Grabcad Workbench (Beta): Browser-Based Project Management and Collaboration App
Grabcad, cofounded by Hardi Meybaum, is best known as an online community, a popular destination for like-minded designers and engineers to share their models and collect feedback. With an emphasis on friendship and professional networking, Grabcad has so far been more social than commercial. But that’s about to change.
Grabcad’s new product Workbench (currently in Beta) is a cloud-hosted, browser-based project management and collaboration application. No installation, no download, no thin client. Once you’re logged in, you’ll find yourself in the project hub with a list of files managed in Workbench and the latest notifications. Continue reading
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SmartGeometry 2013: Uncertainty Brings Out the Best in Generative Design
SmartGeometry Conference (SG), the annual gathering organized by SmartGeometry Group, is now in its 12th year, with a solid history to prove its international appeal. But even long-time SG alumni are often at a loss for words when pressed to describe the event.
“What is SmartGeometry? I don’t actually have a straight answer to that. It’s a question that we ask ourselves many times,” said Xavier de Kestelier, one of the SG directors, during his opening speech this year (SG2013, The Bartlett: UCL, London, April 15-20). It’s not a scholarly event where professors get up and read papers, hiding behind tall lecterns and impenetrable academic terms. It’s not an industry event where people trade war stories and network over free-flowing wine and beer. “SG is one of the events where we get practice and academia to come to the same event and interact,” said Kestelier. “I never talk about SG conference; I always talk about SG workshop/conference, because that workshop is very important, probably the most important thing.” Continue reading
Autodesk Inventor Punches Its Way into Robot Combat League
This is a new kind of hand-to-hand combat. Here, size doesn’t matter. In this arena, a geeky software engineer has just as much a chance of landing a crippling blow as a hurdle-jumping Olympian, and a video game player can be just as lethal as a National Guard veteran or a professional Muay Thai fighter. Welcome to Robot Combat League (RCL), SyFy’s new reality TV show, where human opponents battle each other through mechanical avatars. Continue reading
Lagoa Brings 3D Rendering to the Cloud
Those engineers chalking up the cloud to be a passing fancy or a platform that’s ill-suited for professional-class design tools might want to reconsider.
In yet another example of a full-function engineering tool making its way to the latest software delivery model, startup Lagoa has just released a full 3D rendering and collaboration platform, entirely browser-based and running solely in the cloud. Continue reading
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DE Rebranded As Democracy Everywhere (April Fools)
Note: This post was an April Fools’ joke. I’d like to thank Noah Cole, Beth Ambaruch, and Jim Brown for joining me in the spirit of humor and issuing quotes to support my post. We now go back to regularly scheduled blog posts. –Kenneth
Eighteen years after its launch in 1995, DE, is revising its brand to reflect the changing climate of engineering. Today, the magazine announces it’s changing its name from Desktop Engineering to Democracy Everywhere. The change is reflected in the magazine’s new logo that incorporates a ballot box. Continue reading
