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TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCT LIFECYCLE

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ROBERT WELCH DESIGNS 19-YEAR-OLD ENTREPRENEUR 5-AXIS MACHINING

p01_D3D_JUNE14_cover.indd 1 9/6/14 21:43:26

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 WELCOME
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief
Al Dean
al@x3dmedia.com
+44 (0)7525 701 541

Managing Editor
Greg Corke
greg@x3dmedia.com
+44 (0)20 3355 7312

Consulting Editor
Martyn Day
martyn@x3dmedia.com
+44 (0)7525 701 542

Digital Media Editor

Stephen Holmes
stephen@x3dmedia.com
+44 (0)20 3384 5297

Special Projects Editor

Tanya Weaver
tanya@x3dmedia.com
+44 (0)20 3384 5296

S
DESIGN/PRODUCTION
Art Director
Rob Biddulph o, this month, we have a whole host of goodness for you to read
and digest. The team has recovered from D3D Live (yup, it takes
Design/Production
Greg Corke that long for the dust to settle) and we’re back on track.
greg@x3dmedia.com In our cover story Stephen looks at the recent legal precedent
+44 (0)20 3355 7312 set by the case surrounding Trunki and an alleged knock off of
its Community Registered Design. I’m it will strike a chord with
ADVERTISING many readers that have faced intellectual property protection
issues during their career. The need to protect your design
Advertising Director
work, whether through patents or other means, should be an
Tony Baksh
tony@x3dmedia.com inalienable right if you’ve developed a new product or a new innovative solution to
+44 (0)20 3355 7313 a problem. Or so you’d think.
Elsewhere in the issue, Tanya looks at how Robert Welch Designs makes its
Deputy Advertising Manager
beautiful knives and cutlery, we also take a look at some news from the 3D printing
Steve King
steve@x3dmedia.com world, delve into the latest 3D design system releases, namely Inventor, Solid Edge
+44 (0)20 3355 7314 and PowerShape, as well as a system that works alongside them — KeyShot 5 for
rendering and visualisation.
US Sales Director Also, as a final note and with a fair bit of sadness, we got word that our resident
Denise Greaves sustainability columnist, Chris Sherwin, is taking a break from writing his bi-
denise@x3dmedia.com
montly columns. I’d like to take this chance to thank Chris for all his articles over
+1 857 400 7713
the last year or two. He’s a busy man (as you’d expect of the head of sustainbility at
SeymourPowell) but you can keep up to date with his views on twitter by following
SUBSCRIPTIONS him @sherwinnovator.
Circulation Manager As I write this, I’ve just walked in the door after being soaked to the bone by a
Alan Cleveland huge rain storm. British Summer is here, it would appear. Enjoy!
alan@x3dmedia.com
+44 (0)20 3355 7311

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p03_D3D_JUNE14_Editor.indd 3 9/6/14 21:43:43

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 CONTENTS

JUNE 2014 ISSUE NO. 59

6 NEWS
Autodesk gets into the 3D print game, Formlabs to launch
next generation 3D printer, Intel boosts Core i7 CPU and
the National Women in Engineering Day celebrations

COMMENT
10 With the recent ‘Hour of Code’, Tanya Weaver wonders
whether it’s just kids who should learn how to program

YOUR DEVELOP3D
12 Tell us what you think. This month: Your views on the
recent Trunki vs Kiddee Case court battle

FEATURES
14 Visual design guide: Linde reach truck
16 Product design showcase: Kitchen products
20 COVER STORY Are your designs safe?
26 Robert Welch Designs celebrates 50 years
32 Bringing CAE to the board room
34 Josh Valman, the 19-year-old CEO of RPD International
38 Five-axis machining in the automotive industry
40 Steinbichler 3D scanner offers a sweet solution

REVIEWS
43 SolidEdge ST7
48 Inventor 2015
53 Luxion Keyshot 5
58 PowerShape Pro 2014

60 DEVELOP3D SERVICES

61 DEVELOP3D JOBS

66 THE LAST WORD

Al Dean thinks that all signs point to 2014 going down as
the year of the stereolithography machine

The wood used to produce this magazine

comes from Forest Stewardship Council
certified well-managed forests, controlled
sources and/or recycled material

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 5

p05_D3D_JUNE14_contents.indd 5 9/6/14 21:58:21

 NEWS
NEWS
AUTODESK GETS INto THE 3D print GAME
WITH ITS OWN device... coming soon
Of all the 3D design vendors, Autodesk talks the biggest game about the "maker
revolution." With the announcement of its own machine coming later this summer,
Al Dean looks at what it means for a much hyped industry and beyond
I
n the past few years Autodesk
seems to have gained the
attention of the 'maker' crowd.
Partly through the release of
cost effective and easy to use
applications to support 3D modelling,
but also through its smart, effective
marketing to that group.
While other 3D CAD software vendors are
starting to talk-the-talk, few of them have
gained the same kind of respect from those
outside the professional engineering and
design world.
So, it was with some surprise, but perhaps
a little expectancy considering its recent
activities in the space, that Autodesk made
two key announcements at Silicon Valley’s
Makercon in May.
At this maker movement event,
Autodesk's CEO, Carl Bass, announced that
the company will not only be introducing
a 3D printer, but also an open platform to
assist with making 3D printing easier for
both the consumer and professional alike.
Official details of the 3D printer are
currently thin on the ground, and while
DEVELOP3D has a little bit of an inside
track, we’re not allowed to share much
of that yet. We can tell you that it’s a
stereolithographic device that has some
6 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p06_D3D_JUN14_news.indd 6
very interesting capabilities. The target
price is around the $5,000 mark. It’s also
British designed in terms of both the
research and development.
So Autodesk has entered the 3D print
hardware market, but what sets it apart
from many of the other vendors is its
experience in software.
To this end, Autodesk also unveiled Spark,
which Bass describes as “an open software
platform for 3D printing, which will make
it more reliable yet simpler to print 3D
models, and easier to control how that
model is actually printed.”
While it's early days, it seems that
there's a fair bit of interest in working with
Autodesk on one of the most fundamental
challenges facing the 3D printing industry,
particularly at the desktop/prosumer level,
that of how to print reliably and repeatably.
Considering the quality of its work of
late in the same field, including a range of
tools coming out of Autodesk Labs, such as
Meshmixer and its 3D print utility, Spark
certainly looks like something that many of
the smaller hardware vendors might jump
on board with.
Bass states that the Autodesk 3D printer
“will serve as a reference implementation
for Spark. It will demonstrate the power
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT NEWS
of the Spark platform and set a new First concept renders
benchmark for the 3D printing user of Autodesk's 3D
printer. While official
experience."
details are slim,
The most intriguing thing about these it's a DLP-based
announcements is that both of these stereolithography
products/platforms will be ‘open’. machine with some
As Bass comments, “Spark will be unique characteristics
that lets it build high
open and freely licensable to hardware
resolution parts with
manufacturers and others who are UV curable resins. The
interested. Same for our 3D printer — the target price is $5,000
complete design of the printer will be
made publicly available to allow for further
development and experimentation. The
printer will be able to use a broad range of
materials, made by us and by others, and
we look forward to lots of exploration into
new materials.”
The details are scarce, but the gist is that
if you want a printer they’ll ship one and if
you want just the plans, you can have those
and build one yourself.
This is undoubtedly exciting news for
the 3D printing market. Many design and
engineering firms are still reticent about
bringing 3D printing in-house, whilst others
are looking for stereolithography-level
part quality. Autodesk’s move should shake
things up in and, of course, it has a massive
user community to market to.
autodesk.com/spark
9/6/14 21:44:34
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 NEWS

FORMLABS to LAUNCH NEXT GENERATION

of its STEREOLITHOGRAPHY 3D PRINTER
The Form1 3D printer renewed interest in stereolithography and kicked off the next
stage in the 3D print industry's evolution. With expansion of its service operations to
Europe and a new machine coming, Al Dean catches up with FormLabs

T
hose that follow the 3D
print industry will be
familiar with FormLabs and
its Form1 machine, which
took Kickstarter by storm
in 2012 and garnered funding to the
tune of nearly $3million. It's a new
take on stereolithography that places
high resolution, UV curable resin part
building on the desktop, rather than in
the workshop.
Since 2012, FormLabs worked through
the final stage of Form1's development
and last year it shipped to all those eager
supporters finding homes in design offices
and enthusiasts' garages alike.
Between now and then, the company has
been through refinement of its software,
which, compared to some 3D print software,
is actually nice to use. It has also introduced
new resin colour options alongside the grey, and any subsequent repairs required the professional, from this point on, FormLabs' Above: The Form1+
namely clear, white and black. whole unit to be shipped back to the US for machines, ancillaries, consumables and features a higher-
powered laser,
During that process, the company came rework. Not ideal for those of us on this servicing will be carried out from the UK.
improved mecho-
under fire for the reliability of some of the side of the pond. As Gideon Balloch, who runs Formlabs optics and a new
mechanical components as well as how it operations, says,"When we think of our control system, all
handled service and repair. Essentially, the NEW MACHINE — NEW SUPPORT customers, we know that they are looking of which adds up to
machine arrived calibrated out of the box This month, FormLabs is releasing the first for more than great print results — they quicker build speeds
update to its original product with the are looking at the whole experience. This Left: There's also a
Form 1+. This follows the same form factor is something we always strive to improve, new material option
for black parts,
and use model as the original unit, but with and our European presence is going to help
alongside the existing
some new, under the hood, updates that us step up our game in several measurable clear, grey and white
should make it both more reliable as well as ways." resins
improve the build speed. It’s also worth noting that from now on,
FormLabs has redesigned the mechno- the company will be offering a one year
optics in the system to be both more robust warranty with the Form 1+. This brings it
and, in combination with a more powerful in line with customers expectations at the
laser, enable quicker build speeds. higher-end of the desktop market. If you've
Other changes include a redesigned resin already invested in a Form 1, however, then
tray, which is now built in injection moulded the company is also planning an update
orange plastic to cut down on accidental program so that the older machines can be
curing of resin post build, and there's also a retrofitted with the new mechanics — at a
new black material option as well. cost, of course.
Also, interestingly for the European formlabs.com

DEVELOP3D.COM THE BEST FROM THE BLOG

How R&D into materials
and manufacturing made
the world’s thinnest mobile
workstation, the Dell
Precision M3800, a reality
tinyurl.com/DellM3800
Disney takes on robotics,
CAD and 3D printing in Big
Hero 6, an animated film
where a robotics prodigy
takes on a criminal gang.
tinyurl.com/disneyCAD
CAD/CAM specialist
Tebis celebrates its 30th
birthday by scanning the
faces of its guests and
milling them in aluminium
tinyurl.com/tebis30
Coffee expert illy challenges
budding engineers to design
a system that delivers
pressurised hot water in an
espresso machine
tinyurl.com/illydesign
Bang & Olufsen’s latest
55-inch TV, the Avant, glides
into position automatically
swivelling on its mechanical
stand to face the viewer
tinyurl.com/BangAvant

8 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p06_D3D_JUN14_news.indd 8 9/6/14 21:45:10


new Intel Core 17 Promises
big boost for CAD users
I
ntel’s new ‘Haswell’-based Core i7
desktop processor has broken the
4GHz barrier, a speed that was
only previously achievable with
overclocking.
The Core i7-4790K will ship with a 4.0GHz
base clock speed and a Turbo of 4.4 GHz,
a full 500MHz increase over the Core i7-
4770K that it replaces.
This is significant news for CAD users, as
it should deliver a performance increase
of around 10-15% in most 3D software.
One of the main reasons for this leap in
performance is better cooling. The chip
National Women in Engineering Day
O
n 23rd June it’s the National
Women in Engineering
Day (NWED), organised by
the Women’s Engineering
Society (WES) to celebrate
its 95th anniversary.
WES aims to encourage all groups —
governmental, educational, corporate,
professional engineering institutions and
other organisations — to organise their own
events in support of the day.
SolidWorks reseller, NT CADCAM, is
getting involved by teaming up with
Wiltshire College, which is supported by the
Engineering Innovation Network — South
West (EIN-SW), to launch a Dragon’s Den style
competition exclusively for women.
The challenge is for budding female design
engineers to present their manufacturable
p06_D3D_JUN14_news.indd 9
NEWS
ROUND
UP
The newest version of
Faro’s laser scanning
software, SCENE 5.3, and
scan data hosting-service,
SCENE WebShare Cloud 1.5
delivers scan registration
by eliminating artificial
targets, such as spheres
and checkerboards. Users
can choose from two
available registration
methods: ‘Top-View’-based
or ‘Cloud-to-Cloud’
faro.com
Graitec, a software
developer and reseller
for CAD and structural
design solutions for
civil engineering and
manufacturing has
acquired, through its
UK subsidiary Adris
Ltd., MicroCAD, a well-
established Autodesk CAD
solutions provider
graitec.co.uk | adris.co.uk
Altium has updated its
includes a ‘Next Generation Polymer 3D PCB design system,
Thermal Interface Material’ (NGPTIM) which Altium Designer. This
provides more efficient thermal exchange update is said to bring
between the die and the ‘heat spreader’. improved component
Like the Core i7-4770K, the new chip variant support, which will
features four cores and eight threads, give the ability to design
making it a good match for mainstream the schematic and PCB for
CAD workflows. drop-in replacement and
The ‘K’ suffix denotes that it is unlocked alternative parts as well
so it will be interesting to see what speeds as support for 3D rigid-flex
the likes of Scan, Workstation Specialists designs
and InterPro can achieve with overclocking. altium.com
Look out for a review soon.
intel.com
Mentor Graphics has
acquired Nimbic and its
Maxwell system — a 3D
full-wave electromagnetic
(EM) simulation solution.
Nimbic’s ability to
and commercial ideas to a panel of judges. accurately calculate
The most viable entries will be developed complex electromagnetic
with the support of the new Wiltshire 3D fields will expand Mentor’s
Enterprise Centre, Wiltshire College’s new chip-package-board
CAD Centre and EIN-SW. simulation portfolio
“There are almost 20,000 female engineers mentor.com
in the UK, with almost 400 working in
a design engineering role. We hope this
competition will inspire even more women Dassault Systèmes has
to make their bright ideas commercial rebranded RTT and its
realities,” says Haydn Earl, EIN-SW project high-end visualisation and
manager. services business, acquired
Entry opens on the NWED — 23 June — and earlier this year, as 3Dxcite.
closes on 31 July. We're as baffled as you are
For other organisations, schools or as to why
individuals who’d like to get involved in the 3ds.com | rtt.ag
NWED celebrations, WES has put together a
resource pack available on its website.
nwed.org.uk/resources | ntcadcam.co.uk
DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 9
9/6/14 21:45:23
 COMMENT
In case you’ve missed it, coding is big
news. Apparently it’s the new literacy.
Tanya Weaver takes a look at the ‘Hour
of Code’ campaign and wonders if
more of us should be learning how
to code and not just leaving it to kids
I
n May I jetted out to Munich
for a couple of days as Tebis,
a software company that
develops CAD/CAM systems,
was hosting an open house
in celebration of its 30th
anniversary. The event didn’t
only focus on the present
and future technologies but also
where the company has come from by
way of the ‘Tebis Museum’. This room
showed a progression from old to new
technologies including the very first
computer that Tebis’ CEO used when he
started the company in the early 1980s
(it’s there on the right).
Although it looks like a fossil by today’s
standards, it’s pretty incredible to think that
this was just 30 years ago! Over the years,
the computer has lost weight, changed from
grey into an array of colours, has a screen
that offers more than just green and black
and has undergone many style makeovers.
Just to prove how unrecognisable this
grey great grandfather is, is to put it in front
of children who have grown up swiping,
scrolling and clicking. In fact, a very funny
seven minute video was posted onto
youtube recently entitled ‘Kids React to Old
Computers’, which is part of a series by Fine
Brothers Productions (watch it here:
bit.ly/1pbZb5x).
It shows a range of kids aged between
seven and thirteen reacting to a computer
from the late 70s/early 80s. Pretty similar
to this Tebis one in fact. Their reactions are
priceless and the video has gone viral being
viewed more than 10 million times in just
two weeks.
Some of the kids had no idea that it was
a computer and were very surprised when
they were told. “It doesn’t look like anything
we have now,” said one of the boys. They
were guffawing and poking fun at its large
size, on/off switch, green text, floppy disk
and lack of mouse.
Of course, this computer would have also
not been connected to the internet because
the internet hadn’t been invented yet. This
really shocked the kids with one girl saying
10 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p10_D3D_JUNE14_tanya.indd 10
“but how do you look up homework?”
The internet turned 25-years-old on 4
March 2014 and in celebration code.org,
a non-profit organisation dedicated to
expanding participation in computer science
education by making it available in more
schools, launched the ‘Hour of Code’ on the
same day.
If you’ve missed it, coding is big news.
Everyone’s doing it. It’s the new literacy
apparently. So much so that as of September
2014 coding will be part of the School
Curriculum in England and taught to children
from as young as five.
So, to get teachers and parents up to
speed, the Hour of Code offers online
tutorials on its website with the aim
of teaching the basics of computer
programming in 60 minutes in a fun, simple
way. Tutorials include things like writing
lines of code to get an Angry Bird to catch a
little piggy or using Scratch (your guess is as
good as mine) and a Raspberry Pi computer
to control a blinking LED.
code.org has many partners and
supporters who have jumped on the
coding band wagon including our favourite
Technology Messiah will.i.am but there’s
also the inventor of the internet himself,
Tim Berners Lee, who has this to say about The first computer in order to teach it in the classroom before
the campaign: “Learning to code gives you that Tebis’ CEO September, should the rest of us be taking
Bernhard Rindfleisch
a completely new perspective when you used when he started
lessons and tutorials too?
look at a computer. Before, you think of it his company just 30 Many think that we should. Arguing that
as an appliance — like a fridge — accepting years ago it’s a valuable and marketable skill that will
what it can do. After, you know that you can increase your work speed and help you come
code that computer to do anything you can up with creative solutions whatever your
imagine it doing. That’s a massive change… job. If you can speak basic ‘code language’
and a massive challenge!” it means you can communicate better with
Although we may not like to admit it, your company’s developers or programmers
computers do run our lives. And as Berners and, of course, those children from the video
Lee says, if you can programme that earlier, who will be entering the job market
computer to do what you want, that’s where in a few years, will no doubt be fluent in it.
the future lies. Even Stephen Hawking, So time to learn your ABCs (that’s code for
another code.org supporter, says, “Whether Always Be Coding).
you want to uncover the secrets of the
universe, or you just want to pursue a
career in the 21st century, basic computer Tanya Weaver is the special projects editor
at Develop3D. Beehaus update: the residents
programming is an essential skill to learn.”
have swarmed for the second time this season
Apart from those frantic teachers who but Tanya still lives in hope of honey
have a few months left to learn how to code tanya@x3dmedia.com
9/6/14 21:45:43
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 FEEDBACK

Your DEVELOP3D
» Your views on 'Are your designs safe?' relating to the Trunki intellectual property
battle as featured on the develop3d.com blog and LinkedIn pages (more on page 20)
are very similar, that is NOT COPY. For good IP advice.
that to be an infringement, it would be Sometimes it's best to accept that
entering patent territory, something which success will breed imitation and invest in
I am strongly against. I am a designer and getting to market fast and building a brand
manufacturer, and yet I find the concept of that customers see value in.
making money out of everyday ideas (just Above all, plan an IP strategy that is
because somebody knows the system and based on your ability to exploit value, not
got there first) quite abhorrent. Indeed, on the hope that waving a certificate in
rather than protecting people's IP so they front of an imitator will make them go
can invest in R&D, it's hindering people away.
from expressing themselves and their Alistair Williamson
talent through fear of patent trolling and
similar. If it was not a direct copy, I daresay The law is always reactive to technology
you think you deserve to live comfortably and this is a clear case of the law lagging.
in a thatched cottage in the country This isn't so much a deficiency in the law as
forevermore, while a legal system which we it is the process by which laws are updated,
all pay for prevents anyone else from ever or not, until there is a problem. "Squeeky
Rob Law, CEO of Is it possible that, in the eyes of the judges making a bag with wheels and kid friendly wheels get the oil" works in law too. When
Trunki, with his kid's and courts, slightly detailed drawings decor — ever again. there is a big enough issue (read money)
ride on suitcase
invention that has
(including CAD representations) are I can't imagine this is going to be a then something is done to fix the issue, but
been copied considered to have less barriers against particularly popular comment. technology is moving so fast that before
copies, than old-style and subjective Lloyd the law is considered, let alone enacted, it
drawings ? Or, is just a lack of consideration is obsolete. There are some cases where
Got an opinion on to the new ways of presentation and Good design makes money and the law has been written that takes account of
anything that has registering? prospect of making money will always future developments, but these are rare.
(or has not) appeared Maybe concepts get less IP protection attract imitators. I'm with Lloyd [above] to some extent on
in the magazine or
when we start to consider CAD surfaces Intellectual property rights don't protect IP protection, but I recognise there is a
online? Let us know
what you think for comparison, due to having many more anything at all from determined copyists. need to protect the investment made in
Greg Corke possibilities of changing and differences All they do is assert the owner's right to developing a product or we would suffer
greg@x3dmedia.com of acceptance. But yeah, clarification is challenge over specific details in specific because manufacturers would not invest in
Facebook needed about these 'new' technologies on territories in a specific time frame. That production of the products we consumers
/develop3d the 'old fashioned way' of regulations and invariably means incredibly expensive love to buy.
Twitter trials. court challenges that the owner of the right I have no idea what the solution is, but
@develop3d F Hilario has to be able to afford — and has to be what we have is flawed to say the least.
Web really sure that their IP is robust. Maybe another plaster will be stuck over
develop3d.com I'm all for protecting a design from actual I always advise clients to think hard the gaping wound in the law to make it a
Linked In copy, i.e. copyright protection, but if about the value of IP. If you have deep little more tenable for a little longer, but a
DEVELOP3D group
someone sees a concept they like and pockets and a very potentially lucrative total re-think is needed — and soon.
Letters may be edited draws up their own designs, even if they design it could be worth risking more on Bobsbit

60 second Why did you become a designer? 


I have drawn objects of my
interview imagination from when I can
Carsten remember, and it was my
Astheimer grandmother who was an architect
who suggested an engineering
degree followed by a design degree,
which is what I did.
Which designer or company do
you most admire and why? 
 are touched by our thoughts and
There is no individual designer
or company that I admire for
everything they have done, but
once in a while I see a product, a
detail, a piece of art or music which
frustrates and annoys me because I
hadn’t thought about it, and that is
when I realise that I really admire
it: like the fold up plug by Min-Kyu
Choi, or the Shard.  Photoshop and a 3D printer.
 
What product couldn’t you live
without? 
 toolset?  which is uncertain, there is lack of
I am not emotionally attached to
any products and I never shop for
myself. I would feel most upset if I
lost my surfboard that my brother
made for me.
What design would you have
loved to have designed and why? 

I think the wind up radio by Trevor
Baylis was a stroke of genius, I
would have been proud to have
designed that.
Play-Doh, Meccano or Lego?
A designer’s greatest pleasure is to
see the satisfaction of people who
dreams, Lego has touched the lives
of so many children (and parents)
over the last fifty years or more, so
it’s a clear winner..
What are your weapons of choice?
Thinking in complete darkness and
silence (normally around 3am), a bic
and A5 scrap paper, Rhino, Keyshot,
What is missing from your
The tongue of a natural born
salesman, but I’m working on it!
What would make your design
and development process run
smoother? 
 think we are in a period which
The smoothness of the process
depends mainly on the relationship
between the various people
involved in the project: the client,
marketers, designers, engineers
and manufacturers, and when there
is a great team and trust between
the stakeholders, the process runs
smoothest. As designers we are
working in a privileged age with the
tools we have, and they are getting
better year on year.


What would you say is the biggest
challenge facing designers? 
 Bob Dylan for the music, Nelson
I think the biggest challenge facing
designers, ironically comes from
the opportunity that designers are
getting as design becomes big in
business:  it becomes sucked into
the corporate system and loses
its creativity. I believe that we
are in a period of design history
leadership and direction from an
artistic point of view.   in various strategic roles in design and
Can you predict any future trends?
To  continue the point above I
does not have defining trends,
but rather defining brands. The
major influences on design will
be technological, enabling us
to communicate our thoughts
and ideas more seamlessly, and
allowing us to bring ideas to life
becomes quicker and easier which
will lead to more personalisation,
and customisation.
If you were hosting a dinner party
who would you invite and why? 

Mohamed Ali for the banter,
Mandela to stop the arguing,
Marylin Monroe to find out what
really happened, my wife of course,
and my grandmother because I
miss her.
Carsten Astheimer heads the team
at design studio Astheimer Limited.
With degrees in both engineering and
design, he has over 20 years experience
product development. 
If you want to take part please
contact tanya@x3dmedia.com

12 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p12_D3D_JUNE14_letters.indd 12 9/6/14 21:46:00

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Symetri Ad.indd 1 09/06/2014 06:52

 VISUAL DESIGN GUIDE
linde reach truck
In supporting Linde’s vision to develop a new range of reach
trucks for taller warehouses, IDC Models, the rapid prototyping
and model making division of Industrial Design Consultancy
(IDC), produced a life-size block model of a reach truck using a
variety of different model techniques.

full size
model
Supplied with a steel chassis by
Linde, IDC Models built a full-size
model based on Linde’s CAD design
specifications.

control
console
IDC’s design engineers also
developed a control console for
the reach truck and this was
incorporated into the model to be
tested by users

smaller
components
Smaller components, such as
the windscreen, joysticks and
knobs, were developed by first 3D
printing the components by SLA to
form masters and then producing
vacuum casts based on these

main parts
IDC Models’ large format CNC
machine was used to create the
main parts of the truck from ‘ureol’
precision modelling blocks

workmanship
The components were pieced together
with a high standard of craftsmanship
and then sprayed and finished on-site at
IDC Models

finishing
touches
To make the model as realistic
as possible, Linde supplied
additional finishing touches
such as rubber seals and other
smaller components

final model
The final model was used by
Linde test and refine the design,
resulting in a new range of
materials handling trucks

14 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p14_15_D3D_JUNE14_viz design guide.indd 14 9/6/14 21:46:19

 BACK tO
BASICS:
Post Processing
3D prints
Like developing a photograph?

I think you need to update your

culture and technological references.
Unless you’re 60, make a living from
photography at the high-end, arty side
of the spectrum, folks don’t develop
photographs much anymore. In fact,
the most high profile Snappy Snaps
incident was George Michael driving his
Chelsea Tractor into one.

Wham. So what are you banging on

about?

A little discussed part of the 3D printing

process starts after the part has actually
completed its build process. It’s
commonly the case (with almost every
type of build process) that there’s some
post processing.

Hmm. I didn’t realise that.

You’re not alone. Some vendors provide

(at cost) the equipment to do it, others
don’t. There’s even a growing market in
third party post process equipment. For
instance, Quill (quillvogue.co.uk) has a
range of wash stations for part clean up
using water jets whilst Ruwac
(ruwac.com) has a range of explosion
proof vacuums for helping with that
pesky powder removal processes that
might go boom.

Wait. What? Explosions? 

Oh yes. Explosions. We all know

powders are explosive at the best of
times. When you’re talking metals, even
more so. And titanium is probably the
worst of the lot. There’s a reason it’s
used in the manufacture of fireworks
to this day. Coz it goes BOOM! That,
my friends, you don’t want in your
workshop or on the shop-floor.

How much does this lot cost?

Anywhere from a pair of long-nose

pliers for picking out FDM support
structures to ten grand’s worth of
industrial extraction and powder
handling. Just make sure you have the
right equipment for the job and you’ll
save on those bottlenecks. And a pro tip
from our editor, if you’re ordering long
nose pliers from Amazon, make sure
you check the length units as a 12-inch
long pair isn’t much good to anyone.

p14_15_D3D_JUNE14_viz design guide.indd 15 9/6/14 21:46:20

 PRODUCTDESIGNSHOW
KITCHEN PRODUCTS

p16_17_18_D3D_JUNE14_PDG.indd 16 9/6/14 21:46:50

OWCASE
» This month Stephen Holmes is in the kitchen looking at two products
that we use on an almost daily basis — the trusty toaster and kettle
Toasting success
I
n a sea of monochrome white goods,
SMEG’s fridge freezers are a colourful
retro icon, and now the company has
expanded its fun designs to a range of
small kitchen appliances.
SMEG was founded by Vittorio
Bertazzoni Snr in 1948 when the company
specialised in enamelling and metal
working.
The name, SMEG, is an acronym
Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane
Guastalla, which roughly translates as
smelting and metal enamelling plant in
Guastalla, Emilia.
Designed by Italian design bureau
Deep Design, the new appliance range,
including this wonderfully curved toaster,
hark back to the company’s heritage.
“Our fridge is a symbol of this natural
and spontaneous feeling of affection,
and the objective was to relay this same
p16_17_18_D3D_JUNE14_PDG.indd 17
feeling into a new, contemporary and
modern line,” states Deep Design’s Matteo
Bazzicalupo.
“Apart from a great focus on the aesthetic
side of the product, we concentrated on
creating something robust and with high
standards of functionality.”
The toaster’s retro exterior – partly
influenced by the Zeppelin airships –
contains thoroughly modern innards,
including six levels of browning, and self-
centering racks for the perfect slice of toast
in the morning.
Initial sketching is critical to the way
Deep Design works enabling it to arrive at
a concept for a new product.
“We are used to [this process as] it is the
faster and better way for us to check if and
how design ideas in our mind can match
the physical reality,” says Bazzicalupo.
In the early concept development
PROFILE
stages Deep Design uses card or foam
models to evaluate the correct volume and
proportions. According to Bazzicalupo
this is to “keep the balance between the
internal technical requirements and the
beauty of the shape.”
The designers use the CAD tool Rhino
3D. Further on in the process 3D printed
models are created from the data to
check the aesthetics and particularly the
ergonomics, before final models are fully
mocked up to present to clients.
The ultimate vision for the new SMEG
range was to create a design language of
contemporary details with classic lines.
“These all came together to complement
the form and especially the function,
creating a unique expression and symbol
which can be clearly seen with the final
product,” concludes Bazzicalupo.
smeg.com
DEVELOP3D JUNE 2014 17
9/6/14 21:46:56
 PROFILE

The AEG 1.7 litre kettle with

its Digital Temperature
Control and a real-time
temperature indicator allows
users to choose and control
the right temperature for tea
or coffee

on the
boil

H
ot beverages can be the
subject of much furious
debate, but one thing that
we can all agree on is that AEG’s 7
Series kettle has been designed by
someone that loves a brew.
With five (five!) programmable
temperature settings, you can
enjoy your tea the way it’s meant to
be: 80oC green tea, 85oC white tea,
90oC oolong tea, 95oC coffee, and
100oC for black and herbal teas, all
shown in real-time on the digital
LCD display during heat up.
A ‘Turbo’ function, for when
there’s an ad break, or you’ve slept
in late, boils 200ml of water in less
than 60 seconds.
The performance factors of
the entire 7 Series are the result
of AEG’s professional range
designs for Michelin Star chefs
that have filtered down to the
domestic kitchen – much like the
automotive technology that has
passed down from F1 teams to
everyday family saloons.
Added to the function is the form
factor. AEG Electrolux’s design
team in Shanghai was responsible
for the design, employing
Autodesk Alias and Rhino to
create the distinctive ‘squarecle’ (a
soft square morphing into a circle
at the base) body shape.
A single-piece body is made from
stainless steel without a seam –
having been produced using a
stamping technique similar to that
used in the manufacture of soft
drink cans.
Prototyping proved important in
developing ergonomic points such
as the open handle and achieving
the right pouring angle using
foam models.
The final product meets the
criteria of ‘attractive professional
equipment’ – there’s never been a
better timed brew.
aeg.co.uk

18 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D

p16_17_18_D3D_JUNE14_PDG.indd 18 9/6/14 21:46:59

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19 D3D Ads.indd 1 09/06/2014 06:56

 PROFILE
A designer looking to enforce his registered design has sparked a fresh
debate over Intellectual Property (IP). Stephen Holmes looks at how
this legal case puts thousands of designs across Europe at risk
T
ill recently European IP laws
have been some of the strongest
and most vehemently upheld in
the world, yet a ruling in a single
British case looks set to weaken
them considerably.
Rob Law is the founder of British company
Magmatic, best known as the designer of
Trunki, a playful children’s suitcase that can
be ridden on.
In the winter of 2012 Law attended a
German trade show and spotted the Kiddee
Case, a product by PMS International that he
thought looked like a copy of his Trunki.
The Kiddee Case appeared again at other
trade shows, and Law wrote to the company
to warn it that the Trunki design was a
European Community Registered Design
(CRD) and that he would be forced to take
legal action.
The case was heard in the British High
court in June 2013 where Magmatic won an
injunction against PMS’ product being sold
in Europe on the back of its CRD protection.
PMS lodged an appeal that rested on
the interpretation of the grey scale CAD
renderings filed by Magmatic as part of its
CRD.
“They appealed on one element: that
surface decoration should be taken into
account when considering European Design
Registration, which up until now has always
felt it shouldn’t be,” recalls Law.
Law told DEVELOP3D that, at the appeal
hearing the judges appeared unfamiliar with
CAD renderings, and with this, the protection
of his registered design began to break down.
The lead judge ruled that: “a distinct
contrast in colour between the wheels... the
strap... and the rest of the suitcase” is shown,
and that this contrast should be taken into
consideration when assessing the overall
impression.”
Law explains: “All the big legal cases prior
on design registration had been around
20 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p20_21_22_23_24_D3D_JUNE14_IP_Trunki.indd 20
line drawings. They [the judges] thought I
must be one in a million who had registered
CAD drawings [renderings] instead of line
drawings.”
Law’s registration shows a Trunki case
rendered in grey scale from six different
angles, with the wheels a slightly darker shade
to show they are a separate component.
“In the case we tried to argue that it is the
modern way of registering your product
design,” says a clearly frustrated Law.
Law explains that on the grey scale
rendering the wheels of the Trunki case were
darker than the body, bringing PMS to argue
that he had always intended the wheels to be
darker than the body.
“Because their wheels are the same colour
as the body that then means they get around
the European Design Registration.”
The court described the renderings as:
“computer generated three dimensional
images which show the suitcase from
different perspectives and angles and show
the effect of light upon its surfaces.”
Ultimately, the sophistication of the images
led the Court of Appeal to determine it was
wrong to discount all aspects of the CRD
other than its shape, effectively limiting the
amount of protection it offers.
On this argument the court of appeal
reversed the original verdict.
This decision could have a huge impact
on the design industry. In theory it could
mean design registration for a shape can
be got around by simply adding surface
decoration, like a print, pattern or marking,
with little defence available to the designer.
the threat
The Trunki case is the first UK judgement
in which a court has considered CAD
renderings and found them to offer a
narrower protection than the traditional line
drawings that might have provided more
protection.
The result of this case, if left to stand, could
be cited as precedent in future IP law suits,
meaning that a company accused of copying
a design now stands much more chance of
getting around the registered design if it was
submitted as a render.
From Magmatic’s perspective the reversal
of the verdict seems to have centred in some
part around the judges’ lack of familiarity
with computer aided design output.
Historic cases have always been judged
on line drawings, but this is only because
an alternative technology had yet to come to
prevalence.
Technological advancements will always
move faster than any statute and this raises
real issues for the laws meant to protect and
support the creative process.
It could also force designers to resort to out-
dated forms of submission to protect their
work.
A look at the European Community Design
Registry website submission process gives
little guidance as to whether line drawings or
CAD should be filed for an application as the
‘graphical representation’.
Starting from €350, a CRD lasts for five
years and can be renewed a maximum of four
times, giving its holder a potential 25 years of
protection for relatively little outlay.
Currently there are around 460,000 CRDs,
with 75,000 new applications being processed
each year.
It is estimated that nearly 65 per cent of all
CRDs submitted last year were not presented
as line drawings; potenitally leaving a vast
number of designs less protected.
A competitive market
PMS is naturally excited by the decision. In a
statement its managing director Paul Beverley
said the case is a victory for the competitive
market.
“The successful outcome of our appeal
is also welcome confirmation that design
9/6/14 21:47:39
 1

●1 Rob Law with a few

intellectual property laws in the UK of the Trunki cases in

Revealed in government reports to be costing UK businesses
an estimated £9.2 billion annually, intellectual property theft is
not a problem to be taken lightly.
UK laws regarding product design have been reinforced,
making copying a design a criminal offence, enabling
manufacturers and designers to protect their innovation.
Protections available for a physical design slightly vary: a
the range
new invention can be patented, giving the owner the right to
prevent others from producing it without permission.
A registered design grants exclusive rights for the look and
appearance of the product – predominantly the external form
— and stops replicas being produced in the area it is filed for,
usually referring to more aesthetic design.
ipo.gov.uk

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 21

p20_21_22_23_24_D3D_JUNE14_IP_Trunki.indd 21 9/6/14 21:47:40

 PROFILE

We asked Margaret Briffa, founding partner of Briffa IP Lawyers,

for her advice on how to secure and protect your IP
Consider protection as you Extend your protection — Paper trail — Keep records of Research the offender — If Take legal advice — Design law
go along — When developing Within six months of the first your product development: they you spot a copycat product buy can be incredibly complicated
products think about the rights filing extend your protection are useful to show your rights in one, find out as much as you can and you can benefit from the
you can secure and register to other countries. After six ‘unregistered designs’ and also about the company making and experience of those who deal
designs as line drawings with the months your design will not be can help show where copying has selling it, and asses how the copy with such situations on a regular
UK Intellectual Property Office or extendable so this deadline is taken place will impact on your market basis
European Design Registry important

registrations cannot be used to stop
unpatented design concepts from facing fair
competition from products that simply look
quite different,” comments Beverley.
“If this were not the case, Hoover would be
the only vacuum cleaner on the market and
Apple would be the only tablet.”
Sincerest form of flattery?
For a designer the threat of a copycat product
coming to market has always been present,
and relatively easy to tackle.
“A successful product is always at risk of
copying,” says Margaret Briffa, founder of IP
law specialists Briffa.
“If the product is one made and supplied
by a small business it is more likely that the
copying will have serious consequences
as most businesses lack the resources to
tackle infringers who are intent on riding
roughshod over a designer’s rights.”
The costs of the legal process escalates as
the litigation progresses, and although there
are opportunities along the way to find a
solution without ending up in court, taking a
case to trial can cost £50,000.
“The winner will recover the majority
but not necessarily all of its costs,” says
Briffa. “After success at trial the question of
compensation payable to the winner is also
considered.
Briffa is one of many IP law firms in the
UK that, on behalf of clients, tackles over 100
cases of IP infringement each year.
Most settle on a commercial basis after an
exchange of letters in which the designer
asserts his or her rights. Yet the rise of
manufacturers that solely exist to profit from
producing low cost copies of designs could
be set to grow should the ruling against
Trunki stand.
If a product is copied and a commercial
settlement is not reached the designer must
consider whether to issue proceedings,
asking a court to decide on the question of
infringement.
The chances of a small enterprise or start-
up taking on over £50,000 of legal costs, with
the odds increasingly stacked against them
are slim.
Even with a reported annual turnover of
£7m, Magmatic will be hit hard by losing the
case even before any rival products have been
sold. According to Law.
Beginning of the end?
The next step for Magmatic is to raise
enough public support to garner a retrial
in front of the Supreme Court, something
only possible if deemed in the greater public
interest.
Having formed the #ProtectYourDesign
twitter campaign, Law has gathered a
number of prominent designers to his
cause and is encouraging others to take to
social media and write to their members of
parliament to raise awareness.
“This issue needs to be raised as high as we
can because it’s just unacceptable,” rallies
Law.
“It essentially makes us a nation that you
can copy and rip off products from rather
than what we all believe we are, which is a
nation of creative people who innovate and
create new products.”

The CAD renderings

that Rob Law
submitted with his
registered design for
the Trunki case

22 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p20_21_22_23_24_D3D_JUNE14_IP_Trunki.indd 22 9/6/14 21:47:41

 Tom Lawton
Designer and
Inventor
I feel for Rob. I have been ripped off in
every way possible. It’s hard enough getting
a product to market yet alone having to fight
copycats to keep your market space.
I have to make a strategic decision about
IP that exposes me to incredible risk (I do
accept that comes with the territory) but
let’s say, I have a clever design that hasn’t
been proven in the market. Do I start to
patent it now only to face escalating costs
that start in 18 months? Or do I take a flyer
and attempt to get lightweight protection
via a registered design, which will be
published in the public domain almost
immediately, allowing competitors to gain
sight of what I am doing? Or do I do neither
and focus on the quickest and best route to
market? Or all the above?
At the start of my career I was advised
that my product’s trade name would be my
most valuable asset. It’s true, trademarks
are easier to protect and enforce, but it’s
impossible to create a brand without
products to build it around.
So, for fear of just continuing an age old
rhetoric, the whole system appears old
fashioned and stacked in favour of bigger
business, having a stifling effect on SME
innovators like myself. I think we need a
new middle ground – something deeper
than a registered design that perhaps can
be extended into something like a patent,
as a product evolves and business grows.
Something that acknowledges a designer’s
original work beyond its exterior form.
Something that a final year student, SME or
independent inventor could actually afford
to protect and maintain.
 
For fear of just continuing
an age old rhetoric, the
whole system appears old
fashioned and stacked in
favour of bigger business
Tom Lawton
 
p20_21_22_23_24_D3D_JUNE14_IP_Trunki.indd 23
Dids Macdonald
ACID (Anti Copying
in Design)
Design law is complicated even for IP
lawyers and it is not helped that there is
little clarity from registration authorities
on what designers can or cannot rely on
with their submissions. UK designers are
at a further disadvantage because, unlike
our EU counterparts, if IP law fails them,
they can turn to much stronger unfair
competition laws. This, coupled with the
fact that both UK and EU registration
authorities do not examine design
registrations, puts any designer at an
unfair disadvantage. At least if they were
examined, formative feedback could evolve
into better guidelines as to what is and isn’t
protected.
It’s time for clarity and ACID has written
a submission seeking re-examination to the
Supreme Court not only for Trunki but for
the design community as a whole.
It’s good that so many designers have
united to support Trunki’s designer Rob
Law because the reality for many lone,
micro and SME designers who suffer from
design theft is that legal redress is a dream.
I fully support the #ProtectYourDesign
campaign and hope that the combination
of grass roots support with a positive
response from the Supreme Court will
provide the right answers to support UK
design talent and clarify registration rules
for the future.
IP ethics, compliance and respect should
be in the DNA of all successful companies,
it’s time that those who espouse the
principles of CSR should stand up and be
counted!
The reality for many lone,
micro and SME designers
who suffer from design
theft is that legal redress
is a dream.
Dids Macdonald
Kevin Quigley
Owner, Quigley
Design
Like designers, you get a different opinion
from every lawyer. The basics can be found
through simple online research. Maybe
designers don’t like doing it but for me
it’s part of the business of design and the
service we offer customers.
Also, how many professional designers
– in-house and consultancy – can honestly
say they have never done what Kiddee Case
have done? Perhaps not quite as blatantly
but for many the starting point of a design
project is looking at what’s out there and
designing around protections that are in
place. Perhaps this is the elephant in the
room in the design industry?
I have looked at the competitor product
to Trunki and (this won’t be popular) in
my opinion it is sufficiently different to get
around Design Registration status – the
shape, the details, are all “sufficiently”
different (when viewed by a layman). Yes of
course it is very similar but it is not a direct
copy. The value of the Trunki product or
brand is in the idea that the child can ride
on the case and perhaps the advice they
should have had was to patent this idea
rather than apply for the (much cheaper)
design registration.
To some extent there will be no winners
now – the cat’s out the bag, more copies
will tooled up right now and the lawyers
are salivating. I’m not going to subscribe to
the view that this ruling affects thousands
of British designers. That is rubbish. Our
customers are already affected by this. Like
all patent related cases the better the quality
of the original application, the better the
likely outcomes will be.

I’ve looked at the competitor
product to Trunki and in
my opinion it is sufficiently
different to get around
Design Registration status
Kevin Quigley

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 23
9/6/14 21:47:43
 Maxine J Horn
Creative Barcode,
ip protection
I believe the Court of Appeal were wrong
to overturn the ruling of the High Court
which found in favour of Magimatic
(Trunki). It predominantly based their
decision on colour and surface pattern
aesthetics to reach their conclusion that
the Kiddee Case would not give the same
overall impression to the consumer as the
ride-on Trunki,.
Interestingly, Paul Beverley of Kiddee
Case attempted to side-step the allegations
of copying by stating that he himself did
not create the artist impression nor the
design or prototype as he is neither an
artist nor designer. Ironically, had he been a
designer the likelihood is he would not have
infringed another designers’ product.
Does this present an immediate loophole
in the tenaciously fought and recently won
change to the IP Bill where blatant copying
of a registered design is to be subject to
criminal sanctions? Who will be prosecuted
– the person or business commissioning
and directing the copy or the person
physically undertaking the copying?
A Community Registered Design in
today’s fast moving market does not
remain static it continuously evolves whilst
remaining true to the core innovation
which opens up new markets and sectors.
Overall, the Court of Appeals’ decision
strikes a bitter blow to UK product
designers if ergonomics, features, shape
and overall impression of a new design
can be superseded where colour and
surface pattern become judged as the
key differentiation factors impacting on
consumers.
 
Does this present an
immediate loophole in the
tenaciously fought and
recently won change to
the IP Bill?
Maxine J Horn
 
24 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p20_21_22_23_24_D3D_JUNE14_IP_Trunki.indd 24
Alastair Swanwick
MD, Innovate
Product Design
The Court of Appeal has looked at the way
the luggage was depicted and decided that
some features looked more important than
others. This could have gone either way,
but the decision is a clear reminder of the
importance of a good understanding of
your design.
We always recommend registering
line drawings from the final CAD model
for our product design clients, if they
are concerned only with form. Line
drawings put everything on the same
level of importance and the CAD model
makes it easier to change angles, remove
superfluous parts, and isolate or exaggerate
features. The final design should be already
nailed and hopefully feedback should
indicate the relative importance of the
features.
In product design it is common sense
that all features are viewed in the context of
the overall design, commercial factors and
the wider field.  So if features of the design
stand out, for instance colours or texture,
these features could of course be argued to
be important to the design.  This seems to
be what the Court was saying in relation to
the law about how designs are registered
and this would seem to fit with how things
should be.  elements were functional, and therefore
This just reiterates the situation that in
relation to registered design applications it
is vital that an accurate and well-considered
representation of the design is filed.
in relation to registered
design applications it is vital
that an accurate and well-
considered representation of
the design is filed
Alastair Swanwick
tom kurke
mentor, The
Startup Factory
Many commentators have said the practical
takeaway guidance from the Court of
Appeals decision is that those seeking
protection via a CRD should generally avoid
surfaced 3D representations in their CRD
filings, and instead using wireframes. The
logic is that if only wireframes are used,
then surface markings, colour, etc. are
irrelevant in a CRD infringement analysis.
Since at least one part of the Court of
Appeals decision focused on the purposeful
difference in the wheel colour chosen by
Magmatic, that would have been irrelevant
if they had used wireframes.
I am certainly no expert in UK law, nor
that relating to CRD registrations, but I do
not believe that this case represents bad
law, as much as it does a bad set of facts
for the Plaintiff, Magmatic. If Magmatic
had submitted wireframes as part of
their CRD, then PMS would have most
certainly first claimed that the CRD itself
was invalid because it wasn’t novel or
possess enough individual character to
warrant protection – the very things that
colours, surface markings, lettering, etc.
can bring to a simplified shape which make
it more unique and protectable as a CRD.
It could be argued that many of the design
not protectable (e.g. cases need wheels, they
have straps, clasps, etc.) – particularly if
depicted as a wireframe.
Ultimately though, if Magmatic had
submitted wireframes for its CRD,
wouldn’t it still have looked like an “horned
animal” as opposed to an “insect” to the
Court?

It could be argued that many
of the design elements were
functional, and therefore not
protectable particularly if
depicted as a wireframe
Tom Kurke

9/6/14 21:47:44
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 PROFILE

Tanya Weaver takes a trip to the picturesque

Cotswold village of Chipping Campden
where homeware product brand Robert Welch
Designs has resided for over 50 years. Although
steeped in a tradition of silversmithing and
craftsmanship she discovers a sophisticated
design and development process

The Robert Welch

cooks knife in the
Signature range

p26_27_28_29_30_D3D_JUNE14_robert welch designs.indd 26 9/6/14 21:48:06

 DEVELOP3D MONTH 200X 27

p26_27_28_29_30_D3D_JUNE14_robert welch designs.indd 27 9/6/14 21:48:07

 PROFILE
C
hopping food can be frustrating
work if you don’t have a sharp knife.
In my kitchen tomatoes mostly end
up hacked and squashed rather
than sliced clean through. So it was
a revelation to use a Robert Welch
Cooks Knife for the first time recently.
It’s an absolute pleasure to chop
with and incredibly sharp, evident
by the nicks on my fingers, but also feels comfortable
and satisfactorily weighty to hold. It definitely lives up to
the philosophy of its namesake Robert Welch – value-for-
money design that is innovative, aesthetically pleasing and
functional.
Robert Welch (1929-2000), MBE and a Royal Designer for
Industry, was an award winning industrial designer who
specialised in stainless steel. He trained as a silversmith
at Birmingham School of Art before heading to the Royal
College of Art in London. Following his graduation in
1955 he rented a small room in Chipping Campden’s Old
Silk Mill that contained a bed and a drawing board. With
the creation of the Alveston cutlery range Robert Welch
Designs was born in 1961.
Over the next 40 years the company grew to take over the
top floor of the Silk Mill producing a wide range of kitchen,
dining and homeware products. In 1993 Robert Welch
28 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p26_27_28_29_30_D3D_JUNE14_robert welch designs.indd 28
1
passed the directorship to his son and daughter, Rupert and ●
1 The Old Silk Mill
in Chipping Campden
Alice, who are still the managing director and marketing
has been home to
director respectively. Robert Welch Designs
A Robert Welch retail shop was established in 1969, for over 50 years
just a few hundred yards from the Old Silk Mill where the
products are still designed by the in-house design team.
In fact, during the past 50 years, over 3,418 individual new
products have been designed, leading to sales of over 46
million around the world.
Design legacy
Walking round the Robert Welch shop, one of three with
the other two located in Warwick and Bath, you realise
just how vast the range really is. Along the back wall is a
museum dedicated to Robert Welch himself with a range
of his original product designs on display. There are
some beautifully retro pieces, including tea sets, clocks,
candlesticks and even jewellery, some of which still look
as contemporary today as they did originally. “Many of
his items are still in production today, it’s a testament to
his legacy,” says Paul deBretton Gordon, head designer at
Robert Welch Designs, on my guided tour of the shop.
deBretton Gordon is just one of three designers at the
company. Although small, they make extensive use of
technology in the design studio with two CAD packages,
SolidWorks and Deskartes, and two 3D printers. The oldest
9/6/14 21:48:08
 ‘‘ It’s just a
spoon but
is a ZCorp Z510, nicknamed Zelda, which has recently
been superseded by an Objet 30 printer.
When Robert Welch was the only designer at the
company, before computers or CAD, his line drawings
“We bought Zelda eight or nine years ago so it’s pretty old would be passed to a silversmith who’d bring his designs to
the design technology now. We needed something more convenient life. In his case it was John Limbrey, a craftsman who joined
is really with better quality. But with hundreds of different 3D Robert Welch in his one room studio shortly after he set
tricky. The printers out there we had to do quite a bit of research. up. He then worked with Welch for over 40 years producing
“It was really important that our new 3D printer wasn’t models and production drawings.
top surface too big, the cost of running it was low and the quality of the Today a project will similarly begin with sketching but will
is the most model was high. A secondhand Objet machine came on the very quickly progress into CAD. “We get into CAD as soon
difficult market and we thought it was too good a deal to turn down,” as we can because obviously CAD is a great time saver. That
says deBretton Gordon. way we can start knocking out 3D prints and prototypes
and the Happily buzzing away in the corner of the design studio fairly early on,” explains deBretton Gordon.
challenge with no dust or smell, unlike Zelda, the Objet is used “We try to get through the concept phase and into
is for the extensively for prototyping design concepts. “It doesn’t have development phase pretty quickly because the development
three or four a huge build area but for what we are using it for, it’s fitting cycle can take quite a while. We also try to speak to our
the bill,” he adds. factories sooner rather than later.”
surfaces But take a spoon, which is just one form, how complex
on the top sophisticated design process can it be to design? Very, it seems.
surface Although steeped in a tradition of craftsmanship and “Talking about it sounds ridiculous, it’s just a spoon but
to knit silversmithing, the design process at Robert Welch Designs the design is really tricky,” says deBretton Gordon. “The
is similar to most other companies involved in new top surface is the most difficult and the challenge is for the
together product development. This is something that amuses Paul three or four surfaces on that top surface to knit together
into a deBretton Gordon and his wife Kit, who is senior designer into a solid.”
solid
’’ at the company, as some people don’t think that cutlery
is designed. “I remember having to explain to family and
However, cutlery design always starts in the Deskartes
software package as opposed to SolidWorks. Produced
friends what we do as they think we are sat in something by a Finnish company of the same name, Deskartes is a
like an art class,“ she laughs. Computer Aided Industrial Design (CAID) system with
certain features that make it an ideal tool for designing
cutlery. Although Robert Welch Designs’ license has been
in use for almost nine years and can only operate on an old
laptop, deBretton Gordon explains that this basic package
allows for quick model creation and easy editing.
Once the Deskartes model is complete, it then writes an
IGES file format that can be brought into SolidWorks. From
there files are sent to the 3D printer, prototyping bureau
or model maker. Following tweaks and refinement to the
design, files then go to the factory for tooling.

bright finish
2 One of the key challenges in working in this industry,
which is really out of the designers’ hands, is the bright
finish achieved through polishing the stainless steel.
“Polishing is a real skill and polishers are the best paid in
the factory. It’s actually quite a dangerous process because
it involves a spinning wheel at really high speed in very hot
conditions,” comments deBretton Gordon.
Apart from polished stainless steel, the only other colour
in the Robert Welch collection, excluding the children’s
range, is black. This has always been the case and gives the
range its timeless and modern aesthetic. deBretton Gordon
was one of the first designers to take over the in-house
design following Robert Welch’s death and was conscious
3 of not taking the company in a different direction.
“I wanted to continue in Robert Welch’s legacy and keep

●
2 In 1955 Robert Welch set up his
studio in one little room in the Silk Mill
●
3 Although nine years old, Deskartes
is an ideal tool for designing cutlery
4 ●
4 Seats of SolidWorks have since been
purchased through reseller NT CADCAM

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 29

p26_27_28_29_30_D3D_JUNE14_robert welch designs.indd 29 9/6/14 21:48:10

 PROFILE
the design classic and simple. I have tried to accomplish
that – the designs are not overly designed, they are not
fussy, fashion driven or trendy.”
One of the first projects deBretton Gordon embarked on
when he started, which has remained a favourite, is the
multi-award winning Signature Knife range. “There have
been equally good projects since but that one sticks in my
mind as being enjoyable but also difficult as the learning
curve was so steep,” he says.
“The company did have a few knife ranges but obviously
those were designed by Robert Welch himself so this was a
journey that Rupert Welch and I really went on together.”
It was also the project where deBretton Gordon
introduced CAD into the company in the form of Deskartes
having used it at his previous job at Wedgwood. They also
5 get another and run them concurrently.”
6 Welch’ — with Alice Welch, managing director, and Kit
7 ●7 One of the recently launched
30 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p26_27_28_29_30_D3D_JUNE14_robert welch designs.indd 30
purchased Zelda, which was used extensively on this project
to prototype handles. ‘‘ i wanted
to continue
“At our design meetings we would have 20 different
handle shapes testing the feel and comfort. In the early in robert
days, we also trialled a lot with professional chefs to make Welch’s
sure they didn’t get fatigue and the handle was right.” legacy
The handle, which is made from a DuPont material, is
moulded precisely onto the full tang. In other words, the
and keep
knife is forged from one piece of stainless steel that extends the design
the full length inside the handle ensuring longevity and classic and
durability. simple. the
Not only was the design of each blade a challenge but so
was the choice of steel. Instead of opting for a Japanese designs are
steel, which can be very hard but difficult to sharpen, they not overly
went for a German stainless steel, which is less hard but designed,
easier for users to maintain the edge and sharpen.
The knives were tested extensively until the perfect knife
they are
had been reached, which has since been awarded the not fussy,
highest grade possible by the Craft Guild of Chefs and won fashion
multiple design awards. driven or
neW proDUCts
The Robert Welch range is extensive and although products
trendy
’’
remain in the catalogue for many years, including some
legacy ones that were designed by Robert Welch himself,
new products are also added regularly. Currently, the
kitchen product range is being boosted with new utensils;
the Signature Kitchen Roll Holder, with a design that allows
for pull and tear in one movement, as well as a Signature
Oval Trivet with a stainless steel base and removable
silicone mat on top.
Although the design work keeps him busy, deBretton
Gordon also likes to keep on top of new technology that
could help the design process. “DEVELOP3D Live in April
was great fun for that as all the relevant companies were
in one place and you could literally walk from one space to
another and try them out and see the results. I had a look at
3D scanners, which may be useful in future. And although
we are happy with our Objet machine, there were some
others there that were interesting and in the future we may
Of course, all of this research and future technology
investment is to ensure that this small company continues
in its pursuit of excellence. I can’t help thinking that Robert
Welch would be proud of how his company has progressed
whilst it still maintains his belief that everyone should be
able to use beautifully designed pieces in everyday life.
robertwelch.com
From 19 July to 28 September 2014 the ‘Robert Welch:
Inspiration and Innovation’ exhibition will be taking place
at the Court Barn Museum in Chipping Campden. On 19
July there will be a one-on-one event — ‘Designing for Robert
deBretton Gordon, senior designer. courtbarn.org.uk
●
5 Robert Welch at work. His 1962
Alveston cutlery range was praised as
heralding a new era in cutlery design
●6 The Signature range of stainless
steel utensils with its bright finish
products is this Signature Oval Trivet
9/6/14 21:48:19
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 EVENT REVIEW

Bringing CAE to
the board room
» Esteco is looking to change
the design landscape through
multi-physics optimisation.
Stephen Holmes reports
from the company’s user
meeting in Trieste

A
s the complexity of product design
increases, so do the number of tools
used in the design process, yet the
time-to-market is ever decreasing.
Against this background the
modeFRONTIER user meeting
in Trieste, Italy, organised by the
Italian provider of this tool Esteco,
set out to show the vast array of
different industries using its tool to optimise designs and
using it as a means of presenting design choices, quickly.
‘Mastering complexity’ was the tagline of the event, and
given the multifarious calculations being tamed by Esteco’s
software, it proved apt.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

modeFRONTIER is Esteco’s collaborative environment tool
for large dataset Computer Aided Engineering (CAE).
Open to accepting data from almost all mainstream CAD,
simulation and analysis software, it is used in projects as
diverse as urban towers and domestic washing machines.
It allows an engineer, for example, to pull in a CAD model
from Catia, CFD analysis from Ansys, a set of calculations
from MathCAD and an Excel spread sheet of bill of
materials.
The user defines the various parameters, the limits they
can operate within and the goals that need to be achieved
with the optimised design. The system (along with the
required computational power) will then provide a curve of
points representing the range of optimised designs.
modeFRONTIER sets out to corral the complex variety
of possibilities from the available engineering data and
visually packages the results – giving engineers a graph of
precise data, while keeping it simple enough for boardroom
decision makers to understand and use.
To make it available to project collaborators it has a secure
web-based platform, Somo, which also helps with two big
issues for such a tool – computational power and software
licenses.
Somo’s Grid system provides the user with a network
of workstations for processing power, but still runs
the controlling software from its native load computer,
eliminating the need for a sole workstation to be loaded
with every tool that’s used.
Even with the Grid system, it takes time to run vast
numbers of variables through a computer with finite power.
This is overcome through a ‘virtual’ version of the data,
which modeFRONTIER creates from the inputted fields,
which enables it to run at a much higher speed.
Yan Fu, a technical expert at Ford, explained how a new
Enterprise Multi-disciplinary Design Optimisation System
(EMDO )is being used at the company, which provides a
collaborative and distributed execution platform to manage
the complexity of growing demands of large-scale vehicle
design projects.
PERFECT SOLUTIONS?
Optimisation is just as much about making informed
choices and trade-offs as it is about reaching perfection.
Rarely in the real world is there a truly perfect design – for
instance, optimising the weight of a design to save money
on materials could backfire if it demands a more complex
and expensive manufacturing process.

32 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p32_33_D3D_JUNE14_esteo event.indd 32 9/6/14 21:48:41

 to
room
A round-table discussion by the automotive sector
formed one of the event’s highlights, with speakers from
Jaguar Landrover (JLR), Ford and Volvo all explaining
how modeFRONTIER is used now, and how they expect its
role to evolve.
Currently problems include the late manufacture of a
vehicle, which can cost £2million each day of the delay.
However, this can be resolved using optimisation.
Decision-making in such situations needs to be as fast
as possible and the ability to speedily re-calculate options
using virtual optimisation can prevent huge losses.
More standard stages of design benefit from optimisation
directly. As a representative from JLR explained, the
company managed to lose 400kg of aluminium from the
chassis of its latest SUV by combining CAD models and
modeFRONTIER various simulation and analysis data.
International Users’ Yet optimisation is gradually moving from being simply
Meeting 2014, which
took place during a problem-solving tool to influencing the initial design
May in Trieste, Italy concepts.
p32_33_D3D_JUNE14_esteo event.indd 33
Nowadays, engineers are not trying to solve one problem
at a time. Tools such as modeFRONTIER enable several
concepts to run in parallel, which allows teams to make the
right design earlier.
By weeding out flawed designs earlier, by the time a
design reaches physical prototyping less needs to be built
for testing.
The earlier that optimisation is introduced into the
workflow, the more useful it can be, and those who control
design and manufacture are beginning to appreciate the
benefits.
As one attendee explained, it has meant that, for the first
time, the boardroom of his company had understood the
expanded benefits of simulation tools.
In a complex world of algorithms and engineering
data, it’s easy to see why having a tool to simply guide the
decision process is beginning to bring CAE to the attention
of company heads.
esteco.com
DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 33
9/6/14 21:48:45
 PROFILE
BRIGHT
YOUNG
THING
»London teenager Josh Valman is on a mission to change the way product
design, engineering and manufacturing works around the world.
Tanya Weaver meets with this young entrepreneur to discover how he
became the CEO of the supply chain company RPD International
J
ust a short walk from London’s
Westminster tube station, in a fairly quiet
open plan office in Millbank Tower is
RPD International. Looking around you
wouldn’t guess that this company has
grown 50 per cent month on month since
its launch in January 2014, employs 46
people and is on track to achieving a seven
figure turnover this financial year. You
certainly wouldn’t guess that the man at the helm is 19-year-
old Josh Valman.
Valman’s CV, with its four job roles – MD of RPD
International, MD of Miproto, owner of WeSellTubes.com
and freelance product design engineer – reads like that of
someone at least ten years older. However, what gives it away
is his schooling: Vyners School in Ickenham, West London,
2006 – 2013. He only completed his A levels last year!
But what exactly does his company do? Valman explains
it simply as “RPD powers design and manufacturing
departments for companies.” Basically he has built a
global supply chain that consists of specialist factories and
contractors to handle everything in a product development
project from conception, to prototyping, to mass
production to delivery. It can handle all or just a small part.
34 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p34_35_36_D3D_JUNE14_RPD.indd 34
“We employ incredible expertise and facilities around
the world and bring these together in supply chain
combinations that suit each project for necessary quality,
quantity, speed and cost. From consumer electronics to jet
engines, it’s not what we do, it’s how we do it.”
game is on
It all started with Robot Wars. At age ten, Valman was a
huge fan of this British television game show. Broadcast
from 1998 to 2003, participants’ robots would fight it
out against each other in an arena. Too young to enter,
Valman chose to compete in the show’s engineering
competition with its robot weight restriction of less than
150g. He taught himself how to use Google SketchUp
and constructed his creations using hand tools, including
the CNC machine and lathes in his school’s Design &
Technology Department.
“I was designing some pretty crazy stuff such as a full
pressure pneumatic system with an arm that fires open. It
was pretty dangerous,” smiles Valman.
But seeing that everyone else in the competition was
getting their components professionally made, he decided
that he wanted to do the same. “So, I Googled ‘factory’.
All the UK factories were far too expensive for my budget;
9/6/14 21:49:09
 
We employ incredible
expertise and facilities
around the world and
bring these together in
supply chain combinations
Josh Valman

nobody seems to think of the budgets of 15 year olds.
“But I had heard about Chinese factories so I Googled
that. I found one and thought to myself what could go
wrong? It’s just on the other side of the world, it just means
waiting a bit longer.”
However, the bank would not allow him to send his pocket
money to a factory in China that he found on the internet.
Neither would his parents for that matter. So, unbeknown
to them, he set up a PayPal account and sent every penny he
had – £500 to be exact – that way.
About two weeks later the DHL package arrived and
inside were the billet aluminium components that had
been CNC machined to within 0.1mm tolerance. He was
very chuffed and when he took his robot to the Robot Wars
World Series event, others were impressed too. So much
so that requests started coming in for him to produce
their robot components, which soon scaled up to other
components. At 15 his career as a freelance product design
and manufacturing consultant had begun.
“Lots of people doing this Robot Wars stuff were high up
figure heads in large multinational companies so by doing
small bits of work for them they’d tell others. The work
kept coming in to the point where I was earning £10,000 a
week,” he comments.
p34_35_36_D3D_JUNE14_RPD.indd 35
saturday job
Valman also decided to get a normal (well, normal for a
teenager) job working Saturdays in his local bicycle retail
shop. By his own admission, he was painfully shy and
thought that being forced to speak to the general public
would help his communication skills. He also learnt about
business and for 11 months operated weselltubes.com, an
online retailer of inner tubes.
Ever the entrepreneur, he’d also decided, as his freelance
work was going so well, to set up a web based product
design, development and prototyping platform. He’d
realised that his success was due to his being accessible
and so decided to launch Miproto with the aim of making
product design and manufacturing accessible to everybody.
“Anybody can upload a design, pay their fee and have it
made,” he explains.
Valman eventually managed to get some investors
onboard but admits that most were weary of risking money
on a ‘kid’. “It took me a while to prove my worth to people.
But I ended up flying out to Gibraltar just before my A levels
started. I closed my first investor and wrote my coursework
on the flight home.”
But since then Valman has been very selective in the
investors he’s chosen. It’s not about the money, but
DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 35
9/6/14 21:49:11
 PROFILE
‘‘
I ended up flying out to
Gibraltar just before my
A levels started. I closed my
first investor and wrote my
coursework on the flight home

more about what they can offer in terms of skills and

’’ to deliver. This is more often than not a manufacturer local
connections. “Some people I would take £5,000 off but it’s to the client where there is not a great deal of shipping
not because it’s £5,000, it’s because this guy is the director involved because according to Valman, “time is worth so
of this company who can connect me to that company who much more than money. That’s the future.”
can in turn connect me to this other company.” So far RPD has worked with a range of clients including
Valman did manage to pass his A levels but his marks creative agencies such as London-based Taxi Studio, which
weren’t sufficient to get him into any of the engineering as part of a national campaign for its client – plasterboard
courses he applied for. Ironically, he now teaches at one of producer Siniat – asked for 550 small foam bulls to be made
these universities. “I didn’t get into Imperial College and and delivered.
now I teach at their Entrepreneurship Club so I don’t feel Another was a British supercar manufacturer who tasked
so bad.” RPD with designing its key fob asking: ‘How can our
customers feel the beauty of our engine, without opening
new year, new business the bonnet every day?’. With a reasonable budget, Valman
Meanwhile Miproto was doing well but wasn’t making combined three minds: an American artist, Italian fashion
much money. With his entrepreneur head on he got designer and a Scandinavian industrial designer. The
thinking and realised that companies, both large and small, concepts were then refined by a London industrial designer,
rather than individuals were using this service. So, using who embodied the V8 engine into the key fob itself. This
the same global supply chain, in January 2014 he launched was followed by various rounds of prototyping (including
RPD International – a corporate platform that powers the internal PCB), tooling, batch manufacture of 5,000,
design and manufacturing for companies. assembly, packaging and delivery.
“We handle everything, from concept through to Back in his office, Valman has employed people to work
manufacture and delivery. We operate this global supply with the British Standards Institution (BSI) to certify
chain of talent in design, engineering and manufacturing. RPD’s processes and facilities – the boring side of business,
By connecting all of these incredibly powerful resources, we according to him, whilst he gets very little sleep jetting
are able to think differently about both design and process.” off all over the place hunting out suppliers and spreading
explains Valman. the word of what RPD does. He is constantly visiting
Companies can use it for the entire product development conferences, like DEVELOP3D Live in April, and has
process or, like some larger engineering firms have done, even organised one himself in Aarhus, Denmark, at the
dip into a certain part of the process whether it’s help beginning of June and will be speaking at a few, including
with an R&D project, getting a design prototyped or for the Design Chain Conference, later this year.
manufacturing assistance. “People pay an amount each He uses social media for all its worth especially locating
month which is a deposit to retain our services. So it’s up to designers and engineers to work for him. He has ceaseless
us to guarantee that we have the resources in-house ready energy and drive to grow his business but does seem a bit
when they call and say ‘help’,” says Valman. surprised when he admits that “it just works”.
In a bid to build his supplier and contractor list, he has He also still finds time to design having bought seats of
jetted out to factories all over the world and talked to various SolidWorks through reseller Innova. “I can’t log in as a
designers and engineers who he employs on a freelance senior engineer, however, because I don’t have a degree. So,
basis when needed. The idea is to link up the right person the CEO is a junior engineer,” he laughs.
with the right project and then find the best manufacturer rpdintl.com

●
1 The Robot Wars robot Valman
created in SketchUp when he was 15
●
2 RPD International created 550 small
foam cows for client Taxi Studio
●
3 Various prototypes of a key fob for a
British supercar manufacturer

1 3

36 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p34_35_36_D3D_JUNE14_RPD.indd 36 9/6/14 21:49:13


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 KNUCKLE
PROFILE

DOWN
» How the capabilities of 5-axis machining are benefiting
two companies working in the automotive industry

J
aguar Land Rover (JLR) is one of Philip
James’ biggest clients. This Coventry-
based subcontracter machines prototype
suspension, chassis and steering
components for practically every make
of Jaguar, Range Rover and Land Rover,
including the limited edition Jaguar XKR-S
GT, which was launched in October 2013.
For this £135,000, five-litre, V8 coupe,
Philip James produced the front steering knuckles.
Knuckles in particular require intensive milling. They
start as a solid round aluminium billet that is typically
reduced from 94kg to less than 6kg when the part is
fully machined. For subsequent volume production, the
components are produced from aluminium forgings –
unless it is for a small run of cars like the XKR-S GT.
Philip Whitehouse, managing director of Philip James,
states, “One of the front knuckles for JLR was proving
problematic to machine.
“While most of the milling and drilling could be carried
out on one of our 3-axis Hurcos, the component then had
to be transferred to a CNC jig borer for five holes to be
interpolated at three different angles – and therefore in
three set-ups.
“We decided to buy a Hurco VMX42SR 5-axis machining
centre to interpolate all the holes to within ±10 microns in
one automatic, 20-minute cycle, much faster than the two
and a half hours it used to take on the jig borer.”
component alignment prior to boring. One-hit machining
on the Hurco also allows Philip James to swap between
producing the two hands more quickly. This is important,
as JLR often cannot wait for a full batch of, say, 20 left-
hand and the same number of right-hand knuckles to be
delivered in one consignment. Faster changeovers increase
productivity by minimising spindle idle time.
The Hurco VMX42SR is the first 5-axis machining centre
at Philip James, which Whitehouse asked Hurco to modify
so that the B-axis head can be tilted past horizontal to allow
cutter access for all JLR knuckle bores to be interpolated in
one hit.
The required negative angle was –8 degrees. Hurco
engineers removed the limit switch on the head, allowing
it to tilt up to –20 degrees. So other features like undercut
faces can also be machined without repositioning the
part on an angle plate, again saving time and improving
accuracy.
The modification means that the head guarding
comes close to the table and especially near to a laser
tool measuring device. To avoid any chance of collision,
the subcontractor used Work NC computer aided ●
1 The Jaguar
XKR-S GT coupe,
manufacturing (CAM) software from Sescoi to program on which the front
the machining cycle and check for interference. steering knuckles
Although the knuckle application requires 3+2 axis are machined on
machining, the VMX42SR is capable of full 5-axis cycles. Hurco machining
centres at Coventry
Whitehouse is hopeful that it will attract additional work subcontractor, Philip
from the aerospace and motorsport sectors and also James
pointed out that it will reduce the need to use expensive ●
2 A front knuckle for

Faster changeovers form cutters. JLR, after all 3-axis

metalcutting has
Apart from decreasing the cycle time, the new 5-axis hurco.co.uk been completed on
process eliminates the need to use a tooling hole for philip-james.co.uk the Hurco VM20i

RIGHT Freeform Technology, a

CNC machine shop based in
FORMULA the UK’s motorsport valley
in Buckingham, supplies a
range of F1 teams including
Red Bull Racing, Lotus,
Mercedes GP, Williams,
McLaren and Marussia.
The latest 5-axis machining
centre to be installed at
Freeform Technology’s
6,000 sq ft facility is a
DMU65 monoBLOCK 5-axis
universal machining centre
from DMG MORI. This
German-built machine
was bought specifically
for its ability to tackle any
material including the
toughest of alloys.
In addition to machining
tooling block, aluminium
mould tools can now be
produced, allowing the
subcontractor to widen its
customer base.
“We have already produced
front and rear bumper
patterns for the Nissan RML
Juke-R and the BMW WRC
Mini. We see automotive
as a growth area for us,
as more and more CFRP
[Carbon-fibre-reinforced
polymer] parts are being
incorporated into road
cars, or at least offered as
options,” says Fred Hutton,
Freeform Technology’s
co-founder.
“We also intend to offer
mould and pattern making
services to companies
in the aerospace supply
chain,” he adds.
dmgmori.com
freeformtechnology.co.uk

38 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p38_39_D3D_JUNE14_5 axis_case_studies.indd 38 9/6/14 21:50:01

 1

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 39

p38_39_D3D_JUNE14_5 axis_case_studies.indd 39 9/6/14 21:50:02

 PROFILE

SWEET
SOLUTION
» Chocolate mould manufacturer
1

DPS Designs reduces cycle times

and increases quality following
the introduction of 3D scanning
technology from Steinbichler

D
2
PS Designs, a Gloucestershire-based
supplier of moulds for the chocolate
industry, had been reviewing its
processes and looking towards moving
to ‘digital engineering’ of its designs
and the inspection of mould tools.
At the time, a foam model would be manufactured
from sketches and once approved by the customer, it
would be drawn in 3D CAD to replicate the foam model.
It was time consuming and difficult to make the CAD
model exactly represent the foam model.
Realising the benefits that 3D scanning could bring
to this process, Leigh Down, DPS Design’s managing
director, contacted Steinbichler UK, a supplier of optical
measuring and testing technology. Following a demo 3
together with testing and benchmarking, Down placed
an order for a Steinbichler L3D system.

improved process
The 3D Scanning is used alongside Delcam’s Artcam
software. The foam model is hand sculpted based on
the customer sketches, photographs and technical
requirements. Once the foam model is deemed to be as ●
1 The foam

per ‘customer requirements’, the foam is 3D Scanned model is 3D

scanned using
using the Steinbichler L3D system and the STL file the Steinbichler
sent electronically to the client for review. This process L3D system
can be used as many times as required until the client ●
2 The resulting

approves the overall shape, proportions and posture of STL file is sent
electronically
the model. to the client for
Upon customer approval, the STL file output from review 4
the L3D Scanner is imported into Artcam where the ●
3 Upon

fine details are sculpted electronically with any draft approval,

the STL file is
angles for manufacture etc. added on in readiness for imported into
manufacture. Delcam PowerMill is then used to design Delcam Artcam
the final tooling for manufacture. where the final
“The acquisition of the Steinbichler L3D system details are
sculpted
has enabled us to speed up the development process
●
4 The tooling
significantly,” says Down. is created
“We are also using the scanning to be able to provide using Delcam
3D STL files to customers enabling them to review Powermill
models electronically and efficiently. The L3D system is ●5 The resulting Caption to go in here
Harry Hopalot roughly this length
key to the company’s future growth plans.” in its Thorntons blahdy blah blahdy
dpsdesigns.co.uk | steinbichler.co.uk packaging blah blah

40 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

5

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 Steinbichler UK Ltd
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42 D3D Ads.indd 1 09/06/2014 07:05

 REVIEWS
Solid Edge ST7
» Solid Edge is one of the most mature 3D design and engineering systems available.
Al Dean takes a look at some of the highlights in Solid Edge ST7 and finds that there’s
still room for innovation with Synchronous Technology and elsewhere
S
» Product: iemens’ Solid Edge product
Solid Edge ST7 has been on the market for 18
» Supplier: Siemens
PLM Solutions years. It has been through a
fair few owners but has always
Price: On Application
siemens.com/solidedge had the same core concept at heart: to
provide a Windows-based system for
design and engineering development
using 3D CAD as the basis. While the
marketing initiatives have come and
gone, it’s found a loyal following in the
near two decades of its activity.
When Synchronous technology was
introduced in 2008, it got a profile boost
as it rode on the burgeoning interest in
direct editing. While this technology has
gradually matured and become better
integrated with the traditional history-
based modelling tools, Solid Edge is still,
perhaps, riding on that increased wave of
interest.
So, with each release, it’s interesting
to see where things are heading for the
mainstream 3D design-focussed system.
So let’s take a look.
Generally useful updates
Let’s begin with the updates to this
●
1 ST7’s measurement release that are applicable to most users,
enhancements allow
irrespective of what industry or common
users to stack up
measurements of, and workflows they use.
between, objects as The Solid Edge user interface has been
needed evolving over the last five or six releases
p43_44_45_46_D3D_June14_SolidEdgeST7.indd 43
and while wholesale changes are now few
and far between, there are a few tweaks,
enhancements and additions that will
make life easier or more productive for
existing users. New users will, of course,
not notice any difference.
Perhaps one of the most useful of these
enhancements is to the measurement
tools. While every CAD system includes
tools to measure both geometric entities,
as well as between them, they’re often not
pervasive nor indeed, remain on screen
while you use them. Solid Edge, until ST7,
was also guilty of this.
However, from ST7 onwards, the
measurement tools remain on screen
as they’re being used, giving the user
a greater ability to measure between
entities and allowing measurements to be
stacked up and retained on screen.
Another update that’s going to be
welcome to many, is the ability to create
3D sketches using a wider variety of
entities without the need to predefine
workplanes and such.
Essentially, you sketch each segment on
a dynamic plane, then shift that plane to
the next to add in the additional elements
in a different direction. It works with both
lines and arcs and allows for the creation
of fillets between those entities.
For users working with piping routing,
SOFTWARE REVIEW
wire or tubular forms, this is going to be
manna from heaven. Of course, if you
want to include more complex splines
that route through points that aren’t co-
planar, this can still be done, but using the
more complex tools that have been in the
system for a good few years.
There are also some enhancements
made to the materials definition database
that’s available within Solid Edge. This
has been revamped and now gives a much
richer description for each material and
a wide range of materials all together.
Interestingly, the team has also built in
the ability to download and integrate
materials from online repositories, such
as MatWeb.
Also on the standards front, the hole
creation tools have been reworked.
Whereas in previous releases holes and
fasteners were defined separately, it
is now done much more intelligently.
Essentially, the hole creation form now
requires the definition of the fastener
that’s intended to interface with that hole,
and the thread forms are derived from —
and it includes all the major international
standards including (DIN, ISO and ANSI).
Perhaps the last major update on the
generally applicable front is the ability to
assign a specific length to a sketch entity
(or group thereof). For users working with
DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 43
9/6/14 21:50:52
 standardised tubes, pipes, belts and such,
this will be a huge benefit, but I’m sure
it’ll find its way into many others’ lists of
command options.

Working with Assemblies

Alongside these generally applicable
updates (which often apply to both part
and assembly modelling), there’s also been
a bit of work done on tools that focus on
assemblies specifically.
Perhaps the most useful is the ability to
duplicate components along a curve. This
works similarly to using a sketch to drive
a feature part, but with separate parts.
What this means is that it’s possible to
take a part (or, indeed, a sub-assembly)
and have it patterned along a specified
curve, or group of curves.
Imagine a subassembly of a track for an 2
earth moving vehicle or perhaps a complex
belt or chain device. Rather than creating
multiple instances of each link in that
chain, you can duplicate these along the
appropriate path and it’ll maintain position
and orientation just as the fully mated
version would, but without the massive
compute overhead that a design change
would require.
Another assembly modelling update
continues the work done in ST5 and 6
to better support the use of lightweight
representations of large and complex
assemblies.
Regular readers (and existing Solid Edge
users) might recall that this revolved
around the shrinkwrap type of tools that
are increasingly common. Solid Edge’s
implementation allowed an assembly of
parts to be replaced with a combination
of either a boundary ‘lump’ of geometry
that represented the exact form of the 3
assembly, or to swap components out

workflow: MOVING FROM SOlid to Sheet metal design with ST7

●1 Let’s begin with a solid model, built using references ●2 The Part to Sheet Metal command (found in the Tools/ ●
3 The next stage is to start to define the edges of
from other components in an assembly or just hacked Transform panel) is used to define the basic sheet metal that solid that represent bends, built according to the
together to get the basic form of part you need parameters, such as bend radius, corner relief and such parameters you’ve already specified. These can be changed

●
4 Using the same command, you now hit the R key to switch ●
5 When done, the solid model is now converted into a sheet ●
6 Now complete, the part can then be integrated into
to Rip model. Again, this defines edges where the sheet metal component and remains as such. Any edits can be made subsequent workflows, adapting fixtures and fasteners as
metal splits to open up, rather than creating a bend in the traditional manner you would with any other type of part or sub-assembly

44 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

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●2 The new hole entirely for prismatic forms.
creation tools are The problem was that while these
driven by DIN, ISO and lightweight forms allowed users to load
ANSI standards thread
forms
and inspect an assembly more efficiently,
they didn’t carry over any of the BOM and
●3 It’s now possible to
flatten out non-sheet metadata attached to the parts they were
metal forms to gain representing.
an idea of material This has changed and it’s now possible
requirements to extract this type of information, for
●4 The new Duplicate BOM lists as well as in drawing tables,
components allow without having to load the fuller, complete
the creation of
representation.
assemblies with
repeat components The final major update relating to
without the overhead assemblies for ST7 is in the area of change
of assembly mates management. While Solid Edge has (as we’ll
●
5 The creation of explore shortly) data management tools
3D sketches is now available using SharePoint or Teamcenter
much freer - without as the basis, change management
the need for creating
workplanes and such
in groups without formalised data
management is still an issue.
The new tools allow users to track when
parts or sub-assemblies, either above or
below the level that’s being working at,
are changed and might kick off a complete
rebuild of the model.
These new tools allow users to find
these instances (on loading a model or
moving focus within the assembly) and to
selectively choose whether the assembly
is updated and refresh.
p43_44_45_46_D3D_June14_SolidEdgeST7.indd 45
4 time — namely, the ability to create the
5 pushed into fabrication and into drawings
Sync Tech updates
No Solid Edge release is complete
without a quick rip through some of the
enhancements made to Synchronous
Technology. It’s been a good few years
since Sync Tech was introduced into the
system and while the days of massive
updates are gone, there is a constant
refinement of the tools to make them
more intelligent and allow the user to
work more efficiently.
Big ticket items for this release include
the ability to find feature patterns within
other patterns, so that the user has the
ability to adapt them where needs be,
whether the upper level pattern or each
individual pattern within it.
Elsewhere, the system also now allows
users to create primitives, specifically,
boxes, cylinders and spheres. It’s this
type of operation that can, of course, be
carried out with a number of operations in
previous releases, but these new tools are
much quicker to use. Drag, drop, pull and
pull into shape and you’re done.
The last highlight on the sync tech front
is some work done on chamfer recognition.
As ever, the use of both chamfers and
fillets using direct editing is problematic,
particularly when you get into the more
SOFTWARE REVIEW
complex examples.
It allows users to identify the edges/
faces that are chamfers (or not, as the
case may be) in advance, then allows the
editing of feature names, any set-back
dimensions and such.
Sheet metal
Sheet metal is an area that Solid Edge has
always had a strong presence in, right
from the early days. It had intelligent
sheet metal tools long before many of its
current peers in the mainstream modelling
market. As ever, it’s no good resting on
collective laurels and this release sees
work done to refresh the sheet metal
modelling and editing tools in the system.
Strangely, the first is something
that other systems have had for some
exterior form of a sheet metal component
using a solid model, then convert it to a
sheet metal fabricated form. The tools
are nice and simple, the Part to Sheet
Metal operation takes care of the whole
process, allowing users to define material
parameters (in terms of bend radius,
corner treatment etc.) then identify the
base (for the first section of sheet).
Users can then work around the model,
first selecting edges that are converted to
bends, then by hitting the R key, select any
edges that are ‘ripped’ — those that open
up and enable the flattening of the form.
The full workflow and details is on the
opposite page.
Once done, the result is an intelligent
sheet metal model that links back to
the source solid, so any changes can be
propagated quickly, and one that can also
be converted into a flattened form and
for documentation.
The last sheet metal update relates to
deriving flattened forms from non-sheet
metal forms. Essentially, this allows users
to take a constant wall thickness part
(whether natively built or imported) and
flatten it out according to a few input
parameters.
The end result is a 2D shape that, while
perhaps a little rough around the edges,
can be used for initial nesting planning
for all manner of purposes, whether that’s
fabric work or stamped forms. This, of
course, also ties in rather nicely with the
forming tools from ST6 that allows users
to ‘push’ a form tool into a thin part and
create these types of stamped or forged
parts more easily using standard solid
modelling operations.
Visualisation with Keyshot
Solid Edge has had integrated rendering
tools for the last ten years or so. Based
on the Lightworks engine, it has followed
the usual route of being somewhat overly
complicated, a side effect of being in
a user interface built for design work,
rather than visualisation. This is a common
problem in almost every 3D design system
at the moment.
For the ST7 release, this changes. The
existing tools are still there, but from now
DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 45
9/6/14 21:50:55
 SOFTWARE REVIEW

on, it looks like Siemens will be offering

users access to KeyShot from Luxion.
Most DEVELOP3D readers will be familiar
with KeyShot — it rewrote the rulebook on
how easy rendering and animation should
be by using a drag and drop approach
rather than twiddling of values and
complex dialog boxes.
Solid Edge Classic or Premium customers
will now have access to KeyShot for Solid
Edge. This puts a couple of icons into Solid
Edge that allows for current data to be
sent directly to KeyShot for rendering.
Of course, using KeyShot’s LiveLinking
technology it’ll maintain that link, so
updates can be propagated as designs
evolve.
KeyShot for Solid Edge gives real-time
rendering (at 2.1 megapixel resolution —
equivalent to 1,920 x 1,080) and offline,
fully calculated rendering to any resolution
desired. It’ll try to maintain any material
assignments from Solid Edge. It doesn’t
come with the animation tools in KeyShot
Pro but it can be used to render out frames
defined in Solid Edge’s native animation
tools.
There are a couple of things worth
noting. The first is that KeyShot has to be
installed on the same workstation and is
tied to the Solid Edge license. The second
is that, despite the tied license, if there’s
an update to KeyShot, you can get it and 6
update your version.
Another factor worthy of mention is
that a bundled license of KeyShot doesn’t the view as it’ll appear when placed. concluSion ●
6 Solid Edge users,

include importers for other files. The data
has to be transferred via the integration
with Solid Edge. Finally, if you’ve already
got KeyShot in-house, it does give the
benefit of an additional license and the
KeyShot native BIP files can be read
between the two.
DrAuGhTinG & DrAWinGS
To round things out, let’s talk about two
areas that, while, they’re not the most
exciting, are just as important as all the
flashy modelling tools discussed elsewhere
in this review.
The first is drawings and no 3D CAD
release is complete without at least a few
new drawing tools or enhancements to
existing ones.
For ST7, the highlights are in a couple
of areas. Firstly, there are new fully
automated tools for placing and adjusting
co-ordinate dimensions using the fence
select that automatically repositions the
series of dimensions and spaces them
rather nicely.
Another relates to documentation and
GD&T, specifically, the use of reference
frames and datums. The new release
makes these types of references
associative, so if the user changes
the datum reference, it’ll also update
the control frame to reflect the new
alphanumeric text.
The last two relate to the placing
of drawing views into sheets. Firstly,
there are improvements to the display
of each view — instead of a bounding
box, there is now a full preview showing
The second is that within multi-sheet
drawings, sub-assemblies or other
parts from the assembly can be pulled
in and documented, keeping all of the
documentation relating to an assembly in
a single place. This makes management
much easier.
DATA mAnAGEmEnT
Let’s wrap this up with a look at what’s
changed for data management. You may
recall that Solid Edge’s SharePoint-based
data management solution (Solid Edge SP)
was introduced in the last release.
This builds on a standard SharePoint
implementation to add in not only a greater
understanding and support for the complex
data links between parts, assemblies and
drawings, but also the complex workflows
that are common in engineering and
production.
For this release, Solid Edge SP gets a
face lift, particularly in the Relationship
browser tool that displays the hierarchy of
assemblies graphically.
Users can now show multiple property
cards, which display the meta data
associated with the selected parts. While
present in the last release, you were limited
to a single card at a time — no more!
The other major update is that while
it’s entirely possible to create formalised
workflows, sometimes something more
ad-hoc is needed.
This is now possible and users can quickly
create a workflow to push a task through
a process and team without too much pre-
amble.
I think that’s a pretty good overview of of the classic and
what’s new, updated and improved in Solid premium bundles at
least, now get their
Edge ST7. What’s interesting is how the own special version of
development is looking back at existing keyShot
tools and finding new ways to make them
more efficient. A good example is the
work done on some of the core modelling
techniques — whether that’s 3D sketching,
working with sheet metal forms or the
additions to the sync tech tools.
Elsewhere, the team has also looked
at some areas and completely revamped
them. The prime example is in the
rendering field.
While you could produce half decent
renderings in Solid Edge VirtualStudio,
like all CAD integrated rendering tools, it’s
complex and heavy.
The link up with KeyShot is a good move
and while it’s reserved for those with the
Classic and Premium bundles, it’s a good
deal and one that should prove useful
for many users. After all, rendering is no
longer the sole preserve of the industrial
design crowd and is a common part of
designers’ and engineers’ workflow, in a
much wider spread of industries.
All in all, ST7 shows how Solid Edge
continues to evolve and mature and that’s
what many users are looking for.
A solid, reliable tool to assist with not
only building and documenting design
and engineering work, but also one
that has links to other workflows and
requirements that are part of the process,
whether that’s simulation (which we’ve not
covered), visualisation or manufacturing
specific readiness.

46 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

p43_44_45_46_D3D_June14_SolidEdgeST7.indd 46 9/6/14 21:50:56

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47 D3D Ads.indd 1 09/06/2014 07:08


Autodesk Inventor 2015
» With the introduction of direct editing, freeform surface modelling and lots more,
Inventor 2015 promises to deliver on what users have been asking for. Paul Munford
takes a direct look at the latest version of Autodesk’s digital prototyping platform
I
» Product: Inventor ’m such a CAD geek. There’s
2015 not much that gives me greater
» Supplier: Autodesk
pleasure than finding out what
Price: On Application
new tools are available in each
autodesk.com
release of Inventor. What really excites
me about Inventor 2015 is the number
of fixes, additions and changes that
have been directly inspired by the
feedback that you and I have been
giving Autodesk.
You may not agree with the way that
Autodesk has used strategic pricing to
manoeuvre customers onto subscription,
but it may be that there are some
advantages. Could it be that, as more
customers get onto the subscription
freight train, Autodesk is under less
pressure to create new features to sell
Inventor to new customers? You decide.
Let me take you through some of the
new features of Autodesk Inventor 2015.
As an Inventor user, which features do you
think will help you in your daily workflow?
As a CAD manager or business owner,
which features might encourage you to
●1 Inventor 2015 sees consider buying a seat of Inventor or two?
the introduction of
tools that are cross Big Shiny new tools
pollinating from When you open 2015, the first change
Autodesk’s Fusion is really obvious (to the existing user).
360 — this release
gets basic support for The nagging ‘what’s new’ dialog is gone.
T-Spline modelling Instead you are faced with a nicely laid
tools out dashboard of your recent files and
48 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
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projects. Just a click away is the ‘learning
path’ screen, an interactive trail to
take new users of Inventor through the
concepts of parametric part and assembly
modelling. This is very clearly laid out and
will appeal to those getting up to speed
from previous releases, as well as those
learning how to use Inventor.
T-SPLINES A GO GO
T-Splines are big news in Inventor 2015.
Originally developed as a plug-in for
Rhino, Autodesk acquired the technology
in 2011 dubbed ‘Freeform’. In Inventor the
T-Splines technology uses a subdivision
surface modelling technique to create
inherently G2 continuous surfaces.
Freeform surface bodies are not
parametric and are instead directly edited
by manipulating points, edges, faces or
the ‘boxy’ control frame that guides the
surface.
While it’s hard to get a subdivision
surface to be as accurate as a surface built
using traditional sketches and surface
features, subdivision surfacing is quick
and intuitive. The biggest plus is that
subdivision surfaces rarely fail, which
makes complex part modelling a lot less
prone to feature tree explosions.
T-Splines are an extremely clever
addition to subdivision modelling that
uses ‘T’ points and ‘Star points’ to add
1
detail (i.e. add faces and edges) in areas
that require more refined surface curves.
This is more efficient than regular SubD
modellers, which need to subdivide the
whole surface to add detail.
Freeform bodies are non-parametric,
but do exist in the feature tree. On exiting
the Freeform environment the T-Splines
surface is smoothly converted to a ‘solid’
body and further edits can be carried out
using Inventor’s regular solid and surface
modelling tools.
Despite the fact that the Freeform
environment opens whole new workflows
for organic shape design in Inventor,
I’m disappointed in how little of the
original feature set from Rhino has been
implemented. Autodesk has already
successfully implemented T-Splines into its
flagship web based CAD package — Fusion
360, so our appetite has been whetted
with the possibilities
Freeform T-Splines, in this current
Inventor implementation, are restricted to
closed bodies only — so no open surfaces.
Freeforms can’t be built from sketches
and there is no ‘cage’ view. Handy tools
such as ‘make uniform’ and divide face
by point are missing. What we do have is
a functional set of tools that just about
make Freeforms useable.
If you’ve never modelled with T-Splines
before you’ll get along with Freeform just
9/6/14 21:55:52
 SOFTWARE REVIEW

fine. This introductory tool set is great for have direct modelling strategies, so it is imported geometry to make tweaks ●2 Inventor 2015 sees

new users who need to learn this new way
of thinking. Those of you who have been
hammering out T-Splines in Fusion 360 for
some time may feel a little hampered.
DIRECT EDIT
Have you been following the debate
around history vs. direct modelling?
SpaceClaim threw down the gauntlet
back in 2005 and opened up a whole new
market. Direct editing isn’t a new idea, but
SpaceClaim showed how it should be done.
SolidWorks, Solid Edge and Creo all
about time Inventor kept up! I really like without remodelling features, it’s very the introduction of
the way that direct modelling has been handy indeed. direct modelling tools
enabling the quick
implemented in Inventor. It is intuitive editing of geometry
and slick with great feature recognition. USEFUL TwEAKS TO OLD without hacking back
Direct edits are added to the feature tree FAVOURITES through the history
and their values can be driven from the User Interface: The UI has been tree or on imported
parameters manager. optimised (messed about with) featuring geometry
Will direct editing aid your workflow? more grouped commands. However, there
Or will it be just one more way for is a nice new feature that allows you to
your designers to circumnavigate your pick the size of your buttons. A must for
modelling standards? For those last those with OCD.
minute design changes (without blowing The parameters dialogs dynamically
up for history rebuild) or working with re-size (so_you_can_read_your_whole_

WORKFLOW: INVENTOR INTEGRATED T-SPLINES - HOW DOES IT WORK?

●1 Create Freeform bodies starting with ‘primitive’ shapes. ●2 Add additional faces and symmetry to your body. It’s worth ●3 Edit your body by directly manipulating points, edges
The Freeform tools includes boxes, cylinders, torii and more spending some time to plan out the forms you need and faces

●4 Add additional lumps or voids by extruding or bridges ●

5 Finish the free form command to convert your T-Splines ●
6 Continue adding features to your design and use the
between faces surface into a Solid rendering and surface evaluation tools to inspect the design

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 49

p48_49_50_D3D_June14_Inventor2015.indd 49 9/6/14 21:55:53

 SOFTWARE REVIEW
parameter_name) and the Sketch tools are
always visible. There is a great new option
in the parameters manager to purge
unused parameters.
Sketching: The sketching environment
has had a lot of attention. You can
now sketch faster in Inventor — points
are created on mouse down instead of
mouse up (No more skidding off on point
creation!).
The offset command has been improved;
zero length geometries are deleted as
you offset the shape so you always get a
workable result.
Geometrical constraints now feature
glyphs that pop up to show you which
constraint will be applied as you create
geometry.
There is no need to turn on constraint
display; simply clicking on geometry will
highlight its associated constraints. Right
mouse button clicking has a new option to
delete the constraints associated with the
selected geometry.
A new ‘relax mode’ allows you to move
constrained geometry without having to
work out what it’s constrained to. Any
constraints that can’t be honoured by
the move are deleted, which is massively
helpful.
My favourite sketch improvement (and
possibly my favourite feature in Inventor
2015) is the little guides that pop up
when you use the Vertical and Horizontal
constraint commands. No more click and
guess!
Part Modelling: Inventor’s Sweep
command now has the option to twist
profiles as they sweep along a path. You
can now re-name the default work planes,
and you get a cute little label on work
planes when you highlight them.
The sheet metal environment has new
options to place punch features across
50 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
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bends, create cuts normal to the surface of
the unfolded part and unfold zero radius
bends. A new option to add an a-side
definition identifies the face of the folded
part giving greater clarity when working
with unfolded sheet metal designs.
Assemblies: You can now edit parts and
assemblies while in express mode without
having to open them in a new window.
The joint command has been improved
with options to place joints between two
part faces or with an offset origin. Joints
can now be aligned to work features.
Even the frame generator has seen a little
love with a new option to re-use frame
members, helping you to keep your BOM/
parts list correct without having to cheat.
Drawings: New features in the drawing
environment include a parent sheet name
property for parent views and the option
to automatically sort parts lists (that may
not sound sexy, but it would have saved
me a lot of time over the years).
There is a new ‘Fast open’ option to open
drawings without attempting to resolve
any files referenced by the drawing. Handy
for checking a dimension or generating a
quick plot.
Under the hood: The Wrap to surface
command is reported to be 50 per cent
faster and Express mode has been
improved for drawing view creation.
Shelling and Tapered extrusions now
handle more complicated geometries
with a taper angle anywhere from 0 to 90
degrees.
Cloud collaboration: Inventor 2015
comes pre-installed with plug-ins to
send your design to your Mockup360
(Cloud hosted model collaboration) or
Configurator 360 (Cloud based design
configurator) accounts.
Application manager: The Autodesk
application manager will be installed
automatically with all Autodesk 2015 ●3 The direct
products. It sits on your machine modelling tools give
monitoring for updates from Autodesk. you a lot of control
over edits, but also
When it finds one it prompts you to store those edits as
download and install the update with part of the history
a single click, in a similar fashion to a tree for later edits or
Windows update. paramterisation
CONCLUSION
I love the attention that the Inventor
development team have given to the
existing customer base via the Beta
Forums, Autodesk Labs and the Inventor
IdeaStation.
For those of us that use Inventor every
day, it’s the little improvements that we
really appreciate (horizontal and vertical
sketch constraint indicators alone will save
hours of frustrated picking).
T-Splines in Inventor is welcome, but
extremely limited next to the far more
sophisticated implementation in Fusion
360.
The cynical side of me wonders whether
Autodesk could have included more
functionality, but decided to hold back so
that there would be something for us to
look forward to Inventor 2016.
Direct editing in Inventor has been Paul Munford is CAD/
CAM manager for
nicely handled, but it feels like Autodesk is
Halstock cabinet
responding, to developments in rival CAD makers in sunny
packages rather than innovating with this Dorset, UK. Paul uses
feature set. digital prototyping
My view is that Autodesk has the balance techniques to create
of maintenance and improvement just manufacturing
drawings for all
about perfect, but it might take a couple the lovely bits of
more releases until the housework is fine furniture that
finally caught up with and they have a finish off the inside
platform ready for some real innovation. of buildings. In his
My disappointments aside, I’ve really spare time Paul talks
about CAD far too
enjoyed working with Inventor 2015. I will
much if you’ll let
certainly be installing it for my team, and I him and writes the
really think that they are going to get a big CADsetterout blog
kick out of using it. cadsetterout.com
9/6/14 21:55:54
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Luxion KeyShot 5
» Its community is growing and adoption is increasing both through native users and,
increasingly, integrated sales with 3D CAD systems. Al Dean looks at one of the
most innovative renderers out there and wonders “where next?” for KeyShot
R
» Product: KeyShot 5 endering. I think it’s pretty
» Supplier: Luxion much accepted that more
Price: On Application designers and engineers do it
keyshot.com
now than ever before. Whether
through tools integrated into their
workhorse 3D design systems or using
standalone, special purpose tools — it’s
a common part of everyone’s workflows
and project task lists. One of the leading
exponents of the standalone crowd is
KeyShot. Developed by Luxion, it’s a
progressive renderer, meaning you get
the visuals streamed to your screen,
rather than waiting for a full test render
to finish.
It’s clean, it’s lean and it has found its way
into many users’ toolkits. With KeyShot 5,
the team behind the product has stepped
back and given the user interface a refresh,
added in a bunch of new tools to advance
the state of the art — as you’d expect from
a major release.
With that in mind, let’s step through how
●1 KeyShot 5 sees
the system works (for the benefit of those
an overhaul of the
that haven’t used the system) then look at
user interface to
bring commonly what’s been added, changed and enhanced.
used commands to As a lot of work has been done on how
the fore and open the user interface is laid out, let’s look
up the system’s at KeyShot from first principles. The
various options and
user interface is clean, which is a rarity
commands
(HDRI environment in standalone rendering systems. The
and back-plate from majority is devoted to the model viewing
hdrmaps.com) area. As experienced users will know,
p53_54_55_57_D3D_June14_KeyShot5.indd 53
there’s a strip of icons along the bottom
of the screen that bring up various panels
or task specific dialogs. These follow the
workflow required to set-up a model, so
let’s follow them.
IMPORT
File import is something that KeyShot has
nailed down either through third party data
translators or direct integration of CAD
vendor’s libraries.
The import option allows you to bring in
data from a variety of native CAD systems.
These include Alias, Catia, Inventor, Maya,
Creo, Pro/Engineer, Solid Edge, SolidWorks,
Unigraphics/NX and AutoCAD. Both parts
and assemblies are supported and you can
import more than one set of geometry to
build up your scene.
Non-native or standards-based formats
also have a good level of support, including
the usual suspects of STEP, IGES, Parasolid
and ACIS, as well as STL, Collada, FBX and
several more.
The import process provides a handful
of options depending on what you want to
do. These include the ability to have the
geometry centred in the environment,
snapping the model to the ground plane,
scaling as well as handling mismatches
between orientation of different CAD
systems’ co-ordinate systems (relating
to which axis is considered in the ‘up’
SOFTWARE REVIEW
direction).
Also worth considering is LiveLinking
introduced in the KeyShot 4 release. This
works with a specific set of data import
options (currently, Creo, SolidWorks, Rhino
and most recently, Solid Edge and Autodesk
Fusion 360) where a plug-in is installed into
the host CAD system and data ‘pushed’ to
KeyShot.
This establishes a link between the CAD
data and the KeyShot session, allowing you
to either push local updates, where specific
parts have changed, or wholesale updates
and have the system retain the material
and texture set-up you’ve already worked
on.
While the other options don’t have this
capability, it’s worth exploring the tools
available to work around this.
Once you have the data loaded into
KeyShot, you can kick off another Import
session and use the ‘update geometry’
option. This will look for part names
that match and swap out the geometry,
retaining materials as well.
There are then tools to assist with
repositioning the geometry, scaling it and
ensuring that the units match. While this
isn’t key for some projects, once you get
into using physically accurate light set-ups,
it will become more so.
With KeyShot 5 there’s also been some
work done on NURBS-based rendering,
DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 53
9/6/14 21:53:10

2 3
●2 &● 3 The new which is worth looking at.
NURBS-based
rendering allows users TESELLATION & NURBS
to overcome issues
with smaller details in To date, KeyShot has relied on the
tessellated models tesellation (conversion of nice clean
●4 KeyShot Cloud surfaces into a polygon mesh) to get the
allows users to search, data into the system and to base the
filter and find new rendering process on. With KeyShot 5,
materials and textures there is now the option to import and, more
from Luxion’s own
importantly, use the NURBS data from 3D
libraries, third party
material vendors and CAD geometry.
the user community While the import options (even as default)
do a pretty good job of importing to the
right settings, it’s often the case that
with large scale, complex assemblies, the
global, overall nature of that tessellation
means that smaller components might be
somewhat faceted. That, is the nature of
the beast.
Figure 2 shows a small detail area in
a large model that, at full zoom, looks
and renders nicely. But zooming into the
details, the tesselation starts to show,
particularly on round or highly curved
features.
When it comes to product detail shots,
to show off smaller features in a large
assembly (in terms of scale, rather than
number of parts), this would typically mean
reimporting the geometry again at a higher
rate of tessellation — often just to get those
details rendered nicely.
With KeyShot 5, on import, it’s possible to
have the system keep the NURBS geometry
as part of the native BIP file and switch to
NURBS rendering. As seen in Figure 3, this
cleans up those polygons and provides a
nice smooth rendered surface — all from
the same model.
As ever, there’s a trade off here.
Rendering from NURBS takes longer —
much longer (three times as much for this
image alone) and the BIP file is much larger.
Though, with today’s storage technology,
that’s not as much of an issue as it once
was.
The NURBS toggle is also holistic. This
means that while you can toggle between
mesh and NURBS rendering, it switches out
the whole scene to render off the NURBS.
According to the Luxion folks, this is a
first release, so I’d expect that the ability to
switch specific components to NURBS might
come in a point release over the coming
54 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p53_54_55_57_D3D_June14_KeyShot5.indd 54
months (don’t hold me to that though).
LIBRARY & PROJECT
Once the data is in the system, it’s then a
process of working through the materials
and texture assignment process. This is
divided into two panels. The first, Project,
holds everything that pertains to a specific
project. KeyShot retains component
groups and sub-groups and these can be
manipulated as you’d expect.
Components can be hidden and show
from here or directly from the interface.
The Project panel also contains all of
the settings for Camera, Environment
and Material. How those Materials and
Environments are assigned is from the
Library panel.
The Library panel pops up by default to
the left hand side of the interface. It’s from
here that various assets can be dragged
and dropped into a scene.
Materials is a big focus for KeyShot. Its
library has been expanding with each
release with both new home brew shaders
from the Luxion team as well as fleshing
out vendor specific options.
For KeyShot 5, the way these are
delivered is changing. While the software
is still installed with a comprehensive set
of basics (from metals, plastics, woods,
paints and many more), these can be
quickly expanded by taking advantage of
KeyShot Cloud.
This new offering allows the team and
its community to share various assets. It
also covers backplates and environments,
which we’ll get onto shortly.
Just log-in, search or browse for the
materials (or a close match to adapt) and
download them into the installation.
The goal is to create a central resource
for the KeyShot community to add, adapt
and remix each other’s work and share
it. This is similar to what Luxion has been
doing in the user forums for quite some
time. The difference is that these are
immediately available to all users once
they upgrade.
Of course, you can also upload your
own assets and share them if you feel so
inclined. Interestingly, this also enables
Luxion to partner with vendors to share
texture and material information more
readily, without bulking out the installation
process.
A good example is how the system is
installed with a sample of Mold-tech
injection moulding grains, but the full set
is now available (searchable by grain code
name) to everyone. The same goes for the
DuPont car paint materials.
Leather vendor Søresen
(sorensenleather.com) has also uploaded
specific leather colours and textures for
use by the KeyShot community.
ASSIgning materials
The process of assigning materials is
straightfoward in the first instance. If a
preset is being used, it can be found in the
Library (the search tools come in handy)
and then dragged onto the part it is being
assigned to. Simple as that.
That material can then be adapted to
specific requirements, which can be saved
back to the library. If additional details
need to be added, these are assigned as
Decals on a per material per part basis,
positioned, scaled and ready to go.
Previous releases had an issue with
the ‘per material’ nature of the beast.
Essentially, swapping out the underlying
material meant a loss of decals.
From KeyShot 5 onwards, holding the
‘alt’ key will allow you to switch underlying
material with a drag and drop, but retain
any decals in place.
4
9/6/14 21:53:11

ENVIRONMENTS & HDR images
The next step in the workflow is to experiment
with lighting in the scene. KeyShot uses HDR
images, which provide adjustable lighting that
gives physically accurate lighting and shadows.
The system is supplied with a good set of both
interior, studio style, lighting environments as well
as a number of exterior scenes.
These can, of course, be supplemented with
HDR images that are available from a wide variety
of sources, either for free or from commercial
photography sites. While HDR images provide
adjustability in terms of size, rotate as well as
brightness and contrast, there might be an
occasion where you either want to fix an issue or
correct something in the file — and chances are
you can’t reshoot them.
Here, KeyShot has a couple of options. The
first is the ability to add in physical lights. This
helps place lights, highlights and shadows where
needed as well as to represent light sources in the
model. They can be mixed as seen fit (in terms of
brightness, colour etc.) or more standardised IES
format lighting description files are available from
many manufacturers. These will provide the exact
light emission properties that the physical product
should.
KeyShot 4 saw the introduction of HDR editing
tools in the Environment Editor dialog. This allows
for some clever software tricks to add in standard
size and form light sources into the HDR image —
directly inside KeyShot. If you want to go further,
perhaps to build HDR images for this purpose from
scratch, then a third party tool can be used — one
of which is HDRLightStudio (hdrlightstudio.
com — see over the page for more details) which
integrates directly with KeyShot as well as many
other systems.
Also related to the Environment Editor is a
new one for KeyShot 5, namely the ability to
automatically create a sun and sky HDR image.
Give the system the location, from a drop down list
of cities or using the geographic co-ordinates, the
workflow: KEYSHOT’s PERSPECTIVE MATCHING with back plates
●1 Get your model ready with materials and textures
applied. The default environments don’t provide too much
detail, highlights or low-lights, it’s a good time add in a HDR
●4 KeyShot 5 (it’s a Pro feature) brings Perspective
Matching. This gives you either two or three point
perspective grid that you need to adapt to the backplate
p53_54_55_57_D3D_June14_KeyShot5.indd 55
date, the turbidity (which means cloudiness, for
the rest of us) and it’ll do the rest. For most users,
this won’t be much use, but for those working in
the automotive visualisation sector, it’ll save a lot
of hassle.
cameras & Set-up
By now, the workflow will have a model with all of
the materials and textures in place. The user can
now work through any design change and quickly
rationalise any updates to the model using a
variety of methods.
The environment and lighting will also be in
place, which means the desired effect is ready —
whether that’s an interior product photoshoot, a
reflection analysis from a studio set-up or placing
a product model in an environment that’s realistic.
Just as you would if you’re conducting a real world
photoshoot.
The next step in the workflow is to get the angle
— again, mimicking the real world photoshoot
process. You can, if you choose, use a solid
colour as the background, an environment image
(assuming you can get the scaling correct — this
can be rather tricky) or another way is to use a
back plate.
Essentially, this is a static image into which a
model is placed. With careful adjustment of the
camera, the lens (to match that with which the
photo was taken) and some jiggery pokery, you
can get a good match — but traditionally, it takes
time.
With KeyShot 5, however, the system gets
perspective matching. We detail how this works
below in our workflow, but the essence is as
follows. Position a series of axes in the model
window to identify where the same axes lie in the
photograph.
This will switch the perspective of KeyShot’s
‘camera’ so everything should match. You can then
fine tune the position of the model and render it
out.
Figure 1 on the first page of this review shows
●2 The problem is that unless you’re very lucky, the
environment map won’t map the look you’re going for with
your model and its surroundings (courtesy of HDRmaps.com)
●
5 Each of the vectors is lined up with a feature in the
photograph that match the X, Y and Z axes. This adapts the
perspective settings of KeyShot to the back plate photograph
SOFTWARE REVIEW
how it looks and it’s dead simple to use and works
very well indeed, saving a lot of time and hassle
tweaking things.
Render & POST-processing
In terms of computation, let’s rip through the
basics. KeyShot is, as is increasingly prevalent, a
progressive renderer. This means that as a model
is loaded, materials added and view changed, the
render window updates with a streaming view of
the final result. That gives a good, solid idea of
what is being worked on and the expected results,
before you hit that final render process.
It’s also worth a quick chat about network
rendering. As use of high-end visualisation
increases, so with it does the requirement for
more processing horse power. While today’s
workstations (the big desktop bound ones at least)
have more processing cores than ever before,
but there are always occasions when it’s not
quite enough — usually in the run up to a client or
management presentation.
To assist with this, KeyShot has network
rendering, so that spare workstation and compute
capacity can be used when needed.
Set-up is pretty simple and requires that on
each slave machine, a small app is installed (it
works across both Windows, Mac and a mixed
environment) and then everything will run from
the master licenses.
These are sold on a per core bundle annual
basis and start at $480 for 32 cores, which should
cover around eight standard single processor
workstations providing that extra horsepower
when needed.
At the other end of the spectrum, while KeyShot
takes full advantage of all of the CPUs/cores
available in your local workstation, these can max
out and when that deadline is looming, you need a
little more push.
It’s worth noting, however, that you can now
limit the use of the cores in your local workstation
to keep a core or more free for other tasks.
●3 A back plate gives you a fixed shot into which you can
place your model. But more often than not, these don’t
match the perspective and lens settings of the photo
●
6 Once done, you can rotate the model and camera and it
should maintain the perspective settings of the camera and
match it in nicely to the back plate, making it more realistic
DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 55
9/6/14 21:53:13
TCT 2014 Register Advert_Layout 1 04/11/2013 18:55 Page 1
 SOFTWARE REVIEW

AnIMATION
We’re rapidly running out of room for
covering the animation tools in KeyShot,
but these are pretty simple and effective.
There’s a couple of prebaked animation
styles (turntable, rotisserie) that provide
quick, effective results without much
hassle.
For KeyShot 5, these haven’t changed
a great deal, but it is worth noting that
the component fade in/fade out options
are a nice introduction, allowing you to
animate the transparency of a component
(or group) to give animations, particularly
when showing internal details or
assembly/disassembly, a little more clout.

Conclusion
With KeyShot 5 the team at Luxion has
shown that there’s room to improve what’s
already an incredibly easy to use system.
KeyShot’s strength is in the simplicity of
the process.
I’m sure there are more powerful
renderers out there, but to be frank, most
of us don’t have time to spend fiddling
with dialogs and tweaking settings —
there’s work to be done and stunning 5
images are a requirement rather than a
luxury these days.
Seemingly small updates, such as the And, if you don’t like the new toolbar creating ever more sophisticated imagery, ●
5 The new Duplicate

sky and sun generator, the perspective
matching tools and many others, are
perfect additions. They solve workflows
and common issues that many might
face and allow them to be completed in a
couple of clicks, rather than hours spent
rendering, swearing at the screen and
re-rendering.
New users won’t spot the user interface
refresh, but existing users will find those
commonly used but hidden options more
readily available — that’s always a bonus.
across the top, you can simply switch it off.
The introduction of KeyShot Cloud is a
smart use of cloud technologies. Rather
than having a separate website where
these things are stored, you access them
in the application and download them
directly and use immediately.
But perhaps the biggest highlight,
particularly for those working with large
datasets, is the ability to work with NURBS
data as well as tessellated meshes.
As we all become more comfortable with
our tolerance of poorly constructed tools allow the
instancing of multiple
surfaces diminishes. While it’s not yet
copies of the same
ideal, it’s a good start and with options to dataset without a
switch specific components where needed, linear increase in
will round it out perfectly. compute requirements
Once again, KeyShot’s simplicity belies that you’d normally
its power. The fact that you can load up expect
a model, throw on the materials and
textures, chuck in an environment and
back plate, and render it, without too
much preamble, knob twiddling and
general fannying about, is the perfect mix.

HDR LIGHT STUDIO & KEYSHOT: MASTERING CUSTOM HDR ENVIRONMENTS

KeyShot 3.1 introduced the Environment Editor,
which allows KeyShot Pro users to adapt and
edit, in basic terms, any HDR image that they’re
working with, directly inside the rendering system.
But what happens if you can’t find an image
to adapt, want to add realistic light sources to
a physically captured environment or to build
perfect lighting from scratch to match your own
requirements?
The options are limited. Everyone’s favourite
image editor, Photoshop, has, for some time
featured HDR image editing features but these are
not well suited to creating HDR latitude-longitude
lighting images.
A much better alternative is HDR Light Studio,
which starts at £195. This brings a small, nimble
application providing a set of tools that are
explicitly developed to assist with creating
and adapting HDR lighting images for design
visualisation. 6
Essentially, you can either start with a
background gradient or an existing HDR image,
then use the tools to add in procedural or image to real world lighting values, rather than an the highlights, illumination and rim details (along ●
6 HDR Light Studio
based lights. Procedural lights can even be used to abstract numerical range. hard edges) and the system calculates where to includes synthetic
locally adjust exposure, colour and saturation. At all times, HDR Light Studio has a real-time position the light source on the HDRI map to get lights as well as
The system also includes a library of preview window that lets you judge the effect of the desired effect. KeyShot (on Windows only) can those that provide
photographic light sources that add total realism your edits on either an industry standard teapot also launch a live session with a HDR Light Studio accurate lighting and
to your shots. Whether it’s soft boxes, spots, real or a custom model you load in. The last release image so you can see the effect of your lighting reflections from real
windows, there’s a huge choice with a great deal saw the introduction of a tool called LightPaint. edits in real-time. We’ll be taking a look at HDR world light
of options available. All of the lights in the system LightPaint provides point and click lighting Light Studio in more depth next issue.
can be positioned, rotated and adapted according simplicity — click on your model where you want hdrlightstudio.com

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 57

p53_54_55_57_D3D_June14_KeyShot5.indd 57 9/6/14 21:53:31

 SOFTWARE REVIEW
Delcam PowerShape Pro 2014
» When it comes to 3D design tools, PowerShape is a rarity. It’s just as comfortable
working with surfaces and solids as it is with meshes and scan data. Al Dean delves
in and reports on some of the highlights in this latest release
D
» Product: elcam has been in the 3D
PowerShape Pro 2014 design industry news a lot
» Supplier: Delcam
of late. Its acquisition and
Price: On Application
subsequent announcements
delcam.com
from its new parent company,
Autodesk, have seen its profile raised
higher than ever before. Much of
that hype has concentrated on the
company’s range of CAM products
— from the high-end surface-based
machining tools in PowerMill to the
production CAM of FeatureCAM and
into the more specialised areas with
PartMaker.
In the design world, the company’s
name and reputation is focused on
enabling users (typically in the mould
and die design process, but by no means
limited to it) to work with the geometry
they have, adapting, editing and
preparing it for production readiness.
This means that PowerShape Pro has
always been comfortable working with
a mix of solids and surfaces, without
really favouring one over the other (as is
●1 PowerShape Pro common with many systems).
now includes some In the last few years, Delcam has gained
rather nifty core and a lot of expertise, not only in working
cavity design tools
with polygon data or meshes, but also
●2 PowerShape’s new
the process and ins and outs of capturing
Shrinkwrap tools let
you drape a surface that data.
over complex polygon While much of that work was done
meshes to support the development of its
58 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p58_59_D3D_June14_PowerShape.indd 58
PowerInspect system, the last few
release cycles have seen more and more
capability to mix not only solids and
surfaces, but also polygon meshes, point
clouds and much more into the core of
PowerShape.
So let’s take a look at some of the
highlights of this release, starting with
how PowerShape can now work with that
point cloud and mesh data and also assist
in its capture.
Point to Surfaces & Solids
With the previous major release
(PowerShape Pro 2013), Delcam added
support to use laser scanning devices
directly within the application. This type
of task is typically handled by a third
party application, but not in this instance.
PowerShape Pro gained the ability to
plug in commonly found hardware (from
Romer, Faro, Creaform, Nikon, Perception,
etc.), capture the data, clean and repair it
resulting in a point cloud (and associated
mesh) from which analytic surfaces and
solid features can be reconstructed.
The 2014 release builds on this
foundation to make the reconstruction
process more intelligent and efficient. As
with many of Delcam’s tools it follows a
well defined process that guides, rather
than prescribes, the user through the
process.
The first step is to perform an analysis
of the point cloud. This is based on an
algorithm that looks for curvature as
well as other, more structured forms,
such as planar faces, cylindrical features,
pockets, fillets and such.
The end result is a point cloud-based
mesh that’s segmented into regions that
define each surface or feature type.
You then use the tools built into
PowerShape Pro to construct each of
these features. The odds of automating
such work is pretty much limited to the
realms of a demo, the system instead
relies on providing tools to quickly add in
the features that are easily identified.
Once all the geometry is in place, the
system provides tools to manipulate the
surfaces, trim/extend where needed and
join them up.
All throughout the process, tools are
given to measure against the underlying
points or polygons to make sure you’ve
got things to the correct dimensions.
COMPLEX POINT CLOUDS
Alongside the new tools to deal with
prismatic parts, there’s also a more
complex type of geometry that can now
be worked with in PowerShape Pro. These
are typically scanned items that feature
heavy detailing, either from scanned
geometry, from imported STLs and the
9/6/14 21:53:57
 SOFTWARE REVIEW

like, or from Delcam’s ArtCAM decorative design

system.
These new Shrink-wrap tools let you drape a
NURBS surface patch (or set of) over the polygon
mesh so that it can, if required, be incorporated
into models that also feature solids and surfaces.
Again, PowerShape Pro has had this type of
tool for some time, but the process is now more
efficient and requires fewer workarounds.

core & caVitY deSiGn

Just as with the points to solids workflow,
another area to get more intelligence is the
design of cores and cavities for mould and die
design.
This is something that PowerShape Pro has
always been able to do, but the new tools make it
more automated where possible.
The workflow begins with the model of the part
in question. The main draw direction is identified
on the model and an analysis is quickly run to find
which surfaces need to relate to the core, and to
the cavity and those where a slider action or an
insert is required.
Each is automatically assigned to the group that
it needs to be, where possible. Animation and
undercut shading tools are available to preview
the mould’s action.
Of course, while many other systems provide
this type of tool, Delcam adds in some of its
special magic to make the process more suited to
working with complex forms.
Typically, there are always going to be faces
that bridge the parting line and need to be split,
or their assignment is ambiguous. PowerShape
Pro makes light work of the process as you split
the faces, reassign the new forms to the correct
‘side’ and continue around the model.
Solid ModellinG
While PowerShape Pro’s reputation has, perhaps,
been built on its ability to work with complex
surfaces, the last four years have seen the system
gain more power when it comes to working with
solid geometry.
A couple of years ago, Delcam adopted the
Parasolid modelling kernel and the developments
since have shown how the company is applying
its unique perspective to the solid modelling
process.
This release continues this with more direct
modelling tools that allow changes to be made
quickly and efficiently.
It also sees the incorporation of more feature/
history type tools to create the forms that its
customers need to do on a daily basis, but might
struggle to do in more mainstream applications.
A perfect example is the ability to sketch out
the profile of a slot then wrap that slot around
the geometry it’s required to be cut into or built
out from.
These types of features would typically need
several steps and features, but can now be
accomplished with ease.
You sketch the profile on a plane normal to the
form (typically a cylinder, perhaps in a shaft),
then the system wraps it and creates nice clean
surfaces to build the form.
2
concluSion
There’s much talk about the growing use of
reverse engineering technology. At the entry
level, prices are dropping (as evidenced by the
3D Systems Sense we looked at in the May issue)
and the whole market is moving towards more
accessible hardware.
What’s rarely discussed is the need to be able
to do something constructive with that data once
you’ve got it.
Additional tools are often needed to prep the
data to transfer into a more traditional 3D design
system. PowerShape Pro circumvents this by
enabling the whole workflow to be conducted in
a single system, without the need for additional
investment.
When combined with the system’s existing
tools (that are enhanced with each release)
for handling surfaces, solids and moving them
through the design to manufacture process, you
end up with an incredibly powerful system that’s
worthy of investigation by many.

WORKFLOW: TAKING SCAN DATA TO AN ANALYTIC SURFACE & SOLID MODEL

●1 Re-capture the physical part using a wide range of ●2 Combine and align multiple scans into a single mesh ready ●3 Re-model the part using any combination of solids and
devices, including touch probes and laser scanners for re-engineering surfaces, exactly as the original designer intended

●4 Use PowerShape’s direct modelling tools to prepare the ●5 Create detailed 2D drawings that are fully associative with ●
6 Use powerful assembly tools to design the finished
part for manufacture the model ready-to-use tooling

DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 59

p58_59_D3D_June14_PowerShape.indd 59 9/6/14 21:53:59

 DEVELOP3DSERVICES
To advertise YOUR services here contact STEVE KING
STEVE@X3DMEDIA.com | +44 (0) 20 3355 7314 | +44 (0)7850 507362

Welcome to DEVELOP3D’s professional

services section for product development
+PIO
&XBOT
%FTJHO
professionals.
*OEVTUSJBM
%FTJHO
To see your service advertised here,
please contact Steve King. .FDIBOJDBM
&OHJOFFSJOH
steve@x3dmedia.com 3BQJE
1SPUPUZQJOH
+44 (0)20 3355 7314 / +44 (0)7850 507362
1SPEVDU
*NQMFNFOUBUJPO
4PVSDJOH



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JOGP!KPIOFXBOTEFTJHODPVL

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XXXKPIOFXBOTEFTJHODPVL

Product
Design

World class design

and analysis to the
Composites,
Composites Design
Aerospace and & FE Analysis
Automotive
sectors.

Airbus
Boeing CS/FAR 25 Analysis

FIA F1/LMP Structures

R&D
Solutions

+44 (0)1243 840022

www.fluidformdesign.co.uk

60 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM

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 DEVELOP3DJOBS
Welcome to DEVELOP3D’s jobs section.
Every issue we will bring you the latest product development
jobs to help you kick start your career.

In partnership with CADjobhunter.com we also have a dynamic

jobs website where you can find your dream job by searching by location,
keyword or CAD/CAM/CAE software.
Alternatively upload your CV to help your future employer find you.
Register your details at

jobs.develop3d.com
To advertise on the website or
inside the magazine contact
Matt Wells
matt@x3dmedia.com
+44 (0) 1252 414007

SUPPORTING EXCELLENCE CAREERS

Due to strong growth, Solid Solutions are looking to expand our team throughout our UK offices. Founded in 1998, we are the UK’s leading and largest
supplier of SolidWorks. These roles offer an exceptional opportunity to work with some of the best people in the industry, selling a leading CAD product.

REGIONAL SALES MANAGERS SALES EXECUTIVES

Positions in Scotland & Ireland Leamington Spa, Fareham, Leeds, Durham

Up to £34,000 base salary (based on experience) Up to £28,000 base salary (based on experience)
+Commission (£75k OTE) +Car/car allowance +Commission +Bonuses (£50K OTE)

We are seeking two ambitious individuals with CAD industry
experience and proven sales track record to grow our business
in both Scotland and Ireland. This is a fantastic opportunity to
expand on the existing Solid Solutions success and take
responsibility for a large territory.
Both roles would include selling the full range of SolidWorks
solutions to both customers and new business opportunities.
Successful candidates will need to be self-starters, with the
ability to work under their own initiative, building and controlling
additional resources as required.
This is an entry-level sales position responsible for generating
new business opportunities through sales and marketing
initiatives, and managing an allocation of existing customer
accounts. Activities include prospecting for new business, lead
follow-up and qualification, conducting customer meetings and
demonstrations, creating proposals and closing business.
Ideally you will have a relevant qualification in engineering or
business. The role would suit an engineer transitioning to sales.
Career development program and full training given with the
opportunity to progress to a Regional Sales Manager.

If you are interested in joining our successful and hardworking team, please send your CV to:
recruitment@solidsolutions.co.uk or visit www.solidsolutions.co.uk/work-for-us

MORE DETAILS AT http://goo.gl/udqfpp

To advertise Contact Matt Wells | matt@x3dmedia.com | +44 (0) 1252 414007 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 61

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 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM

MORE DETAILS AT http://goo.gl/udqfpp

62 JUNE 2014 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM To advertise Contact Matt Wells | matt@x3dmedia.com | +44 (0) 1252 414007

p61_62_63_64_65_D3D_JUNE14_jobs.indd 62 9/6/14 21:56:34

 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM

Where next?
Wherever you take us.

DESIGN, MECHANICAL AND RESEARCH ENGINEERS

£COMPETITIVE | WILTSHIRE, UK

What’s next for Dyson? You tell us. Actually, you won’t just tell us, you’ll show us. Because we’ll give you
the freedom to invent, to pursue your ideas and to push technological boundaries.
Great things are happening here. Not only are we working on some incredible new projects, but we’re
continuing to invest heavily in our UK Research, Design and Development (RDD) centre. Which tells you
two things. Firstly, that we’re doing fantastically well as a global business. Secondly, just how vitally
important engineers are to us. In many ways, engineers are Dyson. That’s why we’re looking for more
like minds to join us and create the technology of the future.
So if you’re unafraid to take risks and ready to turn conventional thinking on its head, we need to hear
from you. Your background could be mechanical engineering, technology, science.... we’re open to
ideas. Find out more at www.careers.dyson.com

MORE DETAILS AT http://goo.gl/akwu82

To advertise Contact Matt Wells | matt@x3dmedia.com | +44 (0) 1252 414007 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 63

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 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM

MORE DETAILS AT http://goo.gl/W9KEuk

GBD are an award winning product

design and engineering consultancy.
We have a wide range of clients from
multinational companies to innovating
entrepreneurs creating an interesting
and challenging range of design
opportunities.

As a result of our continued success

and future workload we are looking for
designers to join us at a
well-established consultancy based in
Hampshire on the edge of the New
Forest.

Competitive salaries dependent on

experience.

Email CV’s & mini folio to:

jgreaves@greavesbest.com

www.greavesbest.com

Creative Product Designers Product Engineers

With excellent 3D modelling (SolidWorks) & visualization With good engineering degree and competent 3DCAD skills
(Keyshot, Adobe CS) skills and a thorough understanding of (SolidWorks). Able to design, detail and tolerance for a wide
the design process, materials and manufacturing. You will range of materials and manufacturing processes. A minimum
have a good product design degree and ideally 2 year’s of of 2 year’s industrial or consultancy experience is required.
industrial or consultancy experience.
STRICTLY NO AGENCIES PLEASE

MORE DETAILS AT http://goo.gl/0glEi9

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 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM

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tĞĂƌĞŶŽǁƌĞĐƌƵŝƟŶŐĨŽƌƚŚĞĨŽůůŽǁŝŶŐĞdžƉĞƌƟƐĞ͗

WƌĞͲ^ĂůĞƐƉƉůŝĐĂƟŽŶƐŶŐŝŶĞĞƌ Electrical Specialist

Trained to degree level, or equivalent, in mechanical
engineering, product/industrial design or with
equivalent industrial experience, the successful
applicant will already have experience of using
^K>/tKZ<^ŝŶŝŶĚƵƐƚƌLJŽƌĂĚĞƐŝŐŶĐŽŶƐƵůƚĂŶĐLJ͕
together with an understanding of business issues
ĨĂĐĞĚďLJĚĞƐŝŐŶĞƌƐ͘
zŽƵǁŝůůŚĂǀĞĞdžĐĞůůĞŶƚĐŽŵŵƵŶŝĐĂƟŽŶƐŬŝůůƐƚŽŐĞƚŚĞƌ
ǁŝƚŚŽƵƚƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐŝŶƚĞƌƉĞƌƐŽŶĂůĂŶĚƉƌĞƐĞŶƚĂƟŽŶƐŬŝůůƐ
ĂŶĚŚĂǀĞƚŚĞĂďŝůŝƚLJƚŽĨƵŶĐƟŽŶĞŝƚŚĞƌŝŶĚĞƉĞŶĚĞŶƚůLJŽƌ
ǁŝƚŚŝŶĂƚĞĂŵĞŶǀŝƌŽŶŵĞŶƚ͘
zŽƵǁŝůůďĞƌĞƋƵŝƌĞĚƚŽĐĂƌƌLJŽƵƚƚĞĐŚŶŝĐĂůĚĞŵŽŶƐƚƌĂƟŽŶƐ
ŽĨƚŚĞ^K>/tKZ<^ĂŶĚEdDƉƌŽĚƵĐƚƉŽƌƞŽůŝŽ
to customers and new business prospects, primarily in
^ĐŽƚůĂŶĚĂŶĚƚŚĞEŽƌƚŚŽĨŶŐůĂŶĚ͘
ŽŶƟŶƵĂůĚĞǀĞůŽƉŵĞŶƚŽĨLJŽƵƌƚĞĐŚŶŝĐĂůƐŬŝůůƐƚŽ
ĂĐŚŝĞǀĞ^K>/tKZ<^ĐĞƌƟĮĐĂƟŽŶƐǁŝƚŚĂƐƉĞĐŝĂů
ĞŵƉŚĂƐŝƐŽŶ&ͬ^ŝŵƵůĂƟŽŶǁŝůůďĞƉĂƌƚŽĨLJŽƵƌĚƵƟĞƐ͕
ĂŶĚĨƌŽŵƟŵĞƚŽƟŵĞLJŽƵŵĂLJďĞƌĞƋƵŝƌĞĚƚŽĐĂƌƌLJŽƵƚ
ƚƌĂŝŶŝŶŐŽĨ^K>/tKZ<^ƉƌŽĚƵĐƚƐ͕ĞŝƚŚĞƌŽĸĐĞďĂƐĞĚ
ŽƌŽŶĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐŝƚĞ͘,ŽǁĞǀĞƌƚŚŝƐǁŝůůŶŽƚďĞƚŚĞ
ƉƌŝŵĂƌLJĨŽĐƵƐŽĨƚŚŝƐƉŽƐŝƟŽŶ͘
ZĞƉŽƌƟŶŐĚŝƌĞĐƚůLJƚŽŽƵƌWƌĞͲ^ĂůĞƐDĂŶĂŐĞƌ͕LJŽƵǁŝůůĞŶũŽLJ
ǁŽƌŬŝŶŐǁŝƚŚŝŶĂďƵƐLJΘĚLJŶĂŵŝĐ^ĂůĞƐĞŶǀŝƌŽŶŵĞŶƚ͘
Trained to degree level, or equivalent, in electro-
mechanical engineering, mechanical engineering or
electrical engineering, or with equivalent industrial
experience, the successful applicant will ideally have a
minimum of 12 month’s experience working with
ĞůĞĐƚƌŝĐĂůƐĐŚĞŵĂƟĐƐŽŌǁĂƌĞ͕ƉƌĞĨĞƌĂďůLJϯ͘
zŽƵǁŝůůŚĂǀĞĞdžĐĞůůĞŶƚĐŽŵŵƵŶŝĐĂƟŽŶƐŬŝůůƐƚŽŐĞƚŚĞƌ
ǁŝƚŚŽƵƚƐƚĂŶĚŝŶŐŝŶƚĞƌƉĞƌƐŽŶĂůĂŶĚƉƌĞƐĞŶƚĂƟŽŶƐŬŝůůƐ
ĂŶĚŚĂǀĞƚŚĞĂďŝůŝƚLJƚŽĨƵŶĐƟŽŶĞŝƚŚĞƌŝŶĚĞƉĞŶĚĞŶƚůLJŽƌ
ǁŝƚŚŝŶĂƚĞĂŵĞŶǀŝƌŽŶŵĞŶƚ͘
You will be required to carry out technical
ĚĞŵŽŶƐƚƌĂƟŽŶƐŽĨƚŚĞ^K>/tKZ<^ůĞĐƚƌŝĐĂůĂŶĚEd
DƉƌŽĚƵĐƚƉŽƌƞŽůŝŽƚŽĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐĂŶĚŶĞǁ
ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐƉƌŽƐƉĞĐƚƐ͕ĂƚŽƵƌŽĸĐĞƐ͕ŽŶĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐŝƚĞĂŶĚ
ǀŝĂǁĞďŝŶĂƌĂƉƉůŝĐĂƟŽŶƐ͘
ŽŶƟŶƵĂůĚĞǀĞůŽƉŵĞŶƚŽĨLJŽƵƌƚĞĐŚŶŝĐĂůƐŬŝůůƐƚŽ
ĂĐŚŝĞǀĞ^K>/tKZ<^ĐĞƌƟĮĐĂƟŽŶƐǁŝƚŚĂƐƉĞĐŝĂů
ĞŵƉŚĂƐŝƐŽŶ^K>/tKZ<^ůĞĐƚƌŝĐĂůǁŝůůďĞƉĂƌƚŽĨLJŽƵƌ
ĚƵƟĞƐ͕ĂŶĚĨƌŽŵƟŵĞƚŽƟŵĞLJŽƵŵĂLJďĞƌĞƋƵŝƌĞĚƚŽ
ĐĂƌƌLJŽƵƚƚƌĂŝŶŝŶŐŽĨ^K>/tKZ<^ůĞĐƚƌŝĐĂů͕ĞŝƚŚĞƌ
ŽĸĐĞďĂƐĞĚŽƌŽŶĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐŝƚĞ͘
ZĞƉŽƌƟŶŐĚŝƌĞĐƚůLJƚŽŽƵƌWƌĞͲ^ĂůĞƐDĂŶĂŐĞƌ͕LJŽƵǁŝůůĞŶũŽLJ
ǁŽƌŬŝŶŐǁŝƚŚŝŶĂďƵƐLJΘĚLJŶĂŵŝĐ^ĂůĞƐĞŶǀŝƌŽŶŵĞŶƚ͘

&ŽƌŵŽƌĞŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶĂďŽƵƚĞŝƚŚĞƌŽĨƚŚĞƐĞƌŽůĞƐŽƌEdDƉůĞĂƐĞĐŽŶƚĂĐƚdĞƌƌLJK͛ZĞŝůůLJŽŶϬϭϴϰϰϮϵϱϮϯϱ͕ŽƌƚŽ
ƐƵďŵŝƚLJŽƵƌĂƉƉůŝĐĂƟŽŶƐĞŶĚLJŽƵƌsǁŝƚŚĂĐŽǀĞƌŝŶŐŝŶƚƌŽĚƵĐƟŽŶƚŽƚĞƌƌLJ͘ŽƌĞŝůůLJΛŶƚĐĂĚĐĂŵ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ͘

Training Engineer
Trained to degree level, or equivalent, in mechanical, aerospace, product/industrial design or with equivalent industrial
ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ͕LJŽƵƐŚŽƵůĚŝĚĞĂůůLJŚĂǀĞϯLJĞĂƌƐ͛ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞŝŶŝŶĚƵƐƚƌŝĂůĚĞƐŝŐŶǁŝƚŚĂŶŝŶǀŽůǀĞŵĞŶƚŝŶĚĞƐŝŐŶƐŝŵƵůĂƟŽŶ͘dŚĞ
ƐƵĐĐĞƐƐĨƵůĂƉƉůŝĐĂŶƚǁŝůůĂůƌĞĂĚLJŚĂǀĞĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞŽĨƵƐŝŶŐ^K>/tKZ<^ŽƌŽƚŚĞƌϯƐLJƐƚĞŵƐ͘
You should have the ability to understand business issues faced by designers, great inter-personal skills, be
ƉƌŽĨĞƐƐŝŽŶĂůĂŶĚŚĂǀĞƚŚĞĂďŝůŝƚLJƚŽƚƌĂŝŶ^K>/tKZ<^WƌŽĚƵĐƚƐǁŝƚŚƉĂƐƐŝŽŶ͘
zŽƵǁŝůůďĞƌĞƋƵŝƌĞĚƚŽĐĂƌƌLJŽƵƚƚĞĐŚŶŝĐĂůƚƌĂŝŶŝŶŐŽĨƚŚĞ^K>/tKZ<^ĂŶĚEdDƉŽƌƞŽůŝŽŽĨƉƌŽĚƵĐƚƐƚŽ
ĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐĂƚŽƵƌŽĸĐĞƐ͕ŽŶĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐŝƚĞĂŶĚǀŝĂǁĞďĂƉƉůŝĐĂƟŽŶƐ͘ŽŶƟŶƵĂůĚĞǀĞůŽƉŵĞŶƚŽĨLJŽƵƌƚĞĐŚŶŝĐĂůƐŬŝůůƐƚŽ
ĂĐŚŝĞǀĞ^K>/tKZ<^ĐĞƌƟĮĐĂƟŽŶƐǁŝƚŚĂƐƉĞĐŝĂůĞŵƉŚĂƐŝƐŽŶ&ͬ^ŝŵƵůĂƟŽŶǁŝůůďĞƉĂƌƚŽĨLJŽƵƌĚƵƟĞƐ͘

&ŽƌŵŽƌĞŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶĂďŽƵƚƚŚŝƐƌŽůĞƉůĞĂƐĞĐŽŶƚĂĐƚ^ŝŵŽŶĂŐƵůĞLJŽŶϬϭϴϰϰϮϵϱϮϯϱ͕ŽƌƐƵďŵŝƚLJŽƵƌĂƉƉůŝĐĂƟŽŶďLJ
ƐĞŶĚŝŶŐLJŽƵƌsǁŝƚŚĂĐŽǀĞƌŝŶŐŝŶƚƌŽĚƵĐƟŽŶƚŽƐŝŵŽŶ͘ďĂŐƵůĞLJΛŶƚĐĂĚĐĂŵ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ͘
ĐŽŵƉĞƟƟǀĞƐĂůĂƌLJ͕ƉĂŝĚŚŽůŝĚĂLJĂŶĚĐŽŵĨŽƌƚĂďůĞǁŽƌŬŝŶŐĂƚŵŽƐƉŚĞƌĞĂǁĂŝƚƐLJŽƵ͕ǁŚŝĐŚǁŝůůďĞĚĞƉĞŶĚĞŶƚƵƉŽŶ
LJŽƵƌƐŬŝůůƐĂŶĚĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ͘

NT CADCAM REGISTERED OFFICES IN

• Aberdeen • Birmingham • Bristol • Manchester • Newcastle • Norwich • Oxford •^ŚĞĸĞůĚ•^ƟƌůŝŶŐ• Swansea
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More deTails aT hTTp://goo.gl/3eeCJY

To adverTise ConTaCT MaTT Wells | MaTT@x3dMedia.CoM | +44 (0) 1252 414007 JOBS.DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2014 65

p61_62_63_64_65_D3D_JUNE14_jobs.indd 65 9/6/14 21:56:38

 THE LAST WORD
Last year was all about the FDM-based
machines. Will 2014 go down as the year
that stereolithography became a more
common process in the design office?
Al Dean thinks that all the signs point
towards exactly that happening
T
he burgeoning interest in
3D printing and everything
that surrounds it continues
unabated. But there now
appears to be a lot of
interest around stereolithography in
particular.
Just this month, we’ve seen new
‘desktop’ machines from a whole range of
manufacturers.
FormLabs has improved upon its initial
offering to promise more reliable builds and
more geographically convenient servicing
options.
Italian specialist DWS, a company that
has historically concentrated on wax-based
3D printers for the medical and jewellery
sectors, has also released the XFAB. This new
stereolithography-based machine looks slick,
has a much wider target audience and, as
you’d expect from Italians, looks killer.
Autodesk is also getting into the game with
its own machine, slated for release later this
year. Stereolithography is at its core and the
price point is sub $5,000/€5,000.
There are also a few projects that have
come out of the KickStarter treadmill (the B9
Creator perhaps being the best known).
The older guard is also reacting against this
new breed of lower-cost machines.
Envisiontec has a slew of new 3D printers
coming and the granddaddy of them all, 3D
2 3
66 JUNE 2014 DEVELOP3D.COM
p66_D3D_JUNE14_Al.indd 58
Systems, showed that it wasn’t taking things
lying down with the launch of the ProJet 1200
earlier this year.
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
What all of this shows is that, now that
the core stereolithography patents have
expired, there’s a lot of action. And for the
professional, that’s something to get excited
about.
FDM is great if you require tough, usable,
plastic parts. Sintering is best suited to parts
that need to perform as well as having the
same form as the final production intent.
But stereolithography excels at producing
parts with fine detail and super high quality
surfaces.
Until last year, stereolithography had a
pretty high adoption cost though. Traditional
machines are pricey beasts, in terms of not
only the capital costs but also the resins to
fill their typically large vats and to keep them
running.
Serviceability is perhaps the most
important factor in this new market
segment of desktop stereolithography. If 1
these machines are to be used in the design
office, they need to be both reliable and
easily serviced. Not by the operator (though ●1 Autodesk’s on your desktop is one thing, but if it’s sat
this is a nice capability, if there), but by forthcoming 3D there gathering dust, it’s a pretty expensive
the company that sold it. After all, having printer ornament.
a high-resolution, high speed 3D printer ●2 FormLabs’ Form 1+ This is one thing that FormLabs is
builds on what’s
addressing. Not only is it introducing a one
already an interesting
product with more year warranty, but also bringing official
reliability and more service and repair to Europe. DWS has, for
speed some time, been active across the globe so
●3 DWS (Digital Wax it has the capability already in place, if not
Systems)’s XFAB directly, through resellers.
machine is targeted Then there’s Autodesk and its mystery
for launch this month
machine. It’s based on Texas Instruments’
DLP chips, builds in UV curable resins
and has some unique characteristics that
should see it adopted amongst its huge user
community and elsewhere. Let’s just hope
they’ve got those all important arrangements
in place to support the professional user. If
not, there’s still plenty more action in the
market so we’re not limited in our choice, as
we once were.
Al is looking forward to the smell of UV
curable resin in his workshop/shed instead of
that peculiar scent of molten ABS, though he’ll
be stuck for spare strimmer wire when the
time comes. al@x3dmedia.com
9/6/14 21:56:59
2014 GROUP A4 ad_Develop 3D_JUNE:Layout 1 4/6/14 14:36 Page 1

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