This month’s DEVELOP3D is now available for download and if you’re on the print subscriber’s list, then it’ll be winging it’s way to you shortly. This month we’ve got all manner of goodness coming up.

As always, Frances Corbet has been off finding companies that do amazing things and she’s come up trumps this issue with a look at how Mike Spindle and the team at Trekinetic are using their knowledge and expertise forged in the heady world of Formula 1 component manufacture (and a spark of inspiration and sheer perseverance) to revolutionise mobility for wheelchair users.

Elsewhere, ‘our Stephen’ (as we like to call him) has been off into the world of product development and come up with some fascinating stories. He looks at the latest products for the pets that mean so much to so many and I’m particularly covetous of the Eglu, having become accustomed to fresh eggs whilst on holiday. Stephen also tracked down (by which I mean, met in a pub) Cris Rose, a leading light in the Urban Vinyl scene, who’s using a combination of traditional skills, 3D design and rapid prototyping to bring his quirky art to reality.

Finally, Stephen headed North to visit Paragon Rapid Technology in Sunderland. The team does fascinating work and proves that despite the advances in digital design and rapid prototyping, when you want a prototype that’s going to knock peoples’ socks off, it’s going to take more than a rendering to do that – as Darren and his team did for the Nissan’s Qazana concept vehicle.

Greg’s been busy writing too, looking at the latest in workstation technology and in particular, focussing on how Intel has turbocharged Blue Ridge Numerics’ cluster- based solver for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).

And of course, there’s reviews. No issue would be complete without them and we have a good selection for you this month. There’s some 3D design action with IronCAD Next Generation which now mixes history and non-history based modelling workflows. We have advanced simulation with both Inventor Simulation 2010 and Abaqus 6.9, and the next generation of software for designers looking to automate their work with DriveWorks Solo. Finally, we look at what Geomagic has up its sleeve for those looking to integrate physical objects in their digital design workflows in Studio 11.

There you have it, Formula 1 inspired wheelchairs, modern chicken coops, a concept car and, did I mention, killer robots? I wonder what next month will bring. We’re keeping that under wraps for now, but we can assure you it will be fun. See you then. It’s available for download now.

Things have started gearing in the add-on application space this week, following Autodesk’s launch of Inventor 2010, with several partner developers already issuing details of what they’ve got coming up for users.

TraceParts Software just announced that its eponymously titled library of suppliers and standard parts catalogs has successfully passed the challenging Autodesk Inventor 2010 certification. For those unaware of the developer, TraceParts has been developing its range of 3d component libraries for decades now, so its no wonder that the company now has 100+ million 3D models and 2D drawings at hand. This includes both industry standard components, as well as a hell of a lot of manufacturer specific catalogs.

While I’m not a huge fan of quoting software company executives, I did like a comment on the announcement by Autodesk’s vice president of Manufacturing Solutions Division, Buzz Kross, who commented that “The Inventor Community can concentrate on designing and innovating new products instead of wasting time and effort modeling parts they don’t manufacture.”

Elsewhere, Blue Ridge Numerics, developer of CFdesign, announced details of the work its done to integrate its Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) system into the new look, feel and functioanlity of Inventor 2010. What I found interesting is how the company has jumped all over technology initially availabel on Autodesk Labs (such as shrinkwrap) which has now been built into the system proper. I could go on, but as ever, Derrek Cooper at Blue Ridge, has the details for you in a quick video (seriously, I should hire the Coop, he’s a whiz with this stuff)..

Finally, Okino Computer Graphics, a CGI and visualisation data translation specialist, is now shipping software products which have received “Autodesk Inventor 2010 Certification”. This will allow the “crack-free geometry, hierarchy (assembly data) and materials to be transferred cleanly and robustly from native disk-based Autodesk Inventor files or from a running copy of the Autodesk Inventor directly into any Okino data-conversion-compliant program.” those include systems like 3ds Max and Maya, EON Reality software, Cinema-4D, Visual Components’ 3DCreate to name but a few.

Here’s an interesting announcement, Blue Ridge Numerics just announced the availability of the new UVCalc Module for its CFdesign CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) system

that allows the simulation and validation of ultraviolet (UV) reactor performance to ensure accurate fluence rates (irradiances) for UV light disinfection.

According to the folks at Blue Ridge, “The use of germicidal UV light is a rapidly expanding technology that is used to ensure public safety by deactivating the DNA of bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens, removing their ability to multiply and cause disease.”

Design engineers developing UV applications for drinking water disinfection, wastewater treatment, and manufacturing processes for the food and beverage, medical device, pharmaceutical, and semiconductors industries (among others) can now use a familiar, CAD integrated system to further extend what can be simulated using the same tools and same datasets.

After all, when this type of technology is built into a system like CFdesign, it can be used as a part of the design process – something that’s critical for this type of work, as being able to accurate simulate such processes, early on, means you can not only catch errors earlier (prior to build), but also perform some optimization and refinement of your work based on simulation, rather than best guess. Where has this technology come from? the answer is Bolton Photosciences and Dr. Jim Bolton, a recognized expert in the UV calculation field and developer of UVCalc, now it is third generation. While we could wax lyrical about how this system works and what it can do, instead we asked Derrek Cooper (@derrekcooper) at Blue Ridge (@cfdesign) to show us:

The image above shows simulation results from a Quick Natural Convection on LED light design shown with CFdesign v10 new user interface - nifty looking eh?

Blue Ridge Numerics (at 1pm, UK time today to be exact), released details of the latest release of its CFD application, CFDesign. The big ticket items for this rev seem to be a new user interface, greater CAD integration, better design review features and interactive void filling and external volume creation.

Interesting, UI changes aside (which look pretty good as you can see), the CAD associativity interested me. There are two schools of thought here. To built the app directly within the CAD interface, or to build it standalone and provide tight links. The two are not always as clear-cut as they seem. In all fairness, CFDesign has always been in the Standalone/integrated camp and this release sees that worked on with the ability to extract much more from the CAD data, such as model orientation, part and background, part names and material properties. Blue Ridge also talks about mapping of mouse functions. I guess that this means the user will load CAD data from their workhorse tool and the system can be set to mimic the user interaction methods of that CAD system. Also of interest is the new multi-view mode, which allows you to work with different analysis results sets and have the system synchronise the panning, zooming and rotation of the views. Other updates include interactive void filling and external volume creation meaning you don’t have to do it your CAD system.

Lastly, Blue Ridge has also introduce CFD-tv which provides users with “on-demand, task-specific training in a Web 2.0 format that will appeal to multi-tasking engineers who want to add CFD to their armory.” Apparently, each CFD-tv episode is a short video segment led by a CFdesign power user intended to answer commonly asked questions.

There will of course be a full, indepth review of CFDesign 10 in the next issue of DEVELOP3D - so make sure you sign up for a subscription.