Mastering Piranesi book released F1 Books and Informatix Software International Limited are pleased to announce the release of Mastering Piranesi Version 4, a tutorial guide to all of Piranesi’s tools, features, and effects. Mastering Piranesi Version 4 provides clearly detailed and illustrated exercises on all tools and features of Piranesi, including painting methods, blending, render actions, style libraries, textures, fades, and lighting. The book also features a chapter on Principles of Composition contributed by Susan Sorger of Entourage Arts, and another chapter contributed by two professional renderers (Wang Wang and Marco Crawford), describing their favourite Piranesi techniques. Printed in high-quality colour, the book is 368 pages long and is spiral-bound for easy viewing. Author Bonnie Roskes of F1 Books says, "I enjoyed writing this book because Piranesi is great fun to work with. I hope to convey to my readers new ideas and techniques that will enable them to easily create renderings they never thought possible without actual paints and brushes." Brian Woodward, Managing Director of Informatix, adds, "Our users have been wanting a book like this for a long time now, and we strongly recommend it to anyone who has Piranesi and wants to use it even more imaginatively." Mastering Piranesi Version 4 is available on the F1 Books website, and is available from many Piranesi resellers as well.

Community Centre in Carson gets great renderings without breaking their budget AEC Magazine Feb/March 2003 issue has a Piranesi case study based on the work of John Bates Associates, an architectural practice in California. Tony Torres writes about his experiences using Piranesi for a Community Ventre in Carson and reports that: "The quick turnaround time that we can get with Piranesi has pushed us to use the program in more applications, and we now use it in the design development phases of our projects...We get great renderings without breaking our budget"

A powerful combination In the latest issue of the Laiserin™ Letter, Jerry Laiserin extols the benefits of working with Sketchup 2.1 and Piranesi 3, describing them as a 'powerful yet flexible combination that belongs in every designer's toolkit'. His article concludes: " To repeat the point one final time: anyone who designs buildings, whether from the inside, the outside or in town- or campus-sized bunches, should own and use a copy of Sketchup and a copy of Piranesi. " Laiserin™ Letter, November 2002

Piranesi passion Piranesi features on the front cover of the November issue of Multi-CAD magazine. Inside the magazine, the review comments: " Piranesi has no rival as far as I know... for maximum versatility and range of effects Piranesi is in a class of its own. It is fascinating and satisfying to use. " Multi-CAD, November 2002

A jaw-dropping experience In the November issue of Cadence Lachmi Khemlani describes how when she demonstrated Piranesi 3 to her digital design students at UC Berkeley's Department of Architecture they found it 'literally, a jaw-dropping experience'. At the end of her article, she concludes: " ...the price of the program is almost negligible compared to the cost savings that can result... Above all, this is an application that the artistic side of a designer can really revel in. "Cadence, November 2002

Outstanding and well thought-out Ron LaFon reviews Piranesi 3 in the September issue of Cadalyst: " With this new release, Piranesi 3, Informatix has once again produced an outstanding and well thought-out upgrade... Piranesi is, purely and simply, a remarkably well-designed and useful tool that should find a secure home in the toolkit of anyone who needs to produce distinctive renderings and presentation graphics. " Cadalyst, September 2002

Piranesi is great value Joe Croser reviews Piranesi in the latest issue of the Architects' Journal and comments: " Designed to bridge the gap between the three-dimensional world of computer models and the static environment of PhotoShop, Piranesi is a unique concept in computer rendering... Piranesi is great value. " Architects' Journal, August 2002

Piranesi turns a sterile visualisation into art - August 2002 In their review of Piranesi entitled 'Artistic Renderings: Applying special effects to a rendered model turns a sterile visualisation in a 'live' piece of art', CAD User concludes: " Piranesi 3 is being chosen by many architects as an important tool for the marketing and presentation of their designs... The significance of the software is only slightly outweighed by the pleasure in using it. " CAD User, July/August 2002 edition

What I really like about Piranesi - August 2002 " You might have got the general impression that I like Piranesi as a product, and I have to say that would be a bit of an understatement... What I really like about Piranesi is that unlike other renderers on the market, you don't need a complex model to start with, and for this reason Piranesi is an ideal tool with which to communicate design concepts early in the design process. " AEC Magazine, August 2002

Piranesi puts the soul back into 3D - August 2002 " Frankly, Piranesi should be de rigeur for any architectural rendering... It's a real time-saver - and also a lot of creative fun, obviating the need for fiddly texture work. Piranesi puts the soul back into 3D, and for that it should be applauded. " 3D World, August 2002

A completely different animal - August 2002 " Piranesi is a completely different animal from the other packages we've looked at... If you want to turn a harsh 3D model into a hand-drawn illustration, or a QuickTime panorama, this is a strong package. " Digit magazine, August 2002

Piranesi is a powerful weapon - May 2002 Joel Orr comments on the latest release of Piranesi 3: " The program makes it easy to create realistic scenes for marketing and communications that are far more artistic than the generally simple renderings of 3D CAD... This is a powerful weapon for the marketing arsenal of any AEC firm. " the CADwire, May 2002

Cadence praises Piranesi - January 2002 " Think of Photoshop customised for architectural renderings and you have Piranesi... There are loads of tools, features, and special effects that allow the user to take a plain computer-generated view and very easily transform it to a sophisticated, artistic looking rendering, in various styles reflecting different moods. " Cadence magazine, January 2002

Fantastic product - January 2002 The January 2002 edition of AEC Magazine reviewed the SketchUp Modeller, and commented: " SketchUp has been given the ability to export models in the EPIX format for rendering in Piranesi, which combines the intelligence of 3D modelling with the direct control, interactivity, and representational freedom of a paint program, and is a fantastic product in its own right. " AEC Magazine, January 2002

Breathtaking images - January 2002 Cadalyst is full of praise for Piranesi in their January issue, noting its speed, flexibility and the quality of its results. " Piranesi offers options that no other application evaluated [by Cadalyst] does. For those involved in producing visualizations, it's difficult to imagine not having a copy of Piranesi. " Cadalyst, January 2002