With everything from 3D print fail blogs to in-depth tutorials on how to avoid various 3D printing pitfalls, it was only a matter time before we saw a 3D print preview offering. Unsurprisingly, Autodesk Labs has given us our first taste of what to expect with their all-new Project Miller app designed for testing and…
Few things can tell you more about somebody’s personality than a list of their all-time favorite reads. Okay, maybe a hidden playlist of Dolly Parton’s hits has the potential to be slightly more revealing but regardless, book lists are definitely up there. From various philosophy books to instructional guides on Chinese calligraphy and the biography…
Just one month fresh out of college, graphic designer Jeff Sheldon of Downington, PA found himself moving through quite a few life milestones: he married his high school sweetheart, relocated to a different state (Vermont), and started a full-time job. Soon after, the young designer found himself continually daydreaming about launching his own brand centered…
Stepping back into the school routine after a summer of endless squirt gun fights, milk chugging competitions, and road trips to obscure Route 66 destinations can be hard…we’ve been there. Or perhaps you’re not a student but the first sight of a big yellow school bus and lunch box displays at your local Whole Foods…
After School Smack is a new feature here on SolidSmack where we talk with current design students about the current happenings of their budding design careers. We’ll discuss everything from how they’re approaching the wide-open field of industrial design to how they’re keeping their portfolios fresh and their mind in the game. To kick us…
For those of you who have implemented the new Power Surfacing plug in for SolidWorks into your toolset, your work has no doubt taken a more organic route. For those unfamiliar with the plug in, Power Surfacing allows you to design complex freeform Class A surfaces in SolidWorks without the headache of patching trimmed surfaces…
For the first time ever, the National Endowment of the Arts took an in-depth look at the field of Industrial Design and yesterday released their report Valuing the Art of Industrial Design: A Profile of the Sector and Its Importance to Manufacturing, Technology, and Innovation. The results? Not surprisingly, being an industrial designer is pretty…
It happens to the best of us. You think you’ve done everything right with setting up your print bed, your file resolution, the amount of available filament, alignments, etc. However you walk in to your office the next morning with so much anticipation for the perfect 3D print and yet—it looks as though Godzilla had…
When Kickstarter first launched, it was a hotbed for garage hobbyists, indie game developers, and the occasional ‘pro’ who wanted to test the crowdfunding market. More recently, the platform has made its way to more commercial projects that while having been successful, are arguably exploiting an indie-based platform and have led some into a pit…
This week we have the great pleasure to speak with the founder of the ever-popular NerdFitness.com, Mr. Steve Kamb! Steve has developed a loyal following of hundreds of thousands of readers through his unique fitness site aimed at Nerds from all walks of life. We’ll talk with Steve about everything from why he preaches the…
For those who aren’t cranking out 3D prints in full-rotation 24/7, there is another money-making opportunity on the block on par with MakeXYZ. As previously reported by SolidSmack, MakeXYZ is a sort of ‘AirBnB’ concept for your 3D printer. Similar to the concept of renting out a spare room in your house to travelers that…
Aiming at becoming the flagship store for the UK Makers Community, the iMakr store is getting ready for their highly-anticipated grand opening later this month. As previously reported by SolidSmack, the store will stock all things Maker on two stories of retail space. However most importantly, will it be an early example of the ‘office…
Between incorporating their color library into Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro and providing drool-worthy retail displays, Copic is stepping up their marker game even further with the upcoming release of 288 color chips. Featuring matte or gloss on curved and flat surfaces, the new chips will be highly-beneficial for better envisioning your product before you even put…
It use to be that when you leave kids to their own volition, you would get various reenactments of Lord of the Flies or, at the very least, flour and eggs sprayed across the kitchen floor. Nowadays… well, you still get that, but with all the activities, online communities and things to make, there’s a…
I know you’ve had all you can take of the magical background music and gentle voice-overs coming from that Disney fairy app. It’s time to delete the horror that is dressing baby Tinkerbell (don’t ask me how I know so much about this) and give your children a good dose of science, tech, engineering and…
It’s not everyday you can bring up Youtube and learn about eliminating poop splash… well, maybe it is. You can also learn about fire tornadoes, muzzle flashes and why you didn’t die at birth thanks to the unique perspective of an Alabama Rocket Scientist. Smarter Every Day is a Youtube channel that takes a try-it-yourself…
Cracking your knuckles after a cup of Starbuck’s strongest may shoot vibes of professionalism across the coffee shop, but there’s one thing all 3D pros need more than a 6am caffeine fix… a decent portfolio. Options abound across the web and if you’re savvy, you can even create your own website or app. However, if…
When the Cintiq first came out, I vividly remember an illustrator friend of mine saying “It’s not a matter of if I’m going to buy one, it’s a matter of when I’m going to buy one.” Perhaps a lot of designers and illustrators have found themselves in the same boat and have waited for the…
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…
While modo (and the modo community) offer a wealth of free material presets, there’s always going to be a time when you’ve made your own adjustments and want to save your secret recipe-material as a preset for later use. In this quick tip we’ll give you a rundown on saving out your custom material to…
Airbnb has been one of the more famous startups in recent memory with their original ‘Air Bed and Breakfast’ idea: connecting empty bedrooms and guest houses to travelers and offering extra cash for those opening their homes to strangers. Many who have opened their homes to travelers have found so much success with Airbnb that…
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…
Inspired by the Barnes Collection in Pennsylvania, where objects are curated by their common theme rather than a period in time or nationality, AWOL Trends functions as a curated database made by designers, for designers by unifying and organizing CMF and design trends throughout the creative world.
You have probably seen so many 3D printed corn starch and resin trinkets (BACON!) that you’d like to punch your neck, but before you inflict pain and blood-choking upon yourself, there’s news on the 3D print-for-manufacturing side. And by print-for-manufacturing, I mean, production-ready parts straight from the printer. Stratasys recently announced the availability of new…
Regardless if you’re fresh out of school or a 14 year veteran, it’s never too late to update your portfolio to today’s standards. The University of Cincinnati’s Class of 2012 released a highly-informative book for those looking to hit ‘refresh’ on their holy grail of work samples. This downloadable PDF (also available in hardcover) is…
Good news for our workshop/bedroom/garage Maker friends in the UK! Kickstarter has officially launched their UK Kickstarter page and with it, reasons to turn those loose ideas into golden opportunities.
If you’re likely to draw roots of polynomials up and down your forearms, you may have an over-eccentric appreciation for the math. You may also have a dusk-to-dawn fixation on software that can help save you long nights of scrubbing your arms while watching re-runs of Bill Nye solve for X. PTC is taking a…
Some people say coffee and CAD don’t go together. I don’t know any of those people, but if you do, look upon them with scorn and derision as you sip your scalding hot coffee through a mechanical pencil casing. Coffee is as essential a tool for creating 3D geometry as being able to move 3D…
The Internets is about to become much more active with 3D viewing of your exported 3D data. Sunglass.io has just announced the release of plugins to import your models into the web-based collaboration and CAD-app platform. There are a set of plugins available for SolidWorks, Rhino, Processing and SketchUp along with direct integration of both…
The biggest question in my head for years has been this. Can you start a business with a desktop 3D printer? With a nice little Makerbot, or a RepRap and a really useful product design, can I actually be my own, cigar-sucking factory boss? In my own living room, with a bathrobe on? An intriguing…
What do you do in the morning when you have a hankering for a fried doughy foods and a massive glass of SolidWorks API knowledge? Stop by your nearest doughnut shop? Unfortunately, they know nothing of SolidWorks API and you may not get your doughnuts if you mention anything of it. So, after you’ve grabbed…
Have you ever felt the burning compulsion to export an OBJ file from SolidWorks, only to find out it’s not possible? Well, now it is. Neil Larsen and macro-maker Karpena have released a macro to make it happen. Absolutely free and exports both .obj and .mtl files.
A new player in the 3D collaboration space is on the scene with a site that steps up sharing, syncing and neck slappin’ your project management effort with the blazing efficiency of a web-based collaborative environment. TeamPlatform it’s much more than meets the eye. We had a chance to use it and talk with Scott…
Who loves wooden gears? We do! We do! Wooden hand high five all around for a tool that helps you create the gears and the templates to crank those creations. The Gear template generator from woodgears.ca is a magical web-based tool (probably) using little wooden mathematical gears on the back end to output a 2D…
Add this to the list of best 3D CAD apps ever… And then toss your 3D analog mouse. Wait, not just yet, but soon. Maide Control is putting 3D model control on the screen and they’re doing it via the iPad. Turns out, its also more than just a digital 3D mouse. Take a look.
I believe all the texture locators have dropped off my face from pure shock. Luxology has just released awesomeness disguised in the form of the new modo Rigging Master Course for modo 501. It’s 26+ hours of having your brain contraints tweaked by the incredible Rich Hurrey, Techincal Director at Pixar, who will take you…
The lonliness that consumes you when the CNC operators talk shop is all about to end. You may not know how to bolt a billet of aluminum into a chunk without removing half your arm skin, but you can download a program with less trauma and bring a CHUCKle to a machinists face. A fresh…
Ah, the project scope. The crucial document many of us follow as a guideline while we’re designing or engineering the next greatest thing. Its entire existence is to keep the focus by describing in detail the new product’s soon to be features, costs, and milestone dates. Love them or hate them, many of us couldn’t…
Have you ever tried to render glorious rays of light with your mind? It can’t be done (unless you have a perfect mix of abysynth and electricity.) In lieu of that you’ll want some easily adjustable, totally customizable HDR images to slap in your renderings. That’s where HDR Light Studio comes in. They’ve developed a…
Why there’s nothing I quite like more than buttoning up the finest faux suede longcoat, donning my tophat and printing colorful componentry into the wee hours of the morning. There’s just something enjoyable about it that frightens people slightly. Part of that may be the amazing color assortment of plastic filament I have wrapped around…
What’s more fun than a barrel of charred monkey pelts? A barrel of super simple concept car design in SolidWorks. Or in this case, a video of super simple car design in SolidWorks. Tony Suarez created a car modeling video to shock and stun surface modelers a while back. Now, he’s back with surfaces to…
I think you know what would happen if you locked an engineer and designer in a room together at the same time with nothing more than a microphone and some bluesy background music. Yeah… they would lock eyes, squeeze their bowels and proceed to have an insightful conversation about design, engineering and other CAD related…
If there’s one thing I like, it’s when someone takes all the software I would need to make a video of a dinosaur blowing fire-breathing snail babies out its nostril, and compiles it onto one DVD. Totally makes the job that much easier. ArtistX is exactly that tool. A complete OS kernel? no problem. 2500…
What’s better than a 3D model with a bunch of curvy bits? A 3D model that replaces the curvy bits with more knobs, pipes, cutters, angles, conduit, boosters and extrusions than is reasonable or even imaginable. If you’re high fiving your face in agreement, you’ll want to remove the hydraulic actuators from your jowls and…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…