Velo3D announced a new version of their flagship software product, Flow, which happens to include a very interesting DfAM feature.
cad
Plasticity: New 3D Modeling Tool Coming Soon
A new, inexpensive 3D modeling tool is about to arrive: Plasticity.
The Four Modes Of CAD Design
There are dozens of different software tools to produce 3D models for 3D printing, but all fall into four categories.
CASTOR Partners With Ultimaker To Unleash The Parts
CASTOR and Ultimaker announced an agreement to integrate CASTOR’S screening software into Ultimaker Cura.
Valve Releases CAD Model For Customizing Steam Deck
Valve released the design files to enable custom cases for their upcoming Steak Deck device.
Looking At Carbon’s Design Engine Pricing
Carbon has now officially released their Design Engine software.
Book of the Week: Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay
This week’s selection is “Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay: Tools and Techniques for Sculpting Realistic Figures” by Katherine Dewey.
Do You Know These 3D Printed Lattice Applications?
A new research paper investigates the rather long list of applications for 3D printed lattices.
CASTOR Releases Unusual Trends Report
CASTOR released their 2021 annual Additive Manufacturing Trends Report, and it’s quite a bit different than you might think.
Magics 26 To Include Native CAD Support
Materialise announced a powerful new capability in an upcoming version of their Magics suite.
Blender Upgraded to 3.0, But Is It Good For 3D Printing?
Blender has been upgraded to 3.0 by the Blender Foundation.
Could The Future Of 3D Printing Be Specialized Software?
An announcement from Stratasys hints at where the future of 3D printing might be heading.
Why Carbon Unleashed Their Lattice Tools On The 3D World
I spoke with Phil DeSimone to find our more about Carbon’s recent decision to make their sophisticated lattice generation tool available to everyone.
Book of the Week: Blender 3D By Example
This week’s selection is “Blender 3D By Example” by Oscar Baechler and Xury Greer.
Apple Joins Blender Development Fund
The Blender Foundation announced that Apple has joined their development fund.
Interesting New Features in SOLIDWORKS 2022
It’s 2021, and that means only one thing: SOLIDWORKS 2022 is coming out.
Book of the Week: Tinkercard for Dummies
This week’s selection is “Tinkercard for Dummies” by Shaun C. Bryant.
Rhino’s New Grasshopper Player Feature
There’s a very interesting new feature in Rhino 7: Grasshopper Player.
Dassault Systèmes Offers Low-Priced SOLIDWORKS for Makers
Dassault Systèmes announced a new low-cost SOLIDWORKS offer for makers.
Book of the Week: Ten Principles for Good Design
This week’s selection is “Dieter Rams: Ten Principles for Good Design” by Klaus Kemp.
CASTOR’s Latest Software Refines 3D Printable Inventory Identification
California-based CASTOR announced a new version of their additive inventory software that includes several notable features.
Ultimaker Releases Ultimaker Cura 4.10, With An Interesting Feature… For Some
Ultimaker released a new version of Ultimaker Cura, their highly popular 3D print management software.
SnapEDA Provides Millions Of CAD Models For Electronics
DesignSpark and SnapEDA launched a new service for downloading 3D models of electronic components.
Lessons From Cimquest’s 2021 Xpand3D Event – Part Two
On May 25 and 26, 2021, Cimquest held its annual Xpand3D event, virtually.
Formlabs Integration With Autodesk Fusion 360?
A brief mention in an Autodesk post suggests Formlabs is to integrate functionality within Fusion 360.
Visualizing CAD Models on an iPad with Cadmio
A new app from Cadmio allows iPad Pro users to produce professional renderings of CAD models.
3D Systems Acquires Not One, But Two Companies
3D Systems made what it calls strategic acquisitions of two companies last month.
While Onshape Got Famous, a Browser-Based CAD Application Was Baking in Switzerland—Who Knew?
A tiny group of developers saw that the future of CAD was on the web in 2010. They called it Buerli.
nTopology’s GPU Acceleration
nTopology found a way to dramatically speed up their 3D modeling operations.
Shapr3D Introduces “Drawings”
Shapr3D announced some big changes to their popular and easy-to-use 3D CAD tool.
Book of the Week: Artificial Intelligence Revolution
This week’s selection is “Artificial Intelligence Revolution: how AI Will Change Our Society, Economy and Culture” by Robin Li.
SOLIDWORKS For Students And Makers Coming Later This Year
Dassault Systèmes announced some changes to SOLIDWORKS pricing that will be of interest to both students and makers.
Autodesk Fusion 360 Discount Available
Autodesk is offering a notable discount on their powerful 3D CAD tool, Fusion 360.
Autodesk Adds Fusion 360 To Netfabb
Autodesk announced a very interesting addition to Netfabb: Fusion 360!
Rhino3D Version 7 Released
Robert McNeel & Associates has released version 7 of their popular 3D CAD tool, Rhinoceros, a.k.a. Rhino3D.
The UK’s Design For AM Network
There’s a meeting place for those working on methods for additive manufacturing design in the UK: the Design for AM Network.
Book of the Week: Feature-Driven Method for Structural Optimization
This week’s selection is “Feature-Driven Method for Structural Optimization” by Weihong Zhang and Ying Zhou.
Book of the Week: The Complete Guide to Blender Graphics
This week’s selection is “The Complete Guide to Blender Graphics: Computer Modeling & Animation” by John M. Blain.
Shining 3D Launches Reverse Engineering Service
Shining 3D has launched a new reverse engineering service.
BeYou Chair Lets You Sit Anyway Way You Like
Have you ever sat on a chair and thought, “Man, I wish there was a more comfortable place to sit”?
Book of the Week: Parametric Solid Modeling Projects
This week’s selection is “Parametric Solid Modeling Projects” by Prof. Sham Tickoo of Purdue University.
SimplyColor3D Goes 2.0
SimplyColor3D has now now moved to version 2.0, and it includes a lot more features.
Free Online Sculpting Tool: SculptGL
I’m trying out something called “SculptGL”, an online 3D sculpting tool.
Generating Gradient Material 3D Prints With GraMMaCAD
Fraunhofer IGD has developed a new type of software for 3D printing that enables use of gradient-style materials.
SOLIDWORKS 2021 Now Available
Dassault Systèmes has released SOLIDWORKS 2021, the latest version of the powerful 3D CAD tool.
Entirely New Form Of 3D Design Developed: Computational Design Synthesis
Researchers have developed what appears to be a far more accessible method of developing highly complex 3D models for 3D printing.
Why Would You Need CAD Conversion?
I hadn’t deeply considered the idea of CAD file conversion until I realized this could be a very difficult challenge for larger companies.
Planning On A Move To Fusion 360? Deal Available Until July 17
We’ve learned Autodesk has an excellent promotion this month for their very popular Fusion 360 suite.
SketchUp Goes Subscription-Only
SketchUp, the 3D tool many of us began learning 3D concepts from, has moved to a subscription payment model.
Book of the Week: CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies and T-Shaped People
This week’s selection is “CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies and T-Shaped People: Inside the World of Design Thinking and How It Can Spark Creativity and Innovation” by Warren Berger.
Behold: Pico CAD
Game developer Johan Peitz posted a tweet recently with an animation of a project he’s working on called Pico CAD, an 8-bit 3D modeling tool.
Another Generative 3D CAD Alternative: Gen3D
I’m taking a quick look at Gen3D, a CAD tool for generating complex structures that can then be 3D printed.
Free Access To Fusion 360 — For A Short Time
Autodesk is offering use of their powerful CAD tool, Fusion 360, at no charge for a limited time to help emergency COVID-19 efforts.
Book of the Week: Design for Additive Manufacturing
This week’s selection is “Design for Additive Manufacturing” by Martin Leary, who explains the economics of 3D printing and how to apply them through CAD design.
Dassault Systèmes Introduces Flow-Driven Design System
Dassault Systèmes introduced a new workflow to optimize generative design that is 10x faster than previous methods.
Book of the Week: The Pushing Points Topology Workbook
This week’s selection is “The Pushing Points Topology Workbook” by William C. Vaughan.
More 3D Print Workflow Automation Coming from Additive Flow
Additive Flow has unveiled a new generative design tool for additive manufacturing that has the unique ability to handle solutions for materials and mechanical design simultaneously.
A 3D Modeling Newbie Tries SelfCAD
Could a complete 3D newbie master the easy-to-use SelfCAD? We put it to the test.
Free CAD Utility Recommendations Available
I’ve found a source with a ton of CAD utility recommendations that could make life easier for anyone using 3D CAD to create designs for 3D printing.
ParaMatters’s CogniCAD “Lightweights” Experimental EV
EV maker Archimoto leveraged ParaMatters’ CogniCAD generative CAD tool to optimize the weight of several key metal components.
Book of the Week: 3D Printing Projects
This week’s selection is “3D Printing Projects” by Sachidanand Jha. It is a book that will definitely increase your 3D CAD design efficiency.
A Great Way To Learn Grasshopper
A new book explains how to use McNeel’s Grasshopper plug-in for Rhino 3D in a very simple and easy-to-learn manner.
peel 3D Announces The peel 2 CAD 3D Scanner
peel 3D just announced a new professional handheld 3D scanner, the peel 2 CAD, which includes some intriguing workflow simplification features.
Book of the Week: Python for 3D Printing
There’s a rather interesting book that can show you how to use Python programming to supercharge your 3D modeling experience for 3D printing.
Book of the Week: Fusion 360 For Makers
This week’s selection is “Fusion 360 For Makers” by Lydia Sloane Cline.
nTopology Releases nTop Platform 2.0
nTopology released the latest version of their nTop Platform software, 2.0, and it seems to include some incredibly powerful built-in toolkits.
Robiot Can Automatically Design Handy Household Machines
Researchers have developed an incredible system to automatically design 3D printable parts to implement mechanical systems from only a video.
What Is Digital Inventory And How Does It Work?
Digital Inventory is a new approach to manufacturing and few know how it works. We spoke with Dominik Lindenberger of 3YOURMIND to find out more.
Question of the Week: Getting Involved in 3D Printing
How can one get involved in 3D printing? There are many ways to learn, use and exploit 3D printing, and we list many ways to do so.
Lockheed Martin Goes All In On 3DEXPERIENCE
Lockheed Martin agreed to make use of Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Why did they do so and what benefits might they incur? We speculate.
Whoa! Onshape Acquired By PTC!
In a blockbuster corporate acquisition, PTC is to acquire Onshape to gain access to a powerful CAD cloud system that can be marketed to all their users.
Digits2Widgets Rebrands as “Additive”
Why would a popular 3D print service change their name? It turns out Digits2Widgets had a very good reason.
Autodesk Changes Fusion 360 Free License Terms
It will no longer be as easy to obtain a free license of Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD software with new requirements for qualification.
Are Your Parts ADfAM?
What kind of parts are in your digital inventory? Are they ADfAM? We propose a new class of 3D printable parts.
Is Blender 2.8 Suitable for 3D Printing?
Blender is upgraded to v2.8. Does this mean it is suitable for making 3D printable 3D models? We look at the pros and cons of the new software system.
nTopology’s New nTop Platform Offers High Speed Complex Design
Have a gigantic 3D model? nTopology’s nTop Platform can easily handle it, and also provide super-complex analyses, simulations and generative design.
Question of the Week: How To Re-Engineer Motorcycle Parts
How could one re-engineer parts for a motorcycle?
Question of the Week: Jewelry Design Software?
Jewelry design has never been easier. Find out how to use 3D printing software to design your own jewelry. Here are the best jewelry design tools in 2019.
Kodak’s 3D Printing Ecosystem Extends Farther
Kodak has introduced something very interesting into their 3D printing ecosystem: 3D design and print services.
Artec 3D Releases Powerful New 3D Scanning Software
Artec released Artec Studio 14, their latest and most powerful version of their 3D scanning management software.
Wikifactory Launches
A new online service has launched to provide collaboration services for product development: Wikifactory.
SOLIDNAPKIN: New SolidWorks Add-in Imports/Animates Your Concept Sketches
That’s it. I just placed a bulk order on Amazon for a pallet of thick, super-absorbent napkins.
3D Print Learning Series: Design Tips
This is an entry in our 3D Print Learning Series, focusing on additional 3D print design tips.
The Other Side of Generative Design
A report on Fast Company illustrates that there’s more than one way to do generative design.
Build Your Own High-Temp 3D Printer?
A blog post from igus GmbH describes plans for building your own high-temperature 3D printer.
Book of the Week: Geometric Modeling
This week’s selection is “Geometric Modeling: The mathematics of shapes” by Nikolay Golovanov.
Book of the Week: Additive Manufacturing: Design, Methods, and Processes
This week’s selection is “Additive Manufacturing: Design, Methods, and Processes” edited by Steinar Killi.
Dyndrite Emerges with Accelerated Geometry Kernel
A new player in the field is going to be a very big deal for additive manufacturing.
MIT’s Hairy Metamaterial
Researchers at MIT have developed yet another unusual metamaterial, and this one is simply hair.
At Last: The End of STL Is In Sight
There have been a few developments recently that have brought me to the view that STL file format will slide away quietly.
Velo3D Has The Flow
There’s something very interesting going down at Velo3D.
What’s New In SOLIDWORKS 2019?
At SOLIDWORKS World 2019, we had to find out what’s new in SOLIDWORKS, didn’t we?
Morphi Fills Us In: What’s New In v3.5
Morphi has launched the first of several updates for 2019, introducing v3.5.
Fusion 360 Increasingly Acknowledges 3D Printing
In the latest Autodesk 360 Fusion update there are a couple of new features specifically addressing the needs of 3D printing.
The Critical Importance of Software In 3D Printable Design
3D printing offers the ability to leverage designs in ways not previously possible, but only if the right software is used.