Do you ever wonder how class-A surface modelers get their jobs putting the polish on race car CAD? We interviewed Adam Kenney, a pro, class-A surface modeler who’s worked on projects for Lotus and McLaren to find out! https://youtu.be/0G0esw_dXe8 What Exactly IS Class-A Surfacing? Adam tells us he is often mistaken for the industrial designer…
With all that free-time in the last 4-minutes of your 30-minute lunch break, you may be thinking NAPTIME. But why nap when you could LEARN? If you’ve yet to check out LinkedIn Learning, now may be a good time to finally take the plunge into the vast, virtual pool of knowledge. Aram Goganian is the…
Imagine being able to grow your own footwear. Yep, we are talking sprouting a pair of bio sneakers in a matter of hours! Footwear designer @23_heels over on Instagram has a concept that takes a page out of nature, specifically the rapid growth of mushroom mycelium. In like manner, the shoe aesthetic bears a striking…
If there’s one plant you can grow in your workspace with very little sunlight, weekends without water, and the occasional sneer from a co-worker with an aversion to plant-life, it’s a succulent. There is, however, one thing it does need. Warm, moist, humid-erifically, moist air. I’m fascinated by large water feature fountain and atrium designs…
Get your sculpt brushes and buckets of inspiration ready. Today, Pixologic introduced ZBrushCoreMini, a free entry-level version of its ZBrushCore and ZBrush software designed to help people get started with digital sculpting. ZBrushCoreMini provides a simplified version of the Academy Award Winning ZBrush software used by leading digital artists around the world. ZBrushCoreMini is designed…
It was a slow ride over to SketchUp subscription city but you saw the road signs along the way. First Trimble put SketchUp online bringing you SketchUp for Web. Then, in February 2019, they announced a subscription pricing option, retaining the perpetual license option. Now, they’ve announced a complete move to an annual subscription model…
Did you know Autodesk is providing free access to Fusion 360 due to the crisis? Fusion 360 Features Autodesk’s Fusion 360 system is a powerful cloud-based CAD tool that can provide both beginners and full-time professional designers a worthy experience. The system includes a wide variety of CAD features, including 2D sketching, 3D modeling, simulation,…
You can’t enter a coffee shop nowadays without at least seeing one iPhone on a single person. First released in June 2007, Apple’s iconic phone has become one of the leading smartphone lines around the world. Goes without saying, right? But what if the iPhone was released earlier than 2007? What if, say, it came…
At an abstract level, every new project is composed of three elements: The known knowns (the things that you know you know), the known unknowns (the things you know that you don’t know), and the unknown unknowns (the things you don’t know that you don’t know)*. Stay far far away from the known gnomes. Given…
Morphi is a (sort of) free app for the iPad, Mac, and Windows devices that lets users push, pull, and craft 3D creations via a touchpad device. Its simple nature makes it ideal for starting kids out in the world of 3D modeling and showcasing their work — with tools such as stop motion and AR/VR…
When it comes to SubD topology, having the ability to construct a variety of meshes with clean polygon flows can mean the difference between yelling an obscene amount of profanities at your monitor or having a blast. Thanks to a new book from the renowned 3D artist, writer, and director William Vaughan, getting to that…
When it comes to SubD topology, having the ability to construct a variety of meshes with clean polygon flows can mean the difference between yelling an obscene amount of profanities at your monitor or having a blast. Thanks to a new book from the renowned 3D artist, writer, and director William Vaughan, getting to that…
Creo 5.0 now lets you model in perspective! I for one am excited! I’m relishing the thought of giving my eyes and brain a long-awaited respite. It’s just not natural to process depth using trimetric or dimetric projections. Unlike some of my industrial design buddies who gave up on Creo (formerly ProE) opting for other CAD programs tailored for…
From batch automation to Cloud-based folder sharing, the designer’s digital toolkit has never been as opulent as it is today. But despite sped-up workflows and AI-assisted features, the one thing that will never change is how those designs translate in the physical world. From a CMF (Colors, Materials, & Finishes) standpoint, the newly-launched Swatchbook aims…
For the entrepreneurial 3D modelers out there, there is no shortage of 3D file marketplaces to generate a nice little bit of side revenue. But when it comes to 3D on the web, Sketchfab’s YouTube-like ecosystem of discovery, publishing, and sharing has consistently been among the most user-friendly. The new Sketchfab Store is the next logical…
Considered by many design professionals to be the holy grail of design tools, the Wacom Cintiq was critical in bringing the natural pen experience to digital workflows over the past decade. Previously offered in both 13.3” and 15.6” sizes, the brand’s untethered Cintiq Pro models enabled professionals to take the Cintiq experience with them on…
When it comes to inspirational source material, NASA’s archive of open source multimedia is a treasure trove for creatives. No, seriously. Among others, French designer Harold Sangourd recently pulled some source material for the creation of his Apollo 11 Table—a tribute to the famous NASA expedition. The table, which consists of molded fiberglass covering a…
Last June 2017, Apple announced that it would be making headway in the Augmented Reality department with its new ARKit. Though they may be playing a wee amount of catch up with other AR platform initiatives such as Google Tango, ARKit is approaching it differently, aimed at augmenting your 3D space with a simple software…
MyStemKits announced an international expansion of its 3D printing kits and curriculum, which could eventually lead to breakthroughs in 3D print use worldwide. MyStemKits is a US-based organization that provides educational packages for students and teachers to learn about 3D design and print in the classroom. We’ve written about them previously when they launched larger quantities…
3D Modeling is usually done on a 2D plain with a mouse, keyboard, gallon of coffee and a really big, FLAT screen, but that dissonance in dimensions is a user experience we’ve come to accept as normal. It’s just not right. Fortunately, More applications that get 3D models off the screen and into our environment…
As you are well aware, those wonderful 3D models you create each day are traditionally crafted with a mouse, a keyboard, too many mouse clicks and an occasional flinging of the keyboard across the room. Now this is all well and good, but it’s the 21st century–the age of (almost) flying cars and (almost) colonizing…
I’m trying out a new online service that hopes to enable makers to work together on open source hardware projects. 3D Orchard is a web service designed by three enthusiasts hoping to ignite the development of many more open source hardware projects. To that end, the service offers three features: A browser-based community-style 3D CAD…
It’s become so common in our workflows that we usually don’t even think about it anymore. But let’s be honest here: working with different 3D file formats between all the various tools we use these days is a royal pain in the ass. But what if working with 3D files could actually be seamless? What…
Draft angles are fundamental to part design. If you want to make physical things, you gotsta’ master draft. In his inaugural post, the great Vince “Skill Coach” Haley shows you how. There’s nothing like the musty aroma of carefully crafted paper mache popping free of its surrogate mold. And to my daughter’s delight, that’s exactly…
You know how Spotify works, right? You pay a subscription fee, then get earfuls of streaming music. We’ve seen the same idea applied to nearly every type of media. So, why not 3D Printing? Enter Kwambio, a new service set up to allow you to stream designer products, interact, customize and print. You can’t download…
For just over a decade now, MODO has been defying expectations time and time again with their full-featured, all-in-one 3D modeling, animation and rendering package that’s been used by everybody from Pixar to Microsoft for applications ranging from animation shorts to product design renderings and more. Disclosure: We at SolidSmack have a soft spot for…
If creating big budget animated films such as those produced by Pixar and Dreamworks has been on your bucket list, we have good news for you, friends. Pixar has just announced that they have released their RenderMan software into the wild for non-commercial use. Although the software isn’t an all-in-one modeling, rendering and animation package…
For the past couple of years, the engineers at Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group (ATAP) have been heavily-focused on their 3D mapping technology in the form of Project Tango. The Android-based phone/tablet platform (which is still currently in prototype stage and available to some developers) is designed to create high-quality and accurate 3D maps…
For anybody who has been wanting to get the most out of their 3D scanner or smartphone 3D scanning app, then the MODO for Repotology series from industrial design training site cadjunkie is just for you. For the low price of $39 ($14 for cadjunkie Premium members), this downloadable video series includes everything you need…
With products such as GoldieBlocks, LEGO Mindstorms and Arduino making waves in the toy industry and media, it’s easy to forget some of the more simple products that provide the basic foundation for making things…such as construction sets. Aiming to fill this overlooked niche is Ingocraft, a new 3D printing-focused company that offers both a…
If data portability is so annoying, what format(s) are we talking about here? We asked what formats people use when sharing data with 1) collaborators, 2) clients, and 3) fabrication shops. The results were generally unsurprising, but lead to some interesting conclusions.
Consider it a handheld 3D printer of sorts—and not of the stringy-glue gun variety. The FreeD is MIT’s latest cool piece of tech that is essentially a handheld milling machine that allows a user to sculpt a pre-defined shape from a 3D model. As 3D printer manufacturers are moving towards higher resolution and accuracy in…
With plans to launch this fall, MatterRemix is entering the browser-based 3D modeling game with a slightly different twist from what we’ve seen with other browser-based modelers: What if users could take existing STL files and give them an Instagram-like photo filter ‘remix’ for creating custom, sharable, 3D printed goods?
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…
AutoDesSys is peeling back the flexible underbelly of form-Z 7 and stuffing in a slew of new features. Form-Z has been around a while. It’s always had great features for architectural modeling, but this new version brings even more to the freeform table. New features increase the options you have for dynamic modeling of roofs…
Ok, now this is more like it. I’ll try to tell you without choking on the beauty of this, but since my larynx is already convulsing, you may have to proceed on your own. I know, you’ve probably had your fill of web-based 3D modeling applications. What’s that? There aren’t any? You mean, they’re weren’t…
You may have just shaken the dust of an old set of gloves, slipped into a memory of days gone by. Days spent hitting your brother after hogging all the Nintendo playing action with your new Power Glove. “IT’S MY TURN!” No, not until I beat this dragon… WITH MY FIST!! That’s right. You were…
Well, the last poll showed people overwhelmingly think our robots servants should keep management quarantined. For good reason, no doubt. We all want to frolic in the freedom of designing and rendering awesome bits of plastic and metal in our favorite 3D program. There’s probably a time in your life that you remember 2D being…
How many types of CAD modeling can you stack atop your chest before collapsing a lung? Most draw the line at two, solids and surfacing, and even then, aortas start rupturing. Little do people know there’s a third that can be applied to give you, YES, TRIBRID MODELING. Delcam has had Tribrid modeling capabilities in…
OK, so the last poll revealed that no one cares if the OS goes away as long as our lovely apps work. Hoorah. But who cares about OS this or OS that when you can model up something sweet you’ve always wanted to, right? There’s the 3D modeling at your day job, but what if…
They’re among us. Little robots flitting about, busy with the task of taking over this part of the world and demolecularizing that part of the world, exploring caves and enjoying the natural setting of coastline and atmospheric radiation. It’s all but a few know of… till now. Cris Rose, supreme leader of all creatures mechanically…