You have to love it when a 3D company gets all comfortable and happy. Silly things start to happen. Last time I posted about SpaceClaim was to talk about its somewhat foolish crediting and usage of imagery on its web-site, which was at best misleading to say the least. I was pointed back at the web-site with the words “what’s going on?” What’s all the fuss about? well, simply, the company is claiming to be the “first 3D Direct Modeling system.”

Now, I get that marketing is often about stretching things a touch, but do the powers honestly believe that people are going to buy it? Yes, SpaceClaim is a Direct Modelling system, but claiming to be the first? Seriously? The new CEO (Chris Randles) sold MathCAD to PTC. PTC also own CoCreate, one of the handful of Direct Modelling applications out there. There’s also IronCAD and CADkey.

SpaceClaim is an impressive system, but the complete and utter lack of clarity, and to be honest and more increasingly, lack of truth surrounding the product, is doing it NO favours whatsoever.

Just thought I’d add Blake’s (one of the founders of SpaceClaim) comment to the front page:

As I mentioned on SpaceClaiming, “this mistake was caused by an overaggressive search and replace on a recent web site update and has been corrected. Thanks for keeping us honest, Al! We are well aware that SpaceClaim is not the first direct modeler, but we are confident that we are the fastest and most capable.”

Thanks again,
-Blake

As the time of year for surveys crashes upon us, some interesting figures are showing that only six per cent of PLM user group cooperation actually taking place.

Subsequently, 39 per cent of PLM user groups are now defunct, with fewer than 10% of the remainder having any activities planned. The survey from the Product Lifecycle Management Interest Group (PLMIG) offers reasons for the decline that include the workload placed on unpaid officers, and the lack of relevance and interest in the agenda.

A spokesperson for the PLMIG, said: “This represents a major lost opportunity for PLM implementers, because the more significant and intractable problems in PLM can be resolved only by effective exchange of ideas and methods between experienced users.”

In response to their findings the PLMIG are conducting a two-day user forum in Reading on 13-14 November, giving delegates the opportunity to present an overview of their own PLM environment as input to the discussions and generate the common material they need.

HP has unveiled its latest slice of technology designed with the CAD market in mind, the trim ThinClient workstation, based on the AMD Turion Dual Core 2.3-Ghz processor.

Roberto Moctezuma, vice president and general manager, desktop solutions organization, HP, said: “This latest technology from HP removes one of the last remaining barriers to transitioning to a virtual client infrastructure for customers who require the highest levels of processing power or high-quality multimedia capabilities.”

The gt7725 is shown as viewing multi-display, two- and three-dimensional MCAD designs, engineering simulation results for computational fluid dynamics and rendering images. Advanced system performance is also promised through configured dual channel memory with optimized data throughput.

Available from January, this could be a useful addition for designers wanting to work from home, pushed for space and needing a light workstation; they can also take advantage of the pre-installed HP remote graphics software. Allowing the user to work closely with remotely in a secure, collaborative environment, the system should eliminate the need to upgrade to an expensive 3D graphics card on each user’s machine.

Far be it from us to stand in the way of all things art, but having seen the scale of this shiny, rather fragmented, black bird, we felt implored to comment.

This work from Mexican-based artist Carlos Amorales was completed with the aid of technology and engineering design firm Concurrent Design using technology from ZCorp printing.

Built in their Alton offices for the opening of the Yvon Lambert Gallery in London, Concurrent Design, the Bird Sculpture by Amorales is a giant piece of work. Having had a chance to handle a gleaming wing segment, we can vouch for the size of this birdy, of which the larger segments are said to be the size of a surf board.