The first of his family to become an engineer, Sarmiento forged his own path into the profession. Driven by a passion for planes and a ceaseless curiosity, in 2022 he graduated from UC Irvine with a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering. He worked as a chemical engineer at Axiom Materials after graduating and moved on to Swift Engineering in April 2025.

Now, with a few years of experience on his back, Sarmiento wants to help other young engineers find their footing.

Engineering.com spoke with Sarmiento to learn about his engineering journey, his advice for engineers starting their careers, and his thoughts on getting more people involved in engineering.

The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Engineering.com: What first drew you to engineering?

Fernando Sarmiento: I grew up really close to LAX, so as a kid I would always watch the airplanes fly over. I was always super fascinated by them. Like, how are these things even flying right now?

As I grew older I learned that engineers play a really big part in making these aircraft. So I saw that that was a career path that could potentially lead to working on one of these things. That was always a dream of mine, being able to work on something that was able to fly in the sky.

So I’ve been working away at that dream of mine since I was a kid. I was also super curious and always asking questions. And built a lot of Legos too.

Were there any influential engineers who helped shape your decision to become an engineer?

Growing up, in my family there were basically no engineers. I’m a first generation Latino, so not much of my family went to college here in the States, and the ones that did are not engineers. So I didn’t really have anyone from my family that was an engineer to look up to. I kind of had to do my own research and figure it out on my own, or in school they would mention that career path from time to time. So I wouldn’t say I had anyone who helped shape my decision, in terms of an engineer.

I would just say I had a really, really solid family backing me to whatever decision I wanted to make. I have my mom and dad to thank for who I am today and the position I’m in today. When I mentioned to them that I wanted to be an engineer, they gave me their full support. And I’m just happy to say that they’re proud of their son, proud he was able to become an engineer.

Where are your parents from?

My dad is from El Salvador and my mom is from Guatemala. Both immigrants. And they met over here and they raised me here in LA.

How did you find your way into materials science?

That was in college. I went in undeclared to college, but I knew I wanted to do some type of engineering. I really liked the mix of chemistry and physics that materials science gave at the time. I felt like mechanical engineering was more physics heavy, and then chemical was just full on chemistry. So I really liked having a mix of a little bit of everything. I love materials science.

Could you describe your involvement in an engineering project that went well?

At my previous company we were trying to launch a new material, and we had a machine that no one had used. So we were trying to figure it out on the fly. I was involved by running small lab-scale samples in the lab, and from there, getting data to try at a full production scale to see what could potentially work, what wouldn’t work, what we shouldn’t bother using our time on.

So I was collaborating with a few of the other engineers and technicians to help standardize a new product line of material. And I believe I was able to improve the team by training technicians on how to run the machine. I definitely gained a lot of experience there. I wrote basically all the procedures, all the paperwork for how to properly operate that equipment. I also learned a lot about working with technicians. It was kind of just learning through trial and error. I definitely made a lot of mistakes, but an important thing is it’s okay to make mistakes. Just try to not repeat them, and you can learn from them.

I think I was able to help the team by taking my knowledge from an engineering standpoint and being able to translate it down to the technician standpoint, putting all the paperwork in line. And I believe even to this day they’re still using that to train new hires to work on that machine.

At the end of the day, it was a pretty successful project. We were able to ship good material to our customers and got good feedback. It’s probably still a work in progress, but that’s just the nature of R&D.

What do you do in your current role at Swift Engineering?

I’m a manufacturing engineer now. Before, I was making the materials to make the parts, and now I’m actually making parts that could potentially go onto aircraft. And that’s the path I was looking to take in my career. So when I saw the opportunity I jumped at it.

I’m working a lot with the production floor on day-to-day tasks of making composite parts and troubleshooting. There’s always issues with any part that you’re going to make. So I’m working with them, trying to iron out any issues, again working on documentation, on procedures to make their life easier, giving them the right steps to follow for making good parts. That’s my role now.

What was the biggest engineering challenge you’ve faced so far, and how did you solve it?

Around December last year I needed to do some mechanical testing at my previous job. It was pretty critical testing, and I had very, very short notice and a short time frame to complete it. And on top of that, this was going to be my first time being the lead on running these tests, because the previous engineer had left. And whenever you do something for the first time, it adds a little bit of stress thinking that you could potentially mess something up. It was also the end of the year, so we wanted to push out as many purchase orders as possible to get the end-of-year financials to look good. So my back was really against the wall.

The big challenge I was facing for that mechanical testing is that we needed to complete it at elevated temperature. And the problem was that our test setup wasn’t great with insulating heat. You would heat up your test specimen and then it wouldn’t stay in the stable range where you could test it, or it would just not reach the test temperature at all. So that was a challenge. I definitely leaned on my team and asked a bunch of questions of everyone to try to figure out the solution.

I realized I needed to minimize the distance between my test specimen and the furnace. There’s two heating coils on the furnace, so I just needed to get those as close as possible without affecting any of the mechanical tests, without getting anything in the way of the extensometers or anything. So to do that, I had to custom make some insulation blocks. But at the end of the day, luckily, it ended up working. The ramp rate for the heat ended up going up quite significantly, and it was able to stay stable at that temperature.

I’m glad I was able to lean on my coworkers and fellow engineers to find that solution. I’m also happy that people in the future won’t run into the same issue. If you’re not documenting your changes, the people after you aren’t really going to benefit from it. That was a pretty stressful time, but it really forced me to learn to improvise, and I felt like I came out a better engineer at the end of it. So even though it was stressful, I’m glad I had that challenge.

In your opinion, what more can be done to increase the participation of young people in underrepresented communities in engineering today?

I believe exposure is a really, really big thing. I think if we’re able to expose our younger generation to the career path of being an engineer from a younger age, they’ll be inspired to actually pursue it. I think showing them some of the fascinating things that we work on can be really inspiring for a lot of students.

There’s a program called MESA—Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement. They work with underrepresented communities as outreach for engineering in different middle schools and high schools. So I think by supporting programs like that, if we’re able to get them at a younger age and show what you can do by becoming an engineer, I feel like a lot of people would be inspired and a lot of parents would be proud to call their child an engineer.

Were you involved with MESA?

Yeah, I was in that program in high school, and it was really cool. They did a bunch of different contests, like who could build the strongest bridges out of straws, or an egg drop test where you had to make an enclosure for the egg. It was different projects exposing you to thinking outside the box, which engineers have to do every day. I think the younger you can expose people to that, the better.

What unique perspective do you think diverse teams bring to engineering or design projects?

In a diverse team people come from different backgrounds, and everyone will have a different way of dealing with and solving problems. I think that’s the really important thing. Having a diverse team can lead to more thinking outside the box. And you can learn about how people from different cultures and backgrounds approach problem solving, and you might learn something that you didn’t know before, learn about an approach that you had never taken before.

So I think that really leads to more creativity in a group setting. And I think a lot of projects could really benefit from having a diverse team, having several inputs from different backgrounds, to try to achieve the same goal.

What advice to you have for junior engineers looking to develop confidence in the workplace?

As a young engineer, starting your career can be a little bit intimidating at times. You see everyone in the office running around, we all have meetings, there’s deadlines, everyone’s working on multiple projects. So it could seem that everyone’s super busy and doesn’t have time, but I think a really important thing to try to minimize making mistakes is asking questions.

It’s okay to ask questions. No one’s going to look at you funny for asking questions. It’s expected. Even if everyone seems super busy, we spend a lot of time writing procedures for how to do things. So if your superior is busy at the time, they could at least point you in the direction of some documentation, some specs or some procedures to review while they make some time to show you the ropes. Ask a bunch of questions.

Also, it’s okay to make mistakes. I’ve definitely made a lot of mistakes in my career so far. I’m probably going to make some more. The big thing is to not repeat them, and learn from them. While I’m working on a project, I try to document any mistakes that I’ve made so I can remember: Hey, I tried this. I’m not going to try this again. Or: This is the solution to what I tried from before.

I know the full-time world can be intimidating for new grads, but please just ask questions. I really enjoy showing interns and entry level engineers the ropes. I don’t have a problem with it at all. If I’m busy at the time, I’ll just try to point them in a direction that they can review some paperwork in the meantime. And after that we can get on to the hands-on stuff.

If you had unlimited time to apply your engineering background, what global challenges would you be interested in tackling?

My background is mostly in composites, so I love working on composites and making parts. A really big thing around those is sustainability. The materials that they’re made out of are not very sustainable, and there’s a lot of waste generated when you make composites. Anyone that works in composites will know that.

There are a lot of companies that are starting to make environmentally friendly resins, bio-based resins, and use natural fibers as a reinforcement for composites. Applying my background in composites and working on stuff like that would be a dream of mine. I would love to put my skills to use there.

Any final thoughts you’d like to share about your experience as an engineer?

My key takeaway for younger people, or Latinos like myself looking to get into this: Don’t be afraid.

I was definitely intimidated at first getting into this industry. At moments you kind of feel out of place, you don’t see too many people that look like you, but that’s okay. Just ask questions. No one’s going to look at you any type of way. You’re trying to improve yourself, and we all recognize that. At the end of the day, it’ll make you smarter, it’ll make you a better engineer.

The post Ask questions, make mistakes: Succeeding as a young engineer appeared first on Engineering.com.

Today’s top story: EDA developer Cadence has announced it will acquire Hexagon’s design and engineering business, including the assets of MSC Software, for approximately €2.7 billion (US$3.17 billion) in a mixture of cash and stock.

With this acquisition, Cadence can expand its structural simulation portfolio, which began last year with the $1.24 billion acquisition of developer Beta CAE. The company’s ultimate goal is to offer a unified multiphysics simulation platform encompassing electromagnetics, electrothermal, CFD and structural analysis.

“By adding Hexagon’s D&E [design and engineering] world-class simulation capabilities, we will expand our vision of Intelligent System Design to encompass the full spectrum of physical behavior—from electromagnetics and fluids to structures and motion. This will be a pivotal step in enabling our customers to design the complex, converged systems of tomorrow,” said Cadence CEO Anirudh Devgan in the company’s press release.

For Cadence, the juiciest morsels of this deal are probably those from the erstwhile MSC Software, which Hexagon acquired in 2017 for $834 million. Cadence’s announcement specifically calls out Nastran, MSC’s well-known FEA solver, and Adams, its multibody dynamics simulation software.

What else is Cadence getting in the deal? According to Hexagon’s press release: “The D&E perimeter includes MSC (acquired in 2017) and subsequent acquisitions including AMendate (2019), Romax (2020), CADLM (2020) and CAEfatigue (2020).”

Cadence expects to finalize the acquisition in the first quarter of 2026, with the usual regulatory caveats.

New version of Artec Studio adds automation to 3D scan processing

3D scanning company Artec 3D has released the latest version of its scanning software, Artec Studio 20.

One highlight of the new release is the ability to create custom automation pipelines, called Workflows, that Artec says will make data processing up to 70% faster.

“Ideal for repeat tasks, all-new Workflows eliminate human error, improve process repeatability, and deliver high-quality results users can rely on. For even greater automation, those with an annual subscription can use scripting to set up workflows that import, process, and export data to third-party software. This integration allows for batch processing, saves users from sitting at their PCs, and unlocks further opportunities for accelerating the processing of similar datasets via fully autonomous file transfer,” according to Artec 3D’s announcement.

Artec Studio 20 also adds new capabilities to several of the company’s 3D scanners, such as the Artec Spider II, Artec Micro II, Artec Point, and Artec Leo. I reviewed the Leo back when it launched in 2021, using Artec Studio 15 to process my scans. It was a more laborious process than I expected, so I imagine that the new automation capabilities will be most welcome for anyone doing it regularly.

CloudNC releases CAM Assist 2.0

CloudNC has released CAM Assist 2.0, an update to its web-based CAM automation platform.

Like Toolpath and Siemens NX CAM Copilot (not its real name), CAM Assist uses AI to automatically create machining toolpaths. It supports 3-axis and 3+2 operations and integrates with Autodesk Fusion, Siemens NX, and Mastercam.

The 2.0 update “combines the speed of AI-powered toolpath generation with new step‑by‑step oversight, giving programmers even greater control,” according to CloudNC.

This video from CloudNC shows the platform in action:

Alongside the new release, CloudNC also announced that CAM Assist is being used by over 1,000 machine shops globally. If you’re one of them, let me know your thoughts on the platform at malba@wtwhmedia.com.

Register for Digital Transformation Week 2025

Starting September 22, 2025, Engineering.com will host a week of webinars all about Digital Transformation. We gave it the most creative name we could think of: Digital Transformation Week 2025.

“A few years ago, most companies approached digital transformation as a hardware issue. But those days are gone,” writes Engineering.com senior editor Michael Ouellette. “Now the conversation is a strategic one, centered on data management and creating value from the data all the latest technology generates. The onrush of AI-based technologies only clouds the matter further.”

Join Michael and his special industry guests for the series of webinars by registering here.

One last link

How do you make a world without landmines? Engineering, of course. Design World Editor-in-Chief Rachael Pasini explores a fascinating solution in Eagle A7 prevents landmine casualties with drone-mounted AI.

Engineering Paper will be blank next week. See you in two Tuesdays.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post Cadence to buy Hexagon’s design and engineering business for $3.17 billion appeared first on Engineering.com.

… Is what I’d normally say, but software news has been slow this Labor Day pre-kend, weekend, and week-in. Which gives me a perfect opportunity to cover something I’ve been meaning to write about for months, and you’ve been meaning to read about for just as long (though you didn’t know it).

AI is coming to Siemens NX X Manufacturing (again)

Back in July I was in Detroit for Realize Live 2025, Siemens’ annual user conference. I covered the highlights at the time, but I didn’t get around to an interview that I had with Siemens’ Michael Taesch, senior director of product management, and Sashko Kurciski, marketing director for digital manufacturing, about AI for NX CAM.

“We’re trying to see how we fuse AI into our manufacturing process,” Taesch told me.

One result of that fusion is an upcoming AI tool that generates machining strategies for NX users. It’s not available yet and it doesn’t have an official name, but for the sake of conversation Taesch and Kurciski called it the CAM Copilot within NX X Manufacturing. For the sake of this article, I’m going to call it NX CAM Copilot.

With a couple clicks, NX CAM Copilot—not its official name—will generate three possible ways to machine a given feature (and more if needed). The user can take these as a starting point to develop their program. The AI will debut with 2.5 and 3-axis machining strategies and expand from there.

“We’re not here to replace the manufacturing engineer,” Taesch said. “We want to give him multiple processes, and it’s up to him to pick the right one based on his knowledge.”

With a familiar thumbs up/down system, users will be able to rate the suggestions and, in theory, the AI will learn their preferences and improve over time.

“Manufacturing is complex,” Kurciski said. “You can machine a single feature in—I’m not exaggerating—10 different ways with 15 different tools. So you have your own company best practices, and capturing this is very important.”

In that sense, Siemens sees NX CAM Copilot—again, not its official name—as a tool for knowledge capture, one that can help bridge that engineering skills gap that technology vendors keep talking about.

“Company A will program their way. Company B will have a completely different process,” Taesch added. “You cannot have a generic solution. You need to have something that’s tailored, personalized to the customers.”

But the more direct utility of NX CAM Copilot is in its efficiency. Like anything, CAM programming takes time, even for the experts.

“Though I’ve been 10 years in NX CAM, I always make mistakes when I start the programming,” Taesch said. “Here, in a couple clicks, I get a result, and then all I have to do is just fine tune, use my knowledge to adjust a little bit.”

Taesch estimates that NX CAM Copilot can save 80% or more of the time that users would otherwise spend on CAM programming. “I can quickly program a part. Might not be perfect, but if I wanted to quickly quote it, in five minutes I can get something up and running,” he said.

NX CAM Copilot is currently in beta, but Taesch said Siemens plans to release it by the end of 2025. Taesch expects the AI tool to be an add-on to NX X Manufacturing through Siemens’ value-based licensing program, though that isn’t a final decision. (There’s an extant NX X Manufacturing copilot, which is just a chatbot, that’s currently available as a value-based add-on. Perhaps this new tool will be integrated into that.)

NX CAM Copilot, which is a placeholder name, reminds me of Toolpath, which sounds like a placeholder name but isn’t. Toolpath is a web-based platform that uses AI to generate toolpaths (and as I covered last week, it just announced Autodesk as an investor). I brought up the comparison to Taesch and Kurciski, who offered the opinion that Toolpath is more of a black box solution focused on quoting, while NX CAM Copilot provides more tailored manufacturing choices.

“We have another project that is working in parallel where we automatically ingest for quoting,” Taesch added. “It’s going to be tied into NX CAM. And the idea will be to leverage this tool to provide some simple quotes. Not there yet, but we have it in mind.”

So there you have it—an AI engineering tool from Siemens that’s a lot more interesting than Design Copilot NX. I’ll bring you more on NX CAM Copilot, or whatever it will be called, as soon as I learn it (or several months later, whichever comes first).

One last link

Ever wonder what’s inside a 1950s Heathkit vacuum tube oscilloscope? EE World’s Martin Rowe reveals all in his latest teardown—but he needs your help to put it all together.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post Siemens NX is getting an AI copilot for CAM appeared first on Engineering.com.

Toolpath, the CAM startup using AI to automate toolpath creation, has a new investor, and who it is may surprise you (but it shouldn’t).

“Our new investor is Autodesk,” Al Whatmough, Toolpath CEO, told me. “This closes out all our seed funding.”

The companies didn’t disclose the amount of the investment, but Whatmough said it was part of the strategic investment round that closed in May 2025 and brought Toolpath’s funds to nearly $20 million. Toolmaker Kennametal led that round, which also included CAM kernel developer ModuleWorks.

“There was space in the round for a software leader,” Whatmough said. That Autodesk filled that space was only natural. For one thing, Whatmough was Autodesk’s director of product management for manufacturing until 2021. For another, Toolpath had an existing integration with Autodesk Fusion, which Whatmough praised as “the dominant cloud-based CAM system.”

“Nobody else is anywhere close,” he said. “Whether we had [Autodesk’s] investment or not, Fusion would still be the platform we put our automation on.”

With Autodesk’s investment, Toolpath can take the Fusion integration even further. Autodesk pointed out the potential in a blog post from Stephen Hooper, VP of cloud-based product design and manufacturing solutions.

“[Our investment] marks the start of a strategic partnership, enabling our two companies to integrate closed-loop, fully automated workflows into Autodesk Fusion. Looking ahead, combining Toolpath’s technology with Autodesk’s Manufacturing Data Model would enable Fusion users to automatically analyze manufacturability, plan machine strategies, and send complete programs to Fusion,” Hooper wrote.

When I last spoke with him, Whatmough told me that Toolpath planned to support other CAM systems beyond Fusion. I asked him if that’s still the case.

“Our focus is Fusion, just because there’s a core alignment in the current customers,” he said. “Fusion users, by definition, tend to be on the more innovative side. It’s the most modern CAM system. They don’t have a cloud aversion.”

That said, Whatmough emphasized that there’s nothing about Toolpath, either technically or obligatorily, that makes it exclusive to Fusion.

“When we think about CAM integration, it’s like a post processor for us,” he explained. “Today we output the instructions to grab onto the Fusion steering wheel. We’ll make an amazing experience there. Once we do that, we can open up to other CAM systems or directly to the machine.”

One more thing I learned from Whatmough: Toolpath is freely available for hobbyist use through this application process. If you try it out, let me know your thoughts at malba@wtwhmedia.com.

Jon on Onshape

This summer Onshape hit the memorable milestone of 200 updates. The cloud CAD platform is updated like clockwork every three weeks, so if you do the math you’ll find that time is moving a lot faster than it ought to for what I still think of as a fresh new CAD startup.

Thoughts of mortality aside, congratulations to Onshape.

To mark the occasion, I caught up with co-founder Jon Hirschtick to reflect on Onshape’s evolution and where it might go next. You can read all about it in Looking back on 200 releases of Onshape: Q&A with Jon Hirschtick.

Quick hits

• Coreform has released the latest version of its hex meshing software, Coreform Cubit 2025.8. The update introduces a “sleeker, more modern look” and provides “more robustness, better quality elements, and improved capabilities,” according to Coreform.
• Electromagnetic simulation software developer Nullspace announced $2.5 million in seed funding that it will use to “expand the engineering team, accelerate product development, and scale go-to-market efforts as we target growing demand across aerospace, defense, quantum computing, and AI-enabled hardware markets,” according to CEO Masha Petrova.
• CoLab, the Canadian company developing an AI-powered design review tool, commissioned a survey of engineering leaders and discovered, in a stroke of fortuitous validation, that “100% of survey respondents said that AI would speed up design review times.”

One last link

Don’t sit down to read this one: Design World contributor Mark Jones with Finding inspiration in unlikely places.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post Autodesk invests in AI CAM platform Toolpath appeared first on Engineering.com.

That Onshape would make it this far was no certainty back in 2012, when co-founder Jon Hirschtick assembled a team hoping to replicate the success of his prior venture—a little-known CAD program called Solidworks—but with a radical twist: the cloud. Hirschtick envisioned no more files, installations, or versions; Onshape would run in a browser, store your data online, and always be up to date.

Hirschtick’s cloud CAD gamble paid off. In 2019 PTC bought Onshape for $470 million, and over its 200 releases (202 at time of writing) Onshape has expanded from CAD to include simulation, rendering, computer-aided manufacturing, and an AI assistant, among other features.

But what’s coming next is even more exciting, Hirschtick told Engineering.com. We sat down with Onshape’s co-founder, now PTC’s chief evangelist, for his thoughts on how Onshape has evolved over the years and where he hopes it can go next.

The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Engineering.com: What would the Jon Hirschtick of 2012 think of Onshape as it exists today? Is it what you expected it would become?

Jon Hirschtick: Not to say I saw the future exactly, but my first answer is yes, I think it is what I expected it to be. We set out to make a cloud-native professional CAD/PDM system. We set out to reach a lot of customers, from some of the largest companies to startups.

I would say that I didn’t see AI coming. We knew about machine learning and things, but we didn’t know about generative AI, and so I could not have known how powerful our advantages would be in the world of AI. It’s sort of a lucky win for us that a cloud-native platform is a big win for AI. I didn’t see that coming. I would not have imagined we’d have AI Advisor and all the things we’re planning on adding to it.

But everything else pretty much was part of the vision. And I’d say I feel lucky. A lot of times we have visions and we say, if that all happens, I’m going to feel awesome. And so I feel pretty awesome.

Thinking back over the 200 releases, are there any highlights that stand out for you as big moments in the history of Onshape?

Oh, there are plenty. There’s two dimensions of how we improve Onshape. One is what I call the depth of the product, meaning taking an area that we already have and adding more detailed functionality, adding more performance, maybe fixing some anomalies in how it works, cleaning up the user interface. I call that depth work.

And then we add breadth, where we add modules, areas of function we didn’t have before, like AI Advisor and CAM. I think it took us a number of years to have a decent breadth of product, to have drawings and sheet metal and weldments and now CAM and simulation and rendering.

I would say shipping CAM is a moment for me. Because not only did we make CAM available, cloud-native, fully embedded in Onshape, it also to me marks the last of what I’d call the significant breadth items. Now, I’m not saying we don’t have more to add. You always have more to add. But we’ve crossed a point where it’s kind of downhill sledding now on the breadth of the product. And so that’s one thing.

The other thing is AI Advisor. I think that was a watershed moment for us. Sure, everyone has demos. We have all kinds of AI prototypes and demos internally. Everyone’s doing that. But what I’m really proud of is that we shipped AI Advisor to all users. That’s a lot of people that have access to it, and it’s a value add tool, even at the pro level. You can take users that have been using Onshape for years, and they are getting help from AI Advisor.

200 releases from now, what do you hope Onshape will look like?

I think looking back 200 releases from now, I won’t be talking to you about adding breadth that we were missing relative to other products. I’ll be talking to you much more about adding breadth that takes us way beyond other systems. I think you’ll see that cloud-native and AI are the gifts that keep on giving.

The way you see real-time collaboration woven into the fabric of Onshape is a perfect and unique platform for bringing AI in. AI’s got to participate in the modeling as a real-time collaborator. In Onshape we’ll have an AI collaborator, I think, that will be in real time, present with you. This is not a guarantee, it’s not saying we’ll release it. I think we’ll see AI helping engineers as a valued companion. Think Jarvis in Iron Man. I think we’re going to see that. I hope we see that.

I also think we’re going to see more and more amounts of massive data and compute put to work for the benefit of the user through the power of a cloud-native system. And I think that our three week release cycle is going to become not just a catch up cadence of features, it’s going to become the cadence of innovation and improvement. It’s always been a mix of innovation and adding features everyone knew we needed, and I think that balance is shifting. The next 200 releases will be much more about agile innovation and things where you’ll go, wow, never heard of that.

At the end of the day, it’s not about what we ship. The real way I’ll measure 200 releases from now is: How much are we able to help people produce better products? And I think we can do a lot more. I think we’re only half done as an industry with what we can do for people and how large an impact we’re making, and I believe both of those can grow enormously in the next 200 releases.

AI Advisor came out in beta a few months ago. How has that gone and what have you learned so far?

It’s gone really great. I’m happy with what it’s done already, but I’m excited about what we can expand it to do in the future.

We tried to ship something that would be useful to pro users, and we’ve achieved that. You can see that in our forums. Just shipping AI at the scale we operate at Onshape, and doing it in a way that’s secure and performant and reliable, is a big thing to do in our world. To do that is a pretty big lift, and big thanks to our friends at AWS for all the tools they give us. Anyone can go to AWS and use the tools, but we’ve announced a strategic partnership with them, which means that we’re working extra closely with AWS on this.

I’d like it to do more. It has a modest range of capability right now. I was just looking at videos of some of the prototypes we have for expanding what AI Advisor does. We’re looking at a lot of great things.

I asked for some feedback from the team on surprising things we learned. One is it’s used in an even more conversational way than was originally imagined, which is great. We want conversation. We kind of worried people would use it more like a traditional Help tool, like, I want to build a G2 surface, where’s the documentation for that? Actually, people are having longer conversations, which we think is very promising, because the more context you give to an AI tool, the better the answer.

People tend to use non-Onshape terminology more than we expected. I guess they feel like they’re talking to a person more, and they don’t have to be as tight on their terminology. So instead of saying, how do I do a modal simulation, they might say, does Onshape do natural frequency analysis? Which is sort of the same thing, but different words. So we have to think about that.

There are a lot of requests to do work with the API and FeatureScript, which we sort of knew was coming, but it’s higher than we thought. People know about FeatureScript, but it’s a certain bar to learn to program it.

People like to say thank you to the AI. And repeat usage is higher than expected, meaning that people come back more than once. The share of one-and-done users is lower than we had forecast, which is a good thing. So these are all good, but again, it’s rev one in a journey.

What can you say about the other AI features you’re working on?

We’re very excited about AI for rendering. I don’t want to say exactly what will ship or not, but we see a number of AI use cases in rendering that are very exciting.

I’d like to think that you’ll see AI Advisor start to get more proactive with creating and editing your models and assisting you using our API, using FeatureScript. That’s not a commitment that we’re going to release it, but those would be things that excite me.

I’d like to see AI giving you very specific advice to your model. Now if you say, how do I make a better quality surface? It will give you details on that. But if you say, I want to make this surface that I’m pointing at better quality, right now our AI Advisor doesn’t do that. And we hope to do it.

The post Looking back on 200 releases of Onshape: Q&A with Jon Hirschtick appeared first on Engineering.com.

Ansys, now a part of Synopsys, has signed an agreement with Nvidia to license, sell, and support Nvidia’s Omniverse technology embedded in Ansys’s simulation software.

According to Ansys, the deal will allow it to deliver easy access to Omniverse technologies and libraries, starting with CFD and autonomous solutions.

“Visualizing fluid dynamics in physically based digital environments enables engineers to analyze complex datasets more intuitively, resulting in smarter, faster design optimization for even the most challenging engineering tasks,” reads Ansys’ announcement.

Nvidia’s Omniverse is expanding lately. Just a couple weeks ago Nvidia and PTC announced a similar integration for Creo and Windchill, and not long before that Nvidia and Tech Soft 3D teamed up to bolster OpenUSD, the 3D file framework used in Omniverse. Both PTC and Tech Soft 3D also joined the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD), which Nvidia co-founded two years ago. Ansys already joined the AOUSD in yet another collaboration with Nvidia in March 2024.

In other Omniverse news, Nvidia announced new Omniverse libraries and SDKs for robotics development and deployment. You can read more about those here.

Vectorworks 2026 coming this September

Vectorworks has announced details of its upcoming software release, Vectorworks 2026. The design and BIM platform will be available this September with new features that Vectorworks says will optimize several major workflows.

One is that Vectorworks Cloud Services will be integrated directly into the Vectorworks 2026 desktop application, allowing users to leverage cloud computing resources without leaving the program. Vectorworks 2026 also includes a new tool called the File Health Checker palette that “helps keep files in optimal condition and ensures that projects run smoothly and efficiently, especially when integrating files from external sources.” In particular, the cloud will process large Revit file imports in the background.

Another new feature of Vectorworks 2026 is the Sustainability Dashboard, a hub providing real-time insight into compliance targets including embodied carbon calculations, biodiversity net gain, and other metrics.

For more details on Vectorworks 2026, see Vectorworks.com.

Engys releases Helyx 4.4.0

Engys has released Helyx 4.4.0, the latest version of its general purpose CFD software, as well as updated versions of its add-ons Helyx-Coupled, Helyx-Adjoint, and Helyx-Marine.

Helyx 4.4.0 adds several features including a remote file browser, which allows users to browse directly from the Helyx interface via SSH; enhanced geometry tools, including the ability to import Rhino 3DM files; new meshing capabilities, including new options for isotropic, anisotropic, and cylindrical base meshes; new setup features, including new porous media thermal models; and new post-processing tools, including improved runtime visualization. The latest release also includes solver and performance enhancements, according to Engys.

Kubotek Kosmos releases MBD File Utilities 7.1

Kubotek Kosmos, developer of the direct CAD modeler KeyCreator, has released version 7.1 of its MBD File Utilities software suite.

The update extends CAD file support to Dassault Systèmes Catia V5 2025, Autodesk Fusion and Inventor 2026 formats, and Siemens NX 2412 and Parasolid 37.1. View and Convert, two of the four MBD File Utilities, also add support for reading STEP XML 3D assembly structures.

The new version also includes quality of life improvements across the MBD File Utilities suite, such as enhancements to saved views and text attributes that always face the display plane.

One last link

If you’ve ever seen, inhabited, or built a building, don’t miss Marc Ambasna-Jones’ latest article for Engineering.com: How software is redefining sustainable building engineering.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post Ansys and Nvidia strike deal for easier Omniverse access in simulation appeared first on Engineering.com.

Of course, the hardware alone doesn’t get you very far. Software with support for spatial computing is growing by the day. Some CAD programs support VR directly, allowing designers to easily switch to a virtual view of their models. Other software caters to VR design reviews with features for collaboration and markup. Game engine software, sometimes called real-time 3D software, can be used to develop custom AR or VR experiences using existing CAD models.

Though there’s an upfront cost to getting started with spatial computing—both in the price of headsets and software as well as the learning curve for users—for many engineers, the cost is well worth it. VR provides an unparalleled way to visualize and refine a design, and has thus become a part of many engineering workflows.

In this article, we’ll look more closely at the main ways engineers, architects, manufacturers and others are using spatial computing.

Visualization and collaboration

By strapping on a mixed reality (MR) headset or peering through an AR-capable phone or tablet, engineers can see their work as if it were in the real world. This isn’t a gimmick—engineers, after all, design products for the real world, and so visualizing it in place rather than on a computer monitor is an obvious advantage.

Besides the depth and perspective that spatial computing provides to visualization, another important benefit is scale. An engineer designing a small bracket could see that product in life size using a screen, but anything bigger than a computer monitor would be an exercise in imagination (even the most multi of monitor setups can’t fit a car, airplane or space station). With spatial computing, all designers have the opportunity to visualize their designs at scale.

This spatial computing benefit is most readily apparent to designers of, unsurprisingly, spaces. Architects, for instance, can use VR to virtually walk through their building designs, achieving a sense of the space that’s simply impossible through traditional computing. This walkthrough need not be limited to a static showcase, either. Inside VR, designers have the opportunity to make changes on a whim. Don’t like that material finish, that lighting, that façade? A few clicks of your VR controller and you can see it in any number of options. Want to change the time of day, the season of the year, the weather? Go for it. You’re in a virtual world; you control every aspect of it.

Regardless of what you’re designing, spatial computing gives you the ability to visualize it more realistically than ever. But you don’t have to be alone in your virtual world. Another big advantage of spatial computing is that it provides a three-dimensional meeting space. Putting the two together, VR gives engineering teams a way to conduct virtual design reviews with participants from around the globe. In these virtual meeting rooms, participants—who are often represented by virtual avatars—can walk around, talk about, and review 3D models as if they were evaluating a real prototype. Not only does this save the costs of manufacturing and travel, it allows engineering teams to iterate faster and develop better end products.

Factory planning, maintenance and optimization

There are many ways that engineers can use spatial computing for manufacturing. In the same way that an architect can walk through a virtual building, a factory planner can use VR to see a virtual layout of their facility. This realistic and immersive visualization allows them to not just see but experience problems, such as machinery collisions or insufficient spacing, that might otherwise go undetected.

Spatial computing also provides the opportunity to simulate how factory workers interact with the environment, a crucial step for optimizing ergonomics. Even if a process seems fine on a computer monitor, stepping into a VR version of it would make it readily apparent that workers would have to, say, bend down too much to grab the next component. It’s a fix that’s all the simpler for catching it in advance.

AR and VR can both improve the process of equipment maintenance as well. This might take the form of an augmented video call between a worker and an off-site maintenance technician, who could annotate a piece of equipment from afar while the worker sees the notes, in place on the equipment, through an AR-enabled tablet. The technician might have learned about the equipment from a VR manual, virtually taking it apart and putting it back together.

Another popular use case for VR is for operator training, as it provides an unparalleled platform to simulate different scenarios. This could be used to train workers on their core job and beyond. For example, a VR simulation of a factory fire or hazardous spill could get every employee viscerally comfortable with emergency procedures.

Presentations and marketing

The immersive experience of spatial computing is a natural fit for showing off your product, whether internally or externally. For the same reasons that engineers and architects enjoy VR for design visualization and collaboration, the technology is a great option for presenting product concepts to others within an organization. Sketches and renders are nice, but they don’t beat life-like representation in a real environment.

Similarly, consumers increasingly appreciate—in some categories, even expect—spatial computing models that they can try on at home, so to speak. This is particularly common for products with lots of aesthetic variation, such as furniture. It may be difficult to pick out the perfect sectional in a brightly-lit showroom, but if you were able to compare options in your own home, the choice would be much easier. All you need is an AR-capable phone—and for the manufacturer to give you an AR option on their website. Combined with configuration tools, spatial computing gives potential customers the most convincing and personalized sales pitch you could imagine.

The post How are engineers using spatial computing? appeared first on Engineering.com.

The U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) last week released its Report of Investigation (ROI) on the OceanGate Titan, the submersible that imploded in a June 2023 dive to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. The five people on board were killed instantly.

After two years of investigating, the MBI concluded that the tragedy could have been prevented.

“The U.S. Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation into the fatal incident found that OceanGate’s failure to follow established engineering protocols for safety, testing, and maintenance of their submersible, was the primary causal factor,” reads the ROI’s executive summary.

The conclusion was unsurprising. In the days and weeks after the implosion, engineers around the world quickly discovered a rash of problems with the submersible’s design. Here’s a selection of some of the videos and articles Engineering.com published at the time:

Simulation Reveals Exactly How Titan Submersible Imploded

Was the OceanGate Sub Implosion an Engineering Failure?

The Titan Tragedy—A Deep Dive Into Carbon Fiber, Used for the First Time in a Submersible

The MBI’s report confirms that the Titan suffered from blatant design problems. The ultimate failure point that led to the submersible’s implosion was “either the adhesive joint between the Titan’s forward dome and the titanium segment or the carbon fiber hull near the forward end of the Titan,” according to the report.

The report condemns OceanGate, the company that built and operated Titan, for cutting corners in design, lacking standard engineering procedures, failing to investigate clear problems, dismissing internal concerns, and intentionally skirting regulations, among other issues.

I’m sure many of you were struck by the Titan story when it unfolded in 2023. I was too. In fact, I had a distant connection to it. In 2020 I interviewed OceanGate’s then director of engineering for a series of articles about how the company was using Onshape for CAD. It should go without saying that we didn’t discuss the many engineering and organizational problems that he later reported to the MBI (you can read about them in section 4.6.10.5 of the ROI). It should also go without saying that OceanGate’s CAD system was not to blame for the tragedy, though you can understand why Onshape removed the OceanGate case study from their website (it’s archived here).

Engineers bear the burden of their professional decisions. The Titan joins a dark list of engineering failures that weigh that burden in lives: Paul-Henri Nargeolet, French deep sea explorer and Titanic expert; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood; British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding; and Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s CEO, who was piloting the Titan on its final voyage.

*****

And now, some software news:

Quick hits

• Forrester has named Siemens and Aras as the leaders of its Forrester Wave: Product Lifecycle Management Platforms For Discrete Manufacturers, Q3 2025 report. Siemens Teamcenter X ranked as the customer favorite PLM platform with the strongest strategy, according to Forrester, and Aras Innovator edged ahead as the strongest offering in the pool of eight PLM providers.
• In other Siemens news, Siemens Digital Industries Software has launched the new PartQuest Design Enablement portfolio for electronic component manufacturers. “By unifying design content, supply intelligence, collaboration and real-time analytics, PartQuest Design Enablement gives manufacturers… a powerful way to drive both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction at scale,” said AJ Incorvaia, senior vice president at Siemens Digital Industries Software, in the press release. There’s more info on the new solution, including a video overview, in this Siemens blog.
• Comsol announced the keynote speakers for its upcoming Comsol Conference 2025 Boston, taking place October 8 – 10. The speaker lineup will include Kyle Koppenhoefer of AltaSim Technologies, Zhen (Jim) Sun of Amazon Lab126, Soon Kiat Lau of Conagra Brands, Juejun (JJ) Hu of MIT, Hannah Alpert of NASA Ames Research Center, and Hanna Paddubrouskaya of Tokyo Electron US (TEL).
• Jetcam has updated its free CAD Viewer tool. Version 4 of the Windows-based 2D viewer has new features including support for the Windows dark or light theme, 32-bit and 64-bit versions, new layer visibility controls, and more.
• Bentley Systems has announced the finalists for its 2025 Going Digital Awards, an annual program meant to honor infrastructure around the globe. From a pool of nearly 250 nominations, according to Bentley, an independent panel selected 37 finalists across 12 categories. The finalists will present their projects at Bentley’s annual Year in Infrastructure conference, taking place October 15 – 16 in Amsterdam, and the winners will be announced there. You can browse the full list of finalists here.

One last link

As American as Apple phones? Read about the iPhone maker’s domestic investment in Apple announces $100B American Manufacturing Program by Engineering.com senior editor Michael Ouellette.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post U.S. Coast Guard blames engineering failures for Titan sub tragedy appeared first on Engineering.com.

PTC has expanded its partnership with Nvidia. The Boston-based developer, which not long ago was rumored to be up for sale, says it will integrate Nvidia Omniverse technologies into Creo and Windchill.

“By connecting Windchill with Omniverse’s real-time, photorealistic simulation development platform, teams will be able to visualize and interact with the most current Creo design data in a shared, immersive environment,” reads PTC’s press release.

PTC has also joined the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD), a group working to advance the Pixar-created OpenUSD file framework used in Nvidia Omniverse. Nvidia was one of the five founding members of the AOUSD alongside Pixar, Adobe, Apple, and Autodesk. In June, engineering software developer Tech Soft 3D also announced a collaboration with Nvidia and joined the AOUSD.

“By deepening our collaboration with Nvidia and joining the Alliance for OpenUSD, we’re giving our customers the ability to incorporate design and configuration data in a real-time, immersive simulation environment,” said Neil Barua, president and CEO of PTC, in the press release. “The integration of Omniverse technologies within Creo and Windchill will enable teams to accelerate development, improve product quality, and collaborate more effectively across the entire product lifecycle.”

Desktop Metal files for Chapter 11

The story of 3D printing company Desktop Metal has reached Chapter 11.

“Barely more than two years after Stratasys made a $1.8B bid for it and just a few weeks after Nano Dimension acquired it for a fraction of that price, Desktop Metal has filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code,” wrote Engineering.com 3D printing editor Ian Wright in his coverage of the news.

“After much speculation about the fate of the beleaguered metal AM company… this looks like the end of what was once the darling of investors and 3D printing enthusiasts alike,” Ian wrote.

For more details, read the full article on Engineering.com: Desktop Metal files for Chapter 11.

ITC goes dark with IntelliCAD 14.0

The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium announced the release of IntelliCAD 14.0, the latest version of the member-funded CAD development platform.

IntelliCAD 14.0 introduces a dark mode, which in my opinion is an accessibility setting that belongs in every software package (I’m baffled by extremely popular applications that still lack the option—I’m looking at you, Google Docs).

“While dark is now the default, you can also choose from light or gray themes,” according to ITC’s video overview of IntelliCAD 14.0.

The new release also adds faster performance for common functions including copy, break, move, and union, as well as detachable drawing windows, support for Autodesk Revit 2025 files, API enhancements, and more.

“IntelliCAD 14.0 reflects our commitment to listening to real-world feedback from our members and delivering the tools they need most,” said Shawn Lindsay, president of the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium, in the release announcement. “We remain focused on providing an open, dependable platform that developers can build on—and on offering a powerful alternative in the CAD software market.”

One last link

Engineering.com executive editor Jim Anderton’s latest episode of End of the Line discusses the rapidly changing technology of warfare: The war in Ukraine: The end of armor as we know it.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post Nvidia Omniverse coming to PTC Creo and Windchill appeared first on Engineering.com.

In this article, we’ll explore these hardware options with a focus on engineering applications.

Head-mounted displays and beyond

The stereotypical image of a head-mounted display (HMD) is a bulky, protruding visor that blocks out the external world, fastened to one’s head with straps and clasps and a cable tethering it all to a power source. While the industry continues to strive for smaller, lighter and more comfortable headsets, the most functional (and expensive) HMDs are all a bit unwieldy, stuffed as they are with electronics and sensors.

For now, these bulky HMDs are a necessity for virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) applications. But the benefits can outweigh the discomfort, since these HMDs are the most effective at producing convincing VR experiences. The best HMDs on the market can provide engineers with photorealistic and stable virtual images that are truly effective representations of real objects. With the proper hardware and know-how, an automotive designer could produce an MR experience of a virtual car that reflects the real world around it—the glints from the actual windows, the distorted reflection of the design studio—an effect nearly as convincing as if the car were literally there.

While VR and MR require the user to don an opaque HMD, dedicated AR headsets are transparent, projecting virtual elements on top of the real world. This is less claustrophobic than a VR or MR headset, but also less convincing. The images on AR displays are often constrained to a narrow field of view and can appear ghostly against the real environment.

But HMDs aren’t required for spatial computing, and depending on their needs, a user could make do with hardware they already own. AR can be achieved with standard smartphones and tablets, which use a combination of cameras and lidar sensors to provide a window into an augmented world. This flexibility makes AR more accessible than VR, especially in the field or on the factory floor.

Not all hardware makes for an equal AR experience. Using a phone or tablet for AR may be convenient, but the quality, spatial stability and responsiveness of the AR models won’t be as good as with a high-end headset. For engineers hoping to use AR to evaluate their designs, an HMD will provide the best experience. AR through a phone or tablet simply can’t provide the same level of immersion as an HMD.

Ultimately, the best hardware for your needs will be dependent on your application, your software and your budget. As more devices emerge to support spatial computing, more engineering applications of this technology will be close behind.

Spatial computing workstations

Now that we’ve discussed HMDs and their alternatives, it’s important to note a second crucial hardware element: workstations.

There are two types of HMDs: those that are self-contained and those that require external control. Self-contained HMDs are computers in a specialized form. They have their own processors and power supplies built in, meaning all a user has to do is put on the headset and get to work. Self-contained HMDs are convenient, but like any mobile device, their performance is limited by their form factor.

The second type of HMD must be connected to an external computer, which provides power and computation. Though this wired connection can prohibit movement and increase discomfort, it also allows users to take advantage of the best available hardware. Engineers often have powerful workstations equipped with one or more graphics cards. In the same way that this hardware accelerates photorealistic product renders, it processes and sends high-quality VR images to the HMD. Don’t forget that every HMD must display two images at once—one for the left eye and a different one for the right—so displaying a 4K VR scene would in effect require 8K resolution.

Workstations are the best bet for such high computational demands. Fortunately, most engineers already have access to one. For those that don’t, high-performance spatial computing will require an additional investment in a workstation with plenty of memory, a relatively good CPU and one or more discrete graphics cards. HMD manufacturers generally provide a list of minimum specs or recommended computers that can point you to the right hardware.

Related: The ultimate guide to buying an engineering computer

There is a way to combine high-performance spatial computing with the convenience of a standalone headset: wireless streaming. As with other domains, this isn’t a perfect solution. For one thing, the HMD still needs a power source, so it will either have a limited battery life or be tethered to power anyways. For another, streaming comes with latency. If there’s a slight delay between when a user turns their head and when a VR scene responds, the illusion is compromised. Some users may even experience motion sickness. Streaming is only an option for users who can ensure a consistent and low-latency connection.

Other spatial computing devices

Phones, tablets and HMDs are the most popular and important types of spatial computing hardware. But there are other devices that enable or facilitate spatial computing, and this section will briefly discuss them.

Handheld controllers often accompany HMDs, aiming to give users more precise control over movement and selection in the virtual world. Some HMDs use a single controller, while others come with two. With two controllers, each one can be specialized—for example, one could have a joystick for moving, while another has a trackpad for interacting with on-screen elements. Some HMDs eschew controllers altogether, using eye tracking and/or hand gestures to manipulate the user interface.

To maintain the illusion of virtual space, HMDs must be able to track the user’s position in real space and map it appropriately. Some HMDs perform this tracking on board, but others require external sensors to be set up around the user. In either case, users must limit their own movement to avoid literally crashing into reality. One way of avoiding this problem is an omnidirectional treadmill, a platform that allows users to walk as far as they want in any direction while remaining in place. Omnidirectional treadmills are specialized pieces of equipment that, for now, are more arcade novelty than industrial necessity. Still, they demonstrate that by systematically eliminating the constraints of the real world, spatial computing can more fully realize the potential of the virtual.

3D displays are an emerging (more accurately, re-emerging) type of monitor that simulates depth and perspective. The working principle is the same as any spatial computing display: show the left eye one image and the right eye another. The biggest advantage of modern 3D screens is that they accomplish this without the need for glasses. Using eye tracking cameras, lenticular lenses and appropriate rendering algorithms, these so-called autostereoscopic displays provide a convincing 3D effect to the bare eyes. This allows engineers to quickly and easily gain a 3D perspective on CAD models, for example, which on traditional monitors are mere 2D representations. The benefits of this shift in perspective have been questioned, however, especially in light of the high cost of 3D displays. Though 3D displays are technically a form of spatial computing, they’re a limited form that is yet to gain widespread traction among engineers.

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