Interesting "4D" planning software.

[Madison]

I thought y'all might be interested in this -- it's an article (http://biz.yahoo.com/fo/031009/e26469527a862e9e8d40ecea1161bc6a_1.html) about software developed by Disney that helps them to plan complex projects.

The first three dimensions are traditional 3D modeling methods. The fourth is time. Unfortunately, I'd imagine this software is too expensive for any of our teams to try using, but imagine how much of a help it'd be if we could create dynamic models of our robots that illustrated, visually, the construction and assembly timetable.

[Dan 550]

Wouldn't that basically be a bunch of 3D part models being assembled with dates and times attached to the assembly process, like a time-lapse video of, well, an embryo growing and eventually becoming an adult? That makes perfect sense for planning, showing what's to be made and when it's to be assembled. Makes a load of sense -- and I wonder why software such as this isn't popular.

[PhatalEphekt]

We saw some software at a trade show we went to and it was 5d. The first 3 were traditional and the other 2 were used for like the inside of the part. Like, if you were modeling a 90 degree elbow for PVC or something, you could use this software to help you model the inside of the tube. Pretty cool stuff.