3D CAD Tips

3D CAD Tips

Hot rod engineering workstations

When I was barely a teenager, in the early ’70s. I became interested in car magazines. In the back of some of those magazines, I’d often see ads for a company called Baldwin/Motion Performance. They sold brand new hot-rodded Camaros that were guaranteed to run 11.50 second or faster quarter miles at the drag strip. Baldwin/Motion Performance Camaros represented the epitome of tuner-built hot rods. They were fast enough that, according to Super Chevy magazine, you could... Read More

The SolidWorks World Communities

This week, over 5,500 people converged on San Diego for the largest MCAD conference in the world: SolidWorks World. With around 1.7 million people using SolidWorks, it would be surprising if SolidWorks World wasn’t a large conference. Yet, the secret to its success is not just mere user count. It’s community building. SolidWorks, the company, has for many years focused on building communities of interest among its customers. It does this more effectively, and more... Read More

Experience FirePro! Sweepstakes

AMD believes their new line of FirePro cards and drivers are more stable and more reliable than any other graphics solution out there. But they want to hear unbiased reality from end users – from the single designer using PhotoShop CS5 to the multi-person CAD shop using a range of DCC and CAD/CAE apps.Here are two ways to enter: a) Post a message on Twitter that describes your experience with reliability, stability and compatibility for any recent* FirePro graphics cards.... Read More

PTC shipping mobile apps with 10.1 release of Windchill

It’s a foregone conclusion that mobile computing is changing the way people work. If CAD and PLM vendors want to be relevant in the future, they need to address the mobile market. PTC has been working on mobile apps for some time now, and is set to deliver its first generation with the 10.1 release of Windchill, in March. In a phone call today, David Blair, VP of Product Management for PTC, provided some background on PTC’s mobile plans. The company is delivering first... Read More

Should you buy your CAD software—or rent?

CAD software isn’t cheap. A mainstream 3D CAD program will set you back thousands of dollars upfront, and a bunch more in annual maintenance charges. The cost can be daunting. But what if there was a way to spread it out, and pay as you go? Rental: An idea that’s been tried. A dozen years or so ago, a relatively new CAD vendor, Think3, started offering their CAD software on a monthly rental basis. It was an intriguing idea, but it would have worked better had Think3′s... Read More

Electromagnetic design tool provides short route to motor perfection

Cobham’s Machines Environment introduced a new level of user friendliness when it was launched by providing a design entry system that allows precision FEA models of motors and generators to be created and solved in minutes. The 2D version of the software has now been integrated with Cobham’s optimization tool which automatically finds the optimal solution within a design space – even for multiple or competing design objectives.The software is an application-specific... Read More

Should you buy an expensive graphics card?

You already know the answer to this question. If you’re perfectly happy with the graphics performance of your CAD system, then the answer is “no.” If you’d like faster, smoother, or more realistic graphics on your system, then the answer is “yes.” The term “expensive graphics card” might be troubling to GPU suppliers such as Nvidia and AMD. Yet, it is probably more accurate than, for example, “high-performance graphics card.” For many years, all graphics... Read More

SpaceClaim: Sheet metal design for pirates?

Let this be a warning to all CAD vendors: Don’t encourage your application engineers to “be creative and have fun.” You might end up with product videos such as this one:All seriousness aside, SpaceClaim does have compelling sheet metal tools for people other than pretend pirates. And, unlike some older CAD programs, SpaceClaim is relatively fun to use – probably because it doesn’t make you “walk the plank” to get your job done. What this video alludes... Read More

Siemens PLM

Should you buy your CAD software—or rent?

CAD software isn’t cheap. A mainstream 3D CAD program will set you back thousands of dollars upfront, and a bunch more in annual maintenance charges. The cost can be daunting. But what if there was a way to spread it out, and pay as you go? Rental: An idea that’s been tried. A dozen years [...]

Pro/Engineer

Analysis linked to CAD

Comsol’s latest update to its flagship multiphysics software Comsol 4.2a includes enhanced LiveLink capability. The new associativity to between Comsol and Creo packages means any changes to a feature in the Creo CAD model automatically updates the geometry in Comsol Multiphysics while retaining physics settings. All parameters specified in Creo can be interactively linked with [...]

SolidWorks

SolidWorks V6 is not SolidWorks

Two years ago, at SolidWorks World (the show) SolidWorks (the company) showed what appeared to be the next generation of SolidWorks (the software): SolidWorks V6 (also software.) SolidWorks (the company) got major flak from bloggers concerned that SolidWorks V6 (the software) would replace SolidWorks (the software.) This year, at SolidWorks World (the show), Dassault Systèmes [...]

Catia

Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicle robots take flight

Danny Ellis was first introduced to CAD in high school with a course in Autodesk Inventor. As he advanced into the engineering program at the University of Michigan, he was introduced to CATIA. “In between my freshman and sophomore years, I became irritated at how cumbersome it was to rotate a model using a traditional [...]