If you were to walk into my house, you would tuck your chin and say, “This space is a perfect illustration of a complete lack of modern design aesthetic.” And that’s ok. I would still invite you in and give you two handfuls of spicy, meat-laden chili. You would then say, “You need to have…
Although MacBook Pro laptops have never been as powerful as they are today, there are still many performance limitations for serious power users that rely on desktop-class specs for working (or playing) efficiently. For many, this usually boils down to the lack of serious graphics card power. With today’s professional design software, video games and…
The one instrument I would have my bodyguards play as we sauntered down the street is a violin. They’re sound is just wonderfully ominous and mysterious, while equally enchanting and… mysterious. After building a traditional wooden Guarneri-style violin, Brian Chan, an Engineer at Formlabs, took it upon himself to design a functional (and quite good…
Store those spare cables in your cheek bags no longer *all SolidSmack readers simultaneously spit cords out of their mouths*, there are other means of keeping those cords, cables and wires organized and out of the way. Sure, you could buy cable wraps, cable ties, or hire a butler to keep all that in order…
This fabulous model? This is a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. You know, the device you can use to brain a hexapod, integrate a complete home automation system or link to form an impressive Raspberry Pi SuperComputer. Yes, this wee device has more compute capacity and capability than a couple of inept presidential candidates and…
When it comes to equipping tomorrow’s designers and engineers with the tools they need to create compelling projects today, few companies have been as generous in offering access to software, tools and even fabrication facilities as Autodesk has. While the company’s Fusion 360 design software has always been free to use for students and those…
One of my 200 dream cars begins with Porsche and ends with 911 GT3 RS. Until I can sell enough plasma to purchase a used one that needs the rusted out floorboard replaced, I’ll settle for the highly prized 1:8 scale LEGO Technic version. And until one of you buy that and ship it to…
Think you need to be a 3D modeling pro to use a 3D printer? Think again. Consumers and the hobbyists among us can buy the equipment and start pumping out piles of plastic within the hour. We can even take local classes or find an online course, many free. Ah, what a time to be…
We’ve been keeping an eye out for VR/AR 3D modeling apps and, suprisingly… there’s not been much activity. Apparently we’re not in the future yet… yet… yet. There are an increasing number of ways to play in VR, but not so many ways to model in it. FEBCAD AR is one of the first that…
You know a mask of light that shoots out 50 million lumens whenever someone looks at you tends to cause temporary blindness and bouts of projectile vomit, so something at your desk that is still 1) eye-catching and 2) unique, is a must. Janis Jakaitis has a solution that will keep your 3D printer busy…
My last post was ostensibly about my new SpaceMouse, but within half an hour I had not less than five different people ask about my stylus. What the what? Stylus? For CAD? In short: yes, I use a stylus for CAD. And everything else, actually. I don’t even own a decent mouse anymore.
Use to be, for a little ambiance, we just needed a time-travelling legwax salesman to unbutton the top two-buttons of his disco shirt… WAIT a minute, that would be the opposite of ambiance. That would be the 5th most uncomfortable situation imaginable. If you want ambiance, you need to check out this model created by…
A few weeks ago I started using a SpaceMouse Wireless. It does not disappoint. It’s every bit as quick, responsive, and sensitive as the other 3DConnexion goodness, but it fits in a case about the size of your average bar room beef slider, and look, ma! No wires!
You know when you cried into that bucket of bolts because you couldn’t find the matching hardware? Those were sad, rough times. It’s almost as bad as when you stared into that bucket of PDM space searching for that one thing, that one guy modeled, that one time, that would never be needed again, but…
I think we can all tear open a bag of chips, pour some Saki and agree that, next to Akira, Ghost in the Shell (GITS) is the absolute best of 20th century Japanese Animation. The last scene where our cyborg heroine, Motoko, battles a massive 6-legged spider tank is some of the best animated carnage…
By now, you’ve probably avoided running over multiple Pokémon Go players as they traverse parking lots, alleyways and continents searching out Pokémon, Poké Stops and Poké Gyms. Outside of making a blue, red or yellow outfit to match the team you chose at level 5 (someone just told us that’s what happens, promise), you’ve not…
Well, that’s it. We have a fav new website at SolidSmack HQ. Gambody. Gambody is the buy and sell marketplace for 3D print files of video game models–High-poly, super detailed and optimized for 3D printing. They already have a healthy handful of characters, vehicles and robots with more in the works and a growing community.…
I’ve been a long time SolidWorks user, but I knew I wanted (ahem.. needed) to learn another 3D modeling software. That’s when I started looking at Autodesk’s Fusion 360. The features that highlight its capabilities and differentiates it is what this series set out to do. They’re features that expand beyond 3D modeling and show…
Unless you’ve been hiding under a (very deep) rock, we don’t need to get into specifics about Autodesk’s Fusion 360. That said, at $40 per month (or $300/year) for a professional subscription, the integrated CAD, CAM and CAE platform isn’t necessarily a bag of peanuts unless you’re committed to using it regularly. For those of…
3D models of humans are incredibly useful for designing wearable products, ergonomic studies, in-situ renders. The best-looking human scans we’ve used are from 3DScanStore by Ten24, and they’re surprisingly affordable. (warning: frank human nudity)
If you weren’t obsessively clipping your toenails last week and saw the ‘Ambiguous Cylinder Illusion’ by Kokichi Sugihara of Meiji University, Japan, then your brain likely squeezed its way out your ear canal, grabbed your jowls, looked you in the face and said, ‘YOU’RE MAKING MY BRAIN HURT!” (Yes, your brain just told you that…
In this video, we’ll build on last week’s hex nut code to add a drop-down list of standard metric nut sizes. We’ll begin with a simple example using simple reusable code snippets, and then use that knowledge in our live code. Don’t know what FeatureScript is? Look here. Onshape FeatureScript: Pump Up the Presets This…
You know what you need on your fireplace mantle? Two deer skulls, a He-man action figure and some old books. Next to all of that, you need a 3D printed jet engine. After that, no one will question you when you lean against the fireplace with a seductive look in your eye whilst making jet…
Create your first useful Onshape feature: a hex nut. I walk you step-by-step through building 58 lines of simple, human-readable code, explaining helpful tips and tricks along the way. Onshape FeatureScript: Hex Nut This will be the first in a series of videos using a simple hex nut as the foundation. Through these, we’ll cover…
Presented by The O’Jays. Remember those guys? Probably not, but I guarantee you’ve heard their most popular song, For the Love of Money. Two chords and a repetitive five-word phrase later, and you’ve got a song stuck in your head for longer than you want. Those could easily be five reasons integrated CAM matters to…
When’s the last time you went barreling down a hill on a skateboard the size of a small sea bass? Never? Well, there’s always a first time and while you’re at it, why not get extra crazy and have your questionable friends dare you to go down that hill on a 3D printed skateboards?
Why would you need a procedurally generated 3d printed tree? Why wouldn’t you?! Really, think about the possibilities here. You could print a bunch of small ones and glue them to yourself. You could shave a cat and glue them to the cat. You could glue one to your spouses forehead and wake them up…
FeatureScript is easy. Even if you’ve never coded before, Adam gets you up and running with 15 mins of free video goodness.
Adam shows you how to use FeatureScript for Onshape, and possibly also how to be Mr. Handy Pants around the house. But mostly FeatureScript.
Presented by Well, well, well. We have quite a cocktail coming together here. We’ve poured in some Fusion 360 part modeling and assembly features, and squeezed in a little simulation. Now it’s time to add that dash of collaboration. On the CAD capability excitement meter, this gets about a two. The geekiest of the…
Yeah, so here’s the thing. When your kid ask why you have a superhero’s head with knives stuck in it sitting on your countertop, you can say, “Did I ever show you how to make Chimichangas?” But why do… “CHIMICHANGAS!!” It’ll all make sense. And how do you get a superhero’s head on your countertop.…
In March, Tech Soft 3D finally released Tetra4D Enrich. For those who are working 80 hour weeks and not awares, Enrich is how you crush it with 3D PDFs. It’s a tool to make interactive tech documents quickly, from inside Acrobat.
Presented by When Onshape added linked documents a few weeks back, I don’t think I even looked out from my box of Cheetos. On second look, it might just be the most important feature of the year thus far.
My parents often joke that there were five things I was holding in my hand at birth. I have no idea why it was only five, or what they all were, but one of them was a crane cabin joystick. That’s right, a joystick you would see in a flippin’ tower crane.
Presented by Here we are. Part 4 of this epic exploration of Fusion 360. If you remember our first post, we are working our way through five aspects of Fusion 360 that, which Autodesk suggests, makes it more than CAD. To recap in a sentence, it all revolves around the idea of Fusion 360 as…
Well, this snuck right past us. In mid-March, a Monday no less, IntegrityWare/nPower Software published a press release announcing the release of something new. You might be familiar with their ‘Power Surfacing for SolidWorks’ or ‘Power SubD-NURBS for modo’ plugins. Well, this announcement wasn’t about a new plugin, or an updated plugin. It was about…
We all know you can’t first become a Jedi Master until you get all whiny about droid maintenance and zapped in the ass a few thousand times by a remote training droid. And yeah, we all know good ol’ uncle Ben gets his chuckles from seeing young Padawans zapped repeatedly by a floating, laser-shooting orb…
Presented by It’s time to talk about everyone’s favorite topic. Mating. (You two in the back stop snickering.) We’re in part three of our under-the-covers *snicker* peek at Fusion 360 and this time, we look at Assemblies. Over the years we’ve passed along tips and tricks, best practices, and overall bad-assery when it comes to…
The Onshape guys think Part Studios set them apart from other multibody CAD systems. I’ve been skeptical. After a few weeks of testing, I have some thoughts.
You know what that mop of yours is missing? Nope, not a 3D printed hat. A 3D printed LOW POLY hat, sucka! No funky floral patterns or flare on this icon of 3D printed fashion. It’s pure, triagular, ear chafing discomfort, ready for a night out on the town.
If there’s one threat I’ve always given when being kicked repeatedly in the lung sacks, it’s “If you kick me one more time! I will open my steampunk spectacle! After which you will incur the wrath of 5000 hungry steampunk ladybugs! That willst shoot from my steampunk face orb! Engulf your body! And commence dismantling…
Cloudalize is a company you’ve probably never heard, but you’ve certainly heard of desktop virtualization. You know, accessing all your apps (CAD, CAE, BIM, etc.) from the cloud via any browser or mobile device? Yes? Well, up until now Frame has been the headliner showing the possibilities, with quick creation of a virtual workspace, and…
Presented by Two weeks ago we did the unthinkable. We taped back our eyelids, slapped on some CAD spandex (that exists right?) and launched a series of articles on Fusion 360. It’s finally time we took a deeper dive into the toolset and explore: Part Modeling, Assembly Modeling, Simulation, CAM, and Collaboration. This week, we’re…
You know, Mother’s Day is coming up, and there’s one thing yo’ mamma (or future mamma) really, really wants… You’re not going to guess are you? … No? Ok, it’s a 3D printed self-watering planter. Don’t act like you knew that.
When we first looked at the upcoming SolidWorks Apps for Kids, we had only a quick glimpse of what SolidWorks intends to shape our children’s minds with. But we just had to know more. Fortunately Chin-Loo Lama, Senior UX Design Engineer at SOLIDWORKS, has been all too kind to answer a few more questions we…
Presented by You have to hand it to Autodesk, they wiggle their marketing nose and out pops some brand spankin’ new content. I caught their latest What is Fusion 360? video, where they show Fusion 360 doing collaboration, freeform modeling, animation, rendering, simulation, CAD and CAM, claiming, “it’s not any one of those things –…
Ever since I was a kid, blowing Play-Doh through letter shaped cookie cutters, I’ve had an interest in typefaces. I like to think I’m the one who confronted my second-grade teacher about the font choice and kerning on that awful “Mister Seahorse’ bulletin board. I imagine Loren Kulesus, a Brooklyn-based designer, has had a similar…
Presented by Once upon a time we shoved pounds of paper into binders and carted them off to the conference rooms for design reviews, sifting through them under bad lighting and a hazy caffeine buzz from coffee that was clearly past the expiration date.
There was a time when 3D modeling seemed out of reach for the everyday computer user (and oddly, even the designer or engineer), with accessibility locked into complex installations, licensing agreements and maintenance contracts. But now, more and more programs are dedicated to providing a wider audience access to 3D modeling tools. While many 3D…
You’ve heard the joke. An engineer walks into a bar, unboxes a Chromebook and says, “I bet you, I can load Onshape on this here Chromebook in 10 seconds flat.” The bartender say, “No flippin’ way! You’re high on the crack cocaine! You can have the finest whiskey in this fine establishment if you can.”…