D3D DEC25 / JAN26

INTHE MIX

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Following a festive season marked by traditional overindulgence, it feels almost sacrilegious to start looking at food and drink again. Yet here we are, waistbands straining but ready to gorge ourselves on products that bring e ciency and style to kitchens. They include novel frozen desserts without waste; gourmet co ee without fa ; and customised chocolates that bring a touch of branding to restaurant tables. Our cover story shows the power of good design for reinventing a brand and keeping it hot and fresh, with its look at Kenwood UK’s new range of small kitchen appliances designed for modern living. The Go Collection sees Kenwood take a step beyond the traditional big-bowl stand mixers that I remember my grandmother using. This is a punchy new range of functional compact designs ready to slice, dice and mix with e ciency and good looks, before being stored neatly away.

For dessert, there’s ColdSnap’s design for single-portion iced desserts and drinks – think Nespresso, but for luxury ice cream or frozen margaritas. You might be quick to dismiss the idea (I know I was, until the third portion of delicious bourbon ice cream), but ColdSnap can boast some serious sustainability credentials, too, by removing the need for freezing a product right until the point of serving with a clever design that removes the need for cleaning.

Beyond the kitchen, we bring you our round-up of pen display tablets for designers and engineers; a look at how Solid Edge is evolving, with its inclusion in Siemens Digital Industries Designcenter platform; plus, there’s a review of the Artec Micro II 3D Scanner, a desktop unit for small item data capture.

We are also delighted to welcome new writer Gabrielle Brown to the team and have immediately packed her o to learn how Epson is putting textile printers into the hands of student designers, enabling them to learn more about rapid prototyping of designs and textures.

If you’ve still room after all this à la carte extravagance, then remember to book yourself an advanced seat at DEVELOP3D LIVE. This will take place in Coventry, UK on 25 March 2026, and we promise you plenty more tasty treats at our in-person conference and exhibition.

Stephen Holmes Editor, DEVELOP3D

NEWS

Nvidia and Synopsys expand partnership, Catia gets AI agents and new browser version, PTC sells off Thingworx and Kepware, and more

FEATURES

Comment: SJ on the challenges of laser beam shaping

Comment: Christina Rebel on legacy workflows

Visual Design Guide: Ooni Koda 2 Pro pizza oven

COVER STORY MIXING IT UP AT KENWOOD

Unity: Smoothing the path to real-time experiences

Q&A: Siemens Designcenter Solid Edge

Event report: Five takeaways from Formnext 2025

Fine brew: Designing the Fellow Aiden coffee maker

Product round-up: Pen display and graphics tablets

Chocolate factory: 3D-printed moulds for custom treats

Ice cream dream: ColdSnap’s frozen dessert maker

Waimea gets versatile with Driveworks CPQ

Behind the scenes at Epson’s Textile Academy

In the Fold: Bringing home Reformer Pilates

Manufacturing at the speed of innovation at Shapeways

REVIEW

Artec Micro II scanner

THE LAST WORD

As technology vendors chase military contracts, our favourite design and engineering tools are increasingly used to create products that destroy rather than improve human lives, writes Stephen Holmes

NVIDIA AND SYNOPSYS TEAM UP ON DESIGN AND ENGINEERING

Nvidia and Synopsys have announced a new multiyear collaboration around design and engineering, which spans Nvidia CUDA accelerated computing, agentic and physical AI and digital twin technology.

According to executives from the two companies, the expanded partnership will integrate the strengths of Nvidia’s AI and accelerated computing with Synopsys’ engineering solutions – including Ansys – to deliver capabilities “enabling R&D teams to design, simulate and verify intelligent products with greater precision, speed and at lower cost”.

In addition, Nvidia has invested $2 billion in Synopsys common stock at a purchase price of just under $415 per share.

Joint projects that have been announced so far include accelerating Synopsys

applications using Nvidia CUDA-X libraries and AI physics technologies, as well as building on the existing AI collaboration to enable agentic AI workflows by integrating Synopsys AgentEngineer technology with the Nvidia agentic AI technology stack. The latter will enable autonomous design capabilities for electronic design automation (EDA) and simulation and analysis workflows.

Digital twin technologies are also high on the agenda, with the companies targeting the next generation of virtual design, testing and validation using Nvidia Omniverse, Cosmos and other technologies. Synopsys and Nvidia also plan to make accelerated engineering solutions accessible to engineering teams of all sizes by enabling cloud access for GPU-accelerated engineering solutions. www.nvidia.com

Catia introduces AI agents and browser version

At the recent launch of Catia R2026x, executives focused on today’s need for speed, support for complex designs and the wider goal of providing customers who use its software with “complete experiences”.

To tackle these challenges, Catia is leaning heavily into enabling advanced virtual twins – not just for 3D design and engineering, but also for full factory use.

At the launch, Catia CEO Olivier Sappin chose to concentrate on tangible tools for present-day users and the slow creep towards cloud-based CAD, unveiling a wide range of updates and performance improvements. For example, the launch of Dassault Systèmes‘ Virtual Companions in CATIA – based on the same Aura technology launched for Solidworks earlier in 2025 – gives users of cloud-based

3DExperience Catia access to a chatbot for in-context guidance.

A particular highlight was the announcement of Catia in the browser, offering many of the system’s native tools within the same user interface, but with the benefit of a no-install approach. www.3ds.com

Materialise boosts its CO-AM platform

Materialise has introduced three tailored solutions for its CO-AM (Cloudbased Orchestration for Additive Manufacturing) platform, first announced in May 2022.

The new offerings – CO-AM Professional, CO-AM NPI and CO-AM Enterprise – are powered by CO-AM Brix, a new low-code, node-based automation technology, and by CO-AM Build Platform, a cloud-based, visual editor for build and platform preparation.

The company also announced that its Next-Generation Build Processors now feature a fully open, modular framework. www.materialise.com

Formlabs expands Tough Resin family

Formlabs has announced two new Tough SLA materials for its Form 4 3D printers as it builds out its materials offering for prototyping and end use parts.

Tough 1000 Resin is described as the “toughest and most ductile” material in the new line-up, rivalling HDPE.

Tough 2000 Resin, meanwhile, is classed as the strongest and stiffest material, not unlike ABS. Both materials can withstand harsh environments, impact and repeated wear and deliver a dark, matte surface finish that maintains details well. www.formlabs.com

CDS releases Cognitive Design 2.0

Cognitive Design Systems (CDS) has released Cognitive Design 2.0, the latest version of its AI-powered engineering platform.

This platform combines generative design and simulation capabilities for rapid exploration of structural part concepts, with manufacturing process constraints provided for 3D printing, casting, machining, moulding and forging.

According to CDS executives, the advancements contained in the latest release have been designed with a view to enabling engineers to unlock, test and validate manufacturable, high-performance designs at record speed, while working together in one collaborative environment. www.cognitive-design-systems.com

HP EXPANDS PORTFOLIO WITH IF 600HT FILAMENT 3D PRINTER

HP AM is expanding its industrial manufacturing portfolio with the launch of the HP IF 600HT filament 3D printer.

The move is designed to open up new applications in new markets for HP. The first system in this range, the HP Industrial Filament 3D Printer 600 High Temperature (HP IF 600HT), is a modular system designed for printing high temperature and engineered filaments and will be available in the first half of 2026.

A second system, the HP Industrial Filament 3D Printer (HP IF 1000 XL), is intended for producing large quality parts and will emerge in the second half of 2026.

According to HP executives, by bringing HP reliability and deep application expertise to the high-performance filament market, customers in industrial sectors such as aerospace, oil and gas, medical, automotive, railway and education will be able to produce highvalue, production-grade applications.

“The new portfolio broadens HP’s ability to serve diverse industrial needs, from engineering and high-temperature materials to precision components and large-format production parts, enabling customers to lower their cost per part and accelerate time to market,” said a spokesperson.

“Built on an open materials platform and supported by HP’s global service network, HP Industrial Filament 3D printer solutions give manufacturers the flexibility to innovate with a wide range of polymers and scale into new applications while maintaining industrial-grade performance.”

also announced the strengthening of its Metal Jet ecosystem with new material qualifications and industry collaborations.

Continuum Powders and INDO-MIM have qualified OptiPowder Ni718 for use on the HP Metal Jet S100, to achieve sintered components with over 98% density, consistent hardness (74-79 HR15N) and precise carbon control.

In collaboration with Continuum Powders and Tecnalia, HP AM is also advancing the development of OptiPowder M247LC, a low-carbon, nickel-based superalloy designed for high-temperature applications where strength and corrosion resistance are essential.

Once qualified, the framework will expand to include other high-performance nickel specialty alloys, with the goal of advancing binder jet technology. www.hp.com

ROUND UP

The BSI has published its latest update to the UK’s national framework for engineering design, drawing practices and geometrical tolerancing, comprising the standard, a technical product specification and documentation (BS 8888:2025) www.bsigroup.com

Comsol now boasts greater simulation solver performance and extended multi-GPU capabilities for acoustic simulations, thanks to Nvidia GPU connectivity in its Multiphysics 6.4 release, which introduces Nvidia CUDA direct sparse solver and Nvidia cuDSS www.comsol.com

Scan Computers has been named as a new authorised partner for Solidworks. This will enable Scan to add to its portfolio licenses for Solidworks 3D CAD, 3DExperience Solidworks and DraftSight 2D CAD, and add value by integrating these software products with its workstations www.scan.co.uk

PTC sells off Thingworx and Kepware products

PTC has announced it has sold its Thingworx and Kepware products to global asset management firm TPG, in a move that marks the departure of Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial connectivity technologies from the company's portfolio.

According to PTC CEO Neil Barua, the decision will enable PTC to focus on its core CAD and PLM offerings, as well as further development of its AI capabilities and SaaS products.

“With our resources and investments concentrated in these areas, we are confident we can help our customers address their most pressing challenges by enabling them to fully leverage the value of their product data and to transform each stage of the product lifecycle,” Barua said.

PTC acquired ThingWorx in 2013 for $112 million and Kepware in 2015 for $100 million. The decision to sell off these software products suggests a significant shift away from previous CEO Jim Heppelmann’s vision for the Boston-based company. www.ptc.com

The IoT party's over at PTC as the company opts to focus on core CAD and PLM products

Backed by Stratasys and built on technology acquired from iSquared, BASF’s Forward AM and Nexa3D, the iAM Marketplace has launched as a new hardware-agnostic sales platform for polymer 3D printing materials and post-processing consumables www.i-am-marketplace.com

Womp has announced that it is introducing an enterprise licensing option for its browserbased platform in order to enable more teams to adopt its organic form solid modelling tools and generative AI capabilities, along with its Womp 3D printing services www.womp.com

STRATASYS INVESTS IN TRITONE FOR METALS & CERAMIC TECH

Siemens' Simcenter X gets updated

Siemens Digital Industries has launched Simcenter X Advanced, its latest update to Simcenter X, a scalable, software-as-a-service engineering simulation suite designed to reduce IT complexity and support greater flexibility and collaboration. This update provides engineers with universal access to CFD, systems, mechanical simulation and multidisciplinary design analysis and optimisation (MDAO). Optimisation studies are boosted with AIaugmented design exploration techniques and a chat feature for documentation support and set-up guidance. www.siemens.com

Stratasys is to invest in metals 3D printing company Tritone Technologies as it looks to expand beyond polymers and into other areas of additive manufacturing.

The agreement brings cutting-edge, industrial-scale, production-grade metal and ceramic technologies to Stratasys’s offering, advancing the company’s position as a comprehensive, end-to-end provider of a broad range of additive manufacturing solutions.

Tritone’s metal and ceramic offering is geared toward serial production, which Stratasys executives say aligns with the wider industry trend to deploy 3D printing for manufacturing at scale.

At the heart of Tritone’s innovation lies its MoldJet technology, a powder-free additive manufacturing process that redefines how metal and ceramic parts are created.

Designed for industrial production, MoldJet combines precision with speed, enabling the creation of complex geometries that meet high mechanical and density standards.

The technology enables users to switch between a wide range of metal alloys and ceramics, producing parts of different shapes and applications within the same batch, as well as offering the advantages of reduced downtime and maximum productivity. www.stratasys.com

Renishaw launches new build processor tech

Renishaw has launched its Next-Generation Build Processor (NxG BP), developed in collaboration with Materialise. This strengthens the integration between Renishaw’s RenAM LPBF metal AM systems and Materialise Magics. According to Renishaw executives, NxG BP is intended for ‘power users’ who manage a wide variety of part types and need functionality beyond that provided in Renishaw’s QuantAM software. The new processor enables direct export of job files from Magics to Renishaw machines using the QuantAM file format, eliminating manual file handling, reducing errors and saving valuable preparation time.

A key innovation is its ‘Swim Lane’ feature, which intelligently distributes laser scanning across defined regions of a build platform. By preventing interference between lasers and managing overlap for full fusion, the

system enhances part quality and consistency while reducing build times. Customers also benefit from integration with nTop implicit modelling workflows, for easier handling of complex geometries. www.renishaw.com

and efficient metal AM production

Altair refreshes its Hyperworks tool

Altair has updated HyperWorks 2026 with advances in AI, highperformance computing and multiphysics integration. Integration of multiphysics simulation allows engineers to analyse complex interactions such as thermal-fluid or electromagnetic-structural systems with greater accuracy. New workflows support e-motor optimisation, battery safety studies and high-temperature analyses. www.altair.com

V-Ray for Blender supports MacOS

Chaos has released its latest V-Ray for Blender update, adding support for macOS and giving users access to AIpowered tools.

New features support image enhancement, material generation and upscaling, which the company claims will make it faster and easier for users to craft high-quality renders.

A new AI Enhancer adds details and realism to supporting elements, such as foliage, human figures and terrain, as well as finetune specific objects. This aims to reduce the need for tedious and time-consuming rework.

The AI Material Generator tool, meanwhile, transforms images of real-world surfaces into render-ready, PBR material with all the necessary maps provided. www.chaos.com

Design Automation for SOLIDWORKS®

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Setting up DriveWorks is simple. Capture the parameters you change manually in SOLIDWORKS, then create a user interface and build rules to control how the captured parameters are updated.

Once DriveWorks is set up, you can run it over and over again to automatically create custom SOLIDWORKS parts, assemblies, and drawings.

Reduce engineering time

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Beam shaping laser technology in 3D printing has

much to recommend it,

writes

Growing up as a small child in a Caribbean household that had more people in it than seats at the dining table, the kitchen was the epicenter of the home in which my large, extended family gathered.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been home and longer still since I’ve tasted traditionally made coconut breads, but I still remember the clouds of flour in the air and my infinite curiosity as I asked my grandmother how we made bread without a recipe card. She would always say to mix the ingredients until it “feels right” or to bake the bread “until it tells you it’s ready”. I must have spent hours in front of her oven, watching and waiting with a furrow in my brows.

Fast forward 25 years and I’m spending hours in front of a laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) window, watching once again, with a furrow in my brows, and still unable to tell if what I’m baking is ready.

STIRRING THE POT

In my opinion, laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) isn’t an expensive process. However, the material testing, validation cycles, the building of material allowables, databases and the like – that’s expensive.

One reason is the abundance of samples requiring testing. For example, to build a statistically significant data set for Metallic Materials Properties Development and Standardization (MMPDS), you need at least 100 samples. Of those 100 samples, at least 10 have to come from different lots/heats to establish reliable A-basis and B-basis allowables. For those unfamiliar with the LPBF “oven”, that’s like saying you need to bake 100 loaves of bread with the same brand of flour, but the loaves need to come from at least 10 different ovens.

For those who spent their time during the Covid pandemic perfecting sourdough, that may not sound too intimidating. But for LPBF, we often have to develop the cooking

process as well – a complicated design of experiments where we have the ability to alter over 100 processing parameters until we achieve something that “feels right”.

Some parameter sets are great for lasing bulk material. Others are optimised for specific features like thin walls, lattices or overhangs. And for each parameter set you use, for each variation in the process – be that laser speed, laser power, layer thickness, hatch distance or scanning strategy – you have to qualify material for that specific set.

In short, there’s a lot going on in our kitchen, but I don’t mean to overwhelm you. Many of these parameter sets are well established, especially those supported as defaults by AM machine manufacturers.

But in 2025, when beam shaping technology hit its first powder bed, our efforts to produce ‘loaves’ that are fluffy on the inside and perfectly crispy on the outside suddenly seemed in peril.

FRYING PAN TO FIRE

Most of the research, development and qualification of LPBF and its subsequent parameter sets has been achieved using a standard Gaussian laser beam – a single, focused point of high-intensity energy (anywhere from 500W and 1kW).

But the new beam shaping lasers – or ‘doughnut lasers’ – work differently, spreading energy across a central spot and outer ring. Dynamic beam shaping offers six indices where you can start at the standard Gaussian beam and change the shape of the ‘doughnut’ in the blink of an eye, allowing you to switch quickly from lasing bulk material to fine features. The result is better throughput, higher productivity gains and (theoretically) faster print times, which should drive down per-part costs.

But if I have six indices and multiple parameters per index, does that mean I need 100 samples from 10 different machines for each index for a total of 600 samples minimum?

columnist SJ, but it complicates how we test samples and we’re probably going to need better software to keep track

When beam shaping technology hit its first powder bed, our efforts to produce ‘loaves’ that are fluffy on the inside and perfectly crispy on the outside suddenly seemed in peril

As an industry, we’re still arguing over the proper qualification path for multilaser systems. How will we ever come to a consensus when it’s now 12 laser systems with each laser having six different indices? The complexity of this problem simply isn’t discussed enough.

I’m concerned that beam shaping will set back manufacturing readiness levels and the perception of technological maturity. I also feel that it could have drastic impacts on qualification frameworks. Does currently available software even support assigning and managing all those new parameters within the print file? And if not, what AI/ ML-powered software will we need to better understand and qualify these build files?

(Thinking about this, if a software evolution brings about the death of the .stl file and the rise of the implicit, then you can count me as being all-in on beam shaping.)

For now, however, the worries keep multiplying as quickly as the parameter sets. The furrow in my brow is as deep as the Grand Canyon.

One thing remains the same: I just want to bake good bread. In other words, I want to make parts using robust, reliable and repeatable processes. Whichever laser produces the best ‘bread’, then I’m all for it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: SJ is a metal additive engineer, aka THEE Hottie of Metal Printing. SJ’s work involves providing additive manufacturing solutions and 3D printing of metal parts to help create a decarbonised world

What are legacy engineering workflows costing your business? In 2026, it’s time to do the maths and throw off the shackles of outdated methods that get in the way of true collaboration, writes Christina Rebel of CAD Rooms

There’s a question we should ask as engineers, but for some reason, we seldom do. How much time does your average CAD user actually spend designing, versus chasing file versions, waiting for supplier feedback or wrestling with legacy systems?

Over the past nine months, I’ve been investigating this issue across the space, automotive and industrial sectors whilst building CAD Rooms.

Honestly, the numbers make for grim reading. They represent a productivity crisis that most engineering organisations have simply accepted as “the way things are”. What does this look like? It looks like supplier review bottlenecks, where STEP files (and frequent updates to STEP files) need to be sent to third-party suppliers, accompanied by painfully long email threads containing annotated screenshots.

It looks like version control nightmares, in which files are given names like this: final_v3_REALLY_FINAL_actuallyfinal.SLDPRT.

I’m not even joking. This is how teams with brilliant engineers and sophisticated products manage their most valuable intellectual property. Software developers solved this problem 15 years ago with Git, which introduces version control, branching and merge capabilities, yet mechanical engineering is still living in 2010.

At the other extreme, it looks like the legacy PLM trap, where companies spend €2-€3 million annually on enterprise PLM systems that require six clicks just to check out a file. These systems were architected for a different era, when engineering teams sat in the same building, designs changed monthly rather than daily, and ‘collaboration’ meant occasionally sending a drawing to manufacturing. These PLM systems may excel at compliance and audit trails, but they’re spectacularly poor at enabling the rapid iteration of modern product development demands.

Finally, it looks like living in a state of licence lock-in. Consider the economics: a 25-person engineering firm typically spends €1.25 million per year on CAD licences alone. That’s €50,000 per seat. But most of that capacity sits idle whilst suppliers wait for “view access”. In the meantime, you’ve got engineers who can’t work because a file is checked out, suppliers who can’t provide feedback because they can’t afford a licence, and project managers who can’t review designs because they’re not in the CAD seat pool.

The traditional licensing model assumes scarcity – that software is expensive to distribute and access should be restricted. But we’re now in 2026. Browser technology can now render complex assemblies natively. The technical barriers have fallen; only the business model remains.

MORE MODERN METHODS

At Boston University, the rocket team shows what’s possible when you remove these constraints. They’re developing a liquid-fuelled rocket engine – by no means a simple engineering task. By going digitalfirst with browser-based collaboration, they’ve cut development time significantly while working as a distributed team.

The key to their success? They treat collaboration as a first-class requirement, not an afterthought.

Suppliers can review designs in real-time. Version control is automatic. Approval workflows aren’t gated by expensive licences. The tools get out of the way and let the engineering happen.

There are plenty of practical strategies that teams can implement now if they want to emulate this kind of success without needing to rip out their entire toolchain. They should:

• Separate editing from viewing. Not everyone needs a full CAD licence. Browser-based viewers can handle 95% of review workflows at a fraction of the cost.

Software developers solved the version control problem 15 years ago with Git and its branching and merging capabilities, yet mechanical engineering is still living in 2010

• Implement proper version control. If your engineers are manually managing file versions, you’re haemorrhaging productivity. Cloudbased PDM systems with automatic version tracking eliminate this overhead entirely.

• Rethink supplier collaboration. Give external partners the access they need without the friction of heavyweight tools. The delays you eliminate pay for themselves within weeks.

• Audit actual licence utilisation. You’re probably paying for capacity you don’t use, while creating artificial bottlenecks because you don’t have enough licences for review workflows.

The engineering software industry has sold us the idea that more features and higher prices equal better outcomes.

But the real measure of a tool’s value is simple: does it enable your team to iterate faster, collaborate better and deliver products that work? Everything else is just overhead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Christina Rebel is CEO of CAD Rooms and Wikifactory, where she leads the development of cloud-based collaboration solutions for distributed engineering teams. Her focus is on bringing modern, accessible collaboration tools to engineering teams developing everything from electric vehicles to space tech. www.cadrooms.com

VISUAL DESIGN GUIDE OONI KODA 2 PRO

» Ooni’s latest addition to its outdoor oven range o ers a larger cooking area, better heat retention and a patented ‘tapered flame’ for an even smarter way to cook restaurant-style pizza in your own back garden

TAPERED FLAME

Fuelled by propane, the G2 Gas Technology twin burners in the Koda 2 Pro create a flame of exactly the right size to deliver 420% better heat distribution compared to the Koda 16. The result? Perfectly cooked pizza in just 60 seconds

SMARTER COOKING

The front-mounted digital temperature display provides real-time ambient temperature readings, while an included food probe reads directly to your smart phone via a Bluetooth-enabled app

IN THE MIX

» As living spaces shrink and cooking habits change, Kenwood UK took the bold step of creating a new product range to meet modern needs. Stephen Holmes steps into the kitchen with the Go Collection to hear how its designers achieved the right blend of ingredients

K1

enwood UK’s newest range of small kitchen appliances evolved from an updated understanding of how many of us choose to live now, according to the brand’s design director, Samuele Meda. In particular, we’re opting for more compact living spaces and moving home more often. “Like me – I’ve moved nine times, and every time, the kitchen is smaller,” Meda laughs.

He’s speaking to DEVELOP3D from Kenwood UK’s designoffi ces in Havant, Hampshire. Meda is a design veteran, having worked for brands including Electrolux, AEG and Dometic in Sweden, before spending almost five years at Kenwood in the UK More recently, he moved back to Italy, where he now oversees the design process from De’Longhi's HQ, the Italian kitchen appliance company that acquired Kenwood back in 2001.

Given the deep roots of Kenwood’s stand mixers in traditional British kitchens, it is unusual for a brand like this to undertake a pure, ‘clean sheet’ design exercise. The Go Collection was born to answer an unmet need, rather than update current models or compete with rivals. And the devices in this range demonstrate a distinct shift away from the classic Kenwood appliances of old.

Kenwood’s award-winning stand mixers, food processors and blenders remain much-coveted worktop kitchen appliances among those serious about cooking – but observations about how Gen Z approaches food prep indicated a clear need for simpler, more convenient tools. After all, feature-laden machines with attachments to tackle almost every conceivable task can be daunting for some users. The idea of having to unpack and plug in another device and identify the right attachmentsisoffputting, let alone having to clean and repack everything once the work is done. Faced with a task like chopping an onion, many home cooks will opt instead for a knife and chopping board.

“So your competitor is not actually another food processor,” says Meda. “It’s something that the user at

home finds much more convenient and easier.”

Smaller kitchens, often in apartments, also mean smaller work surfaces and storage spaces. With that in mind, the overriding goal for the Go Collection was compact products, ready to work and so intuitive that users don’t need to read an instruction manual.

The impact that Dyson’s hair care range has made on the beauty appliances market also influenced Meda’s thinking. “When I gave my wife a Dyson hair dryer as a present, she loved it, right? But years before that desirable hair dryer, I would never have given one to my wife as a Christmas present,” he observes.

That was the challenge he issued his team, he continues. “Would you ever give your partner a food processor as a present? We have to create a product that is desirable –and I believe that we can make a blender or a hand mixer or a food processor that is desirable.”

The result is minimalist products wrapped in matte, mellow tones of grey blues and clay reds. They represent a stark contrast from the chrome, stainless steel and black shiny plastic that we’re all more used to seeing. The stand mixer, hand mixer and food processor work straight out of the drawer or off the shelf. The few removable attachments stow away neatly in clever covers or nooks in the design, in order to save customers the chore of having to search through drawers.

Customers clearly approve of this approach, because the Go Collection has been a resounding hit both with users and reviewers.

THE BEST INGREDIENTS

The starting point for the Go Collection was uncertainty, at least internally at Kenwood. Many on the team were not convinced that a move into a younger, more compact and more affordable range would suit the company’s market positioning. But when the green light was finally given, a team of six designers headed by Meda got to work.

The first week involved a classic design sprint – purely pen and paper sketching, idea generation and concepting.

‘‘ Your competitor is not actually another food processor. It is something that the user at home finds much more convenient and easier Samuele Meda

“You’re in the phase where everything’s acceptable, right? We don’t need to restrict ourselves from giving crazy opinions and we work collaboratively. So the entire team is working together, not one designer,” says Meda.

At the end of the first week, three concept ideas were chosen. “There is no personal judgment. It’s not about ‘because we didn’t pick your concept, you’re not a good designer’. It is simply that we picked the best ideas and we really wanted to arrive at a maximum of three ideas.”

Week Two focused on identifying the best designs, involving two or three days of building out concepts in 3D CAD using Siemens NX. Other digital tools came into play for adding core technologies such as motors and switches to the designs, using Siemens’ PLM software Teamcenter and STEP files from supplier libraries.

The use of Siemens NX comes in part from Meda’s experience working as a designer for Electrolux in Sweden and the need to communicate closely with engineering teams, especially when it comes to electronics.

“Because we use the same CAD, we can all work on the same model. They understand you. You understand them. It’s a much more collaborative process,” says Meda. While he accepts that a software like NX can present a steep learning curve for many new designers, it’s justified by the results – closing the gap between designers and engineers, the reduction in waste and the preservation of design intent.

Meda has also adopted Shapr3D as his main, personal CAD tool. This originates from him always travelling and needing to open a 3D CAD file on his iPad and sketch over or annotate a quick screenshot using the Apple Pencil. Over time, the Shapr3D package has taken on even more purpose in Kenwood’s workflow.

For the MultiPro Go food processor, Meda prototyped various positions of handles and buttons using Shapr3D, creating several concept variations with different styles of buttons for the user interface. Flying through concepts allowed him to test out multiple options and look at prototypes the next day.

The goal was to keep the design under 30cm tall, in order to allow the device to be stored in a deep kitchen drawer. Since the engineering team advised that only 35cm was possible, Meda’s iPad was brought to the meeting table, where he quickly edited the design in front of the team to show how the feed tube could be integrated in the top of the bowl. This gave the engineers the confidence to see that the design was possible and convinced them to try it out.

Whereas modifying a model in another CAD might take 10 minutes or more, and might confine the user to a desktop, this method proved effective in quickly conveying ideas visually, because everyone could get around a screen.

THE RIGHT TOOLS

Meda’s role is predominantly to give design direction to the team, and Shapr3D allows him to do this not only through sketches, but also by going into CAD models and being able to understand the limitations of dimensions or maybe even an undercut, he says.

“But it’s also fun, because I can open the file, I can visualise [the product], I can play with colour, material and finish. I can now use it with Apple Vision Pro. So, it’s this prototyping and collaboration dialogue between myself and my team.”

The use of Shapr3D is growing among the wider Kenwood design team, especially in the concepting stages to get into 3D modelling much faster. The knock-on effect of being able to 3D print prototypes and assess renders in XR for CMF is also welcome.

Kenwood’s design base in Havant offers a full workshop for prototyping, with all the 3D printers, CNC milling machine and spray booths needed to build rapid prototypes in-house. Yet it’s the use of the Apple headsets linked to Shapr3D that is having perhaps the biggest impact on how Kenwood’s team designs products.

“The CMF is something that [historically] we didn’t consider at the beginning. It was mainly shape, because we were used to having a 3D print or milled-out block of

●

foam. And when you get that, of course, the CMF is not there, just a grey blob,” he explains.

“With the Vision Pro and Shapr3D, you can also simulate colours, material and finish – much better than just a form. We’ve learnt to design from the beginning with CMF in mind, and not just, ‘Oh, beautiful shape. Now, which colour do we pick?’”

This process has not diluted the team’s use of Siemens NX, he stresses. Instead, it has enhanced it, such is the speed with which a model can be exported as a STEP file, and then quickly pushed through Shapr3D into the Vision Pro headsets to quickly render and add colours, textures and materials.

With four Apple Vision Pro headsets in the UK office, team members can all get around a product virtually, testing out multiple models with colours, or even different features like dials or buttons. Now that he’s based in Italy, Meda can join in reviews securely from De’Longhi’s offices or even while on the move, with the session driven by a team member in the UK.

“Of course, it will never look [precisely] like the real one,” he admits, “but you’re making decisions and choices based on something that you can actually see now!”

COMPREHENSIVE CMF

For the Go collection, some colour, materials and finish (CMF) inspiration came from the likes of modern audio equipment, explains Meda. In that sector, the huge visual presence of old hi-fi set-ups has been replaced by WiFi-enabled smart speakers that blend into their surroundings more seamlessly.

“We wanted to apply a similar approach to our appliances, so you can have a nice piece of decoration in your kitchen and it doesn’t look like an appliance, both from a styling point of view, but also to make it more desirable and more an object that you want, not necessarily because you need that object.”

Because of this, the CMF was tailored to fit into modern kitchen environments with muted colours and matte finishes. To develop these, final CAD models were taken into Luxion KeyShot, allowing the team to create still and

animated renders and drop them into different pre-built kitchen models, complete with colours, textures and lighting – allowing the team to quickly place the appliance in a variety of homes reflecting different styles and tastes.

Kenwood UK also invested in a powerful workstation for the studio, enabling the team to run KeyShot renders, “very, very fast, especially for videos”, says Meda. “You can imagine – there are lots of frames to be rendered.”

While final decisions are always made using what Meda calls a ‘hi-res’ physical model, built by hand for each colourway in De’Longhi’s main model shop in Italy, before being shipped to the UK, getting to this final decision is accelerated not only by renders, but by testing colours physically at an earlier stage.

Using the Swedish NCS system for standardised colours based on human vision (an approach Meda brought with him from his time at Electrolux), three shades of each colour were picked before a local supplier matched the NCS colour and provided it as a paint in a spray can. This proved to be a straightforward, cheap and pretty accurate means of testing colours on 3D models, as opposed to taking bets on a paper swatch or calibrated monitor.

“The swatch is nice, but when you maybe apply the colour to a kettle, maybe it doesn’t work, maybe it’s too much, it’s too dark, it’s too light, because it’s how it reflects the light.”

The final hi-res models are beautifully realistic and accurate in every facet, but given the time it takes to achieve this effect and then ship them across Europe, a 3D-printed prototype sprayed quickly with a rattle can in the workshop can help avoid lengthy errors.

Kenwood uses an external visualisation specialist for its final marketing materials, meaning that the requests and edits from its marketing team don’t eat into valuable design time. The agency in question also uses KeyShot, helping to maintain the link between teams by standardising on software choices.

Keeping the blend of software tight knit has proven effective for Kenwood’s design team, helping it react quickly to a new market opportunity and reinforcing its identity as an innovative kitchen brand for modern living. www.kenwoodworld.com

‘‘ We’ve learnt these days to design from the beginning with CMF in mind, and not just, ‘Oh, beautiful shape. Now which colour do we pick?’ Samuele Meda ’’

JDD Sets a New Standard in Office Furniture

Fiifteen years ago, Joint Design Direction (JDD) began when two long-time friends, James Mercy and Joe Duffell, reconnected over a drink during the Christmas holidays. They first met in secondary school when they were 11 years old. After they studied design at separate universities, they both pursued careers in the design industry, albeit in different roles. That one evening catch-up was fortuitous. James and Joe decided to combine their experiences and embark on their own furniture design journey. Without any external funding, they scraped together some money to get started. Their first launch pad was at the famous 100% Design (now Design London) trade show in London, where they showcased JDD in an area for new companies. At their stand, James and Joe met the architects furnishing Google’s headquarters in Europe, West Asia, and Africa. They were having issues sourcing certain products, such as high-back

sofas, and asked JDD if they could help. Of course, it was an immediate yes. James and Joe said yes to everything and, “we’d figure it out later,” James says.

“Our passion was for design, but we didn’t even know we were going to go into office furniture design before that,” James says. “It gave us the direction to where we are today.”

JDD now boasts more than 30 standard products, from privacy pods to sofa dens, seating, banquettes, and a brand-new sleep pod. With all design and manufacturing based in the UK, they provide both their standard products and customized versions to companies around the world. The business is booming with more than 90 employees; a full-scale design and manufacturing facility at their headquarters in Dudley, England (the home of the Peaky Blinders); and showrooms in Birmingham, London, Glasgow, and Dubai. To keep up with new demands and grow the business even further, they recently adopted

Forthedesignofournewrestpod, Fusionwasparticularlyhelpful.During prototyping,wemightneedtoadjust thedesigntomakesomethingwider tofitordeterminethestandardization ofthemattress.Parametricmodeling cameinhandy.It’saclickofabutton ratherthanredrawingthewholething

CharlieAdlem,Production Designer,JDD

Autodesk Fusion to help bring beautiful and functional furniture solutions to life even more quickly and efficiently.

Moving over to Fusion for furniture design

A combination of factors led the JDD team to Fusion. Their designs were becoming more complex, and their manufacturing capability was growing rapidly. A year ago, they started using Fusion and haven’t looked back. Now their entire design-to-manufacturing workflow is optimized and already making a huge difference.

“Clients might want different widths, depths, or heights for the products, and that’s easily done with the parametric modeling in Fusion,” says Charlie Adlem, production designer, JDD.

On the design side, Henry, product designer at JDD, has also moved over to Fusion. Previously, he was modeling in 3ds Max and testing with OnShape. When he needed to share a CAD file with Charlie or George Hopkins, production designer, JDD, he provided either STEP files or just 2D drawings.

“It really made sense for me to move into the same software with Fusion because now we can just share the documents and models,” Henry says. “When you share a STEP file, you lose all the history, notes, and little nuances because you’re just exporting it as a dumb file. Then Charlie and George would have to rework it, and there was a lot of unnecessary

back-and-forth communication. Now everything is there in one place. I’ve only started using Fusion, but it’s really sped up the process already.”

they can just open it up on a tablet or a phone. It makes the process much faster.”

Looking forward

Ease-of-use reigns supreme

to push the boundaries of frame making and

For JDD, Fusion’s ease-of-use is, well, easily their favorite aspect of using it. Plus, it provides the opportunity to push the boundaries of frame making and accuracy.

“I’ve used other software in the past, like SolidWorks and Rhino, and they seem so complicated compared to Fusion,” Charlie says. “The user interface and icons are easy to use. The tools in Fusion are easy to pick up, and there are loads of tutorials online.”

JDD has also discovered new ways to collaborate—even down to the factory floor. “Before we’d have to do drawings for the wood mill and the person assembling it,” George says. “But now we share the file link, and

JDD’s current design focus is on wellness, whether it’s for the workplace or the public sector, such as libraries, universities, and more. Since the successful launch of their new Yume Rest Pod and Nita, the JDD team is dreaming up even more ideas to bring wellness to those environments. As they scale the company and these latest designs, they have a strong foundation with Fusion.

to pick up, and there are universities, and more. Since the

Yume Rest Pod and Nita, the JDD team is dreaming up even more ideas to bring wellness with Fusion.

“It’s all about the end using Fusion is making an impact for them,” James says. “My

“It’s all about the team’s workflow at the end of the day, and using Fusion is making an impact for them,” James says. “My positives are their positives. As long as things make their jobs easier or more efficient and enjoyable, then that’s a win for me. If using Fusion helps them, it helps the company.”

SMOOTHING THE PATH

» With no-code workflows and streamlined data pipelines, Unity is looking to simplify how firms build, share, and scale interactive 3D experiences, writes Greg Corke

Creating interactive 3D experiences has long been regarded as the domain of technical specialists — coders, game developers, and those skilled in customising real-time engines like Unreal and Unity. In product design, manufacturing, automotive and AEC, this technical barrier has stalled countless ideas before they could become usable tools. Sarah Lash, GM & SVP of Industry at Unity, calls this “POC purgatory” — the place where promising ideas never progress beyond the initial proof of concept.

“I’ve had conversations with people that go like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got 60 requests for projects in queue, and we have enough bandwidth to do five of them,” she says. But there’s an obstacle that affects many more firms, “If they don’t have a C# developer, how are they getting started?”

Unity Studio, now out in beta, aims to change that dynamic, offering an intuitive, web-based platform designed to let “anyone” create interactive 3D experiences without having to write a single line of code.

In its simplest form, this could be an interactive 3D viewer where users click elements in a CAD or BIM model to reveal more information, or a web-based product configurator where customers choose options, colours, and materials and see the 3D model update in real time.

Unity Studio can also be used to power training applications that animate 3D models to guide engineers through servicing procedures, collaborative design review tools, giving non-CAD users real-time access to large models, or construction-sequence simulations that help contractors visualise each stage of a build.

Unity Studio is essentially a cut down version of Unity Editor, the main workspace where users create, organise, and manage 3D applications, including games. However, unlike the full Editor, Unity Studio runs in a browser and is built around a simple, drag-and-drop visual interface. “It gives the ability to start something in a Unity-like environment, whether you’re a designer, a trainer, or project manager, and help bring some of those ideas to life,” says Lash.

Unity Studio features a visual scripting system called Logic that lets users add behaviours and interactivity to an experience, instead of having to write code. It can be used to trigger actions based on events (such as when a user clicks a button or selects an object), control animations, adjust scene lighting or combine multiple actions to create more complex behaviours.

Applications created in Unity Studio can either serve as a launchpad for further development in the full Unity Editor or be published straight away.

Lash recalls an example where a training subject-matter expert from a large printing company used Unity Studio

to create an immersive 3D animated training environment to show users how to replace the industrial cartridges — a process that was previously explained using PowerPoint.

Another example includes an automotive company, where a designer with no prior Unity experience created a prototype of a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) for a car. The goal was to visualise the suspension travel of each tyre. Taking a sketch from collaborative design platform Figma and an optimised wireframe CAD model of the car, the designer added simple animations to demonstrate the movement.

Unity Studio seems like an obvious fit for smaller firms that may never have considered creating their own 3D experiences. But, as Lash points out, even the most forward-thinking organisations can have thousands of architects yet only a handful with the necessary C# skills.

This is true at BMW, where Markus Herbig, XR IT specialist admits that Unity Studio has created significant interest within the company, from both CAD users and project managers. “There’s a lot of people that don’t know how to handle a game engine, they don’t know how to programme C# or even C++, so Unity Studio gives us a huge benefit on creating new concepts, especially on the HMI side.

“If you have an idea, you just go to Unity Studio, you create it, and you can share it directly with somebody who maybe has some more influence,” he says. In other words, it’s about communicating ideas clearly to help decide which are worth pursuing.

With Unity Studio it’s also very easy to publish content, as Daniel Reichert, director, Unity Studio explains, “You don’t have to worry anymore about build settings or where do I host this?” he says. “You just click one button, you get a URL, and you can send it via email, via Teams or via Slack, to anyone in your company to check out the project.”

Unity is already working on new features, and there are plans to add real time collaboration. “This will enable multiple people to work on the same problem at the same time,” says Reichert. “In combination with commenting, this brings workflows that you know from the web browser, from tools like Figma, directly to the 3D editing world.”

AI powered capabilities are also on the horizon. The software already allows users to take a basic scene and upscale to make it look like a high-end render. While this is standard fare in many 3D applications these days, Unity is also working on a feature to generate logic dynamically —a capability that could, in practice, deliver substantial productivity gains.

At present, Unity Studio only allows applications to be published to the web, whereas the full Unity Editor lets you publish for Mac, Windows, mobile and XR

‘‘ Unity’s latest initiatives with Unity Studio, Asset Manager, and its expanding automation pipeline signal a clear shift in how interactive 3D experiences can be conceived, created, and shared ’’

PATH TO REAL TIME

platforms. Expanded support isn’t on the roadmap yet, but as Lash told DEVELOP3D, it is something currently under discussion.

ALL ABOUT THE ASSETS

For more advanced users, there’s Unity Industry, a suite of tools for developing and managing industrial applications across sectors such as manufacturing and AEC.

One of the biggest challenges facing any firm wishing to develop 3D experiences is access to data. “A lot of times [assets] are locked in silos or in different departments, or you need access to that type of [software] product in order to open a BIM model,” says Lash.

“We can only scale on the creation side if everybody’s working from the same foundation. We can only bring that to life if we know where all of that data lives.”

In Unity Industry this is handled by two tools – Unity Asset Transformer (formerly known as Pixyz Plugin) and Unity Asset Manager.

Unity Asset Transformer can ingest over 70 different file types, turning complex heavy CAD, BIM, 3D, reality modelling and other file types into lightweight meshes. Users have full control over mesh size and quality, so data can be optimised to maintain performance in different real time experiences on different target devices, across mobile, desktop, and XR.

Meanwhile, Asset Manager is a cloud-based digital asset management (DAM) system that stores all of this data and makes it discoverable for anybody across the business so it

can easily be brought into Unity Editor or Unity Studio.

“What could take weeks of converting these file types and having to email them back and forth and then check you’re working on the right version, is now happening in seconds and minutes,” says Lash. “Engineers, designers, internal partners, they can all work from the same live asset now. The more centralised they are, the more you can do with them, long term.”

Japan-based construction company Obayashi has built an entire 3D collaborative application, Connectia, around this workflow, transforming complex CAD, BIM, and point cloud datasets into ‘ready-to-use’ assets. Asset Manager automatically handles the data conversion and version control, eliminating the need for manual conversion.

BMW has also recently turned to Asset Manager and Asset Transformer to overcome the persistent challenges it faces when managing and accessing the digital assets critical to developing virtual experiences. The Unity tools form the backbone to BMW’s 3DMine, a comprehensive 3D asset management platform designed to streamline access by centralised data in a private cloud environment.

As Markus Herbig describes, the process of building virtual experiences was like “chasing a ghost” with teams constantly asking “what assets do we have? Where do we get the car from?”

“You’re kind of lost in this huge maze, and you don’t know where they are. You don’t see the assets,” he says. This lack of visibility made it difficult for BMW’s creators to efficiently find and utilise the necessary resources,

often repeating the same processes again and again.

“[With 3DMine] each use case gets the right data in the right format at the right time,” he says.

DATA PREP – PUSH / PULL

Unity has been working to bring more automation to file optimisation and delivery, helping ensure that users have access to the right data at the right time.

A new tool called Pipeline Automation allows users to connect the Asset Manager to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems like Siemens TeamCenter, or PTC Windchill, and other data sources, and create automations based on events, schedules or API calls.

Unity’s roadmap for pipeline automation focuses on giving users the flexibility to build pipelines however they want — whether through custom scripts, rule-based tools in the editor, or in the future AI.

“You can retrieve your CAD data from a PLM system and Pipeline Automation automatically converts this CAD data into usable real time 3D data, so it can be used downstream in real time 3D applications,” says Simon Nagel, staff solution architect, Industry at Unity. “Pipeline Automation can make sure that changes in the PLM system are automatically brought through.”

At the recent Unity Industry Summit in Barcelona, Matthew Sutton, senior manager of EMEA solutions engineering at Unity, shared an example of a Skid Loader Assembly model built in Solidworks. Changing the number of teeth in the bucket assembly and syncing it with the PLM system automatically triggers a pipeline automation, allowing Unity to retrieve the updated files and prepare the data for the Unity runtime. Importantly, the system can be set up to manage complex assemblies and their dependent sub-assemblies and parts.

THE BIG MODEL CHALLENGE

For viewing huge datasets, such as those used in automotive or digital twin applications, Unity applies 3D Data Streaming - not to be confused with pixel streaming, where graphics are processed in the cloud and the pixels are then streamed to an end point.

With Unity’s 3D Data Streaming the client device intelligently fetches only the necessary portions of 3D assets, such as specific levels of detail, textures, or regions of a model required for the current view. Everything is handled automatically - no manual data prep is required.

Biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is using the technology to review a colossal factory model with 437 million polygons and 1.3 million parts in XR on an untethered Meta Quest 3 headset.

“It’s possible to zoom in, take a look at a specific detail, and data streaming will just load the high-quality version of this completely automatically,” says Nagel.

A TIME FOR REFLECTION

Back in 2019, Unity launched Unity Reflect, a commercial design-review tool for AEC built around Revit and other CAD/BIM applications such as Rhino and SketchUp.

What made Unity Reflect stand out was its unusually deep integration with Revit — deeper than the standard Revit API allowed — enabled through a close partnership with Autodesk. This meant BIM models could be synced in real time, complete with both geometry and metadata.

The product showed real promise, but development slowed, and Unity Reflect was eventually retired a few

years later. Even so, many of the design / review workflows it championed still live on.

Today, they continue through the Unity Industry Viewer Template, which helps users of Unity Industry build custom, cloud-connected collaborative viewers for exploring and sharing 3D models in real time. The template provides development teams with an optimised foundation for streaming assets directly from Asset Manager and enabling multi-user collaboration across desktop, mobile, and XR.

At the recent Unity Unite conference, Unity demonstrated how Asset Manager can serve as a collaborative hub for large AEC models, including those from Revit and Navisworks. The key takeaways: massive BIM datasets can be instantly shared with multiple stakeholders, streamed into a web browser for viewing and annotation on modest hardware, all while preserving access to the rich metadata normally locked inside the original authoring tools.

CONCLUSION

Unity’s latest initiatives with Unity Studio, Asset Manager, and its expanding automation pipeline signal a clear shift in how interactive 3D experiences can be conceived, created, and shared. By lowering the barrier to entry and streamlining access to data, Unity is opening the door for far more people to participate in building, or contributing to the development of, real-time 3D applications.

But accessibility alone won’t guarantee adoption. Unity still must overcome long-held perceptions. For many firms, game engines remain associated with complexity, specialist skills, and steep learning curves. In the AEC sector, Unity Reflect once provided an accessible on-ramp into deeper customisation; without it, Unity will need to work harder to show that its tools aren’t just for developers.

Pricing will also be a key factor. While final details have not been confirmed, Lash told DEVELOP3D that Unity Studio will cost significantly less than Unity Industry, which starts just under $5,000. The package will likely include the full Asset Manager capabilities, but only selected features of Asset Transformer.

Looking ahead, AI-powered capabilities such as dynamically generated logic could play a crucial role in simplifying customisation even more and further reducing the skill threshold. If Unity can pair these advances with clearer messaging and industry-specific guidance, it has a genuine opportunity to reshape how real-time 3D is adopted across manufacturing, automotive, and AEC — not just by experts, but by anyone with an idea worth exploring. www.unity.com/industry

‘‘ Unity Studio features a visual scripting system called Logic that lets users add behaviours and interactivity to an experience, instead of having to write code ’’

Q+A DESIGNCENTER SOLID EDGE 2026

» Changes are afoot in Siemens’ Designcenter ecosystem and Solid Edge has a new name – Designcenter Solid Edge 2026. We spoke to Dan Staples, VP of R&D for mainstream engineering, about the first release under the new title

Q: Siemens Digital Industries has been making some updates within Designcenter – can you tell us a bit more?

Dan Staples: Absolutely; Solid Edge has a new name –Designcenter Solid Edge 2026 – and that change signals something bigger. It’s now part of the Designcenter suite, which brings together NX and Solid Edge under one unified ecosystem.

This suite is built on our Parasolid kernel and is designed to deliver performance, flexibility and intelligent automation across the entire design process.

Q: What improvements has this new name brought with it?

Dan Staples: This year’s release is all about adapting to how engineers work today. Whether they’re on the desktop, in the cloud, or somewhere in between, Designcenter Solid Edge 2026 supports hybrid workflows that are fast, secure and collaborative.

Dan Staples: For managing large assemblies, features like smarter display configurations, reusable exploded views and enhanced Part Copy streamline the process. Associative mirroring reduces rework and keeps everything aligned, while new configuration tools make it easier to toggle visual elements without altering geometry.

In manufacturing, we’ve added etching on bends and curves, automatic flange trimming and thin wall creation tools. These reduce manual steps and improve accuracy, making it easier for engineers to move from design to production. The Tab and Slot command also simplifies the creation of interlocking components, improving alignment and manufacturability.

Q: There’s also the new immersive Walkthrough command, how do you see that helping in a design workflow?

‘‘

AI is deeply embedded and it’s all about helping engineers work smarter, not harder. For example, Magnetic Snap Assembly uses AI to automatically detect and apply the correct constraints when placing components, making assembly up to nine times more efficient.

We’ve also introduced AI features like powered automatic drawing generation, automated revision tracking and a new Copilot that’s always available to answer questions and guide users in real time. The goal is to help maintain momentum without interruptions.

Dan Staples: Walkthrough lets the user move around a part or assembly like in a video game with a keyboard and mouse or Xbox controller. It’s perfect for design reviews and presentations, and the flythrough paths can be recorded for animations or exported to KeyShot for high-quality visuals.

Q: Which AI feature stands out to you the most?

Dan Staples: AI drawing automation is a game changer. It streamlines what has traditionally been a very manual process and is one of the most impactful AI features in Designcenter Solid Edge 2026.

This tool uses artificial intelligence to create 2D drawings that are already 70% to 80% complete as soon as the process begins. It intelligently places views, applies dimensions and selects templates based on design context and standards, significantly reducing set-up time. Engineers can still make adjustments, but the heavy lifting is already done, making documentation faster, more consistent and less tedious.

Even with the revision tracking – AI supports intelligent symbol placement and hole table generation – it’s not just automation. It’s guidance, precision and speed built into every step of the design process.

Q: What non-AI improvements have been added?

This means you can quickly create dynamic walkthroughs of your assemblies, helping colleagues or customers see your

This means you can quickly create dynamic walkthroughs of your assemblies, helping colleagues or customers see your work in action.

Q: Customisation and control were mentioned at launch a few times; which users

Q: Customisation and control were mentioned at launch a few times; which elements do you think users will appreciate most?

Dan Staples: From the new Dark Theme (which was a hit during beta testing) to cloud-synced preferences and flexible licensing, users now have more control over their workspace and tools than ever before.

This year’s release is all about adapting to how engineers work today, whether on the desktop, in the cloud, or somewhere in between Dan Staples ’’ animations

These preferences now follow users across devices via the cloud and the AI Copilot helps adjust settings on the fly.

Q: You mentioned flexible licensing, how is this evolving?

Q: You mentioned flexible licensing, how is this evolving?

with users’ needs, so instead of committing to every add-on up front, they can use tokens to

Dan Staples: With Value-Based Licensing, teams can unlock advanced capabilities using tokens, giving them fl exibility without long-term commitments. It’s a scalable toolkit that grows with users’ needs, so instead of committing to every add-on up front, they can use tokens to unlock advanced capabilities on demand.

Think of it as a flexible toolkit with the freedom to explore powerful options without a long-term commitment, all while keeping budgets predictable.

freedom to explore powerful options without a

www.sw.siemens.com

5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM FORMNEXT

» The highlights of this year’s edition of the world’s most important additive manufacturing tradeshow went way beyond the printers themselves, says Stephen Holmes, who braved the hustle and bustle of the November 2025 Frankfurt show in order to share his impressions with DEVELOP3D readers

1LET’S GET NICHE

Users need specific functions from their additive systems, and hardware suppliers have finally cottoned on to that fact.

Tailoring machines to application needs and materials is now the way to go.

At Formnext 2025, attendees were exposed to some excellent use cases focusing on specific materials and uses. Take, for example, a liquid silicone 3D printer from RLP (Rapid Liquid Print), which produces parts with overhangs and smooth surfaces from a tank of gel. As 3D printing increasingly shifts into the manufacturing of end-use parts, repeatability and qualification are becoming far more important. That, in turn, makes single-focus solutions more desirable over machines offering ‘jackof-all-trades’ flexibility.

2SMALL IS MIGHTY

There’s never been a better time to upgrade your workshop, with many brands now offering tidy, capable and cost-effective desktop equipment.

Bambu Labs arguably demonstrated the most electric presence across all four exhibition halls at Formnext. Its technicolour, double-decker stand was a hive of activity as makers, professionals and representatives of rival brands swung by to see what all the fuss was about.

Meanwhile, Fibreseeker was also attracting attention. Its desktop reimagining of Anisoprint’s continuous fibre 3D printing combined with its sub-$3k opening price is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Professionals should probably wait until production reaches some maturity and the company irons out any kinks, but there have been no shortage of people willing to throw money at the company’s crowdfunding campaign, which had topped $2 million at the time of writing.

● 1 Rapid Fusion’s LFAM Cerberus provides AM and CNC manufacturing capabilities in a shipping container

● 2 HeyGears had some interesting SLA technology and a wide range of materials on show at Formnext

● 3 Genic’s software uses AI to automatically generate optimal conformal cooling channels for tooling

● 4 A catamaran built on an LFAM 3D printer drew many attendees to Caracol’s stand

●

5 The Nikon SLM NXG platform enables manufacturers to go big with metal 3D printing 1

Another eye-catcher was HeyGears, with its SLA technology and wide array of engineering materials (including some particularly nice clear resins and elastomers). This already looks like a solid option for users confident in taking a punt on SLA technology without local support.

Rapid Fusion, meanwhile, chose Formnext as the venue to unveil its military-focused LFAM Cerberus unit for containerised manufacturing, involving both AM and CNC methods. This supports distributed production out in the field, and in the harshest and most remote environments, with all the necessary kit neatly packaged into a standard shipping container and ready to print just 25 minutes after set-down.

Similarly, additive software companies are just as keenly aware that the one-size-fits-all solutions of the past often lack finesse. At Formnext 2025, Dyndrite and Materialise both announced dialled-in, system-specific build processors that offer customers better results straight off the printer. We can expect more targeted solutions like these in 2026 and beyond.

A key theme is that all three brands hail from Asia and are quickly making their mark in elsewhere in the world with their speed, quality and materials geared for product development.

There’s still hope for Western brands, though. The Formlabs and Prusa Research booths were thronged with attendees, looking to check out either Formlabs’ new Tough Materials or an eight-material, multitool upgrade to the Prusa Core One. But don’t be surprised if your next workshop 3D printer comes from a brand that doesn’t share the storied histories of these more familiar names.

3

SOFTWARE EASES ADOPTION

Dig past the hardware and there was plenty of software suppliers at Formnext, too, all eager to make an impact in the additive world. Designled tools like Nureo are looking to optimise industrial elements where AM can be used, such as conformal cooling channels in tooling and factory line cages that flip over products. Traditionally, these can be a pain to model and optimise, but Nureo can rapidly generate models that are ready to be printed and put to work on production lines.

Genic’s AI-generated conformal cooling software focuses on developing the best cooling channels for 3D-printed injection moulding tooling, boasting some impressive results for both reducing cooling times and reducing shrinkage, all with a few simple clicks, freeing up time for engineers to go and be more productive elsewhere.

4OLD DOGS HAVE NEW TRICKS

It’s a sign of a maturing industry that product roadmaps are settling down a little, with existing technologies receiving minor tweaks in the interests of productivity and betterquality end results.

This work is moving the industry away from the sci-fi wonder surrounding AM and closer to the heart of the matter: industrial equipment. Attendees got straightforward answers to questions like, “What does it cost?” That’s a big difference from previous years, where requests for even ballpark figures elicited evasive responses. On some stands, there were actual stats available, relating to machine and material CO2 footprints. Some vendors didn’t even bring machines. Carbon’s stand, for example, was singularly focused on real-life user applications that are already hard at work today, creating products that range from footwear to wheelchair covers. This highlights a growing awareness that AM is much more than just a machine and is best applied as part of a holistic solution.

Large-format additive manufacturing (LFAM) has fascinated me for years, but 2025 marked the point at which a growing number of established companies began to show off a more significant number and range of real-world applications. Full boat hulls, giant audio speakers and body panels for trains were all up for discussion, with brands like Caracol and Cead offering visitors the chance to literally climb aboard products built using their technology. Seeing massive robotic arms at work is no longer the novelty it once was, yet there were still plenty of eye-catching developments to see at Formnext, such as a bungalow-sized orange LFAM cell from Moi Composites that outputs continuous fibre thermoset composites. With new developments and applications continually emerging, there’s still plenty of ceiling for LFAM to grow into.

Renishaw’s RenAM 3D printers are a great example of how software upgrades are making tried-and-tested models more efficient, producing better quality output and improving uptime.

Renishaw’s new Libertas software improves surface finish and reduces the need for supports, while a new build processor developed with Materialise adds support for nTop implicit modelling and makes the platform attractive for new and existing customers alike.

5PRECISION COUNTS

There’s a battle underway in metals 3D printing and it’s a battle in which size very definitely matters. It’s all well and good to 3D print, in a single build, a massive rocket engine that contains multiple channels, vents, pipework and nozzles – but just how clean and fine are the details and how long does it take to produce?

Added smartness could be the answer, in the form of more lasers and sensors. These feature in monster machines like the BLT S1025 and the massive, high-throughput Nikon SLM NXG platform, but adding more melt points to build chambers can create issues. Either way, the company that can best balance high throughput and fine details without trade-offs stands to win big.

For the present day, there were lots of exciting pre-build simulation software products on hand, both from big brands like Altair and Dassault Systèmes Simulia and from rapidly advancing independents like PanOptimization.

Vendors of build monitoring hardware and process optimisation software are also stepping up to help manufacturers get the best results from their additive manufacturing strategies. One of the most interesting of these is Additive Assurance, a company that has for some time been creating bolt-on, in-situ quality assurance sensors and process monitoring software. It’s now partnering with 3D printer OEMs to include its Amiris Inside sensor set-up in new machines. Nikon SLM, for example, will put Additive Assurance sensors inside the NXG platform.

UK-based Matta, meanwhile, showed off its AI optical monitoring technology for LFAM with Caracol, allowing it to detect defects and optimise processes along the way.

Becauseeventhesmallest ideacanbetransformedinto abigstory.Agreatbigstory.

DRIP-FED DESIGN

» From dissatisfied customer to vice president of R&D, how does an ex-military engineer design a co ee machine? Gabrielle Brown speaks to Fellow’s Nicholas Terzulli about the company’s passion for perfect co ee

We all have that person in our lives who is obsessed with coffee. They may deliberate endlessly on grind size, fixate on bean health, or become engrossed with finding the perfect water pressure for a rich and creamy espresso. For them, the morning cup of coffee has gone from a grab-and-go affair to a perfectly performed ritual.

Home-brewing gadgets have flooded the market in recent years, but for one coffee fanatic who also happened to be an engineer, there was still room for improvement. This is the story behind Fellow, a company that produces a machine that is not just intuitive and aesthetically pleasing, but also happens to make a great cup of coffee.

After earning degrees in mechanical engineering and aeroballistics and starting out as a designer of military robotics, Nicholas Terzulli’s passion for coffee eventually found him working part-time as a barista and sent him, fully caffeinated, down a fascinating rabbit hole.

Terzulli initially reached out to Fellow’s CEO Jake Miller to offer advice when the company’s ODE Brew Grinder did not fit his custom burr, the blade in a coffee grinder. One thing led to another and from that initial conversation, Terzulli eventually becoming vice president of R&D at Fellow, where he still gets excited about solving hard problems.

“My bosses are like, ‘Hey, we want to do this thing that has all these crazy functions and features.’ And I’m happy I get a blank piece of paper and get to figure out how to crack it. It’s so awesome,” he says.

COFFEE BREAK

A career highlight for Terzulli was the 2024 launch of the Fellow Aiden drip coffee brewer, a product designed entirely in-house using PTC Onshape.

“Automatic drip coffee has a reputation problem. Whether serving a crowd or managing only a few moments of free time, the trade-off for many has been either bad coffee or no coffee at all,” says Miller. “We designed Aiden to solve this problem. Even the busiest

people no longer have to choose between their time and phenomenal coffee.”

Aiden offers precision temperature control, built-in brewing guidance and presets that support customised recipes or downloadable brew profiles to recreate signature flavours from your favourite roasters.

Terzulli credits Onshape with helping the design team take the Aiden precision coffee maker from a blank sheet of paper to a physical product that manages the niche challenges of at-home brewers.

The Fellow R&D team uses the professional license of Onshape for all its CAD modelling, plus the integrated simulation and rendering tools available on the SaaS platform.

“You never have to save anything. Many times, when I used another CAD platform, I’d be working for an hour or two and then I’d have a crash. Hours of work were gone and I’d have to start over,” Terzulli says.

“With Onshape, I can leave the CAD on a computer screen at my office and drive to my house to open up another computer and keep working on that CAD without any headache.”

With plenty of new product development underway at Fellow, it’s great news that the company’s designers won’t face a headache, either from CAD challenges or from caffeine withdrawal.

www.fellowproducts.com

(Above) The Fellow Aiden targets co ee aficionados with customisable profiles and precise temperature control (Below) Onshape enabled the

THE BEST PEN DISPLAY TABLETS

» Welcome to DEVELOP3D’s round-up of graphics and display tablets, compiled to help you navigate a crowded market that offers new levels of technological sophistication at many different price points

With so many graphics and display tablets on the market, how can you know which one’s right for you? Are you looking for a device that provides on-the-go creativity and fits neatly in your back pocket? Or do you need a permanent desk fixture that integrates seamlessly with your current set-up?

Whatever your requirements, you’ll quickly find that noticeable parallax and pens with batteries that don’t last a full working day are problems largely consigned to the past. What customers now get are paper-like drawing experiences, customisable keys, photorealistic colours and battery-free, interchangeable pens.

A word of warning, however: Watch out for hidden costs! The cost of add-on accessories can quickly mount up, making budget-friendly options rather more expensive than they first appear.

Regardless of budget or requirements, DEVELOP3D has compiled this list to help readers navigate the many options available and identify the tablet that best suits their individual needs.

WACOM CINTIQ PRO 27

£3,249 | www.wacom.com

A long-time industry standard, the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 is a high-end graphic display with a high-end price tag to match. The smooth 27-inch LCD 4k display offers 120 HZ refresh rate and 10 ms response time for near zero latency.

Users get 99% Adobe RGB and 98% DCI-P3 and HDR support out of the box. The display is equipped with HLG (hybrid log-gamma), which allows it to render images that appear truer to human eye perception than the standard dynamic range.

A new driver interface provides new ways to speed up and simplify workflows, including customisable pen gestures and on-screen pen and touch controls.

The Wacom Pro Pen 3 included, offering 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity and three side switches. Despite the price, no stand is included in the purchase – a requirement for use if you don’t already have an existing VESA 100 mount.

» 24-inch 4K (3,840 x 2,160 resolution) OLED display

» 1.07 billion colours (99% REC 709, 99% sRGB, 99% Adobe RGB, 93% DCI-P3)

» 618.50 x 388.00 x 34.70mm / 6.9 kg

» 3 Button Pen + Eraser v2 and Thin Pen + Eraser v2 (both pressure-sensitive, cordless and battery-free)

» 8,192 levels of pen pressure (finely tuned pressure curve)

2

XENCELABS PEN DISPLAY 24

£1,850 | www.xencelabs.com

Designed for studio creatives, the Pen Display 24+ is Xencelabs’ updated interactive display. The stylus-controlled panel comes at the lowest price point in the ‘Pro’ category, but offers many of the same features as close competitors, including Super AG Etching screen, 44 customisable quick keys and a 4K Ultra HD display. Calman Ready capabilities are built in for reliable colour accuracy. All accessories needed are included, including two customisable pens. The device supports HP Anyware and Parsec, enabling seamless remote access to your workstation.

The included Quick Keys remote features an OLED display and physical dial with four modes for improved efficiency, including a Virtual tablet mode that allows multiple monitors to be controlled as one seamless canvas.

» 24-inch 4K (3,840 x 2,160 resolution) OLED display

» 1.07 billion colours (99% REC 709, 99% sRGB, 99% Adobe RGB, 93% DCI-P3)

» 618.50 x 388.00 x 34.70mm / 6.9 kg

» 3 Button Pen + Eraser v2 and Thin Pen + Eraser v2 (both pressure-sensitive, cordless and battery-free)

» 8,192 levels of pen pressure (finely tuned pressure curve)

» Windows 7 or later, Mac OS X 10.13 or later, Linux

» Windows 7 or later, Mac OS X 10.13 or later, Linux

TOPEND

HUION KAMVAS PRO 27

£1,999 | www.huion.com

The Huion Kamvas Pro 27 is a studio-class 27-inch 4K UHD resolution display tablet offering a crystal-clear workspace factory with colours calibrated and certified.

Huion’s Canvas Glass uses nano etching (similar to that offered by Xencelabs) to give its surface anti-glare properties and a paperlike feel. The PenTech 4.0 has a 2g initial activation with a thinner nib (0.35mm) than previous models and tilt auto-alignment that tracks the mouse better and reduces parallax.

Although not included, adding the Huion Keydial Mini gives users 18 keys and a dial controller that can be custom-configured.

» 27-inch 4K (3840 x 2160 (16:9) UHD display

» 1.07

» 656.1 x 405 x 22.7mm / 8 kg » Pen tech 4.0 3 button standard grip pen + Eraser & Pen tech 4.0 3 button slim form pen + eraser (pressure sensitive, cordless, battery free)

» 16,384 levels of pen pressure

» USB-C HDMI display port, dual USB-A ports and headphone jack

» Huion Keydial Mini can be added for £59

» Windows 10 or later, macOS 10.12 or later, Android 6.0 or later, Linux

MID-RANGE

WACOM CINTIQ 16 (2025)

£650 | www.wacom.com

New for 2025 is an updated Wacom Cintiq 16, which is great for students, as well as for pros on a budget, and offers some of the industry-leading technology for which Wacom is highly regarded.

The Wacom Cintiq 16 offers a full 2.5k resolution display, complete with antiglare coating for vibrant colours. It doubles as a second monitor as well as a tablet, hence the need to be connected to a computer. The device also comes with Wacom’s latest pen technology included, in the form of the Wacom Pro Pen 3. Cordless and battery-free, this pen charges using EMR (electro-magnetic resonance) tech, drawing power from the tablet itself, so it never needs recharging.

Weighing just 2kg, the Cintiq 16 is light enough to hold on your lap for more comfortable sketching sessions. However, it also features integrated foldable legs for users engaged in more desk-orientated work.

» 16-inch (2560 x1600 resolution) display

» 16.7 million colours (DCI-P3 99%, sRGB 100%)

» 259 x 384 x 15mm / 2kg

» Wacom Pro Pen 3, battery-free with two programmable side buttons

XENCELABS

5

PEN DISPLAY 16

£969 | www.xencelabs.com

Designed for creative professionals on the go, the Xencelabs Pen Display 16 offers many of the same capabilities as the company’s Pen Display 24+ but at a lower price point. It has a 16-inch 4K OLED screen which delivers 1.07 billion colours. The Super-AG etched and optically bonded screen reduces glare and offers bright, clear images.

The inclusion of five factory-calibrated, pre-loaded, industry-standard colour spaces means that no colour calibration is required. In Virtual tablet mode, it can be used to select and control objects on another display and thus integrates well with existing workflows.

The Pen Display 16 comes with two differently sized stylus pens, both with built-in ‘erasers’ that can be customised using the Xencelabs driver app. A single USB-C cable design offers simplicity, by both sending the signal and powering the device. A souped-up ‘Bundle’ option also gives purchasers an adaptor hub, travel easel and Quick Keys device for £1,079.

» 16-inch 4K (3,840 x 2,160 OLED display

» 1.07 billion colours (98% Adobe RGB; 98% P3-D65)

» 410 x 259.4 x 12mm / 1.21 kg

» 3 Button Pen + Eraser v2 and Thin Pen + Eraser v2 (both pressure-sensitive, cordless and battery-free)

» 8,192 levels of pen pressure (with finely tuned pressure curve)

» USB-C port with DisplayPort Alternate Mode (UHD), or DisplayPort (UHD) and USB-C/USB-A, or HDMI 2.1 (UHD) and USB-C/USB-A

» Windows 7 or later, Mac OS X 10.12 or later, Linux

» 8192 levels of pen pressure

» USB-C port with DisplayPort Alt Mode, or HDMI port and USB port, internet access to download driver

» Windows 10 or later, Mac OS X 10.13 or later, Android 8.0 or later

6

APPLE IPAD PRO 11-INCH

£999 | www.apple.com

If you’re looking for a display tablet that can do a bit of everything, then the Apple iPad Pro may be a good option for you. The Ultra Retinal XDR display with tandem OLED technology offers great brightness and contrast and you can use Reference Mode for colouraccurate workflows.

Apple’s new-for-2025 M5 chip offers improved performance and efficiency. The 10-core GPU with powerful new Neural Accelerators speeds up AI tasks, from large language model (LLM) token generation to generative imagery. The multi-threaded CPU and faster memory deliver high speed workflows.

There is also the added benefit of owning a tablet that can be used for more than graphics. With the iOS 26 update, the iPad more closely resembles a laptop than ever before. Compatibility with other Apple products is a draw here; if you’re already using a Mac, an iPad will seamlessly integrate with your workflow. As with many Apple products, there are additional costs. The Apple Pencil Pro is not included with the tablet, and will set you back an additional £129. A larger display (13-inch) ups the price to £1,299.

» 11-inch ultra retina XDR with tandem OLED display

» 249.7 x 177.5 x 5.3mm / 444g

» Pen not included

» Thunderbolt/USB 4 port

» iPadOS 17 or later

GAOMON

M10K PRO PEN TABLET

£71 | www.goamon.net

The Gaomon M10K is a lightweight, budget graphics tablet designed to boost mobile creativity. It offers something that other tablets on this list don’t: it can be linked with Android smartphones as well as computers. And when you can connect directly to your phone, many users find they no longer need to carry around a laptop.

The AP32 pressure-sensitive pen with two customisable buttons is included along with 10 Hot Keys and a Dial Controller for quick selections. You can programme the dial and keys based on your preferences, making tweaks to page scrolling, colour picking and brush adjusting options.

Although very much at the lower end of the price scale, this tablet does offer some great features and the flexibility of connecting to a smartphone means this would be a good device to throw in a bag when you’re travelling light.

» Working Area in PC Mode 255.06 x 159.84mm

» Working Area

»

»

8

REMARKABLE PAPER PRO MOVE

£399 | www.remarkable.com

The Remarkable Paper Pro Move packs the same punch as the Remarkable Paper Pro, but fits in your back pocket (literally). With no apps and notifications, this is a distraction-free, on-the-go tablet that is perfect for quick notes and sketching. It offers features such as handwritingto-text conversion, cloud storage to access notes from anywhere, and integration with other tools such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox. It is made from 50% recycled materials and designed for easy repair. While not affecting day-to-day use, this will give the eco-conscious customer peace of mind.

If you’re looking to ditch the burden of carrying around a paper notebook for all those quick notes and sketches, then the Remarkable Paper Pro Move gives you the simplicity of pen and paper with cloud storage.

» 7.7-inch canvas colour display with palm rejection and adjustable reading light

» 195.6 x 107.8 x 6.5mm / 230g

» Choose between the Marker (wireless charging) or the Marker Plus (wireless charging and built-in eraser)

» USB-C port

» Remarkable OS (a custom, Linux-based operating system for digital paper displays)

WACOM MOVINKPAD 11

£390 | wwww.wacom.com

Perfect for beginners, students and creative hobbyists, the Wacom Movinkpad 11 offers a flexible and mobile drawing solution. With no PC or other device required, this graphics tablet is powered by a fully independent Android operating system.

Preloaded with Wacom Canvas and a 2-year Clip Studio Paint debut licence, this tablet is ready to go straight out the box. You also get cloud-free auto-saving via Wacom Shelf, so none of your hard work gets lost.

The Wacom Pro pen 3 is included, just as it is with Wacom’s top range tablets, but this tablet is also compatible with other drawing pens, including models from LAMY, Staedtler, Kaweco and Samsung. Beyond drawing, the Movinkpad also functions as an Android tablet.

» 11.45-inch display

» 266 x 182 x 7mm / 590g

» Wacom Pro Pen 3

» 8,192 levels of pen pressure

» USB-C port

» Android 14

The AM Conference Where Users Lead the Conversation

March 15 - 19, 2026 | Reno,

REAL CONNECTIONS

Camaraderie, conversations, and meaningful relationships —without the agenda.

REAL EXPERTISE

Hands-on learning, real-world solutions, and a community of problem-solvers.

REAL VALUE

All-inclusive access: 4 days of sessions, workshops, expo, competitions, meals, and entertainment.

» When a glamorous restaurant wanted to add a branding spark to its desserts, it found the answer in fast and safe 3D-printed vacuum mouldings that enable it to customise guest meals

Stretching from the sunny beaches of Spain coast to northern Sweden, each of Urban Italian Group’s restaurant locations has its own strong identity and tells a distinctive story.

Draped in extravagance and bright colours, the group’s Florentine restaurant in Stockholm offers a reimagining of a 1970’s Italian movie scene.

For its opulent desserts, the restaurant management wanted to create a custom centrepiece that could become its calling card for diners – a pink chocolate bar proudly stamped with the name of the restaurant.

Some initial research by staff revealed that a single metal mould would cost around £1,500 and would take several weeks to reach the kitchen. Determined to find a more effective way, the team at Florentine reached out to local 3D technology reseller 3DVerkstan to see if the specialists there could help identify a better and more cost-effective solution.

SWEET AND UNIQUE

AN APPETITE FOR FEEDBACK

An SVG file of the restaurant logo was sent to 3DVerkstan, along with information on the desired dimensions. One of 3DVerkstan’s designers then quickly built a 3D CAD model using Autodesk Fusion. A prototype was 3D printed. On presentation to the client, the main feeling was that it seemed too large.

Armed with this feedback, digital technologies helped the team refine the size and logo placement, before a final model was produced using a Formlabs Form 4 3D printer.

The smooth surface of the SLA model made it ideal for vacuum forming, using a Mayku Multiplier, creating multiple moulds using its PETG vacuum forming sheets.

A special effort was made to prevent air pockets in the mould, which led to the integration of custom air holes that enable the vacuum-forming sheet to seal tightly around the ‘chocolate’ model and avoid air pockets.

The resulting workflow meant that each reusable mould could be produced for just £10. The overall price to develop the design cost a little over £100 and delivery happens in days, not weeks. The process also means that the design can be customised for future events, and new moulds can be produced on demand in a matter of hours should older ones break.

The resulting chocolates add a unique element to each Florentine dessert, enabling diners to cap off a delicious meal with friends and family not just with a sweet treat, but also a branded experience that gives them a real taste of the restaurant’s unique identity.

www.florentinerestaurants.com www.3dverkstan.se

ICE CREAM

» What began as playful brainstorming between Matthew Fonte and his children has become a fully fledged business that offers customers a way to make and serve individual frozen desserts on demand. Stephen Holmes speaks to the ColdSnap founder about the company’s mouthwatering mission

Instead of reading them bedtime stories, Matthew Fonte would often encourage his daughters to dream up wonderful inventions instead. One night some years ago, they declared it ‘unfair’ that adults can just pop a pod into a machine, press a button, and get a piping hot cup of delicious coffee. Why couldn’t they have a similar machine that served up their favourite flavour of ice cream with the same speed and ease?

“So we sketched a little machine, dated it and signed our names,” says Fonte. “The kids fell asleep and I kept thinking about it.”

In particular, he says, he wondered if it was even possible to freeze six ounces of ice cream in one minute; what approach to long shelf life pasteurisation might work best in this scenario; and crucially, whether anyone else had tried to build such a machine before.

Some years later, and after considerable development

work, the result is ColdSnap, a counter-top appliance that rapidly freezes and dispenses single servings of frozen treats – ice creams, certainly, but also frozen smoothies, protein shakes and margheritas.

The ColdSnap Frozen Treat Machine uses aluminium pods that mix, freeze and dispense the product, meaning no foodstuffs ever touch the machine, no cleaning is required and there’s no risk of cross-contamination.

“The big advantage is that shipping ice cream is very expensive and puts a lot of carbon emissions up into the atmosphere just to keep that ice cream frozen. Here, it’s a better environmental play, because we can ship [the pods] at room temperature,” says Fonte, loading a vanilla ice cream pod into the machine.

Just as they would with a typical pod coffee machine, the user simply drops the container into the machine and closes the lid. The machine does the rest – and in under two minutes.

DREAM

This involves an internal camera reading the QR code that identifies the product inside the pod and then applying the right levels of cooling and mixing.

A mini impeller is key to the ColdSnap design. Located inside the pod, this rotates at up to 3,000 RPM, churning the liquid during the freezing process while also acting as a fan that draws air into the container to create the perfect texture for the finished product. For that to happen, he says, “you need at least 30% air in the premium ice cream.”

This impeller also enables ColdSnap to control the buildup of ice. It creates ice crystals that are 60 times smaller than those normally produced by a domestic ice-cream maker.

“And when you take premium formulation 14% milk fat, and smother it with these small ice crystals, it’s the smoothest ice cream you’ve ever had,” he says, helping himself to another spoonful.

The company has not just developed a new appliance, but also a new market for a premium class of ice cream – one that uses high-fat dairy but delivers the product at soft-serve temperature, a combination that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

LEVELLING UP

While their original idea was for a domestic kitchen counter appliance, Fonte and the ColdSnap team soon realised that there was scope for a larger model. After all, even the most ardent ice cream fan might only use one or two pods per day – but a machine serving guests at hotels and resorts, or employees in a workplace canteen, might easily tear through 50 pods per day.

“There were a lot of challenges when we first started. We really didn’t have an example in industry,” says ColdSnap vice president of appliance engineering, Ben Fischera.

“We couldn’t look at another product and say, ‘That’s how big it’s supposed to be’, because it doesn’t exist. So we had to come up with some pretty innovative designs for the cooling system, for the evaporator and how we get the whole process to happen in two minutes or less.”

The entire machine, from its inner workings to its styling, was developed in Dassault Systèmes Solidworks, to ensure that all components would fit together and that the machine would remain within tolerance even with its 3,000 RPM motor working at full strength.

FEA simulation capabilities in Solidworks Simulation proved critically important, according to Fonte. These allowed his design team to conduct stress analyses on all the components and to ensure a reliable mechanism, based on pods that open every time and nothing breaking prematurely.

The CFD package within Solidworks Simulation, meanwhile, enabled them to finetune the refrigerant and model the phase transformation as it switches between gas and liquid.

To develop the best churning action for the impeller within the pod, they were able to use Solidworks Simulation to optimise the form for better stirring during the freezing process.

“Historically, we’ve been doing this through trial and error, trying to optimise the geometry of that impeller. Now, we’re using the CFD package to model it and try to put more engineering and science behind that process,” says Fonte.

According to Fischera, Solidworks helped to refine the design so that all the required components could be packed into the tight space in the most efficient way possible. “There are copper tubes in there, there are wires, there are circuit boards, there are compressors that move around,” he explains.

“So we’re looking at clearance and tolerances between parts with the max and min material conditions so that, no matter what happens during shipping or during an out-of-tolerance condition, nothing’s going to touch anytime. Solidworks really helped us get through those iterations quickly.”

The next design challenge was shrinking the machine

and reducing the price point to make it accessible to more homes around the world – but that’s not all, says Fonte.

Each ColdSnap machine is connected to company HQ and feeds back data about performance and usage. This data helps the food team monitor flavour. It helps sales teams keep customers stocked. And it also helps ColdSnap’s engineers learn what works well – and what doesn’t – and refine their design accordingly.

In short, all this data is put to good use, so that the company can build longer lasting machines, avoid unnecessary waste and get new insights into how they might develop the product line-up in future.

“We can make it bigger and faster, and I also want to take the refrigeration system and put it under the counter, with four or five heads up top so it can go on a concession stand at a stadium or at a university where you’re trying to feed hundreds of people within, like, 45 minutes,” explains Fonte.

His team is certainly not short of ideas. Vending machines are a possible future direction, along with systems that blend ice cream with espresso to deliver an on-demand affogato.

STAY FROSTY

Keeping ice cream frozen – as it’s made in the factory, as it’s conveyed through logistics networks, and as it sits in retail stores and, ultimately, homes – is a demanding task that devours energy and money and emits a lot of CO2 along the way. Fonte’s point is that if you can freeze ice cream on demand in single portions, you can potentially save around 90% of that energy.

That’s not the only sustainability consideration on the ColdSnap team’s radar, either. Just as pod coffee manufacturers are working hard to boost recyclability (and recycling) of pods, so are they. In fact, the aluminium pods used with the ColdSnap machine are already fully recyclable, while the plastic impeller contained within them

is soon to be replaced with a new aluminium design. First, the team needs to identify a BPA-free coating they can use.

“You can’t put bare aluminium in the can, because it reacts with the food. In California, you can’t have BPA, or if you do, you have to disclose it,” explains Fonte. “So, it’s always something. I tell people, ‘If you want to work at ColdSnap, you better enjoy figuring out problems.’ That’s all we do!”

A mechanical engineer, Fonte spent years working on devices in the medical sector, garnering nearly 40 patents for his work. His Italian grandfather ran the family machine shop and brought to the US a German process for developing precision metal tubing used in applications such as motor casings, jet shafts and directional drilling.

Says Fonte: “What I learned from my grandad is that you have to do something that nobody else is doing if you really want to stand out. Now, when I go anywhere in the world and show people this machine, they’ve never seen anything like it before.”

www.coldsnap.com

● 2

WAIMEA GETS VERSATILE

» Specialist vehicle manufacturer Waimea has streamlined its configuration and quoting with the integration of Driveworks CPQ, as Gabrielle Brown reports

Building specialist utility vehicles for varied industries to carry out specifi c, challenging jobs can be complex. Manufacturers need to keep up with confi guration demands, the cost and availability of resources and regulatory compliance, all while maintaining effi ciency to make a profi t.

CONFIGURATION STATION

and manage a wide range of is capturing all the

To tackle the problem, Waimea adopted Driveworks’ CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software. This enables its sales team to intuitively configure vehicles and to provide accurate quotes. Guided selling technology, meanwhile, means they can quickly configure custom vehicles with

New Zealand-based designer and manufacturer Waimea makes specialty vehicles used across a range of industries, including in power, forestry and road and traffic applications. The company needed a system to enable its sales team to configure and manage a wide range of custom vehicles accurately and at scale.

“It’s all very well to be able to design and build a truck,” says Waimea data and systems administrator Alan Mohekey. The hard part, he continues, is capturing all the necessary information so that a sales executive can configure a truck in the way that the customer wants and deliver that information to designers so that they know what’s required, too.

Waimea had previously managed configurations using Excel spreadsheets, but with 30 possible combinations of trucks and equipment, each requiring its own spreadsheet of hundreds of rows, this approach quickly became unmanageable.

Waimea has implemented Driveworks across its workflow. This integrates with the company’s primary SQL database (MSSQL), its warehouse software (Unleashed), its CRM (Pipedrive), its CAD database (PDM), its 3D CAD software (Solidworks) and its online forms system (SmartSheet).

viable optional extras. forms system (SmartSheet).

Waimea can add its own compliance and regulatory requirements into its set of design rules within Driveworks, ensuring each custom product complies with relevant safety standards. Each job automatically generates .csv and .svg files, creating accurate tables and diagrams based on user input.

With accurate

With added component costing, the sales team can provide customers with fast, accurate quotes, increasing the likelihood of a purchase.

The integration of Driveworks has improved accuracy and reduced the need for rework, streamlining processes and maximising sales for Waimea and ensuring its customers can get the job done. www.waimea.co.nz

IN LIVING COLOUR

» With textile textures, patterns and colours taking a more prominent role in product design workflows, Gabrielle Brown attended Epson’s Textile Academy to witness the next generation of designers get hands-on with the latest printer technologies

From headphones to car interiors, textiles play a much bigger role these days in product design. That leaves many designers in need of a printer that can handle vibrant colours with accuracy, speed and repeatability, as well as help them meet demand for customisation.

So how can designers best incorporate customised fabrics and designs throughout the process from prototype to finished product?

Printer company Epson claims to have answers. In late November 2025, it held its second Textile Academy event, which offered young designers the chance to engage and experiment with textile printing. On this occasion, undergraduates from Nottingham Trent University and Loughborough University were invited to try out Epson’s textile printers for themselves and get some hands-on, workshop-based education on the subject.

Epson’s SureColor F2200 may look like a pretty average printer and offers a compact design that makes it small enough to slot neatly into any workshop. But in fact, it’s a direct-to-garment (DTG) printer that has been developed for businesses that need to produce sometimes complex designs on a variety of garments.

The SureColor F2200 works by jetting water-based textile inks directly onto a pre-treated garment using a specialised inkjet printer. The fabric is laid flat on a platen, a white underbase is added if needed, and microscopic droplets build up a full-colour design. The print is then heat-cured, so that the inks bond with the fibres.

MORE VIBRANT TEXTILES

The students at Epson’s Textile Academy event were taught how to use the DTG printer and were soon able to print their own designs onto T-shirts.

“We’re obsessed with the idea of repeatability, so that if you did a print for a customer today and they came back in six months’ time, the two prints side-by-side would be identical. All of that is very challenging for a manufacturer to design and engineer for a mass market” says Epson head of sales, Phil McMullin, adding: “We discovered fairly quickly that the crown jewel in our technology is the piezo print heads.”

Epson’s PrecisionCore printheads use ultra-thin piezoelectric actuators and densely arranged nozzles to fire extremely precise, consistent droplets. This allows for accurate colour placement, smooth gradients and reliable performance with textile inks.

The SureColor G6000 direct-to-film (DTF) printer can add super vibrant and durable prints onto a range of fabrics. For example, it can add tactile logos to T-shirts, or team numbers to sports jerseys, or in this case, a student’s own design onto the back of a hoodie.

The picture or pattern is first printed onto transfer film using ink and a white base if necessary. Once the ink is applied, a layer of hot-melt adhesive powder is added to the wet print. The film is cured and then pressed under heat onto the hoodie. When the film is peeled away, the student’s artwork is revealed.

“We are usually only exposed to dye sublimation printing, so it’s been great to learn how direct-togarment and direct-to-film printing techniques can be utilised” says Ashley Hancox, a textiles student at Loughborough University.

for designers who need to print onto hard as

Epson also makes dye sublimation printers for designers who need to print onto hard as well as soft goods. These work by printing a design onto sublimation transfer paper using dye-sublimation inks. Then, using a heat press, the dye on the paper transitions into a gas while the fabric is temporarily opened to absorb the dye. As it cools, the dye re-solidifies inside the fibres, embedding the image into the material.

Epson’s Textile University event showed

Epson’s Textile University event showed how textile printers have evolved, allowing designers to bring them in-house much like a standard paper printer. It’s quick and easy to whip up designs and prototype products right there in the workshop, testing fabrics, colours and placement. Designers can experiment with personalisation, offering more options to customers without lengthy order times and high shipping costs. www.epson.co.uk

DESIGN MEETS

» Pilates is one of the world’s fastest growing workouts, so to support at-home participation, cult brand Fôld partnered with IDC’s design team to create a new reformer bed that can be stored away when not in use, opening the market to more users. Gabrielle Brown learns more

Pilates is one of the fastest growing workouts, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association’s (SFIA) most recent report, so don’t be surprised if your local studio is oversubscribed.

With Reformer Pilates, the challenge is multiplied, because of the equipment needed. After all, the reformer bed on which participants practice, with all its straps and springs, is a big piece of equipment that takes up a lot of space.

Undaunted, British home wellness company Fôld is on a mission to change this and the way people approach the activity, with a reformer that can be easily stored away when not in use.

“Fôld has always been about making wellness accessible to everyone, building a brand that breaks down barriers and challenges the ‘never miss a workout’ mindset,” says Fôld co-founder Matt Harras.

Fôld needed to make a studio-quality, 75kg home pilates reformer suitable for users of all strengths. The company partnered with London-based Industrial Design Consultancy (IDC) to create its next-generation reformer bed and develop a new mechanism to help stow it away when not in use.

FOLDING FEEDBACK

IDC began with surveying users and identifying areas for improvement on its first-generation reformer bed and set about redesigning its folding mechanism in response. Users found that the wheels of the existing design made the bed too mobile when folding and storing. The new spring-assisted mechanism, in combination with a rolling foot, improves usability when setting up the bed and packing away.

The team designed a progressive unfolding system; the heavier side glides open or closed, while the other

DISCIPLINE

provides stability with rounded feet that grip the floor and keep the bed stable while upright.

The bed and its mechanism were all developed in Solidworks, enabling the IDC team to quickly develop the joint, connectors and other parts, using its Bambu Labs X1 3D printer to produce parts that could help refine the rolling foot design, along with its onsite workshop.

“This project was about analysing all the strengths of the previous product and identifying all opportunities for improvement to take this next-generation launch to the next level,” explains Nick Chubb of IDC.

“The process of development was less pen-to-paper and more about group discussion around the existing product, followed by physical prototyping and testing right from the beginning.”

Being able to adjust the physical parts in real space helped the designers to better understand the behaviour and feel of the bed when folding and unfolding, something that Chubb says can’t be done in a digital space.

KeyShot was employed to help visualise different finishes and material combinations and to trial different wood finishes prior to physical sampling. When materials were decided upon, IDC’s office in Shanghai, China managed

Fôld has always been about making wellness accessible to everyone and building a brand that breaks down barriers

So if your local Pilates studio does start to fill up, there’s the process with suppliers. still no excuse to miss a session.

MANUFACTURING AT THE SPEED OF INNOVATION

» Can manufacturing keep up as innovation accelerates and industry movements such as personalisation and sustainability gain momentum? Shapeways chief operating officer Jules Witte shares his

insights with DEVELOP3D

When humans first shaped stone tools, they set off a technological feedback loop that still drives us today. Each new tool enables the development of the next, taking us from flint spearheads to Sora 2. Today’s digital tools don’t just keep the loop running, though. They accelerate it. That acceleration is transforming what we make and how we make it.

The age of mass production was defined by scale and repetition: a product was designed once, made millions of times and shipped to every corner of the world. This system has been extraordinarily efficient and has raised living standards globally, delivering longer, healthier lives. But as innovation accelerates, product design is moving in a different direction, focused on rapid iteration, more SKUs, more personalisation. Can manufacturing keep up?

For most of our history, the things we needed were made in small batches by skilled craftspeople. The Industrial Revolution brought opportunities for scale for the first time. Fordism and the assembly line made products affordable to the masses, and lean production and global supply chains are a result of a relentless push for efficiency.

Today’s key drivers are speed, flexibility and sustainability. The old tools of mass production are increasingly insufficient.

ACCELERATING INNOVATION

Back in the 1980s, Volkswagen offered half a dozen models in a handful of trims and colours. The E30 BMW 3 Series stayed in production for over a decade. Now, VW sells more than 15 models with thousands of variations, while many EVs get facelifts in two years and are replaced completely in five. (OK, ‘completely’ may be just the marketing department’s point of view, but even if the core underlying platform is the same, a lot of what we touch and see changes.)

It’s the same story across other industries: more products, more variations, smaller batches, shorter runs. The challenge manufacturers face isn’t how to scale up to millions but how to adapt constantly to smaller shifting demands.

Drones illustrate this perfectly. UAVs have gone from novelty to necessity and now boast upgrade cycles closer to smartphones. The same pressures are shaping robotics, wearables and myriad consumer electronics. Shortened development cycles, rapid iteration and compressed product lifespans have become the norm. The acceleration of the feedback loop means hardware is starting to look – and behave – like software: in perpetual beta, always being updated, never quite ‘finished’.

It’s not just consumer goods, either. Despite being a highly regulated environment, healthcare remains an innovative industry, with personalisation playing a central role in the next generation of clinical interventions.

Aircraft and military platforms can remain in service for decades, so appear to buck this trend, but they must be serviced for decades too and physical spare parts inventories

● 1 New manufacturing methods hold the key to more rapid iteration and personalisation

● 2 As innovation accelerates, ondemand production is moving in new directions at Shapeways

‘‘

The new reality demands manufacturing that matches the pace of design – fast, flexible and responsive to ever-shifting requirements ’’

are expensive and logistically complex. On-demand manufacturing allows parts to be recreated digitally, so they can be made when and where they are needed.

Across the vast swathe of consumer goods and fashion, seasonal runs are getting shorter while consumers have come to expect something new at all times. Footwear and eyewear brands are experimenting with mass-customised products, built to the measurements or style preferences of individual consumers. The mismatch between customer demand and the rigidities of traditional supply chains grows ever sharper.

The last five or so years have exposed the fragility of traditional supply chains. COVID-19, the Suez Canal blockage, semiconductor shortages, tariffs and trade wars and numerous geopolitical tensions have all disrupted the flow of goods. It’s stuff that keeps board members up at night and brings resilience to operations.

The cheapest option on paper is no longer the best option if it can’t adapt quickly when the next disruption comes. And it’s inevitable that it will come – we just don’t necessarily know what flavour of shock it will be.

Shapeways has invested heavily in providing supply chain flexibility, integrating its own facilities with a global network of vetted partners, giving customers resilience without adding complexity and keeping a tight grip on quality.

TIME FOR CHANGE

While seemingly under pressure from global governments, sustainability is no longer a nice-tohave, it’s a regulatory and reputational imperative. Overproduction – once the hidden cost of ‘efficiency’ – is now in the spotlight. The ‘greenest’ (and cheapest) part has always been the one you don’t make.

Regional, national and supranational legislators are tightening the screws. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), extended producer responsibility schemes and the SEC’s climate disclosure rules are forcing manufacturers to measure and report environmental impact across their value chains.

Digital, on-demand production directly addresses these pressures. Shapeways’ digital workflows mean the right amount of parts are produced when they’re needed, reducing waste, lowering total energy use and keeping cash in the bank, rather than in parts bins.

The new reality demands manufacturing that matches the pace of design – fast, flexible and responsive to ever shifting requirements. Traditional infrastructure was built for repetition, not reinvention.

On-demand manufacturing has been a buzzword for years, but the conditions that make it essential – namely, rapid iterations, short product cycles, global supply chain pressures and sustainability mandates – are already here right now.

The winners will be those who are able to fully embrace digital workflows, on-demand production and agile supply chains. They will be able to manufacture as quickly as they innovate, meeting customers’ needs in real time, while building resilience and responsibility into their operations.

Importantly, they will also keep their focus on ideas and iterations, not on manufacturing operations.

For manufacturers, the question is no longer whether the shift will happen, but how quickly they can make it. The future belongs to those who can manufacture at the speed of innovation.

www.shapeways.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As chief operating officer at Shapeways, Jules Witte leads global operations, focusing on building digital, on-demand manufacturing. He has a background in industrial engineering, a Master’s in Innovation Management from TU/e (Eindhoven University of Technology) and combines deep operational expertise with a strategic vision for the future of manufacturing.

Artec 3D Micro II Scanner

» How small do you need to go with your 3D scanning? DEVELOP3D asked product design specialist Edward Goodwin of Goodwin Hartshorn to test out Artec’s Micro II device, a small-details scanner that packs a big punch. Here’s his verdict

Artec 3D has made a strong name for itself in data capture for product design, fi rst with its handheld Eva and Spider models and more recently with its wireless, AI-driven Leo units.

But on either side of these mid-size handsets, the company has also expanded its large and small-scale capabilities. At the upper end of the scale, we have Artec’s LiDAR-powered Ray units. At the lower end of the scale sits the Artec Micro.

As product designers, we were intrigued by what the new Artec Micro II might off er the design workfl ow, especially when compared to more ubiquitous handheld units. For what purpose might we end up using this expensive piece of kit? Would it slot neatly into our workfl ow? Would it change how we approach the design process?

The Artec Micro II is a desktop 3D scanner that, when connected to a suitably specced computer, can scan small objects up to a maximum of 20x20x15cm. Using Artec’s scanning software, and with the right workfl ow, you can create scans with a staggering accuracy of 5 microns and with a 2-micron repeatability.

Not only do you get the 3D object as a polygon mesh (in a broad range of formats including .stl, .obj, .ply and others), but also you get surface colour and texture data for an amazing level of realism.

This all comes at a cost: €19,800 for the unit and €1,200 per year for the software. It may well be a specialist product, but this price puts the Micro II unit firmly at the mid-to-

After having unboxed the unit and taken in the design – a clean-lined, weighty and professional-looking piece of kit – we connected it up and got to work on implementing the software.

This initial hurdle was fairly torturous, owing to the various validations and updates required. Indeed, our feeling was that the QuickStart guide should concentrate more on how to find and install the software and rather less on what your desk layout should look like. That said, this frustrating experience was relatively short-lived, and eventually we were up and running.

TWEAKS AND ALIGNMENTS

The Artec Studio 20 software quickly took us through the calibration process using a calibration plate supplied with the unit. Through a series of projected checkerboard patterns, the Micro II’s various cameras align and tweak settings until the device is ready to scan properly.

I should note that the plate comes shrouded in a loose-fitting cardboard sleeve, but this flags how important it is to keep the plate spotless. From our point of view, this should be improved – especially when customers are paying €20k. If it’s so important that the plate is kept free of dirt, Artec, then please provide a better cover! With calibration completed, we were ready to scan. The unit comes with four CNC-machined mounts that allow you to hold diff erently shaped objects. The first holds flat objects, clamping them with a pair of thumbscrews. The second is rather more lo-fi , using good old Blu-Tack to hold the object. The third is a simple pinch clamp, while the final mount uses the same pinch clamp, but also includes an internal motor to provide an extra axis of rotation. The mounts magnetise into the unit and connect to the mothership

scan wasn’t registered to the previous one and the end result was a cloud of disparate partial scans.

We resorted to spraying the object using a scanner spray to help the cameras ‘see’ it properly. This setback did make us question how much quick-and-easy use we might get from the device – but once the component was covered in a suitable spray, the results were much better.

The scanning process involves selecting an appropriate scanner path and quality level and then allowing the unit to do its magic. The path and quality level determines the number of frames required, which can range from a handful to many hundreds.

With each frame captured, the 3D object appears more complete on the screen – a process of steady refinement. Following the first batch, a second scan with the object reoriented allows you to fill in the bits obscured by the mount the first time around. With two or more scans, and using the Studio 20 software, you’re able to delete the mount (which gets captured in the process) and then align things to create a fully rotatable 3D object.

COSMETIC CHANGES

At this point, the software allows for various cosmetic changes that refine the external appearance. It allows you to reduce file sizes by simplifying the geometric data and offers a process to replace scanned point data with CAD primitives such as planes, cylinders and cones.

For more organic shapes, this latter process proves too crude. The ability within the software to replace more complex surfaces would be much more useful and would also help to reduce file sizes.

With practice, we found the Artec Micro II to be a great little scanner for little things, capturing form accurately and quickly

● 4 Solidworks users benefit from simplified importing of data from Artec Studio 20 high-end market bracket. through pogo pins.

Needless to say, we dived straight in, using the most complex mount, but soon

retreated to the Blu-Tack option.

Our first attempts at scanning were not brilliant. We began with a black component with some shine, assuming this would be a straightforward task for a €20k machine. But every time we scanned, the Micro II seemed to see straight through the component, leaving large areas blank. Each

For those embedded in the Solidworks ecosystem, there is a simple process to export directly into CAD, and using cross-sections and other tricks, you can capture data from a scan to help manually translate the point data into a parametric model – but it’s a laborious manual process. There are plug-ins for Solidworks that can simplify the process further, but these come at additional expense, while AI tools are still developing.

The ultimate question we asked ourselves was would the Micro II fi t into our design workfl ow? It was clear that a museum might put it to good use in digitising a collection of small artefacts, or a manufacturer might get value from

● 1 The Artec Micro II is optimised for scanning small and extra-small objects

● 2 Set-up for the scanning device includes a choice of four mounts

● 3 Users can create scans boasting accuracy of 5 microns, with 2-micron repeatability

using it to inspect components to ensure tolerances. Additionally, a jeweller would find great use with the level of detail it can achieve, especially when it comes to creating parts that need to interface with gemstones. But for a pure product design studio? We explored various potential applications.

The first was scanning foam models. In years gone by, we would frequently make 3D foam models to test our designs prior to diving into CAD. This would help us to refine surfaces, rubberstamp an object’s scale, and confirm/improve ergonomics. Whilst we still do this, it’s a way of working that we use less frequently, since translating foam models into CAD (without a scanner) is arduous at best and especially when surfaces are very complex. But this is where the Artec Micro II could help, potentially pivoting our workflow from iteration using rapid prototyping back into more refinement through handmaking.

The second option we explored related to the first direction, but targeting a very different outcome: we explored how scanned, handmade models could be used with AI tools like Vizcom to shortcut directly to rendered images.

Finally, we investigated the Artec Micro II’s potential for scanning finished parts for rendering. The problem with renders is sometimes they can look too perfect. Using scanned data instead of perfect CAD data within a render file can help to give an extra level of reality to the generated image.

With practice, we found the Micro II to be a great little scanner for little things. It captures form accurately and quickly and although the process of translation from scan data to parametric model is still laborious, that’s not the end of the world, especially if you’re happy to pay the extra cost of add-on software.

The resolution of the scans and their accuracy really impressed us, and the lifelike representation could clearly be of real benefit in certain applications. But here’s the rub: the Micro II can only scan little objects. I guess the clue’s in the name.

Indeed, I do wonder where the killer application lies for this piece of kit, particularly for general product design studios. In products like the audio earbuds we design at Goodwin Hartshorn, it was big enough. But for the overear headphones, surgical instruments, loudspeakers, kitchenware products we also develop, it was too small, even for a lot of the component parts.

Ultimately, if this tiny marvel fits scale-wise with your projects, it might be a very useful addition to your workflow. We even see the opportunity for some entrepreneurial type to rent out the device when it’s not being used in-house – kind of like a (small) scanning bureau service – such is the quality of output and its potential value to designers with specialist needs.

Drones built with tools found in every design studio are transforming modern warfare, but Stephen Holmes hopes that the tech companies on which designers and engineers rely

don’t get too caught up in chasing military contracts

Mass mobilisation is back and it’s big business.

At least, that’s the depressing impression I’ve drawn from recent trade shows and marketing campaigns.

In fact, the event at which I don’t meet a new drone company is now a rare occurrence. And for each firm pushing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that do good in the world (in medicine delivery, for example, or mountain rescue), there are typically five or more others optimising their payloads for the destruction of buildings, transport networks and – let’s be honest – human lives.

Given the fierce competition in this market, there are few firms that would turn down a military contract if one came their way. Drone warfare, brought to you by many of the digital design and fabrication technologies that DEVELOP3D regularly covers, is now a horrific reality.

CHANGING FACE OF WAR

Aerial systems for use in combat were once the preserve of companies like BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin.

Today, professional engineers and hobbyists alike are able to design and assemble UAVs o ering incredibly flexible set-ups using CAD software, laser-cut foam and 3D printers. And the latest developments in weaponry are not just on show at arms fairs, but at the regular trade shows that you or I might frequent.

None of this is to say that I dismiss entirely the work done by the global defence industry, where designers and engineers have to make tough decisions about tough situations.

It’s just that we’re all aware of the consequences of these innovations – one building collapse or failed peace talk at a time. It’s just dispiriting to think of what these talented technicians might be building instead.

Exhibitors at this year’s Formnext, for example, were appealing to the defence

industry more vociferously than I’ve ever seen before. Traditionally, military suppliers have been the beneficiaries of ‘grandfathered’ contracts with the state. Today, the speed of modern drone development o ers big opportunities for newcomers to grab a piece of the action.

A belligerent tone is particularly noticeable among proponents of the ‘Reindustrialise’ movement in the US. The folks most happy to shift production back to US soil are the ones who needed it to take place there in the first place – in other words, the big names from the defence and aerospace sectors. With other NATO members increasing their own military spending, we can surely expect more of the same elsewhere.

At Formnext, my emotional frustration at this situation came to a head when I heard that even Materialise, a company that has previously been steadfastly against its 3D printing services being used to build weapons, has found itself at a potential crossroads with regards to creating parts for military use.

Whatever happens, Materialise will no doubt continue to provide parts for the healthcare sector, many of them groundbreaking and wholly beneficial for patients. But given the company’s previously firm stance on weapons, I was saddened to hear that it might begin to print parts designed to end human lives, rather than improve them.

EVERYBODY LOSES OUT

Building up the military has historically been used as a catalyst for economies. And with governments still struggling in the post-pandemic world to fortify their economies and crank up stats around productivity and GDP, it’s a tempting safe harbour, but has losers all the same.

It seems to me that President Dwight D Eisenhower, a man who undoubtedly knew a thing or two about war, got it right when he said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in

Traditionally, military suppliers have benefited from ‘grandfathered’ contracts with the state, but today, newcomers seem very keen to grab a piece of the action, too

the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Even he knew that uncontrolled military spending only ever ends in disaster for someone, and more likely, whole communities.

Businesses need to keep the lights on. Enemies need to be kept away from our gates. We all know that.

But the ramping up of military spending by a bunch of ailing superpowers in the 20th century hardly played out well. Did we learn nothing from that war-torn century?

The usual line is that military funding brings us innovations that shape the world around us – but don’t peaceful times also bring the same benefits?

It chills me to see military applications built using the same CAD, simulation and additive manufacturing capabilities that other designers and engineers use every day to build products that make lives better, easier, more enjoyable.

Yes, military technologies are often used to protect innocent lives – but watching footage of one drone being used to blow up another drone seems to me to be the ultimate metaphor for the pointlessness of war, especially when yet more drones will inevitably be produced.

There are still so many other challenges and threats in our world that we have yet to conquer.

GET IN TOUCH: Stephen knows that, when used for good, UAVs can perform remarkable tasks. But he still can’t help the jealous rage he feels towards the robot dog patrolling whisky cellars in Scotland, sniffing for leaks from barrels. On Twitter, he’s @swearstoomuch

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