NOVEDGE blog

Generation Z's Coming!

Last month we had the pleasure to sponsor the Industrial Technology High School Skills Competition from Iowa Central Community College. It's always great to be able to help young people pursue their passions and today we ask Jacob Sunderland a bit about himself. Jacob won first prize in the 2D CAD category.

Novedge: Tell us a bit about yourself

Jacob Sunderland: My name is Jacob Sunderland and I am a senior at Southeast Polk High School and I am going to DMACC next year to major in engineering.

Novedge: How did you become interested in engineering and design technology?
Jacob Sunderland: I was introduced to engineering by my freshman math teacher and I started to look into engineering and find out what it was all about. I then got involve with the ACE Mentor Program and worked with actual engineers and learned about what they do on a day to day basis and help in a group project of designing a mock building.

Novedge: What kind of classes and/or programs in engineering and design technology does your school offer?
Jacob Sunderland: My school offers quite a few classes for engineering and design but I was only able to take a few. I completed Drafting 1 last year and I am currently in Engineering Drafting this year and it is one of my favorite classes. Like I mentioned before I was involved in the ACE Mentor Program which gave me hand on experience with what professionals in the engineering field have to face everyday.

Novedge: Can you talk about your project that won 1st place at the Iowa Industrial Technology Competition?
Jacob Sunderland: The competition that I competed in was the Intro to CAD. In this competition I was given a packet of ten drawings and was told to recreate them on AutoCAD as fast and as accurately as I could. The drawings were ordered from easiest in front and started to get harder towards the end. I was able to complete 7 out of 10 of the drawings and was given one hour to do so.

Novedge: What software do you use and why?
Jacob Sunderland: The software that I use is called AutoCAD and I use this because it is the software that my school provides us with and is the software that I have used for two years now and have grown quite familiar with.

Novedge: Who are you inspired by? Do you have a mentor?
Jacob Sunderland: I'm am most inspired by my drafting teacher Mr. VanWey I would also call him my mentor because he has taught me a lot about the software and how to be efficient with how I build things on it.

Novedge: What are your plans for the future?
Jacob Sunderland: I am going to DMACCfor a couple years to work on my prerequisite class in the engineering program and plan on transferring up to Iowa State University to finish out my studies in engineering. And after that I hope to find a job in the mechanical engineering field.

The Edge: Matus Nedecky's Flying Architecture

We are proud sponsors of FlyignArchitecture's new contest, Architecture Unchained. To participate, you have to upload your work in progress of an architectural structure free from the constraint of gravity. Franco Folini, Novedge's President and Co Founder, is one of the judges and we are keeping a close eye on the competition. 

So, why not start by learning a bit more about FlyingArchitecture's founder, Matus Nedecky?

Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do

Matus Nedecky: Hi all! So first of all, let me thank Aurora Meneghello for giving me this opportunity to be interviewed by Novedge. It's an honor!
My name is Matus Nedecky, I am originally from the small Slovak village of Zelenec. When I finished my high school in a nearby city, I started to attend the BUT - Faculty of Architecture in the Czech Republic. After gaining experience in three architecture firms (full-time during my studies), I decided to go my own way and become an architectural visualizer. There's still a long way to go, even if I have reached some milestones already, which can be seen on our studio's website.

 

Forest house - project postproduction breakdowns from FlyingArchitecture on Vimeo.

Novedge: How did Flying Architecture start? And how has it evolved?

Matus Nedecky: FlyingArchitecture started as a simple blog back in summer 2009. As I started to work in Rhinoceros 4, and I was working on some basic commercial visualizations, I needed to use the same 3D assets over and over again. Unfortunately, there was no website dedicated to Rhino assets at that time, the only package you could get was McNeel's Savanna3D... and I thought I could do better. So I started producing my work. First I created fifty 3D models in Rhinoceros and then I published the website on social media. Leo Bonilla, a great guy from Colombia, and Rendy Himawan, a designer from Jakarta, contacted me right away. These two (and many others afterwards) gave me great support, they shared my passion for this project and they also shared some of their 3D models. And this is where it all started :)

Then many people from all over the world started to share their own 3D models, and FlyingArchitecture grew rapidly.

I believe if one does something with passion, he will undoubtedly do a great job. And I can proudly say I loved doing this! It was and still is such a great feeling seeing all our own models and our fan's in visualizations all over the world (I have seen some models in visualizations by BIG)... it's an honor to serve thousands of people and to offer them something they need.

 

Well, free 3D models were just the beginning... since 2009 I also added other features, like the forum, materials and tutorials. Besides the website itself, I also work on architectural visualizations for commercial clients.

 

Then on December 28, 2009 everything changed. That's when I first talked to Veronika Nedecka, when she was an interior design student (now my wife and the mother of our child) - since we knew each other, we also started to work together, so our professional services went much more pro! Thanks to our images, which were getting better and better, we were offered to teach a workshop on architectural visualization in Barcelona, Spain, and we accepted. Since then, we led workshops in Barcelona, Vienna, Rome and some personal courses in Bratislava. Now we're are planning some more events, so if you are interested... stay tuned! :)

 

Advanced Vienna workshop 2013 from FlyingArchitecture on Vimeo.

I can't forget to mention that our new online store with 3D models is the first marketplace where Rhinoceros users can get truly realistic, high quality, 3D models ready for use in their 3D scenes. Take a look here.

Novedge: What are the rewards and challenges of having your own business?

Matus Nedecky: It's not really a walk in the park.... But of course it has many more pros than cons. However you are responsible for everything - you have to care of PR, marketing, the job itself, bookkeeping, etc. There is so much to think about, that it may sometimes seem unbearable. Just don't give up! Even if you think it's not worthwhile and sometimes it is a struggle, there are always better days coming :) For me, better days came with Veronika and my co-workers, Lukas [Filip, interviewed here] and Fabio.

 

The biggest challenge is time management: it's extremely hard to balance it all - work, family, free time, eventually school and also other projects.

The biggest reward for me since I started to work alone has been the lack of stress. I have to admit, I work longer hours than before, but I do not have someone standing behind my back checking what I am doing. Oh and also as an artist I have the opportunity to express myself, my own style and feelings, not just the opinions and style of my team leader... That's the biggest satisfaction!

  

Novedge: What surprised you the most?

Matus Nedecky: Well, I'd say it's the positive feedback! I started working on the FlyingArchitecture website just for fun, and to create something that I needed. You should see the mass of positive feedback I received, it's such a great feeling to receive hundreds of emails that say "Thank you"... That was the best award I could ever get :) So Thank You all, who supported me and who said Thank You... You gave me new energy to continue.

 

Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?

Recently at the FlyingArchitecture studio we are working on tens of residential/commercial buildings for our clients... mostly new buildings for commerce or flat units. From time to time we also have a great opportunity to work on something very specific, like museum designs, firemen stations, hotels and so on.

What I appreciate the most are personal projects. At the moment, I am running about 5 of them, but I can show you some I finished recently. It is very important for me to take a break from commercial work (for most of them we sign an NDA, so they cannot be published) and to create something in my own style with a touch of artistic feeling.

This is the Norwegian house, design and visualizations by FlyingArchitecture:

 

Aluminium house, some romantic idea of where I'd love to live:

 

FlyingArchitecture, our future office design. We jut have to wait a bit for the technology to catch up :)

 

Novedge: What software do you use?

Matus Nedecky: Haha, that's a long and painful story... At university, they taught us how to use 3ds Max, but I gave a try to Cinema 4D, Blender, Modo, SketchUp and Rhino. I have to say that polygons just aren't my blood type. That's why I was so amazed by the NURBS technology in Rhinoceros, which I chose as my primary 3D software.
Since then, I use it on a daily basis. It worked great in college for all architectural drawings and also for 3D modeling and rendering. Its stability and extraordinary user-friendliness just amaze me. And that's why I stick with it :)

 

Besides Rhinoceros, I use V-Ray for Rhino and Photoshop. The combination of these software solutions give us extreme flexibility to finish all daily tasks in a very effective way and within reasonable time.

Novedge: What makes a good render extraordinary?

Matus Nedecky: The most important thing is to be original. That's why I try to keep Rhino as our primary 3D software in FlyingArchitecture. The worst thing that can happen is that  somebody starts to take shortcuts and just mindlessly copy and paste assets to their 3D scenes. There are tons of CGI artists working like this these days... So the direction we are taking is to use custom 3D models and our own photos for exterior postproduction, so we stay original all the time.

Generally speaking, it's always up to the artist, everybody has a different point of view. There is an artist in all of us, we just have to release him :) Don't just copy... create!

 

Novedge: What are your plans for the future?

Matus Nedecky: I always have big plans! I would need several lifetimes to accomplish them all... Of course, there are some particular plans for FlyingArchitecture, mostly regarding the website itself, so we can get bigger and better with our free 3D models database. I'll have more news soon, so stay tuned! And of course, we are doing our best to offer better visualizations to our clients every day. You can check our current visualization portfolio here.

Want to see more? Check out FlyingArchitecture's website.

Ready to share your Architecture Unchained? Read all about the contest here.

And don't forget to get in touch with us on Twitter and Facebook!

The 2012/13 Winter Contest: This Winter, Novedge is Giving Back to You

At Novedge, we believe in innovation. We love to find out about a new project, to discover the latest software, and to hear from the people who tirelessly work behind the scenes to create what becomes our world.

That's why this year we decided to celebrate high school students who are embarking on a life of design and innovation. We are giving away a student license of either SolidWorks or Rhino, to the five high school students who impress us the most with their proposals.

Here are the details of our 2012/13 Holiday Contest:

Who can participate: Any high school student currently enrolled in high school and residing in the USA.

When: Enter the contest now, until January 31^st, 2013. No proposals will be accepted after 11:30 pm PST on January 31^st, 2013.

What you need to email us in order to enter the contest:

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your school, in no more than one page.

2. You get to choose which of the two programs we will send you if you win. Tell us what you will design with Rhino or SolidWorks: make us believe your project is the best! Make sure your proposal fits in one page. If you can, include links to previous work and/or to sketches related to your proposal.

 

If your proposal is selected, you will need to prove you are a student by providing us with a copy of your student ID and class schedule in order to win and receive the prize. Please review the requirements for Rhino here and the requirements for SolidWorks here.

The team at Novedge will review all entries and will announce the five winners on Tuesday February 12^th, 2013.

We are looking forward to reading about all your projects! Please email your proposal and any questions you might have about the contest to Aurora Meneghello at aurora@novedge.com

Happy Holidays from the entire Novedge Team!