DEVELOP3D JUNE 19

Inventor 2020 P35

Siemens NX 7.0 P39 P40 Keyshot KeyVR

TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PRODUCT LIFECYCLE

FabPro 1000 P43

JUNE 2019 | £6 | € 7 | $10 | DEVELOP3D.COM

Reimagining a much-loved classic

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NVIDIA QUADRO RTX WORLD’S FIRST RAY-TRACING GPU

Designed, built and tested by NVIDIA, Quadro® desktop products are the #1 choice of millions of creative and technical users. Equipped with the world’s most powerful GPUs, large memory capacities, 8K display outputs, advanced features to drive real-time photorealistic rendering, AI-augmented workflows, VR environments and more, Quadro is built to accelerate a range of professional workflows.

Optimized, stable drivers, ISV certifications with over 100 professional applications and tools for IT management are just some of the benefits of Quadro.

TURING INNOVATION •

RT CORES FOR REAL-TIME RAY TRACING

•

TENSOR CORES FOR AI ACCELERATION

•

NEW STREAMING MULTIPROCESSOR

•

CUDA FOR SIMULATION MEMORY

MEMORY W/ NVLINK

RAY TRACING

CUDA CORES

TENSOR CORES

QUADRO RTX 8000 48 GB GDDR6

96 GB GDDR6

10 GigaRays/sec

4608

576

QUADRO RTX 6000 24 GB GDDR6

48 GB GDDR6

10 GigaRays/sec

4608

576

QUADRO RTX 5000 16 GB GDDR6

32 GB GDDR6

6 GigaRays/sec

3072

384

N/A

6 GigaRays/sec

2034

288

QUADRO RTX 4000

8 GB GDDR6

To learn more visit www.pny.eu For more information please contact quadrouk@pny.eu

© 2019 NVIDIA Corporation and PNY. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo and NVIDIA Quadro are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. The PNY logotype is a registered trademark of PNY Technologies. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

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19.02.2019 15:43:12

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 Digital Media Editor Stephen Holmes stephen@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3384 5297 Consulting Editor Jessica Twentyman jtwentyman@gmail.com +44 (0)20 7913 0919 Consulting Editor Martyn Day martyn@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)7525 701 542

DESIGN/PRODUCTION Design/Production Greg Corke greg@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3355 7312

ADVERTISING Group Media Director Tony Baksh tony@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3355 7313 Deputy Advertising Manager Steve King steve@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3355 7314 US Sales Director Denise Greaves denise@x3dmedia.com +1 857 400 7713

H

ere we go, lovely people – summer is nearly here. I know that for a fact, because I’m just finishing off this issue, ensuring a few 3D printers are packed up, and then I’m heading overseas. Like the rest of the team, I’m off to attend a conference. In my case, it’s Siemens PLM’s Realize Live in Detroit. This will be my first trip to Motor City and I’m excited to see what it’s like. After all, Detroit is a name synonymous with the design and manufacture of motor vehicles, but which has fallen on hard times in recent years – much like my own hometown of Wolverhampton. Now’s not the time or place, so I won’t get into how I’ve also got a beef with Ford after discovering that my great-grandfather died at the Dagenham plant during its opening year (1931), although it’s not entirely clear how he met his demise.

Enjoy this issue. We’ll be back over the summer with another cracker. As I often tell my kids, “Be good. And if you can’t be good, don’t get caught.” Later.

SUBSCRIPTIONS Circulation Manager Alan Cleveland alan@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3355 7311

ACCOUNTS Accounts Manager Charlotte Taibi charlotte@x3dmedia.com

Al Dean Editor-in-Chief, DEVELOP3D Magazine, @alistardean

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Shape the year ahead with the future of making at AU London 2019 June 18-19, Tobacco Dock E1W S2F Autodesk University is the conference for those who design, create, and make the world around us. It’s your chance to take your skills, career, and company to a whole new level.

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08/05/2019 14:54

CONTENTS JUNE 2019 ISSUE NO. 110

7

13 14 16 24 27

35 39 43 47

NEWS Varjo unveils collaboration with Volvo, Nvidia’s RTX spreads to mobile workstations, Rhino 6 for Mac ready for final testing FEATURES Comment: Peter Honnor on smartphone design Visual Design Guide: Cowboy Electric Bicycle COVER STORY Inside David Brown Automotive 3D scanning and cruise ship design at Meyer Werft 3D printing for tooling, jigs and fixtures, featuring Siemens Gas & Power, Ashley Furniture and Heineken REVIEWS Autodesk Inventor 2020 KeyShot KeyVR 3D Systems FabPro 1000 Wacom Intuos Pro Small

49 DEVELOP3D SERVICES 50 THE LAST WORD A rediscovered love of colour prompts Al Dean to speculate on how poorly today’s design systems support colour and texture. Also, axes and more.

The wood used to produce this magazine comes from Forest Stewardship Council certified well-managed forests, controlled sources and/or recycled material

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BOSTON

USA

OPTIMISE EVERYTHING TECHNOLOGY TO SHAPE YOUR FUTURE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

BOSTON UNIVERSITY BOSTON, USA

d3dliveusa.com A4.indd 1

04/04/2019 14:50

NEWS

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT NEWS

VOLVO TESTS NEW DESIGNS WITH VARJO HEADSETS – WHILE DRIVING REAL CARS » The Swedish automotive company is using Varjo's newest head-mounted display in order to test-drive new ideas for car interior designs and refine the driver experience

W

hen the Varjo VR-1 ‘human-eye resolution’ VR headset launched earlier this year, we were very impressed with what we saw. Now, Varjo has expanded into mixed reality, with the XR-1 Developer Edition. It's a headset that claims to achieve the dream of ‘hard AR’ – where you can no longer tell apart what is real and what is virtual.

Swedish auto maker Volvo Cars is clearly a big believer in the technology. Its in-house Tech Fund has invested in Varjo and has been testing XR-1 prototypes since summer 2018. Its engineers are taking real cars out on test drives, while wearing an XR-1 headset, so that they can assess the interior designs of future cars before they are built.

The XR-1 is different to other mixed reality headsets like the Microsoft Hololens in that it uses video pass-through. Instead of projecting 3D holograms onto a see-through display, the XR-1 captures the real world using a pair of front-facing, 12-megapixel cameras and then combines this video with virtual content to show the combined result on the headset’s immersive display.

To ensure virtual objects are rendered in the correct position, built-in depth sensors map real-life objects and environments.

Varjo says there are several benefits to its approach to mixed reality. First, users can switch seamlessly between mixed reality and full virtual reality modes, so the headset has multiple uses.

The quality is also better.

Unlike competitor devices that deliver mixed reality with “ghost-like, semi-transparent renderings in limited view”, the XR-1 enables “photorealistic mixed reality in a full field of view.” Varjo states the the XR-1 offers 82 degrees compared to competitive seethrough devices that offer 30 and 40 degrees.

Furthermore, Varjo claims that, with the XR-1, virtual objects appear as real as anything in the physical world. They can cast shadows and even illuminate reality. Black objects appear truly black, opaque objects block real or virtual light, and semitransparent objects refract light from the real world behind them.

“XR-1 brings all the convenience of seeing your body as well as the real world around you and being able to look at your colleagues while designing a virtual object or environment,” said Urho Konttori, chief product officer and co-founder of Varjo.

“The XR-1 can show mixed reality with true-to-life fidelity you can only achieve using video pass-through. Lifelike mixed reality is quite literally impossible to achieve with optical see-through systems like HoloLens.”

Volvo Cars is using the device to test-drive virtual car designs on the road. By adding virtual elements to the interior of the car, designers can perform design studies of future cars before they are built.

Adding photorealistic virtual elements or complete features to the test scenarios while driving, says Varjo, enables UX concepts to be quickly iterated.

The car designers can also add virtual automobiles or unexpected road hazards (such as a virtual moose) to the road for realism. The “highly accurate” eye-tracking technology embedded inside the XR-1 also makes it easy to assess how drivers use new functions and whether they get distracted in any way.

“With Varjo XR-1, we can start evaluating designs and technologies while they are literally still on the drawing board,” said Volvo Cars CTO Henrik Green. “Instead of the usual static way of evaluating new products and ideas, we can test concepts on the road immediately. varjo.com | volvo.com

Above: Volvo Cars are using Varjo's hardware to road test their design concepts Below: Varjo's new XT-1 Head Mounted Display

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NEWS

NVIDIA QUADRO RTX FOR MOBILE WORKSTATIONS

N

vidia is bringing its RTX ray trace rendering technology to the mobile workstation platform with a new range of Turing-based GPUs, the Quadro RTX 5000 (16GB), RTX 4000 (8GB) and RTX 3000 (6GB).

The new line-up will be available in mobile workstations from global OEMs including Dell, HP and Lenovo.

All of the new models are VR Ready, look well-suited to real-time visualisation and are heavily focused on ray trace rendering.

They feature dedicated RT (ray tracing) cores and also Tensor cores, which are used for AI denoising.

As a result, instead of having to wait for the GPU to compute thousands of passes, it can conduct a few passes and then use deep learning to remove the noise. This essentially gives a best guess as to what a fully resolved image might look like.

To take full advantage of the new mobile GPUs, applications have to be RTX-enabled and we expect this to come in the next releases of V-Ray, Unreal Engine, Enscape, Autodesk VRED, Solidworks Visualize and

many other pro viz applications.

Nvidia has also released four additional new mobile Quadro GPUs, the Quadro T2000 (4GB), T1000 (4GB), P520 (4GB) and P620 (2GB) GPUs. None of these models feature RT or Tensor cores, so will not support RTX technology, but they should be well-suited to 3D CAD / BIM and entry-level real time viz workflows.

Nvidia has also introduced the RTX Studio laptop, a new brand of high-performance laptop purpose-built for GPU-accelerated content creation. RTX Studio laptops will be available from seven manufacturers and feature specialised Nvidia Studio Drivers for creative apps, including those from Adobe, Autodesk (3ds max and Maya), Avid, Blackmagic Design (DaVinci Resolve), Maxon, Unity and Epic.

RTX Studio laptops are powered by a range of GPUs, including the Quadro RTX 5000 and GeForce RTX 2080, 2070 and 2060. Many of the new laptops will also feature Nvidia Max-Q technology, to enable “incredible performance in sleek, thin and light designs.” nvidia.com

Nvidia Quadro RTX GPUs will be available in leading mobile workstations

Design Reality Takes on HP MJF

N

orth Wales-based industrial design consultancy Design Reality has installed an HP Jet Fusion 3D 4200, in order to improve its design and production capabilities, reducing its outsourcing requirements.

“Our ambition is to make lives healthier and safer with the products that we design.

We want to leverage any advantage we can to improve product development quality, performance and speed of delivery,” said Graham Wilson, owner and design director at Design Reality.

“The technology offered in the HP Multi jet Fusion HP 3D 4200 enables reliable prototyping and additive manufacturing, providing quality products into the hands of our clients, faster and at a lower cost.

Our clients no longer have to wait for conventional tooling and manufacturing processes, and the investment that is associated with it.” hp.com | designreality.co.uk

Rhino 6 for Mac is ready for test

M

cNeel & Associates has announced that the latest version of Rhino for Mac, running on Apple’s OSX platform, is now ready for final testing.

Updates include many of the improvements already made to Rhino 6 for PC. These include faster display using modern graphics hardware, an updated material and rendering system, Grasshopper with multi-threaded components and VB support.

Rhino for Mac also includes a new ray traced viewport display mode that uses Blender’s Cycles engine. rhino3d.com

Lenovo meets thermal challenges of new Xeon workstations

L

enovo has launched two highend desktop workstations, the ThinkStation P920 and P720, powered by the new 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors with up to 28 cores and frequencies up to 4.4 GHz. The machines also support Nvidia Quadro RTX 8000 GPUs, two of which can be used together with NVLink for 96GB of total memory.

Lenovo says delivering these next generation ThinkStations is not as simple as swapping in a new graphics card or popping

in a new processor. In developing the new machines, its engineering team had to overcome a new set of challenges regarding power and thermal requirements.

Following theoretical power calculations and thermal simulations, Lenovo then put prototype systems through everything from application stress-testing to cycle testing to simulate years of system powering up or powering down. Finally, Lenovo says hundreds of hours of validation testing help meet its strict reliability standards lenovo.com/thinkstations

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HDR Light Studio turns 10 with Tungsten

F

or many who are using physically based rendering (PBR) systems, HDR Light Studio has become the tool of choice to help with tweaking existing HDR environment images (which the PBR systems use to generate their lighting conditions), as well as creating new environments from scratch. The Tungsten release is now available, with new capabilities and integrations with other visualisation tools.

According to the team behind it, the key difference is that while previous releases of HDR Light Studio contained all the light in a scene in a linear list, a new composite method expands this, so that a light gets its visual appearance from a nested set of HDR Light Studio lights, with their own Light List and Canvas. The composited result of these lights is the texture used on the parent light.

Another key change is in how the product is licenced and sold, with the addition of a new Indie licence for smaller teams and

Onshape's May update brings new and enhanced tools for managing both BOMs and call-out/parts lists in drawings. For those working with an Enterprise instance, there's new customisable Release and Obsoletion workflows and new FeatureScript updates as well onshape.com one-man bands. The Pro and Automotive licenses, meanwhile, add additional connections and support on top.

If your revenue is under $100K, you qualify for the indie licence at £95 per year with email support. If your revenue is over $100k, the next step up is the Pro licence, starting at £295, which adds priority support and floating licences.The Automotive licence adds to all this with connections to Vred, DeltaGen, phone and web meeting support and costs £995. lightmap.co.uk

The big news for the Tungsten release of HDR Light Studio is the addition of composite lights

Micro automated 3D Scanner from Artec brings big ability to the desktop

E

quipped with cutting-edge twin cameras, Artec’s Micro is not only the company’s most accurate 3D scanner to date, but its desktop presence and good looks mean that it’s a piece of kit likely to garner admiring glances.

Complete with twin blue light scanners that are synchronised with the dual-axis rotation system, Artec claims that the Micro creates the perfect digital copy using minimal frames.

Fully-automated, this cute little box is an industrial scanner that produces high-resolution colour scans. The machine boasts a point accuracy of up to 10 microns, a tenth the size of a single grain of table salt.

Artec claims that it has gone to great lengths to make it intuitive and easy to use. The Micro requires minimal training, allowing almost anyone to place an object on the scanning plate and begin scanning immediately.

Once an object is placed on the circular scanning platform, the operator simply chooses from a variety of smart scanning paths and clicks to begin.

The scanning process can be viewed and monitored in real-time within Artec Studio and the final model can then be exported to your choice of CAD/CAM software, including Solidworks, Control X, PolyWorks Inspector and Design X. “This latest addition to the Artec

ROUND UP

Hexagon has launched RADAN 2020, with user experience as its top priority. A reduction in mouse clicks, alongside improvements to nesting and reporting should mean a real increase in efficiency, saving both time and costs, and leading to quicker starts on new projects hexagon.com

Paramatters' CogniCAD 2.1 updates its platform, which generates readyto-3D print, lightweighted structures. It offers a wider variety of loading conditions, including thermal loads, as a beta release and force/moments via remote points, in addition to existing acceleration (G-forces) and pressure paramatters.com

Additive International will celebrate its 14th annual summit this July.

The Future Additive Manufacturing day takes place on 9 July, followed by the full, two-day Additive International summit on 10-11 July additiveinternational.com family of scanners brings Artec into the metrology market and fills an important niche for creating extremely accurate digital reproductions of small and tiny parts,” said Artem president and CEO Artyom Yukhin.

With accuracy to 10 microns, it can capture details four times smaller than what is visible with the average human eye, he said, adding: “Now users can 3D scan almost any object with Artec 3D’s line of five scanners, from a tiny mechanical part with Artec Micro to a jumbo jet with Artec Ray.” artec3d.com

The new Artec Micro provides automated shape capture to 10 micron accuracy

Authentise, a creator of data-driven workflow tools for additive manufacturing, has announced its agreement to a multiyear collaboration with Microsoft, in order to utilise Microsoft Azure and integrate its workflow management system into Microsoft Flow authentise.com

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NEWS

HP LAUNCHES NEW QUADRO RTX MOBILE WORKSTATIONS

Physical Digital gain Nadcap

P

hysical Digital has become first company in the world to receive Nadcap (National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program) accreditation for Measurement and Inspection using 3D Structured Light (3DSL) and has been recognised for its commitment to continual improvement in aerospace quality.

Managing director Tim Rapley commented: “Using industry-leading GOM metrology systems, we specialise in capturing high-accuracy surface data for a wide variety of industrial sectors such as aerospace and power generation. All measurement data captured is completed under the rigorous constraints and stringent business processes, with all data traceable back to the international standard. This accreditation is the highest accolade that we could have hoped to achieve as a business.” physicaldigital.com

H

P has released details of its new HP ZBook 15 G6 and ZBook 17 G6 mobile workstations which feature 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processors (and equivalent Xeons), plus Nvidia Quadro RTX GPUs. Both models offer toolless expandability to upgrade memory and storage “in seconds”, a feature that was introduced with the G5 editions.

While the aluminium alloy CNC-machined chassis looks to have remained largely the same, the move from G5 to G6 marks a significant increase in performance.

Users now have access to up to 8 CPU cores with the new 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processors. This continues a trend which started with the G5 editions, stepping up from four to six CPU cores.

Eight CPU cores will be of significant interest to those who rely on CPU-based ray trace renderers like Luxion KeyShot or

simulation tools like Ansys Mechanical.

There’s also been a significant boost in GPU performance. The ZBook 15 G6 offers up to the Nvidia Quadro RTX 3000 and the ZBook 17 G6 up to the Quadro RTX 5000.

For these new GPUs, the focus is on faster ray tracing with dedicated RT cores (for ray tracing) and Tensor cores (for AI denoising).

To take full advantage, applications have to be RTX-enabled and this should be coming in the next releases of V-Ray, Unreal Engine, Enscape, Autodesk VRED and many more.

Significantly, the move to Nvidia Quadro RTX also means the ZBook 15 G6 becomes HP’s first VR Ready 15-inch mobile workstation. But for high-end VR workflows you’ll still need the 17-inch HP ZBook 17 G6.

Finally, for colour-critical workflows, HP claims the ZBook 17 G6 is the world’s first 17-inch mobile workstation display with 100 percent DCI-P3 (a measure of color gamut, wider than sRGB). hp.com

The HP ZBook 15 G6 offers a significant increase in performance over its G5 predecessor and is VR Ready

Altair teases new generative design system

B

uilding on its history of optimisation and generative design, Altair Engineering has announced a new system that brings together its industry-proven optimisation technology and its mainstream-focused tools from the Inspire range.

The new system, Altair Inspire Print3D, combines these tools, in order to tackle constraints in a huge range of manufacturing processes, and also offers a new set of tools for comprehensive metal additive process simulation. altair.com

Pro2Pro takes on HP Multi Jet Fusion & Dyemansion systems

T

elford-based prototyping and rapid manufacturing specialist Pro2Pro has taken on a combination of a HP 4200 Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer along with a Dyemansion Powershot C automatic de-powdering system from Europac3D. The HP Multi Jet Fusion 4200 machine has the ability to pack a full build volume (380 x 380 x 284mm) of Nylon PA12/PA11 parts within a 12-hour build time, while the Dyemansion Powershot C allows for the

automatic de-powdering of components when they are first extracted from the build stations, reducing a labour-intensive process to just minutes rather than hours.

Dave Piper, Pro2Pro Managing Director comments: “The addition of the HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer gives us an extra dimension within the rapid manufacturing sector. We can [now] produce hundreds of functional end-use parts overnight and be delivering to our customers within 48 to 72 hours.” pro2proltd.co.uk | europac3d.com

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05/06/2019 16:44

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COMMENT

The release of new folding and articulating phones shows a spark of rebellion in a world dominated by black rectangles, much to the relief of device design veteran Peter Honnor

S

amsung Electronics was recently forced to delay the launch of its Galaxy Fold smartphone after issues emerged with its folding screen, among other problems. That’s a shame, because this was a bold move in a world dominated by black rectangles. At least Samsung was having a go at being more adventurous.

I miss the early days of the smartphone when radical designs were the norm, rather than the exception. But those days are long gone.

The industry has instead settled on a mundane rectangular slab of glass and metal as the default smartphone form factor – and frankly, I’m bored.

When I last upgraded, I experienced a sense of overwhelming apathy: ‘Wow, I have a new iPhone.It’s slightly bigger, the screen looks a bit sleeker and I’ve got a white case for it, so all good there.’

Truth be told, I was soon bored and regretted my decision: not the decision to upgrade, but the lack of choice I faced in making that move.

My first job was with Vodafone back in 2001. I then worked for Motorola, and then Nokia, up until around the time that Nokia imploded. So you might say I have a personal and professional interest in this topic.

I was part of the team who tested Nokia’s ‘lipstick’ phone, the 7380, which was launched in 2005. I helped train out the Nokia 7650 with the introduction of GPRS. At Motorola, I led the UX team on the Motorola Z8 and Z10 – the company’s UIQpowered ‘banana’ phones.

One of the final phones I worked on was an update to Nokia’s infamous communicator, the Meegopowered Nokia N950. It’s still an amazing phone with sublime mechanical engineering.

While it’s true to say that these phones were probably challenging to use and clearly didn’t sell in anything like the numbers we’ve seen associated with the iPhone over the years, at least they were interesting.

Regardless of manufacturer, pretty much every phone of the last 10 years or so has had the same industrial design: a large glass front, some sort of back case, a few buttons on the side and, if you’re really lucky, a headphone jack.

However, over the last few months, I’ve heard rumblings of innovations that might just break the mould. These include Samsung and Huawei’s folding phones that convert to tablets, and Motorola’s recently announced flip phone.

When I first heard about these phones, my interest was immediately piqued. I was concerned that there might be unresolved user interface challenges and that the right use cases might not have been defined yet – but at least I had hope.

So, what’s happened? Screen technology has advanced and now folding phones are truly viable again. In addition, processors, cameras, speakers, microphones and sensors have all shrunk in size to the point where they can be crammed into about half the space that they could be just a few short years ago.



ultimate incarnation. Today, once again, folding screen technology has given the company the opportunity to recreate that success. I can’t wait to once again feel that sweet satisfaction of ending a shitty call by slamming a flip phone shut.

3. A few manufacturers will create some truly out-there designs I can see contender brands such as LG, Sony or even Nokia attempting to release devices that totally break the design rules, in order to make a splash and try something totally new. How about a cylindrical phone that orientates itself around a user’s grip and then rolls flat for desktop use? I’m willing to bet money that somewhere, an industrial designer is thinking along those lines right now.

4. Apple will sit on the sidelines before acting As it always does, Apple will let others work out the kinks and challenges before finally releasing a device of its own with a form factor different to the current iPhone. The company will make sure that hardware, software, OS and payments are all beautifully aligned and this device will sell by the millions. Android fanboys will say that Samsung/Huawei had the innovation first, but Apple will be the first to offer a truly beautiful experience.

The industry has settled on the boring rectangular slab of glass and metal as the default smartphone form factor and frankly, I’m bored.

 In short, hardware technology and capabilities have finally evolved to the point where, once again, interesting industrial design can begin to flourish – and it’s about time.

Given these innovations, here are four pointers on how I see the future of smartphone design developing: 1. Folding phones will sell well, but long-term reviews won’t impress First-generation hardware always has a habit of failing ungracefully, and this round won’t be too different. This might be painful, but the hype and excitement around something other than a slab of glass and plastic will prove too attractive for manufacturers to leave alone and more devices will be created.

Ultimately, the key to any imaginative new form factor being successful is for its manufacturer to ensure that it builds products that solve real users’ needs, rather than providing a venue for internal teams to conduct technical science experiments.

So, there you have it: A new industrial design arms race in the mobile phone space has well and truly kicked off. I personally can’t wait to see the results. I just hope that, in five years’ time, I have something more interesting to look at when I’m bored on the train, desperately avoiding human contact in the supermarket, or just desperate for an upgrade. Let’s watch this space.

2. Motorola’s folding phone may spark a regeneration of its fame and fortune Many moons ago, I worked closely with the team who created the iconic Motorola Razr, the quintessential folding phone. They were great designers and truly drove a form factor to its

Peter Honnor is head of strategy at digital studio 383, where he works with the company’s diverse client base to create, make and launch new digital products and services for some of the biggest brands across multiple verticals: www.383project.com DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2019 13

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VISUAL DESIGN GUIDE COWBOY ELECTRIC BIKE Belgian bike start-up Cowboy set off with the idea to redesign the electric bike for urban use, with its first model aiming to transform the grinding daily commute into a stylish whizz to work

POWER UP A built-in 360Wh, 10Ah battery provides a 70km range and is easily removable, so the user can recharge it at their convenience, before slotting it back into place, ready for the next trip

DIRECT DRIVE Automatic motor assistance kicks in when needed, informed by inbuilt sensors for speed and torque – for example, when the rider starts off, accelerates or is faced with a hill to climb

CITY SLICKER

A gear ratio of 3.1:1 means this bike is built for smooth urban riding, with a low-maintenance hub and a fibre belt drive, instead of a chain

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ON THE MAP The Cowboy comes with built-in GPS tracking and a smartphone app, so the owner knows if their bike moves when they’re not using it. The App also allows them to see their own pedalling stats

SAFETY FIRST Inbuilt lights that run off the same battery powering the motor add a nice aesthetic join to the frame angles, while their intensifying shine makes other road users aware of your braking

ANCHOR DOWN With the bike capable of reaching high speeds, it’s important that the rider can slow down quickly when needed. Its Tektro hydraulic brakes are built to bring proceedings to a halt, quickly and safely

FAT RUBBER A pair of 42mm custom Panaracer Gravelking fast-rolling tyres provide grip on road surfaces, with enough bounce for a comfortable ride

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OPTIONS, PRICE & AVAILABILITY The Cowboy has a range of 70km and costs €1,990 cowboy.com

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R E D O M PROFILE

A much-loved classic comes roaring back to life

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N O C I RN » Step back in time to t he 1960s w Brown Aut ith David omotive, w h e r e the stylin be retro an g may d tradition al craft skil use, but wh ls still in ere enginee r in g and techn are bang up ology to date. Tan ya Weaver company’s visits the Silverstone , UK headqu arters

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1

1 Aluminium bodywork ●

is formed by hand on a traditional English Wheel 2 Real wood veneers, ●

waiting to be hand-applied to interior door panels

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T It’s not making it look exactly what it was when it was brand new.

It’s taking what was great about the original model and then adding even more greatness

here aren’t many cars that bring a smile to the face quite like the original Mini. Its appeal transcends age and nationality, with many people having a story to tell about growing up with a Mini or it being their first car.

Originally launched in 1959 by the British Motor Corporation, the ingeniousness of the Mini’s design

by Alec Issigonis lies in the fact that, despite its diminutive size and tiny ten-inch wheels, its interior still feels deceptively roomy.

Many people have restored original Minis and automotive giant BMW has given the brand new lease with its recent beefed-up incarnations – but the model’s essential ‘Mini-ness’ endures, which is what makes it such an iconic car.

Stepping inside a workshop on an industrial unit adjacent to the Silverstone race track, you might well imagine that you’d gone back in time 50 years, as you spy a range of what appear to be original Minis in various stages of build.

On closer inspection, however, you’ll see that these are very modern vehicles. The interiors are plush and luxurious, something few original Mini owners would have boasted about their cars. On the exterior, meanwhile, the distinctive welded seams where body panels were joined together (including the rain gutter on the roof) are gone. Instead, the seams are smoothed out and gleam with a flawless finish and bespoke paintwork.

These cars are all examples of the Mini Remastered from David Brown Automotive. When the model was first launched as a prototype in 2017, the intention was to keep the retro styling and small packaging, but to bring the car up to date with modern conveniences, improve on its engineering and address manufacturing deficiencies.

As Matthew Finbow, lead designer at David Brown Automotive, puts it: “It’s not making it look exactly what it was when it was brand new; it’s taking what was great about the original model and adding even more greatness.”

Each Mini Remastered begins life as a donor classic Mini, which receives a new body shell purchased from British Motor Heritage. But while the body may be new, the 1275cc engine and four-speed gearbox are reconditioned originals.

The Mini Remastered isn’t the only car in this workshop.

There’s also a production line of Speedback GTs. This 1960s-inspired Grand Tourer was the first vehicle that David Brown Automotive launched as a prototype in 2014, and many of its design details – such as the distinctive grille and tail lights – have been carried over to Mini Remastered.

In complete contrast to mass production, these vehicles are made to order and are entirely bespoke to the individual customer. Each one is hand built, utilising a blend of traditional craft skills, together with modern engineering

PROFILE and production processes. Whilst a Mini Remastered takes 1,400 hours to build, with 100 currently being produced a year, a Speedback GT, which is based on a Jaguar XK-R rolling chassis and supercharged 5.0-litre V8 engine, takes 8,000 hours to build, with only five to ten produced per year.

David Brown Automotive describes its approach as ‘coachbuilding for the twenty-first century’. As Finbow explains: “Back before modern automotive production techniques saw a car’s chassis and body combined into one large structure, the body would be fitted over the top of a chassis. This body and its interior could be a standard design, but in special cases, customers could commission a coachbuilder to design and build a one-off, bespoke design that would then be fitted over the platforms of the day.”

He adds: “The intention with Speedback GT was to combine that older style of building cars with modern technologies and materials, to create a product that is very unique to the person buying it.”

Of course, exclusivity comes at a price. The Speedback GT (of which only 100 will ever be built) starts at £520,000 (excluding VAT) and the Mini Remastered at a more modest £75,000 (excluding VAT).

HOW IT ALL BEGAN The story of David Brown Automotive began with a vision its eponymous founder David Brown had (see box on page 20). After competing in an endurance rally, he decided to combine his entrepreneurial flair, his experience of lowvolume manufacturing and his love of cars to build a Grand Tourer with a classic design but offering contemporary comfort, reliability and performance.

To help him achieve the desired results, he decided to collaborate with an automotive stylist and called on former Jaguar Land Rover head of design Alan Mobberly, who reportedly came out of retirement to work on the project.

The car was initially designed in Autodesk Alias and the data then used to create a full-size clay model. Following further refinement to the car’s shape in clay, the model was scanned and that data used to create a CNC-milled ‘bucks’, around which the bodywork would be shaped.

This is where traditional craftsmanship enters the development process. Rather than the aluminium body panels being pressed out by machines, they are hand-rolled on an English Wheel, just as they would have been in the 1960s. This work is carried out by a supplier in Coventry called Envisage Group and takes 3,200 hours alone.

The combination of modern engineering and manufacturing processes with traditional craftsmanship is no more apparent than in the wood-veneered door panels inside the Speedback GT. In order to achieve the desired curves, the panels are 3D-printed and then the wood veneers hand-applied on top in a very traditional way.

“It really is the best of the old and the new,” says Finbow.

“The substrate is produced with modern techniques and

2

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PROFILE

3 then the finish, which is what the customer sees, is applied using classical materials and techniques.”

Whilst the interior door panels are 3D-printed off site by a supplier, David Brown Automotive also has its own 3D printers in-house. Humming away along one wall of the trim shop sit two Raise3D Pro printers, which turn out not only prototypes but also end-use parts, including sunvisors, air intakes and the door pockets located next to the rear seats in the Mini Remastered.

“The original intention behind using in-house 3D printing derived from a cost/timing analysis that revealed it would be more beneficial to produce certain interior components using this method, rather than getting tooling produced for them. It also means we can produce extremely complex shapes,” explains Finbow.

Seeing the capabilities of this tool and what could be achieved, the engineering team soon began designing more and more components in Catia that could be 3D-printed using these machines.

“For companies like ours, who specialise in low-volume manufacturing, 3D printing can be of great benefit.

The material cost is not that expensive, it can be quickly and easily replenished, and the final prints (depending

DAVID BROWN: THE MAN BEHIND THE BRAND

David Brown (not to be confused with the tractor manufacturer and previous owner of Aston Martin) is a British businessman, born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and named after his father, who started a company called DJB Engineering in 1972. David Brown Junior was its first employee.

The company designed and manufactured what was, at that time, a revolutionary type of off-highway articulated earth-moving vehicle. The international success of this product enabled the company to expand and,

of course on how they are designed in CAD) are very lightweight and strong,” says Finbow.

“However, 3D printing is currently still very timeintensive, so it’s generally suitable only for low-volume fabrication. Many manufacturers are hopeful that the next generation of 3D printing technology will improve print times,” he adds.

3 Inside the cockpit ●

of the Speedback Silverstone Edition

CUSTOM MADE Walking around the Mini Remastered and Speedback GT models currently being built in the workshop, it’s striking how different they all are, not only in terms of exterior paint colour, but also interior materials and finishes. This is because, as Finbow puts it, “the customer can have whatever they want, within the realms of logic.”

From the outset, customers are invited to visit a customer specification room onsite, where they essentially co-create their vehicle with representatives from the design and marketing teams. “It’s a very collaborative process from the very start – both in-house amongst the different teams, as well as with the customer. So everyone is working together to deliver something that is amazing,” says Finbow.

“Some customers come in with a very strong idea of what

by the 1990s, it had over 3,500 employees. The company was eventually sold to its biggest customer, Caterpillar, in the mid-90s.

At the time of the sale, David Brown Junior was managing director. Just two weeks into his subsequent retirement, he realised that there was still a lot he wanted to do and so began his entrepreneurial career.

In fact, he founded over 30 companies, mostly in the lifestyle sector, including Harley Davidson dealerships, high-end restaurants and a chain of clothes shops.

These businesses were mostly sold around 11 years ago, although Brown retains a few, including a brewing and distilling company called BAD Co, a highend home development company called Roque Properties and a luxury stone surface specialist called Lapicida.

Either way, he has had more time since the sale to pursue some of his other passions, including his love of cars – from building them to racing them in gruelling endurance rallies.

It was actually one of these rallies that ignited

the spark that led to him creating his own classic Grand Tourer.

He remembers borrowing a Ferrari Daytona convertible for a race and feeling immensely unimpressed with its heavy steering, poor brakes and lack of power.

He eventually abandoned the race when the car broke down but, not wanting to miss out on the rally, decided to hire a Peugeot and follow the rest of the drivers in comfort, with the modern amenities of air conditioning, power steering and a radio.

He came back from the rally thinking that it would be great if he could combine a retro-designed package with a contemporary powertrain and all the conveniences that come with modern vehicles – and so he founded David Brown Automotive in 2013 to do just that.

In this venture, Brown utilised his engineering and manufacturing experience together with his love of design and entrepreneurial spirit to produce a beautifully, handcrafted classic Grand Tourer in low volumes.

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4

Some customers come in with a very strong idea of what they want, whilst others are very open to anything.

In that case, it is up to us to present ideas and options 5

6

they want their car to look like, whilst others are very open to anything. In that case, it is up to us to present ideas and guide them in a particular direction and present a range of different options for paints, leathers, fabrics, stitch colour and brightware finish,” he adds.

David Brown Automotive presents customers with various options through a combination of visualisation tools. “We use Autodesk VRED 3D visualisation software for exterior colour and trim visualisations, particularly for Speedback GT,” says Finbow.

“For interior visualisations (and in particular for Mini Remastered), we tend to work more with a series of masterPhotoshop files that have separate, editable layers for all of the interior surfaces of the vehicle,” he continues.

“These layers have been arranged according to our established colour and trim strategy, so edits and alterations can be made quickly and efficiently, and the completed images can then be sent to prospective customers for their sign-off. These Photoshop files also allow for additional bespoke features to be visualised easily, based on specific customer requests.”

With the vehicle specified, customers are then invited to witness the build process for themselves, via an online customer portal. Here, they will see photos and updates regularly uploaded as their car progresses through its thousands of hours of manufacture.

7 4 Only 100 of the performance-focused ●

Speedback Silverstone Edition will ever be made 5 Inside the workshop, various Mini ●

Remastered and Speedback GT models are in different stages of build 6 In the on-site customer specification ●

room, customers work with the design team to personalise their car 7 Hand painting a Mini Remastered ●

model is a 400-hour process in total

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PROFILE

8

It’s a very collaborative process from the very start.

Everyone is working together, including the customer, to deliver something that is amazing

9

10

INSPIRED BY SILVERSTONE There is one further model in the workshop and it’s the company’s most recent launch: the Speedback Silverstone Edition. David Brown Automotive moved to its new Silverstone headquarters from Coventry in 2017 and to mark the occasion, it designed a Speedback GT that takes its inspiration from the racing circuit’s aeronautical and motorsport heritage.

Having started at the company over two years ago, this is a project for which Finbow was design director and which he saw through from beginning to end. The intention was to keep the basic architecture and bodywork of the Speedback GT, but add in various design cues and features that lend it a more aggressive, performancederived personality.

“My team and I used Alias to model the surfaces for most of the exterior styling features and body modifications. These included the front mesh grille, the side fender vents, the rocker-panel flares, the lower-rear valance, the tailpipe finishers and the custom 20-inch alloy wheels.

“The interior surfaces do not deviate in shape from Speedback GT, so no additional 3D Alias modelling was required for the interior. They are, however, trimmed, detailed and finished in a specification that is unique to the Speedback Silverstone Edition and we were able to involve a lot of craftspeople in doing this,” comments Finbow.

This performance-focused model, which delivers over 600hp and is strictly limited to a run of just 10 production cars, was officially launched in 2018. “It was a fantastic project and seeing the covers pulled off of it at the Geneva International Motor Show 2018 was a very proud moment,” smiles Finbow.

So what next? The company says that, for the foreseeable future, it will be concentrating on the two models that it offers today. But with limited production runs, especially on Speedback GT, there can be little doubt it has other retro-inspired ideas up its sleeve. davidbrownautomotive.com

11

12

8 In the trim shop, you’ll find two ●

RAISE3D Pro printers at work

9 3D printers are used for creating ●

prototypes, as well as building some end-use parts such as sunvisors 10 An Autodesk Alias screenshot of the ●

Speedback Silverstone Edition’s grille lamp

11 For the Speedback GT, a traditional ●

forming bucks is created using CNC machining

12 The Mini Remastered is custom●

made to meet the individual customer’s exact tastes and preferences

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STARTU TO SCA P LE UP We started our business in 2012, designing and manufacturing medical simulation products with 3D printing.

We looked at a number of CAD, CAM and design software solutions when we ďŹ rst started, and we were tempted by some of the lower entry point options. However, now that we are leaving our start-up phase and moving towards scaling up our business, we see the importance of adopting a more complete package like SOLIDWORKS right from the start.

For an SME like us, time is the most important metric.

With SOLIDWORKS, our production turnaround time has decreased by about 35 to 40%, with our electrical and product engineers working together using the same software without any delays.

Jordan Van Flute CTO at Inovus Medical

Find out more about

Call: 01926 333777 www.solidsolutions.co.uk

PROFILE

PROFILE

CRUISE CONTROL

» In the metrology and quality management department at shipbuilding giant Meyer Werft, software from 3D Systems is used to ensure the successful, on-time delivery of large, modern and sophisticated cruise liners

O

ver the years, some 45 luxury cruise liners have emerged from the Papenburg, Germany shipyard of Meyer Werft, along with numerous other types of maritime vessel. While all of these cruise ships have been large, modern and sophisticated, each one is also unique.

A great deal of technology goes into their creation.

Since 2010, for example, Meyer Werft has been using a Leica laser scanner for geometric analysis and image documentation. A LizardQ camera system, meanwhile, is used to create 360-degree panoramas – up to 8,000 of them every year. For 3D comparisons and precise adjustments of complex point-cloud models, Meyer Werft’s metrology engineers use Geomagic ControlX inspection software from 3D Systems.

The journey from CAD blueprint to finished ship is a long one, during the course of which many challenges need to be navigated. Ralph Zimmermann, head of metrology/quality management at the company, offers a useful analogy that reflects the difficulties involved: “To get an idea of the complexity of the task we face at Meyer Werft, you have to imagine building a complete, floating town every six months, including water and sanitation, logistics, accommodation for thousands of people, restaurants, food service, theaters, movie theaters, and a host of other leisure attractions, ranging from water slides to go-karting tracks.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT” Around 30 million components are used to assemble every cruise ship, says Zimmermann, and even the smallest of these components – known as sections – can have dimensions of 30 x 30 x 2.5 metres.

“When the ship is then assembled,” he says, “everything must fit together perfectly. For the geometric measurements and point-cloud modeling that we perform every day, we use Geomagic Control X.” Quality management, then, is a crucial factor in the successful, on-time delivery of cruise ships, and software from 3D Systems helps Meyer Werft in this mission, with

Geomagic Control X inspection software delivering reliable results quickly and easily.

In fact, geometric measurement has been part of the quality management process at Meyer Werft since 2012 and encompasses the entire production process for building a new ship.

The metrology/quality management department under Zimmermann is responsible for all metrology tasks and works closely with the construction supervisor at the shipyard. One of the key tasks of the department is comparing target and actual states.

Work begins with the scanning of components and their virtual assembly on a computer. Checking to ensure an accurate fit before assembly saves a lot of time in the shipyard, as it significantly reduces the required number of physical adjustments.

In ship building, all materials are subject to changes caused by external influences. Welding causes changes in metal parts due to thermal action. Components are also affected by mechanical influences during transport and assembly, which can lead to deformation.

Even the temperature conditions for the time of year can have an effect.

A component that fitted perfectly in the blueprint and during production and virtual adjustment may exhibit problematic deviations when it comes to final assembly.

Target versus actual comparisons are therefore essential and are created using 3D analysis in Geomagic Control X. Current requirements include surface analyses, geometry inspections, fit checks and virtual reality.

The scan result for a stabiliser shows a clear difference between the target and actual state in Geomagic Control X Credit: Meyer Werft

SURFACE ANALYSES As André Schreiber, technologist in the metrology department at Meyer Werft, explains: “In our surface analyses, we aim to identify deviations from the target state in a fully assembled section. Once everything has been captured with the laser scanner, we edit and analyse the point cloud with Geomagic Control X. The software makes the entire process much easier for us, as it can handle large

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volumes of data. It is also suitable for all component sizes.”

Another advantage is that Geomagic Control X can be used in combination with all scanner types and technologies, enabling all users to measure and validate objects geometrically and create test reports.

Surface analyses clearly show where there are real elevations and hollows on the deck surface compared with the target state, for example. Surface unevenness of just a few millimeters on the sundeck of a cruise ship can result in puddles. Deviations of this kind can also occur below deck. For example, some areas of the ship are tiled and an uneven floor could cause floor tiles to crack.

If the commissioning shipping line were to discover such problems upon delivery of the ship, the result would be expensive repair work. Thanks to the work carried out by the metrology engineers at Meyer Werft using Geomagic Control X, such problems can be rectified at the shipyard.

The relevant areas are reworked and the deck surface is leveled by calculating precisely the amount of leveling compound required, meaning no puddles and no passengers arriving at their sunbeds with wet feet.

Deck analysis follows a similar process; CAD model data is compared with actual conditions on site and deviations can thus be identified immediately and tackled.

The 3D analysis makes it possible to intervene in the construction process if, for example, adjustments are needed due to pipes being positioned at different heights. The 3D analysis also prevents structural complications at a later stage when decorating the interiors.

TACKLING DEVIATIONS AND CHANGE REQUESTS Geometric inspections of the ship’s hull are essential. In the stabiliser pictured above, for example, the edges of the shell surface are incongruent; the scan result will thus be visibly different from the CAD model.

In the quality assurance process, the 3D comparison

is used to decide whether a deviation due to expected deformation lies within the tolerance range.

Zimmermann explains: “The 3D analyses provide us with a clear picture of all deviations. It may be necessary to adjust the component in question if its functionality is restricted, if the deviations generally make it more errorprone, or if it does not comply with safety regulations.”

At the same time, it is not unusual for a client to request changes to areas of a cruise ship or its equipment during construction.

“In one case,” says Zimmermann, “a customer wanted a higher capacity for the lifeboats, which were to be produced by a supplier in Italy. The design of the boats was therefore significantly modified and they no longer had our originally planned dimensions.”

He adds: “At the shipyard, we had to ensure that the resized boats would still fit in the intended lifeboat davits and could be lowered properly.”

A simple comparison of the dimensions (length, width, height) was too risky. Given that the only other viable alternative would have been to physically transport a lifeboat from Italy to Germany for adjustment, the lifeboat was instead scanned by Meyer Werft engineers who visited its manufacturer’s premises.

The metrology department then performed a fit check using Geomagic Control X. The result was positive: the new lifeboats fitted perfectly and no further modifications to the ship’s structure were required.

Tools such as laser scanners and powerful software for metrology and quality management have become indispensable in modern shipbuilding. They play a key role in ensuring that components fit together perfectly when assembled, that any changes required can be made in good time, and that the ship is completed and delivered on schedule so that a cruise line operator can start using it to take paying customers on their dream vacations.

As Zimmermann explains, “We have to be able to rely on our measurement results at all times. With 3D Systems, we have a reliable partner by our side who understands our needs and is constantly improving the inspection software.

This enables us at Meyer Werft to build amazing cruise ships, ferries and research vessels.”

3dsystems.com | meyerwerft.de

Meyer Werft constructed and delivered the Norwegian Bliss to Norwegian Cruise Line in April 2018 Credit: Meyer Werft

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3D PRINT FOR TOOLS, JIGS & FIXTURES

GETTING JIGGY WITH IT » Manufacturers are quickly growing wise to the notion that the fastest and cheapest way to access the exact tool they need to get a job done might be to print it out on an in-house 3D printer

I

n space, no-one can hear you scream – if, for example, you find yourself enraged by not having to hand the exact tool you need to carry out an urgent repair. For astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), however, this is generally not a problem. For some time now, they’ve been using 3D printers to create all manner of handy custom tools. In fact, it’s five years since NASA scientists and employees at in-space manufacturing specialist Made In Space first ‘emailed’ a socket wrench to ISS Commander Barry Wilmore, sending him an Autodesk Inventor file converted into G-code to be printed out on one of these machines on the station.

Back here on earth, 3D printing is proving just as useful at manufacturing companies of all kinds for producing tooling at short order and at low cost. This includes cutting tools, jigs and fixtures in machining; injection parts and hollowed components in molding; casting accessories and stamping dies; and new parts, such as grippers, for industrial robots.

The growing range of materials available for 3D printing doesn’t hurt, either. For example, one of the biggest implications for jigs and fixtures is the development of high-performance materials such as PEKK and ULTEM, which can be used to create strong, lightweighting tooling parts with enhanced mechanical properties, such as chemical and heat resistance or UV stability, according to recent research from AMFG, a provider of automation software for industrial 3D printing.

Heiden offers an example: a collaboration between automotive giant BMW and Ultimaker, the goal of which was to empower these factory-floor operators by creating more opportunities for informal LOGICAL NEXT STEP interactions between them and maintenance engineers.

For many companies, custom tooling is the logical next step in their Using 3D printing, custom tools were ready to test the next 3D printing journey, once they’ve got to grips with prototyping – and morning, instead of 60 days later. Says Heiden: “We’re past the point especially if, like many, they’re not quite ready to use 3D printing to were people discuss whether [3D printing for tooling] is useful. The build production-ready end-use parts. savings are incredibly obvious.”

In the recent 3D Hubs report, 3D Printing Trends Q1 2019, Paul And, as time goes on, more companies are lining up to share their Heiden, vice president of product management at Ultimaker, reports experiences of the value and savings they’ve achieved. In the following an “overflow” of industrial 3D printing customers from prototyping pages, we look at several examples, all working in very diverse sectors: to tooling. “In tooling, the real improvements, the real value for Siemens Gas & Power, Ashley Furniture and Heineken. everybody is in the closer interaction with the operator,” he says.

Back in 2016, market research company Gartner predicted that, by In other words, the person who’s going to use a new tool on the 2020, three-quarters of manufacturing operations worldwide would factory floor knows exactly what they need it to do, just like the be using 3D-printed tools, jigs and fixtures made in-house or by a astronaut and their socket wrench. If they can have direct input into service bureau to produce finished goods. the design and creation of that tool, that’s great. If it can be created in In retrospect, that forecast might have been a bit hasty – but it’s clear a matter of hours on the same factory floor where they work, or at least that many manufacturers are already heading in that direction, and close by, even better. many more are likely to follow their example.

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3D PRINT FOR TOOLS, JIGS & FIXTURES PROFILE

POWER PRINTING » At Siemens Gas & Power, engineers are using 3D printing to create the circular saw components needed to carry out vital repairs to gas turbines in the field, with the result that this work now takes days instead of weeks

S

iemens Gas & Power keeps thousands of homes and businesses up and running. The Gas & Power division, one of three Siemens operating companies, owns compressors, turbines, and generators across the globe. When those gas turbines need repairing, engineers at the Siemens Gas & Power division must efficiently cut into them with a circular saw to maintain the system. Since the housings have a complex contoured design, a standard flat skid-plate circular saw does not suffice.

In the past, the team remedied this by purchasing standard circular saws, shipping them to job shops in the Philippines for custom-contoured plates, and then shipping them back to the United States for reassembly.

This was not a scalable solution, as engineers would wait more than three weeks to receive their customised hand tools.

OFF THE SHELF WON’T CUT IT Siemens engineers determined that most circular saw components could be printed to accurately match the contour of the turbine. The team purchased and began to use Markforged’s industrial composite X7 printer, after deeming it the best option for the job. “We bought an off-the-shelf motor and the blade, but everything else was custom built,” says Siemens Gas & Power engineer, Sam Dicpetris.

“The parts were initially tested in Onyx, a nylon base with chopped carbon fiber, and then reinforced with continuous carbon fibre to stiffen the structure. Not only can we make necessary custom tooling, but also parts we haven’t been able to produce with traditional methods of manufacturing.”

“The continuous carbon fibre strength is really, really impressive.

When you have a plastic part that feels and looks like a plastic part, but it has this internal strength of something much different, it sets everybody up for a shock,” Diceptris continues.

With the printed saw, turbine repairs in the field now take a matter of days instead of weeks. “We can cut and make a tool that fits the exact contour of the things we’re trying to cut, which is different from anything that you can buy off the shelf,” Dicpetris says. Siemens Gas & Power not only reduced the time to make these tools from weeks to days, but also saved money while remaining cutting edge in a competitive industry.

Dicpetris estimates the team saved over $8,000 from only this one custom circular saw, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars on other applications.

Once the engineering team had tackled this project, they began to adopt a design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) approach to problem-solving. Now, engineers at Siemens Gas & Power consider 3D-printed parts first, ahead of traditionally fabricated components, when they’re needed.

WHERE NEXT? With over 100 engineers using Markforged technology, Siemens Gas & Power engineers aren’t slowing down. They are constantly exploring new applications, such as modular fixtures for turbine blades, to enhance their product line and workstream. Their printers are running almost 24/7, with little to no downtime. The company has also utilised its Metal X to create custom one-off parts and its trusted external machine shop is also adding a Metal X internally in order to keep up with the company’s need for fast turnaround times on metal components. markforged.com

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3D PRINT FOR TOOLS, JIGS & FIXTURES

PEOPLE-LED AUTOMATION

» At Ashley Furniture, 3D printing on the factory floor has opened the doors to a range of productivity-boosting measures across fabrication and assembly that enable the company to maintain its market-leadership position

A

1

tour around Ashley Furniture’s Arcadia, Wisconsin-based manufacturing facilities soon reveals the recipe for the company’s success. As with most modern manufacturers today, you’ll find a variety of new technologies at work there, and 3D printing is a big part of the picture. It has slowly trickled onto the factory floor, and gradually transformed a range of manufacturing processes, from fabrication to assembly.

The incremental adoption of 3D printing at Ashley Furniture has been quite deliberate. It is a clear example of the company’s commitment to lean manufacturing processes and a kaizen approach.

This is characterised by employee-driven incremental changes, which save significant time and costs in getting products to market, and empower staff to be more productive and focus on more creative work in their dayto-day jobs.

“We started out just making one simple sample, because we could make that sample in a matter of a few hours versus having to potentially source from an international vendor that would take weeks,” says Vaughn Pieters, senior director of casegood operations at Ashley Furniture.

“We were able to use 3D printing technology to compress some of those timelines and make better more educated decisions with our design staff,” he continues.

“Now, we’ve continued to grow that with how we use 3D printing technology, to make components that help us run our day-to-day business on the manufacturing floor.”

2 ADAPT AND CHANGE In addition to time and cost savings from outsourcing parts, 3D printing has transformed some more traditional processes on the floor. For example, the company has developed a universal system for an assembly fixture.

Now, when introducing a new SKU [stock taking unit], production engineers only need to print new parts to adapt the system, and assembly workers follow simple instructional guides for each changeover. The system has significantly reduced set-up time in the assembly area, as well as the storage footprint of the original large fixture pieces, which could weigh up to 200 pounds.

“We’ve literally replaced fixtures that are three feet by six feet with a simple bin system; it’s a two-minute setup time,” says Brian Konkel, a production and design engineer. “It frees up jig builders from repetitive tasks to work on more pressing issues, from busy work to looking at more challenging items.”

Pieters adds: “Things like 3D printing and automation are making the job easier for the employee so that it’s not so heavy and not so industrial.”

Key to taking full advantage of new technologies is ensuring they will grow with your ideas. Ashley Furniture takes full advantage of Formlabs’ Engineering Resins, for example, and is constantly experimenting with new resins.

This flexibility in finding solutions that can replace machined parts, and being able to stand up to the rigours of cycling through shifts on the floor, is part of what helps Ashley Furniture scale its use of 3D printing, with no signs of stopping.

1 Furniture pin tack ●

gun guide, 3D-printed in Durable Resin 2 A universal ●

assembly fixture system uses 3D-printed parts to simplify adjustments between product changeovers, completely eliminating the need to spend machine shop resources to build each new fixture from scratch

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3D PRINT FOR TOOLS, JIGS & FIXTURES

PROFILE

TAPPING INTO 3D PRINTING

» Heineken is using cost-effective 3D printers to produce a variety of custom tools and functional machine parts that aid in manufacturing and improve worker safety at the company’s Spanish operations in Seville

H

eineken’s Seville brewery in Spain produces several brands of Heinekenowned beers, with its annual output amounting to 500 million litres of beer.

Engineers at this plant have been utilising 3D printing for about one year, first using the Ultimaker 2+ and now multiple Ultimaker S5 printers, in order to design and print safety devices, tools and parts on-demand rather than outsourcing the job to external vendors. This has increased production uptime and saved around 80% in production costs on the parts they 3D print.

“We’re still in the first stages of 3D printing, but we’ve already seen a reduction of costs in the applications that we found by 70% to 90%, and also a decrease of delivery time of these applications of 70% to 90%,” says Isabelle Haenen, global supply chain procurement buyer at Heineken.

“Local manufacturing helps us a lot in increasing uptime, efficiency and output. We use 3D printing to optimise the manufacturing line, create maintenance and quality control tools, and create tools for our machines which help us increase safety for our people. I think there will be even more purposes in the future,” she adds.

The 3D printing technology was first used for safety applications, but engineers quickly learned they could save time and money by creating custom optimised functional parts for machines from the manufacturing line. Use cases now include:

INCREASING LINE UPTIME Heineken 3D prints functional parts for its machines. These are parts that traditionally wear out and can break. By printing the spare parts on-demand, the company saves money while avoiding operational downtime because there is no need to have an inventory and no need to wait for part deliveries.

TOOLS FOR QUALITY & MAINTENANCE Heineken has also created completely new tools that make it easier for engineers to perform maintenance tasks or to check the quality of products or machines. These tools help prevent machines from malfunctioning or breaking down completely.

OPTIMISING PART DESIGNS The team at Heineken was able to replace various redesigned parts with an optimised design. For example, a metal part that is used with the quality sensor on the conveyor belt would often knock bottles over, creating a blockage, or eject good bottles onto the ground. The redesigned part prevents this from happening.

OPERATOR SAFETY SOLUTIONS In order to keep its workers as safe as possible, Heineken has also looked for ways to make smart, 3D-printed tools that prevent accidents. For example, the company has printed improved locking mechanisms for machines, so they cannot start to operate during maintenance. ultimaker.com

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REVIEWS

SOFTWARE REVIEW

1

Autodesk Inventor 2020 Inventor may not be Autodesk’s primary focus these days, but while its younger sibling Fusion grabs attention, the company’s mid-range mechanical CAD product quietly continues to deepen and mature. Al Dean takes a look at the latest update

I

n the mid-range mechanical CAD market, few systems offer the depth of functionality associated with Autodesk Inventor. Through some smart acquisitions and a lot of integration work, Autodesk has built out a set of solutions that covers not only core design and engineering in both 2D and 3D, but also simulation, manufacturing and more.

With Autodesk moving to a more regular release schedule – one that features an annual update, along with three richer updates during the year – there’s usually a fair amount to check out. So shall we begin?

» Product: Inventor 2020 » Supplier: Autodesk Price: on application autodesk.com

USER EXPERIENCE Let’s kick things off with a look at the common elements in Inventor – the ones that apply to all customers, no matter what their use case or industry sector – and begin with the user experience and interface.

While Autodesk has always made a betterthan-average go of keeping Inventor clean, fresh and up to date, particularly compared to some of its peers in the mid-range market, this release sees a pretty extensive overhaul of how the system looks.

While I realise that icon redesigns may not

1 Inventor has been ●

freshened up for this release. Core functionality is the same, but the look and feel is a lot clearer, with core commands overhauled

be the most enthralling of subjects, in this case, it seems perfectly valid. To understand why, we first need to bear in mind that today’s user environments are very different from how they were when Inventor was first released, almost two decades ago.

Back then, the desktop was king and designers and engineers didn’t expect mobility from their computing.

Fast-forward to today, and the mobile workstation is a big part of the picture and software is used in a wide variety of locations, environments and lighting conditions. If lighting isn’t great, the screen is hard to see. If software is too dark, the same holds true.

Because of this, Autodesk’s introduction of a new ‘light theme’ for Inventor will prove useful to many, as will the refresh of most of the icons in the system.

In addition, work that began during the 2019 release cycle to modernise core commands and move them into a single panel continues in this latest update. The goal here is to present all options and variables in a single, easy-tounderstand space. While not every aspect of Inventor has been tackled yet, you’ll see improvements to the most commonly used

operations, including extrude, revolve and sweep. This is in addition to work already done on the hole command in 2019. While this work is being done, there’s also the opportunity to add in new functionality, such as the sweep operation now getting the ability to sweep a solid along a path. This has been a popular update in many major systems in the last year and, rather than sweeping a 2D profile along a path, allows you to sweep a 3D geometric form to create the sweep.

At first glance, the differences here may seem a little esoteric, but when you think about modelling up complex linear/rotary mechanisms, where maintaining the form you need with a simple sketch isn’t going to work, then having a 3D form driving feature creation will pay dividends in terms of getting the functionality you want.

It’s also worth noting that by using a panel approach, Autodesk is also making these operations more flexible in their use – for example, with a panelised command, you’re now able to switch between the sketch and the feature without having to exit the operation first.

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SOFTWARE REVIEW

2 improved support for multiple monitor set-ups. It’s now possible to drag a window out of the Inventor frame entirely, rather than trying to span it across two or more windows, and place it on another monitor.

While the ribbon doesn’t replicate (instead, it remains on the main display), this does let you have multiple documents open, with the model browser and other free-floating dialogues available in a useful manner.

Considering the prevalence of multiple monitors, I would imagine this is a muchrequested feature. Just remember to quit your current command before moving windows, otherwise it won’t work properly.

PARTS & ASSEMBLIES Now let’s move on to part and assembly modelling. As you’d expect, Inventor has mature set of tools for modelling both.

The part modelling tools naturally include standard solid and surface modelling, but in recent years, they have also begun to include a good set of sub-divisional, surfacestyle, free-form modelling tools from Autodesk’s T-Splines technology (also found in Fusion 360). And in terms of assembly modelling, Inventor has a good range of tools to let you make the most of both creating and editing these forms.

2 Inventor users on ●

subscription now get access to tolerance analysis for all those stack-up calcs

MANUFACTURING & SIMULATION: NEW TOOLS IN PD&M COLLECTION In recent years, Autodesk’s product range for manufacturing has grown from pretty much zero to a rich set of tools and technologies that covers everything from mould design and sheet metal through to 5-axis machining. So it was inevitable that some of these capabilities would make their way into Inventor.

In general, these types of tools are to be found in Autodesk’s Product Design & Manufacturing Collection. (In case you missed it, ‘collections’ is the term used by Autodesk for bundles of industry-focused solutions. There’s also an Architecture, Engineering & Construction Collection and a Media & Entertainment Collection.)

In its 2020 update, Product Design & Manufacturing Collection gains manufacturing technology in two key areas. First, there’s been a rebranding of the Inventor HSM product as Inventor CAM (not to be confused with the Inventorintegrated product from SolidCAM). This brings a range of CAM focused capabilities from basic 2.5-axis, through 3-axis and into 5-axis simultaneous machining.

Second, the Inventor 2020 release sees the first time that Inventor Nesting has been made available as part of a collection.

Based on technology acquired from Magestic Systems in 2014, this is a pretty rich set of tools that allow you to quickly extract sheet metal forms from assemblies, carry out all of the true shape nesting you need, and perform sheet optimisation and scrap reduction tasks. Of course, with Inventor CAM, there are also laser cutting capabilities or you can pass the data out of the system via DXF and so on.

A final addition to the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection is the addition of Inventor Nastran. Again, as the result of an acquisition, Inventor has its own flavour of the Nastran simulation solver (as do Hexagon and Siemens PLM). Inventor Nastran, meanwhile, sees that worldrenowned simulation engine available as an integrated part of Inventor. Of course, Inventor has had some stress-analysis technology for a while, but this is a whole new ball game, which includes linear static and thermal analysis, as well as some tools to help repurpose and idealise Inventor data for simulation.

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3 3 Frame Generator ●

has seen some excellent work, allowing frames to be created much more quickly, combining multiple operations into a single command

Starting with part modelling, there are some really nice updates in 2020, in terms of pure geometric modelling. One example is the addition of a face unwrapping tool.

Inventor already offers tools within the sheet metal environment to help with unwrapping neatly folded parts, but this new functionality is going to be super useful when it comes to trying to estimate blank size and form – perhaps to help with tooling design for stamping dies, for example.

You select a set of continuous faces, and the system will perform an unwrapping operation. There are options to lock a specific edge set as linear or to mark a set of edges as rigid (to maintain a feature shape), though you can only do this to a single set of contiguous edges.

The end result is a profile that can then be used in downstream applications. While this operation doesn’t factor in any stretching of material, it’s a good for a quick first pass or for prototype runs.

ASSEMBLY DESIGN As ever on the large assembly front, this wouldn’t be a CAD release without at least lip service being paid to performance.

For the Inventor 2020 release, the focus has been on improving specific actions and operations, rather than speeding up load times.

For those working with fabricated frameworks, for machine design, jigs/ fixturing and so on, then the Inventor 2020 release is going to be a real time-saver.

While the Frame Generator tools have been in the system for many years now, they’ve not really seen much in the way of updates or enhancements – until this 2020 release, that is. While the core part of the system

and its workflow haven’t changed – they use skeleton sketches to drive 3D frame design – the workflow will shorten, thanks to some new capabilities.

Essentially, the workflow follows the familiar path: you use a series of 2D and/ or 3D sketches to create the reference for the framework and then either a library of intelligent standard forms or those you’ve created yourself, in order to quickly add in the rough elements for that framework.

The real improvements come into play once you have these constituent parts in place and start to focusing on finishing them – mitring them, creating mitre joints and notches, and so on. In previous releases, you had to work your way through each pair individually. This could take a considerable amount of time.

For 2020, however, this has been revamped. It’s now possible to create multiple joints in single operations.

To use the notch operation as an example, you select your frame members (those you want notched), then your notching tools (those whose form the members need to conform to) and the system does the rest.

There are options here for notching gaps and maintaining perpendicular cuts around the notch (ideal for CNC tube-cutting and shaping machines).

IN CONCLUSION Autodesk is in a tricky position with Inventor. On the one hand, it’s got a fancy new system in Fusion, which it wants to promote as its future flagship. On the other hand, Fusion won’t satisfy everyone –and users engaged in more traditional engineering and manufacturing will still demand the richer, more mature and

deeper toolset found in Inventor. The fact that the Autodesk team has also just added Nastran, Nesting and a wealth of CAM NC programming technology to the associated collection only reinforces that commercial reality.

Yes, you might take a look at the updates to core Inventor and decide that, on the face of it, there’s not a huge amount of ‘newness’ there for the subscription money involved – but the truth is that we’re now at the point where workflow consolidation, new efficiencies and evolving existing tools is the order of the day, rather than swathes of brand-new technology.

And from this perspective, Inventor 2020 is a cracking release. Across the board, Autodesk has found ways to improve complex workflows, as seen in the updates made to Frame Generator, which could drastically reduce the steps needed to detail out and complete a complex framework.

Finally, let’s look at cost. At the time of writing, a seat of core Inventor costs £2,286 per year or £288 per month.

By contrast, Autodesk’s price for its Product Design & Manufacturing Collection, meanwhile, comes in at £2,988 per year or £372 per month. This gets you Inventor, Fusion 360, Inventor CAM, Inventor Nastran, Inventor Nesting, 3ds max, Navisworks, Recap Pro (for reality capture/reverse engineering) and, of course, AutoCAD. In other words, this collection represents some serious value for money. On its own, Inventor is already a functionally rich product. When you combine it with industry-leading simulation, CNC machine programming and more, it becomes something very empowering. autodesk.com

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05/06/2019 06:35

From BIM to digital fabrication Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Architecture, Engineering and Construction

Building Information Modelling technology for Architecture, Engineering & Construction

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06/06/2019 15:25

SOFTWARE REVIEW

1

Luxion KeyVR for KeyShot Virtual reality is a big theme in design visualisation right now, and the choices are plentiful, but often rely on shoe-horning CAD geometry into a game engine. Al Dean gets to grips with a new offering from Luxion, which takes a different approach

T

he virtual reality (VR) world has exploded in the last couple of years, with a slowdown in tablet sales really paying off for design professionals. (After all, that’s why VR headsets took off, right?

Vendors found themselves lumbered with excess display stock.)

That has led to dramatically cheaper headsets. Oculus Rift, of course, achieved the Kickstarter coup of the century, but there’s also HTC’s Vive products, as well as a glut of new market entrants (Varjo, anyone?). In short, we’re now seeing some mind-bendingly smart hardware become available for not a massive amount of cash.

But despite the wealth of hardware options out there, software is more of an issue. Put simply, VR software isn’t welldeveloped, and while VR has played a part in design and engineering for decades, this has been at the very high end of the market, open only to those firms with money to spend on third-party help when it comes to consultancy and implementation services.

Essentially, while your headset may cost just a couple of hundred quid, your design and engineering-focused visualisation software comes at a much higher price.

» Product: KeyShot KeyVR » Supplier: Luxion Price: $995 per year keyshot.com

There has also been a big focus on workflows that take heavy CAD geometry and push it into a game engine, typically Unreal or Unity. Quite often, this works – as seen in the most recent update to Siemens NX, for example. But along the way, you frequently lose much of the visual richness and aesthetic properties you’ve already defined.

This is where Luxion, the company behind design visualisation system par excellence KeyShot, has come into the game with its newly released KeyVR.

ONE-CLICK VR

1 The Teleport ●

function allows you to move around your scene – particularly useful for VR use in restricted spaces and for navigating large scenes

KeyVR is, as you would expect, is an add-on module for KeyShot. That means that you’re already building something on top of one of the world’s most popular rendering systems for product design and engineering.

It’s also billed as a ‘one click’ VR solution – a bold phrase that probably deserves some unpacking, since KeyVR owes much to the platform it is built on.

Interestingly, rather than finding a way to take all of the visual information you’ve already defined in your KeyShot scene and then shove it into a game engine, Luxion has built its own VR engine. That gives it several

advantages over using a general-purpose engine like Unreal or Unity.

First, it can handle the geometry tessellated just how it wants. Where many game engine-based systems come unstuck is in taking heavy, complex data from CAD and moving into the mesh-based, polygon world of VR. Luxion has sidestepped this challenge, because it already has a tessellation engine built into Keyshot that works well – the company’s just reusing it for the VR activities. It also has a means of linking directly back to your CAD geometry too, using LiveLinking.

Second, you’ve already defined your lighting conditions (starting with an HDR environment image as a lighting and reflection source), as well as your materials options, scene and model variations (referred to as Model sets in KeyShot) and there’s a direct way to move these into a VR environment. So shall we see how it works?

FIRST USE AND EXPERIENCE Let’s begin with a look at what you need to get up and running with KeyVR. The first things you need are, of course, a workstation and VR headset.

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SOFTWARE REVIEW

2 At present, the headsets supported by KeyVR include the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive or a Windows Mixed Reality device.

These all come with their own hardware requirements in terms of graphics processing, but Luxion recommends an Nvidia GTX 1080 or AMD Vega 64 or higher for your GPU. We tested the system with an Amari workstation running Windows 10, 32GB of RAM and an AMD Radeon Vega Frontier edition GPU. We found that it’s best to begin with a simple scene and get a feel for how the

process works, just to make it a little more efficient. Our standard test model for rendering is an older Porsche 911, so has a nice mix of simpler materials (metals, paint effects and so on), as well as some that are more complex in terms of bump (or more recently) displacement maps for tyres, headlamp lenses and the like. We also placed it into a pretty standard HDR environment.

So how do you get this into KeyVR? The answer is you simply hit the KeyVR button.

This packages up your data and transfers

it to the separate KeyVR application. The benefit here is that you don’t need to have KeyShot running on the same machine, as this application can be loaded separately and read in your .bip files – but for this review, we’re going to follow the workflow of having both on the same machine.

What happens now is that your BIP file is read into KeyVR, your headset is fired up and you’re presented with a dialogue showing options for your two controllers and your starting point for your VR session, alongside a mirror of your headset’s display.

2 Controller menus ●

give you quick access to a range of commands, such as switching model sets, materials and more

VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSETS: WHAT’S AVAILABLE FOR KEYVR? There are a tonne of VR headsets out there now, but there are only a few that are supported by professional applications.

At present, KeyVR only supports the the HTC, Oculus and Windows Mixed Reality drivers and devices.

While that gives you a good spread, it’ll be interesting to see how Luxion adopts newer generation HMDs, particularly those that have on-board processing, such as the Oculus Quest and Hololens 2.

Both of these devices were launched this year, and gamers are already raving about the experience they offer.

Design professionals, however, will have to wait for their software vendor of choice to catch up, before they can enjoy that experience in workrelated use cases.

HTC VIVE

OCULUS RIFT S

HP WINDOWS MIXED REALITY

OCULUS QUEST

Product: Vive Pro Supplier: HTC Price: £799 Web: vive.com

Product: Rift S Supplier: Oculus Price: £399 Web: oculus.com

Product: Windows Mixed Reality Supplier: HP Price: $299 Web: hp.com

Product: Quest Supplier: Oculus Price: Unavailable Web: oculus.com

Notes: One headset, two controllers and two base stations for full tracking in a 7m x 7m cube. The Pro option has enhanced display compared to the original Rift device (now running at 2,880 x 1,600) – perhaps due to be superceded by a wire-free version soon.

Notes: Essentially, this is an upgrade to the original Rift which removes the previously external and separately purchased sensors. This means more freedom of movement, but you’re still tethered to your PC. Will work with KeyVR out of the box.

Notes: The Windows Mixed Reality devices are getting a little long in the tooth now and they’re difficult to track down.

HP’s looks pretty standard, with 1440X1440 display per eye, on board tracking of controllers.

All works out of the box and available for a bargain price.

Notes: This is the one we’re waiting for. An Oculus device without the cables. The big issue here is going to be how the on-board processing handles heavy data from professional VR systems like KeyVR. Unsupported at present, so skip for now.

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3



For what this software costs, and given that your headset will cost way less than that, you’re getting something truly usable, which will quickly become a part of your design review process

 If you pop your headset on, you’ll find yourself immersed in your scene and able to walk around your model. As you hold up your controls, meanwhile, you’ll find that menus pop up, allowing you to switch between cameras, change materials (if you have multiple materials set-up in your scene) and teleport around your object to view it from different angles.

You can also pick up and move items (which is really handy for smaller objects) and turn physics on, so that your objects fall to the floor when you release them.

It’s all very natural and very responsive.

Luxion recommends that you limit your scene to 2-3 million polygons with higher end GPUs, in order to achieve the best frame rate (hitting H in KeyShot shows your poly count). That said, our test dataset was around the 30 million polygons mark and was still more than usable.

taking your environment as your light source and baking in reflections and shadows at the point of creation.

It’s also worth considering the complexity of your materials. There are also substitutions taking place on the transfer from KeyShot to KeyVR – the system doesn’t support refraction and other complex aspects of transparent materials.

And, while it supports multiple materials, bump maps and the like, at present, more complex, material graph driven materials are not supported. Finally, for materials, labels don’t transfer across, either.

At present, what does and doesn’t work is well documented on the KeyVR manual website. Also, when performing the transfer (or loading the BIP file), if errors are found, you’ll get a log file telling you exactly what is happening.

CAVEATS AND WORKFLOW TIPS

I’ve been waiting for Luxion to throw its hat into the VR ring for a while now. It has teased its support for today’s HMDs for some time, but held back from committing to a launching a full-blown design visualisation tool like KeyVR. So has it been worth the wait?

On the whole, yes. For a first release, I have to say that KeyVR is looks very impressive. I found the use of the system to

Clearly there has to be some trade-offs when moving your data from a system that’s intent on producing photorealistic images and animations such as KeyShot, into a VR environment like this. In this instance, the majority of these trade-offs are in the area of complexity.

Firstly, KeyVR is not performing ray tracing or global illumination; rather, it’s

IN CONCLUSION

be quick and easy and it certainly lives up to that ‘one-click VR’ tagline.

Assuming that you don’t come up against current limitations in a problematic way, you can expect to see results that are incredibly realistic, powerful (in terms of being able to switch model sets, materials, cameras and so on), not to mention peaceful.

This last one may sound a little odd, but it is key. VR can be a strange experience, particularly when you’re not used to it.

Many of today’s VR systems are too jarring: with menus popping up on screen and teleport processes whizzing you instantly from one location to another, the effect can be to jangle your brains. In short, some first-time users can be left disoriented, even a little travel sick.

KeyVR is a little more laid back.

Everything happens softly and smoothly, so you don’t feel out of sorts or lost. In this way, a virtual space feels like a natural environment in which to explore and evaluate a design concept, rather than merely a flashy way to show off some sophisticated new software.

Yes, there is work still to be done. Luxion needs to expand KeyVR’s support for more complex materials and we’re waiting to hear back about whether the system will work with some of the more recent headsets. I’d also love to see some record/ playback tools for VR review sessions as well as documentation tools introduced into the system.

But for what this software costs, and given that your headset will cost way less than that, you’re getting something truly usable, which can quickly become a part of your design review process on a regular basis.

3 The Fly command ●

lets you zoom around your model very quickly, which is useful for larger scenes and for getting different views on your scene/product

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HARDWARE REVIEW

3D Systems FabPro 1000 Until now, 3D Systems had held back from bringing its mastery of stereolithography to the desktop. With the promise of lightning-fast build speeds and many materials, might its new Fab Pro 1000 pose a serious threat to competitors, Al Dean asks?

TECH-SPECS » FabPro 1000 » Stereolithography » 125 x 70 x 120 mm build volume » 430 x 430 x 612 mm machine dimensions » 37.5 kg weight » 0.05mm layers » up to 21 mm/hr » Finishing kit, build platform/plate, Proto Gry 1kg resin optional resin mixer and UV curing oven » Ethernet + Wifi + USB connectivity » 1 year return to base warranty » Price £3,295 » 3dsystems.com

S

tereolithography, or SLA, is one of the original 3D printing processes. Invented by Chuck Hull back in 1965, it enabled the company he co-founded, 3D Systems, to quickly become the largest player in the market during its early years.

Through a combination of the technical excellence of its machines, a headstart on patents and a very active legal department, 3D Systems built its empire on its mastery of the magic of taking a liquid photoreactive polymer and building shapes out of it with lasers and light.

Then, around five years ago, many of the core patents associated with the formative days of 3D printing started to expire. That meant that intellectual property once belonging solely to 3D Systems, along with FDM [fused deposition modelling] masters Stratasys, became fair game for companies looking to offer lower-cost machines based on these technologies.

The entry-level FDM market soon exploded, with the entrance of rivals including Makerbot, Ultimaker and dozens more. (Even 3D Systems tried its hand at the desktop FDM market for a while, with its now defunct Cube product line.) But the SLA market took a little longer – because squirting out molten plastic is one thing, but using lasers to cure liquid into solid is a whole different ball game.

Among the many curious decisions that the top brass at 3D Systems made during this period, one that stands out in its oddness was that it didn’t introduce a general-purpose, desktop-focused SLA machine. It certainly had the know-how, the technology and the supply chain to do it, and to do it well. But the closest thing we saw to this was the jewellery-focused ProJet 1200.

Then along came Formlabs with a Kickstarter campaign that broke records and a machine that brought SLA to the masses. Since then, Formlabs has sold some 50,000 of its machines, defined a whole market segment and become its leader.

You can now find tens of different desktop SLA machines on the market – some excellent, some just OK, and more than a few that are absolutely shocking. But there’s nothing here from 3D Systems, the company that invented and mastered SLA. That’s all changed with the company’s announcement of the FabPro 1000. It’s a desktop-sized machine, offering high build speeds in a variety of resins and coming in below that all-important $5,000 price bracket. When 3D Systems offered us the chance to spend a couple of months trying out this machine for ourselves, we naturally jumped at it.

DELIVERY AND SET-UP

1 The FabPro is ●

much larger than you probably expect – and it’s definitely a twoperson job to retrieve it from its packaging

The packaging for FabPro 1000 will probably take you by surprise, particularly if you go for the add-on options of the UV curing oven and mixing unit (more on these later). While the machine turns up on a small pallet, you’ll very quickly discover it’s very heavy unit indeed compared to other desktop units, weighing in at 35kg-plus.

This is a clear-cut case for calling on Big Dave/Denise from Shipping to give you a hand with it.

That said, once it’s out, set-up is pretty straightforward, following some very nicely thought-out guides, provided initially as a printout in the box, then followed up with an online version.

Even at this point, it’s worth mentioning that the information that 3D Systems provides is not simply a case of, ‘Here’s a set-up guide, a user forum and we’ll let you get on with it.’ Instead, there’s some serious content here, bringing together not just information pertaining to the machine, its functions and the materials it uses, but also drawing on the company’s decades of experience in helping customers to work with resin-based 3D printing systems.

1 In terms of machine set-up, you need to get it unwrapped, situated on a stable surface and plugged in. There are a couple of components that need to be installed in the machine as well. All of this is nicely documented in the help files and an alphanumeric labelling system is applied to everything that comes in the box.

The set-up of the build platform is perhaps the trickiest part and here, you need to pay close attention to the instructions. First, you need to add in the glass build plate. This provides the rigid interface between the resin in the build tray and the light source beneath (the FabPro uses a DLP chip to project the UV light for each layer onto the base of the build platform).

On top of this, you add in the print tray. This is a plastic frame with a flexible, transparent base and it holds the resin – the flexible base providing the means of breaking surface tension during build.

The last thing at this stage is to add in the print platform. This is an aluminium affair and slots securely into place.

Once that’s done, it’s time to get the software installed and connected to the machine. (The software’s called Sprint and is common across most of 3D Systems’ range.) Here, there are three options: WiFi (which is easiest); ethernet; and faithful old USB. It’s worth noting that you need to register and activate both the machine and software (the latter in order to get full function from Sprint), but it’s a pretty painless process.

FIRST BUILD As ever, builds start with your part file in software and preparing that for the build process. Get your set-up wrong, and you’ll end up with wasted time and materials on your hands (not to mention potentially damaged equipment).

When you’re dealing with SLA, this is even more critical than usual. With the interaction of resin and light, plus moving build platforms, there’s huge potential for error. There are also questions to be asked upfront. Does the part’s orientation give you the part DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2019 43

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you need? Are key surfaces free from supports (which can mean extra steps to remove)? Are there enough supports to keep the part on your build platform? Are the cross-section properties of your part such that you can overcome the suction between your build tray and platform? All of these need to be considered.

The good news is that Sprint is one of the best examples of this kind of software that we’ve come across. Not only does it connect directly to your machine and manage all of your queue handling, it also offers a veritable armoury of tools to ensure that the part that comes out of the machine is how you want it and optimised for your process and chosen material.

We’re not just talking about orienting a part at 45 degrees to a build tray and throwing on some supports. There’s way more to be explored in Spring, which includes tools for splitting parts and adding in jointing features, for introducing drain holes in thicker parts, and for nesting parts, so you get the most out of your build run (which will be key to users running the FabPro in a production environment).

Essentially, you import your part into the ‘Prepare’ environment, carry out any additional actions on it, such as fixing, splitting, orientation and such. Once that’s done, it’s transferred to the ‘Print’ environment. This is where you set up your build tray, generate supports and get things finalised. There are also some nice estimation tools (which are key for the final stages of set-up) along with reporting tools which spit out a set of details for each build.

When you’re ready to go, you’ll need to send the part to the queue and subsequently to the machine. Hitting start in the Print Manager transfers the job to the machine and it’ll await your input.

The FabPro 1000’s on-machine controls use a simple LCD display and a push switch.

As you send a job, it’ll ask you to accept by pressing and holding the button. Once accepted, the system then asks you to scan the bar code found on the resin bottle.

At this point, it’s worth passing on a few notes about the resins. We’ve put together a quick guide below, but in general, these need to be mixed up before use. If you’ve got the basic configuration, it’s a case of you shaking the bottle yourself. If you’ve got the Mixer (a curious bit of kit that we don’t have room to explore more), the help system tells

2

3 you for how long to mix the resins. Once shaken, you open the door on the front of the unit and the red target from the scan helps ensure you’re adding the right resin to the build tray.

How much do you add? This is where the estimate tools provided in the software come into play. These will give you a fill level that corresponds to markers on the side of the resin tray, so that you’re not adding more resin that you need to. Once that’s done, you’re ready to shut the door and away the system goes.

If you’re not familiar with how these machines work, they’re pretty standard on the desktop, using DLP chips from projectors to bounce 405nm wavelength light to cure the resin in layers from beneath, building up the parts and supports on the build platform.

As such, when the part is complete, you’ll find your part suspended from the build platform at the top of the machine. The next step is to carefully remove the build plate and part(s) and move them to a working area for post-processing.

2 3D Systems Sprint, ●

perhaps the most impressive 3D printing software we’ve seen to date 3 One of our test ●

parts on the build platform, ready for post-processing and break-out work

MATERIAL OPTIONS: EXPLORING THE FABPRO RESINS FABPRO PROTO GRY

FABPRO TOUGH BLK

FABPRO ELASTIC BLK

FABPRO JEWELCAST GRN

DENTAL RESINS

Layer thickness: 0.05mm Build speed: 21mm/hour Price: £119/ litre

Layer thickness: 0.05mm Build speed: 14mm/hour Price: £135/ litre

Layer thickness: 0.1mm Build speed: 14mm/hour Price: £155/ litre

Layer thickness: 0.03mm Build speed: 5.3mm/hour Price: £219/ litre

Layer thickness: 0.05 to 0.1mm Build speed: 9 to 23.5mm/hour Price: On application

Notes: For general-purpose prototypes, where you want something that will last a design review, but give you an excellent surface finish, this is would be my preferred option. It’s also the fastest general-purpose resin you can get for the machine.

Notes: If you’re looking for a more resilient prototype that can boast a little more flex and a little more give, then the Tough BLK resin might be a good choice. It’s less brittle than the grey resin, but is a little more expensive.

Notes: The replication of elastomeric materials has always been a challenge for 3D printers. This is ideal. Whether it’s seals, grommits, gaskets, hoses or other flexible parts, this resins gets you what you need in a 95 Shore A hardness mimic.

Notes: Looking to build either masters for casting using a variety of methods (investment, RTV, silicone moulding etc)? This resin is ideal. It builds in smaller 30-micron layers (capturing more detail) with near zero ash content on burn-out.

Notes: Alongside generalpurpose/casting resins, 3D Systems also offers a range of dental-specific resins for orthodontic models as well as surgical guides, orthodontic splints and such, with different biocompatibility ratings.

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HARDWARE REVIEW Using SLA machines is a messy business and this part of the process is particularly prone to getting out of hand quickly, so it’s worth noting that 3D Systems provide a pretty complete finishing kit as standard with the FabPro 1000.

This includes gloves, plastic rinse boxes, towels, cutters and other tools to help with the process. The only other things you’ll need to obtain initially are isopropyl alcohol (IPA) to help remove uncured resin and safety glasses. (I know from bitter experience that getting resin in your eye is not pleasant.)

While each resin has a different curing state out of the machine and comes with its own postprocessing guidance, the basics are the same. You essentially wash off excess resin in one tub of IPA for a few minutes, then move it to another tub of cleaner IPA for a final soak.

With that out of the way, you’re ready to do the final cure. Here, you have a number of options. You can either acquire a UV curing device (these are plentiful on the web, look for UV sterilising units from beauty salon supplies) or you can opt for 3D System’s own PrintBox. This is a pretty industrial unit, which will cure your part in a matter of minutes. If you’re working at production scale and time is key, this is a good option to choose.

It’s important not to skimp on time in the UV curing process, as this will finalise the mechanical properties of the parts. It’s particularly important to bear in mind if you are working with some of the tough and elastomeric resins.

You can break off supports whenever you see fit – but my personal experience is that you will typically get a better result by curing with supports in place, particularly when it comes to thin-walled or complex forms, due to the extra support during the cure process.

THE END RESULT

IN CONCLUSION

Of course, the end result is what really makes or breaks a 3D printer and our expectations of this machine were naturally high. I’m glad to say that the results are excellent.

Surface finish is as impeccable as you would expect from a 50-micron layer build process.

Stepping that down to 30 microns for the castable resin results in an an even finer result.

All the resins we tried (grey, tough, castable and elastomeric) produced amazing parts. Yes, there’s some marring on the surface where supports come into contact with the part, but these are par for the course, and the software gives you enough capability to minimise them where possible.

Unfortunately, a tidy-up during the testing process meant the test parts inadvertently got binned before we got a chance to photograph them.

Ultimately, you need to look at what 3D Systems has on its hands with the Fab Pro 1000 in the context of the wider desktop SLA market. The facts are that this machine has to compete on several different levels.

First, it has to compete on price. At £3,295, it’s priced pretty competitively for a desktop SLA machine, particularly one that’s productionoriented. Even with extra cost for the curing oven and material mixer, it still comes in at under £5,000.

On top of that, it has to compete on both build volume and speed. On the volume side of things, the Fab Pro 1000 is average at best. Its build volume limits the size of components and parts you can prototype (or indeed, for which you can prepare masters). Of our usual range of tests parts, only two of them fitted on the machine, and one of those (the brake lever) was a struggle.

Where the machine does win is on speed. A part using the Tough material, for example, might take five hours – and less if you went for the grey prototyping resin instead. A Formlabs Form 2, running an analogous material at the same layer height (0.05mm), would take over 12 hours to build the same part.

The question any organisation looking at this machine needs to ask is whether it is a good fit for their day-to-day work. If you’re looking to produce small, intricate prototypes or masters for secondary processes, it’s an outstanding choice.

Parts build quickly and, with the Lightbox, they cure quickly too, so they’re ready to go. Yes, the build volume is small, but you can optimise your build plate and churn parts out very quickly and to an outstanding quality, with some excellent material options.

3dsystems.com

RUNNING COSTS The machine on its own, with two print platforms and a single print tray (plus 1 litre of grey resin and the finishing kit), costs £3,295. If you want to add on the material mixer and lightbox, that takes the price up to £4,790.

In terms of consumables, the immediate costs are the build components and resin. Resin varies in price, from the standard ProtoGry resin at £119 per litre, up to £219 per litre for JewelCast.

The build trays (which should last for around 40 hours’ build time, depending on the resin and use patterns) cost £45 each. Considering these build trays have a flexible film base and contain resin, I wouldn’t want to push them too close to their limits. The print platform (of which you get two as standard) are another £79, but considering these are made from solid Aluminium, they should last a while if used with care.

DESKTOP SLA MACHINES: FIVE ALTERNATIVES

FORMLABS FORM 3

ZORTRAX INKSPIRE

XYZ NOBEL SUPERFINE

DWS XFAB2000

ENVISIONTEC VIDA

Product: Form 3 Supplier: Formlabs Build Size: 145 x 145 x 185mm Price From: £5,130 Web: formlabs.com

Product: Inkspire Supplier: Zortrax Build Size: 74 x 132 x 175 mm Price From: £1,726 Web: zortrax.com

Product: Nobel Superfine Supplier: XYZ Printing Build Size: 64 x 40 x 120 mm Price From: £2,180 Web: xyzprinting.com

Product: XFAB 2000 Supplier: DWS Build Size: Ø 180 x 180 mm Price From: £ 6,499 Web: dwssystems.com

Product: Vida Supplier: Envisiontec Build Size: 140 x 79 x 100 mm Price From: Unavailable Web: envisiontec.com

Notes: 3D Systems might have invented the stereolithography process, but Formlabs brought it to the desktop at significant scale. The Form 3 represents the third generation of the company’s products and many are getting excited to see what these new machines can do. The Form 3l for really big parts is on its way, too.

Notes: Zortrax has built its reputation on lower-cost FDM machines, but recently jumped into the SLA market with its Inkspire machine. Working in the now familiar inverted manner using a DLP chip to project UV light onto a resin build tray, this one comes in at a pretty low price point for a small build chamber.

Notes: Chinese outfit, XYZ Printing has been making wave with its industrial machines alongside its desktop efforts.

The Nobel Superfine is a variant of its DLP-based SLA machine that allows very fine features to be built, down to the 25 micron level, making it ideal for jewellery and perhaps medical device prototyping.

Notes: Italian outfit, DWS (Digital Wax Systems) has been building 3D printers for decades.

Its XFAB machines run with a cylindrical build volume and come in a variety of sizes and can build in layers from 100 microns down to just 10 (which is practically invisible). There is also a nice range of homegrown resins available.

Notes: Envisiontec built its business from servicing SLA machines then moved into building its own. The Vida is its desktop model, building down to 25 micron layers with a variety of resins, from prototype materials to industrial specific for dental, audiology and much more.

There’s also a high-res version for more pixels per layer.

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HARDWARE REVIEW

Wacom Intuos Pro Small When it comes to pen-based workflows, Wacom has been at the top of its game for 20 years. The company’s Cintiq model gets all the glory, but what’s happening at the entry level? To answer that, Al Dean gets to grips with the new Intuos Pro Small

P

en-based input is something that seem to swing between being de rigeur and being passé on a pretty regular basis. In computing’s earlier days, pens and digitising boards were all the rage. They subsequently disappeared for a while, to be seen in only the most dedicated users’ hands. Then desktop publishing and tools like Photoshop put pen-based input back on the agenda – and this is where Wacom stepped into the picture, with its slick designs, mastery of pressure sensitivity, Japanese attention to detail and killer build quality. It has pretty much dominated the market ever since.

During recent years, the advent of cheap flat displays, the rise of tablet computing and a resurgence of interest in more tactile approaches to input have continued to gain ground. Wacom’s expertise in the field led to its launch of the Cintiq and today, it’s a rare design studio that doesn’t have one or two of these devices in position for concept sketching, modeling and other workflows.

But while the Cintiq makes a lot of sense to some users, in terms of direct interaction with data and its form factor, the Intuos range is a good place to start for those looking for a lower-cost alternative with more portability and less risk if you drop it on the floor of a concrete car park.

With that in mind, we were more than a little excited to get our hands on the latest addition to the Intuos range, the Intuos Pro Small.

SET-UP AND CONFIGURATION If you’re looking for a small form factor tablet, this is it. At 269 x 170 mm and only 8mm thick, this is about the same size as decent notebook and weighs about the same (460g).

As I’ve come to expect from Wacom, getting the device up and running is a breeze: unwrap it, download the driver software and either plug in the USB-C cable (which handily ends in a standard USB plug) or connect to it via Bluetooth, and you’re away.

As you’ll see from the images, there are a series of hot keys to the left of the unit (or to the right, since you can switch it around for left-handers out there) and most of the work is done with the supplied pen. Products in the Intuos Pro range are all based on the latest and greatest pressure-sensitive pen technology, so will give you 8,192 pen pressure levels.

If you’ve not used one of these devices before, they’re pretty simple. They can be

1 used either as a mouse replacement or as a true pen. The supplied pen has two buttons on the shaft that mimic your mouse buttons, but an additional pen is available that’s better-suited to working with 3D applications.

If you’re using the device to assist in sketching with the likes of Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketchbook or similar, then the input is intuitive and works just as you’d imagine it would. Pressure sensitivity is key here – push harder, and you will get harder strokes on screen, as long as your application supports it.

For those accustomed to working with direct input devices like the iPad, the disconnect between your drawing surface and screen takes a little getting used to, but it quickly starts to feels natural.

There’s huge potential for customisation, both in terms of how the device itself is used, as well as the express keys on the left-hand side. The control dialogue (shown from OSX) allows you to dial in everything so it’s just how you need it, from assigning hot keys to specific functions (think zoom, pan and rotate in 3D CAD systems) to running macros and more.

One thing that’s worth noting, considering how many of us are reliant on multiple monitor set-ups these days, is how easy it is to control what portion of your display the tablet actually controls.

Found under the ‘Mapping’ section of the dialogue, you can define which displays the tablet addresses and what portion of the tablet is actually related to that display.

While this makes more sense for the larger devices in the Intuos range, the latter is key for those looking to use such devices for more than just drawing or sketching input.

IN CONCLUSION

1 A touch smaller ●

Wacom is well-known in the design and engineering world and its reputation is based firmly on build quality, attention to detail and allowing the user to configure their device to reflect exactly how they want to work. What’s interesting here is that, while the company always has interesting things to offer at the high end and in larger form factors, this product shows how it applies similar finesse and attention to smaller devices.

If you’re looking for a small, portable drawing tablet, then this is a pretty good bet. Portability, wireless connectivity and Wacom’s sprinkle of magic make it a winner at £199.99. wacom.com

than an A4 notebook, the Wacom Intuos Pro is a nifty bit of kit 2 If you want to ●

get the most out of this device, then you need to dive into the configuration dialogue to adjust settings in line with how you prefer to work

2 DEVELOP3D.COM JUNE 2019 47

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THE LAST WORD

Having recently rediscovered his love of colour, Al Dean decides it’s about time that the design tools we use every day allowed us to work as accurately with colour and texture as they do with geometry

I

t all started, as all good stories do, with an axe. After installing one of those environmentdamaging wood-burning stoves last winter, I’ve found myself in the market for a new chopper.

By ‘chopper’, I don’t mean a motorcycle of dubious stability, but rather, a tool for chopping up wood.

And, as with most men of a certain age, I realised that I already had a halfdecent one kicking around in the shed.

Fast-forward a weekend and things have got out of hand. Not only has that axe been rehandled and cleaned up, but also the stamped logo has been re-enameled and the handle stained, oiled and, shock horror, painted with a nice flash of bright yellow.

The truth is that while I might have spent the last few years almost entirely dressed in black, I’ve started to find this a little tiresome and begun looking for a little more colour in my life. I’m now finding myself enjoying shades that would have previously sent me scampering for a Sisters of Mercy album and a coffee sans cow juice.

Despite my monochromatic obsession, I’ve always been interested in colour and curious about how colours come to be. There’s also a good deal of interest in how you can represent colour more accurately on a computer monitor and in the design systems we all use.

While the idea of monitor calibration is finally starting to take root, with many vendors offering built-in solutions, there’s

accurately tune your digital display to mimic the real world comes into play (ever loaded an ICC profile into KeyShot?)

But why is this? Colour and texture are as important to the look and feel of a



I’m now finding myself enjoying shades that would have previously sent me scampering for a Sisters of Mercy album and a coffee sans cow juice

 very little support for the output of these systems in our workhorse design systems.

It’s only when you get into the world of design visualisation, with rendering systems, that the idea of being able to

product (arguably more so) than its pure geometry. Why is it that we can construct a 100% accurate digital model of the shape of an assembly and simulate its mechanical and thermal behaviour under loading, but

representing it accurately, using the correct colour references and textures, requires a third-party application?

And don’t get me started on sound. When the time comes that we can accurately simulate the sound that a car door makes, or that a bin lid makes when that soft close mechanism works just right, I’ll retire and stop moaning.

As a final recommendation, and given that summer holidays are approaching, if you’re as interested in colour and history as I am, then I heartily recommend Victoria Finlay’s Color: A Natural History of the Palette.

Brabantia’s Tasty+ collection is “a complete new series of high-quality kitchen utensils in soothing colours”

GET IN TOUCH: at al@x3dmedia.com or @alistardean — He’s totally trying to blag his way to a brand spanking new set of colourful kitchen utensils

50 JUNE 2019 DEVELOP3D.COM

p50_D3D_JUN19_LastWord.indd 50

05/06/2019 16:01

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