Just earlier that day I hosted a webinar on Fusion & traditional CAD (which you can watch here). Now, I’m not exactly claiming that it was prophetic, but there is proof to be found that I discussed some things in the webinar specifically that were out of date just hours later… The crazy fast update cadence of Fusion 360 is one of my favorite parts of the whole platform. Can I really tell the future, or does Fusion 360 just update that fast? I’ll let you decide.
Read the rest of With Fusion 360 You Can … Predict The Future?
MCADCafe Guest Blog 
Sanjay Gangal
Sanjay Gangal is the President of IBSystems, the parent company of AECCafe.com, MCADCafe, EDACafe.Com, GISCafe.Com, and ShareCG.Com. MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – AlphaStarJanuary 10th, 2024 by Sanjay Gangal
By AlphaStar TeamThe year 2023 has passed and we are in the New Year. Before we make predictions, it may be helpful to make requests. Let us hope 2024 is a time of peace. Let us remember how much we need each other and how much we can accomplish together. Peace may be difficult; but it is also necessary for the progress we all desire. Let us remain positive. Thankfully that means getting down to business and engineering. Fortunately, technology, like people, marches on and 2024 should be a banner year. New Roles and Applications for Polymer Additive Manufacturing (AM), Polymer AM has always been the little engine that could. From rapid prototyping to hobbyist to complex geometry, it has pioneered growth in AM. Yet it always seems it is in a relay race with AM metal. Thank you polymer, now pass the baton to AM metal for the real breakthroughs. Fortunately, what we have are two heavy stems of a strong and robust tree. Explorations in new fibers, continuous fibers, chopped fibers, inclusions, particulates, resins, multi-materials, curing and fabrication technologies have amplified the capabilities of this venerable science. Improvements in strength, stiffness, performance in elevated temperatures mean polymer AM can take on challenges that seemed impossible ten years ago. Light weighting, selective critical components, and massive scaled fabrication are all within the crosshairs. Polymer AM is ripe for reasserting its place as a major contributor to AM expansion and development. It should be noted that AlphaSTAR’s ICME based GENOA 3DP toolset provides virtual process simulation and build optimization for polymer AM parts. The tool can also assess the durability and damage tolerance of the virtual as build part in response to service loads. Read the rest of MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – AlphaStar MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – 3DChimeraJanuary 9th, 2024 by Sanjay Gangal
By Alex Hussain, the Co-Founder & CEO of 3DChimera  Additive Manufacturing in 2024 – Predicting a Course Through Market Correction to Innovation For anyone that follows the stock market closely, the Additive Manufacturing Industry has been top of mind…but not for the reasons that the rest of us might have guessed based on the headlines of years past. By the end of 2023, virtually every publicly traded company in the additive manufacturing industry was significantly down, with some of the major players facing difficult decisions on what the future may hold. The root cause of these declines has been varied and unclear, ranging from a general market slowdown in capital equipment purchases to the consequences of overly aggressive market forecasts and overvaluations. In 2024, we predict a major market correction with a consolidation of several large players in the industry, and more than one of the publicly traded companies shutting their doors for good. While this prediction may seem dire, rest assured, the additive manufacturing industry is not going anywhere. In fact, while growth has slowed in the stock market, many of the smaller players in the industry are thriving. New entrants to the market, with disruptive price points and capabilities, are expanding the promise of additive manufacturing to more companies than ever before. Additive manufacturing tools are no longer only for huge companies with giant budgets. At the end of 2023, 3DChimera saw a huge surge of business from small and medium sized companies looking to add equipment and capabilities, taking advantage of a short window of opportunity where their competitors took pause due to corporate budget freezes. We predict these trends will continue into 2024, and that the smaller businesses adopting additive manufacturing will begin to lead in their respective markets by unleashing the potential of this transformative technology. Additive manufacturing is a perfect tool for our time, allowing companies to leverage technology to accomplish more with less investment and fixed costs than has been required in years past. Read the rest of MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – 3DChimera MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – SynopsysJanuary 8th, 2024 by Sanjay Gangal
By Kerim Genc, Product Manager, Synopsys Simpleware Product Group  Kerim Genc 1. More and more Medical Device companies that have tried to build/deploy their own AI-enabled automation for their current patchwork of patient specific workflows are going to start realizing their inefficiencies and turn to third-party companies that specialize in delivering AI solutions.
It takes more than simply hiring a few AI developers to build robust AI-enabled solutions that are accurate, repeatable, and scalable to their specific workflow, all the while being deployed quickly and able to pass regulatory approval. Many are two to three years into “building it themselves,” and although their internal solutions may be able to automate 60-70% of the cases, the last 30% is proving elusive; they are realizing that, although they are a Medical Device company with sophisticated software capabilities and very talented developers, extracting the full potential value of AI needs a specialized partner. I think we will see an acceleration of companies ceding control of their workflow development in exchange for faster and more robust deployment of AI solutions. Read the rest of MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – Synopsys MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – CloudNCJanuary 1st, 2024 by Sanjay Gangal
By Theo Saville, CEO, CloudNC Theo Saville The main manufacturing tech trend for 2024: what happens when you start applying generative AI to physical problems. For example… what if you could create anything you wanted – at the touch of a button? It’s a dream of humanity, rendered (and parodied) ad nauseum in science-fiction, from Star Trek to Iron Man to Red Dwarf – that with a single click, a smart computer could create whatever you need: from hot drinks and food, to a super-powerful exoskeleton – and everything in between. We are, of course, still some distance from any such vision becoming a reality. But recent advances in generative AI mean we aren’t quite as far away as we think. Artificial intelligence tools like Chat-GPT and DALL-E can create new words, images and video, based on only a few inputs. The results can range from the curious (such as new AI-generated episodes of the Simpsons) to the scary (like Bing’s AI telling a NYT reporter in a chat that it wants to be alive), to the pretty funny (and genuinely impressive). Read the rest of MCADCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – CloudNC Materialise Announces 3D Printing Trends for 2024December 11th, 2023 by Sanjay Gangal
By: Materialise Team 2023 was another year of change and growth for the additive manufacturing industry — and 2024 promises to be just as exciting. So, what can you expect? At the end of every year, we at Materialise reflect on our industry and we ask ourselves: what will we see in the year to come? Normally, the answer is the same: “The industry continues to grow.” This year is a little different. The adoption of 3D printing isn’t just increasing. It’s shifting. We see shifting approaches. Shifting mindsets. Shifting markets. And even shifting limitations. These are the trends we expect to have the biggest impact in 2024:
These trends are a clear sign of how the industry is maturing and shifting to meet the ever-changing needs of manufacturers. Watch the Materialise 3D Printing Trends for 2024 video to learn more about the four trends we expect to have the biggest impact in the year to come.
More than DWG: Open Design Alliance is ready for its new role in the CAD marketMarch 12th, 2019 by Oleg Zykov
Oleg has been CEO at C3D Labs ever since its founding in 2012. The company specializes in the technology-intensive market of software components. Their C3D Toolkit incorporates all four modules critical to CAD – 3D modeling, constraint solving, visualization, and file conversion. Oleg’s 18 years of experience with CAD systems includes teaching CAD, and serving as the head of a product marketing department, and an innovation project leader at ASCON, the leading Russian CAD and PLM vendor. At the beginning of the year, the Open Design Alliance announced an update of all of its industry-specific engineering software development platforms, along with the release of new products. Given its recent rebranding and active work with the expert community, the ODA is making it clear that it aims to change the balance of power. At C3D Labs, we are aware that changes to the market can impact us. We are in the same field as the ODA in supplying technology components, and at the same time we are partners with them. We license our components to our customers, but our C3D Modeler geometric kernel is also available as an integration module for the ODA’s platform. What are the chances that a new “old” player can shake up the mature market of development tools? Let’s have a look. When you ask a CAD developer what the Open Design Alliance does, a likely response is, “Writing DWG converters.” And this is true. It is thanks to this service that the ODA established market recognition and gained more than a thousand member companies. What other suppliers of technological components can boast of such a following? Today, if you need product support for DWG and you don’t want — or can’t — go to Autodesk, then an ODA membership is the only solution. Read the rest of More than DWG: Open Design Alliance is ready for its new role in the CAD market 2019 SWW Interview with Tim Fulton, CAM Manager at Hawk Ridge SystemsMarch 1st, 2019 by Sanjay Gangal
I had the privilege of speaking with Tim Fulton, CAM Manager at Hawk Ridge Systems at the 2019 SOLIDWORKS World Conference in Dallas, Texas. Tim mentioned that Hawk Ridge Systems is the largest SOLIDWORKS reseller in USA and Canada with over 210 people in 18 offices. From design concept to production, their team of experts works with customers to understand their specific requirements. With their skilled set of engineering professionals trained in SOLIDWORKS, CAMWorks, Markforged & HP 3D Printers, Dassault Systèmes platforms and more, they can guide their customers through the entire design-to-manufacturing process. From software selection, to training and support, the team at Hawk Ridge Systems is there with their customers every step of the way. Tim is very passionate about helping Hawk Ridge Systems’ customers and it comes through clearly in the video interview below. Read the rest of 2019 SWW Interview with Tim Fulton, CAM Manager at Hawk Ridge Systems Hello, my name is Fusion 360March 14th, 2017 by Ryan Johnson - Sr Implementation Consultant
Fusion 360. What is it? Why should I care? Also, wasn’t it in Inventor like 5 years ago? Doesn’t it have something to do with the cloud? You have questions. We’re here to help. Fusion 360 is already a powerful product development tool. With a short development and release cycle, the product changes 10x faster than traditional CAD platforms. Have an idea? Let them know! Autodesk is building this new platform from the ground up for the next generation of CAD, and using your input to make it better for you. With Fusion 360 You Can … Predict The Future?March 14th, 2017 by Ryan Johnson - Sr Implementation Consultant
If you haven’t opened Fusion 360 for a few days, you may be missing out on the latest huge update in Fusion 360! It came to us on March 1st. Mobile Workstations – More Portable, More Powerful, More DependableJune 16th, 2015 by Tom Salomone
CAD designers understand the importance of having a workstation capable of meeting the demands of their resource-intensive applications. Yet many designers have been reluctant to invest in mobile technology in addition to their desktop machines. As powerful as mobile technology has become, it has historically struggled to match the performance and reliability of a high-powered desktop workstation, leaving designers looking to take their demanding CAD applications into the field with difficult choices. But that’s changing. In recent years, mobile workstations have gained ground in their ability to serve as complementary solutions. Here are a few reasons why you may want to rethink investing in a mobile workstation. Read the rest of Mobile Workstations – More Portable, More Powerful, More Dependable |
