Just too busy to post much this week. I hope to be more active in the coming weeks, and especially to talk more about curvature continuous geometry, one of the big tools for good looking consumer products.
Meanwhile, Happy Engineers Week even though I almost missed it!
Friday, February 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Curvature Continuous
Consumer product design has become quite sophisticated and the expectations of the market have driven product look and feel to very high standards. Not so long ago, a designer or engineer could call out a housing for a product using simple and straight-forward geometry. Rounding the corners was a simple matter of adding a tasteful radius and making sure there was no interference with what went on inside.
These days, a simple radius is just unacceptable. If you take a box and add a 1/4" radius to the corners, this is what is known as a C1 transition. There's a straight edge where curvature = 0, and then suddenly there's a point, even though it's perfectly tangent, where the curvature = 0.25" for 90 full degrees, then it's suddenly 0 again. If these surfaces were to be highly-reflective chrome and the product displayed in a brightly lit room, the reflections of the lights and room would show up distorting along the line where these transitions happen.
The automobile industry has long known about this phenomenon, and a new car in a showroom must reflect light smoothly and perfectly along it's every curve and transition.
The way to round those corners is known as C2, or curvature continuous, geometry. What C2 does is eliminate the sudden transition, so that the 1/4" doesn't suddenly happen, it's approached from both sides. Curvature gradually goes from 0 to 0.25", so that the look of a 1/4" radius is achieved, but it is only truly 1/4" at the midpoint of the curve. A difficult concept to describe in words, I will post pictures and examples in future blog entries on this fascinating and important topic.
These days, a simple radius is just unacceptable. If you take a box and add a 1/4" radius to the corners, this is what is known as a C1 transition. There's a straight edge where curvature = 0, and then suddenly there's a point, even though it's perfectly tangent, where the curvature = 0.25" for 90 full degrees, then it's suddenly 0 again. If these surfaces were to be highly-reflective chrome and the product displayed in a brightly lit room, the reflections of the lights and room would show up distorting along the line where these transitions happen.
The automobile industry has long known about this phenomenon, and a new car in a showroom must reflect light smoothly and perfectly along it's every curve and transition.
The way to round those corners is known as C2, or curvature continuous, geometry. What C2 does is eliminate the sudden transition, so that the 1/4" doesn't suddenly happen, it's approached from both sides. Curvature gradually goes from 0 to 0.25", so that the look of a 1/4" radius is achieved, but it is only truly 1/4" at the midpoint of the curve. A difficult concept to describe in words, I will post pictures and examples in future blog entries on this fascinating and important topic.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Congratulations, Gerald Davis
One of the things that SolidWorks does very well is encourage and support their users groups. The local chapter, the Colorado SolidWorks Users Group, or COSUG, has been headed up these last few years by Gerald Davis.
Gerald has presented at the last two SolidWorks World events, doing break-out sessions for sheet metal design, which is his specialty. He's also a very knowledgable all-around SW user and instructor, and puts together some great COSUG meetings.
At this year's SolidWorks World in San Diego, Gerald Davis was named the users group Leader of the Year. I don't know off hand how many users groups there are around the world, but this is a huge honor and big congratulations to Gerald. It's good to be part of such an organization, and if you use SW at all, I encourage you to get involved with your local users group.
Gerald has presented at the last two SolidWorks World events, doing break-out sessions for sheet metal design, which is his specialty. He's also a very knowledgable all-around SW user and instructor, and puts together some great COSUG meetings.
At this year's SolidWorks World in San Diego, Gerald Davis was named the users group Leader of the Year. I don't know off hand how many users groups there are around the world, but this is a huge honor and big congratulations to Gerald. It's good to be part of such an organization, and if you use SW at all, I encourage you to get involved with your local users group.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Inspiration sources, redux
One of the highlights of this year's SolidWorks World general sessions was a presentation made by Dutch engineer and sculptor Theo Jansen. This ingenious modern-day Da Vinci has been creating incredible mobile structures that walk and adapt, inspired by evolution and fundamental biology. Difficult to describe, I encourage you to just take a look at this -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMqftVhOuTw&feature=related
Mr. Jansen brought one of his smaller creatures to the stage, and in the absense of wind, took it by the "hand" and effortlessly walked it across the stage. It was amazing to see the grace and precision of the structure in person. And it's remarkable how this artist has stayed so true to the source of his inspiration; the mechanics and engineering have evolved along with the need to make these animals functional and organic in their interactions with their environment.
For anyone who looks to nature for an inspiration for design, spend some time studying this man and what he has to say about how he does what he does. There's an incredible amount for us to learn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMqftVhOuTw&feature=related
Mr. Jansen brought one of his smaller creatures to the stage, and in the absense of wind, took it by the "hand" and effortlessly walked it across the stage. It was amazing to see the grace and precision of the structure in person. And it's remarkable how this artist has stayed so true to the source of his inspiration; the mechanics and engineering have evolved along with the need to make these animals functional and organic in their interactions with their environment.
For anyone who looks to nature for an inspiration for design, spend some time studying this man and what he has to say about how he does what he does. There's an incredible amount for us to learn.
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