On May, 12th 2010 took place the DS PLM FORUM in Slovenia. For Noomeo, present as a sponsor, this was the opportunity to meet CAD-CAM companies, Dassault Systèmes' solutions distributor. This meeting has been an opportunity for “live” in common demonstrations on Noomeo booth, which presented point clouds acquisition thanks to OptiNum scanner and data integration in the CATIA platform.

Noomeo booth @ PLM Forum Slovenia

From May 26th to 27th, 2010, was held DS PLM FORUM in Czech Republic. Noomeo, as a sponsor, got the chance to meet Technodat, a Dassault Systèmes VAR. From this collaboration was born for Noomeo the opportunity to become known in this region of EMEA, as Technodat would like to integrate Noomeo supply in its next communications.

Noomeo booth @ PLM Forum Czech-Republic

Noomeo attended to the DS PLM FORUM in Belgium on June, 2nd 2010. The innovative company participated in partnership with Keonys, a Noomeo solutions distributor, and first Dassault Systèmes solutions distributor and integrator in Belgium. This association has been a success thanks to common “live” demonstrations where visitors were introduced to a complete process: the combination between 3D OptiNum scanner point clouds acquisition and the integration of these data for use in CATIA.

On June, 9th 2010, took place 2 events at DS Campus in Paris: “Les Rencontres” (the French event for Customers) through a conference on the V6 and last Dassault Systèmes news and also “La Tribu” presenting a panorama of Dassault Systèmes 3D and virtual technologies for the children of its customers.
Noomeo team had the pleasure to be on “La Tribu” way with its OptiNum 3D scanner. This was an opportunity to share an unique 3D experience with children: scanning their faces with OptiNum, followed, in partnership with IMMERSION, by exploitation and manipulation of 3D face in their Holocubtile.
In parallel to this animation, M.Vincent LEMONDE, Noomeo CEO, in partnership with Dassault Systèmes represented by M. Sébastien ROSEL, head of Design Studio designers, have participated to a conference session on “Co-Design Engineering”.

Did you have the opportunity to meet us at one of these events? Do you want to know more about the potential of 3D scanners for your business? Then don't hestitate to leave comments here, we'd love to talk about it with you!

The Noomeo Team

Dassault Systèmes sets up PLM Forums every year. Those forums allow our partners, VARs and Customers to connect and interact.

During plenary sessions, attendees will discover new DS strategic orientations, product releases, evolutions and more. Other sessions will be animated by partners introducing product description, customer testimony, and so on.

Ready, Steady, go!

From May 2010 to the end of the year, there will be PLM Forums in EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa), Israel Forum took place in February of this year. In the coming two months no less than seven PLM Forums are scheduled, from Nordics to Italy through Germany, France and Eastern EMEA.

Nordics and Eastern EMEA on the starting blocks

The closest PLM Forum will take place in Sweden. Actually, Anthony, the PLM MarketPlace Project Leader will be there to present the program, how it works and the benefits that everybody can get from it.

Dassault Systemes' Slovenia and Czech Republic will launch the Eastern EMEA PLM Forum in the second half of May (May, 12 in Slovenia and May, 26-27 in Czech Republic). Our reseller partners Dytron, Technodat, Idiada and T-Systems will be part of the Czech PLM Forum.

Noomeo, our hardware partner providing 3D scanners and Objet, providing 3D printers, will be sponsor of all Eastern EMEA PLM Forums (Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland).

Both 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies offer low impact 3D to manufacturing technologies compared to traditional technics. If you want to understand and discuss the benefits of sustainable innovation with our partners, we will be pleased to welcome you at our PLM Forums.

Keep in touch

A story by Creaform

That’s the (very philosophical) question that was casually thrown on Creaform's team meeting table back about a year ago, as we were trying to find a way to stretch our legs with a project that would pose a technical challenge to our team and soothe our fast-developing Olympic fever, all in one stroke.
We had just read an article from the CBC News Website presenting the winner of the contest to design the 2010 Olympic Winter Games logo. A bit of Internet research led us to a few pictures of the Inukshuk the article mentioned as the inspiration for the logo. Located on the beach at English Bay, close to Stanley Park, the statue has been standing there since 1986. It was first part of the North-West Territories pavilion during the Expo, and later donated to the city of Vancouver. That’s the historical end of it.

As we looked at the pictures, we suddenly realized it’s a pretty big statue. This would require some logistics planning. We decided Jérôme Baillargeon and Mathieu Magnan, 2 experienced Application Specialists, would pay the statue its scanning visit, and Louis-Philippe Gendron, our freshly-hired 3D Animation Artist, would start working on the storyboard and the 3D environment. For the logistics, we called in Julie Martineau, Marketing Writer.

Scanning the stone landmark

Everybody was immediately enthusiastic. Julie proceeded to unwind the kilometres of red tape to get the various permits and licenses for the 3D scanning in the city of Vancouver. Since 3D scanning has not yet made it into the collective public consciousness (this was before the movie Avatar was released after all!), the city officials were a bit confused at first, and did not quite know what to make of the curious request from the Québec City-area company. Finally, they decided to treat the operation as a movie shooting.

Julie located an electrician (required by the city) who supplied the hook-up to the city power grid. She also got a boom truck; it may not seem obvious at first, but the scanner has to be about 30 cm away from the surface to function properly, and the statue is 6 meters tall. Since neither Jérôme nor Mathieu can reach that high even on tip-toes (!), scanning the upper parts would require extra lift!

So on a chilly December morning, passers-by on English Bay were treated to a most unusual sight: men were first seen dotting the Inukshuk with small, round reflective stickers, and then they started pointing Wall-e shaped instruments at the Inukshuk. The team also set up a laser tracker to discreetly take in the area immediately surrounding the Inukshuk. According to the weather forecast, a storm was expected to roll in that very evening from the roaring Pacific. Jérôme and Mathieu worked fast and were able to complete their scan and clean up the area in less than 12 hours! That was fast!

Giving life to stone

Data in hand (well, in computer, actually), Jérôme and Mathieu slept like logs and got back the following day. We had our raw material.
Next, Louis-Philippe was put to work. While Jérôme worked on post-processing the 3D scan model, the tracker data was put to good use in creating the 3D environment for the short film.

A storyboard was set up, and a scenario written. Scanned models were integrated. Sounds were recorded; Julie wrote and recorded a short narrative in English and in French. Jérôme integrated the soundtrack for the film.

Eventually, creating the environment, laying out the movements, animating the Inukshuk, and putting it all together took over 200 hours by Louis-Philippe and Jérôme, with some help from Daniel Brown, another Applications Specialist. Without question, the most exhilarating part of the work was seeing the 3D environment take shape and spring to life on the computer screen. Louis-Philippe, Jérôme and Daniel did spectacular work, of which we are all very proud!

Why did we do it? It was certainly fun to stretch our legs and be creative. In our field of work, reverse engineering and inspection are the most common applications for our Handyscan 3D technology. We have been moving into the multimedia industry, and going the extra mile just might help show exactly how our scanners can be used by animation specialists.

Not to mention the most important reason for scanning an object.

Because it’s there.

Maxime Davignon, Scanning & Inspection Director
Manager for the Inukshuk Project

Ever wondered how your own 3D avatar would look like for real? With James Cameron's movie "Avatar", 3D is becoming very popular and numerous Hollywood productions are going 3D these days. But these are movies, and all of us can only dream about having a 3D avatar and watching him as a separate entity.

Now we have made a really surprising experience at one of our local Dassault-Systemes 2010 Kick-Offs. In order to get a closer look to what's 3D, two of our Partners came with their hardware . They took a 3D picture of all of those not afraid to do so (no, no, there is no risk with 3D pictures!!) and then printed them in 3D.
How does it work?

Getting a 3D picture of your face

Noomeo's 3D scanner named Optinum goes around you in order to scan your face. You can see it in real time on a laptop. Numisoft is the software that reconstruct your 3D face in the computer so that there is no "hole" in your 3D model.

In this picture you can see Pierric Le Quement from Noomeo scanning our boss Bernard Charles, CEO of Dassault-Systemes.

Printing your face in 3D

The model information is sent to Objet's software in order to put together several 3D faces before sending them to Objet's 3D printer. So OK we have there several faces, but this is not mass production! Wink: Michael from Objet has highlighted my face in blue

Now Objet's 3D printer from the Connex Family is starting to build our faces in 3D, layer by layer (see the blue light on the left picture). When finished printing, we get nice 3D faces on a Business Card size (see right picture)

Here we are, everybody's got its 3D badge?
Your host proudly presenting its 3D trophy as a badge, with Michael Anton from Objet on the back. You can also see the Connex 3D printer on the left, not so big for such a machine, isn't it?

Well, the show is over now. I'm pretty sure that this kind of process will become straightforward in the future and that everybody will be able to have a physical 3D snapshot of its face soon.
I can tell you that it's really a strange feeling to watch ourself "from outside" in our hands! Only rich and famous people get their Portrait bust today, but it will not take long to share 3D faces on Facebook with your friends! 3D will be a reality for all very soon.

What was funny afterward was that male were happy just because they could watch themselves in 3D, while (some of) our female colleagues were eventually disappointed when seeing themselves without nice lightening on cosmetics... Well, we still have some work to do before our avatars are close to reality. Hopefully we can dream with 3D movie avatars in the meanwhile!

What's your view on the 3D scan & 3D print benefits? do you know any integrated business in this domain? Would you consider this can reach mass-market for consumers? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

PS: Great thanks to Pierric from Noomeo and to Michael from Objet, they could make this happen.

Jacques

A few days ago, from December 2 to December 5 2009, designers and engineers met in Frankfurt, Germany for the Euromold 2009 World Fair for Moldmaking and Tooling, Design and Application development.

Based on its name, this event was first dedicated to the European market but there are more and more attendees and exhibitors coming from several parts of the world. The number of exhibitors has increased by 10% (in comparison to 2008), with a significant part of people coming from China. This year, there were 1354 exhibitors from 37 countries attending the event.

Scanning Euromold

The PLM MarketPlace team wasn't there but we were well represented with some of our partners attending this major event: Geometric, Cenit and our new provider: Noomeo. 
Since it was the first time Noomeo attended this event, they kindly offer you a little feedback of the event along with their personal feeling.

“For the very first time, Noomeo attended on its own to an international show, Euromold in Frankfurt, for presenting its “scan for dummies” that can scan everything in every place without any skills. Nevertheless, we were in the middle of high level industries involved in the mold making and manufacturing processes. We welcome on our booth “000’s” and “000’s” of visitors who were really impressed by the ease of use of the system and the way it is responding to industrial processes while being so simple to handle. During this event, we had the great pleasure to demonstrate the accuracy of the OptiNum solution on a wide range of “objects”, such as a plastic bumper of a car, a portion of a injection mold, a plush of Hamtaro, a Volkswagen Combi toy, a bronze casted statue and a charming face of a booth hostess. All these lifelike experiences allowed us to capture and use in 3D these people and object as simply as taking a picture of them. Because OptiNum’s technology is unique, our capabilities are very huge and we are able to answer to very industrial and serious processes and needs. The next event we will attend will be Imagina on February 3rd to 5th, in Monaco where we will be just in front of your preferred CAD system vendor and our best partner, Dassault Systèmes.”

According to the picture above, it seems that their 3D handheld scanners attracted a lot of people!

Did you attend Euromold 2009? What are your impressions?

Alexandre and the Noomeo team.

When talking with moto bikers, some of them tell they love their vehicle more than their wives! And at the end of the discussion, you imagine how desperate these women can be… (sounds a little bit cliché, doesn’t it? Bikers always take good care of their bike, making its maintenance always on time, polishing it and removing every single dead mosquito on the lights. But above all, they want their motorbike to be unique. And here comes the difficulty for parts manufacturers!

Zeel Design is one of them. The firm works on engineering, consulting and manufacturing of specialized parts and vehicles. They received a request from a customer wanting to enlarge the rear wheel of his Harley-Davidson. The challenge was to redesign some existing key-parts of the bike as accurately as possible but also as fast as possible.

The solution came thanks to Creaform. Creaform has developed the Handyscan 3D line of products. These revolutionizing self-positioning handheld 3D laser scanners provide very high accuracy files that can be exported to most CAD platforms and inspection and animation software. Due to its true portability, versatility and accuracy, the Handyscan 3D line of products makes 3D scanning more simple than ever.

Discover now how, by using the EXAscan, Zeel Design managed to reduce by 70-90% the time spent previously on CAD drawings and reverse engineering process. Results, both in terms of time saving and accuracy are astonishing!

In the end, whether you like it bigger or smaller, Creaform’s scanners can help you to make it in less time!

You surely know the famous US TV-show CSI:Miami (I personnaly prefer the guys from Vegas) with Caines, Erik, Calleigh and all the team...

Our Canadian friends from Creaform (a CAA V5 Partner part of the PLM MarketPlace program by the way) found a new use to their EXAscan which was used in the show by forensics to process footprints!

Visit Creaform website to watch the scene!