The CAD Insider

Is WhiteClouds the Magic Button for 3D Print Models?

CHICAGO, IL (AIA 2014) - Want a 3D print of the luxury house you have created in exquisite detail on your CAD program. Just buy a 3D printer, hook it up to your computer and push a button, right?

Wrong.

For one thing, your CAD model may be far too detailed. There is a minimum thickness for structures to prevent collapse. Or there may not be enough detail. For example, you probably applied a bit map to show the roof tiles. It looks good onscreen but a 3D printer doesn't get bitmaps. That roof is going to be very boring. 

Now that's a roof. WhiteClouds, a 3D print service, adds detail to CAD models to show roof tiles.

WhiteClouds, which refers to itself as a 3D print "enabler," understands such limitations. It came to AIA with 3D prints of several luxury homes. It had made one so detailed that 3D Systems keeps one in its lobby, says Jerry Ropelato, CEO.

WhiteClouds is a service that fills the gap between a completed 3D computer model and the final outcome, a part you can hold in your hand, the magic button, which despite all the hype surrounding 3D printing, still does not exist in 3D CAD software. While 3D print service bureaus may provide some assistance I suspect most would probably prefer a 3D print-ready model so they can keep their machines printing. WhiteClouds seems set up to have been created to fill in the missing information between a 3D CAD model and a 3D print-ready model. Why should an architect have to learn the peculiarities of getting a 3D model ready for printing?

WhiteClouds employs additional 3D modeling to insert details like roof tiles so they will appear in the 3D print. "We have developed special routines," says Jerry.

WhiteClouds does not even require 3D CAD models to make 3D prints: they can work even from blue prints. They also makes mechanical parts and assemblies, figures for the entertainment industry, etc., so although AEC appears to be specialty, they are not limited to just buildings. They use Stratasys and 3D Systems machines -- high end ones you can't afford. 

How Much?

They will send a quote after you send them your CAD models or drawings but for purpose of estimation, you can figure the cost of the model will be $0.25 to $0.40 per square foot of the real house using WhiteClouds modeling help and the model itself. This would make the model of the US typical house (2400 sq ft) cost anywhere from $625 to $1,000 though it probably the design of mansions where a 3D model is warranted. Imagine wowing your millionaire clients by showing not just how it looks to friends and neighbors but taking off the roof and one floor at a time. A 10,000 sq ft mansion model may set you back $4,000 but what is that compared to the commission you will earn?

www.whiteclouds.com

Related articles

WhiteClouds Focusing on Needs of People Just Getting into 3D Printing

3-D printing firm WhiteClouds shoots for the stars

Kenesto Nominated for Best of Solid Edge University

ATLANTA, GA (Solid Edge University 2014) - Kenesto was at the Solid Edge annual user conference to show its cloud-based project and workflow management application. It attracted the attention of TenLinks show judge, Jeffrey Heimgartner, whose company had recently abandoned their company’s FTP site due to a myriad of problems, most having to do with what Internet browser clients were using, and was seeking a cloud-based solution. They had started using Dropbox, which allows online document sharing, and promised a much more viable solution. But here was Kenesto, which Steve Bodnar, Sr VP at Kenesto, refers to as a "Dropbox on steroids for engineers.”

 

"Kenesto is an affordable, accessible, robust, flexible and secure cloud-based engineering project collaboration platform," adds Jeffrey. "You can manage and share documents, as well as assign, manage & track tasks, & much more. And, best of all, it’s designed for ease-of-use & collaboration also works with non-Kenesto users."

Check them out at www.kenesto.com

TenLinks Judge

Jeffrey Heimgartner manages the Advanced Technical Services of CapStone’s CAD division. Jeffrey’s main responsibilities include managing the CAD team, training, scheduling and coordinating projects, drafting and design, assisting the CapStone project managers as well as sales, marketing and all IT functions. More...

Modlar BIM Library

CHICAGO, IL (AIA 2014) - Need some furniture to make your living space look more lived in? How does free, quality models sound? This is what Modlar promises. And not just furniture...they have tables, faucets, appliances...even people...and more. Over 20,000 according to their site.

Modlar has 20,000 BIM models from select manufacturers in popular CAD formats for free.

I would hope architects and interior designers would not waste their time creating these items --it's such a poor use of billable time. They may be scanning manufacturer's websites for these items. But Modlar brings several manufacturer items under one roof to make your search easier.

It can provide models for the popular AEC CAD apps, including Revit, Archicad, MicroStation and SketchUp.

Modlar already has 55,000 users. It is led by Scott Barrington, CEO, who is himself an architect.

Modlar get its  money from the manufacturer. You don't pay a thing.  So enjoy!

www.modlar.com

What Do Journalists Pay for a Free Trips?

Quite often, a company will pay for a journalist to attend an event and cover all the costs. This will have most journalists jumping for joy. It's one of the perks of being part of the press. There's not a lot of journalists who work for publications with travel and expense budgets and few journalists can see far off exotic locales on their own. So if we can get airfare, hotels (usually nice downtown business class hotels) and meals (sometimes the best restaurants in town) and be the envy of friends and family, even hang around at the bar and get the tab picked up, we jump at the opportunity. In return, the companies get some coverage. It's an unwritten rule...until recently.

I was notified that I would not be welcome at a CAD company's annual big bash. I had been to their last big bash and written nothing about it. Nothing. Not a damn word. I had not met "expectations."

Finally, it was in writing.

I don't question their decision. There was a pretty good chance that I might have gone again and still not found anything worthy of note. Or I might have taken the opportunity to get to know the company and products better, using that information as "background" (journalist-speak for involvement not directly resulting in articles), or I will take a trip to further business relationships. Sometimes, I just can't find a unique angle that I think will interest anyone.

I suppose I could faithfully transcribe the keynote speeches, rehash the material presented to each of us, painstakingly and carefully prepared by a diligent PR team who has worked hard to provide press releases, product information, even graphics and captions, bios of the execs and case histories. Some of this material is ready to use. I could do a cut and paste with little thought of my own. But there are journalists who are better at this than I, and I can always refer to their work.

As there could be many who strive to see the world at the expense of companies who seek only immediate favorable coverage, I thought I'd take the opportunity to write some of these unwritten rules. There's not many and it's very simple: basically you behave like a good guest, don't write anything bad or critical while you are there, then send a warm thank-you note (in the form of a complimentary article about the company and its products disguised as a report from the field to your readers).

Rules for Free Trips

1. Tweet like mad. It doesn't matter if your followers can't keep up with your hundred tweets during an event and may likely unfollow you. What matters is that companies have PR staffers who count the tweets. Your host will know who the top tweeters are and you need to let them know you are industriously and frantically covering their show.
2. Pay particular attention to the wit and wisdom dispensed by the top executives. Companies trot out their top executives at these events, so shouldn't they be well photographed and quoted? They have scripted, rehearsed, honed their points, made their entire company on message and practiced their jokes. How would you feel if you did all that and paid guests (journalists) wrote nothing? If you have been given an interview, don't think for a minute that the CAD exec has been reading your stuff and is delighted to finally meet you. In his mind, he has deigned to give you some of his valuable time and that had better turn into favorable prose.
3. Follow-up with a longer article -- or series of articles after the event, and if the event is expensive enough (ie, you have been flown across oceans), then you had better keep up the coverage all year long so when they plan their next event, you will be on the list. Also, be receptive to press releases, company events, etc. There should be nothing, no matter how trivial, that you should ignore from such a generous host.

Following these simple rules will guarantee that you will be invited to future events.

PTC Finally Plays Well With Others - Creo 3.0 Unite

If any CAD company could be diagnosed with ADHD, it would be PTC.

A company has to grow. This can be done by acquisition. I get that. But PTC's acquisitions have been... how should I say? ...varied. At its core, a CAD company, PTC has sought to grow with such diverse applications as Arbortext (desktop publishing), MathCAD, others... but most recently Altego (MBSE) and ThingWorx (IoT)

If you are wondering what those last two acronyms mean, I have proved my point.

Expansion from its core users of CAD by PTC has been explained by a very loose interpretation of "adjacent" technologies.

Day 1

As expected, PTC CEO James Heppelmann, touted his recent acquisitions with an evangelical zeal to the 2,000 plus assembled at PTC Live Global. Engineers, as a rule, are not the jump-up-and-down types.

They were waiting.

Day 2, Creo 3.0

On day 2, PTC rolled out Creo 3.0. The salad plate, barely touched, is removed. Here was the meat and potatoes. Thousands of Creo users are paying attention. Veteran Brain Thompson, VP of product management, reveals what they could expect in the next release of Creo (due mid July).

Chief among the enhancements as Unite, which lets Creo read native files from major MCAD products.  If you wondering "can't they all do that?" then I should have emphasized read -- versus import.

"Importing a file means making a copy of the geometry," says Brian. "We leave the file in its native format."

PTC acknowleges the need to read and write to rival CAD formats in Creo 3.0

Truly, most CAD programs will import a rival's CAD file. Nobody reads in a model in someone else's format. Until Creo 3.0.

Creo can also save as other file formats. But it is a one way street. CAD programs have typically never acknowledged a need to go back -- something users see as a trap, an arrogant assertion that if you are now where you should be all along. Why would you want to go back?

But for what may be the first time, PTC takes on a coexistence approach to other CAD systems, in effect saying that you may choose to use Creo to whatever advantage it affords, but you are free to retreat to your comfort zone, even if it is another CAD program.

Caveats

Although you can read can read a file from another CAD program without translation, once it is changed (as was a Siemens NX part in a Creo assembly), the part is translated. Any design intent imparted during the change (parameters or relationship) will not be preserved when the part is saved back in its former format.

Only SOLIDWORKS, Siemens, CATIA (V5?) will be read without translation. Inventor and Solid Edge will be imported via data translation.

Not all read and write as features will be available at Creo 3.0's initial release in July, but may roll out by the end of the year.

How to Hold a Press Event -- Big CAD Way vs Shrewd Start Up Way

CAMBRIDGE, MA - GrabCAD held its first ever media event to announce the integration of its Workbench product with PTC Creo. Flush with venture funding, you might have expected GrabCAD to throw a big party and invite any and all from the media to trumpet the news.

Product manager Blake Coulter (left) demos Workbench as Hardi Meybaum CEO, top of picture, looks on at GrabCAD's 1st ever press event.

Hardi Meybaum, the charming and boyish CEO of GrabCAD, showed his shrewd side by hosting the media event on the tail end of PTC Live Global 2014, held in nearby downtown Boston. PTC had already spent a quarter million dollars* inviting over a 100 of the press and analyst community from all over the world. Hardi was able to siphon off 20+ of them with the allure of some seemingly useful product and a party with some food (the cheeses were excellent) and drinks, including one very powerful gin-based, fruity concoction (so I'm told) when PTC had closed its curtains on its annual user meeting and left the media to fend for itself.

The cost to GrabCAD: less than $5K.

GrabCAD may be casting an image of a fun, Silicon Valley start up with its open offices (CEO Hardi works at a standing desk in the midst of his people), ping pong table, free food -- I hear naps are allowed. But don't be fooled. This is not the typical, frivolous, high-burn-rate, revenue-be-damned made infamous at the height of the dot.com era. One staffer tells me of long hours. It has industry veterans in key positions, a level of adult supervision usually lacking in start-ups. GrabCAD's are clean and safe -- not ostentatious. Cambridge rents are sky-high, but GrabCAD offices are in a residential neighborhood, not the bustling center.

If I was an investor, I would think my money would be safe with GrabCAD.

Hardi Meybaum, GrabCAD CEO, at his standing desk. Frame underneath desk was cut and welded by Blake Coulter from a lamp post found lying outside the office, 

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*SWAG, scientific wild-ass guess, $2.5K X 100 guests. Full disclosure, TenLinks editor Roopinder Tara attended  but PTC Live Global but was compensated only for some meals and registration. 

3D Printed Metal Parts in Mass Production

So great is the attention devoted to 3D printing that one might forget that industry is loving 3D printing, too. 3D printing of metal parts, not so long ago thought to be an expensive specialty of a few hardware vendors, is so hot that 3D metal printer vendors cannot keep up with demand.

"We try to get one of our 3D metal printers in our showroom but it's bought before it's finished and goes right to the customer," says Rachael Dalton-Taggart of 3D Systems, which bought metal 3D printer company Phenix in June, 2013.

BMW moving towards 3D printing for high volume production of big engine parts, mentioned in ExOne presentation.

A Revolution Starting?

BMW is planning to make all of its engine cores by 3D printing within the next 10 years, according to ExOne CEO David Burns, whose 3D printer company raised $90M after its IPO.

If you were used to 3D printing trinkets and just starting to believe that metal may be usable in one-off parts, may be small batches, statement of intention by a major manufacturer using 3D printing for its mass production ought to have made you sit bolt upright.

The appeal of going directly from image onscreen to real life as promised by 3D printing is unmistakable and understandable. Being able to do that in metal... not so much. Metal is ground down to a powder and re-solidified in a 3D printer machine. The concept may be simple, lay down the powder, apply heat and there's your part. But there must be more to it. These metal 3D printers are the size of toolsheds. I'm hearing prices from $700k to over a million.

We Love Metal

With mankind, it was love at first sight. Engineers love and trust metal. It has built our bridges, sent people to the moon, we won't have a car without it. Our eras are marked with names of metals, the Iron Age, Bronze Age. Sure, plastic are super, they can be engineered to have some great properties, they're lighter, they get better every day. But they're still not metal. For the strongest, most reliable, most trustworthy part...we'll keep using use metal.

So, now I can get metal parts directly from my computer? No machinist, no CNC machines, no waiting. Where do I sign?

What's the Catch?

• Density. Getting powdered metal back to its solid state, or even close, can't be that easy. Powder particles will have space between them, no matter how tightly they are packed. "We get 99.5% density in our Inconel process," says David Burns, speaking of his latest metal alloy Inconel 665. "They said it couldn't be done."
• Strength. Metals have been made strong by alloying, heat treatments and forging. Most 3D printing methods cannot include these methods. king stronger metals. So is forging. Toughness and strength , probably no better exemplified than by the beaten blade of Damascene steel or a Japanese sword -- is still a long way away with 3D printing.
• Voids. Does the process of sintering, melting powder produce voids? In all fairness, probably the pouring of molten metals into molds may have that risk, too.
• Cost. The powdered metal that must be somehow solidified is costly on both ends. It takes energy -- a lot of it -- to grind solid metal into a powder that is used as the raw material for a 3D metal printer. Then it takes a lot of energy to melt that powder so it solidifies. Then there's the cost of the machine...

The biggest allure of metal parts by any 3D printing process is pure and simple: you can create a design, push a button to get a part made. There's not even a machinist in the picture. And other than the wait for the part to emerge from the machine, there is no other waiting, no scheduling or coordination with other departments. If you own the machine, the process could not be any more straightforward. True, the machine may cost in the neighborhood of a million dollars. That's worth it to big companies like Boeing and BMW.

I hear of a Boeing aircraft part that gets made in a day on an ExOne machine -- as opposed to 10 months.

A Ford engineer makes a part and opens the hood of a Mustang, bolts it into place, and drives of to the test track.

In both cases, they have short circuited processes put into place over years that drag out design cycles and involve many people. Suddenly, a million dollar machine looks like a bargain.

Production, Not Prototypes

Again, these are metal parts that works in real life environments, not a plastic replica that could be used just for show and tell. The gains being made with 3D printing are pushing parts into production. 

Material research is the key to the revolution. "We are concentrating our R&D efforts on materials," says David. "In fact, our machine design improvements are close to a standstill.

I imagine factories of the future being banks of 3D print machines.

What Stopping the Revolution?

It all sounds ideal, parts from your computer, in metal, in large volumes. No set up, no wait, no "middlemen."

According to Dave, the reason he's not sellig way more metal 3D printers is the massive inertia inherent in the system. Metal cutting does work and has worked for a long time. How something is done in the past is being used as justification of how it should be done in the future. Change is risk. A factory manager won't get fired for getting another Mori Seiki 5 axis CNC machine, but will he go out on a limb and have all his CNC machines replaced by some new fangled technology? And what to do with all the machinists? 

HP Plans to Displace LED Printers with PageWide

SAN DIEGO, CA - HP's large format printer division is based in Barcelona, but their print heads are made in San Diego, the software may be written in Oregon and their PR firm is in Atlanta -- an arrangement that favors frequent flyer miles for most involved -- and jet lag.

A large contingent was on hand in San Diego, actually looking none too worse for the wear, to introduce a couple of new large format printers. See HP Introduces PageWide Technology for Large-Format Printing.

The HP PageWide large format printer (on right) promise higher speed and color than LED printer currently in use at repro shops. It's due to hit the streets towards end of 2015. Price has not been announced.

A couple of large format printers hulked on the sides of the stage as the western hemisphere press filed into the ballroom of the Sheraton Marina Hotel. But as the music bulit up, the curtains parted and a spotlight tracked the star of the show as it came forward by itself to center stage. Enter the page wide large format printer!

May be not as dramatic an entrance as Gene Simmons at a Kiss concert, but in our world, that's as good as it gets. We applauded.

Plans for Invasion

It was the first large format (40") printer with PageWide print head. Whereas a normal print head goes back and forth across the page, a PageWide printhead is actually a collection of stackable printheads tha covers the whole width of the sheet. All colors are dispensed at once. It's way faster than back and forth, multiple pass method and also. Print registration should be spot-on (pun intended) since the paper doesn't have much chance to slip on the rollers.

A series of printheads can be stacked to achieve a 40"wide printhead

While the other printers have notable improvements (the T3500, which is not even based on PageWide technology, can output a D-size print in 21 seconds!), HP has big plans for this battleship-class printer. It intends to displace the current (electrostatic) technologies in repro houses. HP sees this as a $1.3B market. Same speed or faster ...plus color! How could they not love it, HP asks rhetorically.

Perhaps because they'll be bound to HP for expensive ink?

Users in Ink Prison?

HP insists that their total cost of ownership is still low, even with their proprietary inks. It's a widely held belief that printer companies lose money on their hardware but profit immensely from ink cartridges. It's certainly true for consumer printers. I have been shocked at paying $40 for probably an ounce of ink. I can see the cartridges of the large format printers from the second row. Each looks like it holds half a gallon.

Why Now?

The page wide printer will not be avaialble until late 2015, more that a year away. HP says the technology is all there, but they want to do enough testing to ensure that it meets their reliability standards.They are announcing their plans early to send a message to the repro shops, that something better will be coming down down the road eventually, so don't enter into any long term relationships.

Potential Uses

While engineering and AEC prints are E-size maximum, HP is counting on the creation of signs and banners, which is getting increasing popular.

See Also

Sumary Notes from HP's Large-Format Printer Launch, Ralph Grabowski, World CAD Access, June 11, 2013

Rescale Puts Analysis Toolbox On The Cloud

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (CIC/NAFEMS 2104) - Rescale, a San Francisco startup, was on hand to demonstrate the power of the cloud to the assembled engineers and analysts at the first ever joint CIC/NAFEMS conference. Founded by ex-staffers of Boeing, one a structural engineer and the other computer scientist, Rescale has stocked the cloud with a multitude of applications --over 50 to date, including ANSYS, MSC Nastran and CD-adapco's STAR-CCM+,

Rescale offers over 50 CAE and math applications on the cloud
(from Rescale website)

Why would you want to use your favorite CAE application on the cloud, when you could just run it on your trusty workstation? I ask Ilea Graedel, who in her bizdev role at Rescale is paid to tolerate editors who show up at her booth without doing their homework. She is ready:

• You may not be near your computer
• You may need more horsepower than your computer can supply.

Free to Move About the Country

Rescale will let you run its applications from a web browser. You can be down the hall, in a meeting, on a flight...as long as you have a connection. You are now free to move about the country. Also, you don't have to blow the budget on over-the-top high performance computing (HPC) clusters. Rescale buys HPC chunks so you can use them as needed. With Rescale, a lone consultant can access computing power that was previously available to large organizations.

Rescale not only provides solvers, but also stores results data and employs data management tools to help sort through it.

Other services offer cloud based solutions (Gompute and Penguin) but they don't have nearly the wealth of CAE tools found on Rescale.

Analyst in Your iPad

Rescale can also be set up to solve frequently encountered problems, use its CAE tools to solve them, and present the answers. All of this, once again, can be run off the browser. Think of this as an analyst in an iPad.

The ideal Rescale scenario may go something like this:

• Old way: have had your salespeople gather requirements from a customer, submit them to your analysts, who would have crunched the numbers, and --day later-- given you or your design engineer results
• Rescale way: Salesman punches in the parameters on his mobile device, Rescale employs the CAE software on near supercomputers, and beams the answer in a few minutes.

Custom applications are created in Python code, and Rescale will provide some assistance.

Rescale, the name, has nothing to do with what the company does. It was chosen from among a list of available domains. It makes no sense, ut neither does Amazon or Google.

How Much?

Rescale charges $0.15 per hour per core, says Ilea. I have no idea what that mean in terms of 'typical' analysis. Ilea runs a small analysis on the spot, a parameteterized CFD problem that uses two cores. "That would have cost $1.50," she says.

This is stunning! I believe we have just accessed a CFD code, which you normally can't touch without parting with tens of thousands of dollars. We just used it for a couple of bucks. It feels like stealing.

Ilea has to bring me down to earth. The analysis we have run used OpenFoam, which is open source software, so no license fees were involved. Use of commercial code would pay more. There may be no such thing as a 'typical' analysis. "Customers spend anywhere from tens of dollars to thousands per job," says Ilea.

For More Information:

http://www.rescale.com/

Give Up Making CFD Meshes - Converge is Better and Faster

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (CIC/NAFEMS 2104) - The mesh is critical to the speed and accuracy of a CFD analysis. Make too coarse of a mesh of your control volume and results near abrupt shape changes will not be accurate. Make too fine a mesh over the whole volume and the analysis will take forever. You could do a couple of runs to determine zones each corresponding to to different sizes of elements. Or you could get Converge to refine the mesh for you -- and I'll bet Converge will be faster.

Converge solves combustion problems with CFD using a mesh that refines itself on the fly
(picture from Convergent Science site)

It's so fast that it can solve rapidly changing volumes such as those occurring in combustion chambers of engines, where the dyamimic shape of the flame must be modeled and accounted for. If that's not impressive enough, it can calculate and adapt meshes in supersonic shock waves from jets.

Converge utilizes what it calls Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) to reduce the size of elements in critical areas. Because AMR is coupled with the solver, it refines the mesh during the analysis. You don't have to wait a couple hours to see problem in the results and rerun it. You set the level of refinement before the run. One level means the elements are reduced in length by a half, two levels and the elements are halved again, and so on.

On the Fly Mesh Refinement

You start with a coarse mesh:

Coase mesh to start... (picture from Convergent Science site)

Converge takes one look at your rather amateurish mesh and decides to start splitting up elements in areas that seem to need it, either around abrupt changes in geometry or where there is a large delta in your critical variable, in this case velocity of gas. The color changes indicate analyis has already begun.

Converge is already starting to refine the mesh in critical areas...(picture from Convergent Science site)

The control volume mesh will keep refining itself after successive runs until it reaches a preset limit. Here is a highly refined mesh after multiple runs. Note the relatively small size of elements in the narrow passage around the valve and a velocity profile suggests a more accurate solution.

Converge will keep refinining the mesh (picture from Convergent Science site)

Founded in Caterpillar

Converge had its beginnings in Caterpillar, where it was used by the construction vehicle maker to model the chemical reactions in their engines. Converge spun out of Caterpillar and can do general purpose CFD analysis, where there is non-reactive fluids and external volumes (example: flow over a wing section).

"AMR is most suited to transient solutions," says Rob Kaczmarek, Converge's director of sales and marketing, meaning the types of volumes that would change quickly. "We're seeing about 4 times faster than our competition in run time alone -- and that's not even including the time saved by not having to create a mesh!" He names ANSYS and CD-adapco as competitors. Rob claims Converge holds its own with most steady state problems.

Easy to Use Templates

You can set up Converge with templates so users who may not be savvy with CFD can answer a few questions and get results. Converge can be 'bought' as needed, for a project, for example. It will work on the Rescale platform, which does its calculations on HPC, so you don't even have to have a monster workstation.

Clearly, this is not your father's CFD.

For more information

Convergent Scienes website http://www.convergecfd.com/