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The Ultimate Desktop Engineer’s Chair

30 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in DESIGN, TECH

Before you run out to get one of those rubber balls to sit on, take a look at this concept fro Jian Guan that will have your deep-vein thrombosis taking a long clot-free vacation to the island of comfy-chair bliss.

The SmartChair, aptly named, provides a biofeedback system that senses your movement and adjust the padding to provide the most focus-enhancing comfort a desk-jockey could ask for in a chair. No more getting on your knees to adjust the angle and height. All the controls are completely accessible from an on-board touch-screen that allows you to pitch, roll, rock and flatten through endless hours of tedious work.

Price? The Herman Miller Aeron chairs still ranges around $800 US, so you can imagine the SmartChair wouldn’t be the cheapest item in your office. However, once something like this is available, the temptation of ultimate comfort will make that extra laser printer or rude employee seem… not so valuable.

Jian Guan via Coolest Gadgets

Friday Smackdown: Sawdust Eye

30 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

Man! this is just stingin’ like crazy! I’d think I’d rather fall on top of a bowl of boiling gravy and incredible links.

Compfight – The best, and I mean, THE BEST, Flickr search tool. good options and fast as milk.
The Drugstore Game – Save hundreds. Seriously. My wife and are are doing this very thing today to get $30 worth of free stuff at Walgreens.
BrandDoozie – Make really slick marketing material for your biz, really fast and really free. Lots of options too.
Trulia Snapshot – A sweet interface for finding a home to buy or land to plant cabbage on. It’s all interactive like.
FlyClear.com – Cut the security lines at airports and save a ton of time, while mocking those standing in line.
Plants for your health – Plants that will remove toxins from the air, but unfortunately will not remove people from the air.

3D Coming to Your Browser: Google Earth Online

28 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in ROCKIN'

The Google I/O conference is in full swing with all sorts of goodies coming out. But, what’s really cool and going to affect how you view the world and map-based web apps in the future is the announcement of the Google Earth browser plugin.

No longer will you be isolated to two dimensions of movement with Google Maps. Google earth is all 3D and is one more step in bringing 3D visualization and usablility to the good ol’ internet. Plus, it’s open to developers to grow and manipulate.

“…there’s never been a way to build your own 3D web applications using Google Earth, the way you can with Google Maps… until now. you can…import 3D models from the web and overlay them anywhere on the planet …build 3D Google Sky mashups. You can also enable 3D buildings with a single line of JavaScript, …in the hopes that you’ll build the next great geo-based 3D application, and change (yet again) how we view the world.”

What does this mean for 3D Apps?
Right now this is just for mash-ups and visualization. We’re not creating 3D online yet. If nothing else, this plugin opens up the ideas that having large amounts of accessible 3D data online is possible. Building graphical program functionality into a web app, like Aviary Phoenix or Photoshop Express are doing, has been the highest reach, as of late, and performance is only as good as the bandwidth you have.

Developing parametric history-based or history free models online may seem like a far reach, but when the knowledge of both collide I think we’ll see some interesting advances with PLM, product design and how things are manufactured. CAD Mash-ups? PLM Life streams? Whatcha think?

Google LatLong

The 7 Best SolidWorks Keyboard Tricks

28 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in CAD

Yes, it happens to all of us. We’re cruising along with the mouse, clickin’ this way and that, and typing some notes with the keyboard. Life is simple. Then, we take our hand off the keyboard for a sip of coffee or a little stretch and… suddenly our finger shoots straight into our eye with a repeated jabbing motion and 2 hours of work are lost as you regain your sight.

A sad state of affairs my friend. We need to get back to keeping that hand on the keyboard. So, while engineer restraining systems are still being developed, here’s a few keyboard tricks you can use in SolidWorks to make sure you won’t be tempted to take your hand off the keyboard and risk permanent ocular impairment.
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The Self-Propelled SolidWorks Marketing Cart, I mean, Da Vinci Cart

27 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in NEWS

If you’re into mechanisms like Theo Jansen’s Creatures, the retro-futuristic Steampunk contraptions or just like to see how things work, you may be interested in the latest SolidWorks genius campaign.

It’s Leonardo Da Vinci’s self-propelled cart, taken from parchment to 3D with SolidWorks 2008. It’s a cool look at how the mechanism works and also a look at how you are lame if not designing 15th century mechanisms with the most powerful CAD application IN THE WORLD.

Four interesting aspects:

The mechanism is super cool
The phrase “you can easily push and pull“ is used about halfway through part 2
SolidWorks is finally using Youtube in their marketing campaigns
At the end of the video, the commentator stands looking at you expectantly… and taps his foot.

There’s a demo gallery *cough*link-to-more-marketing-material*cough* and a place to desecrate Leonardo’s face, by putting your own face on his likeness, that I would warn against, because I’m positive there’s a small race of people watching over Da Vinci’s legacy that look down on that and exact vengeance on the weak.

I love product marketing. I like the creativity that goes along with it. As SolidWorks user, some SolidWorks marketing comes over kinda thin. I’d like more detailed info, but then again they’re not marketing to me. This is actually a pretty thorough look at how SolidWorks handles some aspects of design. It’s gets into the 2D, the 3D and has a blurb on changes. There’s no real detailed aspect of the modeling, but then that wouldn’t be marketing material. I’ll give it a thumbs up, but I would have picked a different host. You can watch the three part video here or the first part below.

DaVinci Cart [Part1]

The Amazing Art of CAD and CNC

26 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in DESIGN

I’m loving what Steven Kempton, from the Ponoko Blog, and his new band of writers (David, Duann, Roy, and Indigo) are putting out. They look at all the different aspects that surround manufacturing, art and design.

David posted an item I recognized, the Demakersvan Cinderella table, but hadn’t given much thought to in the past. Once you realized it’s a creation of CAD and CNC, you either think, that’s impossible, or dang… what else could I make.

The Cinderella table, featured in a MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) Exhibit a couple years ago, is an artistic approach to what is possible with CAD and CNC. This table was created from sketches of furniture scanned, turned into 3D geometry and cut from 57 layers of birch plywood. When you see the 360 view at the Demakersvan site you’ll understand the complexity… but also an amazing simplicity.

Friday Smackdown: Amazin’ Bean

23 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

That’s what I called it, and nobody dared challenged me. Being covered in oil, cayenne pepper and these links probably helped.

40 Professional Free Icon Sets – The best darn icon sets I’ve seen the last couple days. Box icons, food icon, and, yes, even some 3D icons.
SmallWorld – A 3D Virtual World? Inside your browser? Play games and watch videos together? Pigs can fly?
All about ROWE – eww, business stuff. But, I bet you would love working anywhere, anytime. yeah, I thought so.
The Telectroscope – A tunnel between New York or London? or a broadband network? you decide.
Hubcap Creatures – your life will never be the same. That’s all I’m gonna say.
20 ways to learn language online – Like you need 20 right? well, one of these is bound to get you into trouble with new words and phrases.

The State of the CAD Industry is Bumpin’

22 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in NEWS

Yes folks, the CAD industry is alive and well with the raging pulse of an over-achieving band of gypsy circus performers.

You won’t see that description in the latest CAD Report from John Peddle Research though. What you will see, is a $5,000 price tag and words like renaissance, combined revenues, emerging economies and my favorite 3D.

What can you take away from the report, without dishing out the coin?

“The trend to 3D will continue but it’s important to note that not all of the 2D CAD users are going to make the transition to 3D. In many cases, the transition means a change of job description. Sometimes, the growth of 3D CAD is happening as professionals add CAD to their portfolio of tools. However, those 2D CAD users who do make the transition to 3D can expect to see increased job prestige and increased income.”

They also report a 20% increase of CAD users from 4.42 million in 2006 to 5.31 million in 2007. You all have been busy. It’s like a dang parasitic invasion of CAD proportions and it’s not slowin’ down. If you’ve bought the report, throw some interesting details our way in the comments.

Via DesignWorld

SolidSmack Mystery Meat: Assembly Features For Weldments

22 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in CAD

Here we go with another installment of mystery tip goodness. Your Question, your post. Here’s why. I get a bit of emails asking questions about SolidWorks and a lot of them are really good questions that I’d love to turn into posts. So, here’s your chance again to have your question answered.

First Person to Ask a Question!
The first person to asks a question about SolidWorks in the comments below will turn this post into a 100% grade-A tip for everyone to join in on. All I ask, is that it’s not a question like, why does SolidWorks suck or how do you make a squirrel-tail coat… this is serious stuff people.

So ask away, chime in if you know the answer, and we’ll crank out another tip that will send people home to their families in a pleasant mood.

The Mystery Question IS…

Update!
John asks:

I really would love for SW to treat weldments as assemblies – in other words give us all of the assembly features in weldments – particularly in the drawing environment. One thing I would like to know how you guys are doing it, is limiting the depth of a section cut in a weldment drawing. In an assembly it can easily be done just drag how far back you want the cut to go (how much is shown behind the actual cut plane). In a weldment, sections you create go on forever, showing everything. I know you can show only cut members where the only objects it displays are those up against the cut plane, but that’s not standard drafting practice. Any suggestions are welcome…..

Great topic John! Weldments are really useful. anyone have a suggestion for John?
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MAc Addict Alert! How To Use SolidWorks on a Mac OS X

21 May, 2008 by Josh Mings in CAD

solidworks on a mac Oh, the trials of being a Mac user in the CAD world. There’s just no justice for your simple and elegant character personified in a simple and elegant computer. Who is out there to understand you? SolidSmack has your back and we want to show you how easy it it is to get SolidWorks runnin’ on your Mac.

To show this, I turn to a friend that use SolidWorks with a Mac on a consistent basis. Ben Eadie, from SolidMentor, shares this step-by-step and has a few tips.
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Archive for May, 2008