Carbon, Inc

Javascript in 3D

At Carbon, we use JavaScript extensively across many of our products. This includes the displays on our printers and washers, the user interface to prepare models for printing, and the server that routes user requests to our many other services. We use many technologies in our software such as TypeScript, React, and three.js.

A large part of our software helps the user prepare their models for printing. We use React and three.js to build a user interface where users can support and lay out their parts in 3D before sending them to the printer. One of the more difficult challenges we have faced is how to determine what the user is hovering over in the three.js scene. For DOM elements, it is easy to add on Mouse Enter and on Mouse Leave event handlers to detect when the user moves the mouse over the element. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to determine what mesh the user is currently hovered over in three.js.

To learn more about this and see the graphics, check out: https://www.carbon3d.com/softwareteam/javascript-challenges/

Texturing

Our customers want awesome aesthetics as well as great material properties. For example, consider a bike grip. Consumers might expect some visually pleasing leather-like or similar texture that makes it easier to grip. Applying textures to a part presents many complex problems. Applying a 2D texture tile smoothly to a curved or angled surface continues to be a fun challenge. We use a method called UV mapping to project 2D tiles onto a 3D surface. In addition to the obvious geometric complexities, the user workflow for selecting a surface on a 3D object in the browser is also tricky. Imagine a complex curved surface where you only want to select certain parts of the curve. In addition, we've also had to improve rendering performance because the texture might produce millions of triangles. We're still working on improving all aspects of the texturing workflow, but being able to apply textures in our software has been a huge win for our customers that create user-facing products.

Fleet Management

When Carbon just got started, we focused on the software to make a single machine work. Now, customers are each acquiring more and more Carbon printers, and users care more and more about how to efficiently organize their printing across the fleet, without worrying about each individual printer. Our fleet management software not only gives customer a view of what's been printed across all their printers and their printers' status but also allows them to control at a high level what gets printed where. Queuing has greatly sped up customer workflows, and we're continuing to understand where we can help with scheduling and keep factories running around the clock. Collecting data from all the printers has also helped the customer track their parts and understand their printing habits through charts and graphs.

Think outside of your job description — at Carbon we encourage everyone to explore ideas beyond their official responsibilities.

Jens, on our front end team, worked on his own on prototyping software interactions between our printer and a robot, and it soon evolved to become the showcase at a trade show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2Zy5iOBXxI&feature=youtu.be

Hackathons

Twice a year (soon to be four times a year!) we take over the lunch room for a 24 hour hackathon extravaganza. Fueled by coffee, Chinese food, new ideas, more coffee, and passion, we form interdisciplinary teams to create, explore, fail, and iterate. Hackathon projects have turned into user-facing products, internal products, patents, and even t-shirt art. Others never made it out of the cafeteria. In the end, everyone has fun and learns some new skills along the way. Below are a few examples of previous hackathon projects:

Washer Service Diagram

In the early development days for the part washer, the development team (hardware, firmware, and software) needed an easy way to know the internal state of a machine. In addition to understanding the current state of a washer, the team wanted to be able to send commands to the microcontroller to open or close valves and run other subprocesses. We built an SVG schematic of the washer and an interactive internal web app hosted on the washer to dramatically improve the development experience. Today, this interactive diagram is used by manufacturing engineers, field service engineers, and our software team on a regular basis. For a graphic and further detail go to: https://www.carbon3d.com/softwareteam/software-puzzles-dessert-and-hackathons/

“Alexa, Use Carbon to..." When using our printers in a functioning print lab, it’s important to use gloves. Our engineering team is often working on printers in our labs, and it’s annoying to constantly remove and replace gloves when moving between a printer and a laptop. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just ask Alexa? We were able to get a functioning demo during the hackathon, but to do this in a production setting requires more work that hasn’t been prioritized yet. It was fun and inspiring nonetheless!