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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

MIT physicists snap the first images of 'free-range' atoms

The results will help scientists visualize never-before-seen quantum phenomena in real space.

By Jennifer Chu, MIT News

MIT physicists have captured the first images of individual atoms freely interacting in space. The pictures reveal correlations among the "free-range" particles that until now were predicted but never directly observed. Their findings, appearing May 5 in the journal Physical Review Letters, will help scientists visualize never-before-seen quantum phenomena in real space.

The images were taken using a technique developed by the team that first allows a cloud of atoms to move and interact freely. The researchers then turn on a lattice of light that briefly freezes the atoms in their tracks, and apply finely tuned lasers to quickly illuminate the suspended atoms, creating a picture of their positions before the atoms naturally dissipate.

The physicists applied the technique to visualize clouds of different types of atoms, and snapped a number of imaging firsts. The researchers directly observed atoms known as "bosons," which bunched up in a quantum phenomenon to form a wave. They also captured atoms known as "fermions" in the act of pairing up in free space -- a key mechanism that enables superconductivity.

"We are able to see single atoms in these interesting clouds of atoms and what they are doing in relation to each other, which is beautiful," says Martin Zwierlein, the Thomas A. Frank Professor of Physics at MIT.

In the same journal issue, two other groups report using similar imaging techniques, including a team led by Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics at MIT. Ketterle's group visualized enhanced pair correlations among bosons, while the other group, from École Normale Supérieure in Paris, led by Tarik Yefsah, imaged a cloud of noninteracting fermions.

The study by Zwierlein and his colleagues is co-authored by MIT graduate students Ruixiao Yao, Sungjae Chi, and Mingxuan Wang, and MIT assistant professor of physics Richard Fletcher.

Inside the cloud
A single atom is about one-tenth of a nanometer in diameter, which is one-millionth of the thickness of a strand of human hair. Unlike hair, atoms behave and interact according to the rules of quantum mechanics; it is their quantum nature that makes atoms difficult to understand. For example, we cannot simultaneously know precisely where an atom is and how fast it is moving.

Scientists can apply various methods to image individual atoms, including absorption imaging, where laser light shines onto the atom cloud and casts its shadow onto a camera screen.

"These techniques allow you to see the overall shape and structure of a cloud of atoms, but not the individual atoms themselves," Zwierlein notes. "It's like seeing a cloud in the sky, but not the individual water molecules that make up the cloud."

He and his colleagues took a very different approach in order to directly image atoms interacting in free space. Their technique, called "atom-resolved microscopy," involves first corralling a cloud of atoms in a loose trap formed by a laser beam. This trap contains the atoms in one place where they can freely interact. The researchers then flash on a lattice of light, which freezes the atoms in their positions. Then, a second laser illuminates the suspended atoms, whose fluorescence reveals their individual positions.

Top: Two renderings show how itinerant atoms in an atom trap (red) are suddenly frozen in place via an applied optical lattice and imaged via Raman sideband cooling. Bottom: Three microscope images show (left to right) bosonic 23Na forming a Bose-Einstein condensate; a single spin state in a weakly interacting 6Li Fermi mixture; and both spin states of a strongly interacting Fermi mixture, directly revealing pair formation. [Credit: Image courtesy of the MIT researchers]

 

 

 

 

"The hardest part was to gather the light from the atoms without boiling them out of the optical lattice," Zwierlein says. "You can imagine if you took a flamethrower to these atoms, they would not like that. So, we've learned some tricks through the years on how to do this. And it's the first time we do it in-situ, where we can suddenly freeze the motion of the atoms when they're strongly interacting, and see them, one after the other. That's what makes this technique more powerful than what was done before."

Bunches and pairs
The team applied the imaging technique to directly observe interactions among both bosons and fermions. Photons are an example of a boson, while electrons are a type of fermion. Atoms can be bosons or fermions, depending on their total spin, which is determined by whether the total number of their protons, neutrons, and electrons is even or odd. In general, bosons attract, whereas fermions repel.

Zwierlein and his colleagues first imaged a cloud of bosons made up of sodium atoms. At low temperatures, a cloud of bosons forms what's known as a Bose-Einstein condensate -- a state of matter where all bosons share one and the same quantum state. MIT's Ketterle was one of the first to produce a Bose-Einstein condensate, of sodium atoms, for which he shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Zwierlein's group now is able to image the individual sodium atoms within the cloud, to observe their quantum interactions. It has long been predicted that bosons should "bunch" together, having an increased probability to be near each other. This bunching is a direct consequence of their ability to share one and the same quantum mechanical wave. This wave-like character was first predicted by physicist Louis de Broglie. It is the "de Broglie wave" hypothesis that in part sparked the beginning of modern quantum mechanics.

"We understand so much more about the world from this wave-like nature," Zwierlein says. "But it's really tough to observe these quantum, wave-like effects. However, in our new microscope, we can visualize this wave directly."

In their imaging experiments, the MIT team was able to see, for the first time in situ, bosons bunch together as they shared one quantum, correlated de Broglie wave. The team also imaged a cloud of two types of lithium atoms. Each type of atom is a fermion, that naturally repels its own kind, but that can strongly interact with other particular fermion types. As they imaged the cloud, the researchers observed that indeed, the opposite fermion types did interact, and formed fermion pairs -- a coupling that they could directly see for the first time.

"This kind of pairing is the basis of a mathematical construction people came up with to explain experiments. But when you see pictures like these, it's showing in a photograph, an object that was discovered in the mathematical world," says study co-author Richard Fletcher. "So it's a very nice reminder that physics is about physical things. It's real."

Going forward, the team will apply their imaging technique to visualize more exotic and less understood phenomena, such as "quantum Hall physics" -- situations when interacting electrons display novel correlated behaviors in the presence of a magnetic field.

"That's where theory gets really hairy -- where people start drawing pictures instead of being able to write down a full-fledged theory because they can't fully solve it," Zwierlein says. "Now we can verify whether these cartoons of quantum Hall states are actually real, because they are pretty bizarre states."

Published May 2025

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