Modeling with both Sub-D and NURBS is all the rage with the kids these days (at least we’d like to think so) and Power Surfacing is one add-on that allows you to use such a novelly modern modelling methodology inside SolidWorks. Since its debut in January and our hands-on in with Paul McCrorey there have…
CadFaster, the makers of CadFaster|Collaborate, the BIM mobility app have retooled their marketing efforts, launching a new app for the MCAD market, MyCadbox. It’s a new product and a whole new website aimed at increasing your propensity to share models with others across the web and mobile devices. Is it ready for prime time?
This was a case of mistaken cake ingredients. No longer was there proof enough to hold his conscience or the large bag of magical, bean flour captive over the power of a 3×5 index card. The muffin slaps must continue and the perfect instrument of mixture to keep them going were these links. Janine Rewell…
Yes, this is a post about the impending shipment of two products. Why would we be writing about such things? Well, first of all, they’re incredibly classy designs. Second, they are two of the most anticipated new tech gadgets of the new year. OUYA is the $99 Android-based game console that had its start on…
Trudging through the forest on a 5-day hike through the Catskills may leave you yearning for that comfy recliner, but there’s no reason you can’t enjoy the great outdoors and camp in comfort at the same time. Jason Foutch is a Project Engineer at Toyota Motor Engineering & Motor Manufacturing North America. He’s also an…
Why would you need a flexible 11 gear mobius strip? Well, let me ask you this. Why would you NOT? 11 adjoining hypoid gears, plus the added benefit of poloidal rotation… you just never know when that’s going to come in handy in a tight situation. Thanks to Blake Courter you can have that 11…
No, it’s not a new band bringing back the horn-infused, Caribbean-upbeat swing. It’s a scanner to bring you and your environment into 3d space on the cheap. Manctl has released version 1.0 and a subsequent 1.1 version of Skanect, a new scanning software that turns your Xbox or Windows Kinect scanner into and 3d-tracing tool…
I come across drum kits, shells, and accessories that I want to buy, all the time. However, I’ve never come across anything percussion related that would entice me to climb a mountain of volcanic ash to fight an epic battle with a mystical, 10-headed beast that has an appetite for arm flesh… Until now. This…
Suddenly and without warning, you’ve finished that last sip of coffee. Not to worry! With all the energy you can muster, put the cup on your hand, run through the halls and tell everyone of the caffeine-infused goodness absorbed via SolidSmack’s Cool Tools of Doom n’ stuff! Have something cool you’ve come across? Don’t hide…
Hot towels. A whole pile of them. For a moment it took his mind off the dark corridor, the vapid steam piling against the wall and the alien horde rushing toward them. Hot towels. The creatures loved them, but if he was ever going to finish his day spa, he must make quick work of…
Max and Pete are high-fiving a million angels right about now (in between all the responses and project updates they’re sending out) for what’s turning into one of the most breakaway successes in Kickstarter history. In only a few hours, the project hit the $30,000 goal and over the past day, they’ve passed $1.3 Million.…
Well, this is what we’ve been waiting to see. A SolidWorks iPad app? Puh-leeease… no longer needed. This is the full version of SolidWorks 2013 on a Fujitsu tablet sporting an AMD Z-60 APU Processor (with Radeon HD Graphics @1.00Ghz) running Windows 8 Pro. We knew we would start seeing this when chip makers started…
Just after Sandboxr was scheduled to launch their own creature creator app February 1st, Autodesk has sprouted another tentacle from its 123D app portfolio and introduced Autodesk 123D Creature. Yes, you can model your own creature in the discomfort of an office chair during a meeting, but guess what? You can also send it off…
If there’s one thing I should have obsessivly started making and collecting when I was younger, it should have been small, wooden cars. Perhaps it’s not too late to begin *grabs log and chisel*, but in the meantime there are people like Matteo Ragni who thought it might be a good idea to gather 100…
Slap your CPU and call your mama, KeyShot 4 is released. This version of the rendering and animation software reaches deep into the cauldron of physics-based visualization and pulls out some very nice features users have been longing for.
148 brains have been drained of their futuristic spacecraft-inventing potential over the last month. Who is to blame? Makerbot and GrabCAD. The Makerbot Replicator 2 Design Challenge just finished up at GrabCAD and the winners have been selected. The challenge was to create a 2040 vehicle design. Most of the entries are fabulous designs and…
The table seams, seemed long and daunting, haunting the memory of a wooden beast, least you forget that is was but any beast, but a beast made of yeast and discarded parts, darts and such items that you wouldn’t toss into the kitchen sink, down the disposal where you grind up these links. Sebastien Hue…
Creating delectable looking food and drink items in solid modeling software like SolidWorks may not be your routine, but it is possible and if you ever need to drench either with dew or a generous amount of condensation, there’s a quick, painless, highly repetitive (click, click, click) method for applying water droplets to the surfaces…
What magic is this praytell?! The SolidSmack Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is BACK with a vengeance that can only be described as what you would get if you mixed kitteh paws with the lipless howls of a woodland badger… I know, intense and scary and cute all rolled up into 3-minutes of awesome!…
It seems that, along with grabbing up 3D models, GrabCAD is in the business of grabbing up the top talent in the 3D modeling software industry. They just announced the hire of Blake Courter (LinkedIn), a founder of SpaceClaim (and dear friend) along with Rob Stevens (LinkedIn), a former VP with the likes of Kiva…
When a girl is applying that special shade of chemical-infused eye-liner to their lids, the last thing going through their heads is all the science and incredible amounts of process that go into it. Unless they’re a girl in science… or interested in science… or forced by their parents to watch sciency videos on making…
If the Segway was just too ‘mall cop’ for you, there are two treads and 14 HP of hope for you. The DTV Shredder is in full-blown production and now available to the public. BPG Werks has had the concept in the works since 2009, after Benjamin Gulak made his claim to fame with the…
The soft grass wrapped itself around the barbs of the icy rock face. Peeled back, frozen stares of creatures chiseled in the sudden downpour of a frigid rain extended deep into the crystal space. The glow spilling forth from behind them revealed their possession–the preserved remains of their race embedded in the neck fat of…
This post is part of our series on cool crowd-funded projects that are pushing forward technology in product development and introducing innovative product design. They’re all projects we’re contributing to as well. If you would like to participate and share your project or another you find interesting, submit it to kickit@www.solidsmack.com or let us know…
Strap on your sea legs and spin up the laser cutter. Nautical charts are some of the best types of prints to plaster on the wall to give off an air of eclectic charm. You can, however, bump it up a notch with versions made out of wood, layers and layers of silky laser-cut wood.…
After the last time you wrapped strings of LED’s around your neighbor’s cat and sent it running through the dark shopping isles after pulling the fire alarm, you may be looking for a new, less flea-ridden project to satiate your LED lusts. May I grant you inspiration from Malgorzata Ratajczak and Sebastian Szlabs, the crafters…
What magic is this praytell?! The SolidSmack Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is BACK with a vengeance that can only be described as what you would get if you mixed kitteh paws with the lipless howls of a woodland badger… I know, intense and scary and cute all rolled up into 3-minutes of awesome!…
Sure, your friends may have been laughing (and slightly scared) back in April when you embedded class II lasers in your checkbones and told them Matterport’s 3D scanning IS THE FUTURE, but now you’ll be the one prepared. News of the Mountain View based, Y Combinator startup raising $3.9 million from a whopping 39 Investors…
A 3D printed Steampunk Earth is one way to bring fab-art inspiration to the masses, but nothing, and I mean nothing, is better than designing, printing and selling your own toys. Just ask Wayne Losey, creator of ModiBots, the snap-tastic, print-to-order robot toys you can mix and match for a custom creation of your own.
Tied amongst the thistle’s sleeve, yarn of red, millions of strings, flowing with the wind and steam. Only one remain quite still, looking out across the green, wondering of the sea, of sailing on a ship’s high mast to seek out this band of links. Georgi Dimitrov – Loving the sketchy lines, abstract appeal and…
This Steampunk World could very well be a replica of the actual world sent back from the future. I’m guessing it’s exactly what the world will look like in… oh, let’s say 2840… give or take a few decades. It was created by Mauricio Chong (aka MacBurro) after discovering Shapeways and realizing that you can…
If I told you that all your design in the future would be done in the cloud with all possible design iterations instantly calculated and all the best possibilities presented in a highly interactive visual format, you would probably look at me holding back a burst of laughter. However, this idea of a web-accessible, model-based…
Two years ago, you blew your nose, looked up and everyone and their grandma’s elbow was using a device fit with a multi-touch screen and fifty finger-enabled apps. There’s not much that makes multi-touch newsworthy these days, but FlatFrog is going beyond resolution and screen size updates with a pressure detecting technology that makes the…
Face it, your bottom is tired of the cushy, padded seat, proper proportions and adjustable arms, back, legs, height, tension, spin and depth. Yes, your ass longs for simplicity. The Sorri lounge chair is a ultra-minimal and ,may I say, ultra-fantastico chair designed by Portugal-based designer Gonçalo Campos. It’s produced by Wewood and while it’s…
This post is part of our series on cool crowd-funded projects that are pushing forward technology in product development and introducing innovative product design. They’re all projects we’re contributing to as well. If you would like to participate and share your project or another you find interesting, submit it to kickit@www.solidsmack.com or let us know…
Remember way back in 2013, when everyone was going crazy about 3D printing, buying those boxy little printers to make custom dog tags, phone cases and trays for their belongings? Yeah, crazy times. It’s all changed now in 2015 with 3D printing moving outside the box and FabClay was one of the first showing what…
Diluted mercurial bubbles rose to the shallow, floating just slightly above the surface tension, piling one atop the other with each vibration that resonated from the tune of the Elduen’s harp, driven deep into the earth, betwixt root and worm, stone and shale, albino skinks and these links. Shintaro Ohata – A seamless blend of…
Ah, the smell of fresh workstation sitting beneath your desk. The silent (and sometimes not so silent) arbitrator of workweek tasks determining the speed at which you get your work done and the density of muscle in your slowly atrophying office chair legs. Every computer manufacturer touts speed and performance at the best price, but…
Remember sitting in the living room when you were little, an old record playing in the background, mom cooking meat pies and the smell of lead solder in the air as your father fried the circuits of your RC car under a shiny pile of metal? If you could, you would have turned the scene…
If the video that Sandboxr has put together is any indication of the smooth, fluid, character-building fab fun you’ll be having, February 1st can’t come soon enough. On that day, they’re launching an app that puts the mix on the circa-2008 Spore 3D Creature Creator and the web-based My Robot Nation 3D printed robot army…
Announcements, Announcements! Companies just love to unveil the bleeding edge new stuff at conferences. Along with the Dassault SolidWorks’ announcement (and your 9 month wait) for SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual, Luxion is announcing KeyShot 4 with possibly a slightly shorter wait time for the release of the new version and a new render-rific link between SolidWorks…
You know that saying? One man’s washing machine drum is another man’s retro-modern firepit? Yeah, that one. Turns out it’s not just some socio-economic statement to make you feel guilty about tossing that washer in a gully. With $10 and an angle grinder, Sarah and Joe at House and Fig used their home improving pursuits…
At approximately 9:15am EST, Fielder Hiss took the main stage at SolidWorks World 2013 and announced the forthcoming SolidWorks/Dassault 3D Experience platform transitional product, SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual. It mixes together two modeling methods to make the modeling more fluid and at first sight looks fairly minimal, but on the backend builds on Dassault’s database-driven technology…
SolidWorks World 2013 is firing on all cylinders with Dassualt Systems launching a new site to kick off the user event, My.SolidWorks. It integrates the Netvibes (content curation) and Exalead (search functionality) that Dassault systems acquired over the years. This is the first we’re seeing it pushed out on a more community level, especially on…
Boxing through the slow rise of the dawn, of whipped beetle shells and mud piles, light drenched daisy chains of mist-covered machines and misfired casings. Of these, there was but one and, the one he was, brought the grind and haunt, the terror and taunt, which grew these vicious links. Greg Fromenteau – From ships…
Oh, the undulating waves of SolidWorks surfacing bliss! Yeeeeah… ‘bliss’ is hardly the word one would use when creating advanced surfaces in SolidWorks. We thought that would all change with the T-Splines plugin, but a new plugin on the SolidWorks block is about to make a big splash. Next week at SolidWorks World, Integrityware will…
Low and behold! The free modeling app from Autodesk that makes many quake with 3D modeling delight has received a point release and upgrade to a lot of the basic fucntionality. The new features are indeed a delight, but the deeper significance of the activity revolving around Autodesk and 123D is the evolution of the…
In a new challenge from GrabCAD, your dream(s) of designing a steering wheel for a supersonic car are about to come true. We covered the 1,000 mph speed of the Bloodhond SSC back in 2008, so it’s nice to see where the Bloodhound team has taken the project, that Cisco has become their main networking…
All the STEM news out of CES 2013 may have been tablets and 3D printing, but our eye is on the third generation of LEGO Mindstorm robotics as well. The new Mindstorm EV3 rolls in, firing balls of robot-educating awesome with a new programmable brick loaded with new features for today’s generation of tech-savvy kiddos…
This is a story from Mark Biasotti on his journey of advanced surface modeling in SolidWorks, from a Senior Industrial Designer at IDEO to a Senior Product Manager at Dassault SolidWorks. SolidWorks Doesn’t Do Trains, Planes and Automobiles originally appeared on the SolidWorks forum. Republished with permission. Back in the fall of 2002, while working…