DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

Image Courtesy of Hugues Poncet

It was a good few months ago that I flew out to San Francisco to spend some time with the lovely fellows at Luxology.

Yes. The lovely fellows.

While many of the software vendors we deal with are passionate, pleasant and perfectly professional, none of them give you the sense of shear, unabashed passion as Luxology. This team LOVES what they do, loves their users and it shows in the respect their user community gives them back. I mean, name another CEO that has a weekly podcast that is both a) listened to and, b) listenable. And counts Dick Van Dyke as a user. Yes. Dick. Van. Dyke.

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You’re probably aware that Autodesk has been going through the latter stages of prepping its entry into the PLM space since the announcement of PLM 360 last december (we covered it pretty extensively back then).

I’ve just sat on a much hyped ‘webinar’ where the team confirmed the pricing. It seems that today’s thing has been hyped into oblivion to confirm five things:

• It’s live at www.autodeskplm360.com
• The first three users (including admin rights etc.) are free
• After that it’s $75 a month on an annual contract for similar levels of interactivity
• Then if you’ve got “participants” then you’re looking at $25 a month
• Though there looks to be an introductory offer as well

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Heatherwick Studio and Wrightbus finally have their beauty on the road

Many of you won’t give a hoot about the Capital’s new public transport that hit the foggy streets of ‘Lahn’dahn Taaaarn’ this week - you could cite its mammoth expense, the irrelevance of it outside of the city, or its political leanings as a glory project of the Mayor - but hear me out.

In the borough of Hackney, the beginning (or end) of its number 38 route that takes it across the city to Victoria Station, it is great to see the design of an object being the centre of attention for all people - even more special given the giant ‘melting pot’ of ages, wealths, professions and cultures in a borough most recently in the spotlight for its riots last summer: The camera phones were out in force and people were openly discussing it in the street.

Although this excitement will have dispersed by the end of the week such is the fast pace of the City, it’s great to see new design being a focal point of London life for at least a split second, with its designers Heatherwick Studio, and manufacturers Wrightbus rightly taking the plaudits for innovative British design.

3D model built in SketchUp directly from Eagle PCB

Element14 (a distributor of electronic system design tools) has launched EagleUp 3D design converter today for PCB design engineers to create virtual prototype designs.

Developed from the ground-up in the Eagle design community, EagleUp enables design engineers to export 2D layouts from CadSoft’s Eagle PCB design software into Google SketchUp to create accurate 3D digital prototypes.

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MakerBot Replicator. Bigger, better, dual colour extrusion madness - still with that sound of a fax modem and laser cut ply - love it.

The curious fellows over at Engineer vs Designer have teamed up with Makerbot Industries to bring you the first ever Absurd iPhone Accessory Design Contest!

The idea is come up with a crazy iPhone accessory and you could get your grubby mitts on a brand spanking new Makerbot Replicator (which is about $1750 worth of laser cut plywood goodness).

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It looks like SpaceClaim is stepping up its partner programme with new new announcements in the manfuacturing space.

The company has recently signed two agreements, both in the CAD/CAM field with both SigmaTEK systems and Aptia to assist those looking to integrate their design with manufacturing.

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Boeing has signed a new 10-year agreement to extend the use of Siemens PLM Software technology at both Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Defence Space and Security.

“Proven performance” of market leading NX software and Teamcenter software, innovation, scalability and open architecture were cited as key requirements for extension.

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