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Stop paying the 'assembly tax': Why your next design should be one part not 10

"As metal additive manufacturing (AM) moves from the prototyping lab to mainline production, the most significant ROI isn't found in making parts faster, it's found in making fewer of them." So says Erica Manzella of Go Engineer. Learn about the hidden costs of traditional assembly, the DfAM toolset native to SOLIDWORKS, and the advanced 3DEXPERIENCE optimization tools and industrial metal AM hardware that are making monolithic design a physical reality.
Read the GoEngineer blog.

Why a soccer kick bends the ball path: SOLIDWORKS simulation

With SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation, you can virtually test a ball's flight path and see the science behind its amazing trajectory. Visualize anything you want to test, including the physics that make a ball curve and dip, to optimize performance and reduce physical testing. See the SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation study setup and learn about the Magnus effect where a spinning object moving through a fluid curves away from its straight path. [Credit: Screenshot courtesy of SOLIDWORKS]
View the video.

New CAM software cuts robotic machining deployment

At Automate (Booth #4476), RoboDK will showcase RoboDK CAM, which generates robotic machining programs directly from CAD files. Designed for easy deployment, it cuts setup time by up to 40%. Live demonstrations will show users how to create collision-free robot motion straight from CAD data, eliminating manual line-by-line coding.
Learn more about RoboDK CAM.

AI Tools You Can Use: What is OpenClaw? How do I get it and use it?

OpenClaw is trending big time right now, but what is it? The YouTubers over at Create a Pro Website run through the basics of what you need to know and how to implement it. Basically, OpenClaw is a next-gen 24/7 AI assistant that lives on your computer and can perform actions for you. You talk to it through a chat app. You can set it up to do real work such as alert you to important emails, answer emails for you, manage your calendar and travel, and so much more. There is a great intro video here and also a longer, very thorough step-by-step video to setting up OpenClaw.
View the OpenClaw intro video.
View the OpenClaw setup video.

What's new in hyperMILL 2026?

OPEN MIND Technologies has announced a wide range of new and enhanced capabilities in its hyperMILL 2026 CAD/CAM Software Suite that save time and increase accuracy. For precise and efficient 2.5D, 3D, precision 5-axis, and mill/turn machining, hyperMILL offers users exceptionally productive programming and powerful machining strategies. Check out all the new features.
Learn more.

SOLIDWORKS: Mastering sheet metal -- advanced tips and tricks

GoEngineer's Brady Daniels, Senior Applications Engineer, gives a master class in next-level sheet metal design. This on-demand webinar covers practical tips and techniques aimed at expanding your understanding and improving real-world workflows. Topics include bend calculations, comparing design approaches, how flat patterns work, and embracing multi-body design. Skip through or take in the whole presentation when you have time. [Credit: Screenshot courtesy of GoEngineer]
View the GoEngineer video.

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 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.

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.

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.

SOLIDWORKS 2026 assembly updates: GoEngineer

In this GoEngineer video, you can learn how SOLIDWORKS 2026 is making assembly workflows smarter, faster, and more efficient. Explore the latest enhancements to assemblies, including: streamlined display and configuration tables, AI-assisted fastener mating, improved performance for lightweight components, and more.
View the GoEngineer video.

Xometry's CAD Add-Ins: Get instant pricing, lead times in your workspace

Xometry's add-ins for SOLID-WORKS, Fusion, and Onshape allow engineers and designers to purchase custom manufactured parts within their preferred CAD workspace. These no-cost add-ins analyze the geometry of CAD designs and allow users to select their preferred material, process, and part quantity to get real-time pricing and lead times. This seamless integration of custom manufacturing quotes allows you to move efficiently through your product development process.
Get the Xometry add-in for your favorite CAD program today.

Mastercam 2026 is here!

Mastercam 2026, the powerhouse for precision machining, is packed with exciting new features designed to boost productivity and streamline workflows. Highlights include: enhanced solid hole functionality, classic mill toolpath support in Mill-Turn, new levels and planes managers, PrimeTurning enhancements, the all-new AI-powered Mastercam Copilot programming assistant, and a whole lot more.
Learn about all the new features.

Automatically generate technical drawings in SOLIDWORKS 2025

Did you know you can generate 2D technical drawings directly from a part or an assembly environment automatically with SOLIDWORKS 2025 release FD01? What a great feature for creating tech manuals, detailed production drawings, and more. Learn from the experts at TriMech Group how this tool "eliminates repetitive setup tasks and helps you focus on real engineering and design."
View the video.
Like this tip? Learn how to create an exploded view too.

Software improves 3D GPS accuracy to centimeters; altitude measuring gets huge boost

By Jessica Orwig, Ohio State University

Researchers who are working to fix global positioning system (GPS) errors have devised software to take a more accurate measurement of altitude – particularly in mountainous areas.

The software is still under development, but in initial tests it enabled centimeter-scale GPS positioning – including altitude – as often as 97% of the time.

Researchers hope the software will help to improve the vertical accuracy of measurements in potentially hazardous regions at high altitudes, such as areas of soft, loose land that may be prone to landslides. They also claim that their software could be used to measure how quickly glaciers at high altitudes are melting.

The GPS is most commonly known for its ability to provide on-the-spot locations for drivers, but this application is just one of many possible uses, explained Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science at Ohio State University. As the level of GPS precision increases, so do potential applications for scientific research.

While drivers are generally concerned with tracking their own location in two dimensions on the Earth's surface, the third dimension of altitude has always been available through GPS – just with lower accuracy than that of the horizontal coordinates.

Recently, Grejner-Brzezinska and her colleagues from the University of Warmia and Mazury in Poland have developed software that will allow GPS to relay locations to within a few centimeters' accuracy, including altitude. While this high level of precision is not necessary for driving directions, it is necessary for recognizing small shifts in topsoil that may lead to dangerously destructive landslides.

She explained that a lot is going on behind the scenes during a typical use of GPS.

GPS satellites transmit information in the form of radio waves to the GPS receiver held by the user. At the same time, the signals must also travel to at least one other ground-based receiver to obtain a location reference, which allows the user's receiver in turn to accurately calculate its own position in 3D. Before the satellite signals reach the receivers, they must travel through Earth's atmosphere, which results in time delays that affect accuracy.

When the user's receiver and the reference receiver reside at drastically different altitudes, however, each location experiences different amounts of time delay, which complicates matters even further. So, in mountainous regions where height differences can vary greatly over a short distance, acquiring the altitude of locations to within a few centimeters is difficult.

"Time is the heart that drives GPS, so it is important that we have a proficient method that accounts for delays from Earth's atmospheric layers," said Grejner-Brzezinska. "It would be ideal for all GPS signals to travel in a straight line directly to their destination, but due to electron interaction and refraction in the lower atmosphere, the signal's path is far from straight," she continued.

Electron interaction and tropospheric refraction effectively re-route the GPS signal, which means that the signal travels an extra distance and requires extra time, said Grejner-Brzezinska.

She and her colleagues looked specifically at troposphere delays – those caused by the lowest level of the atmosphere. Their study can be found in a recent issue of the journal Measurement Science and Technology.

In the past, scientists have tried to account for troposphere delays by using basic models of Earth's atmosphere, said Grejner-Brzezinska. But these models may not fully account for changes in the weather or temperature, which can have a significant effect on the amount of interference the GPS signals experience on their way down to earth.

Not only weather and temperature, but also the height difference between two stations can greatly affect the accuracy of a GPS-based height determination.

Using ground station receivers located in the Carpathian Mountains in Poland – a region known for its steep slopes – the researchers collected GPS information over a 13-hour period.

They looked at two pairs of receivers with different height changes. The first pair was located 72 km apart and had a height difference of 32 m. The second pair was 66 km apart with a total height difference of 380 m.

"We figured that the easiest scenario would be provided by the receivers with 32-meter height difference, and the most challenging one with a height difference of 380 meters," said Grejner-Brzezinska.

Using processing software developed originally in Grejner-Brzezinska's lab at Ohio State, and further expanded by her research collaborators at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Poland, the researchers applied three different methods to measure GPS accuracy for the receivers.

The results showed that, out of the three methods of handling tropospheric delay in GPS measurements that were tested, there was one that provided an accurate location, including the height of the receivers, 97% of the time.

"Of the three methods we tested, the third and most accurate was also the most complicated," said Grejner-Brzezinska. "This method was developed by our team, and required knowledge of three or four reference stations in order to perform the calculations properly."

The other two methods did not require the use of multiple reference points – just a single one – but their levels of accuracy did not match the third method's positioning capabilities.

Further testing will follow. But this early study shows that GPS accuracy for altitude estimation can be improved, and may lead to the precision estimates that researchers need to analyze, for example, the stability of mountaintops and glaciers with 10-min temporal resolution.

This research was funded by the European Space Agency Plan for European Cooperating States project and a grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Grejner-Brzezinska's collaborators at the University of Warmia and Mazury include Pawel Wielgosz, Slawomir Cellmer, and Zofia Rzepecka.

Published August 2011

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