ALTAIR EVOLVE IN THE DESIGN PROCESS
With the great help and support Steve has received from the team, he now uses Altair Evolve as his main 3D modeling tool and has become incredibly proficient in the software. A recent project that Steve worked on involved a new building, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg which is currently in construction. For this project, Steve’s client tasked him with designing a set of salt and pepper shakers inspired by the architecture of the new building. Steve noted “The building’s design is beautiful, it is very simple, minimalistic, and futuristic at the same time. The roof of the building has many wavy curves which is what inspired the design of the salt and pepper shaker set.” To design the salt and pepper shakers, Steve used the spline-curves tool in Altair Evolve to create the wavy designs influenced by the building’s architecture. “In Altair Evolve, this is very fun as the tool allows me to move and change these curves while I go,” noted Steve. “I enjoyed making this set in Altair Evolve, the idea behind the design is, while separate, the products look like very modern salt and pepper shakers, but when together in their stand, they strongly resemble the building itself. There is no way I could have designed or created these without Altair Evolve, its flexibility allowed me to model the very complex shapes on the top.”

The salt and pepper shaker set are currently being handmade in a polished stainless steel and are being sold in shops in Hamburg. Steve hopes that once the building opens in 2017, the salt and pepper shakers are used inside the building at one of its many restaurants. Another project that Steve recently worked on was for a door handle. Steve noted “The geometry on the handle, especially for the transition on some of the curves is quite tricky and complex. Altair Evolve allowed me to create this complex geometry and make it very smooth.” Steve discussed another benefit of using Altair Evolve for this project, “For this handle and many other products I make, when I send a proposal to my client company, they take my files and they use them directly for the tooling. My process with this handle was to design it in Altair Evolve, and then send the files to the client, which they sent directly to China for tooling and manufacturing.” Steve also works on electronic components. Recently, Steve designed a very clean and modern looking Bluetooth stereo receiver for a client. Steve noted, “This product is a very simple shape on the outside, but on the inside I had to make many adjustments due to changing requirements from the factory on where to place the circuit board, buttons, and LED lights. Altair Evolve’s construction history features allowed me to quickly adjust the design to meet these demands.” As with the door handle, Steve used the direct output from Altair Evolve to help communicate with the manufacturing team, he noted, “That is another benefit of Altair Evolve, I use its files directly to send to the manufacturing team and talk with their software programs.”

WHAT’S NEXT
Steve plans to continue to use Altair Evolve as his tool of choice when it comes to 3D modeling. He mentioned that he just received another hearing aid project where he is looking forward to the challenge of modeling the very small and complex shape.

Steve mentioned, “Altair Evolve is incredibly fun for me to use, many times I like to just play and see what happens. Using the software, I find that many of my designs inspire other designs I create. I look forward to continuing to use it in the future.”