PFISTER™ Custom Faucet Solutions Designs Stylish Faucets In
Minutes, Captivating Crowds, with SensAble’s FreeForm® 3D Modeling
Blazingly Fast Concept Modeling of PFISTER Custom Faucets Wows Interior Designers
at Expo, Typifies FreeForm’s Power to Design without Limitations
WOBURN, MA May 19, 2010 – SensAble Technologies, a leader in 3D modeling solutions and haptic devices, announced that its customer PFISTER Custom Faucet Solutions has made SensAble’s FreeForm® 3D modeling solution the centerpiece of its strategy to win upscale hospitality faucet business. PFISTER Custom Faucet Solutions is a division of Price Pfister Inc., a Stanley Black & Decker company based in Lake Forest, California. At today’s Hospitality Design Expo in Las Vegas, PFISTER Custom is using FreeForm to design high quality innovative faucets and coordinated accessories on the fly – in seconds – as interior designers watch on large-screen monitors. The approach was used successfully at last year’s HDExpo where the unique PFISTER designs created live drew crowds of amazed designers and architects – experts familiar with the typical parametric CAD design constraints – and helped PFISTER land new clients.
With PFISTER branding centered on providing custom designed faucets in as little as 8 weeks, SensAble’s FreeForm allows the design team the exceptional speed and creative freedom they need – and the efficiency of transferring FreeForm concept designs and detailed embellishments to other CAD/CAM software for further engineering, tooling and manufacturing.
“FreeForm allows us to demonstrate our design expertise right on the Expo floor, to the delight of audiences, and show how we can bring ideas to market more quickly,” said Jay Czerwinski, director of industrial design and packaging at Stanley Black and Decker Hardware Home Improvement. “Our business is to design what we call ‘jewelry’ for the home or workplace – simple, elegant hardware that the casual eye might overlook, but whose detail really makes the room. With FreeForm, we can ideate as fast as designers can think – and build confidence that we can help our clients stand out to win large projects,” Czerwinski said.
“What’s more, the designs we create on the show floor can illustrate some of the handcrafted subtleties you’d expect in a final design. You’d never be able to create sculptural designs like these – in minutes – with any other CAD product on the market!”
Designers use FreeForm’s unique digital clay to create beautiful curves, shape, sculpt, model and manipulate a design so that it evokes the intent of the customer, such as drawing from interior designs, textures, furniture or materials, with just the right touches that brand the look as the builders’ own. For example, FreeForm makes it fast and easy to emboss logos on the handles, or capture natural, organic shapes such as leaves or vines on the graceful arc of a faucet.
Because of FreeForm’s speed when digitally defining complex, organic shapes, the Industrial Design Team can represent PFISTER’s 8-9 week concept-to-final-design process in just 3 days – moving quickly through traditionally time-consuming CAD modeling.
Design concepts created at the Expo form a starting point for further refinement after the show, back at CA-based design center. After completing the design, a full-scale prototype is created using a 3D printer and shipped overnight for client review. When the design is finalized, a revised prototype is produced and used in a mock-up hotel room, used to bid and win the project. Once an award is secured, the FreeForm design’s detailing and surfaces are easily imported into other CAD programs, where mechanical details or plumbing fittings can be added and the tooling made for efficient manufacture.
“Price Pfister, now celebrating its 100 year anniversary, has a long history of forward-thinking design, and we’re proud that SensAble’s FreeForm is an important part of its latest efforts with PFISTER Custom Faucet Solutions,” said Joan Lockhart, vice president of marketing at SensAble Technologies. “These talented designers are becoming the group’s best salespeople by showcasing their creativity and ingenuity with FreeForm – and using it to further streamline the total design and production process.”
PFISTER Custom Faucet Solutions is showcasing SensAble’s FreeForm in Booth 4966 at the HD Expo and Conference today through May 21 at the Sands Exposition Center, Las Vegas. For more information, visit pfistercustom.com.
About SensAble Technologies
Founded in 1993, SensAble Technologies is the leading developer of 3D touch-enabled (force feedback) solutions and technology that allow users to not only see and hear an on-screen computer application, but to actually “feel” it. With 41 patents granted and over 7,000 systems installed worldwide, SensAble Technologies' haptic technology is being used in applications ranging from designing toys and footwear, to surgical simulation and stroke rehabilitation, to dental restorations, as well as a range of research and robotic applications. The company markets its own 3D modeling solutions as well as its haptic devices and developer toolkits to medical, dental, design, and manufacturing companies; educational and research institutions; and OEMs. SensAble products are available through direct and reseller channels worldwide. www.sensable.com.
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FreeForm, SensAble, and SensAble Technologies, Inc are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective holders.
