воскресенье, 19 августа 2012 г.

Why Designing a Mars Rover Like Curiosity Just Got a Lot Easier By Tim Maly

MSL Rover NX CAD model



You’ve all seen the artist renditions. This is what Curiosity looks like to an engineer.


A few minutes into our interview last Thursday, I ask Tim Nichols, managing director of Global Aerospace, Defenses and Marine Industries at Siemens, if he was nervous about the Curiosity’s fate on Sunday. “Of course I am,” he says with a laugh, “We all know about missions to Mars — they’re complex.” None moreso than Curiosity’s elaborate landing sequence, designed to get the SUV-sized robot down safely.

He needn’t have worried. Late Sunday night, the rover successfully set down on the Martian landscape, overseen by a tense room of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineers and watched by so many people here on Earth that all of NASA’s websites crashed. Like the rest of us, Nichols was glued to his screen. Unlike the rest of us, Nichols gets to say he had a hand in it. His company’s software designed Curiosity.

Curiosity is much larger than her unexpectedly long-lived predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity. This meant that she couldn’t just land bundled inside airbags like the smaller rovers.

Instead, the mission executed a complex series of maneuvers to eject the robot from its capsule and lower it to the ground, via a rocket-powered sky crane in a sequence of events that NASA called the Seven Minutes of Terror.

Curiosity was designed by the JPL at the California Institute of Technology. When it came time to coordinate the enormous team of designers and engineers that built Curiosity, the capsule, and the sky crane, JPL turned to Siemens. They needed to design the robot (relatively) cheaply and they needed to design it fast — the launch window for missions to Mars comes once every two years. If you miss the deadline, there’s a long wait ahead. MSL Capsule with Rover NX CAE thermal model



If you squint, you can see Curiosity and the sky crane folded up together in the capsule.


Luckily, Siemens had developed software suited to this sort of project. They call it Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).

One of the costliest parts of creating a new physical product is building and testing prototypes. With PLM’s robust suite of simulators and version tracking, you can avoid a lot of physical prototyping — saving both time and money, and speeding up the development process. In essence, PLM turns the physical engineering of a product into a process that looks more and more like designing code.

PLM runs on a laptop, connected to a central asset manager, called the Team Center. Engineers can check out parts of the project, work on their problems and assignments, and then check it back in to the main branch. This allows for a lot of concurrent design work. “In the past, engineering teams would be somewhat isolated by discipline,” says Nichols, “The overall leadership recognized that they needed to bring all the groups together.”

This is a far cry from past projects, which would be designed as a series of handoffs between teams. First the thermal profiles would be worked out, then the aerodynamics, on down the line. Propagating changes between teams could become a nightmare. PLM changed all of that, Nichols says, giving the team the ability to “compress the schedule and … do many more design iterations.” MSL NX CAD Exploded view of seperation stages



With luck, this is the only exploded view of the Mars lander that we’ll ever see.


If this sounds a lot like software engineering, especially the open source variety, it’s because it is. There’s a version control system, the ability to check code in and out of the system, and a set of test suites that allow you check the performance of your part of the module in relation to the whole. By keeping the objects in software for as long as possible, you can treat them like software, with all of the speed and flexibility that this implies.

Nichols says their suite of tools has been used to design everything from golf clubs — “Golf clubs are pretty sophisticated, though they haven’t helped my game.” — to aircraft carriers. Looking ahead, he predicts an increasing incidence of distributed international teams of contributors working on a project. “Global virtual collaboration and engineering is really the future,” he says. “We want to see more of that.”

But first, Curiosity had to make it to Mars. “We all have our fingers crossed,” he said on Thursday. You can uncross them now, Mr Nichols.

The Release of Large Menu Icons

Menu-Icons.com announces the release of Large Menu Icons, a royalty-free library of stock menu images for application developers and web designers. The new set includes 398 icons drawn in matching style, color and gamut. The Large Menu Icons collection sells for $49.00.

About Large Menu Icons

Large Menu Icons is the perfect choice for busy application and Web site developers. This collection of stock icons with matching properties such as style and colors, can be used in various projects and scripts, as well as on portals, blogs, forums, and web sites. Large Menu Icons will make an application, blog or applet look modern and consistent throughout. All icons in the Large Menu Icons collection are royalty-free. The entire collection is immediately available and comes with an online preview.

What's Inside

The Large Menu Icons collection contains images representing all sides of the application work. Some of the icons in the set are: open, close, edit, validate, time, clock, error, OK, data, computer, archive, people, user, girl, man, admin, horse, car and more.
                    Large Menu Icons

Technically, the set includes icons in a number of formats, sizes, color resolutions, and image styles. Every icon from the library comes in sizes of 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48 and 64x64 pixels. Normal, disabled, and highlighted versions are included for every icon. 256-color and semi-transparent True Color icons are supplied. Large Menu Icons are delivered in Windows Icon (ICO), Bitmap (BMP), GIF and PNG formats for instant integration into any systems. The entire Large Menu Icons collection is available for only $49.00. Source images are also available in SVG and AI formats for an additional payment.
Menu-Icons.com also plans to release a number of new original icon sets including Lumina Menu Icons, Windows Menu Icons, New Menu Icons, Cool Menu Icons, Win8 menu Icons, Vista Menu Icons, Mac Menu Icons, Android Tab Icons, Linux Menu Icons, Nokia Menu Icons, iPhone Menu Icons, Mobile Menu Icons.

About the Company

Menu-Icons.com offers thousands of icons in the most difficult small resolutions. PDA and mobile developers and designers can enhance their software with smooth, perfectly rendered icons in the most convenient resolutions. Menu-Icons.com are available in all sizes common to desktop and mobile applications for mobile phones, communicators, and desktop applications. All icons offered by Menu Icons are royalty-free, ready-made and instantly available.

воскресенье, 27 мая 2012 г.

Small Housekeeping Icons - Attractive Matching Of Icons Sets!

Small Housekeeping Icons are attractive matching set of icons that having with different share features like the colors, and looks. You can save both your money and time with the help of collection of small housekeeping icons. You can find these icons in various sizes, colors and file formats that required for different application on your desktop. These icons are available in several sizes like the 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, and 48x48. You can also get these icons in various formats like ICO, PNG, GIF, BMP and more than 256 color icons from the set. Due to these reasons, you will never require to make any sorts of change in your system setting to download it. With the help of small housekeeping icons collection, you can solve all sorts of personal and business requirement easily. Due to easy accessibility the small housekeeping icons are gaining much popularity among the icons lovers to increase look of their desktop.

Icons


Nowadays, the great applications are made for the Inventory Management as well as monitoring purposes. The home workers, sales personnel and managers make use of them on the daily basis that needs highest possible level of the usability as well as comfort. The well readable interface is the most significant elements of the efficient application, since it gives the users good idea about way functions as well as commands are all grouped or allows them finding right ones without even spending a lot of time browsing by many menus. The increased efficiency of the single home worker and salesperson means the increased efficiency of whole Company that is very hard to overestimate. In case, you work on the house application and will not figure how you can solve UI problem under the fixed DeadLine, and try the comprehensive as well as professionally looking sets of icon- Small Homeware Icons!

вторник, 22 мая 2012 г.

Android isn’t a Phone OS because in the Future – Really Offering Advance Features!

At present, there are numbers of advance technologies have been evolved by the software or apps designers. If you want to use latest and advance design technology, then you have the good option to select the Android. Now, it has managed to draw more attention from those users who are waiting for using best technology in their life. According to New York Times, the Android has considered as future instrument through which users are getting all sorts of facilities and advantages for fulfilling their future requirements. Have you ever think why Android has managed the leading position in the software field? It’s time to know about it because the Android OS or operating system has been designed by Google’s technology, and the voice clarity is so excellent than technology. So, the users are getting advance features and facilities while they are using this sort of technology. This is your turn to select this sort of technology from the online media in cheap.

Icons

When we talk about the android we see it as the greener grass beyond the lucrative fence separating gloomy and dark farm from the healthy looking fields. And we found out that the rugged motorola is accessible on the sournlinc wireless as well as we are learning of what can potentially be the next carrier. I liked palm os however honeymoon faded same story with the windows mobile. Android can ship with the set of the core applications that includes the email client, calendar, SMS program, contacts, maps, browser, and many more. All the applications are written by using Java programming language. Application architecture is made to simplify reuse of the components; and any application will publish the capabilities and other application might then use these capabilities.

суббота, 19 мая 2012 г.

Apple iPhone vs. Android: the Battle

Androids vs. iPhones. The discussion goes on and on. At the time the iPhone first hit the market, there was really no competition. Apple was playing in a class of its own. First Android phones were mediocre: slow UI response, lags here and there, and the overall "assemble-it-yourself" approach just didn't with consumers.



iphone icons


Today, the market has changed. With newest iPhone being a superb device and a luxurious platform, the latest Androids leave little to be desired. Today's Androids have responsive UI, offer most of the same apps in the Google Play store, and went away with the do-it-yourself, LEGO type approach. Today, choosing one system over another is more of a personal preference. Let's try to discover what's good about going the Apple route, and what advantages the Android way can bring.

Hardware and Model Selection

With Apple, you are always limited to just a few models. Or, rather, you can choose from only one current model in several versions that, honestly, differ very little. There are a few older models you can get from the used market, but that's about it. "You can have any color as long as it's black".

Android phones, on the other hand, come in many shapes, models and colors. Various manufacturers use completely different hardware. Different displays, processors, memory. Vastly different reliability and usability. Buying an Android phone will require you to do a market research, whereas you can't go wrong with any current iPhone. Are you a techno geek or a gadget guy? Look for an Android phone you like best. The rest will be served by Apple.

Display

The newest generation of iPhones has a superb Retina display. These super high pixel density displays will render your apps, icons and pictures so crisp it's hard to believe. Kudos to Apple: they built one of the greatest screens ever.

Android phones come with all sorts of displays. Some of the better ones can approach iPhones in pixel density, but software integration is still lacking. Many apps still have low-resolution icons and graphics designed to be shown on lower-resolution screens. When choosing an Android phone, you will have to look really carefully to buy a model with a good display. If you're not friends with numbers, icon dimensions, angles of view and other specs, just leave the Androids alone.

Pre-Installed Software and UI

An iPhone is an iPhone. They're all the same. One operating system, one user interface, the same set of pre-installed apps, same icons. You can customize it by moving icons around and choosing a few icons on your own, but there's only so much you're allowed to do.

Androids come in all sorts of flavor. Different firmware and dozens of OS versions, builds and codenames. Different sets of icons for exactly the same app. Many different shells and launchers. Extensively customizable: you can turn an Android phone into pretty much whatever you want (and it's not all about custom icons) - but you must know what you're doing. With such a broad variety, some models are simply better as in easier to use, more stable and working faster than others. If building your very own custom system is fun for you, by all means get the Android. If you like it working out of the box, get an iPhone and start using it right away.

Extensibility

iPhones don't have a slot to use an external memory card. You'll be stuck with the amount of memory you originally got. If you outgrow your iPhone, you'll have to get another iPhone, bringing more dough to Apple.

Most but not all Android devices come with a microSD extension slot, allowing you to add more memory when you need it. With flash memory getting cheaper every year, you will be better off in the long run if you buy an Android.

With iPhones, you can't even replace a battery. If your battery goes bad in some years (they all do; lithium batteries die in 3-4 years), you'll be mailing your iPhone to Apple for a "major repair" (more dough to Apple), or be on the market for a new iPhone (even more money to Apple).

While some Android phones use similarly fixed batteries, most phones are easy: just lift the back cover and throw a new battery in. A new battery will set you back a few dollars, allowing you to buy a replacement phone when you want it.

Conclusion

Android phones are cheaper to buy and more affordable to upgrade and maintain. They're more extensible and customizable. iPhones are perfect straight out of the box, and offer one of the best usage experience ever. Which one to pick? The choice is yours.

среда, 2 мая 2012 г.

777icons – Offering Numbers of Icons Images!

Now days, everyone prefers to accomplish their complicated professional work through computer because it is the best solution for all sorts of professional works. There is no one can eliminate the use of computer in their life. Through this sort of technology anyone can enjoy their time successfully. If you want to use some attractive and sheer quality icons, then you need to move for the 777 icons. These sorts of icons have specially designed for menus and toolbars. These are very attractive and eye catching. Also, these sorts of icons are available individually and group of set. So, you need to decide the best option for you to download the 777icons on your computer. The 777 icons are big stock icons and here you can get required icons designs and sizes. If you want to desktop icons, website icons, menu icons, and toolbar icons, then you need to look for the 777 icons. Go to the 777icons as well as browse some collections of the icons and discover one, which matches to your style, as well as enhance the project with well designed graphics.



Icons are needed and icons have a power to represent the things. We may always know little dog eared document on any of the toolbar meaning 'New' button. We can always know floppy disk icon that is representing 'Save' also 'Save As'. Every Internet computer user knows blue MS Explorer symbol. The icons are essential in the applications, on the PC desktops, on the websites, on the food packages, in the books, in the advert booklets, in the website banners, all over the place!

Icons

Imagine in case, you can have the read made design at hand - toolbar icons, theamed icons, Vista icons. That will mean you want to get what you would like to have, and get that in some minutes!