Year in Review - 2023

And with that, another year is over! Here's a quick rundown of a bunch of key events this year.

If I had to sum up the year, it'd likely have to describe it as: "A tumultuous year of loss, turmoil, and new beginnings"

 

BIG THINGS

* Started a new job this year - a permanent position at last (!) - in a field I love.  Technically, I was returning to the company that I'd been working for prior to the pandemic (but this time, not in a time-limited role), as the major project I'd been working on 3/4 years ago went live at the end of the year.

 

* Two major projects I've spent the last few years working on "went live / public" this year:

   1) The aforementioned big + complex + important system I work on in my current day job

   2) TPMS Studio - The software project I'd been working on for a few years has finally been released for public usage.

Announcing TPMS Studio

"TPMS Studio" is a CAD application I built from the ground up while working as a postdoc at the University of Canterbury for realtime modelling + visualisation + direct 3D printing slicing/export for complex functional engineering assemblies featuring porous microstructures.  

* It runs on the GPU and is supposed to be fully cross-platform (though we can only really test / support Windows currently).

* It natively supports more than 30 types of "Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces" (including the usual suspects - Gyroid, Diamond, Primitive, IWP, etc) - My personal favourite though is the "Fischer-Kock C(S)" one  (*)

* We have the ability to directly export geometry to MSLA / resin printers, without needing to go through expensive + resolution-limiting meshing steps through an external slicer?

Also, as you can see from the video / demoreel below, the UI design of this software is heavily influenced + infused with Blender UX heritage ;)

TPMS Studio

Good Good Good - Santa Claus is... Chinese?! 🎅🎅🎅

Seeing as we're in the home stretch of the festive season, I thought it would be a timely to share some fun musings I wrote last year on Christmas Day  (some bits may not have entirely aged that well tho 😅)

Since I guessed that most folk would've been offline then, I decided to hold off posting it till the run-up to Christmas this year, so more folks may get to see it in a more timely way. So, here we go!  Hoping everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  🎅🎅🎅

~~~ 🎅🎅🎅 ~~~