From: Steven Adler \( A3DM \) (adler@a3dm.com)
Date: Fri Mar 01 2002 - 05:58:34 EET
Timely Thread
As a re-seller for MagicsRP, I recently considered this product for my
service bureau. The nicest aspect of the product is the client software
which performs stl analysis before processing an estimate. This client
front-end, what I would call "file inspection and preparation data" then
uses the server programs with a minimal data set to estimate a job.
Unfortunately, the server side of this application is somewhat specific to
the type of equipment used by Materialise, being primarily SLA.
My hope is that Materialise would decide to de-bundle the client application
so that other proprietary estimators can be interfaced to new server
programming specific to the manufacturer.
On the whole, I can tell you that there is some pretty impressive
programming in this product. As usual, Materialise sets a high bar for a
competitive product.....and are lucky to have some very talented programmers
Steven Adler CEO
Automated 3D Modeling
adler@a3dm.com
www.a3dm.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Pollack" <StevenP@DigitalJeweler.NET>
To: "Bathsheba Grossman" <sheba@protoshape.com>; "Brad Johnson"
<bradjp@yahoo.com>
Cc: <rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi>
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: Online quoting - some statistics from Materialise
>
> > > - What is the future of e-commerce within prototyping?
> > > Seems most of what I hear is that making models is a
> > > very skilled art and it's impossible to determine how
> > > much it will cost without first seeing the project
> > > specs? Is this true?
>
> It seems that the RP machine manufacturers could/should work up a simple
> algorithm for combining the volume, Z height, and desired layer thickness
> into a time estimate and make this available for shell integration within
> the various CAD packages. Then, lets say an engineer designed something
> within Solidworks, there would functionality in the file menu for
exporting
> the model as an .stl to the SLA/Solidscape/etc. estimation module within
> Solidworks. A more functional software plugin would allow the prices of
> various service bureaus to be input as global values so that the time
> estimate would be applied to the cos
>
> That would be handy for anyone using CAD for RP and would give a
competitive
> advantage to the RP companies that did so. The consumer of RP could then
> evaluate for themselves the best technology for a given geometry knowing
the
> prices per hour charged by the various service bureaus.
>
> Steven Pollack
>
>
> For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
>
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/
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