“Bzzzzzzz!”, it went, and suddenly more ice cream than you could catch in your mouth was falling from the opening, along with horses, butterflies and these convincingly brilliant links.

Ivan Santic – You’ll see once you get to the site. The video on the front page then proceed to the gallery.
Can a Smartphone replace a Laptop? – The referenced article is one thing, then there’s the conversation here. I think you know the answer.
Lunchbots – you need steel. throw out the plastic, not the kids, or the yappy dog. steel, it’s durable.
Pioneer Woman Photoshop Actions – It’s sunny out on the ranch, and these actions created by Pioneer Woman will make your photos just freakin’ pop.
Cost of Living Comparison – It’s hard times. If you’re gonna pick a cheap city, here’s one place to start. via Lifehacker.
Coriander Meatballs -You KNOW you’ve been craving it. Cheaper than a box of vino to go with it, whip up a lil’ mint sauce with it you gourmet.
Cardiovascular Paper – It’s all the rage these days. Sport some at your favorite sporting event or just wear into work.

Bonus! GigaPan Time!

Ant! – This is the closest I want to get to an Ant, any closse and it would be too gross.
Parasitic Wasp! – Why? It just gets worse.
SpiderMite! – Small creatures no longer interest me.

• Wondering what the best 3D MCAD Magazine is? Check out Develop3D - Technology for the Product Lifecycle

Have you ever sat at your table staring into a pile of peas wondering just how a multi-touch workflow would work? Would it be practical for editing 3D content or video content?

Oblong Industries (creators of G-speak) and supreme futurist John Underkloffer unveiled TAMPER at Sundance Film Fesitval this year as part of the New Frontier exhibition. But check this out. John recently gave a demonstration to Makingof.com showing exactly how it all works. Video after the break. It’s happening with video, why not with 3D CAD?

Editing Video with multi-touch and Gestures

Yes, it’s happening. They’ve managed to make the difficult task look even more difficult, or even easier, or even more aerobic… depends on how you look at it.

Why not with 3D CAD?

So, now you’ve seen the possibilities of how it’s being done with a relatively complicated task like editing video. Sure, there’s now 3-dimensional object, but I’m pretty sure they exist in video also. What’s really interesting from a 3D geometry perspective is how they are working with 2-dimensional graphic data and it’s 3-dimensional counterpart at the same time, in a heads ups environment. The object also serve as a point of control for what the user is creating.

So, why not with 3D CAD? With device like the Flux Digital Tabletop we’re getting awfully close to having to get up out of our seats a little more often. Good-bye atrophy. Hello tendonitis.

Via Making of

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I’m excited. Are you excited? The crinkly wrapper is coming off and it’s about dang time. Today, July 1st, after two years (and two months) of tinkering with graphics, plugins and a soupy mixture of html code, we’re launching the all new SolidSmack.

It’s shiny, don’t ya think. But that’s not all there is to it. This is a new day for what’s going on with SolidSmack as well. This is also a testbed of sort. One, to find better ways of sharing cool content with you and two, to make it more a more engaging experience for you. Here’s the details on some of the design and what’s to come.

Why the update?
Frankly, the old site layout, while minimal, was getting a bit blotchy, dated looking and difficult to manage. We just can’t have that now can we. I also wanted an easier way to add content, experiment with different web technologies on the site and yes, slap some ads up in your face to get a little support going.

The theme I’m using, and it’s versatile backend, allows me to do this and really, to do it much easier than before. This makes the site much more dynamic and able to change quickly. Some things you’ll see, some things you won’t. The point being, we’re gonna put the top down, have some fun and see what this site can do. So, you might be wondering what the site is running on.

What’s it running on?
I’m building a whole About section for the site that will give details on everything from the framework to the fonts. For the time being though, here’s some quick facts

• Hosted on Hostgator
• Running on Wordpress
• Rockin’ the Thesis Theme (aff) Framework
• Uses Icons from the free Function Icon Set
• Took over 1 year to design

What you should check out
If you’re seeing this in a feed reader or email you won’t be able to enjoy some of the features in the sidebar and footer area. So, yeah, you should definitely visit the site. There’s a few things you’ll want to come back repeatedly for.

The sidebar
Right now there’s ways to connect with me via Friendfeed. There’s polls! Delicious polls. A new one every week or so. And there’s the Disqus Combo Widget where you can see what being discussed and who’s discussing it.

The Footer
I love this area. It slides back and forth. There’s nine areas that I’ll be adding different content to occasionally. Currently, there’s ways to connect via Google Friend Connect. See some of the top CAD sites and see post by different criteria.

The Archive Page
The Archive page is where you can find posts organized by category and view post based on popularity and randomness.

Some things we’ll be trying out/looking into
Since I hold a high regard for complete randomness and highly useful information for you all, we’ll be trying out a few things.

• Real-time blog posts (Like this one, see below)
• Guest Posts (contact me if you’re interested)
• Cloud Apps
• Broader Content
• Video

As always, please let me know what you think, what’s annoying, what’s cool, what you would like to see and how the site could be better in any way. Thanks for helping SolidSmack go this far. Let’s kick it up a notch or two.

• Wondering what the best 3D MCAD Magazine is? Check out Develop3D - Technology for the Product Lifecycle

Oh no, you not gonna do it are you? please, no, no. YES. Slowly step away from the rotor. Bolt Circles my friends. Large, circular, equally-spaced bolt circles to turn your manufacturing nemesis into someone that buys you cakes on holidays. Manufacturers have a special place in their heart for “B.C.” , and as engineers we want to appreciate the power of creating them easily.

Now, in SolidWorks, you have a few options, but if you’re a square plate with no circular edge to be seen, using the plain old Circular Pattern feature just won’t cut it, but there’s a tool that will.

Have a look at the image below. That’s a heckuvalotta holes huh. It’s easy to create that equally-spaced circle of holes using a circular pattern because you have that circular edge for it to follow. Now let’s look at how to do it when you don’t have a circular edge.

Bolt Circles with Circular Pattern are easy, but what do you do when you don't have a circular edge to select?

What to use when you don’t have a Circular Edge
The fastest way to get a bolt circle without using a circular pattern is to use a Curve-Driven Pattern. But there’s also a quick way to create the curve you want to use.

Step 1 – Create a reference
Using the Hole Wizard (Insert, Features, Hole, Wizard…), select your Hole Size and using the Position Tab in the Property Manager

Step 2 – Create a Curve Driven Pattern
Create a Curve Driven Pattern (Insert, Pattern/Mirror, Curve Driven Pattern…) and select the feature to pattern (the hole) and the reference circle. Note: You’ll have to right-click on the Hole Feature sketch and select Show to be able to select it.

So there ya go. A beautiful Bolt Circle to make any classy machinist have a happy day on the Drill Press.
Image via Flickr – Beige Alert

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I’m not saying that one day robots will eat and digest you for energy, but I am saying. Especially given the state of two minds that are creating carnivorous robots that run on the juices extracted from various pests and their materials.

This one grabs flies, mice or other small creatures, scrapes them into a microbial fuel cell vat of bacteria that breaks down the biological material into pure robot-loving energy. No word on if the vat removes the fibrous material or if it’s dishwasher safe.

Enjoy your dreams of being slowly digested. The ‘Matrix’ scenario is sounding better all the time.

They can gain energy by chomping on flies and mice…The pests are lured in and digested by an internal microbial fuel cell. – _{New Scientist}

Although they currently rely on a main power source, is likely the could extract enough energy to be fully powered by their captured prey. Ya gotta human ingenuity.

Via Hack a Day

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How many ways do you think there are to share content online? hundreds? thousands? Who cares, cause we’ve boiled it down to four. Exactly four sites that are changing how people post content and interact online?

Not only are these the coolest places to be online nowadays, they’re the quickest and most versatile ways to put up your thoughts, consolidate your social activity and post just about any kind of media you want people to know about. So, get your amazing food mold photos and thoughts on abolishing insect repellent together, you’re about to go post.

Why the four?
There’s a lot of ways to put crapalicious meaningful content online. However, there’s only a few really good ways to enjoy doing it while having it all make sense. Whether you’re just wondering about posting content online or consolidating how you already do it, these are bound to interest you.

I’d also like to add, there’s a direction content distribution on the web seems to be drifting mindlessly toward. There are types of real-time aspects creeping in, but this is just one feature of what browsers and web apps will apply toward the continuous streams of online content generated each day. These are four that are showing the types of features being added to applications development and content distribution. They’re not perfect, but they’re ones to get familiar with.

These four below would currently be considered blog or micro-blogging sites or platforms, but in actuality, they’re more like thought-streaming or content-streaming apps. They allow you to put content online in different ways, and likewise share it in different ways. Here’s the crew of them. While they’re separate apps, you’ll notice when you get into them, that they have features which allow them to work together.

FriendFeed

FriendFeed is real-time content being delivered as fast as you can create it. You can see the content streaming in real-time on the public discussion page. This seems a bit noisy , I agree, but the value is on the people you connect with and the other features like consolidating all your social site activity, posting via email, document attachment, groups, threaded comments, and great bookmarklet, widgets and other tools.

Posterous

Posterous is making it extremely easy to post content online as well as consolidate your activity. The great features Posterous has are being able to auto-post to your other social sites, like Twitter, Facebook, etc., post via email and have as many Posterous sites as you like on one account. You can also subscribe to other Posterous users.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a lot like Posterous with not as much a focus on distributing your content to other sites. They have an incredibly easy interface to use, a lot of tools, widgets and a third-party developer site which allows you to extend the ways you use Tumblr. You can also follow people and create as many blogs as you like on one account.

Wordpress.com

Wordpress is one more will be familiar with. It’s a full blog platform that allows you to quickly customize the site and post content. The integration doesn’t work quite the same, but since it uses RSS you can link it to other sites. Wordpress has an extremely strong community, lots of development and many ways to customize.

Which is best?
These are all the range of web apps currently out that are pushing web technology in the area of content distribution. They don’t create or organize the media for you, they’re simply an outlet for all the stuff you want to get off your head. The best for this is a tough call between the two, FriendFeed and Posterous. Freindfeed allows quick posting via web and email and allows file attachment. Posterous takes away the boundaries typically associated with blogging while keeping the whole process familiar. It’s dead easy and would be the preferred way to learn how all this social media works together. For this reason, I’d pick Posterous with a strong suggestion to also check out Friendfeed, in order to discover how a stream of information is displayed and used online.

How these Apps Will Advance CAD/PLM
Currently, CAD and PLM is a static, somewhat disconnected way of designing and tracking information. It mirrors, to an extent, what typical blogs are today. Content is created, published (released) and consumed (built). The comments come in and splashes of collaboration happen here and there. In an environment similar to what Freindfeed and Posterous are CAD and PLM apps would be feed information from devices and applications able to connect and feed information to the model and designer/engineer/manufacturing. The programs could then immediately feed production systems real-time model data and information based on conditional notifications.

That’s all great for copying what web technology is doing, but CAD/PLM apps can advance beyond this by very simply integrating adaptive processes and more semantic features/search. We all want a better way to find the junk out there about what programs we use, the models we create in them and the discussions going on around them. Not only within the applications themselves, but also within web technologies where collaboration and issue resolutions are happening. I mention this, because there’s people out there thinking about this – people thinking about how we create/use 3D data, how we can automatically generate 3D geometry based on purpose and environment while manufacturing is automatically aware of what is coming and adapts accordingly. Most likely we’ll see a more relevant future web, and I’d like to think we’ll see more relevant future CAD/PLM systems.

Allright, dang, that was deep and all serious and way to long. This wasn’t meant to be an article, but you got me going, so enjoy the added commentary and thought about where we’re all going with CAD/PLM and this crazy web world we’re living in.

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It rose right up I tells ya, a creature as wily as a hairless mouse with ten arms and no visible face. It did have a nice name though, Clarence Witherspoon, and presented these link calmly while drinking marbles and buttered hate.

20 Impressive 3D Graffiti Artworks – and you thought 3D was just for movies and designing products. Get your spraypaint on.
Google Voice – Google just got a million numbers. They’re about to send invites. Get one or be left behind.
The Sake Education Show – Get your edumecation on about Japanese alcohol. Sayonara. Part 1 and Part 2
Robot Voice Modulator How-to – You could use your normal voice, but what fun is that when you can creep people out with a robot voice.
TrailerFreaks – Just watching trailers is so 2009, get hip and start downloading your favs right here.
The Personal Finance Chore List – But is it really a chore. C’mon, it’s soooo fun I’m gonna make TWO lists. But seriously, get on it.
How Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix, and Harry Potter are Actually the Same Movie – I knew it. jerks.

Bonus!! Sound in 3D Videos
Drone – It sounds nice.
Sync – I like cubes.
Rhythm – It’s got a nice beat.

• Wondering what the best 3D MCAD Magazine is? Check out Develop3D - Technology for the Product Lifecycle

We’re reaching deep in our pool of unusual uses for 3D CAD today and pulling out something extra shiny for ya. If you’re into graphic design or making pretty 3D icons and graphics for your website, you’ll want to adjust your seat.

You never would have thought it, but SolidWorks is extremely useful for creating 3-dimensional graphics for web and print design. Frank Parenteau has been doing it for years and SolidWorks is right there on the shelf to Photoshop. There’s even a trick you can use to get pixel perfect sizes in SolidWorks. Here’s how Frank makes it happen.

The process
Frank starts out with concept sketches to get the basic layout of the logo, site or whatever he is creating. From there, he scans the images and proceeds to model it using SolidWorks. Depending on what kind of look he’s trying to get, he’ll take it into PhotoWorks for some quick rendering and works with the camera angle/perspective to get an angle. This is particularly useful for logos and icons.

After he gets the 3D effect he likes, he saves out a .PSD file from SolidWorks and opens it with Photoshop. He’ll make image adjustments and add filters to the graphic, test out text and layout for the image. If it’s an entire site layout, he’ll add slices which allows him to crop the views and have them line up correctly online. Finally, he saves it out each graphic for use on the web. Here’s the steps.

1. When starting any kind of design work, i aways start with sketches. First by drawing pretty much anything that comes to mind, then focusing on the ideas i like and refining them.
2. For a website, i usually start out with a blank Photoshop file, and just position the basic elements, width, header height, content area dimensions, where the logo will be, etc.
3. I will then import that image in a Solidworks sketch, and basically draw the elements i want, exactly where they would be, as i would in Illustrator for exemple.
4. Then comes the rendering part, it’s really a case by case scenario, but it always involves trial and error, finding the right texture file, the perfect lighting, and making sure it doesn’t look “3D”.
5. I render to file at a much higher resolution, then scale it back in my initial Photoshop layout.
6. Lather, rince and repeat for any other element.

Why did Frank choose SolidWorks?

I am a big Solidworks user and believer, and i always try to push the limits of the software, especially the rendering engine. I quickly found out it was way much easier for me to draw shapes and layouts using the Solidworks sketch features, than it would of taken me to figure it out in Illustrator. Add the fact that you have an exact pixel to mm ratio, and you have the perfect tool for a graphic artist.

The SolidWorks Graphic Design pixel trick

The pixel to mm ratio is really helpful, as i can start a layout in Photoshop, get my overall dimensioning (in px), and when i do my stuff in SolidWorks, i know that after I re-scale my render, it will fit exactly where I wanted. A 10mm radius will equal a 10px corner.

Graphic Design Examples

The Fallen

Jazz Media

Nymoda
Here’s another example from a new site he is working on http://www.nymoda.ca/. The embossed white circle is actually a photoworks render.

The SolidSmack logo just so happens to be created using SolidWorks. Have you ever used SolidWorks or 3D CAD to produce 3D graphics for web or print?

• Wondering what the best 3D MCAD Magazine is? Check out Develop3D - Technology for the Product Lifecycle

Put down the oil can you’re dumping into the river and rev your electric motor Mr. Clean, we’re gettin’ sustainable and Xpress-ive up in this design. Yes, you could single-handed prevent further disintegration of the atmosphere and taxpayer burden by properly analyzing your design and applying a material that reduces those nasty carbon molecules causing the sun to cook everyone’s brainpan.

SolidWorks has released the beta version of SustainabilityXpress on the SolidWorks Labs site. We’ve got the eco-friendly, low calorie review.

So, prepare yourself to become the sustainable designer or engineer you’ve always dreamed of becoming. And since this post is generating a carbon footprint larger than a 7MPG truck without a muffler in a developing country, you’ll have to work that much harder on optimizing your design… just sayin’.

Brief Review
SolidWorks has partnered with, PE International to use their Life Cycle Assessment data which analyzes the ecological impact of different materials along the life of the material as it is used in manufactured products.

SustainabilityXpress is easy to get started with – just make sure you have it selected to start-up in the add-ins (tools, add-ins.) A tab will appear in the Taskbar on the right-hand side of your screen. If you have a material set using the SolidWorks material database it, unfortunately won’t recognize those yet. You’ll need to select the material from the pull-down and select set material. This is actually quicker than setting the material through the database and allows you to quickly select different materials to see the havoc they will reek on the environment. In addition, you can set which country you want to toss into unbridled environmental panic by selecting them in the location area below the material selection. Currently, only North America, Europe and Asia are represented. (The other countries may follow if they get their act together and start recycling a bit more.)

From there, you’ll see SustanabilityXpress start doing it’s thing in the pie/bar charts at the bottom. You’ll see current impact and previous impact in the four relevant sections. (Sorry, happiness and burn rate are not in this version.) Now, these charts are fairly obscure, except for being able to tell if the material is better (green) or worse (red) than a previously selected material or manufacturing/use location. You can get a more detailed bar chart view of each section by clicking on one or using the arrow at the very bottom to cycle through. Again, a lot of obscure numbers. I attempted to find a better explanation for what they meant or how they were calculated, but failed. With all your data set, you can now auto-generate a report (.doc format) to totally impress the people that wrote the Kyoto Protocol or get confused phone calls from manufacturing when you tell them to switch materials.

What’s very useful, even from a non-impact scenario, is the ability to find similar materials using the ‘Find Similar’ Tool in the Materials section.

Find Similar allows you to quickly find similar materials based on material properties.

It brings in the properties of the material you have selected. Then, you can very quickly select different materials or change properties of the existing material to find other options. After hitting the Find Similarbutton a list of materials appear according to what you have selected. When double-clicking on any of them, the environmental impact section will update instantly.

Pretty much, this tool allows you to create a nice graphical representation of what materials or manufacturing locations would be better or worse. While it doesn’t explain the numbers, you do get a better idea on what materials are going to ruin or improve everyone’s life if you use them. I’d use it more often to look for other materials that manufacturing could use when the lead times and options are not feasible on a current project. If it keeps the atmosphere from collapsing, all the better.

A final note, if this program in any way makes you feel guilty because you can’t use Balsa wood instead of Cast Iron, run immediately to a sink and throw cold water on your face, we’ll probably make it.

Some other things to note

• SustainabilityXpress currently only supports parts, not assembly
• If you have the add-in loaded, it may not appear on the Taskbar at first (go to Tools, SustainabilityXpress)
• It doesn’t currently recognize materials you’ve set using SolidWorks Material database
• The report needs some tweaking. The template is located in C:\Program Files\Dassault SolidWorks Corporation\SustainabilityXpress\lang\English

Here’s Director of Product Innovation Rick Chin giving you some more insight to the product.

• Wondering what the best 3D MCAD Magazine is? Check out Develop3D - Technology for the Product Lifecycle

There’s a wave of particularly large significance in the world of parametric, history-based modeling these warm summer days. A wave directed straight at your inability to manipulate 3D geometry any which way you want. Many a company has taken on the task of harnessing more ways to fiddle with your solids. Now, it’s Autdesk’s turn.

At the 2008 Autodesk University, Inventor Fusion was introduced to show just how serious Autodesk was about providing the option for CAD users to choose between history-based or history-free modeling, mixing them together, mashing them around and coming back to either whenever the need be. Today, they release it on the masses.

One more approach to History-free modeling please. Thank you.
You may or may not know, but what’s being called history-free, direct or explicit modeling is causing a big stir in the whole CAD/PLM industry. PTC, makers of Pro/E have Wildfire5 (with CoCreate direct editing funtionality), SpaceClaim leaves history in the dust, and Siemens has the buzz with Sychronous Technology in SolidEdge and NX. In the CAD circles, let’s just say that a couple horses have been pulverized and another is on backorder.

The new Inventor?
This isn’t being booked as the new Inventor. Yet. This release is called a Technology Preview, being made available through Autodesk Labs. That means you get to try it all out, let them know what sucks and doesn’t suck to get all the buggy issues worked out. But yeah, ‘Inventor’ is in the name, History-free modeling is the wave of the future, so pretty much my guess, it’s the new Inventor.

Why it’s cool? or is it?
I use a couple 3D CAD programs, mostly SolidWorks (history-based parametric) and SpaceClaim (history-free explicit). This is interesting to me because it combines (what I would call) the best of both, although my opinion, from a user standpoint having limited use with the current version of Inventor, would be SolidWorks and SpaceClaim already do those two things the best. But, I haven’t tried Fusion or seen actual assembly/drawing/production capabilities, which always get left out in the fancy push/pull demos. But if it does allow someone to intermingle modeling methods which make design quicker, that is gonna be cool.

Besides all of that mumble-jumble above, Fusion has an interesting looking set of functionality, which you’ll see below in some short video examples. Particular items to note are the circular context menu (marking menu) that can be be accessed via right-click and gestures. The Flexible Product Structure is also an interesting take on being able to manipulate components as quickly as you can drag, drop and create a folder like structure on the screen. Now, all they need is a good logo.

So, here are the videos. First have a look at Kenneth Wong, contruting editor of Desktop Engineering Magazine, actually using and having conflicts with the product. Then check out the Autodesk Lab videos. Will it be all it’s cracked up to be? Tell us what you think.

To view more, check out the Labs Youtube channel.

Via Yahoo Finance

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I bet you have a hanckerin’ for accessing 3D models via an iPhone and learning how you’ll interact with your coworkers and customers in future CAD applications. yeah? just a little hanckerin’?

We’ve got it. With a huge thanks to Al from Develop3D we’ve got first-time video of the interesting tidbits on future apps and collab coming out of Dassault Systemes DevCon 2009. I think you’ll agree that it’s interesting to see the push for getting access to 3D geometry and communication happening in more of a anywhere, real-time atmosphere.

Try hard to understand what’s being said on the iPLM video. It gets interesting around 3:00, but you’ll notice how the communication starts (about the 2:12 mark) “by simply answering the question, “What are you doing?”” with a kind reference to Twitter jargon.

My collaborative environment, or yours?
Everybody is trying hard to put aspects of ‘Web 2.0′ into their software, current web technology and current popular trends. It’s interesting to see how it’s all taking shape and the approach that Dassault is taking, but there’s few discussing the integration of hardware and software technology that are already taking shape beyond the current social interaction. Perhaps this new Social Craze is the ultimate collaborative condition for PLM and CAD environments… maybe this is a topic for another time. Enjoy the video.

DEVCON 2009: 3dvia iPhone App from DEVELOP3D on Vimeo.

Dassault Systemes DEVCON 2009 from DEVELOP3D on Vimeo.

Update!!
Here’s an additional video that shows the 3DVia iPhone app in action. Thanks Kate and David!

• Wondering what the best 3D MCAD Magazine is? Check out Develop3D - Technology for the Product Lifecycle

Step back price conscious data storage shoppers. 3 new contenders in the NAS (network attached storage) market have risen from the tera-byte tundra of Seagate Technology. True, they’ll only store billions of files, instead of quadrillions, but for the price and features, I think you’ll be ok for a few months.

The Seagate BlackArmor brand splits off a 4TB shared storage solution for up to 20 PCs, an external model with up to 2TB, and a portable version, thinner than your wallet, with a mere 500GB. And besides all the data capcity, they’re pretty slick looking.

Why NAS?
These devices are simply an easy solution for small offices looking for an easy way to upgrade file storage. I’ve used Buffalo and Western Digital NAS Servers in the past and they make it extremely convenient to set-up home or office storage where data needs to be shared or archived.

Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220–$449.99 for 2TB and $699.99 for 4TB (Available in late July)
Seagate BlackArmor WS 110–$159.99 for 1TB and $309.99 for 2TB (Available now)
Seagate BlackArmor PS 110–$159.99 for 500GB (Available now)

The Seagate WS-110 external (USB 2.0 or eSATA) drive capacities up to 2TB

via Engadget

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Ya see that shiny new building in the image to the left? That’s the new Dassault Systèmes (DS) campus in Vélizy, France and home to the 2009 Dassault Developers Conference (DEVCON 2009).

So far, there’s little information escaping the glass edifice of the DS headquarters, except for the occasional tweet (#DSDEVCON09) and the typical press release that doesn’t get into the intense grittiness we enjoy. We’ve had mention of the following. Interested in one of them? Let me know and I’ll release the hounds to get all the info we can manage to fit into a family size can of green beans.

What’s being talked about

• 42 new V6 products (only??)
• 3DVia app for the iPhone
• Multi-touch PLM demo
• Objet Connex 500 multi-material printing
• New partners: Mydeco, Dosch design, Wirecare
• Dassault alliance with BluKiwi (’Enterprise Social Software’)
• Cloud Modeling with Live Shape (a staircase)
• Server-based 3d photorealism (Mental Images)

PS. all these topics, I got via the DSDEVCON09 twitter stream, not off the web, or email or conference notes. keep tweetin’ folks.

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Can you feel it in your bones and tendons and fingers that just pressed the installation button for SolidWorks 2009 SP 4.0? I know you can. And if you’re one of the lucky companies that haven’t laid-off everyone, shut down and stopped your SolidWorks subscription service, you can download SolidWorks 2010 Beta right now.

You can get a little bit of an idea of what you’ll see in SolidWorks 2010 from the SolidWorks World 2010 Preview. Of course, the number one enhancement request last year was to “Increase program stability”. Will that somehow get worked in somehow?

By the way, if you have lost your job, you can try out SolidWorks 2010 Beta via the SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package – Thanks for the reminder Mr. Micheal Grant!

• Wondering what the best 3D MCAD Magazine is? Check out Develop3D - Technology for the Product Lifecycle

What has Fur, Bumps, stereoscopic 3D support and reeks of SolidWorks Import possibilities? The brand new version of Luxology’s modeling/rendering/animation package, modo 401. Yes, all of that, in one integrated tool.

Since first being show early this year, many a rendering fanatic has been anticipating the new rendering capabilities, while deep in the lair of Luxology’s San Mateo Headquarters, they were cooking up modeling and import features that would give reality an intense beat down. There’s a lot to the software, so take a deep breath of volumetric lighting and prepare to be forcefully ray-traced.

All-in-one
The new features in modo 401 are certainly impressive. The rendering does indeed look phenomenal and who doesn’t want to be able to instantly replicate geometry. For many, it’s a tedious workflow to go from one process to the other, modeling to materials to rendering to animation and back around again if something changes. What Luxology has done, is combine that process into a single interface where each step can be touch at anytime throughout.

For SolidWorks Users
In modo 401, Luxology introduces the SolidWorks importer which allows a SolidWorks model to be brought directly into modo. For SolidWorks users, this becomes a very powerful way to produce rendering of their existing model. It does break the link between SolidWorks and modo, but brings in all the materials assigned via SolidWorks. The workflow is the same as that for bringing a model into PhotoView 360, which also runs on Luxology’s Nexus technology and will be seeing an impressive revamp for 2010.

Oh, by the way, this software, the whole package cost $995.00 out the door. That’s one of the most impressive features to me.

Get the grand tour at Luxology or press on to see some video and images.

Rich Hurrey and Michael Blacbourn modo 401 Tank Rendering and Animation from Solidsmack on Vimeo.

Trees wth Snow using Fur and Replicators by Juan J. Gonzalez

Boot stitch image credit to Andy Brown

Boombox by Greg Leuenberger

Brad Peebler

SunMicrostation by Greg Leuenberger

Curve Rendering by Yazan Malkosh

Full Disclosure: SolidSmack was given a web introduction to the new features in Modo 401. Most likely we will receive a reveiw pack to test out the functionality and report further on the modeling and import functionality with SolidWorks.

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