
Applications
out of 10 (0 vote)
77 / 
2014-04-14 / 
efb0f623571082f75835e443968431d9a7d5bc39 / 
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ModelShop.image_.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
