The first commercially available synthetic material, Celluloid (cellulose nitrate), was invented in 1866 by John Wesley Hyatt as a replacement for ivory for use in billiard balls. Since that time, scientists have continued to develop new plastics to provide consistent material alternatives for durable goods. […]
Glassblowing is a glass forming technique which was invented by the Phoenicians at approximately 50 B.C. somewhere along the Syro-Palestinian coast. The earliest evidence of glassblowing comes from a collection of waste from a glass workshop, including fragments of glass tubes, glass rods and tiny blown bottles, which was dumped in a mikvah, a ritual [...]
In the USA, automotive design reached a turning point in 1924 when the American national automobile market began reaching saturation. […]
The process of using air to blow hot material was first used by the Syrians. The method is attributed to Syrian glass workers in the first century BC, who realized that a glass bulb on the end of a blow pipe could be shaped into many useful hollow forms, with handles and feet and decorated [...]
PTC was founded in 1985, by Samuel Peisakhovich Geisberg, who previously worked at Prime Computer, Computervision (CV) and Applicon. Pro/ENGINEER (a.k.a. Pro/E), the company's first product, shipped in 1988. John Deere became PTC's first customer. Once an initial version of Pro/ENGINEER was developed, the company received venture capital funding from Charles River Associates and Steve [...]
Using aluminum tooling for injection molding is not an entirely new concept. Initially, prototype molds were most commonly made out of aluminum, although the automotive industry has used it for years and it has slowly been gaining popularity with companies outside the automotive realm. […]
The main methods for creating designs are solid modeling and surface modeling. Surface modeling was the earliest form of CAD. […]
AutoLISP was derived from a very early version of XLISP, which was created by David Betz. The language was introduced in AutoCAD Version 2.18 in January 1986, […]
Before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, hand tools were used to cut and shape materials for the production of goods such as cooking utensils, wagons, ships, furniture, and other products. After the advent of the steam engine, material goods were produced by power-driven machines that could only be manufactured by machine tools. Machine [...]
Conventional EDM equipment first appeared in the early 1950s, and performed simple machining utilizing the phenomenon of electrical spark but utilizes five heads mounted above discharge. […]