STUTTGART, Germany EUR — SpaceCAD.com is proud to present version 3.0 of its award-winning model rocket software SpaceCAD' for Microsoft Windows®.

New features include 2D and 3D rendering of the model rocket, new complex rocket elements (inner tubes, motor mounts, free fin forms), a large rocket parts database, and an extended materials database, all in a highly intuitive and easy-to-use package. A free 30 day trial version can be downloaded from their website at http://www.spacecad.com/

"The brand-new version 3.0 of SpaceCAD signifies a quantum leap for SpaceCAD" says Andreas Firnau, president and owner of SpaceCAD.com. The new version is the result of interviews with its 6,500 customer base, and was built with a focus on usability to reduce the learning curve. "The integrated SpaceCAD yields result very quickly—you don't have to spend hours to learn a difficult piece of software, or different software packages".

SpaceCAD can be bought on the website at http://www.spacecad.com/, or through resellers Apollo 11 Model Rocketry in the United Kingdom (http://www.apo11o.co.uk/), Rebel Rocketry in the Netherlands (http://www.rebelrocketry.com/), Rocketmotion (http://www.rocketmotion.com/) and Modern School Supplies (http://www.modernss.com/) in the United States. New resellers are added constantly.

The new release 3.0 features:

• New rocket elements: Standard elements + Inner tubes, centering rings, motor mounts, bulkheads, free fin forms (with through-the-wall support)
• Large, extensible databases: Parts (Nose cones, body tubes,), Materials, and Rocket Motors
• A complete printout suite to document the rocket design (2 paged data sheet, parts list) and to support building the rocket (nose cone pattern, parachute pattern, fin alignment guide, fin pattern, centering rings guide)
• Complete rocket rendering in 2D and 3D view with zoom
• Comprehensive Internet support: Export to HTML for online publishing, online updates to keep SpaceCAD current
• Operating Systems: Windows 95 & XP support
• Excellent price: only US$ 59.90 (update conditions on webpage)

Even though a lot of new features have been added, a lot of care has been given to usability and ease-of-use. "Model rocket software used to lack usability. Users get frustrated very easily if they cannot build the rocket they want to build and have to fight a cryptic user interface instead. With the new version 3, we make it extremely easy to enter your data very fast, and still be able to tweak your design."

Examples include the engine block editor that uses a very simple point-and-click interface to position the engines with a 2D and 3D preview. "I like the motor mount construction section...where the user is able to save the entire assembly to the database...and use it over and over in multiple rocket designs..." notes Tony Williams of Apollo 11 Model Rocketry, a SpaceCAD reseller.

Also, SpaceCAD now allows to zoom into your rocket design, also a feature that is dearly missed in today's model rocket programmes.

SpaceCAD 3 also improves its support for high power rocketeers. Fins can now be designed using a point-and-click interface, and can have through-the-wall capabilities. Inner tubes, centering rings and bulkheads are supported as design elements. Also, a "negative delay between stages is supported, where the second stage ignites while the first one is still burning.

Additionally, SpaceCAD 3 is fully Internet-enabled. Users can export their data to HTML files to put them on their website, or to publish them in the SpaceCAD rocket library. SpaceCAD uses the Internet to check if updated version are available, since SpaceCAD is updated regularly.

The printout features of SpaceCAD now include:

• Nose cone pattern
• Transition cutout-guide
• Centering-guide
• Fin-position/-alignment and cutout-guide
• Parachute pattern guide
• Comprehensive rocket data sheet
• Rocket's elements list

For more information, please visit the SpaceCAD web site at http://www.spacecad.com

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