NOVEDGE blog

Rhino and the New SpaceClaim Style: The Perfect Couple

Sometimes, when a combination has the right ingredients, great performers are paired with other great performers, and the result is outstanding. The whole becomes greater then the sum of its parts.

The newly released SpaceClaim Style makes such a powerful combination when paired with Rhino. Rhino and SpaceClaim Style are not only excellent on their own; they are perfectly compatible and complement each other ideally. These are the key fundamental elements of a power couple. Let’s analyze them in more detail.

Compatible – not only can Rhino and SpaceClaim Style read and write .3dm files without any data loss, but they are both direct modeling systems. This means that they are compatible at the semantic level, not just at the (required) data level. This is different from parametric systems that are still highly incompatible. Geometry data can be transferred reliably but all the parametric modeling history is lost and different systems use different operators to generate the same geometry (the semantic dichotomy). Rhino and SpaceClaim on the other hand have moved the design intelligence into the software and away from the data - making it thankfully very easy for the user to manipulate the same data with different systems.

Complementary – while being impressive products on their own Rhino and SpaceClaim tend to excel at different types of modeling. Rhino is best at free form modeling and SpaceClaim is best at solid modeling of parts and assemblies. Once used in combination the two systems can tackle more challenging design tasks because the user can chose the best system for the problem at hand and seamlessly switch between the two. For example, SpaceClaim offers a free Rhino plug-in that provides a button within Rhino allowing for easy import and export of Rhino data with SpaceClaim.

Industrial designers looking for a strong solid and assembly modeling tool will find SpaceClaim Style perfectly suited for their needs and will not find themselves entangled in the complexity of parametric systems. Mechanical designers looking for high quality Class A surface modeling will find Rhino a seamless addition to SpaceClaim’s capabilities.

If you are a user of either Rhino or SpaceClaim I believe you owe it to yourself to try this combination. And if you are using neither one, well, I think you should try them both to see for yourself what they can do for you.

Cristiano Sacchi

Novedge in the World of Social Media

On March 2nd, Skittles shook the world by changing its homepage to a big social media playground; when navigating to skittles.com you found yourself in a stream of Twitter messages with the tag #skittles. For 24 hours this was a big hit, but there was no filter, and also abusive tweets from pranksters about the company and its products turned up at the homepage of Skittles. The following day, the homepage was redirected to the fanpage of Skittles on Facebook, with almost 600,000 fans. Via the menu option 'chatter' you could still enter the Twitter stream. Today (March 4th) the homepage of Skittles is redirected to the Wikipedia page about Skittles.

Many people expressed their opinion about this campaign; some called it a genius and innovative move (although risky), others called it an utter failure, 'the worst thing to ever happen to social media branding'. But the fact is that Skittles got huge media attention during these days, everybody talks, tweets, and blogs about it (including us).

Incorporating social media in companies is a hot topic nowadays. This doesn't mean that when you'll navigate to our website next week, you'll end up at Facebook or Twitter, but it is very interesting to see all the developments in this field! How far are companies going to attract people with the use of social media channels and to have them interact with each other and the company? What is the best channel to interact with your (potential) customers? There are so many options to choose from, just think of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, (corporate) blogs, communities. So you subscribe to (some of) these channels, and then what?

Novedge is exploring the mysterious but wonderful world of social media too by launching a big campaign.

Novedge is exploring the mysterious but wonderful world of social media too by launching a big campaign. Novedge has a page at Facebook and LinkedIn, our news source Pulse already has 141 (and counting!) followers at Twitter as @_Pulse_, and our community SpaceClaiming has 580 members. And of course, we have this blog :-). But besides that, Novedge is also starting a new community, called RhinoJungle (with its own Facebook page). This community is set up especially for the users and fans of Rhino and all Robert McNeel products. With facilitating these communities, Novedge wants to offer an extra service to our customers, to create a platform for sharing ideas, questions and 3d-work.

With this adventure Novedge aims for more direct communication, growth of members of our communities and a growth in followers on Twitter. We believe that the world of social media is boundless.

Mirjam Hart

For more information on this topic, take a look at this foldier sPression, an online collection of the Novedge social media activities.