The CAD Insider

Jon Peddie - the Decline of SIGGRAPH

ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - It's no secret that industry trade shows have passed their heyday. But SIGGRAPH seemed to be holding its own. Born in 1973, the show quickly became the premier show for the graphics industry, where anyone involved with special effects, graphics, or cutting edge hardware, came to see and be seen. Despite the recession of late, the aisles of SIGGRAPH seemed to be packed, its booth space filled.

Not so, says industry analyst Jon Peddie, who heads Jon Peddie Research, and who is not fooled by crowds. He looks at numbers. His analysis exposes an illusion. For years, the number of exhibitors and attendees has been going down. It's all up there on the screen, indisputable.

"Graphics processing is more popular than ever," says Jon, referring to the mobile devices and cloud computing, which we all have come to use and rely. "How can the show that started it all fail to keep up?"

A look at Jon's slide reveals exhibitors peaked and started falling off almost 20 years ago. The number of attendees kept going up for a few more years, but then started to decline as well. Both attendees and exhibitors have been on about the same depressingly downwards slope for a few years now.

Canon Shows Multiple Technologies

ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - Canon's R&D has been busy, and many of the results were on display at one of the biggest boots at SIGGRAPH. The big attraction was the kabuki dancer, who you looked at through Canon's MREAL virtual reality device (the hand held version was being debuted at the show) was displayed against a virtual environment. A movie director would use this device to see pre-production versions of his movie, blending special effects with actions of real actors.

But what about engineering, I ask Jeff Tepper, Product Marketing Manager of Vertical Solutions at Canon. Jeff shows me the head mounted version of the MREAL system, which lets him handle a facsimile of a part and have MREAL display the model of the part in the setting for which it was intended. Presumably, doing this before a part is actually built would allow corrections and changes with less cost.

Canon's large format printer representatives were also in Canon's booth. They positioned themselves right behind HP in the large format printer market and ahead of Epson. They also claimed HP had "gotten a little lazy," which indicating that they thought the #1 spot may be within their reach.

When asked the reason behind Canon's popularity, they gave the following reasons:

1. Ease of use, with features such as paper roll on top of printer, no bending down*. They also boast a big green button, all you have to do to push it, and out comes your print.
2. Speed. 25 to 30 seconds for a D-size print.
3. Patented print head technology [Do they all say that?]
4. Lower cost per page [I've just heard that one, too, but at the Epson booth]

Sounds like we may have to have a showdown to settle this.

More information about MREAL at Canon's website here.

More information about Canon's large format printers here.

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*HP has the paper roll on top of their DesignJet T1500 ePrinter, which received our Best of Show award at AIA 2013 

Epson T7000 Prints Directly on Poster Boards

ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - Making poster boards for a presentation? It's a multi-step process, involving making a paper print and pasting it on poster board. You may have to send it out to get it done. And wait. What if you printer could just print right onto to poster board. A one shot deal. Seems simple, right. But only Epson seems to have thought of it. Their T series printers hold poster board blanks flat, unlike most printers which roll paper over rollers. I guess the downside is the printer can't be close to the wall but that could be a small price to pay for the convenience and time saved if your company does a lot of presentations.

Tim Check, Epson product manager, shows the T7000, a large format printer, that can print directly on poster board.

Epson T7000 list of advantages does not stop with poster boards. Epson uses a no-heat print head, which not only use 50% less power than competitive printers, but they never need replacing, a hidden cost of wide-format, high production printing. Their "MicroPiezo" patented technology is precise. At 0.018mm, it is a fifth the width of a human hair, says Tim. It can do 2,880 dots per inch, but Epson varies the size of the dot for a more speedy coverage where needed.

Epson takes its inks seriously. They have 80 chemical engineers devoted to the study and application of ink and ink technology. I didn't know there were that many in the world.  (Inkineers? Engineerink?) Epson inks are waterproof.

The Epson T1700 sells for $4995. A print server will cost an extra $399.

Mcor 3D Printing - Paper Goes In, Strong Cheap Models Come Out

ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - In the suddenly overwhelming offerings of 3D printers and dropping prices, Mcor offers a unique proposition. It makes models using paper. Ordinary copier paper. Most 3D printers use vats of chemicals, resins, polymers... and more expensive specialty materials. Not Mcor. Just grab a ream of paper and drop it in, the same paper you put in your laser, inkjet printer or copier, 8 1/2 x 11". Mcor machines have a paper tray, like a copier. No lenghty instruction, no training, no chemicals, no gloves, no funnels, no spilling, no special ordering from proprietary sources. Maybe no fumes, maybe better for the environment. Your model is created one paper sheet at a time, each sheet essentially glued to the previous one and cut with surgical precision.

Mcor made this bottle opener with its IRIS 3D  printer, which uses reams of copier paper as material.

Models made out of paper. How strong could they be?

Gary Fudge, Mcor Sales Director, gets that all the time. He hands me a multi-color bottle opener made by an Mcor machine. He does not hand me a beer bottle. Oh, well, it's early. Thinks wood, not paper, he says. Isn't paper wood particles? Mcor's resin bonds the paper together and makes it into wood, again? Sort of. Maybe more like an engineered wood product. Think MDF*

"Cost of models with Mcor is 1/20 to 1/5 of the cost of other 3D printers," says Gary. I think of the poor suckers who will buy cheap 3D printers only to discover the high cost of materials. Not unlike the shock of buying your first ink-jet cartridges. Or razor blades? When did they go up to over a dollar each? My razor was cheap.

Mcor sells the IRIS (for color models) and the IRIS, both use reams of paper as input, for $40K to $50K.

Mcor is the only 3D printer manufacturer that uses ordinary copier paper as material for its models.

Mcor signed a deal with Staples recently, and Staples will be using Mcor in its stores. Is that not a perfect symbiotic relationship?

More information at http://www.mcortechnologies.com/

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*medium density fiber board, used in construction and furniture

DAQRI's Bright Idea - Neural Interface

ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - Put your mind to it and you can... turn on a light bulb. Ok, so it's not quite Star Wars -type neural interface for your Xwing fighter. But its a start.

DAQRI lets you turn lamps on and off with your brain waves

DAQRI, one of LA's "10 Hottest Startups" was showing a device that, when worn around your head, senses your brainwaves sufficiently to turn on and off a table lamp. A trivial application for our gray matter or perhaps as much brain power the technology-fatigued minds at SIGGRAPH can muster. "Concentrate," we are told. And sure enough, the lights do go on and off.

Must be nice to have funding to be able to play with toys, while looking for CAD applications at the Epson booth, in which I find DAQRI, a diversion.

DAQRI has got lucky with $15 million in funding earlier this year and seeks even more with crowd funding, from Kickstarter. It has really sexy technology, such as images that come to life off pages in magazines, a la Harry Potter. Is it a actual product? It sure makes for good video. Who wouldn't buy into that? The mood, the bright eyed exuberance, the promise, the young marketing people... all seem to be reminiscent of the Internet bubble companies.

More at http://www.daqri.com/

Epson Moverio - When You Can't Take Your Big Screen With You

 ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - Epson, best known in our industry and the rest of the world for thier printers, devoted a sizable area of the SIGGRAPH show floor to broadening their world with some emerging technolgies, including Moverio, an "amplified reality" system you wear like a pair of glasses. It's thick and heavy compared to your regular glasses, or the much anticpated Google Glass, but quite svelte when compared with other head-mounted AR systems, such as Canon's system (covered June 11).

The Moverio is a wi-fi connected mini projection, which by being close to your eyes, is supposed to be the equivalent of  a 80" screen at a distance of 16 feet, according to Epson. Not unlike what I tell those who complain of our small television to just sit closer, a suggestion never well received. Still, the smaller yet bigger approach might work if you need your full gaming experience outside your man cave.

Epson plans to sell the Moverio BT-100 for $500.

No CAD applications were being shown with the device. 

Epson site for more info.

KeyShot Renderings Less Than Perfect -- On Purpose

ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - KeyShot was announcing their Zbrush integration at SIGGRAPH. But since that has more to do with the creation of  movie superheroes and villians than the real world, I ask Josh Mings* to turn the page.

He shows me KeyShot's Toon shading, their name for the ability to take somewhat realistic 3D shaded model and dumb it down to look like a hand drawn sketch, or cartoons. My first thought is "Why?" Why devolve into hand-drawn artwork when everyone else is fine tuning their images to look like photographs?  Did 3D models and photo realism become so common that 2D is more dear? Apparently, there are cases, like tech pubs or advertising, the sketchy looking part is just more appropriate, more expected. In that case, KeyShot will spit one out. I suppose less trouble than hauling in a canvas on an easel with brushes and having the other engineer laugh at your beret.

KeyShot Toon shading on Siemens NX bike. From YouTube video.

But just to prove KeyShot still has the higher end of imagery locked down, Josh shows me Focused Caustics, a new capability in KeyShot 4.1 that adds more realism to the display of transparent or translucent materials.

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*Ace blogger of SolidSmack, now does KeyShot marketing.

LMI Will Scan You But it Won't be Pretty

ANAHEIM, CA (SIGGRAPH 2013) July 25 2013 - LMI Technologies is pandering to the crowd. A company best known for 3D measurement in manufacturing applications is not above showing a babe in very short shorts. It's only a model of a babe, so even better for the CG-loving, Wierd Science* crowd at SIGGRAPH. She stands tall as we enter the exhibit hall.

LMI is offering a 3D color scan of anybody who wanders in the booth. Using their low-cost KScan3D system (it's really a Kinect box rigged up to LMI's software, it can give you model of yourself in a few seconds. If you want to set up the operation for yourself, the whole rig can be had for $450 ($150 for the Kinect and $299 for the 3D scanning software).

My scan didn't look quite as good. Never mind that the subject is less photogenic, the scan itself shows little resolution. It soes one quick pass from one vantage point, so I am not surprised that it captures little more than a patchwork image that could, if you squint, look something like me. In all fairness, they do say a good model is made after several scans.

KScand3D will stitch multiple scans together automatically, they say. But who want to be pirouetting for a few minutes in a show booth?

While the KScan3D may be LMI's foray into the consumer space, more important is the HDI Advance scanning system, which uses USB 3.0.

Thomas Tong, sales manager, at LMI, is there to show me the real reason for LMI's existence. An array of manufactured parts, of which several were on display, that can be scanned by a more robust scanner and processed by industrial strength software, to reveal discrepancies between the designed part and the manufactured one. The HDI 3D scanner uses white light -- not lasers like most other systems -- and claims to be able to do a full scan in one second. A rotating table is available so you don't have to keep repositioning the part.

 So much easier that spending hours with the calipers. Do people still do that?

www.lmi3d.com/

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*1985 movie in which 2 boys conjure a beautiful woman, played by Kelly LeBrock