Osaka, Japan – Imagining an object in full scale is the ideal of design. I-DESIGN Company, Ltd. is a well-known product design company and a leader in Japan’s 3D CAD product design industry. The company plays an active role in defining the Japanese design market, having recently run a year-long series of articles entitled “3D Design Practical Seminar” in NIKKEI Design Magazine. The company also offers design seminars for professionals. Mr. Ishimoto, president of the company, is chairman of the Rhinoceros Software Users Society in Japan.

I-DESIGN purchased a Roland MDX-500 milling machine to improve its designers’ skills in two areas: To be able to capture virtually designed shapes in 3D CAD as real shapes, and to create more effective product presentations for its clients. “Imagining an object in a full-scale size and actually creating it are the significant elements of product design,” said Mr. Ishimoto. “The MDX-500 has filled the gap between a virtual image on screen and a real shape.”

Ishimoto notes that in this era of CAD/CAM design, designers need to be more informed about production issues and have the knowledge and skills to effectively utilize 3D CAD data to produce full-scale models.“As a result of adopting the MDX- 500 technology and allowing our designers to create an actual full-scale sample, we have both improved our designers’ skills and have shortened the time needed for clients to approve a project.”

To create a model of one of its designs, I-DESIGN professionals select the most appropriate software, generally Rhinoceros, SolidWorks, or Design Studio, and create a 3D CAD data file. The file is then sent to CraftMILL CAM software to generate a tool path. Next, the designers select the most suitable material for milling, for example, chemically treated wood for checking the design’s appearance or ABS for part prototyping. The finished
model is then presented to the client for approval.