How to launch a product: Render its ass off

I know so little about cameras and cinematography equipment I'm not qualified to even comment about this product's capabilities, but seeing a product launch, with these kinds of visuals, makes me a very happy man. Apparently Red was founded by Oakley founder Jim Jannard. I've also heard, but not yet confirmed that they use SolidWorks and from the look of these visuals, I'd say HyperShot too.



In terms of what you're looking at, this is a Lego style configurable camera, you buy the sensor (referred to as the Brains), then add on all the accessories you want. As Martyn said to me, "Umm no idea what that camera system does other than look cool and expensive" I couldn't agree more - but then that's what good design sometimes, making something so ball achingly cool that you know you want it - without really knowing what it is you're lusting after.



Oh and this thing is the 3D mount.

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Discoverability & DriveWorksXpress

One thing that is a constant source of puzzlement is how the average user finds out about all the new tools, software and technology that's present in the application set they have already acquired. Take SolidWorks. Look at the list of 'stuff' it does and its huge, from standard part, assembly and drawings tools, through all the Xpress products and then you get into all the tools that are part of the Office offerings - there's a huge amount to discover and learn. I've banged on about how important printed manuals were in that informal learning process outside of formal training, but of course, the web can play a huge part in not just shortening that learning curve, but also in just flagged up the fact that something even exists and what it can be used for.
DriveWorks worked with SolidWorks in the last few release cycles to introduce DriveWorksXpress - for a tool that's essentially free for many SolidWorks users, its incredibly powerful - but how do you find out if Rules-based automation is for you? well, the team has just released a whole bunch of targetted examples, to show you the type of thing it can do, including
Stainless Steel Extraction/Ventilation Hood, Porch/Entrance Canopy, Vehicle Suspension System, Hydraulic Cylinder.
Automation means you cut out the crappy boring stuff, formalise your standard designs variants and get to work on the really interesting stuff. If you've got SolidWorks, its there. Go play. and if that's not enough, get a copy of their fantastic Little Book of Rules. I take my hat off to these guys and the shear effort they put in - if only all vendors did the same.

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Chair made from WEEE

A chair made the recycled plastics of redundant video game consoles is helping reduce the amount of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) from our nations gaming habit heading to landfills.

The design of Sprout Design, the REEE chair incorporates the plastic from 9 Playstation2 consoles, each chair preventing 2.4Kg of plastic entering our already crammed landfill sites. Using Solidworks to tweak individual components and construct the final design, the team at Sprout expect to ship 3,000 chairs (equivalent to 7.5 tonnes of recycled plastic) in the next year.

Engineer Guy Robinson, said "The final design is quite complex, though each component by itself is fairly simple. There were a lot of details to get the geometry and ergonomics right, such as how the stiffness and flex of the ribs responded to the body, and how to make the clips tamperproof yet easy to disassemble, etc. Solidworks allowed us to tweak the design of the individual components while showing how this affected the whole product to get it right. We would have abandoned this concept early on if we didn't have that flexibility."

The chair is the brainchild of Christopher Pett, founder of sustainable product development company Pli Design Ltd. Sprout used SolidWorks SimulationXpress to ensure the chair would be strong enough to support sitters without over-engineering the amount of plastic in the seat's ribs, reinforcing the sustainable design theme. Both Pett and Robinson hope the Reee Chair sets a precedent for electronics manufacturers around the world.

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A less sluggish SolidWorks for 2009

Speed was the key selling point at the release of Solidworks 2009, as Dassault Systems were keen to point out a 65 per cent speed increase.

Calculated via productivity gains measured in the creation and modification of large assemblies from real-world customer environments and data, Solidworks 2009 claims that it has become faster without the need for new features and functions, meaning that users do not have to learn new techniques.

260 new enhancements have been made as a result of feedback from user groups, customer analysis and gossip from down the pub.

In addition, a 'Speedpak' should allow for a new approach to large assemblies that use less memory to achieve full graphic detail.

"Given that the point of software solutions is to automate tasks and the point of automation is to make common tasks happen faster, then a significant increase in performance will deeply benefit every designer and engineer," said John MacKrell, senior analyst with CIMdata. "SpeedPak technology increases performance while decreasing resource consumption, providing a double benefit for designers, especially those who work with large assemblies."

A new 'Simulation Advisor' helps users analyze designs for hidden flaws through every stage of a simulation, and even back in the 2D world users get new improvements and add-ons.

Finally, the addition of Photoview360 should mean for easier progressive rendering on the new version. However, the increased figures for speed will probably be enough to warrant the upgrade.

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Photoview 360 gets competitive

As the Solidworks marketing machine for Photoview 360 continues to build up steam, having already announced a preview version available for download, a new contest for early users has opened.

The competition, which closes on September 5, offers the lucky winner not only "the fame and recognition of having your image posted to our gallery," but they will also, "send you an item from our catalog of Solidworks promotional items." Yes, you too could be the darling of the Solidworks user forums as you sip coffee from your official Solidworks mug.

On a brighter note, the contest rules allow entrants to stamp their entry with their name, products used or a company logo. All types of images are welcome, from architectural renderings, product shots, and engineering visualizations, to graphic design, game development, broadcast or film.

Entries must be posted onto the Photoview discussion thread and created using Photoview 360 only.

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Rendering tech fires up - big style

It seem that it isn't enough and once again, things are hotting up in the rendering world. Last year Bunkspeed's HyperShot rewrote the book on rendering for product design. HyperShot is quick, easy and dirty. Load model, add materials, choose lighting and background and you're pretty much ready to rock and roll. If only all renders were like that. If you look at what most users face in terms of pain points, it gets a long way to solving many of them.

But it seems things are moving on.

Siggraph is the place to be it seems. Yesterday, Bunkspeed and SpaceClaim announced a partnership that sees HyperShot integrated with SpaceClaim (similar to the work they've already done with SolidWorks and Aesthetica). Today they accounced prerelease details of the next product in their portfolio - HyperMove, an animation tool that looks to do the same as HyperShot for the animation world. it seems that the web-site isn't up and running yet http://www.bunkspeed.com/hypermove

Then as if this wasn't enough, I start to hear about a new Rendering tool from SolidWorks. Rob Rodriguez broke the news of the product name, PhotoView 360, even though I believe an NDA is in place and the product isn't going to be officially launched until September along with the rest of the 2009 release. Then Luxology (developers of Modo) issue a press release talking about the partnership with SolidWorks and the mysts starts to clear.

SolidWorks has licensed Luxology's Nexus 4 rendering engine for PhotoView 360, but as a couple of people have pondered, Nexus 4 includes a variety of modeling, sculpting, rendering, painting and animation capabilities. Are we going to see the sub-divisional modelling tools that have seen rapid adoption of Modo in the CGI industry move into SolidWorks? Time will tell.

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Spangly new SpaceClaim website - sloppy marketing 101

Motorola RAZR - probably not designed in SpaceClaim

Looks like SpaceClaim has been spending some more of that VC cash with the web-designers again and there's a brand new SpaceClaim web-site on the block. I like it, its shiny and has lots of nice things in there.

There are a couple of bits and bobs that aren't quite right. I love it when people tag that annoying little TM trademark thing after something that really doesn't need it. Particularly when the company in question, according to a USPTO search, doesn't even own the trademark (I'd love to stand corrected) or its been owned and abandoned by someone else.

I'm specifically thinking about "Natural 3D design" which was previously owned by Metatools and "Design the way you think" which was owned and abandoned by Ceira Technologies in 2005.

What's also often interesting is the models that CAD vendors choose to illustrate their web-site, brouchures and such. Perfect example of this are two of the images featured there.

A Motorola RAZR and an Aston Martin. The RAZR is pretty fair game, model something up and use it as a demo. What's really... Ummm.. what's the word? Irritating, is the Aston Martin image.

Aston Martin: Not designed by Pininfarina and not designed with SpaceClaim - allegedly

It reads Credit: Bunkspeed/Pininfarina. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Pininfarina had nothing to do with the design of any Aston Martin and certainly not the model shown - and I'd bet the house on the fact that SpaceClaim wasn't involved. Could it be that this the 3D model that appears in this Youtube video?

A model that was created in SolidWorks, at the turn of the century. And modelling by the talented Mark Biasotti, who was working at IDEO at the time I seem to recall. Guess where he works now? Yes, he works for a company based on Baker Avenue, Concorde, Mass - but it ain't SpaceClaim.

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Back in the Fold - the Strida returns

I'm excited as there is a new version of my favourite folding bike on sale. The Strida is the brain-child of UK industrial designer, Mark Sanders. I regularly shove it my Strida into the passenger seat of my car and take it away with me. Yes, it looks odd and nobody ever seems to have ever seen one before but I wholeheartedly endorse one of these bikes if you are looking for a foldable bike. This clip is an interview with Mark, where he explains his design concepts and process. About half-way through you see that now Mark uses SolidWorks to design and reduce the number of prototypes, but sketching and 'feel' are bedrocks for his process.

www.strida.com

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HyperShot V 1.5 is ready to rock

Sextant Navigation Eye2It Media Console courtesy of Pixelmathematics

Bunkspeed has launched HyperShot V 1.5 with new key enhancements being interaction with all major 3D solid and surface modelling products, as well as even brighter, more realistic photographs rendered even faster from 3D models.

How are they doing that? Let's break it down. Faster Performance is gained through improved real-time raytracing (done with quicker self shadow calcs), better real-time handling of materials on objects without texture coordinates and a cached material library, which will display all materials instantly. And end results are going to be improved with sharper shadows and texture maps in the final rendering and better turntable animation in HyperShot Pro (for the record, I think the turntable animation tools should be in all of the offerings. No pun intended). The translators have also been worked on support for Rhinoceros both on the Mac and Windows, better support for Pro/Engineer Wildfire 4 and better SolidWorks and IGES support.

Since I was 16, I've been fighting with creating realistic looking renders based on accurate CAD data. While many industry pundits love to talk up the amount of time they've spent looking at this software we called CAD, the only reason I say this is that I know exactly how long it takes to create the type of imagery you can see here, and its too dammed long - HyperShot solves many of those bottlenecks. There's a full review of HyperShot 1.5 in this months DEVELOP3D - so reg up and get your copy. If you've already done so, then enter your email address and read at your leisure - there are five copies of HyperShot Web to be won as well, along with a whole host of other goodies.

Oh and its time to confess, we f&*ked up: the cost of the Pro version is not 10 grand, but a much more reasonable 3,495 USD - sorry Thomas.

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Blue Ridge launches CFdesign v10

The image above shows simulation results from a Quick Natural Convection on LED light design shown with CFdesign v10 new user interface - nifty looking eh?

Blue Ridge Numerics (at 1pm, UK time today to be exact), released details of the latest release of its CFD application, CFDesign. The big ticket items for this rev seem to be a new user interface, greater CAD integration, better design review features and interactive void filling and external volume creation.

Interesting, UI changes aside (which look pretty good as you can see), the CAD associativity interested me. There are two schools of thought here. To built the app directly within the CAD interface, or to build it standalone and provide tight links. The two are not always as clear-cut as they seem. In all fairness, CFDesign has always been in the Standalone/integrated camp and this release sees that worked on with the ability to extract much more from the CAD data, such as model orientation, part and background, part names and material properties. Blue Ridge also talks about mapping of mouse functions. I guess that this means the user will load CAD data from their workhorse tool and the system can be set to mimic the user interaction methods of that CAD system. Also of interest is the new multi-view mode, which allows you to work with different analysis results sets and have the system synchronise the panning, zooming and rotation of the views. Other updates include interactive void filling and external volume creation meaning you don't have to do it your CAD system.

Lastly, Blue Ridge has also introduce CFD-tv which provides users with "on-demand, task-specific training in a Web 2.0 format that will appeal to multi-tasking engineers who want to add CFD to their armory." Apparently, each CFD-tv episode is a short video segment led by a CFdesign power user intended to answer commonly asked questions.

There will of course be a full, indepth review of CFDesign 10 in the next issue of DEVELOP3D - so make sure you sign up for a subscription.

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Autodesk to buy Flomerics... maybe?

It seems that Autodesk is looking to acquire Flomerics and its range of CFD-based simulation technologies. According to a statement released by Flomerics, this comes after Mentor Graphics tried to acquire the company early this quarter.

According to the statement:

Autodesk, Inc. ('Autodesk') and the Board of Directors of Flomerics Group PLC ('Flomerics' or the 'Company') are pleased to confirm that Autodesk is in continuing discussions with Flomerics and its advisers in respect of a possible offer for the Company.

These discussions are progressing and further announcements will be made in due course. At this stage, however, there can be no certainty that an offer from Autodesk will be forthcoming, nor as to the terms on which any offer might be made.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how these things work, but this is interesting for many reasons. If you take the MCAD market as a whole, there are a couple of missing gaps in several vendor's offerings and they relate to simulation. Namely, PTC and Autodesk don't have a decent Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer analysis offering.

In the world of CAD integrated CFD, PTC has always had a very strong relationship with Blue Ridge Numerics. Meanwhile Flomerics had been the outsider, until it acquired Nika last year. Nika develop the CFD code that's the underlying base technology for SolidWorks' FloWorks as well as its other EFD products.

What's intriguing is that Flomerics has a very wide range of interests. From the EFD tools for CAD integrated CFD, through more specialist electronics-related simulation with the FloTherm products and into the AEC market with the HVAC-biased product, FloVent. Now, who in the CAD world covers mechanical and architectural design? Yup. Autodesk.

It appears to be early days, but this move makes a hell of a lot of sense. What will happen to FloWorks? Will SolidWorks have to go elsewhere for that technology? Would PTC buy out Blue Ridge as a result? who knows? its all speculation. But purely in terms of Product Development Technology, this is interesting. If Autodesk can bring CFD in house (it already has FEA from the PlassoTech aquisition), it is acquiring Moldflow, the company looks be building a very interesting technology base for its Digital Prototyping concept that might finally see it delivered.

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The Ribbon of Doom

Solid Edge is now fully Ribbon'ed up

I've spent the last ten years or so writing about the technology we use day-in-day-out. What's interesting is that as my career transitioned from designer to writer to publisher, the software within this space also went through a transition, from the UNIX-based hardware to the more cost effective Windows platform. 

With that shift brought about a transition in user interface design. When CAD software ran on SGI, IBM-AIX or Sun Solaris systems, the user interface was pretty much up the development teams, they designed it (or didn't in some cases) to fit the purpose it was intended for; hence, I-deas looked nothing like Unigraphics which looked nothing like AliasStudio. Which definitely looked nothing like Pro/Engineer. But things changed when CAD vendors adopted the Windows platform and things started to standardise -but even still, every application retained its own look and feel.

SpaceClaim was one of the first to adopt the Ribbon UI

But now, we're seeing an even greater process of commonisation across the software within this magazine. The Windows Vista UI style, specifically, the Ribbon toolbar, is become the de facto standard for software vendors and user interaction. Look at the images on this pages, can you tell them apart at first or even second glance.

EFD.Lab from Flomerics latest release adopts the ribbon toolbar

In there we not only have SolidWorks, Solid Edge and SpaceClaim but also Flomerics' EFD.Lab. The Ribbon toolbar is everywhere and seemingly omnipresent. So what's my point?

I can understand the argument that familiarity with user interaction methods is a healthy thing. That if you use Word and Excel then you have immediate familiarity with the 3D design software and it eases the learning curve. This can be argued back and forth and I'm personally not convinced. Much of it, I'm sure, is the vendor appealing to the lowest common denominator. The majority of users, particularly within our readership, have adopted 3D design tools, but the vendors are still chasing the laggards, those slowest to adopt 3D and drive forward with it - and for those, the "its just like Word" might be a good sales line.

But if you look at each application, look at the technologies they use, there are common components; many use Parasolid, many user D-cubed, many use other libraries to provide their features and functions. If UI design is also standardised, where can the vendors find the room for innovation, for differentiation and how can they truly support the 3D-based design workflow? I guess the answer is that the Devil is truly in the details. How does your system allow you to work directly, but intelligently with your geometry and parameters of design? How do you use on-model interaction and context sensitivity to its fullest. Does your design system enable that? What additional tools has your vendor developed to assist with design, to make it more fluid - are things like SpaceClaim's direct modelling approach, Siemens Synchronous Technology, the future or is there something else required? Personally, one of the most impressive UI updates I've seen in some time is the forthcoming NX 6 release that Siemens has just shown off.

The new NX UI which sees no ribbon action whatsoever

Yes, it has the Sync Tech behind it, but more impressively than that, the UI is stripped down and minimised. Use of Roles allows you to have the commands you need for the task you re working, at hand and switch able, and the level of at cursor interaction and command/operation access is unbelievable and will make users way more productive.

And guess what, there's not a ribbon in sight.

it seems that its not just me that's been considering these things - Ralph Grabowski's been pondering the same thing over at WorldCADaccess.

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DWG editing goes Web

It seems that the battle over the DWG format is still raging - Autodesk claim it's
there's, others protest. Autodesk tries to copyright and protect it, others protest and to be honest, it's a battle I'm not really interested in. DWG was an abbrieviation long before the advent of CAD and the copy of BS308 (for those non-brits out there, this is a British Standard for Technical Drawing) proves it - job done.

Anyway, what is interesting is that SolidWorks Labs just launched an online hosted DWG editor called BluePrint Now and it looks pretty slick. With many talking about delivery of CAD over the web, then this is a good indicator of what the first batch of tools will look, feel and smell like. Its built using the Microsoft's SilverLight technology and the UI is nifty, if a little clunky (as all over the web, CAD apps have been to date). But does it work? I'm going to spend some more time playing with it, but first impressions are that it has some basic tools, lines, circles, arc etc. You can output the drawings as PDF, as DWG again (useful if you've made an edit) from AutoCAD R14, right through to the latest rev - or you can email a link to share it with someone.

SolidWorks DWG data - works fine - as you would expect.

I did try loading some data, both from Inventor as AutoCAD DWGs and from SolidWorks. The app has a 1Mb file limit, which is going to be pretty quickly hit if you've got any data of any size. It loaded the SolidWorks DWGs fine, displayed them after a few hiccups but you could actually pan and zoom the drawing, add some basic detail. Same for the Inventor generated data.

Inventor DWG file, uploaded to Blueprint Now - seems to work just fine

But this isn't the point of Labs projects. these things are put out there to show the vendor's future thoughts - whether they actually reach fruition and become a shipping product remains to be seen. Oh and I just realised two things - Yes, I tried this using Safari and Yes, it works on OSX.

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New PhotoWorks book from Rob Rodriguez

Rob Rodriguez has a new book out for those of you looking for some assistance with PhotoWorks. One thing that's always baffled me is the complexity of PhotoWorks. Yes, you can produce stunning imagery, but it Takes A Lot of Time. Rob's book is surely a good place to start if you're looking for more information on how to step up your rendering and visualisation skills.

What I love about the wealth of books coming out of the user community is that they are exactly that - books. Printed matter. And people like books, they aren't a throw away PDF that's hard to track down, but something tangible that you can pick up, flick through and learn something from.

Pre-order details are here

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Matt Lombard's Surfacing book is out

Matt Lombard has a well known SolidWorks blogger, known for a distinct inability to pull his punches. He's also a prolific author and his latest tome is out for your surface modelling joy. Having been writing about this technology for the last 45 years combined, we're in awe of anyone that has the ability to sit and write that shear amount of content - personally, it gives me the fear.

In Matt's words:

This book explains some of the elementary concepts of surfacing, and goes on to talk about tools and techniques. The last part of the book has several tutorials done in a conversational style, where I go through how I modeled parts, including how the decisions were made to use various features. This is not just a "do this do that" tutorial where you get the instructions to make a complex shape but never understand why you would do this or do that.

The book is $50, which includes shipping in the US. The rest of the payment and shipping details available here.

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SolidSmack brings the RealView noise

DEVELOP3D.com loves (in a very special way) Josh at SolidSmack.com, so much so, he's agreed to be a columnist in our new magazine come its eventual launch in June. This week, Mr. Mings (for some reason, I think Dr. Mings has a better ring) has been looking at the RealView technology in SolidWorks and has some interesting pointers, tips and a few questions about how SolidWorks users are, well, using the technology. He raises an interesting point that you often conduct design reviews around your CAD screen and the RealView highlight tools are ideal for making your point. Wise words indeed - from a very wise man.

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Autodesk to acquire MoldFlow

News of Autodesk's intent to acquire MoldFlow came as a bit of a surprise. Considering Autodesk's Digital Prototyping plan over the next few years, to enable users to take a product from concept to manfuacture without too much in the way of physical prototypes, the move makes perfect sense - but how?

The answer is that if you look at what Autodesk are openly (to the media anyway) about in terms of current developments - such as Mould and Die design tools currently on test in China, its establishment of the 'Computers in Manufacturing' group (headed up by people instrumental in the development of IronCAD and CoCreate's SolidDesigner/OneSpace modelling tool), the demonstrations of Functional Design tools developed in partnership with Attilo Rimoldi of ImpactXoft fame), then the ability to simulate the injection moulding process is a missing peice.

What's perhaps interesting and won't become clear is how this will effect MoldFlow's work with other vendors. MoldFlow technology is built into SolidWorks (MoldflowXpress), CoCreate, and many others. There is also a huge range of MoldFlow products that are not quite so well known, but provide a huge arsenal that covers everything 'injection moulding' related.

The deal is expected to go through in the second quarter of 2008, so stay tuned.

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CircuitWorks gets sold to SolidWorks

OK, we're working on a bit of a catch up here, so what's been going on over the last few months. One of the stories that I loved over the past three months is the acquisition of CircuitWorks. Not only does it mean that SolidWorks gets control of an application that provides some pretty essential technology and tools for people that work with electronics and PCBs as a part of their mechanical or industrial design, but it also means that the two guys from Priware get the recognition they've deserved for a while. Nice job gents.. Sadly it does mean no more trips to Bristol or Much Wenlock (also the home of the modern olympics) or afternoons spent in the pub. Of course, CircuitWorks Lite has been part of SolidWorks for sometime but, according to the press release, CircuitWorks as a full product will now become immediately available as a component of SolidWorks Office Premium. It will be provided to existing Premium customers at no additional charge.

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