Accelerating the Future of 3D Printing

By Carl Bass, Autodesk President and Chief Executive Officer

For years, I’ve been fascinated by the promise and frustrated by the reality of 3D printing. Today, Autodesk is announcing two contributions to help make things better.  First is an open software platform for 3D printing called Spark, which will make it more reliable yet simpler to print 3D models, and easier to control how that model is actually printed.   Second, Autodesk will be introducing our own 3D printer that will serve as a reference implementation for Spark. It will demonstrate the power of the Spark platform and set a new benchmark for the 3D printing user experience.  Together these will provide the building blocks that product designers, hardware manufacturers, software developers and materials scientists can use to continue to explore the limits of 3D printing technology.

Spark will be open and freely licensable to hardware manufacturers and others who are interested. Same for our 3D printer – the complete design of the printer will be made publicly available to allow for further development and experimentation. The printer will be able to use a broad range of materials, made by us and by others, and we look forward to lots of exploration into new materials.

The world is just beginning to realize the potential of additive manufacturing and with Spark, we hope make it possible for many more people to incorporate 3D printing into their design and manufacturing process. Over the coming months we’ll be working with hardware manufacturers to integrate the Spark platform with current and future 3D printers.  Both Spark and our 3D printer will be available later this year.

3D printing will make it possible for us to create all sorts of things we create today, better, and to create all sorts of new things that we haven't even imagined yet.

If you are interested in working with us, sign up at www.autodesk.com/spark .

Major Update to Adobe Photoshop CC Brings 3D Printing to the Design World

First 2014 Creative Cloud Release Also Includes Amazing Perspective Warp Capability in Photoshop CC

KUALA LUMPUR – Jan. 24, 2014 – Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) has unveiled new 3D printing capabilities in Adobe® Photoshop® CC. By radically simplifying the 3D print process, Photoshop CC will become the go-to tool for anyone who wants to print a 3D model. Available immediately, as part of a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud™, the new 3D printing capabilities integrated in Photoshop CC enable Creative Cloud members to easily and reliably build, refine, preview, prepare and print 3D designs, setting the stage for explosive growth in the 3D printing market.

The new 3D printing capabilities also help creatives to design in 3D from scratch or refine an existing 3D model and produce beautiful, print-ready 3D models using familiar Photoshop tools. Automated mesh repair and support structure generation ensure models will be produced reliably, while accurate previews allow creatives to submit print jobs with confidence.

“The new 3D print capabilities in Photoshop CC take the guess work out of printing 3D models for everyone,” said Winston Hendrickson, vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe. “Before today there was a gap between the content produced by 3D modeling tools and what 3D printers need in order to deliver high quality results. Now, by simply clicking ‘Print’ in Photoshop CC, creatives can bring 3D designs to the physical world.”

Photoshop CC Turbocharges Emerging 3D Print Ecosystem
With today’s release of Photoshop CC, designs can be printed to a locally connected 3D printer or via built-in access to popular online 3D print services. Photoshop CC supports the most popular desktop 3D printers, such as the MakerBot Replicator, and also supports the full range of high quality materials available on Shapeways -- the 3D printing community and marketplace -- including ceramics, metals, and full color sandstone. Additionally, Photoshop users can now directly upload their 3D models to the Sketchfab 3D publishing service, and embed them in their Behance profile using Sketchfab’s interactive 3D viewer.

• “We’re thrilled to partner with Adobe to help kick-start the delivery of 3D content to their highly creative users," said Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO and Co-Founder, Shapeways, the world’s leading online 3D printing marketplace and community. "We’re focused on making 3D printing accessible and affordable for people all over the world. By teaming up with Adobe, we're making it easy for designers and creatives to turn ideas into reality, using Shapeway's highest quality 3D printing technologies."
• "With the huge adoption of Adobe Photoshop CC, this announcement means that a massive influx of people will now have access to 3D modeling tools,” noted Bre Pettis, CEO, MakerBot. “I can't wait to see what they design with Photoshop CC and create with their MakerBot Replicator 3D printer!"

Stunning 3D Creations Now In Reach For Designers 
Printing in 3D enables the production of accurate and compelling prototypes and finished designs and is used in many creative fields, including architecture, jewelry, film and animation.

• Paul Liaw, jewelry designer and sculptor: “My design process is so much easier with the new 3D printing support options in Adobe Photoshop CC. I can make my jewelry designs look beautiful and automate the process of using the least amount of material without going under the printable threshold—this back and forth used to take about 80 percent of my time!”

• Veronica De La Rosa, industrial designer, FATHOM, a product development company and 3D printing specialist: “At FATHOM, we work with some of the most innovative companies to help produce their next generation of products. Using Photoshop CC, the new 3D printing features reduce file troubleshooting and ensure that our client's 3D models are accurately represented before final printing. This is extremely helpful to us as it will speed up customer communication, saving time and money for both us and more importantly our clients."

Adobe Kicks Off 2014 With Innovations Across Essential Design Tools
Adobe today also shipped new features across its flagship design applications and services, as part of a major Creative Cloud release. Additional new features in Photoshop CC include the groundbreaking Perspective Warp, which changes the viewpoint from which an object is seen, and linked Smart Objects that radically improves collaboration – updating the final design automatically if the reference file is changed. Also, new features in Adobe Illustrator® CC and InDesign® CC revolutionize how designers work with type by seamlessly connecting to the Adobe Typekit® font service. It’s now possible to integrate Typekit fonts into print projects, PDF files, DPS apps, and more, while new functionality in InDesign CC reduces the frustration of missing font errors by automatically searching the Typekit desktop font library for options. Dozens of new and enhanced features and services in today’s update will help designers and other creative professionals work more intuitively and efficiently.
To find out more about Photoshop CC, visit http://www.adobe.com/sea/products/photoshop.html and http://tv.adobe.com/go/21862.

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014

Kuala Lumpur, 17 October 2013 — Gartner, Inc. recently highlighted the top ten technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2014.  Analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here through October.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

“We have identified the top 10 technologies that companies should factor into their strategic planning processes,” said David Cearley. “This does not necessarily mean adoption and investment in all of the listed technologies, but companies should look to make deliberate decisions about them during the next two years.”

Mr. Cearley said that the Nexus of Forces, the convergence of four powerful forces: social, mobile, cloud and information, continues to drive change and create new opportunities, creating demand for advanced programmable infrastructure that can execute at web-scale.

The top ten strategic technology trends for 2014 include:

Mobile Device Diversity and Management
Through 2018, the growing variety of devices, computing styles, user contexts and interaction paradigms will make "everything everywhere" strategies unachievable. The unexpected consequence of bring your own device (BYOD) programs is a doubling or even tripling of the size of the mobile workforce. This is placing tremendous strain on IT and Finance organizations. Enterprise policies on employee-owned hardware usage need to be thoroughly reviewed and, where necessary, updated and extended. Most companies only have policies for employees accessing their networks through devices that the enterprise owns and manages. Set policies to define clear expectations around what they can and can't do. Balance flexibility with confidentiality and privacy requirements

Mobile Apps and Applications
Gartner predicts that through 2014, improved JavaScript performance will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream enterprise application development environment. Gartner recommends that developers focus on creating expanded user interface models including richer voice and video that can connect people in new and different ways. Apps will continue to grow while applications will begin to shrink. Apps are smaller, and more targeted, while a larger application is more comprehensive. Devlopers should look for ways to snap together apps to create larger applications. Building application user interfaces that span a variety of devices require an understanding of fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device. The market for tools to create consumer and enterprise facing apps is complex with well over 100 potential tools vendors. For the next few years no single tool will be optimal for all types of mobile application so expect to employ several. The next evolution in user experience will be to leverage intent, inferred from emotion and actions, to motivate changes in end-user behavior.

The Internet of Everything
The Internet is expanding beyond PCs and mobile devices into enterprise assets such as field equipment, and consumer items such as cars and televisions. The problem is that most enterprises and technology vendors have yet to explore the possibilities of an expanded internet and are not operationally or organizationally ready. Imagine digitizing the most important products, services and assets. The combination of data streams and services created by digitizing everything creates four basic usage models – Manage; Monetize; Operate; Extend. These four basic models can be applied to any of the four "internets” (people, things, information and places).  Enterprises should not limit themselves to thinking that only the Internet of Things (i.e., assets and machines) has the potential to leverage these four models. Enterprises from all industries (heavy, mixed, and weightless) can leverage these four models.

Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker
Bringing together personal clouds and external private cloud services is an imperative. Enterprises should design private cloud services with a hybrid future in mind and make sure future integration/interoperability is possible. Hybrid cloud services can be composed in many ways, varying from relatively static to very dynamic. Managing this composition will often be the responsibility of something filling the role of cloud service broker (CSB), which handles aggregation, integration and customization of services. Enterprises that are expanding into hybrid cloud computing from private cloud services are taking on the CSB role. Terms like "overdrafting" and "cloudbursting" are often used to describe what hybrid cloud computing will make possible. However, the vast majority of hybrid cloud services will initially be much less dynamic than that. Early hybrid cloud services will likely be more static, engineered compositions (such as integration between an internal private cloud and a public cloud service for certain functionality or data). More deployment compositions will emerge as CSBs evolve (for example, private infrastructure as a service [IaaS] offerings that can leverage external service providers based on policy and utilization).

Cloud/Client Architecture
Cloud/client computing models are shifting. In the cloud/client architecture, the client is a rich application running on an Internet-connected device, and the server is a set of application services hosted in an increasingly elastically scalable cloud computing platform. The cloud is the control point and system or record and applications can span multiple client devices. The client environment may be a native application or browser-based; the increasing power of the browser is available to many client devices, mobile and desktop alike. Robust capabilities in many mobile devices, the increased demand on networks, the cost of networks and the need to manage bandwidth use creates incentives, in some cases, to minimize the cloud application computing and storage footprint, and to exploit the intelligence and storage of the client device. However, the increasingly complex demands of mobile users will drive apps to demand increasing amounts of server-side computing and storage capacity.

The Era of Personal Cloud
The personal cloud era will mark a power shift away from devices toward services. In this new world, the specifics of devices will become less important for the organization to worry about, although the devices will still be necessary. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared from the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.

Software Defined Anything
Software-defined anything (SDx) is a collective term that encapsulates the growing market momentum for improved standards for infrastructure programmability and data center interoperability driven by automation inherent to cloud computing, DevOps and fast infrastructure provisioning. As a collective, SDx also incorporates various initiatives like OpenStack, OpenFlow, the Open Compute Project and Open Rack, which share similar visions. As individual SDx technology silos evolve and consortiums arise, look for emerging standards and bridging capabilities to benefit portfolios, but challenge individual technology suppliers to demonstrate their commitment to true interoperability standards within their specific domains. While openness will always be a claimed vendor objective, different interpretations of SDx definitions may be anything but open. Vendors of SDN (network), SDDC (data center), SDS (storage), and SDI (infrastructure) technologies are all trying to maintain leadership in their respective domains, while deploying SDx initiatives to aid market adjacency plays. So vendors who dominate a sector of the infrastructure may only reluctantly want to abide by standards that have the potential to lower margins and open broader competitive opportunities, even when the consumer will benefit by simplicity, cost reduction and consolidation efficiency.

Web-Scale IT
Web-scale IT is a pattern of global-class computing that delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting by rethinking positions across several dimensions. Large cloud services providers such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc., are re-inventing the way IT in which IT services can be delivered.  Their capabilities go beyond scale in terms of sheer size to also include scale as it pertains to speed and agility. If enterprises want to keep pace, then they need to emulate the architectures, processes and practices of these exemplary cloud providers. Gartner calls the combination of all of these elements Web-scale IT. Web-scale IT looks to change the IT value chain in a systemic fashion.  Data centers are designed with an industrial engineering perspective that looks for every opportunity to reduce cost and waste.  This goes beyond re-designing facilities to be more energy efficient to also include in-house design of key hardware components such as servers, storage and networks. Web-oriented architectures allows developers to build very flexible and resilient systems that recover from failure more quickly.

Smart Machines
Through 2020, the smart machine era will blossom with a proliferation of contextually aware, intelligent personal assistants, smart advisors (such as IBM Watson), advanced global industrial systems and public availability of early examples of autonomous vehicles. The smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT. New systems that begin to fulfill some of the earliest visions for what information technologies might accomplish — doing what we thought only people could do and machines could not —are now finally emerging. Gartner expects individuals will invest in, control and use their own smart machines to become more successful. Enterprises will similarly invest in smart machines. Consumerization versus central control tensions will not abate in the era of smart-machine-driven disruption. If anything, smart machines will strengthen the forces of consumerization after the first surge of enterprise buying commences.

3-D Printing
Worldwide shipments of 3D printers are expected to grow 75 percent in 2014 followed by a near doubling of unit shipments in 2015. While very expensive “additive manufacturing” devices have been around for 20 years, the market for devices ranging from $50,000 to $500, and with commensurate material and build capabilities, is nascent yet growing rapidly. The consumer market hype has made organizations aware of the fact 3D printing is a real, viable and cost-effective means to reduce costs through improved designs, streamlined prototyping and short-run manufacturing.

3D Printed Surgical Guides Make Their Malaysian Debut

June 18, 2013, Selangor, Malaysia. A 37-year-old Malaysian man has now joined the growing number of people worldwide whose lives have been significantly improved by 3D Printing. Suffering from a badly healed broken arm, which he fractured at a young age, he developed a bony deformity in the left forearm. This led to stiffness and pain when using his left hand and he was left unable to perform tasks as simple as picking up a plate or opening a door.. Now, thanks to Dr. Ranjit Singh Gill from Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur and the 3D Printing experts at Materialise, he can look forward to a fully functional future once more. Using virtual surgical planning and 3D printed surgical guides, for the first time in Malaysia, this complex case turned into a surgical reality on June 4th 2013.

The complexity of this case became more visible after Materialise created a virtual 3D reconstruction of the patient’s bones based on a CT scan of the patient’s arm. It turned out that the patient’s arm needed to be surgically broken again and the bone fragments precisely repositioned in order to restore normal arm movement.

Armed with this information, Dr. Ranjit collaborated with a clinical engineer, Helina Yusof, at Materialise’s Malaysian office with the support from the Materialise global clinical team, in order to try out a variety of different surgical plans prior to surgery. In this way, he was able to choose the best possible treatment for this specific case and turn it into a virtual surgical plan. This plan specified where Dr. Ranjit needed to cut the bone in order to reposition it as well as where he needed to drill into the bone to attach a surgical plate which fixates the bone fragments.

Based on this surgical plan, Mohd. Faiz Mispan, another engineer at Materialise Malaysia, designed two patient-specific guides. These are surgical instruments that fit the unique shape of the patient’s bone and guide the surgeon’s drill and sawblade to the exact position and direction defined in the surgical plan. These guides were brought to life at Materialise using 3D printers in a quality-controlled environment and sent to the hospital. With the pre-surgical plan and guides in hand, Dr. Ranjit was able to confidently step into the operating room and realize the results he set out to achieve.

When talking about working with Materialise and using virtual planning and 3D guides for the procedure, Dr. Ranjit reported that not only did it help him reduce operating time but it also simplified the procedure. He stated, “I have treated patients with a similar deformity and it is very complex surgery as all surgical steps are developed during the operation. Also, several implants need to be made available to choose from as the final decision can only be made intra-operatively. I found that being able to see the extent of the deformity before going into the OR and plan the surgery virtually tremendously improved the accuracy and final outcome. The guides meant that I didn’t have to spend as much time in the OR identifying the position of the cut and repositioning of the bones. I am excited that, together with Materialise, we can now bring such solutions to the Malaysian people.’

As many of the engineers working on orthopaedic cases at Materialise are Malaysian and based in the Selangor office, the company has launched Materialise TOUCH – a program that enables the local community to better benefit from the advantages this technology has to offer. The TOUCH initiative guarantees that all patients, regardless of their financial circumstances, have access to the treatment received by the patient above. This program is intended to provide our standard orthopaedic solutions, at no cost, to patients who are elegible for hospital welfare assistance in Malaysia.

Autodesk 2013 Outlook Commentary : Driving Trends and Seeking Breakthroughs in Design Technology

By Tan Choon Sang (CS Tan), Country Manager, Autodesk Malaysia

We are living in an exciting time as technology becomes more hyper-connected, highly personal and mobile. Everything is changing – from consumer products such as phones and tablets to the way your home computer accesses the Internet – and this is mostly for the better.

In the next year and beyond, we look to another year of breakthroughs with a plethora of trends and technological advancement that is set to transform the way we live life and do business.

Here are some of the design technology trends we are anticipating in the coming year.

1. Infinite Computing
Designers now have the power to design and create almost anything they can imagine. The “toolset” change of cloud computing—tremendous increases in computer processing, bandwidth, storage, affordability, and ubiquity. This, when combined with a “mindset” change that looks for new ways to use this power, adds up to infinite computing, which is profoundly changing the world of design. The old paradigm of “design-then-analyse” is transforming into one where we can use the cloud to analyse thousands of options in parallel, helping us create the best possible designs.

2. Real CAD
Human-centered interfaces are making it easier for us to use computers, rather than having to adapt our work and workflows to the way computers are designed. Direct manipulation, ubiquitous sensors (accelerometers, touch screens, etc.), gesture- and voice-recognition paradigms, and even technology that can detect thought patterns are all making computers easier to use, and more valuable than ever before.

3. Reality, Digitised 
The term “reality, digitised” refers to the blurring of the boundaries between the real world and the digital world. Reality capture techniques like laser point clouds and photogrammetry enable incredible visualisations, simulations, automatic modeling, augmented reality capabilities, and 3D printing/personal-manufacturing. For example, in the future you’ll be able to scan your feet, buy a design from a shoe company, and 3D-print personalised shoes rather than having to buy whatever happens to be there at the store, or online.

4. The Network Effect
“Everyone’s a Designer” is the idea that a developing set of widely distributed, inexpensive tools for design and fabrication is inspiring design self-reliance as well as design crowdsourcing. This trend is changing the worlds of design and manufacturing, and starting to affect the building industry as well. We at Autodesk take the adage of making design available to everyone seriously as exemplified by our wide range of consumer apps which are available through multiple computing and mobile platforms. Autodesk Homestyler for instance, is a free online home design software that can bring its users’ design plans and remodeling dreams to life.  

As a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, Autodeskaims to continuously deliver the best solutions and design tools to our customers from both the professional and consumer markets. With the increasing convergence, mobility and innovation of technology, I believe that we have an exciting future ahead of us in the field of design technology.