Bentley Systems president Greg Bentley said they made the switch
from Spatial Technology's ACIS because
"Parasolid has become the standard for high-end solids modeling technology."
It is interesting to note that Bentley plans to use Parasolid
to extend solids modeling to its architectural
software, Triforma.
Java is not useful for writing a complete CAD system because (1)
the entire code must be available at one time,
which rules out Java applets; and (2) CAD software has pretty much
migrated to Windows NT, negating the need for
Java's ability to run on any platform and network devices. Instead,
Java is useful for:
The new version of ModelServer Publisher includes database publishing
in HTML format, a new Java viewing
applet, and support for AutoCAD R14 DWG files. STEP files are due to
be supported in the future. The software will be
available by year's end. More info from http://www.bentley.com
In unrelated news, Sun and Microsoft have each posted their confidential
Java licensing agreement on the Internet
in order to garner grass-roots support for their side of the law suit,
where Sun is seeking US$35 million plus damages
and costs from Microsoft for violating the agreement.
More bad news will come next week. October 28 has been designated
"Bill Gates Ping Day" (his birthday) by the
Purple Ribbon Campaign.
The Campaign has asked all Internet users to ping Microsoft servers on
that day.
Improved Multi-scale Plotting is improved to allow a name for each of
the possible 256 sheets per drawing. 3D
GotoViews can now be used as details. Any detail can be read out to
the drawing window for further editing or updated in
one step based on the current view.
To see DataCAD 8 first-hand, attend the Ten Year Anniversary of DBUG
(DataCAD Boston Users' Group) at Build
Boston Nov 19'97.
At one time, this software package was supposed to sell 350,000
copies to Generic CADD users, plus others. When it
became apparent that sales were well below expectations (one figure
we heard was 25,000 copies), Corel took over the
marketing and distribution from Numera Software. Eventually, the Visual
CADD source code was also sold to Corel. We can
only guess that Corel also found CAD sales uninspiring and sold to
IMSI.
Now IMSI has two $500 2D CAD packages: TurboCAD and Visual CADD.
What to do? We have no idea what IMSI's plans
are but here are the options we see:
Option 1. Sell Visual CADD as a high-end 2D design product (US$1,000
or more). Increasing the price from US$495 to
US$1,995 seems to have worked for CadKey.
Option 2. Market Visual CADD as a parallel product to TurboCAD,
like Tide-Bold detergent and Dodge-Plymouth mini-
vans.
Option 3. Make use of some of Visual CADD's unique features, such as its Web DLL and VB API.
Option 4. Sell it again or orphan it -- a pity, since its lineage goes back to 1985, when Generic CADD v1 came out at US$99.
Bosch Automation
MASoft v5 allows you to design workstations based on Bosch components.
The software runs within AutoCAD and is free to
qualified Bosch customers.
Computervision
Division Group's dVISE visualization technology will be added to Computervision's
EPD.Connect work environment. The
viewer allows you to perform 3D visual flythrough's of assemblies with
10,000 or more components.
Intergraph
Intergraph Software Solutions has teamed with Softway Systems to market
OpenNT/NFS Solutions, which integrates
UNIX applications, files, and printers into a Windows NT environment.
Parametric Technology Corporation
The Pro/ENGINEER software will support the first implementation of
Intel's 64-bit CPU, currently called
Merced.
QNX Software
InfoWorld reports that the real-time operating system, QNX, is able
to fit the following on a single 1.44MB diskette:
the Voyager Web browser, Web server, the QNX GUI and operating system,
and PPP connection software. [In contrast,
Internet Explorer v4 is a 22MB download in compressed format.
-- Ed.]
SolidWorks
SolidWorks STEP (AP 203, Part 42) Translator is now available. It is
now included with SolidWorks 97Plus at no
additional cost. Other translators included with SolidWorks include
IGES, DXF, DWG, XMT (Parasolid transmit file), SAT,
STL, and VRML.
Vibrant Graphics
Liquid Speed is intuitive drafting technology now included with SoftEngine
4, which now works with AutoCAD Release 14.
Vibrant says Soft Engine is about twice as fast as Autodesk's Whip
driver (when tested with R13c4). Order now
for a pre-release price of US$149.
WorkPlace Systems
Active Asset Manager is an engineering information and document management
module for integrating engineering with
corporate operations systems, such as SAP. The software supports 100
filetypes and is integrated with MicroStation,
AutoCAD, and ODMA apps, such as Word.
A: There are four independent vendors that have DWG read-write API toolkits:
http://www.synth98.com
The SYNTHESIS Company:
AutoCAD parametric design package with a free Demo, free user profiles,
and free information.
We have many cool users across the planet since 1985. More info
from Tim Paxton <timpax@memes.com>
http://pcfolini.eng.unipr.it/Sites.html
CAD on The Web from Italy
The database of CAD/CAM/CAE resources on the WorldWide Web.
http://www.edelman.com/iab/banner.html
Internet Advertising Bureau
Information about Internet banner ad standards. For example, 468x60
pixels is the most common size.
If you like the Microsoft approach to programming, here is an excellent
book for creating a dynamic Web site using
Visual Basic 5 and Visual InterDev. The book covers the following topics:
List price: US$34.99; 460pp; paperback.