The First Facility Management Blog

College Fire Science Program Receives State-of-the-Art Fire-Lite Equipment

Fire-Lite Alarms, part of Honeywell’s Life Safety group, is a proud supporter of the Moraine Valley Community College Fire Science Technology Program, Palos Hills, IL. A new Fire-Lite MS-9050UD addressable FACP (fire alarm control panel) contributed by Fire-Lite, together with smoke detectors, strobes, and water flow and tamper alarms donated by System Sensor, will provide future first responders and fire inspectors modern equipment for vital hands-on training.

Moraine Valley’s Fire Science Program received further support from local Fire-Lite installer, Jim Simmons of Simmons Contracting. Wanting to ensure the new equipment operated properly, Simmons felt it was his duty to help, “This is an elite fire science lab that trains fire personnel from throughout the mid-west U.S. I’ve been in this business for 27 years and I believe Fire-Lite’s equipment is the best out there. It’s well-known and great for end users to work with. That’s why Fire-Lite is what these students should be trained on,” says Simmons.

Founded more than 50 years ago, Fire-Lite has become one of the most common brands of fire systems installed throughout the U.S. Due to its non-proprietary nature, Fire-Lite products can be purchased, installed and serviced by virtually any qualified fire systems installer.

Setup to operate the same as a building’s true fire alarm system, students will learn to comprehend information provided by the FACP and respond accordingly. Nearly 400 students attend more than 40 fire science classes annually at Moraine Valley. Therefore, offering the most up-to-date equipment for hands-on training is considered essential to each attendee’s education. “Having updated equipment is very beneficial to providing our students a realistic understanding of what they will encounter today and in the years to come,” added Andrew Hufnagl, Coordinator of Moraine Valley’s Fire Science Program.

Sony Picture Imageworks used BodyPaint 3D and CINEMA 4D as exclusive 3D texturing and digital matte environment software

MAXON’s software played an important role in the making of Spider-Man™ 3 according to visual effects powerhouse Sony Pictures Imageworks, Inc. For this record-smashing blockbuster, Sony Pictures Imageworks utilized CINEMA 4D and BodyPaint 3D as part of their production pipeline to bring the third part of the Spider-Man franchise to the big screen. MAXON’s BodyPaint 3D and CINEMA 4D were among the 3D texturing and digital matte environment software used by Imageworks on Spider-Man 3.

The talented texture artists at Sony Pictures Imageworks used MAXON’s products to create detailed textures on objects as minute as a grain of sand and as extensive as multifaceted cityscapes. Concurrently, the equally talented artists in the matte department were busy using CINEMA 4D to create realistic digital environments and repaint sky elements in numerous scenes as diverse as the storm in the bell-tower sequence to the richly colored sunrise sky featured at the culmination of the climactic battle sequence.

MAXON’s software is designed to integrate into any pipeline, and facilitate a flexible work environment that accommodates an artist’s workflow and creativity. So it easily plugged into the Sony Pictures Imageworks’ production pipeline alongside its proprietary tools and other graphics applications.

“BodyPaint 3D integrates extremely well. This gave us the complete toolset we needed for all our texture mapping needs on Spider-Man 3,” remarks Elbert Yen, Texture Paint Lead at Sony Pictures Imageworks. “I especially like BodyPaint 3D’s feature of keeping discrete layers for each texture map and allowing the texture artist to paint on and map individual layers separately. By keeping the texture maps in multi-layered Photoshop files, BodyPaint 3D is more flexible and robust than other 3D texturing programs I’ve tried.”

About MAXON Computer
MAXON Computer is part of the Nemetschek Group and a developer of professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions. Its award-winning products have been used extensively in the film, television, science, architecture, engineering and other industries. MAXON products have been used for and in Ghost Rider, Spider-Man 3, Surf’s Up, Open Season, Monster House, Eragon, Superman Returns, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Serenity, War of the Worlds, Polar Express, Pirates of the Carribean, etc. MAXON has offices in Friedrichsdorf (Germany), Newbury Park (CA, USA), Bedford (UK) and Tokyo (JP).

About Nemetschek
The Nemetschek Group is a leading international IT company in the AEC sector (Architecture, Engineering, Construction). The software company develops integrated solutions for the complete life cycle of buildings and real estate – from building design and construction through to facility management. The company’s products are currently used by more than 270,000 companies in 142 countries and in 16 languages to optimize the complete building creation and management process in terms of quality, cost and time. Nemetschek was founded in 1963 by Prof. Nemetschek and has more than 1,000 employees worldwide (2007). In fiscal 2006 the group achieved sales of 107.5 million euros.

Since most of you will be off today (or on call, at worst), FacilityBlog wishes you the best for an event-free day!