By John Shanahan

If you are involved in the design and creation of jewelry, there’s simply no way you haven’t heard about CAD/CAM — computer-aided design and machining.

For the last decade, this technology has been revolutionizing the way jewelry is created, from conceptualization to presentation. Once the provenance of the large industrial parts industry (think jet engines), CAD/CAM has moved away from its heavy engineering roots and developed into software and hardware solutions that are user-friendly and artist-intuitive.

Once you’re used to it, that is. All CAD software has an inherent learning curve. Software companies typically estimate this curve to be three to six months, depending on the person learning and the amount of time spent with the program. But once the training is in place — combined with practical, real-world knowledge of how to put together a piece of jewelry — these programs allow artists to design and create any piece, no matter how complex.

Flame ring by Lee Krombholz of Krombholz Jewelers. The rendering is the top photo; the finished piece is below, set with an 11-carat peridot and additional diamonds in the mounting. Photo courtesy Krombholz Jewelers.

San Diego-based jeweler Paul Klecka has been designing in CAD almost exclusively since 2003. He began using the technology because he could immediately see the potential design efficiencies.

Take carving wax, for example. “Even if you can accomplish that in 90 minutes or so, doing the same design in CAD might be a five-minute render and you’re done,” Klecka says. “[With wax carving,] if you wanted to alter that wax for a different finger size or a different-size center stone, you have to start all over, or you have to mold it and then manipulate your second-generation waxes. On the other hand, in CAD, you can simply go in and change the digital file and re-output it. The ease of making those changes is incredibly more efficient than the hand methods.”

Klecka is a dedicated user of Gemvision Matrix, the most popular CAD program for jewelry makers. When he was introduced to the software, he immediately liked the way it closely mimicked on-screen how he typically designed off-screen. “When I’m making a ring in wax, I start with the finger size as the benchmark, and everything builds out from that in terms of dimensions,” he says. “From there, I add my allowances or tolerances for the gemstones I’m using. I found that working in CAD mirrored that process. I would start my digital model in the same way — with the finger size, my shank thickness, and my allowances and tolerances for the stones. Once those were in place, I could add my skeleton — the essential lines, if you will — to map out where I was going to go with the digital mesh.”

The software also gave him the ability to “build negatively” — that is, to begin his designs with a block on-screen, imitating a block of wax, and allow him to use digital tools to carve away at it in three dimensions.

Paul Klecka’s CAD journey progresses from simple lines to a mesh extension of the line structure (pictured at left) to the addition of gemstones to the finished piece (right). Photos courtesy Paul Klecka Signatures.

But despite enjoying the similarities to real-world design, these days Klecka is more likely to take advantage of the software’s “builders.” These tools allow a jeweler to walk through the creation of many standard jewelry design tasks by inputting certain parameters and allowing the system to build it for you. The latest release, Gemvision 5.3, includes builders for pavé settings, custom gemstones, eternity rings, and more.

Klecka is so deeply into CAD/CAM that on his newest Web site, www.pksignatures.com, every jewelry image shown is a CAD rendering. There is no actual photography.

“It’s a communication tool,” he says. “If you go to the engagement section of my site and click on the bypass floater ring, and you’d like to see it in 18K gold with a princess-cut center stone and the top two bars in platinum rather than yellow gold, I can take that form that’s been created in [wire] mesh and show it to you in many different configurations.”

That ability to quickly change the look of a jewelry piece without reverting to pen and paper and re-sketching it from scratch is one of the many benefits Klecka has found in CAD software. With a few clicks of the mouse, everything from metal type to stone sizes can be changed. And the on-screen models are extremely close to what the finished product will look like.

Two gemstone bands created using the ArtCAM JewelSmith CAD software. Photo courtesy Delcam.

Lee Krombholz of Krombholz Jewelers in Cincinnati let his interest in computers in general bring him to CAD. Since 2002, he has tried several programs, beginning with JewelCAD, then migrating to the more robust but more industrially focused Rhino system before ending up, like Klecka, at Matrix — which uses Rhino’s technology and tweaks it to be more jewelry-oriented. “I realized that what they had developed was far more valuable for me, time-wise,” he says.

Krombholz uses CAD largely to produce his custom work, but also finds the benefit of Matrix’s builders in putting together more mundane designs. “We produce about 10 custom pieces a week on average,” he says. “Of those 10 pieces, while I certainly like to design interesting things, the majority of them can be rather basic. Matrix’s builders work well for setting up a ring size, adding gems. There’s a head builder that I use almost daily to build basket heads. It helps keep the time you spend on basic things to a minimum.”

Pat Pruitt is a metalsmith and jeweler based in Paguate, New Mexico. He has been using CAD/CAM since 1997, but in a way that’s different than the majority of jewelers. Rather than creating models that can be milled or grown in wax, Pruitt is sending his digital CAD files to his in-house milling machine and cutting the models directly from stainless steel.

To this end, he uses a CAD system that he admits is “more industrial and part-specific than free-form.” His system of choice is SolidWorks, but he also integrates CorelDraw to create shapes and forms that are very organic or otherwise difficult to generate in SolidWorks.

CAD/CAM allows jewelers to easily show rings with different stones set in the mounting. Rendered images courtesy of Jesse Kaufman.

SolidWorks is still largely a mechanical engineer’s software package, but Pruitt stands by it and its capabilities, especially in regards to his usage of it. “SolidWorks was the choice for me because it had a much easier learning curve. The other choices at that time — Mastercam, Pro/ENGINEER, and AutoCAD — were geared toward the machining industry. While SolidWorks may not be the CAD program of choice for jewelry artisans, it is a very robust package.” While he recognizes that there are other, more jewelry-focused systems out there, he sticks with what he knows best.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is West Hartford, Connecticut, jeweler Jesse Kaufman. Taking to CAD/CAM five years ago due to the development of carpal tunnel syndrome while working as a goldsmith, Kaufman is now in the process of testing and developing tutorials for a totally new system from the original developer of Rhino called Moment of Inspiration (MoI). This next-generation software is intended to bring greater artistic freedom to CAD through a user interface that can be driven either by a mouse or a touchscreen tablet with a special “pen” that translates what the artist draws into a digital model. In fact, the program is built around the idea of making a pen tablet easier to use in CAD.

While MoI is still in a beta-test version, Kaufman prefers to work in ArtCAM. “ArtCAM handles flowing, organic designs very well,” he says. “It’s more like sculpting, and it’s less demanding than other CAD programs. There’s a sculpting module where you can use the mouse like a cutting tool.” Unlike the virtual wax block Klecka mentioned, Kaufman prefers to create a basic design, then use this tool to digitally carve details into the piece.

Another module Kaufman derives much use from is one that produces cameos from scanned photos. “You can take an image of a profile, and the program generates a 3-D approximation of the photo,” he says. “Then you go back with the sculpting tools and refine it.”

ArtCAM’s “JewelSmith Solution” suite offers a variety of tools for jewelry creation, including 3-D relief modeling, 3-D surface modeling, embossing tools, and a substantial library of standard jewelry parts that can be incorporated into designs.

Artists who have brought CAD/CAM into their operations can sound downright evangelical about how it has affected their business.

“CAD/CAM has immensely changed how I look at fabricating jewelry,” Pruitt says. “Now there is absolutely no guesswork. Parts can be designed and cut with the utmost precision and accuracy, giving you the ability to produce a perfect piece of jewelry. The repeatability of producing the part again and again with zero flaws is great in a production environment.”

Krombholz has seen his custom work increase since he began using CAD. “I’m a third-generation jeweler, and our business has always had a reputation for custom design,” he says. “In each of the last two years, I’ve been able to double the amount of custom jewelry we’re able to produce. The only change has been the use of CAD design, and the ability to create these overwhelmingly satisfied customers who are going to go out and say, ‘If you want to do something, you need to go to Krombholz.’ ”

While CAD/CAM fans glow when they talk about this technology, it comes with a hefty price tag: A single-user copy of Matrix goes for $6,700; ArtCAM’s JewelSmith suite, for $7,500; and SolidWorks ranges from $3,995 for its basic version to $7,995 for its deluxe Office Premium. But users say the speed, efficiency, and accuracy that CAD/CAM brings to jewelry making is well worth the investment of time and money.

Klecka sums up succinctly what could be the best reason to use CAD/CAM: “I recognized that this was the way the world was headed,” he says, “and I didn’t want to be left behind.”

March/April 2007 • Considering CAD • A Bull in China • News & Updates • In This Issue • Visit the Vegas Show Guide