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Elon Musk Shows His Vision of Holographic Design Technology
MojoKid writes "Tesla CEO Elon Musk has more on his mind that just cars and 4,000 MPH Hyperloop transportation systems. He also tweeted his intention of developing a hand-manipulated holographic design engine and designing a rocket part with only hand gestures, finally printing the part in titanium." And now Musk has posted the video he promised showing off the design process: "Musk showed a wireframe of the rocket part, and he was able to rotate the 3D object on a screen with one hand, and with a second hand, he zoomed in and out, moved it around the screen, and spun the object around and "caught it"--all in the air. He moved on to manipulating an actual 3D CAD model and interacting with the software; you can see that he used a Leap Motion controller. Next, he shows off a 3D projection, a freestanding glass projection (Ironman style), and interacts with the model using the Oculus Rift. Finally, he prints the part in titanium with a 3D metal printer. Note that we don't actually see him design anything; the models he works with are already made. Still, it's exciting to see new ways of doing things come to life on screen."
This video is some great gee-whiz showmanship, which gets Joe Sixpack excited about technology and maybe sells a few more Tesla cars a couple years down the road.
But man, I'd hate to try and design anything by holding my hands in the air for six or seven hours a day.
Might be cool for next-generation Kinect-style gaming though.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
In a nutshell, he shows a gesture-operated wireframe or shaded model viewer. All that was shown was zoom, rotation and moving the clipping plane. It must be impressive for the non-CAD crowd, but I didn't see anything new that was practical, and there are far better viewers already available.
Elon Musk tweeted "Will post video next week of designing a rocket part with hand gestures & then immediately printing it in titanium". But the video says he designed the parts in Unigraphics, so it was NOT designed using hand gestures - unless you count using a mouse as "hand gestures".
Anyone that has used a solids modeling CAD application with a Space Controller in the last 17 years has been able to do pretty much all of this and more (not counting the use of Ti in the printer). But Space Controller + mouse users keep their arms on the desk, rather than waving their arms in the air (fatiguing). So thanks for thinking of us, be we designers do NOT want to hold our hands in the air. We had enough of that crap with light pens.
In all fairness, the one nice thing the video suggests is the gesture-operated viewer might make sense for a standing presenter. The Space Controller requires a flat surface to rest upon, so gesture-operation might make sense for this application.
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I think it's great. Somebody with capital and grand long term visions.
Even when you have money and a long term vision, some ideas are just dumb. Like the Segway.
This is one of them.
There's a reason why you only see interfaces like this in the movies, and it's not because the technology isn't there. It's because waving your hands in the air for a whole workday sucks. Someone in this thread mentioned light pens. When you no longer had to hold your arm up to the screen because of the popularity of the mouse, light pens disappeared from everyone's desks.
This interface sucks even in concept.
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BMO
It's not and people don't typically use a mouse for CAD. Sure a mouse is used, but most of the actual work is done via keyboard shortcuts because it's both more accurate and faster.
So by "people don't typically use a mouse for CAD" you mean people do use a mouse. Uh.... OK.
Sorry, but the mouse is heavily used for CAD. The hot setup is a Space Pilot Pro and a multi-button mouse. Greatly reduces the use of a keyboard.
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Mod parent up.
Look at the video around 1:54, where Musk is saying "go in there and do what you need to do". But all the video actually shows is someone spinning the model around and using a visual cutting plane to display cross sections. At no point in that video is new geometry created. What I was expecting to see was a breakthrough in how to do engineering design in 3D. It's not there.
Back in the late 1980s, Autodesk built a virtual reality system as an experiment in CAD. They got about as far as Musk, although at lower resolution - you could look at models and manipulate them with a gloves-and-goggles interface, but trying to draw surfaces in free space was really hard. Some people can do it. They can also do clay models freehand. Today, there's Autodesk Mudbox, a 3D sculpting tool which is used by pros who can visualize clearly and in detail in 3D. Watch this video to see one at work. That's impressive work. Now see something similar done with 3D input devices. It's like trying to sculpt while wearing oven mittens, and the results are awful.
Somebody will eventually make this work, but the computer, not the human, will be doing most of the design.
What I mean is that people use the mouse to scroll around, and not for the rest of it.
Uh... no. We use the mouse to draw the sketch before we apply the the data-driven parametric dimensions.
And, I don't care how many buttons your mouse has, it does not have more than a keyboard. What's more, only an idiot uses a mouse as a mouse just does not have the level of precision necessary for CAD.
Yes, a keyboard does have more keys, but the 80/20 rule applies. And saying people are stupid for using a mouse tells me you lack the understanding of how a CAD system works.
There probably are novices out there that never bothered to learn the short cuts, but anybody that cares about efficiency or precision is going to be using the keyboard almost exclusively.
I've been doing CAD since 1980. I wrote a CAD application. I've been and AutoCAD and SolidWorks instructor, and run user groups. If you think a mouse if not used, or unsuitable for CAD, the you are either a troll are greatly in need of proper instruction.
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