Tom Arah explores the 3D handling in Adobe’s recent CS3 releases and wonders if it is a sign of things to come.

With its current blitz of CS3 software launches, it might seem that Adobe has the entire creative arena well covered. However there’s one surprising omission from the list – 3D.

It’s especially surprising on two fronts: firstly because 3D is now such an integral part of so many designers’ lives and secondly because Adobe has long been interested in the field. In fact one of Adobe’s earliest design applications was a dedicated 3D program called Adobe Dimensions. It wasn’t just early; it was groundbreaking. In particular Dimensions pioneered features such as the creation of objects derived from path-based surfaces rather than from polygonal meshes and the ability to render models not only as bitmaps but also as fully scalable, resolution-independent vectors. Nowadays all the major professional 3D packages boast of their path-based NURBs and N-gon handling and offer vector rendering solutions – but even today none of them matches Dimensions’ ability to map resolution-independent vector artwork to object surfaces.

Adobe’s dedicated 3D modeller, Dimensions, was pioneering but fatally flawed

Dimensions undoubtedly had serious potential – but sadly, despite three full releases, Adobe never even began to scratch it. To begin with, with no path-based lofting or hulling and no real ability to arrange and combine elements, Dimensions was essentially limited to producing simple extrusions, bevels and lathe effects – ideal for logos and the like but little else. Most unforgivably, despite its complete reliance on paths, Dimensions’ direct handling of these was rudimentary, effectively requiring paths to be imported from Illustrator. The result was that Dimensions could never aspire to be more than a support program for Illustrator and eventually it was a relief to all concerned when in 2004 Adobe finally put it out to pasture and stopped development. Especially so as Adobe managed to incorporate the vast majority of Dimensions’ 3D handling where it made most sense: directly within Illustrator.
Moreover, while the 3D power Dimensions offered proved embarrassing for a dedicated application, it’s extraordinary to find it hosted within a 2D application. Not that most users are likely to find it as all of Illustrator’s Dimensions-derived 3D functionality is hidden away in three unassuming dialogs under the Effects menu. Select any shape or path and the Effects > 3D > Rotate command and you can quickly rotate it in three dimensions and apply an accurate perspective effect. If it’s a filled shape you can also apply flat Diffuse Shading complete with control over the position and intensity of lights – an effect which can then be automatically be picked up by other rotated objects.
3D rotation is a very handy trick for, say, creating angled logo text that leaps out at the viewer, but the object itself still remains flat and clearly two-dimensional. Far more powerful are Illustrator’s other two 3D live effects starting with Extrude and Bevel. This dialog offers the same 3D rotational capabilities but also lets you set an extrusion depth to create a true three-dimensional object, for example converting a rectangle into a cube or a circle into a cylinder. It also lets you control end caps, choose from a range of preset bevel effects (you can even load your own bevel path) and offers a surprisingly realistic gradient-based Plastic Shading lighting effect as well as a Wireframe display option. Even more impressive is the final Revolve effect which rotates the selected object around its vertical axis to turn a circle into a sphere, say, or a filled path into a candlestick or vase. With both Extrude and Bevel and Revolve effects you can also use a sub-dialog to map symbols to each of the object surfaces meaning that Dimensions’ unique ability to use resolution-independent vector artwork as textures lives on.