DEVELOP3D March 2020

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WELCOME EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Al Dean al@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)7525 701 541 Managing Editor Greg Corke greg@x3dmedia.com +44 (0)20 3355 7312 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

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H

owdy. If the newspaper headlines are to be believed, we’re now on the cusp of a coronavirus-led global apocalypse, so if you’re reading this from your hermetically sealed quarantine room, do forgive me for my glibness about it all. I’ve just got back from the newly rebranded 3DExperience World in Nashville. It was a strange time. During the event, I realised that I’ve been going to variations of Solidworks World since 1999, when I attended the second-ever event in Palm Springs. That was 21 years ago and I’m now 44 years old. Aside from realising that the above photograph has no Dorian Gray-like properties, it also struck me that I’ve been going to CAD conferences for nearly half of my years on the planet.

During this year’s event, I made the effort to talk to more new attendees, rather than the old guard. The difference was remarkable. Here they were, full of enthusiasm, keen to hear what’s coming next and looking forward to learning more from their peers – and, judging by the nightly shenanigans on Broadway, just as eager to sample the delights that Nashville has to offer. Bless them, I thought, as I cashed out early and headed for my hotel room. They’ll learn.

Fast-forward roughly 24 hours, and I’m stood in the back of a bar, surrounded by old friends, an impromptu biro tattoo across my knuckles, singing along to ‘Jolene’ at the top of my lungs – probably for the fourth time that evening. Perhaps there are some lessons we’ll never learn, eh?

ACCOUNTS Accounts Manager Charlotte Taibi charlotte@x3dmedia.com Financial Controller Samantha Todescato-Rutland sam@chalfen.com

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

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CONTENTS MARCH 2020 ISSUE NO. 117

NEWS Solidworks puts on a show at 3DExperience World, Formlabs launches new Tough 1500 resin and Markforged announces pure copper 3D printing

9

13 14 16 24 31 34

FEATURES Comment: Erin McDermott’s autonomous driving fears Visual Design Guide: Indian Motorcycle Challenger 2020 COVER STORY JCB digs deep on electrification Why Limbic Systems is sitting pretty with Solid Edge High-end all the way for toolmaker Alpha Precision Event preview: DEVELOP3D LIVE in Sheffield

REVIEWS 38 Autodesk Fusion 360 2Q 2020 42 nTopology nTop Platform 2.4 47 Wacom One 49 DEVELOP3D SERVICES 50 THE LAST WORD With the passing of Lego Minifigure designer Jens Nygaard Knudsen, Al Dean weighs up environmental concerns against the joy to be had from ABS plastic

2020

16 April 2020 The wood used to produce this magazine comes from Forest Stewardship Council certified well-managed forests, controlled sources and/or recycled material

University of Sheffield

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NEWS

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT NEWS

3DEXPERIENCE WORLD: INAUGURAL EVENT FOCUSES ON FUTURE OF SOLIDWORKS » How did Dassault Systèmes' decision to rebrand and refocus Solidworks World on the future of its wider product offering affect the turn-out for the event and what did the faithful make of it all? Al Dean reports from a very rainy Nashville, Tennessee

T

he decision by Dassault Systèmes to rebrand its mainstream engineering event Solidworks World as 3DExperience World, in order to better showcase its future-facing brands, has been a controversial one.

Many saw the move as a the start of the end game for one of the best-attended events on the 3D CAD calender and a sign that the French company is looking to finally assimilate Solidworks into the corporate fold.

The reality is that this was inevitable.

Dassault’s highly successful, highly profitable Solidworks group has spent the best part of the last 10 years developing its next-generation tools and finally seems to be in the position where the toolset and the messaging are aligned and ready to go.

This year, I attended with an open mind. I decided I’d not think back on the fun times I’d had at the show in previous years, of the spectacles I’d seen. Instead, I’d try and look forward, to see where Solidworks is heading, both as a product and as a brand within the Dassault empire. The good news is the picture is much clearer now, having immersed myself in the four-day event.

It’s clear that the development team is pushing ahead with its plans for the range of 3DExperience applications, and the all-important packaging and go-to-market strategies are starting to take a solid form.

As the main man, Solidworks CEO Gian Paolo Bassi, said himself during a press conference at the event: “The future cannot only be about CAD. Users understand how important it is to aid design with more than geometry."

"We started this a few years back,

understanding the importance of simulation, of data management. Now, we want to supercharge the type of augmentation. We strongly believe that the world of manufacturing and innovation needs to be supported by a useful combination of applications and bring people together,” he continued So what’s on offer? The answer is worth taking some time to dissect. Over the last few years, we’ve had all manner of different names, different bundles and so on. What we have now is a clear concept of how Solidworks is looking to bring its next generation of products to market.

At the event, Solidworks launched this with the fanfare you’d expect when you’ve got 4,000 of your most faithful users in one room - albeit to a stilted audience reaction.

Later this year, you’ll be able to acquire 3DExperience.Works bundles (shown below) that bring together a variant of Solidworks that is delivered by, and synchronises its data to, the 3DExperience data management and collaboration platform. Included in these bundles, according to level, will be next-generation apps such as xDesign, xShape and so on, contained in the 3D Creator and 3D Sculptor products.As you step up the bundle cost, you gain access to more tools, such as simulation.

What was interesting is that Dassault also told us how to work out prices for these bundles. They’ll be the same as your current support costs for corresponding Solidworks bundles, without the upfront cost and with a discount included, ranging from 0% at entry level up to 8% for the Premium offering.

However, the manner in which Dassault addresses this audience (equal parts patronising and disconnected to reality of actual design and manufacturing) still needs to change. Interference in keynotes from Dassault headquarters should be avoided, because when Bassi stood for a good half-hour to explain his vision for Solidworks to the media, he was compelling, concise and clear. When he was on stage, however, that passion seemed to dissipate.

Bassi was followed by Dassault CEO Bernard Charlès who, as ever, spoke only about what he wants and interspersed his presentation with advertising videos.

In terms of the rest of the event, I’m happy to report that the users I spoke to still love it. Many commented that the breakout sessions (where the true value of these conferences is gained) were better than in previous years.

First-time conference attendees, in particular, could not have been more complimentary. The Solidworks team always puts on a good event and that has a lot of appeal to newcomers who are unencumbered by knowledge and experience of Solidworks’ history. This group is particularly keen to learn where their toolset is heading and eager for next year’s fun and games.

Solidworks is in a state of transition – one that it must make publicly and under a great deal of scrutiny. Certainly, its messaging over the last few years has been inconsistent, but the good news is that consistency is starting to emerge, helping customers better understand the future laid out for their toolset of choice.

Plus, Solidworks still has the world’s largest community of CAD users and it’s good to know that the faithful still gather once a year. solidworks.com

Above: SolidWorks CEO Gian Paolo Bassi takes to the stage, following a video that showed him rocking a wetsuit and riding a jet-powered surfboard Below left: New bundles from Solidworks, coming later this year, will be charged at the same price as your current Solidworks support charges, with discounts applied according to the bundle you purchase

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NEWS

AMD GOES HARD ON PRICE FOR VR CAPABLE RADEON PRO GPU

Rize and Sindoh partner to expand 3D printer sales

B

oston’s Rize has partnered with South Korea’s Sindoh to expand their 3D printing product offerings and open up new markets.

The plan is for Sindoh to incorporate Rize’s Rizium materials into its desktop and industrial 3D printers.

“Sindoh is a proven technology leader with a wide array of 3D printing offerings, and together, we can complement each other’s strengths to capture rising demand for next-generation additive manufacturing technologies,” said Rize CEO Andy Kalambi. rize3d.com | sindoh.com

A

MD's new affordable Radeon Pro W5500 (8GB GDDR6) professional GPU is primarily designed for 3D CAD but can also be used for VR and GPU rendering in applications including Solidworks eDrawings and Solidworks Visualize 2020.

The single slot graphics card has an aggressive price tag of $399, significantly lower than other professional ‘VR Ready’ GPUs. It goes head to head with Nvidia’s Quadro P2200 (5GB GDDR5 memory), which is priced similarly, but is not VR Ready.

In terms of specs, the Radeon Pro W5500 features four DisplayPort 1.4 outputs to drive up to four 4K displays, delivers up to 5.25 TFLOPs of FP32 performance and supports PCI Express 4.0, which has twice

the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0.

Based on AMD’s 7nm ‘Navi’ RDNA architecture the W5500 offers up to 1.5x more performance per watt than the chip maker’s previous 14nm Graphics Core Next (GCN) Radeon Pro GPUs. The maximum power consumption is 125W and the board requires an external 6-pin connector.

Other features include Wireless VR support with the HTC Vive Focus Plus and support for AMD Remote Workstation.

AMD says this allows you to access your physical workstation from ‘virtually anywhere with rich graphics experiences’ using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops or Microsoft Remote Desktop.

Look out soon for a full review of the Radeon Pro W5500 in the April edition. amd.com/radeonpro

The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is VR Ready but only costs $399

Markforged announces pure copper 3D printing, opening up new applications

I

t might be best know for carbon fibre 3D printing, but Markforged has been doing some wondrous things with its Metal X range, too.

It's now pushing the envelope even further by announcing pure copper as its new material.

“Every automotive factory in the world uses copper for welding,” said Markforged CEO and founder Greg Mark. “Complex production parts are required to weld tight spots of the car body. They cost thousands of dollars to make and can have monthslong lead times.”

His claim is that the newest Metal X material will change this, by enabling manufacturers to design custom shapes and produce them in-house. markforged.com

Solid Solutions receives new investment

U

K software reseller Solid Solutions is looking to expand its business and introduce new product and service lines after attracting an investment from private equity investor LDC. LDC will replace existing Solid Solutions backer BGF, which is to exit its stake in the company. Founded in 1998, Solid Solutions is one of the UK and Ireland’s leading resellers of Solidworks and has some 15,000 customers. solidsolutions.com

Assess to hold Atlanta digital twin event in July

A

two-day Digital Twin Forum will be held at the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory on the Georgia Tech university campus in Atlanta, Georgia on 7 & 8 July 2020.

Organised in part by the ASSESS (Analysis, Simulation, and Systems Engineering Software Strategies) Initiative, the event is looking to bring together both users and developers of simulation software, with the goal of guiding and influencing software tool strategies for performing modelbased analysis, simulation and systems engineering. assessinitiative.com

10 MARCH 2020 DEVELOP3D.COM

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PTC UPDATES ONSHAPE WITH EXPLODED VIEWS AND MORE

R

ecent acquisition by PTC hasn’t slowed down the near-continuous improvements being made to Onshape and its cloudbased CAD tools. This month, we’ve seen some key new capabilities added.

Users can now create live exploded views within Onshape Assemblies and Drawings.

Exploded views are independently controlled and work with the other aspects of an Onshape assembly, including display states, named views and configurations.

When a configuration undergoes changes, the exploded view will parametrically adapt to that new configuration in an intelligent way.

These views also become available for reuse and insertion into drawings and

other technical publications for which they might be needed.

Elsewhere, when sketching in Onshape, users can now infer to any geometry in the plane of the active sketch, including existing sketches. Previously, you could only infer to geometry that was part of the face being sketched on.

Lastly, for those who use Onshape on their mobile device, searching from the Documents list in iOS now allows filtering by properties and custom properties that were created in a company.

Users are required to simply select an appropriate item from the ‘Type’ filter at the top, and then select ‘Add criteria’ for the particular property they wish to search. onshape.com | ptc.com

Users can now create live exploded views within Onshape Assemblies and Drawings

Formlabs launches new tough resin for simulating properties of polypropylene

F

ormlabs has added a new 3D printing material to its family of Tough and Durable stereolithography resins.

Tough 1500 Resin is designed for producing parts that are both stiff and pliable, with a decent resistance to cyclic loading. That makes it ideal for creating connectors and fixtures or simply to withstand plain old clumsiness during design reviews. It will be particularly useful for simulating the mechanical properties of parts to be produced in polypropylene, says Formlabs.

'Tough 1500' refers to the material’s tensile modulus of 1,500MPa, a naming convention that the company intends to stick with for future resin releases. formlabs.com

ROUND UP Boston Micro Fabrication (BMF) is looking to pioneer microscale 3D printing, with the launch of its MicroArch solution for industrial short-run use. MicroArch uses a proprietary approach to DLP 3D printing named PμSL (Projection MicroStereolithography) bmf3d.com

The design-office-friendly Stratasys J826 combines multi-material 3D printing with Pantone-validated colour. It comes at half the price of other J8series PolyJet 3D printers, but leverages the same technology and materials as its large-format counterparts stratasys.com

Essentium is launching its HSE 180 series of FDM 3D printers in the UK through reseller GoPrint3D, as well as a complete range of new materials. The company claims its High Speed Extrusion (HSE) technology is five to 15 times faster and five times more accurate than conventional FDM processes essentium3d.com

Newly launched Canvas X3 imports all metadata attached to a 3D CAD model, allowing illustrators to document and reference individual model parts for a range of outputs, including bills of materials. Canvas X3 CADComposer is the first Canvas product to build on the firm’s partnership with Dassault Systèmes canvasgfx.com

Thor3D and Quicksurface have partnered to allow Thor3D distributors to resell Quicksurface software in a bundle with its Calibry 3D scanners.

Quicksurface was specifically designed for novices tackling complex 3D scanning problems thor3D.com

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COMMENT

Do you work in product development and find yourself terrified by the prospect of autonomous driving tech?

You are not alone, writes our new columnist Erin McDermott, in the first of her columns for DEVELOP3D

W

hen I attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year, there was an electric buzz around autonomous driving at the event. Millions of development dollars are being spent. Big players and small players are filling the field. Larger players are gobbling up smaller players, too.

It could be argued that electric vehicles are a first step in building tomorrow’s AI-powered vehicle, and here we even see a company that has never built a vehicle before: Sony.

Without explicitly being stated, any CES attendee would acknowledge the public expectation that robot chauffeurs are coming. They’re inevitable and they’ll also be wondrous.

It’s the future! And, at the same time, it’s horrifying!

As an R&D engineer with many years of experience in industry, including the automotive sector, I’ve seen things. I think all engineers have.

We know a physical thing can’t be made in mass production 100% correctly, 100% of the time, even with accurate planning and communication. (“Accurate communication”? What is that, anyway?)

Beyond that, automotive engineers especially know that there are no completely safe vehicles out there. It’s not because manufacturers are evil and don’t want consumers to be safe.

It’s that no one would pay for – or want to be seen in – a super-safe vehicle. The thing would be constructed exclusively of padding, roll bars and speed limiters. It would also cost an exorbitant amount to meticulously test every millimeter of each finished product.

The saving grace of these dangerous, speeding hunks of metal that we consumers buy and sit inside, is that humans are pretty good at reacting to snafus they don’t anticipate.

So when brakes fail, or your Ford Pinto bursts into flames, or grandpa escapes from the nursing home, hijacks a car and is speeding toward you, going the wrong direction on the highway, you can creatively

react. It’s not imperative that you already have a programmed response for these specific situations.

For an autonomous driving program, though? How does a software engineer build code to anticipate situations that are hard to imagine?

I polled my fellow engineers in the physical product space and found I wasn’t alone. Me: “What do you think of autonomous driving?” All of them: “Terrified.” Right, ok.

But the question remained: Was I being hasty, assuming bad things about the software side?

Maybe I’m not being fair. I asked my friend, Keith Marcum, a software nerd/expert extraordinaire about his personal thoughts from the coding side of the table. TL/DR: Also horror.

As he put it: “So, basically, all software is terrible.



they should be supervising their robot’s actions.

(Would you nap when your teen with a brand new learner’s permit was driving? Oh, no? But you’re cool with the bot driving? Ok, great. Just checking.)

Third, there are different levels of autonomy and this goes along with the last point I made. Humans will tend to assume that their fancy Knight Rider car is at fully automated Level 5 – even if it’s not.

Finally, if the bar is other human drivers, then that bar is low. Really low.

On that note, Marcum tapped his brakes, anticipating another driver was about to merge not only into our lane, but also into us, before going on to say: “I don’t mean to say that humans can’t make software that’s good enough to keep humans alive in dangerous situations. We clearly can. But when we write safety-critical software, it looks totally different.”

As he explained, general software development culture is one in which coders are used to being able to build things without directly facing the consequences of bad decisions. Think back to the 2017 Equifax data breach.

For this reason, Marcum believes that, “safe autonomous vehicle software can only happen in defiance of prevailing software culture.”

In any case, I’d like to prop up one suggestion for autonomous driving development teams: Can you make sure that your programmers get to spend plenty of time driving outside of California roads?

I’d hate for the bar to be set by those drivers most likely to make me require a change of pants.

Laypeople often assume that the best and brightest programmers are put to task on coding for autonomous vehicles. This is false. They’re the same mediocre people writing car robot code as the folks who built the first version of Apple Maps

 Some of it is terrible in ways that you can see. Some of it is only terrible beneath the surface.”

Great! So, at least in this respect, hardware and software are kind of similar.

Marcum made some other interesting points that I hadn’t previously considered. It’s worth noting that, as we chatted about this topic, we were dangerously cut-off on the expressway multiple times as he drove me to catch my flight to Las Vegas.

First, laypeople he speaks with often assume that the best and brightest programmers are put to task on coding for autonomous vehicles. This is false.

They’re the same mediocre people writing car robot code as the folks who built the first version of Apple Maps (my example, not his) – or, when you think about it, any other programme that’s disappointed you lately.

Second, people put too much faith in AI. This in itself is scary. Those who aren’t naturally fearful have a tendency to kick back and take a nap when

GET IN TOUCH: Erin M McDermott is director of optical engineering at Spire Starter and a digital nomad (read: vagrant). She travels the world meeting hardware engineers who don’t know that things using light (cameras, LED illumination, LiDAR, laser processes etc) need competent design, optimisation and tolerancing, just like the rest of their widget. Get in touch at spirestarter.com or @erinmmcdermott DEVELOP3D.COM MARCH 2020 13

VISUAL DESIGN GUIDE 2020 INDIAN CHALLENGER Indian Motorcycles has been resurrected from the graveyard of great American brands and its latest 2020 Challenger wears the company’s heritage well

COMFORT FOR LONG RIDES For long hauls, the Indian Challenger Tour Collection includes a windshield, quick-release passenger sissy bar, passenger backrest and floorboards, as well as an extended-reach seat and a pinnacle heel shifter

A BAGGER FOR THE FUTURE A state-of-the-art bagger, the Challenger is equipped with Indian Motorcycle’s intuitive Smart Lean technology, keeping riders grounded by utilising a Bosch inertial measurement unit (IMU) to add cornering pre-control to the dynamic traction control and anti-lock braking system (ABS)

NEW POWER PLANT The new Indian PowerPlus engine is the company’s first liquid-cooled large displacement motor (1,769cc, 60-degree V-twin), packing 122hp and 178Nm of torque. The new powertrain also features a six-speed transmission with true overdrive, assist clutch to reduce clutch effort and hydraulic-valve lash adjusters

14 APRIL MARCH2019 2020DEVELOP3D.COM DEVELOP3D.COM

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FINDING A CLEAR PATH The Challenger’s 7-inch Ride Command system features weather and traffic overlays, key vehicle information, Bluetooth and USB mobile pairing and an all-new quadcore processor for faster response

CUSTOMISABLE RIDE PROFILES

Riders can customise the bike’s throttle mapping by selecting one of three ride modes, including Rain, Standard and Sport, resulting in one motorcycle with three distinct performance personalities. Each ride mode has been engineered with its own distinct traction control setting to align with its specific throttle mapping

BE SAFE, BE SEEN With menacing LED running lights, a central headlamp and a redesigned and modernised Indian Motorcycle headdress adorning its front fender, the Challenger presents an unmistakable profile, day and night

RACE-SPEC BREMBO BRAKES Race-spec radially-mounted Brembo brakes provide superior stopping power, and new performance touring Metzeler Cruisetec tyres offer supreme traction. Challenger’s chassis-mounted fairing features an adjustable windscreen with nearly three inches of travel and adjustable air vents, delivering unprecedented rider protection from the elements

NEXT STEPS

The 2020 Indian Challenger Dark Horse is available in Thunder Black Smoke, Sandstone Smoke, and White Smoke indianmotorcycle.com

DEVELOP3D.COMMARCH APRIL 2020 2019 15 DEVELOP3D.COM

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PROFILE

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PROFILE

1 f something needs to be dug up, lifted, pushed, carried or positioned, whatever its size or weight, then JCB has a bright yellow machine for the job. Founded by Joseph Cyril Bamford in Uttoxeter, UK back in 1945, the company has never stopped innovating over the 75 years of its existence.

Today, its equipment can be found on construction sites, farms, warehouse sites and military bases around the world. But being powered by diesel, these products are vulnerable to rising fuel prices and environmental concerns over the burning of fossil fuels. Throw lifestyle changes and population growth into the mix, too, and you’ve got an idea of the sorts of issues that play on the mind of JCB’s director of advanced engineering, Bob Womersley.

After all, he’s the person who, for the past decade, has been entrusted with guiding the company’s next great step, as a producer of zero-emissions vehicles.

Womersley is perhaps the perfect person for the task, with his enthusiasm for progressive engineering, a nearobsessive focus on powertrain efficiency and his dedication to understanding customer needs. He describes the company’s drive to introduce new electric machines as “a pulse” in the business, conjuring up a sense of something vital and insistent.

He’s also optimistic about sales prospects for these new machines, citing as evidence the C40 Cities Climate

1 The JCB Teletruk is ●

a new addition to the company’s growing range of electric vehicles

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PROFILE

‘‘ The battery

had to be robust.

There’s no suspension on these machines, so the vibration characteristic that the whole of the propulsion system has to withstand is substantial

’’

Leadership Group, a group of 96 cities around the world that collectively represent one-twelfth of the world’s population and one-quarter of the global economy. This group focuses on tackling climate change and driving urban action to reduce emissions and climate risks.

Says Womersley: “These places are full of electric machines now and, as an engineering team, we think it’s fantastic, because we’re involved in launching product into nascent markets.”

INTEREST AND ACCLAIM In 2019, JCB launched its first electric vehicle, the 1.9ton 19C-1E mini digger, to widespread interest and acclaim. The new model scooped one of the automotive industry’s most prestigious honours, the Dewar Trophy for outstanding technical achievement, from the Royal Automobile Club.

The trophy is only awarded in years when the judging committee deems there to be an entry of sufficient merit and JCB is one of only four companies to have ever won it twice – the last time being back in 2006, for the land-speed record-breaking JCB Dieselmax car.

As the accolade suggests, the development of the JCB 19C-1E goes way beyond a simple powertrain swap. The initial steps began a decade earlier, with an internal concept excavator, running on a hybrid powertrain partly influenced by the Toyota Prius. This was a functioning machine,

3

4

2 certainly – but it turned out that a production version would end up costing customers nearly three times as much as its diesel equivalent.

The project was shelved as commercially unviable, but the work involved had planted a seed. A company directive to move to electric power soon followed and, with subsequent technological advances, JCB began to see opportunities to sidestep the hybrid model and focus instead on Lithium-ion batteries.

For the 19C-1E’s design and engineering, battery capability would be crucial, and the JCB team settled on battery packs designed, developed and manufactured by Hyperdrive Innovation. This Sunderland-based company is located across the road from the Nissan factory where the same cells are used in the automotive giant’s popular Leaf electric car.

JCB pushed the validation process of Hyperdrive Innovation’s battery to the limit, well beyond normal automotive use. “It had to be robust,” Womersley explains.

“There’s no suspension on these machines, so the vibration characteristic that the whole of the propulsion system has to withstand is substantial.”

Years of honing the design of the diesel mini digger for systems efficiency meant that 48v batteries, a relatively low-power source, could be used. These proved more than a match for the digger’s diesel equivalent.

5 2 Director of advanced ●

engineering Bob Womersley with the JCB 19C-1E

3 Inside JCB’s world ●

headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire

4 JCB’s design office features ●

a huge power wall for design reviews and presentations

5 The JCB 19C-1E’s neat size ●

means it can squeeze through most doorways to perform internal work on buildings

DEVELOP3D.COM MARCH 2020 19

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PROFILE

‘‘ We want the

operator to know it’s a digger. It’s just like any other machine – but there isn’t a fuel indicator

’’

Using Siemens NX for 3D CAD modelling, all the components of the original design’s diesel powertrain were removed, giving the team a packaging envelope with which to work. As with any excavator, the all-important need for stability means designing so that weight is located both low down and towards the rear of the vehicle. This rule would clearly apply to the battery, if the excellent balance and poise of the original diesel version was to be maintained. At the same time, positioning the battery this way would lend it extra protection from knocks, scrapes and potentially, theft.

“Most of the attention to detail around this machine to unlock the electric capability was the structuring [of ] the middle of the machine,” says Womersley, adding that the FEA [finite element analysis] tools in Siemens NX and other FEA software played an important role here.

“I think we’re genuinely world-class at forming a joint in metal and understanding structural performance, so we can use the minimum amount of steel to get the stiffest structure,” he says.

“In Siemens NX, we’ve got software packages that not only do the FEA, but [also] if you design a loader arm, how do you ensure that you get it right when it’s all welded?

That’s the sort of analysis we do with the big weldments, on the chassis and what have you, with all of the analysis done prior to the first prototype being made.”

7

6 DIGGING DEEP Once designed, the JCB engineering team was determined to test the little digger to breaking point. “I was paranoid, the engineering team were paranoid, that we would let the business down if it wasn’t strong enough,” says Womersley.

He goes on to detail the rigours under which it was placed, in an accelerated programme of testing permitted by its size and zero-emissions status. This included simulating work situations in JCB’s freezers and hot cells, in order to mimic minus 20 degree Norwegian winters and scorching summer temperatures in India, where the company derives significant revenue.

Despite being predominantly designed for urban use, the team ruggedised the product well beyond its intended habitat. Tests run at JCB’s own private rock quarry, where it worked alongside giant earthmovers, helped validate the initial FEA analysis.

Twelve prototype machines were then sent out to key customers for beta testing, under the guidance of JCB chaperones from the firm’s Young Talent team, made up of recent graduates and apprentices. They fed back even more information and observations from usage in the field.

Onboard, the mini-digger is almost identical to its triedand-tested diesel twin. Simple in design, the driver’s cab offers 270-degree visibility, perfect for working in confined areas, and can be fitted with an optional polyscreen for protection when doing demolition work.

6 The JCB 19C-1E’s ●

size and lack of exhaust fumes means it performs well inside buildings

7 The mini digger’s ● battery life means it can manage a full day’s work on a single charge

DEVELOP3D.COM MARCH 2020 21

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28/02/2020 16:01

PROFILE I think ‘‘ we’re

genuinely world-class at forming a joint in metal and understanding how we can use the minimum amount of steel to get the stiffest structure

8 “We want the operator to know it’s a digger. It’s just like any other machine – but there isn’t a fuel tank indicator!”

Womersley laughs.

A narrow 980mm overall width allows the mini-digger to squeeze into most buildings in order to undertake internal demolition or excavation work.

On the bottom, three single-flanged rollers on short pitch tracks ensure a quiet, smooth ride. On top, the boom arm has its hydraulic ram positioned to reduce the risk of damage in confined spaces.

The machine is five times quieter than the diesel variant – almost eerily quiet. This allows it to work longer hours without fear of causing disturbance, in proximity to buildings such as schools, hospitals and offices.

“There are no fumes and no diesel extraction required, crucial in indoor excavation, breaking and demolition works. It’s low-noise, perfect for urban environments,” Womersley comments.

The electric mini digger is now being used by archaeologists working undercover on an ancient burial site in London, as well as by the operators of the largest cemetery in Europe – locations where work needs to be precise and considerate. Another customer is looking to use the JCB 19C-1E in the clean spaces of its food factory.

MORE TO FOLLOW The JCB 19C-1E has already been joined by a zeroemissions tele-handling truck, the JCB 30-19E Teletruk, and more electric vehicles are in the pipeline. Future models are likely to push the design envelope further, Womersley suggests.

Lightweighting – in particular, reducing the weight of the bucket end and simultaneously, the counter-balance

needed at the back – is something that design tools could help with in the future.

More interesting still is the idea of battery energy recovery from machinery. With a lot of redundant mass being dropped down a hole when excavating, there’s the opportunity to recover some of that energy back into the power unit. This is an area that JCB is already investigating.

Womersley believes that the company is already ahead of the electric automotive crowd in the field of telematics.

All of its electric-powered machines, both those in testing and those already on sale, have JCB’s proprietary LiveLink system fitted. This allows the company to track machine use and help it develop the next generation of vehicles according to its findings. From the prototyping stages onwards, the engineers have used data from LiveLink to ascertain what an actual ‘day’s work’ really looks like, giving them new insight into battery usage.

This is not to say, however, that the company has given up designing traditional engines and drivetrains. According to Womersley, there’s a bright future for ‘clean diesel’ engines, especially at what he calls “the heavy end” of JCB’s product line-up. Through innovation and design improvements, JCB is leading the way on clean diesel technology to meet Stage V EU emissions regulations. When vehicles go beyond a certain weight, or when they’re deployed on particular use cases, it often makes sense to rely on combustion engines. But, he adds, “we’re working hard on making these as near to zero emissions as possible.”

From Womersley’s words, it’s clear that efficiency is now a major focus across the company’s entire product line – and that the spark of electrification has lit up yet another phase of innovation at JCB.

’’

jcb.com

8 Design and ● engineering pros at JCB use Siemens NX as their primary CAD software

22 MARCH 2020 DEVELOP3D.COM

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PROFILE

LIFE SU

Limbic Life and its manufacturing partner Schätti relied on Siemens Solid Edge to invent and produce an innovative relaxation chair with virtual reality capabilities 24 MARCH 2020 DEVELOP3D.COM

UPPORT ‘‘

The principle of ‘form follows function’ originated in the 20th century. Today, we develop products that are fun, healthy and useful, based on neuroscience and medicine Dr Patrik Künzler, Limbic Life

’’

Limbic Life’s innovative relaxation chairs combine modern design with high quality standards

DEVELOP3D.COM MARCH 2020 25

PROFILE

1

T

he Limbic Chair, marketed by Zurich-based Limbic Life, is the result of years of work, experience and insight. Designed on the principles of weightless sitting and freedom of movement for its occupant, motion sensors in the chair allow precise control of virtual reality (VR) and other applications in gaming, medical diagnostics and engineering. It’s the brainchild of Dr Patrik Künzler, director and founder of Limbic Life, who established the company following time spent at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“The principle of ‘form follows function’ originated in the 20th century,” says Künzler. “Today, we develop products that are fun, healthy and useful based on neuroscience and medicine.”

In this respect, his academic credentials are impeccable: a doctorate in medicine from the University of Zurich and post-doctoral research at the Picower Institute of Learning and Memory (also part of MIT), where he studied neurology and the limbic system.

The limbic system, Künzler explains, “connects the body with emotions, and emotions with the thinking brain.” In evolutionary terms, he continues, the limbic system was developed during the mammalian development phase.

“The ‘mammal brain’, which all mammals have, regulates sensations such as concern for offspring, fear, love, lust, play instinct and learning through imitation.

There are certain movements, which we call incentivised movements, that can cause and express feelings of happiness.”

WEIGHTLESS SITTING Together with students from the MIT Media Laboratory, Künzler developed the chair as an example of a new

26 MARCH 2020 DEVELOP3D.COM

2

approach to product development based on research.

Instead of following the traditional pattern of form follows function, they wanted to create a chair that conveys feelings of flying and weightlessness.

Initial sketches were drawn on paper, and then prototypes were created from laminated plywood. The sensation of free, weightless sitting, the team discovered, could be conveyed by two independent, specially suspended shells, supporting the sitter’s thighs.

In a follow-up project, the fast and precise movement impulses of the body, identified from brain research, were used to control a game console. For this purpose, the shells were equipped with motion sensors, a game programme was analysed and control options were programmed.

“We digitised the chair and developed an input device from it,” says Künzler. “This confirmed the thesis that some movement sequences can be controlled faster and more precisely with the legs than with the hands.”

AN IDEA BECOMES A PRODUCT Today, over 200 customers around the world own one or more custom-made Limbic Chairs, which are recognised as remedies by some health insurance companies. Such is its success that the chair is being redesigned for mass production, with a view to extending its benefits to a larger audience.

In 2016, manufacturer Schätti AG Metallwarenfabrik (Schätti) became a development and production partner of Limbic Life. The company assists product developers and designers in converting their designs into products that can be manufactured in order to meet market demand for them.

Schätti has extensive experience with designing products as varied as chairs, espresso machines, mobile whiteboards and light-emitting diode (LED) lamps. This involves it using sheet metal processing, computer numerical control (CNC) machining, profile processing and robot and laser welding.

‘‘ Relying on

Teamcenter as a single source for information, we have achieved an enormous streamlining of the processes.

Now we’re extending the application to purchasing and production Thomas Schätti, Schätti

’’

‘‘

For us as a product developer and manufacturing company, Solid Edge offers just the right mix of functions that we need.

In addition, the system is unbeatably easy to learn Thomas Schätti, Schätti AG Metallwarenfabrik

’’

3

Additional finishing and assembly processes make the company a complete service provider for individual parts and for finished products that may be comprised of anywhere between 20 and 20,000 pieces.

Schätti’s team of designers uses Solid Edge software and other solutions from Siemens Digital Industries Software, finding it to be an easy-to-learn solution, offering the perfect blend of functions, according to founder and designer Thomas Schätti.

The company’s goal was to advance the Limbic Chair from the individual production stage to series production.

Solid Edge helped make its goal a reality, enabling the company to develop a shell shape made of carbon fibers suitable for all users.

These seat shells will soon be injection-moulded from plastic. The company will achieve this by generating CNC programmes in Siemens’ NX manufacturing software, which connects the Schätti partner plant in Bulgaria through a continuous process chain.

All project-related data is managed in Siemens’ Teamcenter software, running in the background during design with Solid Edge. This supports approvals, design and production parts lists, and enables change management and version statuses to be mapped across multiple locations.

“Relying on Teamcenter as a single source for information, we have achieved an enormous streamlining of the processes,” says Thomas Schätti. “Now, we’re extending the application to purchasing and production.”

With this software infrastructure in place at his company, the Limbic Chair is expected to be ready some time this year for series production.

MORE THAN FUN AND GAMES With series production, Limbic Life wants to give more people the chance to sit in a healthy and relaxed way that makes movement fun.

The chair’s integrated motion sensors, the data from which is processed by a microcomputer embedded in the chair and transferred via a universal serial bus (USB) cable or Wi-Fi network, further increase the value of leisure time.

“We develop computer games that are fun and can be operated with the Limbic Chair,” says Mark van Raai, astrophysicist, gaming expert and chief technology officer at Limbic Chair. “We also offer support to developers who want to use it to control their games.”

But with the advent of increasingly complex computer applications in the workplace, there are other use cases to be explored. In these professional situations, the musculoskeletal system is often underused and the eyes, head and hands often overloaded. The Limbic Chair therefore offers a way to decrease an office worker’s daily stress and strain.

For example, an ophthalmologist could scan the human eye, model it in Solid Edge and freely move in a VR model of the scan, using the Limbic Chair. This would leave their hands free to perform interventions.

In radiology, meanwhile, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images might be ergonomically controlled, too.

“With the legs, VR applications can be controlled very precisely, while the hands remain free for other tasks,” Künzler explains.

For this reason, Limbic Life has created a certified interface to Solid Edge. Instead of a 3D mouse, the Limbic Chair can be used to fly through a 3D model, zoom in and out, and rotate it. In this way, hands are left free for making annotations using a keyboard, marking up specific areas of the model, or completing bill-of-materials information. The hope now for Limbic Life is that Solid Edge users will take advantage of its Limbic Chair to complete their work in a more efficient, healthier way.

1 The Limbic Chair ●

is certified as an input device for Solid Edge, with further VR applications expected to follow

2 Electronics are ●

located on the central section above the turnstile; four sensors transmit movement data via USB cable or Wi-Fi, which is interpreted on the computer

3 The Limbic Chair ●

consists of two independent carbon shells for the thighs, which can be moved in six degrees of freedom

limbic-life.com | siemens.com DEVELOP3D.COM MARCH 2020 27

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PROFILE

HIGH-END

ALL THE WAY

At Alpha Precision in Ireland, CAD/CAM software from VISI has enabled the business to continue to attract high-value toolmaking contracts, even as competition from low-cost overseas firms increases

A

s toolmaking contracts have drifted overseas, particularly to China, Irish businesses have increasingly looked to technology to give them the edge they need to compete for high-end, high-value work, according to Brendan Feely, director of Tubbercurry, County Sligo-based injection mould manufacturer Alpha Precision.

In particular, he points to CAD/CAM software from VISI as the catalyst for new ambitions, even in the post2018 economic downturn. “Even companies that weren’t computer literate were investing in the technology to survive,” he says. “The software had a huge effect on the toolmaking industry, giving us a competitive advantage to weather the storm.”

In Alpha Precision’s case, the software has helped the company to forge ahead on important medical, aerospace and automotive contracts, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in precision engineering.

It’s now “high end all the way” for Alpha Precision, says Feely, with high-end staff building high-end mould tools using high-end software. “The technology promotes a more automated process and means our staff needs a different skillset nowadays, to use VISI to its full potential.”

He describes VISI as a “glue” in the complete toolmaking environment. “We have a variety of different machines doing different jobs, so our operators have different skills.

The software’s applied on the back of the machining, and because there are several disciplines, such as design, milling, wire and spark eroding, [it] fits naturally into its given area.

The operator in that area is just trained on the one particular VISI module.”

A COMMON LANGUAGE Alpha Precision has 16 employees, producing an average of 40 tools per

1 Once an order is year. These range in size from 100mm x 100mm x 100mm, ● placed, the Alpha to up to 600mm x 1-metre, mainly for the automotive, Precision team medical, packaging and electronics sectors. works closely with the customer on Feely compares workers in the toolroom to a group of the design concept, people from different countries, each speaking a different including flow language. “One language is design; others include flow analysis and tool analysis, milling, wire eroding and spark erosion,” he layout says. “VISI is the common language that unites all those processes, ensuring everything moves fluently through the toolroom from one discipline to another.”

The company partners with its clients from initial concept right through to final production and its experienced design team uses VISI to design complex moulds. These include a number of high cavitation tools for a medical customer and two-shot plastic injection tools that involve an overmould.

With VISI programmes running high-speed milling processes on Roder and Makino F3 and F5 machining centres, the challenges posed by the medical industry pose no problem, in terms of requiring very fine micro levels, says Feely.

“We use high-end 42,000rpm spindle speeds for very small detail finishing, and cut our electrodes on the Makino F3, with high definition being done on the F5.

And we can also machine a cavity in just one night, which would otherwise take a week. Using VISI Machining, we can quickly produce a highly polished medical part with fine detail, a milled finish and a split line within micron accuracy.”

1 DEVELOP3D.COM MARCH 2020 31

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28/02/2020 16:03

PROFILE

‘‘

We have a variety of different machines doing different jobs, so our operators have different skills. The software’s applied on the back of the machining, and because there are several disciplines, such as design, milling, wire and spark eroding, the software fits naturally into its given area. The operator in that area is just trained on the one particular VISI module Brendan Feely, Alpha Precision

2

’’

BRIGHT SPARKS VISI Electrode & Wire, meanwhile, powers Alpha Precision’s EDM machines for spark eroding and Mitsubishi wire erosion. Parts of the tool will have been cut on each of the machines, he explains, and by the time it’s ready for shipping, is a very fine-micron, accurately controlled, finished tool, typically for the medical or automotive industry.

Alpha Precision has invested in a wide range of VISI modules, including Modelling, Analysis, Flow, Mould and Progress, the wire cutting and electrode systems, along with 2D Milling, 3D Milling and High-Speed Milling. That means the software is used at every stage of the process, beginning with putting together an accurate quotation for a customer. “We use VISI’s analytical tools to check the drafts and all the different features we’ll need to build into the mould, such as the core and side pieces,” Feely explains.

“When the order’s been placed, we work closely with our customer’s moulders on the design concept, including flow analysis and tool layout. Once the 2D design is broken down and we have the tooling in full 3D, we really begin to see the huge power of VISI, which controls everything from design, through milling to wiring, in one environment. Because we’re not going across translators, there’s a perfect understanding within the technology, taking it right through every stage.”

VISI ensures that all milling for hard prepping and highspeed finishing is handled quickly and accurately, which he says is vital to Alpha Precision’s operation. “We make a lot of one-off custom components for each mould, meaning we only run a programme once. As pattern cutters, we need to be very good at generating CNC code time after time, and VISI is exceptional at doing that job for us.”

2 Alpha’s EDM ●

and wire erosion machines are fed by VISI Electrode & Wire 3 Alpha’s tools ●

are high accuracy products that serve the automotive and medical industries

visicadcam.com | alphaprecision.ie

4 32 MARCH 2020 DEVELOP3D.COM

p31_32_D3D_MARCH20_AlphaPrecision.indd 32

3 28/02/2020 16:03

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EVENT PREVIEW

DEVELOP3D LIVE 2020 PREVIEW » Join our editorial team in Sheffield on 16 April for a full day of engaging talks from leading designers, engineers and developers of the latest product development technologies, together with a packed exhibition and faculty tours

S

heffield may well be known historically as ‘Steel City’, but a lot has changed in this manufacturing heartland.

The likes of Boeing, McLaren, Rolls Royce, Airbus and BAE Systems all have centres of excellence in Sheffield, boosting research and development with the city’s universities and the internationally renowned Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), with its Factory 2050 design and prototyping facility. All this makes the University of Sheffield a natural home for the DEVELOP3D LIVE multi-stream conference and exhibition.

The 3D design and engineering software market is at a crossroads. It has transitioned from 2D to 3D, from UNIX workstations to desktop PCs, and now we see a new generation of product design applications which reside on the cloud, harnessing ‘infinite’ computing and easing collaboration.

The desktop, however, remains king, with amazing new GPUs and multi-core CPUs such as AMD’s Threadripper giving new life to mature, powerful applications.

There has never been so much processing power at our fingertips. Combine this with constant advances in topology definition, geometry optimisation, metal additive manufacturing, analysis and simulation, and it’s clear that product designers have many decisions to make beyond their ‘weapon of choice’ modelling system.

DEVELOP3D LIVE is the perfect event to come and see everything in one go, to hear from the all the main developers, experience emerging technology and get your hands on the latest hardware.

THEMES AND STREAMS. DEVELOP3D LIVE 2020 will feature four simultaneous talk areas: a main stage for keynotes and industry presentations, plus three break-out session areas, for product design, design visualisation and a special University of Sheffield engineering research track. Our speakers include product designers, engineers, CEOs of key software developers, CTOs, researchers,

Learn what the future of product development technology looks like and how your peers are using it today

entrepreneurs and product specialists.

You will see all the latest advances in software and hardware and learn how innovative firms use disruptive workflows to develop products faster and more efficiently. As usual, DEVELOP3D LIVE will be an intense event with many talks happening simultaneously, so we would always advise bringing a colleague or two to make the most of the day.

TRAVEL Sheffield is well-connected to road and rail networks. The event is a short bus/cab ride from Sheffield Station and there is a multi-storey car park directly opposite, where spaces can be pre-booked.

For full travel information, including how to get there by rail, bus, car and bicycle, visit develop3dlive.com/visitor-info

ACCOMMODATION We appreciate that many of you travel great distances to attend the show. With the

exhibition opening at 8:00am on Thursday 16 April and the conference starting promptly at 9.30am, we are pleased to offer quality, affordable hotel/university accommodation nearby for £40 per night.

Book your room directly at jonashotel.co.uk/book/#/ For alternative hotel accommodation visit develop3dlive.com/hotels

CLAIM YOUR FREE TICKET We look forward to welcoming you to DEVELOP3D LIVE 2020 on Thursday 16 April at The Octagon Centre, University of Sheffield, S10 2TQ. With three conference streams, over 50 exhibitors and several workshops, we suggest you bring your whole team to get the most from the day. develop3dlive.com/register-now-2020/

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TOM LAWTON

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ne of our keynote speakers this year is Tom Lawton, an inventor who wears his heart on his sleeve. In the wake of the wave of pessimism that swept the country following the 2016 EU referendum and following the decline into dementia of his beloved Gran, Tom wanted to create the most beautiful thing he could imagine, and manufacture it here in Britain, to restore spirits and bring some positivity to the world.

Tom’s creation Uplift is a meditation aid designed to soothe the soul, reflecting his belief that even the smallest actions can have great significance. Fans of the product include the team at meditation app Calm.com.

When his customers told him they wanted something reminiscent of ocean waves, he turned to waste fishing nets to manufacture the spiral. Was it a risk worth taking?

Join Tom as he takes us through his journey of pioneering the use of waste nets and find out what it’s like to risk it all for the future you want to see.

We’ll be announcing our other exciting keynote presenters in the coming weeks, so stay tuned on develop3dlive.com

EXHIBITION

W

ith over 50 exhibitors, covering software, hardware and services, DEVELOP3D LIVE is the perfect opportunity to get hands-on with the very latest technologies. Learn how they can support your future design challenges and transform your product development process.

DEVELOP3D LIVE is the only UK event to attract such a broad crosssection of technology providers, covering CAD software, generative design, topology optimisation, additive manufacturing, AI, 3D printing, workstation technology, design visualisation, VR/AR, simulation, data management, 3D scanning, tolerance analysis and lots, lots more.

Check out develop3dlive.com/ exhibitors-2020/ to plan your day.

2020

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2020

DESIGN VIZ & VR

F

or those working at the intersection of digital art, product design/engineering data and immersive collaboration, this cannot be missed. This year’s line-up of design visualisation experts and technologists is our best yet, offering a blend of technology insight and real-world users passing on hard-earned learning.

We have seen huge increases in power and reductions in cost, together with innovations like AMD’s Threadripper, Nvidia RTX, cloud rendering, VR, AR and realtime ray tracing.

This year’s line-up of design visualisation experts and technologists is unparalleled and we’ll be exploring how leading vendors are adapting to new technologies to make existing products quicker, more efficient and more powerful, as well as discovering new workflows.

Learn about the very latest CPU and AI-accelerated GPU rendering tools

DEVELOP3D LIVE will examine the power of computation to explore new ideas

With the rise of AI and IoT, the role of the product designer is more important than ever

Inovus Medical will tell the story of how it built up its surgical simulation equipment business

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT STAGE

T

he technologies used and the roles occupied in product development are changing – from new ways to deliver and use software, to brand-new methods for generating ideas and creating final forms.

For 2020, we’ve invited companies that are disrupting markets and tackling new challenges. From building insect farms in innercity London to creating bike frames that eschew composites in favour of 3D printed metals, the world is changing fast.

We’ll be exploring the greater use of technologies like simulation upfront in the design process and investigating how 3D printing is now a realistic technology for producing end products.

We’ll also look at some key elements of modern-day design: building better user experiences; making IoT devices approachable; and using the latest technologies to help start a successful business with minimal resources. Join us at DEVELOP3D LIVE to explore the future together.

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REVIEWS SOFTWARE REVIEW

1

Autodesk Fusion 360 Q2 2020 Since we last took a look, there have been some major additions to Autodesk’s Fusion 360 product. Al Dean takes a look at what’s been added, from expansion of generative design, through machining, and into the realms of electronics design

I

t’s been a while since we last caught up with Fusion 360. If you’re not familiar with this product, Fusion 360 is Autodesk’s next-generation product development tool – a complete set of tools that covers common or garden solid and surface modelling and drawing production, but also supports many other tasks that sit alongside these core processes.

It includes, for example, T-spline-based sub-d modelling tools for definition of organic and complex surface models; a range of simulation tools, covering static stress and modal analyses, along with more complex physics and optimisation; and tools for mesh handling, rendering and visualisation. It also extends into CAM and machine tool programming – not just for milling, but also for turning, laser/plasmacutting and more.

In recent times, the team behind Fusion 360 has also worked hard to flesh out a set of tools for generative design, allowing users to explore design space and manufacturing constraints in a very efficient manner.

In short, there’s a lot going on here – and

» Product: Fusion 360 » Supplier: Autodesk Price: From £438 pa autodesk.com

with most of these capabilities available for around £400 per user, per year, you’ll see this is by no means a run-of-the-mill design system. Let’s take a look at some of the updates made in the last year or so.

GENERAL UPDATES

1 Autodesk’s Eagle ● PCB design system is now integrated into the Fusion environment with split, separate windows possible

One thing that quickly becomes apparent when opening up Fusion 360 is that while there are a stack of new features and functions available, a great deal of focus has also gone into revisiting and improving those that have been included in the product for some time.

The user interface has been freshened up and individual icons have been changed to make them more consistent across Fusion and Autodesk’s Inventor product.

You’ll also notice that workspaces have been consolidated in some areas.

For example, where previously there were distinct, separate workspaces for modelling, for surfaces (patch) and so on, these are all now to be found in the ‘design’ workspace, albeit in separate tabs.

Smaller updates have made Fusion 360 more engaging to use and re-learn. One example that springs to mind is changes

to the core sketching tools, which are used to build almost every solid or surface modelling feature.

Previously, Fusion pretty much gave everything the same colour, with little differentiation between sketch entities, dimensions, constraints and so on. Recent releases make these different entities easier to tell apart, making it clearer what’s going on with your sketch at any one time.

Moving on to more general design and engineering updates, a particular highlight is the ability to bend sheet metal parts up from a sketch, rather than creating flanges, as you would normally.

This makes sense if you’re creating a sheet metal part from a drawing imported as a DXF (perhaps from a legacy system), or if you have a number of bends that you want to control parametrically. These processes can now be driven from a single sketch.

EAGLE COMES TO FUSION 360 When Autodesk acquired CADsoft, developer of the well-known and widely respected PCB design system Eagle, back in 2017, many wondered what the future might hold for a system beloved by

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SOFTWARE REVIEW

2



Alongside the shiny new features and functions, work done to address some of the workflow stickiness in Fusion, as well as some of the longer standing issues surrounding the user interface and the user experience, is excellent

 hobbyists and professionals alike.

Since then, Autodesk executives have provided more detail about their future plans for Eagle, which provides those working in PCB design with tools for their full workflow, from schematic-level development to board design and layout.

If you’ve done that kind of work yourself, you’ll know that it’s a curiously two-dimensional process and a hard task to finagle design work into a threedimensional product.

To make things easier, Autodesk first added integration between Fusion and standalone Eagle, enabling Fusion to import Eagle board layouts and automatically create 3D models of them. Recent work takes this much further.

Now, when you start up Fusion 360, you’ll find Eagle integrated directly into the Fusion environment. If you’re an existing Eagle user, you’ll find the tools you want in the File menu, allowing you to start a new electronic design.

This fires up a slightly reworked and refreshed version of Eagle, directly inside Fusion. Since data, as you might expect, is stored on Autodesk’s own cloud servers,

it’s available to the colleagues and partners with whom you’re working, as and when they need it.

My knowledge of PCB design tools centres on the reuse of data in the context of mechanical design and packaging, so these are the workflows I’ve focused on – and it’s where the benefits of having Eagle integrated inside Fusion really come to light. At the click of a button, you can take your PCB design developed in Eagle and create a 3D model to be used by those responsible for mechanical design.

If you’re ever used an IDF-based translator or other 3D-aware PCB design system (such as Altium, for example), you’ll know that these models tend to represent a PCB board, at a fairly basic level, in terms of offering an accurate representation of traces and components, but only as primitive shapes.

This is what you get in the first instance from Fusion, too – but it’s worth noting here that with some background work and use of libraries, it’s perfectly possible to have the system populate the primitive ‘blocks’ that represent each of the ‘packages’ on a board much more clearly.

There are tools to automate much of this library creation and, of course, you’re able to use all of Fusion’s modelling tools to build them up yourself.

(What’s not 100% clear, however, is to what extent you can use the wide variety of online 3D component model libraries out there, in order to download and reuse that data, and save yourself the effort of modelling components up manually.)

If you’re using a PCB model of a supplied part, chances are that you’ll just need this 3D representation and that’ll be it.

However, if you’re working alongside your electronics team, you’ll likely need to work in a more iterative manner.

Here, the close integration between the mechanical design tools in Fusion 360 and Eagle makes huge sense. Any updates made to the schematic or board design can be quickly fed back to the mechanical team.

(Remember, it’s all on the Fusion cloud, so data management is handled automatically.)

Conversely, the mechanical design team is able to adjust the position of components, make required edits to the board and feed those changes back to their colleagues on the electronics team – again, this all happens in a managed environment.

2 Fusion’s updated ● generative design exploration tools now include cost estimations from aPriori Technologies

GENERATIVE UPDATES Last time we looked at Fusion 360’s generative design tools, these had only just been released to the user community. In the time between, these tools have continued to evolve and mature.

As you’ll recall, the system includes a set of manufacturing constraints that allows you to explore forms that are readily manufacturable (in terms of geometry) using machining.

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SOFTWARE REVIEW

3

Recent releases have seen additional manufacturing methods supported, so Fusion now supports 2-axis cutting, as well as die casting.

Another more recent update also brings cost estimation on board, which is based on technology licensed from aPriori Technologies, a fairly recent Autodesk partner. This looks useful, but at present, estimations are only applicable to additively manufactured components.

While the cost estimates produced by such technology are always going to be ballpark at best, this inclusion does mean that you’re able to plot cost as a factor in scatter plot visualisation methods, measuring them against more mechanical performance metrics such as mass, stiffness or factor of safety.

EXPANDING CAPABILITIES In the last 12 months, we’ve seen some pricing and bundling adjustments made to Fusion 360. When we last looked at the system, there were two pricing levels: Standard and Ultimate.

These have been abandoned, in favour of single offering priced at just over £400 a year. That’s for almost everything in the system, from CAD to CAM and all points in between.

But this doesn’t in fact tell the whole story, because at the same time, Autodesk has introduced the idea of ‘extensions’.

At present, these extensions add more specialised tools to the CAM offerings in Fusion, many of them drawn from the former Delcam technology stack. They are paid for separately, on a month-by-month basis, using cloud credits.

To give you a flavour of what’s available,

extensions include probing operations, steep/shallow machining (which comes from the mould and die machining world to help handle complex cores/cavities and so on) and some additive manufacturing-related tools for set-up and pre-processing of builds.

One particular highlight, for those with an interest in machining, are the Hole Recognition tools. These don’t rely on natively defined holes; instead, they perform a geometry analysis of hole-like forms in your part and present you with a list of the grouped holes they have identified, along with best guesses as how you want them treated (which can very quickly be adapted to your requirements) and generation of toolpaths.

These extensions are all available for 125 cloud credits per month, so you only buy them when and if you need them. The price equates to $125 per month, so it’s a question of whether there’s value there for you.

If you’re regularly performing probing and surface inspection tasks or work with parts with a lot of holes, then for those functions alone, I think the time savings achieved would justify the extra outlay.

IN CONCLUSION Fusion 360 is looking good – but updates over the course of this year prove that there’s still plenty of scope for improvement in this product.

What’s interesting is that the team behind this product is expanding its remit beyond pure product design and mechanical engineering. Yes, Fusion 360 has already achieved that goal, to some extent, with the inclusion of simulation and manufacturing tools, but it’s now moving into the realms

of electronic design – a field that’s increasingly more closely associated with the mechanical design world, in terms of both workflow and data exchange.

I’ve probably written enough previously to convey just how much of a fan I am of Autodesk’s approach to generative design – so it’s good to see the manufacturing methods supported by Fusion expanding and moving beyond pure additive to include more traditional forms of manufacture.

The introduction of cost estimation functions, meanwhile, is only going to make things more easy for users working at the most formative stages of design and engineering.

Alongside the shiny new features and functions, work done to address some of the workflow stickiness users have found in Fusion, as well as some of longer standing issues surrounding the user interface and the user experience, is excellent.

Better differentiation of sketch elements is a prime example of how existing tools can always be reevaluated and improved.

From talking to the team behind the product at Autodesk University in Las Vegas last winter, it was clear from what they we can expect to see a lot more of this kind of work.

Fusion 360 is still a relatively new system on the market, but one that is maturing nicely and finding its stride.

It’s also a system that isn’t afraid to push out into new pastures and explore new ways of helping design teams work more efficiently.

And, frankly, I’m still amazed at the scope and depth of what’s available for around £400 a year.

3 Hole Recognition ● is available in the Manufacturing workspace as an extension, paid for via additional cloud credits

autodesk.com

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SOFTWARE REVIEW

nTop Platform 2.4 The geometry that designers and engineers are asked to create is increasing in complexity, as companies explore new ways to manufacture products. Al Dean looks at a tool specifically built to make lighter work of such projects

I

f you’ve been following the design and engineering software industry over the last few years, chances are that you’ll have come across a New York-based start-up called nTopology. Founded in 2013 by Bradley Rothenberg, nTopology has gained a reputation for developing advanced software that looks to solve some of the most challenging, geometric-led design challenges we face. nTopology’s bold mission statement boasts of its intention to build “the next generation of engineering design tools for advanced manufacturing.”

In even a cursory trip to the company’s website, you’ll spot a lot of the kinds of forms that now get attributed to ‘advanced manufacturing’; these included generatively optimised forms, lattices and more.

What’s harder to track down is a clear, concise explanation of what nTopology’s nTop Platform actually does. So that’s our goal here: To temporarily set aside talk of ‘future this’ and ‘advanced that’, and dig down into what the bloody thing can actually help you achieve and how it goes about it. Ready? Let’s go.

» Product: nTop Platform 2.4 » Supplier: nTopology Price: From $5,500 per user per year ntopology.com

FAMILIAR WORKFLOWS VERSUS NEW METHODS Once you’ve got nTop Platform set up and licensed, you’ll fire it up and be greeted with an interface that follows pretty standard lines. There’s a large 3D modelling window, a strip of toolbars across the top, pull-down menus above that and a panel to your left.

If you inspect those toolbars more closely, you’ll start to see that once you move beyond the immediately familiar (primitive geometry shapes, basic sketching tools and modelling operations such as extrude, sweep and so on), you begin to find some surprises that suggest that things are a little different in nTopology’s world.

Here, we are not talking about modelling functions and feature creation, but rather, tasks associated with the creation of more complex forms: surface treatments and meshing; stress analyses from which to derive optimisation results; all the lattices you could ever need. But before we get into the meat of the system, let’s explore how you start to build up a workflow.

Central to this is blocks. The concept is straightforward enough. Whether you create your geometry from scratch using primitives, features and Booleans, or by importing CAD geometry, you will need to start off by adding some blocks

1 Stress and modal ● simulation, along with topology optimisation, are built directly into nTop Platform and can be used to intelligently drive part design

to the ‘Notebook’ found to the left of the user interface.

These blocks are the central method for creating your models. Where traditional 3D modelling systems use predominantly geometry-based, linked steps in the form of a history tree, nTopology’s approach differs.

Essentially, each block you add to your notebook describes an operation or function you want to perform. You then link to the various parts to which you want to apply those operations. Where traditional modelling systems immediately create a set of heavy geometry, nTop delays the creation of ‘hard geometry’ until you actually need it. Everything works on the lightest set of data possible.

For example, if you want to take a geometric form and create a lattice from it, you might start with a block that imports your geometry from a CAD file (for example, a Parasolid or ACIS file). You then add another block to convert that CAD geometry to an nTop body.

To do this, you add ‘nTop Body from CAD’, then either drag and drop your CAD import block, or type in the block name. This creates the link between the two steps and the system processes it.

Then, if you want to create a volume lattice from that nTop body, you find the Volume Lattice block, link it to your nTop Body block and add in the required parameters (such as lattice type, orientation, sizing and so on). Hey presto, you’ve got a parametrically driven lattice that conforms to your CAD geometry.

What’s important to note here is that doing this using a traditional CAD system would effectively kill your workstation.

Why? Because traditional CAD systems need to create the complete geometric definition and display it, which typically requires a tessellated version of that lattice under the hood. By contrast, nTop doesn’t. Instead, it keeps things lightweight until you need to convert to a mesh or export your data.

Efficiency benefits aside, this may sound an awful lot like a history tree in a traditional CAD system – and in many respects, there are close similarities. What differs here, however, is that the blocks and processes you build up are much less reliant on underlying geometry.

As an example, if we took a short, threeor four-step workflow, imported another CAD file (of completely different geometry), and relinked the initial nTop body block to that new CAD import, you’d see the system quickly work through and carry out all of the subsequent operations on that new form.

Yes, this is a very basic example. Yes, as you create more dependencies (such as specific faces or other geometry references), there is more work required to reapply operations to new geometry. But either way, the robustness is there for users to take advantage of.

NTOP AS A DESIGN SYSTEM So now that we’ve got a handle on the basics, what can you do with nTop? For a start, it has some interesting modelling tools. Whereas other mainstream systems

1

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2



As it stands, nTop Platform is a supremely impressive set of tools for those interested in complex part and material design

 rely on explicit operations and logical history, with nTop, things are, again, a little different.

Take the example of combining two or more geometric entities into a single body and then smoothing the transition between the two. In a traditional system, that would require two operations: the first to create the geometry; the second to create a filleted transition between the two, which might work or might not, depending on your requirements.

In nTop, this is all part of the Boolean process, so you have control over the form of that transition area from the start. You can have that transition as a rounded fillet, a chamfer, a blend, all to the radii you want.

That means there’s less selection work required, and more automation and control.

Between simple forms, this may not seem that different to how things work in other systems – but now consider a complex lattice inside a more traditional geometry.

It’s good practice to have a small fillet at the junction point, for both strength and heat dissipation during build. Adding a fillet between a lattice and its surrounding geometry using a traditional modelling system would be an epic task and one with a very high risk of failure. With nTop, it’s performed automatically.

One thing that is key to understand is that different operations require different inputs in nTop. For example, while you can take an nTop body and create a volume lattice, if you want to create a surface lattice (perhaps to build up some ribs that better suit the stress profile), then you’ll need to create a mesh onto which this surface lattice can be built.

It takes some time for newcomers to the system to figure out these intricacies, and while the help system and in-window assistance are both useful, nothing will get you up to speed quicker than diving in and learning the system from the ground up.

One concept that I found particularly complex to learn was that of field-driven design of geometry. To break this down, nTop allows you to take a set of geometry and create the form you need from it, using geometric references and standard dimensions.

You take a surface, create a lattice across it and then thicken that up, according to a numerical value. That has real value and real benefits.

Where things get interesting is when you start to use simulation studies to add more control over those forms – such as using the stress fields from a simulation study to control how thick lattice beams are across a part, for example, or using an imported

pressure map to drive the thickness of a set of ribs around the exterior surface of a pressure vessel.

If you want to get the most out of nTop, then you need to get your head around fields and how to use simulation results to drive geometric forms, either using the built-in stress, strain and modal analysis tools or importing results from other systems.

2 A recent ● collaboration between nTopology and EOS shows how the system can be used to assist with part consolidation – featuring topology optimisation, lattice in-fills and structural ribbing

TOOLKITS ARE KEY While the tools we’ve discussed represent the basics of the system, it can be a daunting process to jump in and start building up your own workflows.

To assist with this, nTopology has introduced Toolkits – collections of pre-baked workflow elements that give you more usable functions straight out of the box.

There are currently five digital toolkits available. These cover: Additive Manufacturing, Architected Materials, Lightweighting, Design Analysis and Topology Optimisation.

Each toolkit brings together the various parts of the system relevant to the specific workflows and tasks in question, as well as adding in new blocks that define a specific workflow.

For example, within the Topology Optimisation toolkit, there is a workflow for carrying out a single-body topology optimisation, complete with clear guidance on how to perform the task.

Once done, you can use the results to create smoothed-out forms (again, there’s a workflow within the toolkit) for integration with other geometric features to create the final part.

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SOFTWARE REVIEW

WORKFLOW: GETTING YOUR FIRST PART BUILT IN NTOP There are not many systems like nTop around.

It’s built for experimentation, rather than documentation of design and engineering and, as a result, the skillset you already have from CAD use will only get you so far.

The good news is that once you’ve got your head around how it works, how to connect up blocks and

carry out functions, the sky really is the limit.

To learn more, we went through the tutorials and then dived into working out how to define the shapes and forms found in existing products.

One example that proved worthwhile from a learning perspective was replicating an Acetabular Cup used in hip replacements. This features

traditional forms combined with lattice forms and is designed to assist with osseointegration (where bone grows and integrates with an implant).

Learning the process required us to define a lattice that both connects to solid forms and fits within the design space, which proved a worthwhile exercise.

1 Let’s work through the basic steps of developing a 3D ● latticed Acetabular cup – a pretty common medical implant these days. It features mechanical fixturing points as well as latticed structures that assist with bone integration. We’ll start with a rough CAD model created in Fusion 360.

2 Within nTop, you add ‘blocks’ to the notebook on the ● left-hand side. To begin our project, we use ‘Import CAD geometry block’, point it to an exported SAT file and give it a resolution (leave it coarse for now). You’ll see that this is a yellow block, indicating that it’s an input.

3 The next step is to create ‘nTop bodies’, giving you a ● more appropriate dataset to work with. For this, we have created two nTop Bodies: one for the main body of the implant and another for the zone to be latticed up. Name these well – it makes maintaining references much easier.

4 Now let’s start building up a lattice. Select the Volume ● Lattice from the toolbars (or use the quick search option) and connect it to your lattice-zone nTop body. Ensure you have the ‘touching’ option selected, otherwise (as you can see here), you’ll end up with only a partially fitted lattice.

5 Once the options are about right, you can begin to ●

experiment with lattice forms. Look for what feels right or, as in this case, which lattices gives you the correct form to serve the function required (such as greater bone integration).

Remember that this is a lightweight version of your form.

6 To take a true look at your lattice, you need to add ● thickness to the beams. There’s a wide range of tools to do this (based on FEA results, distance from other parts and more), but in this instance, a simple thickness value is given to the Thicken Lattice block.

7 Your basic lattice layout is now in place, so you can use a ●

8 Now, you have the central geometry section, then the ●

9 Boolean operations in nTop are impressive. They allow ●

10 As with all good design projects, we have a design ● change that needs to be accommodated; in our case, we’ve developed a more featured version of the base geometry in Fusion and exported a V2 SAT file. In other systems, this would mean reworking the whole process.

11 Since nTop is built on a series of interlinked blocks, rather ● than an explicit set of geometry operations, it’s a little more robust for handling wholesale design changes like this. To start the update, you edit your initial ‘CAD import’ block from Step 2 and point it to your new SAT file.

12 The system then works through each stage where ● possible and recomputes everything. As this is based on the same geometry set, unchanged topology references should transfer, but if they don’t, it’s a simple case of reassigning broken links – saving you a lot of time.

range of tools to further refine it. There are tools available to remove or extend open beams (useful for ensuring better connectivity to surround geometry) as well as trimming it to a solid body (as we’ve done here).

geometry of the lattice. The two intersect, but are not connected. To achieve a cohesive whole, you need to carry out a Boolean union between the various bodies. nTop has a range of Booleans, something you don’t see in other tools.

you not only to process geometry in respect to each other, but also manage how transition areas are handled. For example, there are controls over how the lattice joins the central part of this form, in terms of both shape and size.

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3

MANUFACTURING INTEGRATION As you’ll have gathered, there are some serious issues surrounding the creation of complex geometries, particularly when it comes to latticed forms. The pure amount of geometry required to define some forms means that the process of preparing data ready for manufacture can be problematic.

This is particularly true when you’re dealing with additive manufacturing machines.

To assist with this, nTop Platform offers a set of tools that will assist not only in preparing data for additive manufacture, but also in directly communicating with machines to ensure that your design intent is maintained throughout the process. From the first instance of readily importable build volumes, the system manages build layout and support generation and handles tasks relating to slicing and machinespecific data creation.

IN CONCLUSION I’ve been talking to folks curious about nTop for a while. After all, we’re all interested in new ways of defining parts, both for function as well as form, just as we’re also keen on exploring new forms of manufacture and production.

While nTop has been associated with advances in additive manufacturing, to think of it as an additive-specific software product would be an error. There’s huge scope for the system to benefit more traditional design and engineering.

Consider the design of conformal ribs to complex shapes, for example; that’s something that can take hours of work, if not days, using traditional tools. Then consider that much of that work would need to be redone in the event of any design

change. Unless you’ve got robust modelling practices, you’re looking down the barrel end of a whole load of rework.

By contrast, nTop allows you to define a set of operations and activities that can be very quickly taken and reapplied to new geometric references. If you take a look at Figure 3 (above), you’ll see a set of operations that create those fundamental lattice structures; we developed these using a basic set of geometry and made sure they were robust to change and modification.

Now, this can be applied to any input geometry that vaguely has the same requirements.

A common question I’ve been asked about this software is, “Will this replace my existing CAD system?”

The answer is no, absolutely not – unless you’re doing some very specific work and, even then, it’s likely you’ll still require a more traditional modelling tool to define your design space and domains. While nTop features modelling tools, those with years of experience with traditional 3D CAD will find it quicker and perhaps more sensible (in terms of workflow and data compatibility) to do that work in those systems, and then pass across the data you need for further, more complex work in nTop Platform.

As it stands, nTop Platform is a supremely impressive set of tools for those interested in complex part and material design. We’re entering into an age where we have more freedom of geometry for parts, both at the part scale and material level.

Whether we want to directly produce hyper-optimised forms to save weight and energy, or incorporate materials so that function is built into the part at mesoscale, we’re going to need a different

class of design and engineering tool to achieve such goals. Our current 3D design and engineering systems, frankly, are fundamentally unsuited to defining and/or effectively representing these types of forms.

You’ll notice that we’ve not gone too heavy on the specifics of what nTop Platform does, and with good reason. When looking at a system like this, it’s too easy to make assumptions based on what you already know, and I don’t want to turn people off by talking about specifics, when it would be better to encourage those who are curious about all this to get hold of a trial of the software and simply experiment with it.

After all, it’s built for experimentation and exploration of function, form and production methods. All of the building blocks you need to achieve incredible things are there and the nTopology team has prebaked some very useful workflows on top of this platform to help you on your way.

If I had one criticism, it’s that there are no concrete, quotable details from nTopology on how much the system costs. We’ve seen indications elsewhere that it’s around the $7,500 per user, per year mark, which seems high and depends on number of seats and company size (which is disappointing).

The company has something really impressive on its hands here. I’d hate to see this product not get the attention it deserves due to pricing issues.

But if nTopology’s leadership team can nail down the prices, make them transparent and discuss them publicly, then nTop Platform stands a better chance of success in a marketplace full of would-be buyers who are crying out for a system like this.

3 nTop Platform ● makes light work of heavy lattices and integrating them into more traditional forms of geometry

ntopology.com

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HARDWARE REVIEW

Wacom One Wacom’s Cintiq products have been the de facto standard for pen-based workstation input for decades – but can the Japanese master continue to dominate at a lower price point? Al Dean takes a look at the Wacom One

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ost of us learn to use pens and pencils at an early age, so it feels natural to use pen-based input in combination with computing devices, too. The history of pen-based input technologies stretches back several decades, from tablet-and-digitiser sets for early CAD systems, to today’s more nifty devices for advanced mobile tablets and computing devices, via 1970s pop-rocker Todd Rundgren’s Utopia Graphics Tablet System.

(Seriously, Google it.)

Japan-based Wacom has been a vocal champion and promoter of the pen/device combination since the mid-1980s, and more specifically, its core electromagnetic resonance (EMR) technology, which powers its pens so they don’t require battery changes or need charging – ever.

While Wacom’s products initially focused on drawing tablets and pens/mice, in more recent times, the company has taken advantage of the widespread availability

» Product: Wacom One » Supplier: Wacom Price: $400 wacom.com

and falling cost of touchscreen technology, with its Cintiq products.

While the Cintiq range is popular with the product and industrial design crowd, there are many others who might also benefit from its use, whether for occasional use, for redlining and marking up or whatever, but for whom the associated costs are harder to justify. This is where the recently released Wacom One comes into play.

A NO-FRILLS TABLET

1 Wacom’s new ● entry-level drawing tablet/display is sufficiently light and small to throw in your travel bag

The Wacom One follows the same concept as the Cintiq product range – an LCD screen with pen-based interactivity. The product is built around a 13-inch LCD screen running at standard HD resolution (1980 x 1070 pixels).

It connects to your PC workstation, your Mac or your Android tablet/phone device by means of a USB cable, enabling that device to mirror or extend your display.

Power is pulled from a separate adapter that can either be plugged directly into the mains or via a USB hub. One thing to note here is that the USB-C connect on the back

of the unit is unidirectional only, due to the shape of the socket recess and the plug, which may disappoint some users.

To switch the unit on, you’ll find a power button at the back, along with two snap-out legs that prop up the display at 19 degrees.

THE ALL-IMPORTANT PEN The pen supplied with the system is a pretty standard affair, featuring the replaceable tip for which Wacom is known. (Spares are stored underneath one of the legs.)

There’s a single button on the pen, with which to activate your right-click menus.

If you’re an existing Wacom user, you’ll immediately notice that there’s no eraser on the other end of your pen. This is just one example of an area where Wacom has pared down the product in order to strip out costs and thus make it more affordable for customers.

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HARDWARE REVIEW

2 The rear of the unit ● hides two legs that quickly snap out

sensitivity (4,096 levels) and tilt sensing (up to 60 degrees).

What’s interesting about Wacom One is that, for the first time, the company is also supporting EMR-powered pens from other vendors. A number of different models are already available. While we also tried out the Staedtler Norris Digital (designed to resemble the company’s iconic yellow and black Norris pencils), the one we really loved was the Safari EMR from Lamy, which looks and feels like one of Lamy’s Safari fountain pens, but is actually a stylus.

3 The right-hand ● leg conceals a nibremoving tool as well as a couple of spares

2

IN CONCLUSION In reviewing Wacom One, the big question for us was how it differs from Wacom’s entry-level Cintiq 13HD product. The answer is that there’s been a cost-reduction effort across the board. While the Wacom One display offers the same resolution (standard HD), there’s lower pressure sensitivity, lower tracking speed and lower pen resolution.

Other features have been stripped away, so there’s only one button on the pen and no eraser tip. On the main body of the tablet, there are no shortcut keys.

This may not matter to many users. In use, the device is responsive. Depending on your applications, the pressure sensitivity

works just as you would expect. While Wacom One doesn’t quite match the allsinging, all-dancing Cintiq, it is a perfectly usable display and drawing tablet. The 13-inch display is crisp and sharp and the drawing surface has just the right amount of friction, particularly when compared to using a stylus on the glass surface of an iPad or similar tablet.

So what are the sweet spots for the Wacom One? Cost is the first. This product is a lot cheaper than the entry-level Cintiq, but will still give you the functionality you need.

If you travel a lot, its compact size and light weight will make it a good companion for

your mobile workstation (and it’ll provide a handy second display, too).

If you’re just looking to add a little more interactivity to your computing work, then it’s also a solid option. And it’ll be a dream for those looking for a more direct way of redlining and marking up digital documents, enabling them to start taking advantage of the pen-based input options that CAD vendors have recently been adding to their systems. wacom.com



So what are the sweet spots for the Wacom One? Cost is the first. This product is a lot cheaper than the entry-level Cintiq, but will still give you the functionality you need

3



DIGITAL SKETCHES: WHAT’S OUT THERE FOR THE ‘PEN CURIOUS’?

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remember when it was pretty much just industrial designers and Photoshop nerds who loved a digital sketching tool like those from Wacom. Then the iPad turned up and changed everything.

While Apple’s big glass rectangles have become the de facto standard for industrial design sketching (particularly since the advent of the Apple Pencil), that doesn’t mean there’s no market for other suppliers to target. There’s still a thriving digital sketching software market out there and some nifty new bits of hardware. Let’s take a look-see.

SOFTWARE We all know the de facto standard is Adobe’s stack of tools in Creative Cloud (such as Photoshop and Illustrator), but what are some other options?

Autodesk Sketchbook: Autodesk’s Sketchbook has been on the market for a good while now and it’s available across Windows and OSX, as well as iOS and Android. For a while, the company maintained several versions (one for raster work, another for vectors), but it has since rationalised these to create a single offering, dropping the ‘Pro’ suffix and making it free to anyone who needs it.

ProCreate: Developed by Savage Entertainment, ProCreate has become the go-to for people who want Photoshop on the iPad. (Ironically, actual Photoshop on the iPad gets universally panned by almost everyone.) ProCreate costs $9.99 as a starting point, with in-app purchases and a growing cottage industry of brush developers. If you want it for your fancy large telephone, then there’s Procreate Pocket, which costs less at $4.99. procreate.com Clip Studio Paint: We spoke to friends who do a lot of digital sketching and one system that kept coming up was Clip Studio Paint. It’s predominantly aimed at the illustrator market, but we’re told it serves as a good Photoshop alternative – and the good news is that it will only set you back $49.99 clipstudio.net

PaperLike 2: While many love the Apple Pencil, chances are that for sketching, you’d probably like a better ‘feel’ than a rubber tip skidding around a glass surface. To tackle this, PaperLike has launched its new range of screen protectors based on its Nanodot material to add more resistance between pencil and screen. While it won’t beat the feeling of using a top-end Wacom display, the iPad’s versatility to do more than simply act as a sketchpad is a big point in its favour, as is its choice of sketching and design apps. PaperLike costs £29. paperlike.com

HARDWARE Wacom has had the drawing tablet market to itself for years, but it’s worth mentioning that there are some newer bits and bobs out there that might make things more usable on other, more widely used systems.

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THE LAST WORD

With the passing of Lego Minifigure designer Jens Nygaard Knudsen, Al Dean ponders the nature of design, how materials choices are not what the headlines would have us believe and how wonderful ABS plastic can be

A

s we get older, we inevitably start to lose our heroes. It could be the death of a star like David Bowie or Lemmy from Motorhead, or your fondly remembered Design and Technology teacher at secondary school. For me, the most recent example was the sad passing of Jens Nygaard Knudsen.

You might not be familiar with the name, but I bet you’re familiar with his most famous creation – the Lego Minifigure, or ‘Minifig’ for short.

I know that it was these little assemblies of 10 or so ABS parts (depending on their hair situation) that first kindled the fire of my interest in design, in engineering and in creating in general.

According to the official history of these wee people, it took more than 50 iterations to get the Lego Minifig right, prior to its 1978 launch. If you want some more stats, just consider that, based on currently available parts, the Minifig comes in 864,993,504,100 combinations. That fillet around the head? It’s 2mm.

Reading the news of Knudsen’s death made me consider the impact that every product has, both on a personal level, in

that connection between the user and the physical object, but also on the planet itself.

Years ago, I wrote about how I’d found a small box of Lego Technic discarded at the local recycling centre. It struck me then, as it does now, that there is a lot of talk right now regarding the environmental problems associated with plastic. Lego is proof that it’s not the material itself that is inherently evil. It’s how we treat it, how we misuse it, and perhaps most importantly, how we dispose of it.

Lego has been made from ABS for almost all of its life. Yes, the company has been exploring the use of a more environmentally friendly plastics, such as resins derived from sugar cane-based polyethylene. There has also been talk of using a hemp-derived substitute. It’s all part of a corporate move away from the devil’s own material.

But surely once we start to consider the lifecycle of these products, there’s less need to reengineer decades of optimised production processes.

Lego is one of the most environmentally aware organisations around. Its material experimentations are working towards a goal of all Lego bricks being made from sustainable materials by 2030. Even by 2018, it was recycling 93% of the waste from its operations.

More importantly,

Lego creates products that last. If we’re going to use materials that can’t be readily broken down, can we at least ensure that those products have the longest life they can? If your ABS Lego Minifigs are going to be enjoyed by multiple generations, they need to be made from a robust material.

I know that my kids have buckets full of these things, which still get played with today. In that bucket are not just their own bricks, but also bricks that I had as a kid, along with bricks that belonged to my brother, 17 years older than me. I dare say this bucket may get passed on to grandkids some day.

After all, we all know the appeal of getting down on the floor, tipping that bucket out and seeing where our minds and imaginations take us – even if the noise of that bucket emptying is almost as painful to parents as accidentally standing on a Lego brick in the middle of night.

Rest well, Jens. You’ve given generations of us fun, with many more to come.

Above: Diagram from the original patent issued for the Lego Minifigure: US Patent number 253711S Below left: Lego’s recent collaboration with NASA pays tribute to the pioneers of space exploration and highlights the important roles played by women and people of colour

GET IN TOUCH: at al@x3dmedia.com or @alistardean — If you find a Lego traffic cone in a set, his advice is to dispose of it immediately. They come up very sharp.

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