solidThinking Links Design Power and Additive Manufacturing

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solidthinkingsolidThinking offers designers the technology to help them bring the most beautifully practical products to life faster and more efficiently. Its software is used to assist in product development for designers, engineers, architects and scientists. solidThinking Inspire enables them to test and analyze structurally efficient concepts, while solidThinking Evolve focuses on developing forms and designs faster. These collections of tools are the ideal companions to additive manufacturing.

3D printing and additive manufacturing have traditionally been used for rapid prototyping. solidThinking supports this practice by providing topology optimization. Using this software, designers can determine the most efficient use of material early in the product development stage. They can then base their final design on this information, which allows them to create something that is strong, lightweight and minimizes material usage. Take a look at solidThinking’s slot car design to get an idea of how it all works.

solidThinking Evolve and Inspire in Action

solidthinking evolve actionLast year, solidThinking attended the RAPID 2014 event in Detroit, Michigan. RAPID is an annual conference for learning, networking and progressing 3D manufacturing technology. It was the perfect place for solidThinking representatives to show the 3D printing industry what solidThinking software could do. The company entered a slot car racing event, which required participants to design and 3D print a slot car for the race.

The solidThinking team got to work designing the car using solidThinking Evolve to design a clear outer shell, and solidThinking Inspire to design the inner shell. The outer shell was intended to provide the car with a streamlined and aerodynamic look, while the inner shell ensured that it was structurally sound and able to survive any bumps or crashes. Upon design testing and completion, it was then saved as an STL file and 3D printed. Take a look at the process and see for yourself how it all came together.

Additive Manufacturing Catches On

3D printing products designed using solidThinking doesn’t stop with the small scale production of a slot car. In a manufacturing world where the cost of parts and various components are based on the amount of material, the use of topology optimization software and additive manufacturing has redefined major businesses’ workflows. UK-based manufacturer, Renishaw, worked with its partner, Empire Cycles, to manufacture the world’s first metal bike frame produced with additive manufacturing. solidThinking Inspire was used during the process to generate the ideal design for the bike’s seat post. Using this technology, the final design was 44% lighter than the original seat post that was currently in production.

Both additive manufacturing and topology optimization software, like solidThinking, have the ability to realize designs at rapid speeds and deliver incredible lightweight solutions. As more companies realize the benefits and decrease of subsequent waste in materials, the use of these technologies together is increasing in various markets. This is the future, and providing students with access to these programs will be tremendously beneficial to their prospective career opportunities.

solidThinking: Make the Most of Your Designs

solidThinking DesignWhile additive manufacturing and solidThinking certainly prove to be the perfect match, it isn’t the only production design this software is capable of optimizing. solidThinking has the ability to help you realize an efficient, beautiful design for nearly anything. From flatware to automotive parts, the range of products that have been designed using solidThinking is phenomenal.

As the use of solidThinking Evolve and Inspire become more prevalent in various industries, both programs are continuously evolving. “We’re constantly improving the features,” said Jim Hassberger, President of solidThinking, in a recent interview. “We just had our 2014 release of both products and we’re planning for the end of the year a 2015 release. In Evolve we’re adding the ability to create very irregular shapes. It’s basically taking freeform shapes, moderating them and then going directly to geometry files. That has a little bit of a tie in with Inspire because many times people want to take the Inspire results and create a concept model from them and move forward. That was one of the reasons we created this software to capture very organic forms and go forward with geometry representations.”

Learn more about what solidThinking can do for your product development, and discover pricing for individuals and classrooms.

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