Before you say anything… Yes, I know. We’re about 10 years behind on the news of this mouse, but since we won’t need to use a mouse to move bits around in the near future, we might as well show you what mouse you could have been using all these year. The Evoluent Vertical Mouse.…

What’s the best thing to do when in Las Vegas? Get out of Las Vegas and go to the Grand Canyon. I had the chance to do just that while at Autodesk University last November, with Hardi Meybaum, CEO of grabtastical GrabCAD.

Quick, while everyone is distracted with the aftermath of CES, drop what you’re doing right now and have a look at sunglass.io immediately. Sunglass.io is a venture-backed MIT startup, based out of San Francisco, co-founded by Kaustuv DeBiswas and Nitin Rao. Today, they’ve launched Sunglass.io, a browser-based environment for seamless collaboration and soon, a suite…

Buried amongst the thorns, winter long and cold, the bramble beast. Should the rope be torn from his pack fast enough, he may ride, but quick the beast is and torn not was his sheathed cord. Found there amidst briared air, he stood, breath stolen, as rose slow the the bramble beast dripping with these…

How does jet setting over to San Diego sound? What if it involved sitting inside a conference center all day, absorbing vast amounts of knowledge about SolidWorks? I know my pasty white skin would appreciate that. SolidWorks World 2012 is coming up in a few weeks, and SolidWorks is interested in launching one of you…

Like Adam OHern, I am very excited to announce that EvD Media is officially official. This joint effort between solidsmack, cadjunkie and engineer vs designer is bringing all the goodness of the design process to you in three glorious halves… err, sites.

Nothing screams I AM AWESOME like having the faces of the people you have vanquished surrounding you. But what if you could turn those faces into 3D printed vases (or coffee mugs), put some flowers (or coffee) in them and bask in the glory of your victories? Now you can. Sculpteo has released the Sculpteo…

When sailing his house on the wooded sea, green moss pillows rose against the eaves. And upon the rolls of wave shed leaves, floated this princess and pauper king, silently sailing in moonlit peace, eating smoked salmon and squeezing these links. Hal Tenny – Wonderfully expansive fractal art (made using Mandelbulb 3D and Apophysis) to…

You see that little girl? She’s happy because she just printed some little yellow shoes to match her little yellow shirt. THAT COULD BE YOU. We should have known by now, with sites like MyRobotNation and the taunting of Origo 3D Printer for kids, it was only a matter of time before big 3D print…

What do you do after growing an engineering community to 70,000 users and 20,000 models? You snag a massive 4 million in series A funding to add to the 1.1 million seed round previously achieved. The GrabCAD engineer and design community did just that to kick off the new year, with plans to grow the…

Have a few of these laying around the house? If you’re a fan of Portal or Portal 2, the teleporting escape game from Steam, you’ll probably wish you did. Logan Siahaan and Stephen Hess are a couple of portal jumping fiends and wanted to do just that, so they see out to make their own…

A beam of light has shot from the east, through my window, reflecting off a large bottle of whiskey milk sitting in front of me and directly into my eyes. Your custom HDRI dreams are about to get a lot more custom and a lot more powerful. HDR Light Studio 3.0 has been released by…

We’re starting 2012 off with a fast punch to the ear and perhaps the coolest 3D print design contest EVER. The insanely exotic 3D printed work of Anthony Tammaro is your inspiration and Shapeways is making your idea come to life. Here are the details.

The idea of CAD on the cloud, i.e. modeling physically taking place on the cloud, has been a bit sidelined by not putting CAD in the web browser, but having vast computer arrays handling the heavy processsing over the web browser. Media and entertainment is going the other direction and IKinema is one company leading…

Gripping the cord, strung between a bottle and bewilderment, he struck the membrane. The vibrations echoed through the passage, off his eyes and into the face of the small beastie squeezing these links. Ray Ceasar – The art of a dog that takes a melancholy mood, mixes it with five layers of feelings and emotions…

I bet if you ground the pulpy goodness of a SolidWorks training manual into mash, mixed it with raw eggs and downed it in front of a group of SolidWorks Certified Professionals, you still wouldn’t absorb all the knowledge you could in a step-by-step tutorial. Particularly, an F-16, an Audi and a Lamborghini surfacing tutorial…

In the realm of stylish SHTF fashion, it’s unlikely you’ll have a lot of choices. Fortunately, given the proper society ending event, there will be plenty of unnecessary road signage lining the untraveled streets. Just snag a couple or five and you’re all set to make colorful shielding to warn any would be attacker that…

Then, hopping down the snow-drawn path, with bells singing a muted rhyme, it happened upon a cranberry grove, strange and quite serene. There in the light and shadows still, a beckoning upon that hill, a band of rabid Christmas minks, gnawing on these chewy links. Evan Raditya Pratomo – Classic and fiarytale combined, exploring worlds…

The organic lining of the universe, my eyelids and the inside of my colon is quivering quite vigerously at the moment. Early this morning, T-Splines announced that it has been acquired by Autodesk. T-Splines is creator of organic surfacing plugins for SolidWorks and Rhino. Here are the details we know.

I remember back in the day when we had to actually build mock-ups with telekinetic powers our hands to simulate mechanical motion. Fortunately, our fancy 3D CAD programs take away the need for cardboard scraps and paper cuts. The crew doing it up right on the SpaceClaim side is AR-CAD who has created SC-Motion, a…

This probably isn’t the first of these you’ve seen, but it’s likely the coolest. Who am I kidding, this is just paper stuck in some bike spokes, but it’s awesome paper stuck in some bike spokes and I’d like to see anyone try to make the same thing without taking a few fingers/fingernails off in…

I saw a clock give birth to a timeline once. It was sticky and had something to do with how Julia Child’s vocalization of the words Les oeufs brouillés changed over time. This timeline curated by i.materialise is cooking up something a little different though. It’s a look at the the past year in 3D…

I don’t know why attempting to move your model by jabbing a dead mole into your screen doesn’t work, but you’ll be interested to know about Maide control while you work out the details. When Maide first debuted, it was only avaialable for SketchUp and Rhino 4. Two months later and that has completely changed.…

If you want to see something completely mind blowingly, mind blowing feast your eyes upon RogueDZN.com. We’ve featured their Armadillo:161 Bracelet. Now, they have announced their newest precision machined men’s bracelet, the Armadillo: C6-DARKHORSE and boy, IS IT MANLY. Each of the 145 interlocking parts are individually, 9-axis machined from over 200 layers of compressed…

The creoxithan seeped onto the outer hull, leaching the painted emblem of the Alliance crest off the ancient metal beneath. They couldn’t contain what lie inside much longer. Neither, could they ignore the fire gales beyond the hatch. Caught between two ends and no apparent way out, they decided to take these links. Steve Burg…

Moving dirt. Mixing concrete. Inspiring people. Not something you want to do with a spoon, a bucket and lots of screaming. Especially when your goal is to create entire civilizations from scratch. Typically, you would need a few dozers, a backhoe or three and a lot more money to throw at materials and manufacturing equipment.…

I’m convinced that what you’re about to see is the future of water sports, water exploration, water battle and anything having to do with the combination of insanity and awesomeness. Franky Zapata, World Champion professional jet ski/waverunner rider of Zapata Racing, is stepping watersports up a number of notches by retrofitting a jet to propel…

And slipping into the grassy depths, the shadows fell, the sun disappeared overhead and the earthy floor tumble out before her. What strange and vibrant things were these passing by? A snail of purple playing didgeriplinks with an elfkin on top launching these links. Amy Sol – Quiet and peaceful. Little pandas sitting on shoulders…

If you’ve ever mistakenly drank ferromagnetic fluid thinking it was coffee, you’re likely dead, or highly magnetized and sitting at In-n-Out gnawing on a burger dressed like Magneto. I am… right now actually, staring into the screen at the Kickstarter project David Markus has launched. Ferrite – Interactive Liquid Sculpture is a visual display of…

Sometimes you take a look at 3D software and go mad trying to figure out what eye to puncture first. Not the case with TopSolid 7. This review has been a long time coming. At first I was afraid, then I was excited, then slightly afraid again, then really excited. Why? Because Top Solid 7…

How do you really upset a machinist? Show them an fully-integrated SolidWorks CAM solution that puts their 2D toolpath pickin’ to SHAME. That’s one angry CNC programmer. That is, until they realize how much time you’ve saved them. HSMWorks, creators of the product by the same name, is releasing the first free CAM solution for…

Robots! And they’re sooooo adorable! Wait, that one looks like… yes! THE FUTURE. Boys and girls, what you’re about to see IS the future. A glimpse at custom-fab-to-hand ingenuity in the shape of a wee, 3D print of eventual human devouring goodness. Now, customized fab tech isn’t new, but My Robot Nation is making it…

I tore the tender gristle from my wrist joint last week and sent my loose appendage into the Exhibition hall of Autodesk University 2011, straight down to the 3DConnexion booth. Before the blood completely drained, I (or rather, my hand) was able to twitch uncontrollably on top of the new product from 3DConnexion, the SpaceMouse…

Thinking of getting rid of those boring old rubber wheels on your ride? You bet. And what better way to do it than pinning strips of sheet steel together, for an ever so subtle springy wheel effect. Ron Arad is a product designer and architect with just the approach to make that happen and the…

Dassault Systemes sure isn’t afraid to launch a cool, new product… then hide in the back corner next to the prosthetic leg design for their cat. Thing is, it may not actually be ready for prime-time, even though it is part of the currently available CATIA V6R2012 release. CATIA Natural Sketch was announced at ECF2011,…

Large balls of fire shot down from the catapult batteries. No one had noticed, but it seemed as though anything that came within a 500 foot proximity of the keep’s wall immediately became liquid, ignited by the faintest light. Out of it’s depths shown two wee, beady eyes, beaming with the strength of a million…

3D modeling apps can’t make it to the web soon enough and Chris Chalmers of Bios Design Collective could very well be pointing the way. His new, custom lamp fab site Fabripod is the foundation of a Kickstarter project set out to combine 3D design and web based visualization in a ingenious way… and as…

Not to get all personal with you on a Tuesday, but how many different design apps do you use? The non-CAD variety – the apps that help you document, store, take notes and generally be a nuisance to those who don’t like your repeated requests to join GMail or a Dropbox? There are likely a…

Whoa buddy, 3D Systems continues their 3D print related rampage through the additive manufacturing industry gobbling up companies to compliment their forward looking plans of content-to-print domination. It seems no company is safe from having MILLIONS of dollars thrown at them, if they’ve got the “strategic fit’ 3D Systems CEO, Abe Reichental, is looking for.…

I’m all for kinetic sculptures that look like they could disembowel you, devour you, the move your remains through their undulating, kineticly cool structure. U-Ram Choe who is know for amazing metal work mixed with an array of glass, coils, resin, electronic bits and movement has a new sculpture showing in New York at the…

The dust tumbled off the sill of the open window as his boots fell one after the other against the plank floor. “Why you’re full of nothing but prunes and palaver!” came the voice from the corner, “Going on as you do with this and that and the other and I’ll tell you what, you…

This is a special guest post from Sky Greenawalt of School Street Design who writes about CAD/CAM tools and the process he goes through in the quest to create high-quality composite parts at BetterLivingThroughCNC.com. Catch his webinar on T-Splines V3.3 retopo tools and applying T-Spline surfaces to mesh data, November 29th. Register here. Well folks,…

If you were to wad up a piece of paper, throw it in my face and yell, “what’s your favorite artistically represented graphical element!” I’d have to wipe the blood from my lip, pinch my elbow skin and scream from the depth of my lungs, “A decent, yet imaginative typeface!” Nothin’ better in my mind,…

This morning, the Local Motors website got a little bit of an update. As speculated yesterday, the automotive-centric design community is getting some software lovin’ from Siemens PLM in the form of a new software release. Solid Edge Design1. This new iteration of Solid Edge is a scaled down version of the full-blown synchronous modeling…

Whilst walking down the path, she found the cracks within the garden wall expanding and contracting with a vibrant rhythm. Not only had she just noticed this, when a wee rabbit popped its head through a larger crack, turning its head toward her saying, “I am made of fur and kinks, but look in my…

The Rally Fighter by Local Motors. Image via SiemensPLM Collaborative innovation is the name of the game and both Seimens PLM and Dassualt are knocking at the door of co-creating possibility. Except it’s less possibility and more actuality. This week both companies have revealed their plans to take collaboration to another a place where you…

I awoke Tuesday morning to a disturbance in my inbox. Seven press releases from reverse-engineering software developer, Geomagic. Apparently they had released something… or a few somethings. Indeed they had. Their entire product line received a fresh, new update in the form of Geomagic Studio 2012, Geomagic Wrap 2012 and Geomagic Qualify 2012. Geomagic creates…

Who cares about the Cloud, when the ability to grab our models is out there? Virtually, that is, in a very awkward, ‘why is this sneeze guard in front of me’, ‘dangit I spilled the ranch dressing on the sunflower seeds’ type of way. Yet, as we fall down the rocky gorge of 3D software…

Dividing the darkness, down to the misty sub-structure, it leapt. Mechanical echo of rusted legs and a daggered stench spilled the pathway’s lair. And deeper still, lying in mud and time, the chalice, filled with the oil of these links. Aaron Beck – Concept artist and phenomenal painter, illustrator and photographer. Plenty of bots and…

There are two things that will make your fingernubs smile. One is slamming them fist first into fresh strawberry jam. The other, a wearable 3D mouse… that fits on your fingertip. Now, it could be that you’ll interface with machines with a device that hangs around your neck, but a four-button 3D mouse with programmable…