A DREAM COME TRUE FOR JEWELLERY DESIGNERS. Since ages, creative designers have poured out their hearts and their imagination to create masterpieces of art, that can drive the world crazy. Jewellery has been one of the most important fashion accessory of a Woman, right from early days of the history of Mankind. Jewellery Design and Manufacturing, which in the past was a profession just confined to a specific section of the society, has now become one of the most popular & lucrative professions of today. India has a rich history and a tradition of wearing various jewellery art forms, such as Bangles, Pendants, Rings, Ear-rings, Payals, Forehead Bindi and several others. There has always been a special place for Indian art in the heart of people all over the world. Now, with a heavy worldwide demand, and global markets open for us to venture into, the sky is the limit for Indian Jewellery Industry. Experts have put the future estimates for Jewellery industry at a massive 50 bn $. Indian jewelers have now realized the potential of the world jewellery market where our art is valued so much, and have started approaching these markets for business prospects. However, it is beyond doubt that we shall be able to survive in these markets only if we meet stringent demands of High Quality, Accuracy, speed of manufacture, flexibility. We also need to ensure that innovation and creativity reflects in our work to result in world-class designs that set us a class apart. Jewellery design, a profession that was passed on from father to son since ages, is now being taught in a very structured way at several manual jewellery-design training institutes. Here all the different aspects related to the art of jewellery design are taught to an individual. Apart from the technicalities of the subject, the art of creating sketches to represent the design is also taught at these places. However, the question that we face today, is that " Is this Training sufficient for us to face the challenges and the competition of the global markets ?" or do we need something else to ensure that we are equipped with the ability to apply and reap the benefits of new technology. The answer to this question is obvious. If we closely study the conventional process of jewellery design, we will soon realize that the current systems of jewellery design & Manufacture has got certain limitations. Although we have managed to work with these, there is certainly a better alternative. Consider the process of creating design sketches in 2 Dimensions. The moment we project a mental multi dimensional image of art on to a sketch, we have destroyed more than half of the information that we would have otherwise been able to use. We thus need tools that will allow us to easily convert our imagination to a 3D solid model. We also know that the final output design is often the result of a series of edits and modification to the initial concept, where every time we refine and working on it further to blend beauty into it. The conventional method of sketching is not very friendly to this process. Rework, and modifications become difficult. It is not possible to get an immediate real time 3D feedback of how each new feature looks like, before we try to blend it in. This puts on several limitations to creativity. Once the design is ready, now one of the most important aspect is how the model maker understands the views created by the designer in the best possible way and converts it into a solid wax model. This totally depends on the skills of the model maker, and obviously on how clearly the designer has represented the model on paper. The model maker however, may not be able to mirror design features with 100 % precision. Besides total model-to-model accuracy of the wax piece of the same design might not result due to human limitations. Considering the future global market scenario where we will have to operate, it is essential for us to communicate the design to others across the world. What could be a better media than the Internet. Can conventional designs be easily communicated across the net? Is it possible to send across 3D digital models, or going one-step further, Actual 3D prototypes of the jewellery item, to others? Is it possible for the customer to get a fairly accurate estimate of the cost of the item, even in cases where the object is made of two different materials? Technology has answers to all these questions. Today, repeated work on anything is the most undesired thing in the industry. Considering this scenario is it possible to create standard libraries of jewellery items, parts, Gems or features, and keep on modifying, scaling and using them time and again to create a variety of combinations. Besides these, there are certain issues with the conventionally followed Manufacturing process. Does it allow efficient mass production of exactly identical jewellery items, and that too within a very short time span. Is it possible to Make the process of investment casting faster and more accurate, and even eliminate some of the non value-adding processes? We need to keep on asking these questions to ourselves, since only then will we start searching for solutions to them. Solid Vision, an organization belonging to the ASK me Group was successful in finding a solution for the above. With a strong background of Design & Development and engineering, this group of technically oriented individuals successfully applied a high-end design to Manufacturing tool to the field of Jewellery design, and were able to address several of the issues that the Jewellery industry faced. Today, Solid Vision has been successful in implementing I-DEAS a world leading Design to Manufacturing Concurrent engineering software tool at several renowned Jewellery export houses in Mumbai. I-DEAS allows Designers to quickly create innovative designs from concept, and modify them efficiently till the final design is achieved. Excellent visualization capabilities, and presentation methods allow designers to convey their designs to others. Output in the form of digital models or 3D VRML files, allow easy 3D communication of design. Ability to create standard part catalogs allows reuse of standard items, by scaling, replication, patterning or modification. The Software gives us the capability to obtain a Rapid Prototyping output, (.STL) by which we can directly get a solid Wax piece output from any suitable Rapid Prototyping machine. This, and many other world-class features has made I-DEAS software extremely popular in the Jewellery Industry. I-DEAS Software, with its ease of Use, High-functionality features, and variational geometry environment, allow a designer to easily project his or her ideas to create a 3D model. The software records the entire history of creation of the model, thus allowing the designer to go back any number of steps, modify any feature, and then just replay the remaining sequence of creations. After the model is ready, a variety of shadings, light effects and textures can be applied to give the perfect realistic visualization. The models can be viewed in multiple view-ports, from different points of reference. With a large number of companies, (more than 50 installation licenses in SEEPZ, Mumbai.) now eagerly moving towards this software, there has been a tremendous rise in the need for skilled jewellery designers, who have learnt the use of 3D Modeling software I-DEAS. Solid Vision and ASK me Software systems have always stood by their commitment and vision "To bring CAD/Cam Technology tolls within the reach of every individual who has a thirst of applying this technology to the industry or to his/her personal career areas." says Mr. Ashish Potdar, the Managing Partner of ASK me Software systems, a company which has been into CAD/CAM Software solutions, Services and Training since the past 6-7 years, and have trained several hundreds of students and professionals on these technology tools. For this, ASK me Software Systems, a Group Company, has been operating a Jewellery design Training Center on I-DEAS software at "Jewel Creation" at Andheri, a popular and centrally located suburb of Mumbai City. Here, a variety of batch and timing options are available for students and professionals. Full Time / Part Time / Weekend courses are available. The training is 1:1 and done by experienced faculty. At this center, Courses on Jewellery design are conducted, which begin from basics of 2 Dimensional and 3 Dimensional design, and take the student through higher and higher complexities, and introduce them to the exciting possibilities of using several creative 3 D tools for creating masterpieces of art. During the course, several real models of Jewellery Rings, Pendants, and Bangles etc.. are covered, and the 1 : 1 Individual Training allows complete practical time for hands-on work on the software. The Course ends with Live Projects on creation of complex designs, and is followed by an examination and certification. The certification is very well valued and recognized by the industry for recruiting designers with Computerized Jewellery designing skills. Individuals who have already completed their Manual Jewellery design Course, or those who are already in this field in past, can directly join the Training Course, and can also work on their own designs at later stages when they start with Live projects. Individuals, who are fresh to this field, also can get benefit of the option of doing an integrated course on Manual Jewellery design Plus Computerized Jewellery Designing on I-DEAS software. Solid Vision is in regular contact with the Jewellery Designing companies, since these are all their very own customers for the I-DEAS software. Hence they are always update on job openings that come up. This helps them to send their passed out students to these companies for Interviews. Before sending people out for interviews the students are also given inputs on live project exams during the selection process. They are guided on how to project themselves during the interaction with the company. Freelancers and Jewellery Design Consultants can also benefit from this Technology. They can associate with ASK me Software Systems, for working on their own models and providing services to the industry, making use of the available software resources at any of the 9 Business Units ( & also CAD/CAM Training centers ) of ASK me Software systems, which have I-DEAS Software installed, along with Skilled technical personnel for guidance at any stage. Designs of jewellery items created by them can be communicated to customers worldwide via the internet, in the form of 3D Views offered by VRML file players. Considering the fact that the emerging technology will have a very strong bearing on the Manufacturing processes of tomorrow, Solid Vision has built associations with organizations into Manufacturing Technology. These technology partnerships are in the areas of Computer aided Manufacturing such as Rapid Prototyping, Rapid Tooling, CNC Manufacturing and several other possible areas. A dedicated technical team is working full time on the requirements of Jewellery design. This includes customization of the software, Building customized design libraries, and standard parts catalogs for various jewellery items, Gems , settings etc. This team also studies and keeps a watch on the happenings and emerging technologies that can be applied to the field of Jewellery design. They remain in close association with the end users in the industry, and communicate their requirement to the I-DEAS Software developers, to come out with better jewellery oriented features. This team keeps on trying alternate and innovative methods of creation, using the features of I-DEAS Software, and from time to time, this learning is transferred to the industry in the form of regular Advanced Features or Update Trainings. The Consultancy Services Division of ASK me Software Systems offers services to the Jewellery industry for 3D Jewellery design, Creation of Libraries etc.. and also to obtain the Rapid Prototype output of the Jewellery models. Jewellery Design is an art, and today's technology has offered superb tools to the designer to exploit the limitless potentials of creativity. We are at a stage where this technology is just evolving. The future holds endless possibilities in stock. Our success depends solely on how fast we adapt ourselves to this and transition to newer and better tools and processes. In order to introduce this technology to more and more people from the field of Jewellery designing, ASK me software systems regularly organizes free technology seminars at various places. Recent events that were highly appreciated were a technology seminar & demonstration at Prasad Chambers for Business people into jewellery & Gems, another one at The gems & Gemology Association, a third at the launch of Jewel Quick, a software from SDRC and at the CAD/CAM Day at Andheri, where exclusive Jewellery design Demonstrations and discussions were arranged for students and professionals. In future, there will be several more such events. Besides this, personalized demonstrations are regularly arranged at the Training center at Andheri, where an individual can also get a hands-on feel of the software.