For 15 years, Dr Ali Tamijani’s focus was on design for 3D printing.
It still was when, at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – where Tamijani lectured – a generative design technology was developed. Design remained the core focus when the US National Science Foundation, Air Force of Scientific Research, NASA and Office of Naval Research provided 2.5 million USD in funding to support additional development and de-risking. And it was still when, in 2022, Novineer was founded to bring the technology to market.
The Alpha version of the resulting NoviDesign platform was launched in 2022, with seed investment helping Tamijani and co-founder Dr. Zhicao Wang to continue development, and a Beta version followed two years later. By this time, Novineer had secured an exclusive license agreement with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and established a design and SaaS agreement with its first 3D printing OEM.
Fast forward to the spring of 2026, however, and Tamijani is in Reno, Nevada, talking not about design. And not even about the NoviPath simulation technology that was recently integrated into GrabCAD Print Pro. In Reno, Tamijani was introducing the latest product in a now threefold portfolio.
Novineer’s NoviVision reverse engineering software, Tamijani begins, is easy to explain and quick to demonstrate. At the AMUG Conference, he tells me, attendees would gather a sample part from an accompanying booth, take no more than a handful of photos (up to six) on their smartphone, and watch as NoviVision did the rest.
Using the images in tandem with an artificial intelligence model that has previously worked with ‘millions’ of digital part models, NoviVision outputs an editable CAD file within as little as two minutes – maybe a little longer for more complex parts.
