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Get Your Jewelry On With iRing3D iPad App

31 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in CAD, DESIGN, FAB, NEWS, TECH

Shocking and amazing. Creating something on the iPad, instead of absorbing the limitless digital content, browsing design variations instead of movie options, sending in an order of that design to be printed instead of sending in orders for a large deep-pan pizza. The iRing3D iPad app has done it. It’s all simple and quite basic – drag some points, adjust, send to Shapeways or Sculpteo for your own 3D printed jewelry creation. However, there’s an interesting aside that foretells a bit about creating designs on mobile touchscreen devices and perhaps about CAD interfaces themselves.

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Friday Smackdown: Stastasisis

28 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

When churning the walkways of the wild burrows, we happened upon this site. A fire, five barrels and atop each one a wee man and a sprite. “Fine and dandy,” said he. “But you have metal teeth for legs. And where your nose and eye should be, are tubes of these links instead.”

Helen Kaur – A dizzying mix of curve and color in vector bliss of Helen Kaur. Many more and some portrait art to boot.
Pumpkins – Carving your pumpkins yet? These may be the most realistic pumpkin carvings ever… and in that case, I’m glad they are just pumpkins.
Findings.com – A new site to curate the longer bits of highlights, quotes and textual content you find online.
Music typewriter – If you’re a purveyor of rare music-related gadgets, you’ll be interested to know this is real and actually had a patent on it.
The Kollie Project – You may not have know it, but some of the first cybernetic experimentation brought forth the Kollie – Robot body, Collie head.
iPad touch keyboard – A thin, compact keyboard integrated into the case of your iPad, and is just slightly more usable than the on-screen keyboard.
My body is just a filter – Coffee Goes in, Sarcasm comes out.

Aras Turns SolidWorks into a Data Chuckin’ PLM
Workflow Beast

27 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in CAD

Sometimes making a claw fist and putting it front of your CAD data doesn’t have the data manipulating effect you want it to. Nope, neither does two claw fists or the hiss of a toothless cat. What will scare that data into a finely structured process flow and multi-level bill of material is a little thing-a-ma-bop called PLM… Product Lifecycle Management. It doesn’t get more exciting boys and girls. Many a CAD software developer has top-heavy application to handle all that, but Aras is breaking the decaying mold of data management, first by delivering a product that’s open source and as of this week, delivering another product that takes the SolidWorks Enterprise PDM system you have spent years implementing and extends the living workflow right out of it. It’s called Aras-EPLM and if you’re a SolidWorks data-org-whore, or involved with SolidWorks data in any way, you’re gonna love it…

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Engineer vs. Designer! Rich Hurrey Talks modo,
Animation, Rigging and More

26 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in CAD, DESIGN

As you may know (or not), digital puppet-maker and modo rigging master, Rich Hurrey of Pixar Animation Studios, has recently released new modo 501 Rigging Master Course. After years in the works and a spectacular video production that explains all the possibilities of animating models with modo, it’s definitely a course to pick up. Rich was also kind enough to join us on the Engineer vs Designer podcast, Episode 13 (woot!), and it pretty much rocked our world. Unfortunately, being only a 20 minute show, we weren’t able to include nearly everything we wanted in the final cut. We’re adding an extended audio interview to EvD, but we wanted even more. So today on SolidSmack, we want to connect the dots.

And if that weren’t enough inducement to read on, what about $25 off said rigging course? We thought so. Coupon code after the jump.

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Cloud CAD Search is Here. How to Start Using
Inforbix in 20 minutes.

25 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in CAD, NEWS

First, I totally GANKED (part of) that headline from the Inforbix post on the same topic. That’s how I roll. But let’s hold back the onslaught on data digging for a sec and address something. Inforbix. I understand. It’s hard to say it… without shredding your throat lining by screaming it as loud as you can. So, go ahead. Get it out of your system. Now, let’s move on. Inforbix has launched. What is it? From their site, “Inforbix is a web-based data consumption solution available for purchase on a yearly subscription basis.” In other words, search all of your CAD data, wherever it is, from wherever you are. The base package is FREE. We’ve covered how it works. Here’s how to get started using it.

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Win an All Expense Paid Trip to Autodesk University… Oh, and a 3D Mouse

25 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in CONTESTS, NEWS

Are you even the slightest bit interested in going to Las Vegas for Autodesk University 2011? Well, how would you like to go at someone else’s expense? Yeah, that (and beef stew) is what I’m talkin’ about. Perhaps even more enticing, how would you like to win a 3D Mouse to hang around your necks whilst romping up and down the Las Vegas strip? Even BETTER. 3DConnexion is making all your ‘free airfare and hotel accommodation’ dreams come true and all you have to do is give up a little bit of that prized personal info and register to win! Here are all the details.

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Eye-Tracking Tech for Design and Where It’s Headed.

24 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in TECH

Two pieces of good news. You now have a good excuse for both staring point-blank into a stranger’s eye hole and strapping a concoction of electronics and LED’s to your face. Eye-tracking. Eye-Tracking tech for design isn’t even close to being recent news, but it bears mentioning to show you where eye-tracking tech in regard to CAD was three years ago and where it’s heading today.

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How’s It Made? Old-school Fab Puzzler No.01

23 Oct, 2011 by adam in DESIGN

Sure, we talk a big game about high-falutin’ techno-logical mumbo jumbo around these parts, but now it’s time to flex those flabby brain-bags and see what you know about old-school manufacturing tech. Ready? Go.

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eFun aPen Stylus Puts the eAwesome in iPad/iPhone
Sketchin’

21 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in NEWS

Like an attack of digital line drawing glory, the digitized stylus onslaught is finally making it’s way into the tablet accessory market. You probably remember the Wacom Inkling that sucks your physical sketches into its digital software, layers and all. That idea is finally being delivered into the iPad domain with eFun releasing the aPen A5 Smart Pen early 2012 for the device. Details are sparse, but you can see the quick, fluid sketch action in the video below and start dreaming of all the wonderful scenes you will digi-ink on that screen. Hit it!

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Friday Smackdown: Releor Sgana

21 Oct, 2011 by Josh Mings in SMACKDOWN

Long cycling, indispensable forces caught is the crushing grip of a reversal beam spanned steadily across the plain’s splintered sheath. The itinerants deployed. Each one knew however when it ended, they would face the electrifying horror of these links.

Dimitar Tzvetanov – Dark, mysterious scenes and massive landscapes captured in the concepts and matte paintings of Dimitar Tzvetanov.
The Walken Dead – Everyone’s worst fear. A virus… takes over the brain… destroying everything, but basic motor function… and the part that stores Christopher Walken quotes.
Treshr – Find free stuff using an actual map. Collects from Craigslist and Freecycle for a more visual approach to begin your hoarding.
Space Time Lapse – Space station photos stitched together by James Drake for a satellite-eye view of this rotating mass of gas and rock.
Underwater dioramas – The next time you’re sitting in a 200 gallon tank, think of the time it took to make these.
Cube Stormer – An ARM Powered robot that solves a Rubik’s Cube faster than you can say how many sides a cube has.
20+ Free Geometric Sans-Serif Fonts – Futura, Spartan… quite my favorite. A group of other free and stylish geometric fonts to spiffy up your type.
Koi – A simply stunning short-film from Diestro to take you into the weekend.

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