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Archive for August, 2007

Philips Massive 3D Display

31 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in TECH
3D Human CAD Models

42inch-wow.jpgPhilips has taken the idea of 3D displays, shaken it vigorously, added some marketing genius and have turned out a display that requires no glasses to see 3D content. Philips has been developing these for a while with the 42″ version being introduced in March 2006. Find out more here.

Now they’ve taken one of the 42″ displays and put it on a wall with eight others to get a mega-huge, mega-cool 132″ barricade of 3D goodness called the WOWzone. The news was just announced at the IFA Berlin show.

philips_3d_wowzone.jpg

Your gonna need all that gold flyin’ outta that screen, cause the 20″ display is priced at $5700 and the 42” is about $12,000. We’re trying to get our hands on a 20″ demo set to try out and see how the display and the OpenGL controller works with programs like SolidWorks.

Related sites
Philips 3D Solutions
WowVX community website

Source PhysOrg

Friday Smackdown

31 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

cool-icons.jpgI don’t know if you know this but there are actually many ways an ant can reach the top of a tree. Why he would want to get up there is beyond me, but I’ve seen it happen twice already and let me tell ya, those ants… they’re crazy.

20 Plus Free and Fresh Icons – Icons are right up there with fonts. Here are some free ones.
ProductCritic.com – Right when I was just about to give up on finding reviews. One single rating to compare all products.
Sony Rolly – this may be too disturbing for a Friday, looks fun though, for entertaining children or annoying pets.
MorpThing – Morph two people to see what their kids would look like.
Shopify – Create an online shop in minutes. Use to be free, but still a good price for what you get.

Insanely Cool Interactive 3D Holigraphic Display

31 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in TECH

A group from USC have created an Interactive 360º Light Field Display. I didn’t understand what was interactive about it until I saw the video. (below)

3d_holographic_cgi.jpg

These types of displays are called horizontal-parallax multiview 3D displays and this one is actually kinda scary. It’s basically a light field projected onto a mirror rotating 20 times per second that reflects diffused rays of light to wherever you are standing. So you get a full 3-dimensional visual of the object, just don’t try to grab it.

The display consists of a high-speed video projector, a spinning mirror covered by a holographic diffuser, and FPGA circuitry to decode specially rendered DVI video signals. The display uses a standard programmable graphics card (nVIDIA GeForce 8800) to render over 5,000 images per second of interactive 3D graphics, projecting 360-degree views with 1.25 degree separation up to 20 updates per second. (pdf)

That makes a really smooth looking image.

From a SolidWorks perspective
At first I imagined this as a good collaboration tool. I’m not sure how practical this would be though. It’s mostly novelty at this point, but if you stretch your imagination to the possibilities, I think we could see something like this used to extrapolate 2D data or create designs within visual set of constraints. This really wouldn’t provide that much benefit over an envelope modeled for your design, except that you wouldn’t have to model it. This would most likely take off in the gaming market.

Via Core77/Technabob

SolidWorks BOM: Slap, Rinse, Repeat

29 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in CAD

solidworks tipsSometimes working with a SolidWorks BOM may seem like you’re bouncing away on a trampoline just fine, when all of a sudden your leg slides right through the springs on the side as your head slams against the metal support bar… more or less.

The SolidWorks BOM (Bill of Material) is actually pretty cool. It’s easy to layout and set up Custom Properties for your standard material list. Along with all those nice features, you can actually do some additional customization on a SolidWorks BOM you hadn’t thought of. One of these things is exactly what J.D. Myers from Applied Heat Recovery, LLC asked me about in a recent email.

How can I add a prefix to the item number field on a BOM?
Good question JD. The first thing I’ve seen some people do is edit the table fields and add it manually. That is a lot of pain. Here’s how you can automate it in your BOM.
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A Different Way To Get More Traffic To Your Website

29 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in ROCKIN'

There are a lot of people searching for different things about SolidWorks out there. A lot of the traffic I get is from other sites related to SolidWorks or CAD. In the vein of trying to get more exposure to this site, I read a few blogs to gain some insight on blogging, writing and marketing.

One way to get more traffic is to link to others or have others link to you. Links from a high traffic site help. It doesn’t get more basic than that. That’s exactly what Tim Schroeder of eMonetized.com is having a very unique contest for. He is giving four people the chance to have their own 125 x 125 banner ad shown on John Chow for free. Your can read more about his John Chow Banner Ad Contest Here.

It’s a good idea, because, even though he’s paying for the ad, he’s getting tons of links from other sites. This is good for search engines and therefore getting more people to your site.

There’s nothing better than…

29 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in ROCKIN'

maggieoh.jpgA wife that loves you like crazy. It’s her birthday today. :)

I’ll tell you right now, there’s no better way to state the exactness of what “a meaningful life” can be, besides saying, the friendship that is formed and shared with a spouse is the most powerful elemental necessity in life and that any one moment shared with them in love or pain can destroy any philosophical argument of ‘why’…

and there’s no better way to embarrass a spouse by saying happy birthday to her on your blog. Happy Birthday.

Supersize your Screen Instantly for More Space

28 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in CAD

solidworks tipsIt’s one thing to have a 24″ or 30″ monitor to spread your work across, but when you’re working on a smaller monitor the toolbars and sidebars can take up half the screen. This little tip can change that and make a big difference in how you work.

Quick Usability
I like quick ways to get more usability. This is about as easy as it gets. If you hit F11 when you’re in SolidWorks you can toggle between Full Screen mode. Now, by default your Toolbars, FeatureManager and Taskbar are showing. If you hit F9 and F10 you can hide the FeatureManager and Toolbars, respectively. To hide the Task Pane and get the maximum possible reach, hit Ctrl-F1.

By the way
Once you set which ones you want to show up, SolidWorks remembers this the next time you toggle to full screen. You can easily toggle out, but if you like you can also hit Alt-Tab to switch between other programs. Most other programs also have a Full Screen mode. F11 is a fairly standard quick key for this. If that doesn’t work, it’s usually located in the View menu.

In SolidWorks 2008, working in Full Screen mode is even better. They’ve added a pop-up toolbar (Shortcut bar) you can activate with a quick key. I currently am not using the typical toolbars in 2008 at all.

Fun ways to use this

  1. To get maximum real estate for working on stuff
  2. To use in SolidWorks demos
  3. To use in product or design reviews
  4. To play a trick on someone that doesn’t know about it

Quick keys for Instant Space
F9 – FeatureManager Toggle
F10 – Toolbar Toggle
F11 – Full Screen Toggle
Ctrl-F1 – Task Pane Toggle

Full Screen Toggled Off
swx_fullscreen_off.jpg

Full Screen Toggled On
swx_fullscreen.jpg

SolidSmack: Home Edition – 6 Web Applications for Going Back to School

24 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in CULTURE, ROCKIN'

animal_house.jpgFor all of you that are going back to school or have kids going back to school, I thought I would give you some nice resources to help out.

Check Out the School
LocalSchools.com – Interactive site to check out schools, compare and discuss with others.

Get Settled with Style
IKEA – Roommateliving.com – This is a fresh little site to get those all too important items to make living in a 8×10 room with somone else that much more pleasant.

Keep in touch
Joopz.com – A Web-based text messaging service that enables two-way communications from the Web to any mobile phone in the U.S.

Make Lots of Friends
Facebook.com – A social site that works well for those in school. Helps connect to others and build friendships.

Get Good Grades
GradeFix.com – This app helps you get organized and balance your load.

Start a Business
StartupBusinessSchool.com – For the kids to keep them from developing bad habits at school. For the parents to give them something to do with all their free time.

Friday Smackdown

24 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

df_brushes.jpgWhat in the world does it take to get a few good people to jump up and down at the same time? I mean, maybe I’m asking to much, but I do what I can and I end up having to jump up and down all by myself. At least I have this links.

DesignFruit.com – The best set of Photoshop brushes out there.
Desktop Tower of Money: 3 tips to profit from casual games – great article with link to the super fun and addictive game.
Top 25 Web 2.0 Apps for Money, Finance, and Investment – managing money and investments keeps getting better and better. Be sure to at least check out Prosper, NetworthIQ, Wesabe, Zecco, Zillow and PayScale.
The Muppets Show – at YouTube.com. Need I say more? my favorite one. (animal vs. buddy rich)
Refurber.com – a DIY community site. great resource with lots of info.

How to Suck All the Memory You Can Out of Windows XP

23 Aug, 2007 by Josh Mings in CAD

solidworks tipsWith Vista spreading like hazy mist, XP may not be around much longer so I thought I’d get this little tip out to you before we’re swimming in the elegance of a new “desktop experience.”

I thought about this when Rob Rodriguez mentioned his computer upgrade and one of the tweaks he does called the “3G Switch” which allows you to use more memory for applications instead of the operating system. Having 2GB of physical RAM will only do so much. This tweak extends your capabilities when you’re consistently using a lot of memory.

Is this for real?
The first time I remember seeing this is in 2004 and at that time it was more of a myth or at least not recommended. But now it’s a verifiable fact that this will give you more memory to use and it’s very easy to do.
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