For information concerning Ashlar-Vellum, please contact: Julie Bou, +1 512 250-2186 x1130.

202420232022202120192018201720162015201420132012 • 2011 • 2010200920082007200620052004All

Ashlar-Vellum™ Announces Vellum-Nitrogen™

November 14, 2011, Austin, TX. Ashlar-Vellum announces Vellum-Nitrogen to be released in Japan in the summer of 2012.

Vellum-Nitrogen, the Unicode variant of Ashlar-Vellum’s Graphite 2D/3D CAD program, will be specifically configured and packaged for Japanese distribution. It supports over 100,000 characters from multiple language sets, and will be aimed at the general design market in Japan. The release for the Windows operating system is anticipated in the third quarter, while the version to support the latest Macintosh operating systems is scheduled for Q4.

Ashlar-Vellum’s long time partner, Comnet, will handle distribution of the product.

“With over 10,000 users of older Ashlar-Vellum technology in Japan, we are looking forward to supporting those awaiting new releases on both the Mac and Windows platforms,” remarked Robert Bou, president of Ashlar-Vellum.

About Ashlar-Vellum

Founded in 1988, Ashlar-Vellum is the leading provider of precision CAD and 3D modeling software that automates and simplifies the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s unique Organic Workflow™ featuring their renowned Vellum  user interface and powerful toolsets have earned the loyalty of innovators around the world. Ashlar-Vellum operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas with our development team and administrative support in Ukraine and around the world.
To learn more call +1 800 877-2745 or visit www.ashlar.com.

Contact: Julie Bou, Ashlar-Vellum, +1 512 250-2186 x1130, Julie.Bou@ashlar.com.

Download in PDF.

Ashlar-Vellum™ Expands European Operations

August 1, 2011, Austin, TX. Ashlar-Vellum announced today the expansion of their European offices in September into additional offices in Kiev, Ukraine. The new space will be used to provide space for an expanded development.

Robert Bou, president of Ashlar-Vellum, commented, “Kiev has a deep pool of talented science and engineering programmers. This, coupled with the region’s strong desire to integrate rapidly into the rest of Europe, makes it the ideal location to expand our European development operations.”

About Ashlar-Vellum

Founded in 1988, Ashlar-Vellum is the leading provider of precision CAD and 3D modeling software that automates and simplifies the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s unique Organic Workflow™ featuring their renowned Vellum  user interface and powerful toolsets have earned the loyalty of innovators around the world. Ashlar-Vellum operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas with our development team and administrative support in Ukraine and around the world.
To learn more call +1 800 877-2745 or visit www.ashlar.com.

Contact: Julie Bou, Ashlar-Vellum, +1 512 250-2186 x1130, Julie.Bou@ashlar.com.

Download in PDF.

Ashlar-Vellum™ Announces Victory in Japan

July 1, 2011, Austin, TX. Ashlar-Vellum announced today that their law suit with Concepts Technology in Japan is finally over. For many years, Concepts Technology, and prior to that Famotik, have attempted to usurp Ashlar’s source code and trademarks.

In the spring of 2006 Concepts Technology sued Comnet, Ashlar Incorporated’s OEM partner and Ashlar-Vellum’s Japanese distributor, claiming that they owned all the original source code to Vellum® and Graphite™.

In the spring of 2010 we received the full judgment from the Japanese court with the following results:

  • The court upheld Ashlar Incorporated’s ownership of the Vellum registered trademark in Japan, just as the Patent & Trademark office did.
  • The software of both Ashlar Incorporated and Concepts Technologies has been found to contain source code from the other company.
  • Concepts Technology is ordered to stop selling their software and pay Ashlar Incorporated ¥58,206,284, or approximately US $748,000, in damages for the unauthorized use of our source code and trademarks.
  • Comnet, is ordered to stop selling Box Vellum Graphite and Ashlar-Vellum Graphite, and pay Concepts Technology ¥4,540,000, or about US $50,000, primarily for infringing activities engaged in prior to entering into a relationship with Ashlar Incorporated.
  • There was no judgment against Ashlar Incorporated of any kind.

At that time Comnet appealed the decision and posted the appellate bond of ¥4,540,000. Concepts Technology also filed for appeal but never paid the appellate bond.

Several hearings were heard by Japan’s special High Technology Court of Appeals, during which time Ashlar’s right to sue, and their ownership of source code and trademarks were upheld and all parties encouraged to settle the dispute out of court. When efforts to settle failed, the courts rendered judgment in late June of this year, upholding the lower court’s ruling in all matters brought before them.

The results of that judgment upheld the original development contract signed in the mid ’90s by Ashlar Incorporated and Famotik. The judgement delineated Ashlar Incorporated as the owner of the Vellum 2.7 base code plus “extensions” found in future versions. It specified that Concepts Technology owns the “additions” to this source code, limited to the modules for surfacing, rendering, hidden line removal and interface, including the IGES and BMI translators. These features were part of Vellum 3.0, 4.0, 98, 99, then removed after Ashlar split with Famotik and created Graphite. Unfortunately, some non-functional modules and source code fragments from the deleted features remained in early versions of Graphite. In order to make a clean break, the judgment disallows Ashlar-Vellum’s distributor, Comnet, from selling any product called Graphite in Japan and Concepts Technology from selling anything called Draftboard.

Comnet, Ashlar-Vellum and Ashlar Incorporated will be introducing new software into the Japanese market with all fragments of the Famotik additions removed. Moreover, the software will be converted to Unicode supporting over 100,000 characters from multiple language sets. The new software is anticipated to be called Vellum-Nitrogen™. Concepts Technology still owes Ashlar Incorporated the original judgment plus interest.

About Ashlar-Vellum

Founded in 1988, Ashlar-Vellum is the leading provider of precision CAD and 3D modeling software that automates and simplifies the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s unique Organic Workflow™ featuring their renowned Vellum  user interface and powerful toolsets have earned the loyalty of innovators around the world. Ashlar-Vellum operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas with our development team and administrative support in Ukraine and around the world.
To learn more call +1 800 877-2745 or visit www.ashlar.com.

Contact: Julie Bou, Ashlar-Vellum, +1 512 250-2186 x1130, Julie.Bou@ashlar.com.

Download in PDF.

Ashlar-Vellum™ Works with SimLab Composer

May 12, 2011, Austin, TX. Ashlar-Vellum announced today the testing and support of Ashlar-Vellum 3D modeling files in conjunction with SimLabs 3D PDF and iPad viewing.

Any 3D models created in Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt™, Xenon™ or Argon™ programs can be viewed on the Apple iPad when exported to an iPad ZIM file using any of the SimLab Composer programs, priced from US $99 to US $249.

Animations of Ashlar-Vellum 3D models can be rendered with materials and added to PDF documents using SimLab Composer Animation Edition ($249). 3D PDF files must be viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

“Customers who need to view 3D files on the iPAD or who need to incorporate 3D PDFs into their documents are encouraged to evaluate the SimLab products,” said Robert Bou, president of Ashlar-Vellum.

About Ashlar-Vellum

Founded in 1988, Ashlar-Vellum is the leading provider of precision CAD and 3D modeling software that automates and simplifies the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s unique Organic Workflow™ featuring their renowned Vellum  user interface and powerful toolsets have earned the loyalty of innovators around the world. Ashlar-Vellum operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas with our development team and administrative support in Ukraine and around the world.
To learn more call +1 800 877-2745 or visit www.ashlar.com.

Contact: Julie Bou, Ashlar-Vellum, +1 512 250-2186 x1130, Julie.Bou@ashlar.com.

Download in PDF.

Ashlar-Vellum™ to Discontinue Upgrades on Legacy Software

March 24, 2011, Austin, TX. Ashlar-Vellum announced today it will discontinue upgrades for versions of their CAD and 3D Modeling software packages over 10 years old, effective July 1st, 2011. These upgrades apply to Ashlar-Vellum’s oldest versions of Vellum 2D™, Vellum 3D™, Vellum Draft™ and Vellum Solids™, all released between 1989 and 2001. Software over 10 years old will no longer be considered eligible for standard upgrade pricing.

Ashlar-Vellum is offering discounts between 10% to 30% to any customers still using the old software until May 31st, 2011 to upgrade to their current versions of Graphite™ v8 2D/3D CAD, and Cobalt™ and Xenon™ v8 CAD and 3D Modeling software.

“We have one of the most liberal legacy software upgrade policies in the CAD industry,” commented Robert Bou, president of Ashlar-Vellum. “I hope those needing to upgrade will take advantage of this offer.”

About Ashlar-Vellum

Founded in 1988, Ashlar-Vellum is the leading provider of precision CAD and 3D modeling software that automates and simplifies the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s unique Organic Workflow™ featuring their renowned Vellum  user interface and powerful toolsets have earned the loyalty of innovators around the world. Ashlar-Vellum operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas with our development team and administrative support in Ukraine and around the world.
To learn more call +1 800 877-2745 or visit www.ashlar.com.

Contact: Julie Bou, Ashlar-Vellum, +1 512 250-2186 x1130, Julie.Bou@ashlar.com.

Download in PDF.

Ashlar-Vellum™ Announces Support for Unicode

February 28, 2011, Austin, TX. Ashlar-Vellum announces support for Unicode in their Graphite 2D/3D Computer-aided Design program. Unicode will be implemented in Japanese versions of Vellum-Nitrogen v8 and in the future Graphite v9, worldwide.

ASCII and ISO 8859 computer text traditionally can only read 256 characters from any one language at a time. This makes it difficult to use multiple languages in a document or to support ideogram languages such as Chinese. By implementing Unicode, a program can support over 100,000 characters from multiple langue sets.

Robert Bou, president of Ashlar-Vellum remarked, “The implementation of Unicode supports today’s global economy where design projects are shared seamlessly by international teams.”

About Ashlar-Vellum

Founded in 1988, Ashlar-Vellum is the leading provider of precision CAD and 3D modeling software that automates and simplifies the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s unique Organic Workflow™ featuring their renowned Vellum  user interface and powerful toolsets have earned the loyalty of innovators around the world. Ashlar-Vellum operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas with our development team and administrative support in Ukraine and around the world.
To learn more call +1 800 877-2745 or visit www.ashlar.com.

Contact: Julie Bou, Ashlar-Vellum, +1 512 250-2186 x1130, Julie.Bou@ashlar.com.

Download in PDF.

Ashlar-Vellum™ Releases Graphite™ version 8 Service Pack 3

January 26, 2011, Austin, TX. Ashlar-Vellum announces the release of Service Pack 3 for Graphite version 8, their software for 2D/3D precision wireframe drafting.

Over a dozen user-requested enhancements and issues were addressed in this service pack such as:

  • Implemented Preference setting for mouse wheel direction.
  • Added support for first pen button on some Windows tablets.
  • Clarified Edit Object dialog box for midpoint line objects.
  • Enhanced Preferences to track arrow settings for Pen menu.

Service Pack 3 is a free update available to all those on Graphite v8, including Cobalt and Xenon v8 users with a courtesy license to Graphite. Upgrades are available from previous versions, with prices varying according to the age of the software.

About Ashlar-Vellum

Founded in 1988, Ashlar-Vellum is the leading provider of precision CAD and 3D modeling software that automates and simplifies the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s unique Organic Workflow™ featuring their renowned Vellum  user interface and powerful toolsets have earned the loyalty of innovators around the world. Ashlar-Vellum operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas with our development team and administrative support in Ukraine and around the world.
To learn more call +1 800 877-2745 or visit www.ashlar.com.

Contact: Julie Bou, Ashlar-Vellum, +1 512 250-2186 x1130, Julie.Bou@ashlar.com.

Download in PDF.

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