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Archive for May, 2010

JumiMouse. Control SolidWorks (or anything else) from Your iPhone or iPad via WiFi [Givaway]

31 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in TECH
3D Human CAD Models

You know that annoying guy who’s blocking the soda machine because he’s looking down at his iPhone? He might not be texting or leveling up on a game, he might just be designing an extremely life-changing product to serve you up a cold beverage without leaving your seat… and he might be using an app called JumiMouse to do it.

Jumitech has created a slew of apps that give you complete control over your computer, the software on it and the device connected to it. The ones you’ll be interested in are the apps allowing you to control programs like SolidWorks via WiFi.

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Friday Smackdown: Triumble Vumble

28 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

The stacks of statistical anomalies and stale bread substitutes towered ominously over the lush shrubberies of Canton Loopiecero. No one fathomed that weaved amidst the coiled succulents, lay the power of the fortress… these links.

Rone Marshall – Abstraction and light are two of Rone’s specialties… he tosses them straight into your hippocampus.
Iron Baby – This is cool, until you realize how scary a baby Iron Man could be.
Alternate LOST ending – Jimmy Kimmel NAILS it. This is really how it should have ended.
20 Cool Billboards – If every billboard was like these… well, there would be more wrecks and more pigeons.
30 Fresh and Beautiful 3D Typography Designs – Two wonderful things mixed together. 3D and typography. Like chocolate and more chocolate and in 3D.
Soluto – They created frenzy at TCdisrupt this week. They’re bringing the end to slow frustrating computers. Sign up.
Surprising truth about what motivates us – This animation has motivated me to show this to all my bosses and former bosses.

Winner of the iPad Model Rendering Challenge!

24 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in CONTESTS

Well, I don’t know about you, but it’s been a tense couple of weeks watching the entries come in for the iPad model rendering challenge. The wait is over… Or is it? YES, it is!

All together we had 28 submissions and over 50 renderings from people using a variety of top-notch rendering tools – very impressive the options you all have. Here they are along with the top contenders and the one to take home the prize, a 3D Connexion SpaceTraveler.

Oh! and if you have an idea for a future rendering challenge, just drop us a note.
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Autodesk Slams the Hammer. AutoCAD on the Mac in Beta *Update*

22 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in NEWS

Well now, some crazy weekend news to make the Mac users in the house choke on their brunch. Autodesk is indeed working on a AutoCAD version for the Mac. Not virtualized, not via Parallels, but native on the Mac.

Screenshots have been posted. Most assuredly without the go ahead from mother Autodesk. No matter, because the news is now blanketing the internet. It’s Beta 1 of AutoCAD – Mac Edition. The Sledgehammer preview. Here’s a look at what Autodesk is bangin’ out.

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Cris Rose Rampart “Sunburst” Bot. Not Vinyl, All Cool.

21 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in ROCKIN'

Holster your gab canon for a moment and raise your goggles. You’ll want to clear some room off the old battle barge for a custom cohort of the artistic variety. It’s 4 inches of resin robot goodness and the first Rampart rendition from the London-based lab of Cris Rose.

We’ve featured the custom creations of Cris Rose before. He models some of his robots up in SolidWorks first, then applies the bits and pieces and paint to make extraordinary collectibles sooooo hard to pass up. Rampart was part of the Dragatomi “Not Vinyl” show. Check. it. out!

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Friday Smackdown: Incumulus Congestus

21 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

Oh, believe me, it won’t make bones shoot out your eyes… or eyes shoot out your eyes, although that would be downright impressive. What it will do is create a wave of screaming sack monkeys you can use for canning, Frisbee or viewing these links.

Daryl Mandryk – Character concept and digital painting masterpieces filled with dinos, robots and fightin’.
A website named desire – What’s it like to create and launch a website. This poster shows the process.
AVP Redemption – Not a bad Alien vs. Predator fan flick for what one guy can do with $500 bucks and some spare time.
Simpson’s Blackboard – Every line Bart ever wrote on the blackboard. Link to the making of video too.
Best MacGyver Inventions – I tend to think his best invention was his hair.
8 years in two minutes – You’d think he would look older, not just hairier. Maybe if it was 80 years in two minutes.
Concept Cars – from the desk of Laurent Nivalle, sweet 3D car concepts and photos of more on his site.

Lund and Paarmann Lobster Chair at ICFF Butters Modern Design

20 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in DESIGN

One look at this and you’ll want to grab a vat of melted butter. What happens when design goes head on with engineering?

Something beautiful and crustacean-like.

The collaboration between the two disciplines can yield some pretty amazing products and at ICFF, one of the largest contemporary furniture shows in North America. This year, there was a lot of that going around and the Lobster Chair from Lund and Paarmann is a perfect example to get our claws on. Imagine the conversation between the designer and the engineer on this product…

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Brainstem Throbbing 3-dimensional Cubes of Light… and How it’s Done.

19 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in ROCKIN'

If you could, you know you would turn your car, your cubicle and every room in your house into a discotheque that would make Tony Manero and your friends do a flying disco split simultaneously.

If you need a good example of what it could be like, take a look at the ‘sensory box’ developed by Paris based Superbien for the Mobile World Congress event. You might not feel like dancing after you watched it, but you may very well slip into a trance like coma as the visuals pound your neural net.

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Whip Your Model Using SolidWorks Direct Editing and Move Face

19 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in CAD

You’re a hardcore SolidWorks model whipper, but maybe you haven’t flipped the program over to see what kinds of features lurk on the bristly backside of the history-based beast. What features are these?

Direct Editing features. Do not FEAR! These are some that have been there in one form or another for some time, but with SolidWorks 2010, they get their own toolbar and a wee bit of added functionality… ya know, to make them useful at times. We’ll pick one of the features apart, Move Face, and whip it silly with tips to show you how it works.

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I Will Clock You With a Random Basket of Electric Fryer Renderings

17 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in CAD

I’m not sure if you’ve experienced the joys of working as a fry cook in a back alley noodle house, but if you have, you’ll greatly appreciate the artistry it takes to design those chicken tender lovin’ mesh buckets.

There’s a lot that goes into shaping that sheet metal and jabbing electronics in like a ketchup man on a french fry binge, but modeling it in SolidWorks is only half the task… actually, it’s about 95% of the task, because rendering programs like Hypershot (now Keyshot) take away all the hard work out of making your models look greasy good. Gander.

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