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What are Onshape Custom Features?

Certified Onshape Professional Too Tall Toby explains how to supercharge your workflow using community-created tools. In this insightful tutorial, he dives into the world of FeatureScript -- the powerful coding language behind Onshape. Learn where to find new scripts and how to use them. Save time. Learn new skills, shortcuts, and maybe even better ways to do things. Incorporate Custom Features into your everyday work. Very useful.
View the video.

What can you do with touchless magnetic angle sensors?

Novotechnik has put together an informative video highlighting real-world applications for their RFC, RFE, and RSA Series touchless magnetic angle sensors. You may be surprised at the variety of off-highway, marine, material handling, and industrial uses. You'll learn how they work (using a Hall effect microprocessor to detect position) and their key advantages, including eliminated wear and tear on these non-mechanical components. We love when manufacturers provide such useful examples.
View the video.

What can the new Autodesk Inventor AI Assistant do for you?

Autodesk Assistant brings industry-specific context to help execute tasks and orchestrate actions across your 3D models -- not just answer questions. Designed to understand your workflows, Assistant appears as a dockable panel alongside your Inventor workspace and includes the ability to perform complex tasks or gather information from your designs without writing a single line of code. Find out what this new AI "colleague" can do for you.
Watch this informative Autodesk video.

Useful! Snap-together LED enclosure lighting

Seifert StripLite SL 4000 Series LED enclosure lighting provides bright illumination to 700 lumens. On/off switch and motion sensor models are available. Easily daisy chain up to 16 light strips. Magnetic or clip mounting. See video/info on website or contact Bristol Instruments for more information.
Learn about snap-together lighting.

Next-gen multi-touch panels

Beckhoff's Next line of multi-touch control panels and panel PCs is engineered for demanding human-machine interface and control tasks. These panels offer convenient operation with advanced multi-touch technology, a high-quality look and feel, anti-glare and anti-ghosting effects, and a wide choice of formats (from 7 to 23.8 in.) and options. A main draw is the line's attractive pricing.
Learn more.

Most powerful handheld 3D laser scanner on the market

Creaform, a business of AMETEK, has launched HandySCAN 3D|EVO Series, the most powerful handheld 3D laser scanning solution on the market. This innovative series features a built-in touchscreen display and an integrated high-res 12-MP photo camera, incorporating augmented reality (AR) and advanced on-scanner visualization. Users can streamline repetitive inspections and enhance quality control processes using the new auto-alignment feature. Powered by 46 blue laser lines with accuracy of 0.020 mm. The Creaform Metrology Suite includes four application software modules: Scan-to-CAD, Inspection, Automation, and Dynamic Tracking. So many more features.
Learn more.

Continental develops first sensor to measure heat in EV motors

Global automotive supplier Continental has developed a new sensor technology that measures the temperature inside permanently excited synchronous motors in electric vehicles directly on the rotor for the first time.
Read the full article.

LEDs with highest output power available

The new OCI-460 SWIR LED series from EPIGAP OSA Photonics features markedly improved output power compared to the company's previous OCI-480 package and all competitive SMD SWIR LED devices. For example, model OCI-460 ID1550-XS operates at 1,550 nm and features drive current up to 1.5A to deliver approximately 13% higher output efficiency over EPIGAP's OCI-480 package. This impressive advancement features 96% higher output power compared to any other SWIR SMD LED currently on the market. Ideal for use in sensing, machine vision, and more.
Learn more.

AI and collaboration in SOLIDWORKS

Discover AURA, the new AI assistant built into SOLID-WORKS, in this informative video from TriMech Group. What can AURA do for you? It can streamline workflows and make collaborating on and tracking projects even easier, for starters. Other top features of SOLIDWORKS Design 2026 are also covered. Some good tips here.
View the TriMech Group video.

Solutions for weighing and force measurement

Automation-Direct now offers Sensy 2172L series single point, 5510 series shear beam, and 2782 series tension/compression load cells that deliver flexible solutions for weighing and force measurement. They are ideal for applications ranging from small packaging scales to rugged industrial tanks and conveyor systems. Built from aircraft-grade aluminum or stainless steel, these models feature built-in overload protection, accuracies down to 0.03% of full scale, protection ratings up to IP67, and capacities up to 2,000 kg.
Learn more.

Top Product: Future-proof enclosure cooling

Seifert's new SLIMLINE NEO ushers in next-generation industrial cooling with natural refrigerant R290 (GWP 0.02) and high-efficiency inverter technology. It cuts energy costs with EER up to 3.6, reduces refrigerant charge by 75%, and extends electronics life. A fully redesigned, lighter, smaller enclosure delivers lower vibration, better component protection, and easier handling. Available in two elegant surfaces: stainless steel and mild steel, powder coated.
Learn more.

Coin cell supercapacitors: High capacity, quick release

Coin cell supercapa-citors are compact, high-capacity energy storage devices that rapidly charge and discharge and endure far more cycles than rechargeable batteries. They're ideal for high switching loads such as real-time clock and battery back-up power, battery-swap ride-through, and LED or audible alarms. SCHURTER's latest versions support up to 5.5 V and 100 to 1,500 mF.
Learn more.

Tech Tip: Mastering sheet metal bend calculations in Onshape

Mastering bend calculations in sheet metal design is a key skill that can impact the accuracy and manufactur-ability of your designs significantly. Explore the various options available to become a pro in this Onshape Tech Tip: K Factor, bend allowance, and bend deduction, with guidance on when each should be used. You will probably learn something even if you don't use this software.
Read the Onshape blog.

Digital Engineering: How a private jet gets a high-end refurb

Ever wonder how private jets get overhauled from standard OEM layouts to exotic, artful interiors? It takes engineering expertise, specialty design skills, and true craftspeople. Increasingly, it also takes automation provided by middleware to weave a digital thread through CAD, BOM, ERP, and PDM software.
Read the full article.

How AI is quietly transforming simulation

Is AI really useful, or is it just a passing trend? Balavignesh Vemparala, an R&D Engineer II at ANSYS, lays out a compelling case for how artificial intelligence is already hard at work in the simulation world with real results for users. From faster solves to accelerated workflows, improved quality and traceability, generative models, and more, discover what you might be overlooking when it comes to real-world AI application. Worth the read.
Read this informative ANSYS blog.

Siri's first head of product design launches AI startup combating misinformation

Siri's first head of product and design, Mads Rydahl, has funneled his extensive knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) into a new company called Proemial. The startup, co-founded by serial entrepreneur Geet Khosla and tech veteran Brian Pedersen, aims to tackle the most significant problem of accessing credible knowledge through search engines and AI tools: misinformation. The new company's groundbreaking knowledge platform, called "proem," will answers user questions backed by scientific research papers.

"Today's search and AI-powered tools often hallucinate false information, making it look credible, which only adds rocket fuel to the raging fire of misinformation we face globally in every sector of the media, education, policy, and knowledge economy," says Rydahl, who with Proemial wants to give people access to up-to-date, research-backed knowledge. "Proemial is building a platform that makes it possible, for the first time, for anyone to truly understand cutting-edge scientific research at any level of expertise, and apply the insights in their daily lives -- in the classroom, boardroom, research lab, or newsroom."

The team built a simple, yet powerful, way to get answers to complex, important questions supported by references from the largest repository of scientific research in the world. Scientific knowledge is constantly evolving, and proem will keep users up to date on the latest insights by adding over 410,000 new research papers every month. The platform will be open and free, allowing anyone to dive into specific scientific papers, using LLMs to summarize and explain complex topics in the paper and customize an inspiring feed where users can learn, discuss, and connect with others over new insights and breakthroughs.

Uniquely, proem goes beyond just providing summaries of research papers by allowing users to chat with research papers in conversational, non-technical language, enabling deep dives into research, even for individuals and groups with no science background. The developers say proem adapts to users' language style without sacrificing insight and without resorting to misleading info that plague some AI tools' output.

Public beta just released
Proemial's first beta product -- proem -- was released April 28 to a growing waitlist that includes people from organizations like CERN, Novo Nordisk, Google (Alphabet), Facebook (Meta), MIT, Cornell, and Amazon, whose CTO, Werner Vogels, is an advisor and strong supporter of Proemial's vision.

"One of the hardest issues Amazon engineers have to deal with is understanding which research is most applicable to the problem they are trying to solve," Vogels says. "With their innovative use of cutting-edge AI, conversational design, and a deep understanding of science dissemination, Proemial is creating a product that will help us dig through the mountains of publications. I look forward to supporting them in bringing this to life, and I, for one, plan to become a user of their application."

A small group of the company's advisors and invited users have been testing the product for some time, reporting impressive results. One advisor called co-founder and CEO of Proemial, Geet Khosla, to share her experience:

"One of her family members was recently diagnosed with diabetes and prescribed a drug. When she researched this drug using Google and AI tools like ChatGPT, she got general, unreferenced answers or blue links filled with ads," Khosla recalls. "Using proem, she got a meta-analysis conducted on 10,000 people comparing this specific drug to a few other options. For the first time in her life, she could easily understand the research papers referenced and ask further questions to the specific paper, which helped her realize that a different drug might perform better. She sent the paper to the family doctor, who hadn't seen this fairly new research. Her family member is now on a different, better-suited drug."

The diabetes example underscores the value of what happens when people discover, understand, connect, and apply the vast deep knowledge present in scientific papers, says Khosla. "We envision an exciting future, where the knowledge in research papers is actionable for everyone to apply, ushering in a future of continued progress. The solutions to some of our biggest problems are being solved in research papers that nobody reads -- until now."

Check out proem at proemial.ai.

Source: Proemial

Published May 2024

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