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Autodesk

AutoCAD 2019 with specialized toolsets released

March 22, 2018 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Autodesk released its 2019 version of AutoCAD. Included in the release are multiple specialized toolsets to help improve design productivity.

Subscribers will have access to seven specialized toolsets, more than 750,000 intelligent objects, styles, parts, features, and symbols to choose from when drawing. Designers can automate floor plans; quickly draw piping, plant equipment, or electrical panel layouts; incorporate GIS data into the planning process; edit scanned drawings and convert raster images into DWG objects all while working in a familiar AutoCAD interface.

The toolsets are:
–Architecture Toolset: specialized building design features and 8,000+ intelligent architectural objects and styles speed architectural drawing and documentation.

–Mechanical Toolset: specialized mechanical design features and 700,000+ intelligent manufacturing parts, features and symbols speed product design.

–Electrical Toolset: specialized electrical design features and 65,000+ intelligent electrical symbols boost productivity for creating, modifying, and documenting electrical controls systems.

–MEP Toolset: specialized MEP engineering features and 10,500+ intelligent mechanical, electrical, and plumbing objects to draft, design, and document building systems.

–Plant 3D Toolset: specialized plant design and engineering toolset efficiently produces P&IDs and then integrates them into a 3D plant design model.

–Map 3D Toolset: specialized mapping features use GIS and CAD data to support planning, design, and data management. Access spatial data stored in files, databases and web services, and aggregates it with your AutoCAD design data.

–Raster Design Toolset: Use raster to vector tools to edit scanned drawings and convert raster images into DWG objects.

This update is available from the Autodesk Account portal, or from the Autodesk Desktop App.

The DWG Compare feature in AutoCAD 2019 and AutoCAD LT 2019 helps users identify graphical differences between two revisions of a drawing or Xref. Quickly view changes, see clashes, review constructability, and more.

An AutoCAD 2019 or AutoCAD LT 2019 subscription also includes access to the all-new AutoCAD web app and the AutoCAD mobile app.

The AutoCAD web app gives users access to AutoCAD through web browsers or through web.autocad.com. This capability simplifies demos or consultations with clients.

Shared Views is an enhancement to the “Share Design Views” feature. This AutoCAD 2019 and AutoCAD LT 2019 feature makes it easier to share designs with stakeholders without sending DWG files to them.

The AutoCAD mobile app lets users view, edit, create, and share CAD drawings anytime, anywhere. DWGs can be downloaded to devices to access them even without WiFi. This app is available across Windows, Android, and iOS devices, and is optimized for the iPhone X, iPad Pro, and Windows Surface.

Autodesk
www.autodesk.com

Filed Under: Autodesk Tagged With: Autodesk

Webinar: Cloud Premium: Cluster Computing Arrives for Autodesk CFD

November 16, 2017 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

Following is the transcript from the recent webinar, “Cloud Premium: Cluster Computing Arrives for Autodesk CFD,” presented by James Neville of Autodesk.

My name is James Neville and I am a simulation engineering here at Autodesk. I want to welcome everyone here today to our webinar, and thank you all for coming out to learn a little bit about the Autodesk simulation. Today, in addition to giving a brief overview of Autodesk’s CDF, our flagship computational fluid dynamics program, I’m going to focus on a new feature Autodesk has recently unveiled called Cloud Premium.

My goal is to ensure that everyone on the call walks away with an understanding of how CDF can be used in the design process, how customers are being successful today, and ultimately how you all can apply our groundbreaking cloud technology to your own engineering challenges to solve faster, solve bigger, solve more. A little bit about myself before we get rolling. I’ve been working in the simulation field for a little over 12 years now. I started by career back in 2005 working for Blue Ridge Numerics, and Blue Ridge was a technology start-up with a mission of democratizing CFD for design engineers.

Back in 2011 Autodesk acquired Blue Ridge and added CFdesign to their growing portfolio of simulation products. And CFdesign serves as the foundation for all of Autodesk’s CFD products today. I’ve held various roles over the years ranging from tech support to application engineering to consulting services, and now I serve as a global CFD expert for Autodesk. I’m happy to be here today and to provide some insight into Autodesk’s simulation program. Regarding the webinar agenda today, we’ll start with a brief overview of our simulation tools. I want to give everyone a complete picture of our offerings, and then we’ll move on to a few CFD specific topics like cloud computing.

To help set the stage for Cloud Premium, I’m going to go over a bit of the history of our CFD product, and then we’ll get into the good stuff, and we’ll talk about the newly released technology. And then finally at the end we will wrap it up with some Q&A. To back up for just a minute, I think that when a lot of folks

hear the company name Autodesk they immediately think AutoCAD or Inventor, and while this may be correct, it’s only really a part of the picture of the company. Autodesk has built a complete portfolio of simulation products over the last 10 years, and we can group these products into two main categories you see here.
You got upfront engineering and advanced materials. These tools range from CFD and FDA solutions flow instructional mechanics on the left, all the way to advanced material simulation like plastic injection molding and composites on the right. Today we’ll be talking specifically about the first item on the slide here, flow and thermal analysis CFD. What is CFD? CFD stands for computational fluid dynamics. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Fluid refers to both liquids and gases, and dynamic simply refers to movement. A computer is used to perform these calculations, hence the term computational. In short, CFD uses computers to analyze fluid flow and heat transfer problems.

In real world terminology you can think of it as a virtual wind tunnel, or a virtual flow bench or a thermal test rig. There’s a large number of commercial CFD programs out there today, and the vast majority of them are designed for full-time CFD analysts. These programs are considered traditional CFD tools in that they were designed at the PhD level, and are intended to be used at the PhD level. Autodesk CFD is very clearly not a traditional CFD tool. While it solves the same equations as all of the traditional codes, Autodesk CFD is really intended for a different kind of user. Above all else, there is a sharp focus on automation and user accessibility to allow more users to leverage the benefits of CFD earlier on in product design.

The vast majority of our successful users wear multiple hats, and don’t have cycles in the day to run simulation tools full time. Autodesk CFD utilizes a design study environment, and this allows our users to analyze and compare a large number of design variance, instead of just looking at, say, one at a time, and there’s a sharp focus on automation within Autodesk CFD. And our meshing technology is really no exception here. Fully automated mesh, auto sizing and results based adaptation allow both novice and expert users to obtain accurate, repeatable results with really minimal effort. And finally, Autodesk CFD is the only upfront tool, only upfront CFD tool I should say, on the market today that provides infinite computing power through cloud access for design engineers, and I’ll be diving deeper into this topic here shortly.

You heard me say upfront a second ago. Upfront really refers to a certain point in time in the product development process. Earlier on in product development we have much more opportunity to affect change, and the associated cost of these changes is relatively low. As product development matures more and more items become set in stone, less can be changed, and the cost of any changed dramatically rises. Upfront simulation means leveraging powerful simulation tools in the design and engineering phase where they have the most value to us. From the ground up, Autodesk CFD is an upfront simulation tool.

You may ask what do our customers simulate with Autodesk CFD, and I’d like to rephrase it, I think a better question might be what don’t they simulate. As a general purpose tool, we find that our customers use Autodesk CFD in literally every industry across the globe. You’ve got microscopic medical devices, ceiling fans, Indy cars, stadium wind studies. The tool is really designed to be accessible to all users in all industries. All right, I have a handful of poll questions here and I’m curious to see everyone’s responses. I’ll share the poll results after everyone has a chance to chime in.First one here, in the event that your organization encounters say a flow or a thermal challenge, go ahead and pick which method best fits how that challenge would be addressed today. There’s four options. You’ve got hand calculations, building and testing. You know classic build, test, fail, built, test fail. Outsourcing, that could be outsourcing it just to solve a problem. Outsourcing it for CFD services somewhere else, or in house CFD. Go ahead and submit your answers and I’ll tally them up here in about 15 seconds or so. I’m going to pick in house CFD. All right, we’ll go ahead and take a look at those. That’s higher than I thought. That’s good. Equal votes for hand calcs, build test, outsource, and then 50% of the folks on the call do in house 50. That’s good to know.

I think more and more companies are using CFD these days, bringing it in house as the costs drop. I think Autodesk moving to a subscription based software delivery has helped that greatly. Thank you for answering that one. I’ve got another one here. Here’s the next one. This one’s a simple yes or no. Basically, does your organization use the cloud today for product development? That could be collaboration, asset storage, simulation processing. If you’re already using the cloud basically a simple yes or no here. Let me take a look at the answers here. This one’s a little surprising. I see the vast majority have reported back no. That’s very curious. I’d be interested to dig in with each one of you guys or gals about why that is or maybe help illustrate some of the benefits of cloud computing.

We’ll be chatting about a couple of those here in a second. This is my final poll question. The last one for you. If you think back over the last two years, or even maybe what you had projected for the coming year, about how many unique projects do you estimate could benefit from flow and thermal simulation? All right, we’ll tally these up here. It looks like 50% are at 1-2. The next one up there is 3-4. No one at more than 10. I actually put in a vote for more than 10, but I’m not sure my vote counts. Looks like most of it 1-2. We actually find when we look back over our data from all of our customers over a very long time span, the vast majority of our successful simulation users leverage CFD for four projects per year.

That doesn’t mean four simulations per year, but in general they’re using it for around four projects per year, and that’s using it maybe hot and heavy for a couple weeks or maybe a month or so and then putting it down for a little while. That’s really what the tool’s designed to be good at, and that’s what our data shows. Interesting. Looks like most folks out there have some projects that could benefit from upfront simulation though. All right, let’s get into cloud computing. I think it makes sense to go over some of the history of cloud computing at Autodesk to give Cloud Premium some context. When Autodesk acquired CFdesign in 2011, the CFD solving technology was fully optimized for local machine solves.

Whatever resources were available on a local machine, CFD would utilize to the fullest. You had 2 cores, 8 cores, 16 cores, it just didn’t matter. Once core counts started to reach 16 and higher we did start to see a bit of a diminishing return with additional resources, but in general CFD solving performance grew linearly with hardware. As users obtained faster hardware CFD would take advantage of it. If users say upgraded to faster clock speeds or more cores they would see solve speed benefits. However, with just one license, one CFD license, users were limited to solving one job at a time. But the only real way around this was to purchase additional licenses and additional hardware. That’s a pretty find solution for large companies, large customers who have leverage CFD to solve problems year round, but the vast majority of our customers used the tool in brief bursts when the need came up and therefore couldn’t justify those kind of costs.

In 2012 Autodesk rolled out cloud solving for CFD, and in a nutshell this enabled users to off load their CFD analysis through the AWS cloud where the job would be solved remotely. A single user with only one license of CFD could solve simultaneously for 10, 50 jobs at one time. No additional license was required, no additional hardware was required. Each job would cost 15 cloud credits, and on demand

cloud computing really became the norm for us. Our CFD users essentially had access to on demand remote work stations to solve more jobs in the same amount of time. In the past year alone, I’ve got the numbers here for you, in the past year alone 23,700 jobs were submitted and solved on the cloud via Autodesk CFD.
Our product development team gave me some conservative numbers last night regarding the total number of simulations submitted since cloud computing arrived for Autodesk CFD five-ish years ago. The number is staggering. Over 191,000 jobs since 2012. It’s ridiculous. Acquirements like expensive local hardware, heavy laptops having to go back into the office to check on the status of a lengthy overnight simulation. I’ve done that many times. They’ve all gone away. On a personal note, as a CFD power user, up until this year I’ve always managed to have both a very powerful desktop computer and a powerful and heavy laptop for travel, and I’ve recently downsized greatly to now function of a single high end Ultrabook. I can do infinitely more work from this one device than I could do with maybe five or 10 local machines previously because of the power of cloud computing.

That brings us to now where Autodesk has just release Cloud Premium, which is more or less our industry leading cloud technology on steroids. Cloud Premium is a new option in Autodesk CFD 2018. Users can now select to have their jobs solved on the traditional cloud or on Cloud Premium. Standard cloud jobs are solved on a … Just give you some details on what’s going on in the background. But standard cloud jobs are solved on a single Amazon EC2 instance with 8 physical cores and provide performance comparable to say a high end local machine. Cloud Premium jobs are different. They’re solved and distributed on 16 EC2 instances, each with 16 visible cores. The list distributed computing network allows for a much faster simulation and enables users to solve jobs previously not possible.

Cloud CFD job costs are calculated from a really wide range of variables like model size, requested durations, problem physics, etc cetera. There’s a number of things that we look at. And Cloud Premium jobs will have a multiplier 4 X. They’ll involve a 4 X multiplier over the standard cloud job cost. I’m going to jump right in and share a few examples to illustrate some performance metrics. Starting with internal flow through a plug valve, I’ve got results from Cloud Standard and Cloud Premium this year. We’ll look at this same problem with a few different mesh sizes to show what kind of real world performance gains are to be had.

At a median mesh density of say 5 million elements solve time dropped from around three hours to just under one hour. That yields a 3.1 X speed up. When we bump the mesh count up to 11 million elements, which is starting to get pretty large, the solve time drops from 8.2 hours to an hour and a half. That’s a 5.4 X speed up. Now we’re starting to see some impressive gains. With Cloud Premium, this problem was just reduced from a complete work day of time down to basically an extended lunch break. We have similar performance gains of around 400%. They’re shown when the model size is increased to 14.7 million elements, that’s a pretty big model, we go from 10 hours down to two and a half hours. And then finally we arrive at a 30 million element job.

This is a very large job. It requires an entire day of Cloud Standard simulation time for completion. Cloud Premium manages to crank this simulation out 4.5 times faster at only five hours. The next set of simulations take this performance improvement to a whole nother level entirely. External aerodynamic studies, external flow, these simulations exhibit two properties that typically result in long run times. I think anyone who’s run external flow they’ve run into these. But the first is just the sheer model size.

Often times the mesh required for an accurate solution can be very, very large. The second is just the number of iterations required for convergence. Due to the number of the complex flow structures, the wake structures, many iterations are typically required to fully resolve the flow field.

Cloud Premium really excels at both of these challenges. At a relatively small mesh size of 1.6 million elements Cloud Premium shows a 5X speed up for this race car rear wing assembly. When we bump the mesh count up to 11.3 million elements Cloud Premium hit the sort of sweet spot here and solved this problem 27 X faster than Cloud Standard. That’s 27 times faster. We go from 30.2 hours in Cloud Standard, down to 1.1 hours in Cloud Premium, and all of this performance improvement was accompanied with a slight increase with simulation accuracy as well. Jumping up to 20 million elements, showed a still amazing 10 X speed up for Cloud Premium. And when we run the numbers on jobs like this, jobs that are this large, they just become staggering.

Simulation time dropped from almost 50 hours, that’s over two days, to just five hours, and all of this with equal or superior result accuracy. The plotting these two examples here show how large model sizes previously resulted in lengthy run times of entire work days or even multiple days. They reduced to just a, reduced, excuse me, to just a few hours with Cloud Premium. It’s clear that Cloud Premium has the most benefit for simulations with large element counts. Gains are expected at most model sizes, but the true value of Cloud Premium is realized when users can reduce their simulation run times from days to just hours. In general, users can expect a four to five X speed up for most general purpose simulations.
Certain applications, like the one I just went over, external flow, they show dramatically greater performance improvements on the order of 10 X or more. And our benchmark testing has shown that Cloud Premium simulation accuracy is as good or better than Cloud Standard, and users can basically expect the same great simulation fidelity that they’re used to from Autodesk CFD. Where are we going with this? Cloud Premium is a very exciting technology for us here at Autodesk. We’re excited to roll it out to our customers, and frankly we’re excited to use it ourselves. It really wasn’t that many years ago when CFD was limited to in [inaudible 00:20:48] jobs and memory limitations and scenarios where customers weren’t sure if they were going to get their simulation work done in the desired time frame.

Cloud solving technology is really removed all of those barriers. One of the key advantages to Cloud Premium, one of the advantages that it holds over local solving is that the hardware and software can evolve in real time. This technology has been available for, I’ll give you an example, this technology has been available for customer usage for only a few weeks now, and we’ve already rolled out several performance improvements where we found gains to be had. As the software evolves, as new technologies are added, as more functionality makes it way into Cloud Premium, users will have access to all of this with their current subscription to Autodesk CFD.

As hardware evolves and the cloud network speeds are improved we do expect dramatically improved performance even over what I’ve shared here today. Since that solver technology resolves in the cloud no client updates are necessary to take full advantage of it. In summary, Cloud Premium and Autodesk CFD is the first in product high performance computing cloud solution period. With Cloud Premium users have on demand access to 16 cloud machines each with 16 cores, that’s 256 cores total, all working together to solve a single simulation. And users can expect to see performance gains of at least 400%, and they’ll be able to simulation jobs far larger than what is currently possible on a single local machine or in Cloud Standard.

With that, I’d like to open it up for some Q&A. It looks like we have a number of questions submitted already.

Q: First up, how do I know how many credits I have?

The number of credits you have, the number of cloud credits available to each user, you can find them in your simulation job manager. You can also find them in your Autodesk account. I think it’s manage.autodesk.com. That’ll show you how many credits you have available. If you get low you can always purchase more at any time. Between the simulation job manager and your Autodesk account it will give you an idea of how many credits you have to solve.

Q: What is the number of time steps required to reach convergence, or why is that different between Cloud Standard and Cloud Premium case?

Great question. Probably refers to some of those metrics that I shared most specifically with the race car rear wing assembly. What we did with our … Not we, because I didn’t do it. But what our product development team did was they took out the best of the best from our Cloud Standard solver and rewrote that for a massively parallel architecture. That’s distributing this load over many, many works and many cores on each one of those workers. It is truly a new solver. It is a different solver. It’s solving the same equation that we solved previously, but it is a different approach and a different solver.

The number of iterations required will be different than say when you’re comparing Cloud Standard to Cloud Premium. What we’re finding though, especially for some of those challenging problems in Cloud Standard or a traditional local solve where it might take many hundreds or even thousands of iterations to reach a nice convergence, Cloud Premium is really ideally suited for those problems because it can solve them in a fraction of the number of iterations. It is a different solver. You will likely see different solver iteration counts in your convergence plot. But as far as the equations we’re solving and the level of fidelity and accuracy that is as good or better.

Q: How long does my data stay on the cloud?

Good question. The data that we send up for the cloud, it’s model specific data contains basically your mesh and set up conditions and it’s very similar to what we would solve on your local machine. We don’t send a CAB model up, but we do send your simulation mesh and the associated boundary conditions and all good stuff. As soon as the job is complete it comes right back down to your analysis. In fact, this is a unique way that Cloud Premium works, but when you solve a job in Cloud Premium, as soon as you hit solve, it’ll actually spool up all 16 of those machines. It usually takes around four to six minutes.

You’ll get a little notification in your output window that says, “Spooling jobs takes X number of minutes.” And then as soon as that job is done all of the data sent back to your local machines, and those instances, those AWS instances, are then shut down. All data is removed from them as soon as the job is completed.

Q: How many jobs can I solve at the same time, and can I shut my machine down while solving on the cloud?

To the first one, “How many jobs can I solve at the same time?” That is infinite. There’s probably … I don’t know if we’ve run into a limit with the number of AWS instances that we can spool up at a given time. But most users I think have launched more than one job at a time. But I think the most that I’ve done is around 30. I definitely haven’t hit a limit yet. As far as I know there’s no limit to how many you can solve assuming you have enough cloud credits to support the request.

The second one there, “Can I shut my machine down while solving on the cloud?” Absolutely. Very similar to what happens on a local solve, let’s say you have an analysis. You’re going to get it off on your laptop of your local work station, you can actually close the interface at any time. The interface and the solver are separate entities. They communicate with each other, but they’re not necessary. You don’t have to have the interface up for the solver to do it’s work. It’s just like that in the cloud too. It works the same way with Cloud Standard and Cloud Premium.

Once that job’s submitted you could close your interface down. You could close your lid on your laptop. You could pull the plug. You can turn off your network card. It just doesn’t matter. Once you reconnect your laptop to the internet it will reconnect to the job. If the job’s done it’ll download. If it’s not done it’ll download interim results and as soon as the job completes then the rest of the data will be sent back. You can fully remove your local work station or laptop from the cloud solve. That’s super handy because if you launch a job at 4:55 and you rush home to make dinner or to get dinner or whatever, then you plug your computer back in at 7:30 or eight o’clock then you can check your jobs from really location as long as you have an interact location, or internet access.

Q: Could you comment a little bit about the pricing in general?

Yeah, sure. The pricing tiers, we introduce pricing tiers recently in CFD 2018. Previously, all jobs would cost 15 credits in Cloud Standard. This year there’s a multi tier … There’s a calculation that basically determines which tier you’re in. Basically tier one is 10 credits. Almost all of the jobs that are submitted on the cloud are 10 credit jobs. There’s a medium tier of 30 credits, and then an upper tier of 100 credits, and that’s for Cloud Standard. When you launch a Cloud Premium job there’s a 4 X multiplier on the 10, 30 and 100 credit tiers.

Q: What’s the speed of post processing results on the cloud and sending graphics as well as other information to the local machine?

It’s exactly the same as Cloud Standard. The only thing that changes to the user is that it’s when you hit the solve button and there’s a pull down for whether you want to solve locally, whether you want to solve on Cloud Standard or Cloud Premium. That’s the only difference to the user, the extra option in the pull down step. Everything else is the same. Model set up is the same. Results interaction is the same. If you’re familiar with CFD already, it’ll preform exactly the same way as it did previously.

Q: Do I need to download any other software to use this?

You do not. You do have to have the latest update for CFD 2018, which should be available through your Autodesk download manager. You can always get it on I think it’s on your manage.autodesk.com website. The 2018.1 release grants access to Cloud Premium.

Q: Who has access to my data, and what data is up there?

You have access to your data. We do not. The data that we … We have statistical data. We have log files that contain information about where the machine originated, where it’s solving, information about whether the solve was successful or whether it failed. If a job fails in the cloud we do not charge you for those cloud credits. That’s the sort of data that we gather. But the data, it’s accessible only to you in your local account.

Q: Can a user choose any number of cores, say between 8-256 when using Cloud Premium?

Currently no. That’s a good question. Currently the number of cores that we’re using in Cloud Premium is 256. We recognize that there might be some problems that are more optimal for say 512 cores. There might be some problems that are more optimal for 64 or 128. But as of right now we’re sticking with 256 cores for all Cloud Premium jobs. And what we’re finding is that jobs that are very small, say a million elements, under a million elements, things that would solve relatively quickly on a local machine, they’re not ideally suited to be solved on Cloud Premium.

For one, it’s four times more expensive for probably no performance gains. And two, when you spread out a small job over that many cores, that many systems, it just doesn’t function well with so much communication between all the machines that you don’t really get any performance gain. What we’re finding is that 256 cores is a nice sweet spot for medium to large to very large problems right now.

Filed Under: Autodesk

The Self-taught design system

August 22, 2017 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Just where will artificial intelligence fit in with CAD software? Here’s a look at where developments stand now, and a preview of what might be coming.

Jean Thilmany, Contributing Editor

Artificial intelligence has a place in the future of computer-aided design technology, but right now, the role AI will play isn’t clear. That’s the view of Jon Hirschtick, chief executive officer of Onshape, which makes cloud-based CAD software. While some CAD makers are delving into AI functionality, the marriage of AI and design software is in the early stages, he says.

“AI has great potential, but so far no one has illustrated how it will unfold,”

Hirschtick says in reference to CAD vendors. “I’m not saying developers are not working on ideas.”

CAD makers would be wise to consider how AI may fit into their software’s growth and expansion. AI should be a $16 billion industry by 2022, according to a projection from research firm Markets and Markets.

AI across industries

First, definitions are in order. Many terms have been bandied about of late, particularly in reference to Industry 4.0, which goes by a number of names, including smart factory and connected factory. Technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, Internet of things (IOT), and deep learning will come together to help realize Industry 4.0.

Nvidia installed its Drive PX 2 AI supercomputing platform into a signature- green, self-driving racecar that will compete in the Roborace Champsionship, a global autonomous motorsports competition. Image credit Nvidia.

All these technologies are related in that they build upon each other, says Will Ramsey, director of marketing at Nvidia, which designs graphics processing units. The company developed GPU-based deep learning, which uses artificial intelligence to approach problems like cancer detection, weather prediction, and self-driving vehicles. Here’s how Ramsey defines pertinent terms:

“AI is a broad field focused on using computers to do things that require human-level intelligence. It’s been around since the1950s but was little used because it was limited in practical applications.”

“Machine learning enables AI by providing the algorithms that make the machines smarter and thus give AI a way to actually become more intelligent as time goes on.”

Machine learning is what Ramsey calls an approach to AI, meaning a way to use AI for practical applications. The approach uses statistical techniques to construct a model from observed data. It relies on inputs, or what Ramsey calls “extractors” set by the humans programming these machines.

“It’s like the bag-of-word analysis that made spam filters possible,” Ramsey says.

The filters could search for certain words (determined by humans) within messages, then flag those messages as unwanted spam.

Machine learning algorithms can sift through and find insights in large data sets. Combine AI and machine learning and the algorithms become more able to recognize patterns and specific issues, such as—when it comes to something like speech recognition software—accents.

But where does the data used by machine-learning algorithms come from?

Earlier this year, Nvidia revealed a self-driving car powered by its new AI supercomputer, Xavier, which learns to drive by observing a human driver. Nvidia installed the AI in an autonomous Lincoln vehicle to demonstrate its capabilities. Nvidia Drive PX is an open, artificial intelligence-driven, computing system that can be used as the technology platform for automated and autonomous vehicles. Nvidia developed its own self-driving vehicle to showcase the system.
Image credit Nvidia.

“Now with social media, sensors, the internet of things, we have all these data,” Ramsey says. “And we have the challenge of understanding and extracting insights from it.”

His company uses what it calls deep learning, a method that automatically extracts and makes sense of all that information, and continues to learn from it or “learns to think.”

“Using deep learning, the fastest growing segment of AI, computers are now able to learn and recognize patterns from data that were considered too complex for expert written software,” Ramsey says.

What about design?

Hirschtick believes CAD programs will make use of AI, but in a more limited way in the near future, by using information the designer has entered to offer suggestions about design parameters and inputs.

Future programs might offer to the design default values for a shape based on the objects that person has designed in the past. AI would essentially learn what types of products the designer mostly works on and the inputs he or she has regularly used for those products. The suggested values may appear on the user’s screen in a dialog box, Hirschtick says.

“Or AI could offer something like: ‘Gee, I noticed you’ve done pattern of activity several times in a row, do you want that or was that a mistake?’”

And AI could make engineers’ search for needed and necessary parts easier. Hirschtick envisions a program, much like that which appears for Amazon shoppers, in which engineers could type in information about a part they’re searching for “and the program says ‘a lot of times people looking for that part also look at this one,’” he says.

Today’s wind turbines, like this one installed in Traverse City, Mich., can be outfitted with a myriad of sensors and actuators that will return real-time turbine operating information through the Internet of Things. Image credit: bengarrison

In the future, CAD software users may also ask speech technology software, rather than the CAD-company’s tech-support operators, questions about the software and instantly receive a pertinent, helpful response. The natural-language-processing programs that drive these responses learn how best to answer user questions thanks to machine learning technology.

Such speech technology software could aid fast-growing CAD companies that would otherwise need to train a slew of customer-support employees quickly.

Currently, those AI possibilities remain unrealized, says Hirschtick. “Right now no one has demonstrated any particularly compelling idea with AI.”

Making manufacturing inroads

Other CAD vendors may beg to disagree.

Autodesk is already moving to use AI for customer support, teaming with IBM to create Otto, a digital concierge that uses IBM Watson technology to manage customer and partner inquiries, says Gregg Spratto, vice president of operations at Autodesk. “Watson’s natural-language-processing and deep-learning technologies help Otto understand the intent of customer questions.”

To offer Otto initial “training,” as it were, the Autodesk team fed historical data from chat logs, use cases, and forum posts into the program to ensure it could understand and respond to a wide range of customer queries.

Then, as the project expands, Otto will use machine learning to handle increasingly complex customer requests and will scale up as call-volume grows.

Also, last October, Autodesk announced plans to embed an AI modeling engine into its IoT cloud platform, Fusion Connect. The Eureqa engine is from Nutonian, recently acquired by DataRobot.

With the AI engine on board, the IoT platform will be able to predict product failures or design flaws based on how a product or device is presently functioning in the real world, says Bryan Kester, director of IoT at Autodesk

The pairing is natural, as IoT offers continual feedback on how products are performing in the field, in real time. IoT makes use of sensors and actuators attached to a product that send back continuous information on how the product is operating, moment-by-moment, in the field.

Fusion Connect helps gather information from that network of sensors and actuators as well as upon RFID, Wi-Fi, and a range of other communications and monitoring technologies, Kester says.

The information is then analyzed and output in a format useful to engineers, who can use it to find where improvements can be made to existing product designs and to determine how new products could be designed better designed. All this based on present, real-world operation, he adds.

Similarly, PTC plans this year to link its Creo computer-aided design system, to the company’s ThingWorx IoT development platform. Developers use the platform to build and deploy enterprise-level IoT applications, says Paul Sagar, vice president of product management at PTC.

Though it’s not an AI application, after the ThingWorx and Creo interface is complete, engineers will be able to instrument their CAD model with virtual sensors that act in the same manner as the real-world counterparts do; that is, they monitor and report back about particular features of part or system operation.

These virtual sensors can offer more insight into model behavior than the what-if questioning and virtual experimentation engineers now use to explore model performance, Sagar says. The sensors can help answer questions like: is the virtual system running hot in a certain area? Is airflow too high or too low?

Fusion Connect Internet of Things software from Autodesk can help connect factory applications across a number of industrial machines and make sense of information returned from the connected machines. Image credit: Autodesk

With those questions answered, designers can redesign and repeat the process until they’ve optimized the model to meet—perhaps even exceed–specifications, Sagar continues.

AI aids 3D lookup

Introduced last summer, Autodesk’s Design Graph is another machine learning system that helps users manage 3D content, offering Google search-like functionality for 3D models, says Mike Haley, who leads the machine intelligence group at Autodesk.

“Machine learning and artificial intelligence are starting to make the first inroads into daily life, but to our knowledge this is its very first application for industrial design and mechanical engineering,” Haley says.

Design Graph algorithms extract large amounts of 3D design data from an engineering company’s designs. It then creates a catalog by categorizing each component and design using a classification and relationship system. Designers and engineers search across all of their files for a part type, such as a bolt or a bike seat, with the tool returning dozens or hundreds of pertinent options.

So how does machine learning come into play?

The system teaches computers to identify and understand designs based on their inherent characteristics–their shape and structure–rather than by tags or metadata, Haley says.

After all, whoever designed the part originally could label it any of dozens of ways, using full words or abbreviations. Metadata created by people, unless carefully managed, tends to be unreliable, Haley says. With Design Graph, the computer uses its own observations about the 3D geometry contained in every 3D model.

So while some AI capabilities already exist within CAD systems, look for more to come. After all, product design plays a key role in the connected factory and the IoT systems of the future. Without design, there’d be no need for a factory—no matter how connected–to make the products and nothing for IoT to monitor.

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Filed Under: Autodesk, Onshape, Software Tagged With: Autodesk, nividia, OnShape, PTC

Changes in CAD—what you need to know

June 26, 2017 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

With the March release of Inventor 2018 and AutoCAD 2018, it’s a good time to review several of the recently released major CAD programs. Here’s a look at some of the biggest enhancements and key features of these programs.

Jean Thilmany, Contributing Editor

CAD packages are updated with the same regularity as other major software systems, often annually, with smaller releases to fix bugs or for minor updates happening throughout the year. Sometimes, the annual updates include major enhancements or completely new features. Other times, they include new subscription models, as is the case with Inventor, or offer new ways to access the software, such as through the cloud, which Solid Edge announced with its ST 9 version.

Autodesk Inventor

Here’s what designers will see in the latest version of Autodesk’s flagship mechanical design package:

Large-assembly design has also been made easier in Inventor 2018 from Autodesk. The capability to pan and zoom in on both 3D and 2D designs is improved in this version. The image shows an example of a machine design by equipment-maker Mastenbroek using Inventor.

The big news with the March release of Autodesk Inventor is its subscription-based plan. Users can subscribe for $235 per month. Or, they can choose to pay upfront at $1,890 for one year, $3,590 for two years, and $5,105 for three years.

These type of short-term subscription plans are good for companies that may bring on extra designers, and need more software seats, or during certain times of the year, or for companies that have landed a large project and need more help carrying it out, says Luke Mihelcic, an Autodesk product marketing manager.

Autodesk also has plans to roll out new functions for Inventor every few months rather than within one big, annual update. That is to say, Inventor will see new versions, or major releases, followed by incremental updates that build upon them, Mihelcic adds.

–Model-based definition

This year’s annual update includes model-based design (MBD) tools that users can use to annotate models with product manufacturing information (PMI) like tolerances, dimensions, and manufacturing notes. The tools help projects move from the modeling to the manufacturing stage faster than without the notes, Mihelcic says.

While annotating 3D models already saves time formerly spent creating 2D manufacturing drawings, this new release saves engineers who design in Inventor even more time because they don’t need a special authoring application for 3D annotation. Many engineers who use MBD to annotate models with 3D PMI still have to learn the separate, special application.

–Collaboration tools and ease of use

Inventor has also upped the tool’s interoperability, Mihelcic says. With the 2018 version, users can output 3D PDF files so design information can be shared with others—whether they’re part of the company or not–including manufacturers, customers, suppliers, and marketing managers.

Also in Inventor 2018, the “measure” tool has been simplified and improved to make it easier to use, and bill of materials and parts list sort orders have been made easier to organize because they’re now based on the commands users add themselves, he says.

AutoCAD 2018

The other big system from Autodesk, AutoCAD turns 35 this year. The CAD software and its cousin, AutoCAD LT–which stands for “light” and doesn’t include the full roster of features seen in the main version–also saw a March update, to version 2018, says Heidi Hewett, AutoCAD technical marketing manager.

Autodesk released its AutoCAD 2018 design tool in March.

The newest version is built on a modern code base, which means it runs smoother and faster on current hardware than past versions. In fact, AutoCAD 2018 now supports 4K high-resolution monitors and screens. A 4K display is comprised of 3,840 or higher pixels of horizontal resolution and 2,160 pixels of vertical resolution.

–DWG 2018

The updated CAD system also includes the 2018 DWG (short for drawing) file format, which is the data-file-format AutoCAD uses to create and save designs. This format will improve the efficiency of open and save operations, especially for drawings that contain many annotative objects and viewports, according to Hewett.

This is the first DWG update since 2013. That’s important to know because, while designs created with AutoCAD 2018 will be saved to the 2018 DWG file format, older versions of AutoCAD cannot read the 2018 format. Designers sharing with users on systems that don’t support the 2018 DWG format will need to save their files using an older version of DWG, likely the 2013 version.

–Navigation and Reference Improvements

Version 2018 also introduces tools to fix broken paths for externally referenced files, which helps reduce problems created by broken reference paths and saves the time spent on relinking paths. The upgrade allows users to replace external paths that have one or more missing references with a new path, according to Hewett.

The workflow for creating references is improved with this version. A relative path is automatically assigned to all new, external references.

Users can still choose to assign references as “full path” as was done automatically in previous versions. They can also specify a relative path before saving their drawing. In the past, they couldn’t specify a relative path until they were saving their drawings.

AutoCAD LT won’t see the 3D navigation performance enhancements included in AutoCAD 2018, which Autodesk said offers improvements when using zoom, pan and 3D orbit operations. For example, many larger drawings will no longer degrade as users navigate around the model, the company says. The performance for manipulating 3D models is approaching that of 2D drawings, Hewett adds.

–CAD Viewer update

Autodesk recently re-released the Design Review CAD viewer, which the CAD maker hadn’t updated since the 2013 version. The CAD viewer software lets users view, mark up, print, and track changes to 2D and 3D files for free—even if they don’t own or use AutoCAD. It works with a variety of file formats, including: DWF, DWFx, DWG, and DXF, Adobe PDF, as well as image file types such as.bmp, .jpg, .gif, .png, .tif, .cal and a host of others. The DXF, or drawing exchange format, from Autodesk allows data to be exchanged and read between AutoCAD and other programs.

Solid Edge

This CAD system is Siemens PLM’s main design and engineering offering, with release ST10 soon to come. ST stands for synchronous technology, the method Solid Edge uses for modeling rather than the usual constraint-driven or history-tree modeling. It gives designers the ability to edit models directly rather than making the changes within hierarchical and dependent feature trees, according to Siemens.

Built in data-manage tools included within Solid Edge ST9 are updated with the ST10 release.

–Manage information

Also, new built-in data management tools help manage revisions. In a new “revisions” dialogue box, users can see the entire revision history of a part. They can also comment on any revision in the revision tree and ask whether newer versions of a part are available.

–Sheet metal design and more

Users can design sheet metal parts with Solid Edge ST10 and can edit those parts directly, even if they’re bent. They can also reposition features on the parts, resize them, and change their form without having to go back through the feature tree to correct design errors.

Siemens PLM continues to integrate new capabilities into its Solid Edge CAD system through recent acquisitions including Polarion, for development of software embedded within products, and CD-adapco, for design simulation.

–Additional features

A design manager feature has been added to simplify detecting and replacing duplicate files. After launching the tool, users can see if any of the parts in an assembly have geometric matches with different names and replace them with the preferred part. They’re also able to see tell if a part has a drawing, making it easier to determine the value of one component over another.

The automatic routing path feature in ST10 means users can create routing paths automatically between points within an assembly, part, or sheet-metal design. In earlier versions of the tool, they needed to create routing paths manually. This is a boon for users who design pipelines or create designs that include wiring or hoses, for example, notes a spokesman at Siemens.

Solid Edge ST10 will be the last Solid Edge release to support Windows 7.

SolidWorks

SolidWorks 2017, released earlier this year, offers support for virtual and augmented reality devices such as HTC Vive, Oculus, Google Cardboard, and Samsung devices.

Large assembly capabilities have been improved in SolidWorks 2017, which was released in the fall of 2016 and is the latest version of the system from Dassault Systemes.

This version includes a new user interface, though the change isn’t as dramatic as seen in the previous release. The update now makes the order of configurations sortable, rather than existing only in the order they were created. Also, shortcut menus are streamlined and standardized.

–Interconnection

Users can also open proprietary 3D CAD data in SolidWorks 2017. Systems supported include Creo, CATIA V5, Solid Edge, NX, and Inventor. Associativity is maintained with the original file, meaning updates made within supported systems are automatically reflected in the SolidWorks file.

–Other features

The CAD maker has also expanded capabilities for model-based definition. With this version, users can compare geometry and 3D product and manufacturing information between two revisions, and attached multiple files to a 3D PDF to create technical data packages.

The company’s “visualize boost” feature makes for faster rendering speeds.

New features include a reliability tab that provides access to information such as how the previous session ended and the version of SolidWorks running.

The upgrade also introduces a new feature called “offset on surface,” which allows users to use existing 3D edge and face entities to create new sketches.

Other Updates

 Of course a number of other CAD packages such as TurboCad Deluxe 2017 and NX, also from Siemens PLM, have seen recent updates as well. And we expect to see new features included in future Creo Parametric (formerly Pro/e) versions. In CAD software, as in life, nothing stays the same forever—or even for very long.

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Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, Autodesk, Featured, Siemens PLM, SolidWorks

Cloud Invent launches Cheetah Solver for AutoCAD

March 13, 2017 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

Cheetah Solver for Autodesk AutoCAD is a plugin that replaces the built-in parametric of AutoCAD with the enhanced parametric technology developed by Cloud Invent to enable much more efficient sketching, design modification and motion simulation. Cheetah Solver is a robust and powerful parametric tool that boosts user productivity and lowers engineering costs and errors.

Cloud Invent is moving Cheetah Solver to a full commercial release after a successful beta test, which lasted for six months and included 1500 users from 20 countries.

“We built a world-class product that revolutionizes the way users work with AutoCAD,” said Nick Sidorenko, founder and CEO for Cloud Invent. “We are extremely excited to have reached to the point of our commercial launch. Rest assured we will continue improving Cheetah Solver bringing new functions and benefits to AutoCAD users.”

Cheetah Solver is available for download on Autodesk Apps Store and Cloud Invent website.

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Filed Under: Autodesk, Autodesk News

Design for use, lessons in adapting tools to other cultures through CAD

March 1, 2017 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Jean Thilmany, Contributing Editor

A functional, well-designed item is a luxury, says Tim Prestero, founder and chief executive officer at Salem, Mass.-based Design That Matters. It’s not that functional items are hard to come by, but in impoverished areas of the world those items may not be designed to fit users’ needs.

Medical equipment tends to be prohibitively expensive in the rural areas of developing countries, so it is often donated to hospitals and clinics. But the equipment often comes straight from the Western world without being adapted to third world use or the unique circumstances of the physicians, nurses, and patients who will use it, Prestero says.

As a result, products—like those that could save a baby’s life—may never be used by busy medical professionals who don’t have time to learn to use a complicated, but well-intentioned device or who don’t fully understand how the equipment is intended to help a newborn thrive.

DTM often works with engineering students in a college credit program. As part of the process of adapting a baby incubator into the Otter Baby Warmer for use in developing countries, students created a market analysis. Based on the information, they created a few prototypes of the warmer, developing a “hard to use wrong” interface, a thermal regulation subsystem, manufacturing plans, and financial projections for production.

Design That Matters (DTM) intends to change that. The nonprofit’s goal is to design lifesaving devices that—because they will see everyday use–will actually save lives.

Take the Firefly Phototherapy device for newborns that DTM created. With the Firefly, rural hospitals in the developing world with limited resources and inexperienced staff can successfully treat jaundice in newborns, says Malory Johnson, the nonprofit’s industrial design fellow.

“Treatment devices for this already exist, but they’re poorly adapted to developing countries,” Johnson says.

Firefly Phototherapy device is another adapted design built specifically for developing countries and medical staff with no time for training. A single bassinet is permanently attached to the lamp that emits blue light, which keeps babies prone to jaundice warm. Only one baby at a time can use the equipment. The blue lamps are located above and below the bassinet, so that babies covered in blankets can still receive the light. The device is sealed for hygiene.

DTM works with student volunteers who are working toward engineering and business degrees. The 1,200 students that work at the nonprofit earn college credits in return for their ideas.

“After all, the best way to have ideas is to have a ton of ideas,” Prestero says.

The students’ mission isn’t so much to completely design a medical device from the ground up as to perform what Prestero calls “content adaption.”

For example, there are treatment devices to halt jaundice in newborns. For Prestero, why not adapt those devices for the rural hospitals DTM serves rather than expect their medical staff to use a device from a Western country that serves a vastly different population?

DTM is the recipient of an Autodesk Foundation grant, so engineering and design students use cloud-based Fusion 360 computer-aided design software from Autodesk for design. The nonprofit also uses SolidWorks CAD software. The students communicate across campuses through the CAD systems in the same way engineers in different departments or at different locations of the same company exchange and hone ideas.

The CAD software combined with tools like 3D printers–available at a Boston FabLab with many fabrication tools to create physical prototypes—enable a small team of designers and engineers to create and launch products quickly and efficiently, Johnson says.

The Otter baby warmer

During the 2016 fall semester, students from Olin, Babson, and Wellesley colleges, all near Boston, worked with DTM. Babson College is a private business school in Wellesley, Mass. The students worked to perfect and create a market analysis for a product already underway at DTM: the Otter baby warmer. This incubator is an offshoot of an original baby warmer design called the NeoNuture.

Each year nearly four million infants die within a month of their birth in resource-poor settings due to infection, low birth weight and other health factors. But half of those kids would make it if you can keep them warm during their first week. In developing countries, many newborn wards use blankets or other means to keep babies warm—but not warm enough, even as complicated and costly donated incubators stand nearby, Prestero says.

The Otter Newborn Warmer provides a warm, clean environment that could avert close to one-quarter of those deaths by preventing hypothermia in under-resourced district hospitals, Johnson adds.

The student volunteers and DTM staff conducted an initial market analysis and then created a few prototypes of the warmer. The students helped develop a “hard to use wrong” interface, a thermal regulation subsystem, manufacturing plans, and financial projections leading to production.

The Otter reflects the hard lessons learned from that first stab at designing for a culture and environment foreign to the designer’s own, Prestero says. In fact, the Otter incubator design led to the development of the Firefly Phototherapy device. The nonprofit is now circling back to perfect its original baby warmer, then called the NeoNuture.

The NeoNurture(2) is a revised version of Design That Matters’ baby incubator. Despite feedback from users, the first NeoNuture did not succeed as well as the designers thought because of issues with manufacturing, finance, distribution, regulation. “A whole constellation of people who have to be involved in a product for it to be successful,” says Tim Prestero, founder and chief executive officer at Design That Matters.

Beyond design challenges

Though Prestero’s team had spent hours speaking with NeoNuture’s eventual end users to determine what they sought, the incubator still failed to go into production, he told the audience in a June 2012 TEDxBoston talk.

“When we were designing NeoNuture we paid a lot of attention to the people who were going to use this thing,” he says in the talk. “But it turns out, there’s this whole constellation of people who have to be involved in a product for it to be successful: manufacturing, finance, distribution, regulation.”

As the DTW staff later discovered, rural doctors in developing countries don’t actually buy their own medical equipment. It’s either donated or is purchased by the country’s health agency, Prestero says.

The health agencies weren’t lining up to bring in NeoNuture incubators, he said, and, as a result, DTW couldn’t find a manufacturer.

For its next go-round, DTW first found a manufacturing partner in Vietnam, MTTS, which makes newborn care technologies for the southeast Asian market. It also teamed with East Meets West, a U.S. agency that distributes the technology.

Next, Prestero’s team asked the manufacturer to delineate a problem it’d like to solve through technology. Employees had an immediate answer: newborn jaundice. This problem would be addressed by adapting current technology to more closely fit the need, resulting in the Firefly Phototherapy device.

Jaundice affects two-thirds of newborns born around the world, Prestero says. For one in ten babies, the jaundice becomes so severe it leads to lifelong disability or death. One simple cure: “Shine a blue light on as much of the kid’s skin as you can cover,” Prestero says.

In the United States, an overhead phototherapy device is widely used to treat jaundice. But nurses in impoverished countries often place three or more babies under a single lamp. None of those babies are directly under the light, so they don’t benefit from its rays.

“But without training, without some kind of light meter, how would you know that?” Prestero asks.

Also, mothers with babies under the lamps—who don’t entirely understand its use–often see their tiny, naked baby and instinctively put a blanket over their baby, blocking the blue light from reaching the skin, he says.

The redesign

After hearing about the problem, DTM developed its Firefly Phototherapy device. Because a single bassinet is permanently attached to the lamp, only one baby at a time can use the equipment. And because the blue lamps are located above and below the bassinet, babies covered in blankets can still receive the light. And because bugs enter the equipment with disturbing regularity, causing malfunction, the device is totally sealed for hygiene, Prestero says.

“We talked with the manufacturer, and they could actually make it with the resources they have access to,” he adds.

The Firefly has successfully launched, so the DTM team has turned its attention back to its original baby warmer, which will be called the Otter Newborn Warmer.

In early December, the team wrapped up a one-week field study in northern Vietnam. DTM wanted to test the Otter Newborn Warmer prototype with doctors and nurses and with the DTW manufacturing partner, MTTS.

“We took thousands of photos, shot hours of video and collected a mountain of notes. We’re just getting started on the process of data-reduction,” Johnson says.

The team used ThinkPads laptops from Lenovo to make design changes within their CAD systems in the field and on the fly, she adds.

But some things work best low-tech. The team also used what Johnson termed “a blizzard of Post-It Notes” to track ideas.

The cloud-based CAD system, the laptops for use in the field, even the Post-It Notes all add up to what Prestero calls the democratization of design. That is, affordable design. None of those tools are expensive and are accessible to everyday designers, he says.

And that, he says, leads to equipment and tools that can aid even the poorest in the world.

Designing for a new mindset

The hard-to-use-wrong sentiment used by DTM mirrors that of another organization that develops products for third-world environments. Compatible Technology Inc., (CTI) of St. Paul, is comprised of engineers and food scientists who face a unique challenge: to determine the tools farmers in rural, developing nations need and want and to design, “as best they can,” tools for those needs, says Alexandra Spieldoch, the nonprofit’s executive director.

The “as best they can” part comes into play because it’s difficult for Minnesotans to understand how the population they design for will use the tools.

It’s the perfect example of a seemingly simple problem but one difficult to solve for those in developing countries without means, materials, or background information, Spieldoch says.

Over the years, volunteers have come up with a number of solutions, including corn processing and storage methods for Guatemalan farmers, a simple food grinder that can be easily flown to a remote location and set up by villagers, and a potato dryer and other potato processing equipment.

These may sound basic, but consider that the potato equipment, which consists of a peeler, slicer, blanching vat, stove, and drying racks, prevents surplus potatoes in parts of India from rotting before their economic value can be realized.

Just knowing about those rotting potatoes spurred CTI members to action. CTI continues to revise its tools as new information about how they’re used in the actual field makes its way back to Minnesota. In much the same way, the DTM baby warmer is an updated version of one of that nonprofit’s first designs.

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Filed Under: Autodesk, SolidWorks

If you draw it, can you print it?

February 8, 2016 By Jean Thilmany Leave a Comment

by Jean Thilmany, Contributing Editor

3D printing enables you to reduce part weight, raw material used and cut total energy used in production. But to truly take advantage of 3D printing, engineers need updated, intuitive, easy-to-learn CAD tools.

To keep pace with advances in 3D printing, CAD technology must move into the cloud, become easier to use, and be better able to support eccentric, not-yet-dreamed-of designs, say several design experts.

If CAD technology can evolve, in the not-too-distant future, everyday objects like your blender, electric toothbrush or even the engine within your automobile, will take the shape of nothing you’ve ever seen before, said Hod Lipson, a mechanical engineering professor and director of the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University.

Lipson has written extensively about 3D printing and helped develop Fab@Home, inexpensive 3D printers. He published the paper “Is CAD Keeping Up?” in the December 2014 edition of the journal 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.

That question—is CAD keeping up with 3D printing—is one he asks himself as additive manufacturing continues to gain popularity. Most 3D printers take their printing instructions from 3D CAD files. Because the 3D printer receives its instructions from CAD files, the printers are limited in the shapes they print that those CAD systems generate, Lipson said.

The 3D printers themselves can print objects with geometries as yet unimagined. Any shape, no matter how twisting, undulating or odd, is fair game, he said. So the future could feasibly resemble a Dr. Seuss-style landscape rather than boxy squares of today’s laptops, ovens and refrigerators.

But CAD software only allows for designers to work with recognized geometries: circles and ovals, squares and rectangles, and so on.

fusion360-keyshot
Products will be designed in a more collaborative way, moving through 3D modeling, then on to simulate, analyze and test, and then on to integrated CAM or 3D printing.

Guided by the design file, a 3D printer lays down layer after layer of a material to print an object in three dimensions. Some of today’s printers and materials can create objects that can immediately be used, doing away with the need for another manufacturing step, Lipson said.

While CAD continues to evolve, changes to that software are mainly seen in the way engineers interact with the software rather than in the shapes and designs they can create with the software.

Take, for example, sketching applications that allow engineers to draw their designs as they would on paper, rather than pulling or piecing together existing geometries. Catchbook, from Siemens PLM, is one example. While these aren’t CAD applications, in some cases, such as with Catchbook, these designs can serve as precursors to CAD designs.

“It’s freehand ink, not just dead ink on a page, so you can edit and manipulate it, can erase and insert images and share content with other people,” said Ken Hosch, director of strategy at Siemens PLM.

Other examples of freehand-drawing-style applications include SketchUp, Sketches and Drawing Pad. Though SketchUp can be used on a desktop, most of these drawing applications are intended for the tablet, with your finger or a stylus acting as the pencil.

But even these freehand design programs come with drawbacks that mean they can’t be used—yet—to print odd and eccentric shapes on a 3D printer.

The industrial drawing engine behind Catchbook, for instance, automatically turns the individual parts of a drawing into recognized geometries. If a Catchbook user sketches a lopsided circle, the engine creates a perfect circle, Hosch said.

What we need to see for the printed shapes of tomorrow to be possible, Lipson said, are programs that allow freehand drawings to be printed in 3D without the need to change drawings into recognizable geometrical shapes. If you can draw it, you can print it, he said.

What’s more, conventional CAD software imposes its own limitations on designers, who may not be able to think outside the “because it’s a computer it must resemble a box” box, Lipson said. So even as CAD changes, designer mentality may be slow to catch up.

Which is a particular lag at a time when 3D printing allows many advantages to large and small manufacturers, including the capability to build one-off and custom parts at remote locations, he added.

Another recent trend in 3D printing has been from printing prototypes to printing end-use parts, according to Terry Wohlers, president of Wohlers Associates, a Colorado-based additive manufacturing consulting firm.

Recently, for example, GE Aviation announced plans to include 3D-printed parts in its CFM Leap aircraft engine platform beginning in 2016. The engines, produced jointly by GE and partner Snecma, will include 19 3D-printed fuel nozzles in the combustion system.

Last May, printer manufacturer Stratasys announced that its printers had been used to produce more than 1,000 flight parts for the Airbus A350 XWB aircraft, delivered in December 2014. Similarly produced components are also included within in-service jetliners in the A300 and A310 family, according to Airbus.

Autodesk_Fusion360
The recently released Fusion 360, from Autodesk, is a CAD, CAM and CAE tool that exists in the cloud. It can be connected to have 3D printing capabilities.

The parts weigh 30 to 55% less than traditionally manufactured parts, reduce raw material used by 90% and cut total energy used in production by up to 90% compared to traditional methods, according to Peter Sander of Airbus’s Innovation Cell, which investigates and promotes emerging technologies.

But for these trends to continue, engineers need updated, intuitive, easy-to-learn CAD tools, Lipson said. And without them, it will be even harder for mainstream designers and consumers to fully adopt 3D printing, even as desktop printer prices drop, according to John Darlington, a computing professor at Imperial College, London.

“While there is little doubt 3D printing technologies will have a highly transformative effect in the coming decades, consumer adoption of these technologies still remains rather low,” Darlington and his colleagues wrote in an August 2015 paper in the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management.

“Making an object requires more than just a 3D printer and advanced knowledge of 3D modeling software,” the researchers wrote in the paper “Co-creation and User Innovation: The Role of Online 3D Printing Platforms.” Darlington fellow authors are Ludmila Striukova, senior research associate in the University College, London, school of management, and Thierry Rayna, a professor of economics at Novancia Business School of Paris.

One area in which 3D printing and CAD technologies are both moving forward are within the cloud. This tandem momentum will help small manufacturers take advantage of 3D printing, said Amy Bunszel, Autodesk VP of AutoCAD products.

3D printers, along with CAD software that exists “in the cloud” (that is, not on users’ networks but on remote servers into which they can tap), will allow for small-scale, custom manufacturing, Bunszel said. Because they don’t need to maintain expensive software and hardware in house, companies, small designers and hobbyists can quickly and easily design and print parts.

3D printers may not strictly exist within the cloud, but they could be—and often are today—housed at service bureaus, away from the engineer or manufacturer, but can still be used to print their files. Printed pieces can then be sent to the original engineer or manufacturer, or could be sent directly to a customer.

With access to 3D printers and to CAD programs in the cloud, engineers could also design a part and have it printed in small batches of many variations rather than manufacture parts—as is done today—using CAM files in a mass-produced, one-size-fits-all method, Lipson said. “That was not economically viable before,” he added.

Or, as Bunszel put it, “The cloud changes everything; mobile, social, everything.”

Her company, CAD-vendor Autodesk, recently released Fusion 360 a CAD, CAM and CAE tool that exists in the cloud.

“So it could be connected to have 3D printing capabilities. It connects your entire product development process,” Bunszel said. “You have 3D modeling capabilities, then can simulate, analyze and test, and then take into integrated CAM functionality or to 3D printing.”

Products in the future will be designed in a more collaborative way, she predicted. “People are designing things together with access to new techniques, like 3D printing, which are accessible to all of our customers, not just big manufacturers.”

The tools designers have used in the past need a refresh to be useful in the future, she added. The cloud offers an easier way to access and work with CAD technology, she said.

For his part, Lipson wants to see CAD and 3D printing technologies work together for a future in which engineers can create in 3D anything they can envision—and even shapes and objects that can’t be envisioned today. In other words, the computer of the future won’t be square in shape.

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Autodesk
www.Autodesk.com

Siemens PLM
www.plm.automation.siemens.com

Stratasys
www.Stratasys.com

Filed Under: Autodesk, Autodesk News, CAD Industry News, Company News, News, Siemens PLM & Events

Autodesk Fusion 360 uses the cloud to facilitate collaboration, add upgrades

October 15, 2015 By 3DCAD Editor Leave a Comment

by Diane Sofranec, Contributing Editor

Your photos, music and movies are stored on the cloud, so why not your CAD designs, too?

Autodesk’s Fusion 360 is a cloud-based mechanical CAD solution. Officially released at Autodesk University in 2012, Fusion 360 was launched in 2009 through Autodesk Labs as Inventor Fusion.

But it’s not software you install on your computer. A $300 yearly subscription gets you a mechanical, industrial and conceptual design tool, plus frequent updates.

Autodesk-Fusion-360-1
Fusion 360 is a highly collaborative design tool that can take designers from concept to prototype.

Using a cloud-based design tool means every change you make on your design is saved on the cloud and becomes part of a version history. You have the ability to access each version of your design, so every time you open your design, you will see which version you are getting.

Keeping the application on the cloud allows Autodesk to provide quick fixes and add new capabilities. Updates typically occur every eight weeks; some are minor, whereas others are significant. As a result, Fusion 360 has evolved into a highly collaborative design tool that takes you from concept to prototype, providing you have a decent Internet connection.

Since its initial release, Autodesk has added considerable functionality. Several of the latest updates are worth noting.

Collaboration
The ability to access data and share designs no matter where you are, regardless of the device you are using is what Fusion 360 is all about. Because your data is housed on the cloud, you can look at it whether you’re on a Mac, PC, tablet or smartphone and work with your design team from anywhere as long as you’re online.

A Fusion 360 mobile app that works on iOS and Android devices lets you view, mark up and comment on your CAD models. You can easily collaborate by adding others to your project so they can see your progress anytime. The app includes support for more than 100 file formats, and allows you to store and view just as many data formats. To make viewing easier, you can isolate and hide the model’s components and use your touchscreen to zoom, rotate and pan. It also gives you access to design properties and parts lists, and tracks project activities and updates. You can share project information by posting messages, photos and comments. You can also take and share screenshots of any markups made to your design.

If you’re an Apple aficionado, Fusion 360 employs Handoff, which lets you resume what you were doing exactly where you left off as you switch devices. So as long as you’re signed in to the same iCloud account, you can look at your design on your iPhone and then, when you open your MacBook Pro and launch your browser, a simple click will take you to that same design so you can continue working.

Animations
Sometimes you need to show all the components of a product, or how it goes together and comes apart. That’s what makes animations, or exploded views, indispensible. You can add notes, too. This capability works on all iOS devices, so you can share this aspect of your design with clients, manufacturers and the design team.

Autodesk-Fusion-360-exploded-views
Animations, or exploded views, let designer show how products go together and come apart.

Distributed design
Fusion 360’s Distributed Design capabilities allow you to create a couple of different designs and insert one of them into another design. It’s a convenient way for multiple users to work on a design together.

Drawings
The Fusion 360 creators leveraged the AutoCAD Mechanical 2D design tool. In addition, the past few upgrades added mechanical annotations and 2D symbols, making it easier to create patent drawings or communicate with the manufacturing team.

Standard parts libraries
Looking for parts to put in your model? Look no further than the parts library that is built into Fusion 360. Simply find the part you need; one click brings it directly into your design. Autodesk has been working with such companies as McMaster-Carr and Cavenas to create standard parts libraries. The McMaster-Carr parts library is the default and already included; however, you can choose from many others to add.

Application programming interface
Late last year, Autodesk introduced application programming interface (API) support for Fusion 360, and continues to open it up to more and more third party companies. For instance, although CAM capabilities are built in, you can now easily integrate the CAM tools of your choosing.

CAM
Speaking of CAM, 2.5- and 3-axis capabilities make it possible for you to turn your designs into parts. HSMWorks, a company Autodesk acquired three years ago, is fully integrated into Fusion 360 (as well as its Inventor software). This CAM functionality makes it possible for designers to take their products to market, whether they are seasoned professionals working for major corporations or hobbyists launching their dream inventions.

Autodesk-Fusion-360-2
Fusion 360 includes 2.5- and 3-axis CAM capabilities for turning designs into parts.

3D Printing
3D printing capabilities are integrated through Spark, an open software platform just for that. Spark can generate supports for designs that need them. Plus, it lets you control the printer you’re using as well as the outcome. A layer-by-layer preview shows exactly what you can expect.

Autodesk-Fusion-360-3d-printing-capabilities
The 3D printing capabilities in Fusion 360 let designers generate supports when needed.

Training
For a product that’s updated every eight weeks, training is definitely necessary. Autodesk constantly updates its help section with new tutorials to ensure ease of use. Built-in tutorial videos and links are designed to help you get up to speed quickly.

For those who need to learn the basics, there’s Fusion 101, detailed instructions on nine different capabilities. You can learn how to sketch, sculpt, model, manage and collaborate, render, and get the basics on assemblies, drawings, CAM and animations. Each training module takes an hour to two to explore and includes videos for those who learn by watching and printable documents for those who prefer written instructions.

In addition, if you were a SolidWorks user, you can check out videos with more advanced content designed to help make the switch to Fusion 360 go smoothly. Because you already understand 3D design concepts, these videos simply show how the tools and workflows differ in an effort to make the transition easier.

Education
Autodesk worked with the Apple Education team to offer the Autodesk Design Academy iTunes U course. Students and others new to CAD can check out iTunes U for a course in Fusion 360. Autodesk is one of the few businesses with educational content in this space. But because it’s a cloud-based design tool natively written for the Mac, a partnership with Apple seems natural.

Longtime professional CAD users, inexperienced hobbyists and students just launching their careers can easily learn how to use Fusion 360 to create and collaborate.

The road ahead
Collaboration isn’t limited to the members of your design team. To learn what’s next for Fusion 360, its developers include a roadmap in the Autodesk Community section of the application’s website that details the upgrades you can expect to see soon. Such transparency also provides an opportunity to weigh in on what you would like to see in future versions. Sometimes, proposed features include links with more detailed information. Simulation is coming soon, for instance, and Fusion 360 developers have shared what it will encompass and why. They also put out a call for feedback. It’s not everyday you can collaborate with the developers of your CAD application just as you would with the members of your design team.

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Autodesk
www.autodesk.com

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, Autodesk, Autodesk News, CAD Industry News, Company News Tagged With: Autodesk

What’s New in Inventor 2016

March 31, 2015 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

Autodesk introduced the newest version of its desktop 3D CAD product, Autodesk Inventor 2016, which provides a trio of modeling tools: parametric, direct editing and freeform design tools. Inventor 2016 also enables users to associatively connect their Inventor data to non-native CAD formats so their electrical and mechanical data can be integrated into one single design environment.

Work More Efficiently in Multi-CAD Environments

New to Inventor 2016 are features that facilitate working with files and models created in other CAD systems. An associative import of CAD data from CATIA, SolidWorks, NX, Pro-E/Creo, and Alias files allows users to maintain a link to the selected file. The imported geometry in Inventor updates as the model changes.

In addition, a selective import support allows users to only read in the geometry that is vital, speeding the import process. The new Select tab provides you the option to specify which objects to import when importing a CATIA, SolidWorks, Pro-E/Creo, NX, Alias, STEP, IGES, or Rhino file.

Multi-thread support has been enabled, which allows Inventor to more efficiently use available hardware, resulting in improved performance when working on files from other CAD systems. The options for importing CATIA, SolidWorks, Pro-E/Creo, NX, Alias, STEP, IGES, Rhino, SAT, Parasolid Binary files have also been simplified and provide clear choices for import.

With this new version, users can quickly insert an AutoCAD DWG file in an Inventor part file as a DWG underlay using the Import command in the 3D Model tab, Create panel. Users can also now add assembly relationships to underlay geometry.

The Project DWG Geometry command can be used to project DWG geometry, polylines, open or closed loops, and DWG blocks, then the projected sketch elements can be used to create modeling features. 3D Inventor models based on the DWG geometry will update when the 2D geometry changes in AutoCAD.

Autodesk Inventor 2016 now offers an associative import of CAD data from CATIA, SolidWorks, NX, Pro-E/Creo, and Alias files that allows you to maintain a link to the selected file. The imported geometry in Inventor updates as the model changes.
Autodesk Inventor 2016 now offers an associative import of CAD data from CATIA, SolidWorks, NX, Pro-E/Creo, and Alias files that allows you to maintain a link to the selected file. The imported geometry in Inventor updates as the model changes.

Mechanical and Electrical Interoperability

The new Electromechanical link between Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical provides a smooth data exchange between 2D and 3D electrical designs. When users create a link between an AutoCAD Electrical and an Inventor assembly, the project files become associative, meaning that design data changes made in one product are updated in the other via Sync.

The Location View command on the new Electromechanical tab on the Assembly ribbon in Inventor displays the devices and wiring contained in both the AutoCAD Electrical Drawings and Inventor Assemblies.

Creating Shapes

Powerful new commands and workflows are now available in Inventor’s Freeform modeling environment. Users can now work with open surfaces or closed shapes; convert existing model faces to freeform geometry for shape refinement; delete faces; unweld edges to split and move a freeform body segment; and use the Freeform Thicken command to create solids, offset surfaces, or shell walls.

3D Printing

A new environment is added that lets users position and orient their design within the print space of the selected 3D printer. Users can also update the part in the print environment that does not impact the source document. When finished, users can send the results to Print Studio or other printing software to begin printing the part.

Users can now position and orient their design within the print space of the selected 3D printer and update the part in the print environment that does not impact the source document. When finished, send the results to Print Studio or other printing software to begin printing the part.
Users can now position and orient their design within the print space of the selected 3D printer and update the part in the print environment that does not impact the source document. When finished, send the results to Print Studio or other printing software to begin printing the part.

Drawing Enhancements

Drawing view creation has been simplified, and uses in-canvas tools. Text formatting is expanded with new options: Bullets and numbering, strike-through text, enhanced formatting (all caps, title case, lower case). Surface texture and feature control frame symbols are updated to the latest standards.

Many new graphical symbols are available, and can be inserted in various types of drawing annotations. Balloon styles can use custom balloon shapes. A new Single Segment Leader option allows users to create drawing annotations with a single leader segment and align drawing annotations vertically, horizontally, or to an edge. Users can create a view sketch on a model with included work features and select those work features with the Project Geometry command.

With a new external Sketch Symbols Library, users can quickly access and share their collection of sketch symbols. The Library is an Inventor drawing file that, by default, is located in a subfolder of the Design Data location of your project. This new feature offers the following new functions:

* A search and filter feature in the Sketch Symbols Library dialog box.
* Preview the sketch in a preview pane within the dialog box before placing the sketch.
* Browser expansion state remains throughout session when placing sketch symbols.
* A Sketch Symbol Library can be created in IDW and DWG formats, allowing insertion of symbols contained within the library file from either format.
* Save your sketch symbols to a customized library.

Visualization

All lighting styles in Inventor Studio are now associated with an Image-Based Lighting (IBL). A lighting style can have zero local lights but must have one IBL. IBL-based styles provides better lighting sources in Inventor Studio with enriched IBL collection.

When users enter the Studio Environment, all legacy local lights are now disabled by default. It is recommended that users utilize IBL for better rendering results. All newly created lighting styles are associated with the default IBL automatically. Change the associated IBL to another IBL as desired.

The enhanced visual effect for shaded visual style makes it more consistent with the realistic visual style. The rendering engine in Inventor Studio was changed to RapidRT with advanced configurations for better quality rendering.

The Studio Render Illustration settings have been moved to the View tab. The new and enhanced Technical Illustration command creates a realistic illustration effect in the graphics window.

Workflow Enhancements

Among the many enhancements, are:

General

* Use Escape (Esc) key to cancel an operation in select processes.
* Multiple productivity enhancements made to dialog boxes.
* Add all window tile styles to the task bar.
* Dock an Inventor browser on any application’s window edge.
* Hide all sketch dimensions now available in the Object Visibility menu.
* Import/Export external rules configuration for iLogic (not available in Inventor LT).

Sheet metal parts

* Multi-body support is added to sheet metal.Support for zero bend radius is added to many commands.
* Material thickness is detected when you convert a part to a sheet metal part.
* Punch tool shows a count of the center selections.

Tube and Pipe setting enhancements

You can now customize file names for fittings and populate part numbers into your parts list within the drawing environment. Previously, you could only change the name of your conduit items, but now you can update fittings as well.

Parts

* Face draft contains powerful new options that let you Fix or Move the parting line.
* Ruled Surface is added to the surfacing commands.
* The Mirror and Pattern commands support multiple solid body selection.
* Previously, nonlinear patterns of a solid body in a multi body part file have not been possible. You can now create nonlinear patterns for solid bodies.
* Drag a sketch above the parent feature in the browser to share it.
* The Measure command now allows you to measure an angle to the midpoint of any segment. This option is achieved by hovering your mouse over the midpoint of a segment until a yellow dot appears.

Sketch

* Identify which workplane or face a sketch was created on.
* The selected Show All or Hide All Constraints display setting remains active as you sketch and throughout your editing session.
* Create tangent dimensions between circular or arc geometry within a 2D sketch.
* The Initial View Scale property of the first drawing review placed on the sheet is added in the Sheet Properties group within the Format Text dialog box.
* The Sketch Dimensions option is added to the Object Visibility list. Select this option to display 2D or 3D sketches and hide all related sketch dimensions.
* Sharing a sketch is made visible by dragging above the feature in browser.
* New snap points added to the context menu: Endpoint, Apparent Intersection, Quadrant, and Mid of 2 points.
* Modify Start Sketch and select a view or sheet before sketching.

Assembly

* New safety factor calculation warning displays in Stress Analysis.
* The Midplane option has been added to the assembly Pattern command. Select the Midplane option to create a pattern distributed on both sides of the original component.
* Replace All feature available for highlighted components within an assembly.
* Select multiple sick constraints within Design Doctor to delete.

Drawings

* Start a drawing from any open model, and automatically apply the current model camera and representations in the base view.
* In-canvas tools in the Base View command simplify creation of a base view and projected views. For example, you can use the ViewCube to orient the model, set the view scale by dragging a view corner, or adjust projected views while creating the base view.

For more detailed information on all the new bells and whistles in Autodesk Inventor 2016, check out its Help Page.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: Autodesk, Inventor, News Tagged With: Autodesk

Autodesk Simplifies Scan-to-3D Model Workflows with Memento

March 2, 2015 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

3D scanners are getting more and more advanced and more portable and as a result, nearly everything on the planet can now be digitized. Creating useful and meaningful 3D models from reality, however, has traditionally been a challenging and tedious process that is slow and requires expertise and use of multiple and expensive solutions.

A new solution from Autodesk that was just sprang from the lab and is now in public beta is Memento, which aims to simplify the process of working with scanned data from any type of reality capture device and making the process scalable and accessible to a variety of users. It does this by streamlining workflows to create high-definition 3D models from Reality Capture sensors (photos or scans) that involve multiple complex and expensive tools that require expertise and training.

When objects are scanned, the result is often extremely large, heavy meshes that pose a significant challenge for software to process. Memento’s toolkit generates 3D meshes from photos and scans and helps clean up the meshes, detect and fix mesh errors, and prepare and optimize the generated 3D models for Web publishing, for VR/AR, for further digital use, or for 3D printing.

Memento provides users with an easier way to optimize and prepare high-definition 3D meshes for various downstream workflows, and offers an integrated toolset for high-definition 3D printing. The creation process is distributed, the visualization is out-of-core, and the algorithmic tool stack relies on multicore principles, which allows for interactive speed and for viewing the full resolution models.

What really sets Memento apart is its ease of use. Memento’s focused toolset and clean, modern UI can be learned in 20 minutes. This is designed to be accessible to a variety of users who seek high-quality results but might not have technological expertise. Memento eliminates technological complexity and the need for prior knowledge of 3D modeling or CAD, and makes meaningful 3D assets from captured reality.

Autodesk Memento is an end-to-end solution for converting any captured reality input (photos or scans) into high-definition 3D meshes that can be cleaned up, fixed, and optimized for the Web, mobile or 3D printing/fabbing.
Autodesk Memento is an end-to-end solution for converting any captured reality input (photos or scans) into high-definition 3D meshes that can be cleaned up, fixed, and optimized for the Web, mobile or 3D printing/fabbing.

How will Memento be used?

Use cases for Memento are varied. In the medical industry, designers could use Memento for designing personalized medical equipment and accessories. The product could also be used to inspect the accuracy of 3D printed objects versus designed objects when 3D printed replacement parts and could allow scientists to compare the difference between two captures over time.

In mechanical design, users of Fusion 360 or Alias could use the new Memento workflow to digitize physical prototypes for further exploration and visualization options, further design, for personalized designs/repairs, to check the fit of designed parts to be added to real objects, as the start of new designs, and for decorative add on’s to CAD models.

For 3D printing, Memento can be used to manage any captured or modeled data without forced downsizing. Easy preparation of any generated-from-reality or imported model for 3D printing (from any other captured reality input or 3D modeling applications). Soon, Memento will be able to import 3D meshes generated in ReCap 360 Photo to clean, fix and prepare them for consumption as meshes in various products, as point clouds in ReCap Pro or for publishing on the web.

Autodesk’s Memento is now available for public beta. Check it out here.

Filed Under: Autodesk, News Tagged With: Autodesk

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