Maybe ‘Punch’ is a bit to harsh? It’s actually more like a firm jabbing with the blunt end of an answered question… multiple questions. Vicious, I know, but it will all be worth it for reasons you will soon be able to feast your eyes upon. If you’ve been kneeling waist deep in porridge, watching…
Down, deep beneath a layer of optics and actuators, lay the last remnant of their forgotten race. The lights flickered as shadows shifted across the oily stench. Slowly, the charred, wriggling feelers pushed their way through, dripping with the oozing lung juice of these links. Jeanfrancois Liesenborghs – Sunset scenes and cloud city dreams make…
This is a guest post from missile makin’, Engineer from Arizona, Scott Wertel of Wertel Enterprises. Solid Edge ST4 is one of those releases that I cherish, but is a marketer’s nightmare. I don’t remember the official number of improvements made in this version, but they focus more on specific customer requests to improve productivity…
If you’ve been anywhere besides knitting doilies, mulching a garden or knee deep in clam-chowder, you’ve likely heard, seen or felt the social repercussions of Google’s new network site, Google+. It’s more than a site though. It’s an extension of your Google profile (if you have one) and a supplement, or in some cases, a…
The brush and warthog walk up over the hill in a merry sort of way. They hadn’t thought to consider what might be lurking just beyond the bend however. To their shock, it was another warthog, with a similar brush, combing these links into its hair. Mathias Verhasselt – A visual development and Concept Design…
I’m convinced ‘Reality’ is a guy named Milo with a spray tan and a well-groomed mustache. He gets up at 6am to have a semi-artificial, vitamin D fortified breakfast, then heads off to work to sit at his laminated desk for 10 hours, during which time he rocks out ultra photo-realistic renderings. He may use…
When I sit, it’s got to be in style… long, wooden style that bends and wraps around the urban landscape creating a perfect home for woodland creature and vagabond alike. Just try to tell me that wooden slates pushing against your spine is not comfortable. It’s one reason I’m thrilled with the new bench design…
Some people call it a car. I call it pure awesomeness wrapped in a shell of pure awesomeness. It’s a Bugatti Veyron. And since it’s the most expensive car of modern history, it may be slightly challenging to even gaze upon it’s sleek frontal area or run your fingers along it’s hydraulic-powered rear spoiler. Chin…
I love a good yacht design. Particularly if it’s covered with mermaids, seahorses and has sails covered with the illustrative history of sea serpents. Fortunately for you, Ramazan Kaya doesn’t share my appreciation of sea legends and instead prefers to amaze you with in incredibly stylish design. He’s known for his Yacht designs, but had…
If 10,000 engineers in a single room makes you a bit nervous, you’ve not seen anything yet. GrabCAD is growing like hotcakes… Yes, hotcakes grow, ON HOTCAKE TREES. And it’s a well know fact that engineers can sustain themselves for hours on nothing but hotcakes. They also enjoy sharing models and providing input on models…
The herder stooped down to pick the violet. There were millions. But, what was this? He looked closer… and closer. These were not violets. What he had plucked from the earth was a small purple goat. It looked at him with its beady eyes and said, “These links, they are delicious.” Orlando Aquije Abarca -…
Imagine the possibilities of having all the raw GPU power you can handle. Then imagine a bit less, then just a tad more. That’s where NVIDIA’s Quadro 2000 sits, right in the middle. The Quadro 2000 is NVIDIA’s latest mid-range graphics card pushing memory up to 1GB from the previous Quadro FX 1800 and updates…
There’s nothing like hanging something completely random in a child’s room to make them flip out and question reality. I’ve always preferred turning their stuffed animals into mechanized creatures that fly soup into their mouths. They enjoy it AND it’s healthy. Some people just like to draw baby giraffes with big eyes on the wall…
Who feels like printing some 3D? Oh yeah! But don’t rub it on yourself. It chafes like you wouldn’t believe and there has yet to be any partnership to produce a 3D anti-chafing cream. (I would pay good money for this.) There has, however, been a(nother) partnership to print 3D direct from a website where…
Prepare your nubs. Not by sticking them in the sauce… or your mouth. Prepare them for 5 flexible ways of moving your 3D data about. We often choose to have the two halves of our brains split by the keyboard, a 2D mouse on one side, a 3D mouse on the other. What if you…
And when, without warning, the order to charge came down, they launched the orange ox into the air. To their delight, it did transform, but not into what they had expected. Instead, it took the form of beard. A beard shaped with electrifying beeswax of these links. Martin Ansin – From editorials and ads to…
What’s big, bright and full of light? The SES2 light kit from 9b Studios. If you recall the first Studio Environment Set (SES1) from render rocker Yazan Malkosh, you’ll know awesome, easy-to-use light presets for modo, Microstation and SolidWorks are the name of the game. This version brings in 50 more HDR images spherically mapped…
There’s nothing like an impromptu SolidWorks test to get the blood pumpin’. Especially for the job candidate or new hire you spring it on. Strikes the fear of insane modeling practices in them, it does. Plus, it will show you if their completely incompetent or if they just need an extra helping of SolidWorks training…
When you feel like chowing down on some freshly woven steel mesh, a timber panel or simply a charred piece of ceramic, you’ll be happy to know there’s been a lot of research put into those materials you’re ingesting. We know they’re useful for such activities as ‘building stuff’, but how do they react to…
The cardboard was sopping wet. Layer by layer, it went on until all you could see was his eye. One eye… glaring. There was little time to act. They were hungry, the fires were coming and the nutrients had yet to be harvested from these links. SubjektZero – SubjecktZero brings the vector bliss, with thick…
The future. Tis glorious. And while I dream of the day we’ll all have transparent skin and morphing appendages, it’s those amazing flying machines we’re likely to see such things on first. The Future by Airbus is a look at the possibilities and where they see the design of aircraft and aircraft interiors going. The…
This guest post comes courtesy of Mark Burhop, Social Media aficionado and Director of 3rd party Ecosystems at Siemens PLM. You can find Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn and near any coffee machine with the majority of components developed using Solid Edge. Hide your spouses. Get your kids under the bed. Solid Edge ST4 is out…
Steal the iPad away from the kids for a few minutes and check this out. IMSI Design, makers of DoubleCAD, has put out the first 3D DWG Viewer for the iPad. “3D DWG!?” you scream in your loudest Vietnamese accent. “What is that all about?!” Well, it’s about a few things – one-upping Autodesk, bringing…
Sometimes, after you’ve been shopping for sock straps all day, you just feel like tearing a patch of your hair out, running into the forest and gnawing down a couple trees. After your lips are drooping against your neck in bloody mess, you may be thinking of other ways to terrorize small woodland mammals. One…
I think you’ll agree with me when I say, there are just not enough vehicles out there that can hover. It’s a problem, but one that some people have been inspired to change. One such person is Chris Malloy. Chris works as an optics engineer out of Sydney, Australia. In his spare time, he has…
Prepare to run over and shake someone’s face skin. The contest of the year is here with a list of prizes you just won’t believe. T-Splines has launched the Make the World a Better Place contest and since they are making the world a better place with freeform modeling software like T-Splines for Rhino and…
Ya like that graphic? CAD on Android, get it? HA!! What are the best Android CAD apps? Did you even know they existed? Well, they do and any Android freak who draws hearts around their name and their open platform device will tell you there are many other apps associated with design and drawing which…
Hark! The long awaited day has arrived. PTC Creo is here. Today, Planet PTC begins, and with it, the onslaught of app slapping updates to all the PTC programs you’ve developed product in over the years. They’ve talked about it a lot since the Creo announcement last October. They’ll talk about a lot more, but…
What’s slightly less/more awesome than driving cool cars? Drawing them. Making sound effects while turning red and eventually passing out just adds to the enjoyment. I Draw Cars can help. A project started by product designer Matt Marrocco and car designer Adam Hubers, it brings their car sketching passion and knowledge to you via the…
The hive rose off the back of the rock golem. A swarm thick enough to shroud it in a wisping darkness tumbled around each half floating step. And clinging to its ribs, rock goats, hopping from ledge to ledge, gnawing on these links. Finn MacManus – Ultra-superb abstraction reeling through the void of space, across…
Do you use CATIA V6? Have you dreamt of seeing it load a large assembly? Are you curious about the future interface of SolidWorks or SolidWorks Live Buildings? Say no more! To some, the CATIA user interface is a mystery, a deep, endless turntable of parts and assemblies to explore and a mix of products…
You may have thought it, you may have sensed it, you may have felt it rub up against your ear and frighten you slightly. GrabCAD has closed another round of funding. This time, the 3D model-pumpin’ engineering community means million dollar business. Filling the roster of investment firms, they have Matrix Partners, Atlas Venture and…
Don’t you wish you could just shake someone vigorously and have a beautiful rendering pop out? I do. I’ve tried it and the results are not beautiful and you’re no closer to a rendering than you were before. However, there are programs that can do for you what your firm grip can not. Bunkspeed Shot…
Lather that sun tan oil on. Summer is here and you look FABULOUS. But don’t worry about going to the mall to find that unique two-piece. They don’t do the 3D printing thing and oh, what a shame, because the latest fabric-free, platastic feat is bridging swimwear and SLS. Designed by Jenna Fizel and Mary…
In the amazing world of all things oozing Apple, a ripe, pasty white “industry-leading offer” was announced during today’s WWDC. Apple is launching iTunes Match, a service that, get this…matches your music library with that of iTunes, and makes it all available online via their new iCloud mass storage service. The cost? $24.99 per year…
My eyes. They’ve grown fingers and are clawing my face toward the screen. If your eyes haven’t hemorrhaged with delight at the sight of the image above, keep reading. This Lamborghini concept was recently done as a Master’s thesis project by Victor Filipchenko at the Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan. With the guidance Portuguese…
We join our story back in amongst the pear trees where the small weasel was mending his mittens. Not once had he noticed the approaching mist, tumbling closer against the ground, sparking with the force of these charred, plasticy links. Creaaturebox – Comic-style character and mech coolness from the cell-shaded minds of Dave Guertin and…
It’s time to stop taking that van off-road. At least, that’s what my friends keep telling me. The kids like it, I say. But they yell, and tell me, it’s embarrassing. FINE. How about I drive up on their smug attitudes in a Local Motors rock-crushin’, path-rompin’ Rally Fighter? How’s that kiddos? It could happen,…
Well, it’s not every day you come in from towel whipping pigeons, sit down to your computer, swat away a few feathers and find a screen full of fresh SolidWorks video tutorials waiting for you. Today is such a day. Left coast bad-boy Alex Ruiz, who you may know as the SolidWorks Geek, has been…
Turns out this black void we live in is fairly large, and fairly 3D dimensional. Over a period of 10 years, astronomers led by the late, great John Huchra mapped the depths of the universe out to 380 million light years. Yeah, to Cleveland and back. It’s the largest, most complete map to date sportin’…
We’ve seen iPad apps that allow you to view your 3D models, but nothing adding the cranial crushing aspects of collaboration. Except for one… We first caught a glimpse of the CADFaster iPad app at SolidWorks World 2011. Since then they’ve lit the switch on development and added features on par with the desktop version…
You know who love students? I mean, really, REALLY loves student? Autodesk. They’re getting all giddy with excitement about their relationship with students (who in the past have been the biggest software pirating extension of the Autodesk marketing plan *ahem*) and making it possible to turn their passion for learning into a passion for all…
How would you like to stand dangerously close to the most light-weight superbike in the world as it flew by you? Yes? Well then, how would you like to be part of the team that design a wee, light-weight bit of it? HECK YEAH! If you’re game, then you’ll want to jump on the challenge…
Good news for all of you hankering for a poseable male figure to put in your models. We twisted the arm of Eric Lagman, creator of the figures at CADHuman.com and convinced him to give all SolidSmack readers a bit of a discount on one of his models. From now until June 27th you can…
The cause had been established. The tooth ox took action. Pushing a back hoof off the wall and the other off the face of the lipless, old man he propelled himself up, through the air, twisting around the darts of the fire leopard’s tongue. Landing, he focused, drew his gaze and shot the explosive terror…
I’m excited. We’re so close to having a single robot that can jump, cut, fly and eat flesh… and yet so far. Fortunately there are teams dedicated to making fear happen. One such group is compressing airflow to supersonic (Mach 3) levels and creating low pressure vortexes to allow tiny robots to crawl on just…
Creating amazing looking structures using SolidWorks… Many doubt it, others toy with it and still others know just how to blend the capabilities to make it possible. Project Frog, out of San Francisco, CA, is one of the later. They’ve got sweet looking, highly efficient, modular building systems down in a big way. They do…
I’m sorry, are you looking at my nose? You are? It’s oddly beautiful in it’s realism and splotchiness you say? Why, thaaaaaank you! You might like to know it’s fresh out of the design lab. Yeah, just plopped it on this morning. Uh-huh, designed in some fancy-pants modeling software called “Freeform” from an outfit named…
If there was one desk I would sit behind and make loud, obnoxious race car sounds followed by dry hacking… it would be this one. A desk inspired by the 1930’s era of Bugatti Grand Prix racers tearing blue streaks around the track. This work of engineering brilliance is the brainchild of Alan Sawyer and…
Everyone needs a little love. Even those that get to sit around all day tinkering with light settings and camera angles. As Rob Rodriguez details in his blog post, PhotoView 360 (PV360) users may have new reasons to model a hand and give a fully rendered high five to each other. Here’s what you’ll want…