Flexible Modeling for Industrial Designers

By DE Editors

FISHER/UNITECH (Troy, MI) has introduced a desktop solution for industrial designers called ID Works.  ID Works is comprised of SolidWorks 2007 3D mechanical design software, Corel Painter for painting and illustration, Rhinoceros for NURBS curve and surface modeling, and the Wacom Cintiq, which allows industrial designers to sketch on screen by combining an LCD monitor with tablet technology.

Until now, industrial designers have used wireframe or surface modelers to achieve creativity and freedom in their designs, while engineering departments relied on parametric 3D modeling tools for accuracy. With ID Works, says the company, these two technologies are merged.

SolidWorks 2007 has made many surfacing tool enhancements for creating complex shapes. The new curve continuity, or C2 feature, enables industrial designers to select a surface or model face and push and pull it dynamically. The new Boundary Surface feature empowers designers to create two directional surfaces with multiple-control cross sections that maintain C2 in all directions.

SolidWorks 2007 also offers enhancements to its PhotoWorks software, which enables designers to create photorealistic images.  PhotoWorks contains a large library of pre-defined materials to choose from such as metals, plastics, woods, glass, rubber, and stones. The user can select from a number of HDR (high-dynamic range) scenes complete with backdrop and lighting for rendering images.

SolidWorks 2007 also offers a new Sketch Picture feature, which allows a 2D picture or image to be imported into SolidWorks as an aide in adding functionality to the design.  Additionally, SolidWorks 2007 supports opening Rhino files directly into SolidWorks.

ScanTo3D, a new function of SolidWorks Office Premium 2007, is for any designer who needs to capture physical concept models, existing OEM parts, or anatomical objects and use the scan data to build solid models. The NextEngine Desktop 3D Scanner captures physical samples and brings them into SolidWorks as 3D references.

ID Works is available immediately. For more information, visit funtech.com.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.