A little over a week ago Microsoft presented, in fine video form, it’s vision of what the future computing and collaboration might be in 2019. Sound boring? Maybe typical?
Well, it’s anything but, and when you apply it to 3D CAD, PLM and all those amazing things you design, engineer and manufacture each day… the future is lookin’ pretty dang cool. Lets ponder…
The future of what?
When I first started putting this together, only to Montage video was out. (See first one below.) Some others have emerged looking at the future of specific industries. You’ll want to watch the second one below on the Future of Manufacturing. Does it capture your view of what it could actually be like?
Future Vision Montage
Video: Future Vision Montage
Manufacturing Future Vision
Video: Manufacturing Future Vision
Watch the Future Retail, Banking and Health Videos Here
Applying this to the process of Design and Engineering
So we’ll be moving things around with our hands on touchscreens? Is that the extent of tech in our little world of design and engineering that creates and produces everything we see? What more is there? Obvisously, thsese videos are answering the questions lf, “How will we interact with our surroundings?” and even “How will our surroundings interact with us?”
Honestly, that point of view, while valid and exciting, limits a lot of simple possibilities for back-end processes and interaction between programs.
If I had to apply some of the ideas in the video to help define and simplify the process of design engineering, some of them would be:
- Collaborative screen with translation for foreign clients during design reviews
- Handheld Inspection peripherals that render and confirm design
- Seamless transitions from design to engineering to manufacturing
- More automation (almost invisible) documentation/approval process
- Notification of material availability during design/engineering
- Automatic material and property settings base on industry and project semantics
- Instant ‘wi-fi’ synchronizing all aspects of process with each other
- Real-time sales to manufacturing ‘matrix’ that begins each stage simultaneously
- Desktop augmented reality environments
- ‘Flash-sintering’ that instantly creates (prints) and captures iterative design changes
- Automatic Fit and Failure notification based on material and environmental properties
- Design programs that train as they are used
- ‘psych-suggest’ tech that contextually creates and adapts to input
- Rendering slider (options) combined with design and engineering environment
I’ll stop there. What are your ideas? Right now I’m thinking two things 1) That most of this innovation is driven by what is possible with touch-enabled devices, which I find limiting (read some of the thoughts above that would expand this) and 2) who cares if Microsoft is the one who delivers on all of this. The more important point is that these are some inspiring ideas to take us beyond what even the geniuses at Microsoft can fathom.
I bet you’ve got some creative ideas about tech and design after watching these videos. What’s your fruit bowl vision of the future?
Source: IStartedSomething.com
