Innovation as a Practice: Dagaa’s Experience

Adolfo Cota, director of development for Dagaa	Ricardo Ponce, head designer for Dagaa

Dagaa is more than a traditional design studio; it is a company focused on the invention, design and development of new products for clients. For the founders of the company, innovation is not merely an idea, but also a practice. Adolfo Cota and Ricardo Ponce began their business just three years ago, but they have quickly learned many lessons, the most important being that they never stop learning and they can always improve a product through its design.

Dagaa’s client base is diverse, requiring designs for metal-based products, electronics, advertisements and furniture. The company is most recognized for its work in the videogame industry and has adopted solidThinking to aid in the development of its concepts. Using solidThinking, the Dagaa team was the first to create a design for a street-operated videogame machine with an LCD monitor for use in Mexico.

Click here to continue reading this story in our September Newsletter.

Register for solidThinking Inspired Webinar

Register for FREE attendance to solidThinking’s next webinar:

solidThinking Inspired: Morphogenesis for Architects and Designers A live training session describing how solidThinking Inspired and its unique morphogenesis form-generation technology can provide inspiration to architects and product designers.

September 29, 2011 – 1:00 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time)

solidThinking Expands its VAR Network by Adding U.K.-Based Cadsoft Solutions

We are pleased to announce that we have recently signed Cadsoft Solutions Limited to our network of worldwide distributors. As the company’s U.K.-based distributor, Cadsoft Solutions will introduce its creative design and architectural customer base to the extensive design capabilities of solidThinking 8.5 and solidThinking 8.5 Inspired™.

Located in Cambridge, Cadsoft Solutions provides 2D and 3D CAD and design software solutions that enable innovative product development and design. The addition of solidThinking to its product portfolio will further enhance Cadsoft Solutions’ ability to provide its customers with the latest in concept design technology.

solidThinking and Cadsoft Solutions will jointly offer hands-on demonstrations of solidThinking 8.5 and solidThinking 8.5 Inspired™ at the ProductDesign + Innovation Conference in London, May 18-19. solidThinking is a major sponsor of the event, where senior product design and innovation professionals from leading brands, OEMs and consultancies will share ideas and explore emerging sources for growth. Come and meet us!

The Design Competition 2011 has started!

If you are a student of a college or university and you are 18 years of age or older, the solidThinking Design Competition is a great opportunity to express your creativity, use advanced 3D technologies, be evaluated by global design thought leaders and win great prizes.

The Competition has no category restriction. Design something that solves a problem. Any type of product design can be submitted.

Each applicant student will receive a full license of solidThinking Inspired 8.5 expiring on November 30, 2011 for preparing the entries.

Deadline for entries submission is September 30, 2011 (11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time).

Click here to read more. Take your chances to win!

Architosh: Looking at solidThinking Inspired 8.5

Architosh recently covered solidThinking Inspired 8.5. Click here to read the In-depth look.

solidThinking supports Industrial Designers’ Continuing Education Through Program-wide Sponsorship of 2011 IDSA District Conferences

Connect with us at the Industrial Designers Society of America’s (IDSA) 2011 district conferences.

As a comprehensive program sponsor, solidThinking aims to support the continuing education of industrial designers and contribute to the conferences’ ongoing collaborative discussions on technology and the future of industrial design.

During the tour, we will offer personalized previews of solidThinking and solidThinking Inspired and show some of the key product advancements delivered with the just launched 8.5 releases. Mark the dates!

Midwest Conference
St. Louis, MO
April 1-3

 

Northeast Conference
Providence, RI
April 8-9

 

Mideast Conference
Cincinnati, OH
April 8-10

 

Southern Conference
Austin, TX
April 15-17

 

Western Conference
San Jose, CA
May 6-7

solidThinking Essential Videos Now Available in Ten Languages!

With the release of solidThinking 8.5 six essentials videos, which can help users get up and running quickly and independently, are now available in ten languages. Supported languages include English, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

solidThinking 8.5 and solidThinking 8.5 Inspired Trial Versions Available

solidThinking 8.5 and solidThinking 8.5 Inspired 30-day trial versions are now available for download. Click here to request the hands-on experience.

solidThinking 8.5 and solidThinking 8.5 Inspired Released!

solidThinking 8.5 and solidThinking 8.5 Inspired have been released today!

We believe that these new releases are truly better, faster and easier as a result of more than 900 new features, enhancements and updates.

Our global team of product specialists, all of whom are experienced industrial designers or architects, paid close attention to the needs of existing and prospective users and have used their feedback to help achieve significant levels of improvement in the solidThinking 8.5 releases

Whether you are an industrial designer, an architect or a concept engineer, visit our website at  www.solidthinking.com to discover what’s new in solidThinking 8.5 and how it can help you design better products, visualize them with great photorealism and in real-time, and explore possible breakthrough design scenarios facilitating innovation.

Customer Video: Novellini

Watch solidThinking’s new video about Novellini, a pacesetter in Europe in wellness products. Novellini manufactures more than 1.3 million bathroom solutions such as whirlpools, equipped shower panels, complete enclosures, and towel radiators each year, and has been using solidThinking in several of its production departments since 2003 to meet a wide range of needs.

Register for solidThinking Webinars

Register for FREE attendance to solidThinking’s next webinars: Introduction to solidThinking, a live training session that introduces the concepts and tools offered by solidThinking.
Duration: 1 hour.

February 3, 2011 – 1:00 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time)
February 17, 2011 – 1:00 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time)

solidThinking 8.5 on DEVELOP3D

DEVELOP3D previewed the upcoming solidThinking Inspired 8.5 Release.

Read the on-line article or download the PDF extract from the December 2010/January 2011 issue.

Josh Mings, the author of the article, wrote:

“We like to explore. Whether we’re designers or engineers, we like to spill the “ifs” across the table (or screen) in anticipation of that single moment when the design has been realised. solidThinking makes this possible in ways that compliment design and engineering.

It makes the design process more dependable and the engineering process more fluid. In this way, it’s shaking up the paradigms that have been sinking in for so many years.

solidThinking is a product to watch and one that other 3D software companies should keep an eye on. It’s slamming more than a few slick tools into conceptual design.

In a very real sense it’s allowing you to form and explore faces, features, joints and ribs as quickly as you think them.

That just isn’t common in the products that are out there today. Even with the organic exploration of structures, solidThinking maintains a history of features while not locking you down to their dependencies.”

Stay tuned for more news in a few days!

Floating Shapes

One of the latest projects developed by designers Paolo De Lucchi and Emanuele Rodella is certainly an interesting one, from both the design and the modeling point of view.

Modeling a complex object can be challenging but modeling something that, in some way, has no concrete shape – like a cloud – is even more challenging.

In order to develop a shape like one of the new Nèfos lighting systems (pictures below), it was essential to be able to modify the design while trying to achieve the desired result, a shape that could realistically resemble a soft and floating cloud.

Thanks to solidThinking’s Construction History, and how it handles parameter and control points editing, the result was great.

“The challenge was to create the model in a way that could allow us to handle any further variation that would have been required for aesthetical reasons,” said Emanuele Rodella. “We wanted to achieve the same shape control you have with a sculpture, especially for evaluating the whole shape while adjusting each single concave or convex area. I found a method to create a grid shaped structure that gave me the total control over the result, and each piece was dynamically connected to each other through solidThinking’s ConstructionTree. The modeling quality was noticeable, resulting in a smooth and sinuous model. solidThinking helped us a lot to realize this project.”

Nèfos is manufactured by Myyour and will be developed in four sizes and variants.

In the pictures below, designers Emanuele Rodella (on the left) and Paolo De Lucchi with some of his preliminary hand sketches.

 

solidThinking at Siggraph Asia 2010

Siggraph Asia 2010 is the third edition of the ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia.

solidThinking reseller Silicon Studio will be demonstrating solidThinking and solidThinking Inspired at Booth D26.

Location:
Coex Convention and Exhibition Center

When:
December 16-18, 2010

 

Getting the Right Design, Getting the Design Right

 

The latest issue of Altair Engineering’s Concept to Reality published “Getting the Right Design, Getting the Design Right,” an article describing four ways that we can enhance the entire product development cycle by 1) finding pathways to winning designs earlier in the process, 2) improving collaboration between industrial design and engineering, 3) considering efficient forms starting from the early concept phase, and 4) effectively visualizing and validating design concepts.

Click here to freely download the article. Concept to Reality is published bi-annually for Altair Engineering, Inc. by Penton Custom Media and focuses on cutting-edge design development, innovative product strategy, and global process automation issues.

“Getting the Right Design, Getting the Design Right” was also presented at Altair’s annual European HyperWorks Technology Conference Series in Versailles held October 27-29, 2010. The event attracted more than 500 attendees from 275 companies.