It seems there are new mobile phones every day, but exactly where do these new designs come from? The SolidWorks APAC Blog posts an interesting article and video of how Sony Ericcson design engineers come up with unique designs. Evidently 3D printing permits the designers to punch out a physical prototype very early in the design stage in order to rapidly gauge the physical properties of any proposed design. As a result of the next-day 3D printing approach, they print thousands of prototypes per year – but the design speedups and quality improvements paid off the printer investment within a year.
One interesting bit in the video: Sony Ericcson maintains a library of their previous models, physically showing the entire history of mobile phone design!
