SpaceClaim to Tackle Your Design Problems

There are still a few more front row seats left to watch Blake Courter take on other people's engineering problems -- quite possibly yours -- in a live Webinar.

On July 13, Courter, SpaceClaim's cofounder, opened up his inbox to other people's frustrations and headaches. He did so by issuing the SpaceClaim challenge, which reads, "Got a modeling problem that's driving you crazy? Want to know how direct modeling can solve it? ... Bring it on -- to us."

Perhaps it was judicious of the SpaceClaim team to limit the submission dates to a mere two days, from July 13-15. Couter verified he's received about a dozen entries. In the past two weeks, he's been sorting through them to find something suitable for the Webinar. Among the problems received are several wind turbines, an engine assembly, and a casting part from a household-name handheld tool maker (he isn't prepared to identify the manufacturer). Ultimately, he revealed, he'll pick a problem that promises to hold the audience' interest and showcase the strength of direct modeling, SpaceClaim's forte.

The idea for the challenge came about because, according to Couter, "[SpaceClaim] customers are engineers. They have the 'Prove it!' mentality. So we just become used to giving demos where we take a customer's part and show them how to use our technology on their design." Occasionally, when Couter and his team are stumped by what a customer asks them to do, they archive the part for further study for R&D.

Couter said, "Many of our customers are not CAD jocks. They're specialists -- some with Ph.Ds in simulation -- who work with [files from] multiple CAD systems. They may have to remove some unnecessary features [such as rounds and holes] before doing analysis. In a feature-based [or history-based] modeling system, they could get regeneration failure with that kind of edits or change the part in ways not expected."

SpaceClaim hopes it can capture a good portion of this user segment with its direct-editing package, which lets you remove features and edit parts without being restricted by how the geometry has been created in the original CAD program.

Come Wednesday (July 29), Couter will wrestle with the chosen design problem in a live Webcast. While he's intimately familiar with SpaceClaim software (which he helped develop), Couter admits he's not the best presenter. No matter what happens, the one whose engineering headache is selected by SpaceClaim will receive a $250 Amazon.com gift certificate.

To register for the event, visit this link.