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Commercialization

SpaceX Demonstrates New Immersive Design Tool (Video)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 5, 2013
Filed under , ,

Elon Musk Wants to Build the Iron Man Hologram UI For Real, Gizmodo
“The hologram interfaces Tony Stark uses in Iron Man are awesome, no doubt. But they also aren’t real. Yet. Elon Musk has been cooking up something very Stark-y, and he’s planning to show it off soon. Musk isn’t sharing any of the nitty-gritty details yet, but he mentioned his grand scheme on Twitter. This better not be a joke.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

12 responses to “SpaceX Demonstrates New Immersive Design Tool (Video)”

  1. Victor G. D. de Moraes says:
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    I had the expectation that it would be something more complex. By the various advertisements prior I had the impression that “draw” with his hands. But what are the hand is no more than just moving the drawing, has set. Something like an inverted optical mouse, rolled by hand in the air … It is less than I expected, honestly …

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      This was just a quick demo, I assume that in actual use they would be able to change the design of the objects not just move them around the screen. There is a brief segment at 2:46-2:53 which shows an object being revealed in different layers, indicating the ability to do more complex things than just rotating objects around.

      • ski4ever says:
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        that is simply features of the CAD software that are meant for viewing, not for drawing. I agree with Victor … this is a visualization only demo, not a build demo.

  2. Mark_Flagler says:
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    What he didn’t demonstrate was the drawing or shaping of components de novo. On the other hand, I suspect that this is part of the package.
    Nor do we see (because it’s probably in software) the way dimensional discipline (tolerances) and part-to-part matching are enforced, but it’s safe to assume it’s in there, or soon will be.
    Maybe we should think of this as advancing low-cost, hyper-rapid prototyping–and note that the approach should not only cut the cost of prototyping and of custom components/assemblies, but reduce time to market.
    This is a wake-up call for some folks in the CAD business, and if he wanted to, Musk could build yet another company around this technology. Having seen the way in which Boeing used CAD on the 777 and Dreamliner, I would be surprised if there weren’t a ready-made market for it.
    Also interesting that he used the Merlin as an example. I like that.

  3. Marvin says:
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    Nothing particularly new or interesting. I saw a system just like that (though with a much less sophisticated CAD package than today’s NX) demoed at NASA and got to try it myself over 20 years ago when the virtual reality fad was really going strong – minus the 3D printing part, but that technology has been around almost as long too. Even NASA has had 3D laser sintering printers for around a decade. Whiz bang stuff that impresses managers and definitely useful in the right circumstances, but by no means a panacea.

    The 3D manipulation stuff might look impressive to managers trying to be drive-by designers, but hardly practical for a full time CAD jockey – who wants to sit around 40+ hours a week hovering your arms in mid air all day? Real design work also requires ready access to precision placement and extensive alpha-numeric input, which is hindered by having to move your hands to mid air for manipulation control. The 3D model manipulation problem was decisively solved decades ago (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik… and the hands-in-mid-air concepts never really caught on for good reason. Far more interesting are concepts for integrating tactile feedback in the controller (which won’t work with a mid air virtual controller obviously) or that Apple patent in the news a couple weeks ago for a 3D touch screen CAD system.

    Far and away the most interesting thing here was seeing NX run on a Mac. Anybody know if that was running native under OS/X or was it just a dual boot machine with Windows?

    Just curious – any actual professional CAD users very impressed with this?

  4. Steve Whitfield says:
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    My first thought was about the cost. If this is and remains real expensive, then I suspect it will remain a novelty until the cost comes down. However, if the cost gets within the reach of the average computer user, then this could be a huge enabler. Small companies and even individuals will be able to invent, prototype and experiment on a scale that today only big companies and sponsored inventors can manage. Cottage industries and independent contractors could become a much more significant portion of the economy.

    My second thought was that the user interface had better be totally intuitive first time out or people are going to dismiss the possibilities of this thing. It’s useless simply as a gimmick. It has to be functional and provide the user with real advantages. I hope they don’t rush it onto the market; I’d much rather wait until they’ve done it well.

    Overall, I think this is promising.

  5. DocM says:
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    @Elon Musk

    SpaceX SuperDraco inconel rocket chamber w regen cooling jacket emerges from EOS 3D metal printer

    http://pic.twitter.com/Tj28

    • hikingmike says:
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      Yeah the 3D printing of a titanium/inconel/etc object is the coolest thing here. That is a biggie.

      You don’t need to use your hands to move around a 3D model, you can do it with the mouse and keyboard and it’s intuitive if you do it for a while (ever use Google Earth?). However it is really cool and a great presentation method.

  6. J C says:
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    Folks aren’t letting their minds expand here. Step away from the fact that’s it’s Elon Musk playing with a rocket engine. CAD designers and rocket scientists aren’t the real market for this kind of technology. Think artists, artisans, hobbyist/makers, musicians, educators, other kinds of creative people who are very good at things *other* than tinkering with a computer. Think of how a writer uses a computer today. Most writers aren’t technophiles or word processing experts. They turn it on, open Word, write, print, repeat. They already use two gesture-based devices; the mouse and the keyboard. Musk is moving that same experience into three dimensions and taking our hands off the hardware.

    Costs for 3D printers are already coming down rapidly. Motion-capture technology? Already here–think Kinect.

    If this doesn’t take off the way he predicts, it will either be because the interface wasn’t intuitive enough, the timing isn’t right (Picturephone?), or one of the myriad unpredictable psychological factors which occasionally keeps a great idea from becoming popular while some ridiculous fad becomes a rage. Who could have predicted Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest 40 years ago?

  7. speragine says:
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    This is no big deal. just more of the typical hype that goes along with everything, MUSKI! as if he’s some kind of a GOD like phenom. NASA has been doing similar virtual manipulation of CAD graphics for years as part of its training routine for SHUTTLE astronauts EVA tasks. They also have been 3D printing rocket engine parts for at least the better part of a year. Have also incorporated some of these [printed parts in actual engine firing tests at STENNIS!

    • nasa817 says:
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      There may be small pockets in NASA HSF that work with this stuff. But most of NASA HSF would be trying to figure out how to get 2D drawings from this into .pdf so they could print hardcopies and email it for review with comments to be submitted in an Excel spreadsheet (all editorial of course, nothing technical). We can’t even get people to use a PDM/PLM system, such as Windchill, as anything but a big file server. We are dragging the trailing edge of technology.