modelling

3 Articles

Farewell Shunsaku Tamiya: The Man Who Gave Us The Best Things To Build

July 31, 2025 by 36 Comments

In the formative experiences of most Hackaday readers there will almost certainly be a number of common threads, for example the ownership of a particular game console, or being inspired into engineering curiosity by the same TV shows. A home computer of a TV show may mark you as coming from a particular generation, but there are some touchstones which cross the decades.

Of those, we are guessing that few readers will not at some point have either built, owned, or lusted after a Tamiya model kit at some point over the last many decades, so it’s with some sadness that we note the passing of Mr. Tamiya himself, Shunsaku Tamiya, who has died at the age of 90.

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NASA’s 2017-2018 Software Catalog Is Out

March 16, 2017 by 16 Comments

Need some help sizing your beyond-low-Earth-orbit vehicle? Request NASA’s BLAST software. Need to forecast the weather on Venus? That would be Venus-GRAM (global reference atmospheric model). Or maybe you just want to play around with the NASA Tensegrity Robotics Toolkit. (We do!) Then it’s a good thing that part of NASA’s public mandate is making their software available. And the 2017-2018 Software Catalog (PDF) has just been released.

Unfortunately, not everything that NASA does is open source, and a substantial fraction of the software suites are only available for code “to be used on behalf of the U.S. Government”. But still, it’s very cool that NASA is opening up as much of their libraries as they are. Where else are you going to get access to orbital debris engineering models or cutting-edge fluid dynamics modelers and solvers, for free?

We already mentioned this in the Links column, but we think it’s worth repeating because we could use your help. The catalog is 154 pages long, and we haven’t quite finished leaf through every page. If you see anything awesome inside, let us know in the comments. Do any of you already use NASA’s open-source software?

Build A Replica Apple ///

May 21, 2016 by 15 Comments

[Mr. Name Required] pointed us to a great video on the modeling of a replica Apple /// to the small scale needed to contain a Raspberry Pi by [Charles Mangin].

[Mr. Name] pointed out that the video was a great example of the use of reference photos for modeling. [Charles] starts by finding the references he needs for the model. Google image search and some Apple history websites supplied him with the required images.

He modeled the Apple /// in Autodesk 123. It has sketch tools, but he chose to craft the paths in iDraw and import them into the software. This is most likely due to the better support for boolean combination tools in vector editing software. Otherwise he’d have to spend hours messing with the trim tool.

Later in the video he shows how to change the perspective in photographs to get a more orthographic view of an object. Then it’s time for some heavy modeling. He really pushes 123 to its limit.

The model is sent off for professional 3D printing to capture all the detail. Then it’s some finishing work and his miniature Apple /// is done. Video after the break.

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