LAKE MARY, FL, USA, Jun 18, 2020 – FARO Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: FARO), the global leader for 3D measurement, imaging and realization solutions for 3D Metrology, AEC (Architecture, Engineering & Construction), and Public Safety Analytics, announced the divestiture of two recent business lines.

On June 10, FARO divested its Italy-based dental business to Open Tech 3D Srl. The FARO dental business primarily developed structured light products for the dental industry. While FARO will no longer serve the dental market, the Company will retain an Italian development team who will continue to develop structured light and other technologies for its core target 3D markets

On April 30, FARO divested its US-based Photonics business to MECCO. FARO Photonics designed and manufactured high-precision laser scan heads, Ethernet-based vector controllers, and advanced processing software to provide an integrated steering solution for a range of advanced laser applications.

“As we announced in February, FARO has embarked on a new strategic plan that includes increased focus on our targeted 3D markets,” said Michael Burger, President & CEO. “I’m pleased to have completed these divestitures to partners who will continue to provide leading technology to our customers in these adjacent markets. These divestitures allow us to align our resources on providing 3D solutions to the Metrology, AEC, and Public Safety Analytics markets.”

While financial terms of the divestitures were not disclosed, the two product lines contributed approximately 2% of FARO’s revenue in 2019.

For more information about FARO, visit: www.faro.com.

Invitation

VITORIA-GASTEIZ, Spain, Jun 18, 2020 – Lantek, the multinational pioneer in the digital transformation of the sheet metal and metal industrial sector, has announced a collaboration agreement with Euromac, an Italian worldwide supplier of machines for working with sheet metal including CNC Punching, Bending, and automated systems for sheet metal.

The agreement reached by both companies enables control of the “sorting cell” programmed with one of the most cutting-edge robots on the market, the Kuka KR 10, using two punching solutions from Lantek: Lantek Expert PUNCH-PLUS and Lantek Stackmaster. Combined, these solutions enable the automation of the discharge line for parts and their subsequent palletization and storage.

Lantek software solutions are responsible for the whole process, which starts with programming the punching machine. Once this task is complete, the machine unloads the parts through a hatch. The parts pass along a conveyor belt until they reach an artificial vision table where a camera is used to detect the position in which the part has fallen. The Lantek software also controls the activation of the suction cups of the robot to pick up the parts and in which position. It then positions the robot so that it can pick them up while telling it the shape of the part to detect the rotation and the place where it should be loaded on the pallet.

The full control of the punching and palletizing process makes it possible to automate the whole production cycle for large volumes of parts, allowing production to be completely unattended. “The close collaboration initiated between Euromac and Lantek implies a significant step forward towards the full automation of the punching lines and the subsequent palletization of the parts. By using state-of-the-art technology, such as artificial vision or robots, we can maximize production speed and flexibility while improving workers’ conditions and safety,” states Francisco Pérez, director of the OEMs channel at Lantek.

On his part, the Sales Manager at Euromac, Ferrán Villanueva, highlighted the importance of this collaboration. “For us, this is a great opportunity to use Lantek software for the Kuka KR 10, which will allow us to optimize the processes, reduce times, and achieve an efficient operation while guaranteeing the highest quality and tightest response times from this robot, one of the most cutting-edge on the market,” concludes Villanueva.

About Lantek Sheet Metal Solutions

Lantek is a multinational leading the digital transformation of companies in the sheet metal and metal industry. With its patented manufacturing intelligence software, it enables factories to be connected, turning them into Smart Factories. It rounds off its range of services with CAD, CAM, MES, and ERP solutions for companies that manufacture metal parts from sheet metal, tubes, and profiles using any cutting technology (laser, plasma, oxycut, waterjet, shearing and punching). Lantek’s U.S. Headquarters are in Mason, OH.

Founded in 1986 in the Basque Country (Spain), one of the main European hubs of machine tool development, Lantek enables the integration of sheet metal and metal processing technologies using the most advanced manufacturing management software. The company is currently the outstanding leader in its sector thanks to its capacity for innovation and commitment to internationalization. With more than 23,700 customers in over 100 countries and 20 offices in 14 countries, it has an extensive network of distributors with an international presence. In 2019, its international business contributed to 86% of its revenue. For more information, visit: www.lantek.com

SANDVIKEN, Sweden, Jun 17, 2020 – Metal cutting leader, Sandvik Coromant has developed a new 3D modelling technique that can 3D print up to 200 plastic face shields in the time traditional methods require to print one. Using stacked model data, the technique can dramatically increase 3D printing output, assisting in producing face shields for healthcare workers fighting COVID-19. Having publicized this data for free, Sandvik Coromant encourages other businesses to use this method to assist in face shield production.

​​​Sandvik Coromant’s industrial facilities in Sweden are usually reserved for manufacturing metal powders into intricately engineered components. Today, the organization’s metalworking expertise and 3D printing capacity is being redeployed to produce personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers with some of the organization’s plastic 3D printers. ​

Several businesses are already producing 3D printed face shields. However, because 3D printers are usually restricted to printing one CAD file at a time, production output has been slow. To solve this problem, engineers at Sandvik Coromant’s Press Tools department have developed a new modelling progress to allow machines to recognize a stack of multiple face shields as one solid CAD file.

Duplicating the 3D image data of a single face shield, engineers at Sandvik Coromant are able to stack multiple shields on top of each other. Using a dual extruder, the 3D printer can then be instructed to create structural support between each product — essentially printing a thin string of plastic between each shield. Printing this support in water-soluble material allows the shields to be easily separated once printed.

Sandvik Coromant’s Press Tools division is now able to manufacture 42 plastic face shields per 3D printer during each production batch — a process which previously took 48 hours to manufacture just one face shield. Larger 3D printers could use this same technique to print up to 200 face shields in a single production batch.

Sandvik Coromant hopes that this technique will be adopted by other businesses with access to a 3D printer as the most efficient method for producing face shields. In fact, the company has already shared 3D model data required with Protech, the leading Nordic supplier of 3D printers from Stratasys. A distributor of 3D printers for the hobbyist market, has also shared the data with its network.

“Printing several parts at a time is the optimal method for producing a high volume of face shields when using a 3D printer,” explained Christian Dingfors, Production Engineer at Sandvik Coromant Press Tools. “In the ongoing effort to support healthcare workers against COVID-19, we need to contribute to the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) as effectively as possible. That is why Sandvik Coromant wants to share this technique and the necessary imaging data with as many businesses as possible. We want every facility with 3D printing capacity to get involved.

“We encourage any business that has access to a 3D printer to contact us for guidance on how to deploy this printing technique. We are happy to share the 3D imaging data with anyone, including small businesses and hobbyists, that want to contribute to this essential cause,” concluded Dingfors.

Having obtained more than 3,000 overhead projector films, several divisions in Sandvik Coromant are now using their 3D printing capacity to produce face shields. For instance, Sandvik Coromant’s Press Tools Division has halted all non-critical production runs for the 3D printers it has on site, with 75 per cent of printing capacity now dedicated to producing face shields.

The shields will be donated to hospitals in the Sandviken-Gävle, Gävleborg and Stockholm regions of Sweden, but Sandvik Coromant anticipates the initiative will be replicated globally — not just within Sandvik, but among the larger business community.

Elsewhere, in the US, when Wally Calayag, a Sandvik Coromant Sales Territory Engineer in California, saw the pain that surgical masks were causing medical professionals at a nearby hospital where his wife works as a nurse, he had an idea. Armed with a 3D printer and open source files, he started printing surgical mask extension straps, otherwise known as ear savers straps. And it wasn’t long before he was making deliveries of these straps to the hospital to help those on the front lines, and in doing so, encouraging others to join the cause.

“Sandvik would never compromise when it comes to keeping employees safe,” explained André Larsson, R&D Technician at Sandvik Coromant’s Additive Manufacturing Division. “Right now, we can help protect medical personnel by keeping them safe and able to help those infected with COVID-19. Our lives depend on these medical professionals — and we cannot let their safety be compromised while they are saving lives.”

More information on Sandvik Coromant’s efforts to support the battle against COVID-19 can be found on the Sandvik Coromant website at www.sandvik.coromant.com. For guidance on deploying the 3D modelling technique, please contact Christian Dingfors, Production Engineer at Sandvik Coromant on christian.dingfors@sandvik.com.

About Sandvik Coromant

Part of the global Sandvik Group, Sandvik Coromant is a leader in providing machining tools, machining solutions and expertise that drive up industry standards, alongside innovation for the future of the machining industry. Training support, large-scale R&D investment and strong customer relations underpin the development of machining technology to shape, lead and drive the future of manufacturing. Sandvik Coromant holds more than 3100 patents throughout the world and employs over 7900 staff in 150 countries. For more information, visit https://www.sandvik.coromant.com/

WALTHAM, MA, USA, Jun 17, 2020 – Keeping pace with the cutting-edge augmented reality (AR) technology, AMC Bridge presents ViewER-AR for iOS, a technology demonstration of using ARKit and CloudKit to view and manipulate 3D models in AR.

EXTON, PA, USA, Jun 17, 2020 – Bentley Systems, Incorporated, a leading global provider of comprehensive software and digital twins services for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced that its annual infrastructure event, the Year in Infrastructure 2020 Conference, is “going digital.” This new digital format will bring together, now for a broader global community, the thought leadership, networking, and learning content that Bentley conference attendees have come to expect.

The Year in Infrastructure 2020 Conference is Going Digital

The virtual Year in Infrastructure 2020 Conference provides complementary access to a wide range of content relevant to infrastructure professionals in every role and at every phase of the infrastructure lifecycle. Highlights include:

Live Judging: Year in Infrastructure 2020 Awards Finalists’ Presentations – October 5 – 16

The Year in Infrastructure Awards finalists, chosen by independent juries of industry experts, present their projects to the judges beginning October 5. This is your chance to hear from the people behind the most extraordinary infrastructure projects of the year as they tell the story of how they leveraged digital advancements to achieve unprecedented outcomes.

Year in Infrastructure 2020 Executive Perspectives – October 20 – 21

Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems, will be joined by leading infrastructure executives for an interactive discussion on the resilience challenges they face and how to meet those challenges through digital advancement.

Keith Bentley, founder and chief technology officer, will discuss Bentley’s open strategy for digital twins. Keith will be joined by other leading industry visionaries who have deployed digital twins successfully for project delivery or asset performance.

TwinTalks Premiere – October 20

Infrastructure digital twins will be front and center at this year’s event. Join leading industry figures as they moderate six sector-specific TwinTalks, exploring the implications of digital twins for Digital Cities, Design and Construction, Digital Plants, Energy Utilities, Rail and Transit, and Roads and Bridges. Listen to interactive panel discussions with leading industry and business leaders and discover the fascinating opportunities that digital twins introduce for each of these critical infrastructure sectors. The initial October 20 TwinTalks are each part of a three-part series, with the second and third installments of the TwinTalks’ series scheduled through mid-November.

Year in Infrastructure 2020 Awards Ceremony – October 21

After months of jury deliberations, the winners of the Year in Infrastructure 2020 Awards will be announced in our live global broadcast. Don’t miss what has been called the “Academy Awards of Infrastructure.”

ACCELERATE Sessions – October 27 and beyond

Join Bentley product executives Dustin Parkman (Project Delivery), Robert Mankowski (Digital Cities), Ken Adamson (Design Integration), and Alan Kiraly (Asset and Network Performance) as they and their leadership teams review the latest advancements in Bentley applications and cloud services. These sessions will kick-off a multi-track program of more than 100 ACCELERATE sessions that will continue into November. ACCELERATE will feature Bentley and user experts in panel discussions and interactive demonstrations on the latest product advances, innovations, and best practice digital workflows.

Learn More about the Year in Infrastructure 2020 Conference

Join us online for the virtual Year in Infrastructure 2020 Conference and learn from peers, industry experts, and innovators who will share their infrastructure digital twins’ successes. Register for updates at https://yii.bentley.com/en.

About Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems is a leading global provider of software solutions to engineers, architects, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators for the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure. Bentley’s MicroStation-based engineering and BIM applications, and its digital twin cloud services, advance the project delivery (ProjectWise) and the asset performance (AssetWise) of transportation and other public works, utilities, industrial and resources plants, and commercial and institutional facilities.

Bentley Systems employs more than 3,500 colleagues and generates annual revenues of more than $700 million in 172 countries. From inception in 1984, the company has remained majority-owned by its five founding Bentley brothers. www.bentley.com.

LOS ANGELES, CA, USA, Jun 17, 2020 – Chaos Group launches V-Ray Collection, a new offering designed to help artists connect their entire creative pipeline through a single floating license. Users can now move freely between 3D applications, applying their own mix of photorealistic rendering, fluid simulation and real-time scene exploration to any project.

V-Ray Collection offers instant access to 15 products and services for $699/year, including the latest versions of V-Ray, Phoenix FD, Project Lavina, and the high-res material library, VRscans, on the same machine. Users will receive free upgrades for the life of their license, as well as 20 Chaos Cloud credits every year.

A standard in architecture, design and visual effects, V-Ray is the most widely used rendering solution in the world. Whether used to showcase products at IKEA or bring the Game of Thrones dragons to life, V-Ray has helped artists and designers visualize their best work for over 20 years, pushing the boundaries of imagery, animation and real-time. In 2017, V-Ray was honored with an Academy Award for helping to facilitate the “widespread adoption of fully ray-traced rendering [in] motion pictures.”

V-Ray Collection Includes:

Photorealistic Rendering:

1. V-Ray for 3ds Max
2. V-Ray for Maya
3. V-Ray for SketchUp
4. V-Ray for Rhino
5. V-Ray for Revit
6. V-Ray for Modo
7. V-Ray for Unreal
8. V-Ray for Houdini
9. V-Ray for Nuke
10. V-Ray for Cinema 4D
11. V-Ray for Blender

All-In-One Fluid Simulation:

1. Phoenix FD for 3ds Max
2. Phoenix FD for Maya​​​​​​​

1000+ Scanned Materials:

1. VRscans

Real-Time Scene Exploration:

1. Project Lavina

Availability and Pricing

V-Ray Collection is available now for $699/year. Licenses can be purchased directly on the product page. Unlike past licenses, V-Ray Collection will not require a separate render node for each product. Individual product licenses are still available. For students, schools and educators, the V-Ray Education Collection is also available.

About Chaos Group

Chaos Group is a worldwide leader in computer graphics technology, helping artists and designers create photorealistic imagery and animation for architecture, design, and visual effects. Chaos Group’s award-winning physically-based rendering and simulation software is used daily by top design studios, architectural firms, advertising agencies, and visual effects companies around the globe. Today, the company’s research and development in ray-traced rendering, cloud computing and real-time ray tracing is shaping the future of creative storytelling and digital design. Founded in 1997, Chaos Group is privately owned with offices in Sofia, Los Angeles, Prague, Seoul, and Tokyo. For more information, visit: chaosgroup.com.

LOS ANGELES, CA, USA, Jun 17, 2020 – Chaos Group released V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max, connecting its award-winning renderer to more parts of the visualization process. Artists and designers can now composite renders, enhance materials and interactively relight images without leaving the program, extending V-Ray’s capabilities into new realms.

“The future is all-in-one,” said Phillip Miller, Vice President of Product Management at Chaos Group. “An artist doesn’t want to jump into extra applications – they want tools that excel at every part of the process. V-Ray 5 is a big step in that direction.”

Beyond Rendering

Two of V-Ray 5’s most exciting additions – Layer Compositing and Light Mix – can be found in the new V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB), which was also redesigned for efficiency and a cleaner look.

With Light Mix, artists can interactively explore different lighting scenarios without having to re-render an image. Users can now adjust the color and intensity of any light source right away, ensuring faster iterations when designing looks and moods.

The Layer Compositor offers a faster path to final images, helping users post-process shots in the new VFB without outside applications. Using this non-destructive workflow, artists can adjust different render elements and perform color corrections with ease.

Materials Made Easy

V-Ray 5 adds seven features and improvements tailored to materials, including a new management system and over 500 readymade materials designed to cover most objects and spaces. New built-in presets can help dial-in everyday options like metal, glass and plastic, as well as common hair colors, helping artists achieve photorealism much faster.

With V-Ray 5’s new randomization tools, artists can add slight variations to their materials, increasing believability across a scene. VRayMultiSubTex colors can now be shifted by hue, saturation and gamma, while a new VRayUVWRandomizer map will adjust the offset, rotation and scale of both textures and procedural materials. For repeating texture maps, artists now have Stochastic Texture Tiling, which automatically removes tiling artifacts.

Other New Features in V-Ray 5 Include: 

1. Coat Layer – Gain extra reflections on surfaces without using blend materials.
2. Sheen Layer – Easily simulate fabrics like velvet, satin and silk.
3. Photoreal Material Previews – New view incorporates global illumination to provide an exact representation of a rendered material.
4. Dirt with Streaks – New controls for aging materials with procedural streaks have been added to the VRayDirtMtl.
5. New Car Paint Material – Provides highly realistic flakes with less memory.
6. New Sun and Sky System – Improves accuracy when the sun is at the horizon, including the magic hours right before sunrise and after sunset.
7. Camera EV Control – Adjust the exposure value of the V-Ray Physical Camera without affecting motion blur or depth of field.
8. V-Ray GPU Updates – Initial support for out-of-core geometry allows users to break through memory constraints when necessary. Resumable progressive rendering ensures artists never have to restart from square one.
9. Blue Noise Sampling – New algorithm update can make images (and noise) look cleaner through fewer samples.
10. V-Ray Scene Updates – Export selected objects, including pivot points, for transforms in Project Lavina.
11. ACEScg Color Workflows – Artists can now render in the emerging CG colorspace standard, accessing a wider gamut of colors.
12. Light Path Expressions – The behavior of light in a scene can now be used for custom render elements.
13. Filmic Tonemapping – HDR images can now mimic the properties of film to give images a cinematic look.

For a full feature tour, please visit the V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max product page. Chaos Group will also be hosting a webinar and live Q&A on June 23. The webinar is completely free and begins at 9 a.m. PST / 7 p.m. EEST. Register now.

Availability and Pricing

V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max is available now for Windows. A full Workstation license is priced at $1,180, with upgrades available for $590. Term licensing is available at $470 (annually) and $80 (monthly). V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max is also included in V-Ray Collection, an annual plan that gives users full access to 15 Chaos Group products and services for $699/year.

About Chaos Group

Chaos Group is a worldwide leader in computer graphics technology, helping artists and designers create photorealistic imagery and animation for architecture, design, and visual effects. Chaos Group’s award-winning physically-based rendering and simulation software is used daily by top design studios, architectural firms, advertising agencies, and visual effects companies around the globe. Today, the company’s research and development in ray-traced rendering, cloud computing and real-time ray tracing is shaping the future of creative storytelling and digital design. Founded in 1997, Chaos Group is privately owned with offices in Sofia, Los Angeles, Prague, Seoul, and Tokyo. For more information, visit: chaosgroup.com.

TROY, MI, USA, Jun 17, 2020 – Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR), a global technology company providing solutions in product development, high-performance computing (HPC), and data analytics, announced the latest launch of Altair Monarch, a major new release of its powerful and intuitive data preparation solution. Marking the 30th anniversary of Monarch’s original launch, the new version strengthens the ability of users to extract and convert data automatically from sources including Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and text-based files, and prepare it quickly and precisely for efficient data analysis and machine learning predictions.

Altair Monarch is easy-to-use with no coding required to clean, join, append, and transform difficult and messy data into data ready for analytics and machine learning.

By converting data from any source into rows and columns without any need for coding, Monarch quickly generates clean and accessible reports. More than 80 pre-built functions are available, enabling laborious and error-prone manual data preparation tasks to be fully automated. Reports that previously took hours or even days to create are now completed in minutes. As a result, users are free to focus on value added data analysis that supports better decision making.

Key features new to Monarch include:

1. Excel trapping – This unique feature enables users to deal with complex Excel inputs. Rules can now be utilized to extract and add structure to data and metadata from workbooks that are either designed for reporting or incorporate multiple worksheets.
2. Improved PDF extraction – By identifying graphical elements such as rectangles and lines on rendered PDF page images, Monarch accommodates the diverse range of report styles employed in this format. Any combination of font and background colors can be extracted successfully.
3. Support for Altair Units – Altair’s flexible licensing model allows customers to pay only for what they need; when they need it.

New feature in Altair Monarch: Excel trapping, designed to trap data from complex Excel spreadsheets that have merged cells, multiple tabs, conditional formatted cells and rows, and may have complicated cell functions.

“With a global user community in the tens of thousands, Monarch encompasses our long experience of helping customers overcome complex data preparation challenges,” said Sam Mahalingam, chief technical officer, Altair. “Thirty years to the day since the original launch, it is entirely appropriate that we now offer even greater freedom to transform data from multiple sources into a powerful business asset.”

A free trial of Monarch is available at altair.com/monarch-free-trial and more information can be found at altair.com/monarch.

For more insight into Altair’s data analytics offerings, join us at the virtual Altair Data Analytics Summit on June 23-25 to be immersed in the technologies and ideas that drive smarter decision-making: altair.com/das2020.

About Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR)

Altair is a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of product development, high performance computing (HPC) and data analytics. Altair enables organizations across broad industry segments to compete more effectively in a connected world while creating a more sustainable future. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com.

LEVIS, QC, Canada, Jun 16, 2020 – Creaform Engineering, division of Creaform and Québec leaders in end-to-end engineering services, is proud to appoint Philippe Cusson as its Business Leader. Given his extensive expertise in many industries, Mr. Cusson will ensure the promotion and stimulation of business development, all while increasing the focus on customer experience.

Philippe Cusson

Philippe Cusson’s previous experience as Vice President at WAJAX brought him to implement business plans for the power systems market segment. It will be a game changer for Creaform Engineering with his acute knowledge of the industrial, automotive, power generation, marine and mining sectors—to name a few. Mr. Cusson’s strategic vendor management and development of engineered solutions have proven successful with major OEMs such as Rolls Royce Power Systems / MTU, Allison Transmission, Daimler Trucks, Kubota Engines and Volvo Penta.

Before WAJAX, Philippe Cusson formerly managed the advanced engineering and design team for the industrial division of IPL Inc., a leader in injection-molded plastic products. During that assignment, he developed innovative solutions for various industries such as automotive, transportation, food and beverage and telecommunications.

His position being instrumental in creating value for customers, Philippe Cusson will strengthen the measures put in place to ensure the satisfaction of Creaform Engineering’s clients and employees. This means focusing on maintaining and attracting talented experts in order to deliver unrivaled engineering capabilities.

Mr. Cusson puts it quite simply: “I make it a personal goal to foster team synergy, to reduce time-to-market and to make sure the team members commit to the achievement of our customers’ objectives. In regard to customer experience as a whole, the improvement of the product design, quality, reliability and cost will be the very foundation, all in alignment with Creaform’s core values of innovation, passion and determination.”

Philippe Cusson holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Université Laval and an MBA from UQAM. He also took part in an engineering exchange program at the University of Rhode Island. Much to his credit, he also initiated a fundraising activity and summited Kilimanjaro in favor of the Canadian Multiple Sclerosis Society.

About Creaform

Creaform develops, manufactures, and sells 3D portable and automated measurement technologies and specializes in engineering services. The company offers innovative solutions for applications such as 3D scanning, reverse engineering, quality control, non-destructive testing, product development, and numerical simulation (FEA/CFD). Its products and services cater to a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace, consumer products, heavy industries, healthcare, manufacturing, oil and gas, power generation, research and education.

With headquarters and manufacturing operations in Lévis, Québec, Creaform operates innovation centers in Lévis as well as Grenoble, France, with direct sales operations in Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Singapore. Creaform is part of AMETEK Ultra Precision Technologies, a division of AMETEK Inc., which a leading global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices, with annual sales of approximately $5 billion. For more information about Creaform Engineering, visit creaform-engineering.com.