How MOEF is Bringing Us Images of an Alien Landscape…
We know more about space than we do the depths of our oceans. Deep sea diving can bring us the most fabulous footage and imagery of our submerged landscapes, but obtaining those images isn’t without its challenges. It’s taken for granted that diving can be a hazardous occupation given the pressure, lack of oxygen and alien environments. When you’re taking photos too, you need some incredibly reliable equipment, like the Paralenz – the first action camera for divers.
What is the Paralenz Dive Camera?
Developed by MOEF – Denmark’s premier ideas and products company – the Paralenz action camera for divers is a 4k high-definition camera with a number of enhanced features that pushes the next wave of innovation in underwater photography. It can operate to 200 metres, has a white balance that automatically matches the depth and can be mounted to the diver’s gloves or mask. Several of the MOEF team dive themselves, so they knew what qualities would benefit the model they were designing.
Deep sea designing: how did SOLIDWORKS help?
The last thing you want to be doing tens of metres underwater is reaching for a Philips head screwdriver. To affix the camera to the diver, MOEF required an easy click system of attachment. Designing such a mechanism proved a tricky process of engineering and design with which SOLIDWORKS helped enormously. The software slashed the time it took for design ideas to be tested accurately and swiftly, without the need to build models. When prototypes were required, the CAD data could be fed to MOEF’s 3D printer and tested within minutes.
Simulating sub-aquatic physics – without getting soaked
SOLIDWORKS’ aptitude at simulating the behaviour of real-world materials and physics was used to great effect by MOEF. One of the team’s biggest challenges was to design a camera attachment that enables divers to have third-person view shots of themselves from behind them as they dive. As a diver, you rarely have the luxury of another person taking your picture 100m below the surface – and sub-aquatic selfies would appear to be pretty much a practical no-no. This attachment for the Paralenz Dive Camera would effectively change that.
The buoyancy of the stubbornly non-buoyant camera, combined with the depths a rear mount could cope with, could have caused the team a potential engineering headache. Mercifully SOLIDWORKS is expertly tuned to the qualities and behaviours of everyday environments and matter, so calculations were able to square the circle swiftly. Result? The camera mount was manufactured exactly as needed and works like a dream.
From the lecture hall to the ocean floor
SOLIDWORKS is fast becoming the platform of choice for design and engineering professionals. It’s ubiquity in the industry means that it is increasingly becoming part of engineering students’ education. In short: knowledge of SOLIDWORKS is a skill that takes students from the lecture hall to the employer’s interview room. MOEF for one, benefits highly from students who have spent time with the software. Graduate designers on the Paralenz Dive Camera project were able to bring their knowledge to the design process without any need for training, benefiting the team’s timescale.
Capturing the motion of the ocean
As MOEF continue to capture astonishing footage of alien ocean vistas, SOLIDWORKS is incredibly proud to be part of the adventure. Who’d have thought that you could scale such heights from going so deep?
Read the original case study from PLM Group on their website, here.
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