www.upfrontezine.com
Inside this Issue
Some readers found that my primary email address, ralphg@xyzpress.com , was not reliable over the last week. The ISP hosting that domain name has been having problems ever since it upgraded its software ten days ago. You can use grabowski@telus.net as an alternative email address.
Open,
Yet Encrypted
At last week's Daratech 2001 conference, Parametric
Technology announced a new initiative. MCAD magazine
editor Martyn Day reports: "PTC ceo Richard Harrison
talked about a new initiative called 'Granite One', which is essentially
a licensable Pro/E kernel, with features and translators built-in.
This 'interoperability kernel' would compete with Spatial ACIS
and UGS Parasolid, as well as provide a platform for developers
to port applications to work on native Pro/E files, maintaining
model associations in the round-trip." [Sounds to me like
Autodesk's AutoCAD OEM.]
This more accessible version of their Pro/Engineer mechanical
CAD software, I am guessing, is a result of PTC's renewed committed
to promoting Pro/E made during PTC's latest conference call with
financial analysts. Some attendees at Daratech, however, wondered
how the more-open Pro/E was philosophically compatible with the
more-closed Pro/E file format. Third parties, such as PlanetCAD,
had found that PTC encrypted recent releases of Pro/E's file format.
Indeed, Delcam was pleased to announce just two weeks ago
that they were the first to break the encryption. Mr Day describes
the process in graphic detail: "To access the information
within the files, Delcam put a team of Russian developers (industry
folklore says that these guys were all ex-KGB hackers) to work
out the key to the encryption algorithm used in Pro/E 2000i. Once
they had cracked that, they had to work out the key for the harder
2000i2 format. It took a year." <http://www.delcam.com/exchange/exchange.htm>
Mr Harrison explained the discrepancy: "There may be some
cases when we want to protect our customers so that foreign systems
don't corrupt modeling techniques by not taking advantage of the
appropriate information." For more of Mr Day's reports on
the Daratech show -- "It was like a competition: who could
claim to be the most open, the most often" -- check out http://www.cadserver.co.uk/
ACIS
and ParaSolid Cooperate
In a stunning move, UGS and Dassault's Spatial Technology
division have agreed to cooperate on their ParaSolid and
ACIS kernels. [FTC investigation, anyone?] Under
the terms of an agreement, UGS and Spatial are exchanging licenses
for their solid modeling technologies. The purpose is to improve
translation of 3D drawings between different CAD software applications
that use the competing kernels. In addition, Spatial will supply
UGS with data translators for CAD formats such as IGES, STEP,
and CATIA.
This move toward cooperation cames as a complete surprise. The
two companies had for several years fought hard against each other
with frequent product updates (usually outstripping the ability
of CAD vendors to implement to the latest version), and a form
of price war. Spatial felt it could not continue the battle, and
sold itself to Dassault Systemes last fall. Now that ACIS had
the backing of a giant CAD vendor and could do proper battle with
ParaSolid, also backed by a large CAD vendor, customers perhaps
anticipated further price wars and features races. But perhaps
the two competitors realized the limit to their competition, and
felt that future progress would come from cooperation.
Now, I wonder how the smaller kernel producers, such as Integrityware
and think3, will react?
upFront.eZine Spanish Edition
The Spanish Edition of upFront.eZine is published by Claudio
J Macció of Argentina. He is pleased to announce that last
week's upFront.eZine had been translated 100 weeks in a
row. The first Spanish Edition was delivered on February 2, 1999.
The Spanish Web site has moved to http://www.geocities.com/cjmaccio/
, where you can find all hundred back issues. To subscribe
to the Spanish Edition, send an email to claudiom@elsitio.net
.
Readers
Respond: The Travails of Archiving
Here are more reader opinions on methods for archiving
drawings. Next week, readers opinions on protecting software.
Is it just my imagination or do I remember something that could
"print" a CAD drawing directly to microfilm. This would
have give a hardcopy record occupying a small space with known
life storage. If you have the drawing, you can always redraw it.
- Peter Brown
The editor replies, "I also recall the microfiche plotters. I suspec they still exist."
In my experience previously managing systems for an AE firm,
data is maintained, not archived. It's clear that archiving is
best considered an ongoing effort, rather than as a point-in-time
event. The real issue is not a technical solution, but the procedural
treatment given to the data archiving, continual migration, and
translation.
- Huw Roberts
Bentley Systems, USA
Paper drawings are often thrown away once they have been archived
to storage media. If you don't get rid of them, there is no space
saving. On the other hand, if you forfeit the original hardcopy,
then you have no fallback position if storage media and technical
developments let you down in future. Perhaps the ancients knew
best: that which is really important should be written in stone
(silicon being a third-rate modern alternative)!
- Steve Hannath
Softcover International, England
I used to work for a software company in the process plant
design field, where data availability for 30, 50+ years is commonly
required. I remember one nuclear installation that archived a
Prime computer (remember them?), together with all the associated
data and programs, for just such a purpose. An extreme example,
maybe, but the problem still remains all these years later. At
least the same approach today would not require the small computer
hall, operators, etc. as it did back then!
- Nick Ballard
Cambashi, England
The editor replies: "Prime was picked up by Computervision, which in turn was absorbed into Parametric Technology."
While you wrote on the travails of storing 2D data, did you
get any feedback on storing 3D data? I believe the problem will
be more complex given the changes in kernels and formats.
- Manu Parpia
Geometric Software, India
The editor replies: "Not much. Today's 3D drawings will be much more difficult to archive than plain 2D drawings. Think about multiple paperspace views, program-defined objects, external references, and multiple kernels."
The Travails of Archiving was an interesting read. "Ignorance
is bliss," as I have found out by scratching the surface
of computers at age 77. My first job at an aircraft manufacturer
during the 1940s was in the bomb-proof drawing archive where the
originals were catalogued, stored, revised, blue-printed, stored,
revised...
- Herbert Grabowski [my dad]
Below
the Radar
A summary of press releases you may not have read elsewhere:
Cambric recently launched a service for online CAD data creation, conversion, and translation. Prices start at US$15/drawing for simple models, and go to US$465 for complex models. http://www.cambric.com
Maptech's new Super 3D Terrain Navigator CD-ROMs include glasses for seeing the maps "jump out" in 3D. Super regions are US$150, about four cents per quad, with 30 super regions covering the entire USA [only]. http://www.maptech.com
RedSpark unveils RAPIDteam this week at NDES, which it describes as "a common platform for project managers, engineers, supply chain managers, and purchasing professionals to work together with their direct material suppliers to accelerate time to market and improve product quality." You can sign up for a free trial at http://www.redspark.com
A new interface allows the export of NavisWorks scenes in Epix format for post-processing by Piranesi, the 3D painting system from Informatix Software. NavisWorks from LightWork Design allows for the realtime design review of 3D models. http://navisworks.com and http://www.informatix.co.uk
3G.web.decisions is a new P2P technology for peer-to-peer collaboration between product development teams. [This is just one of a number of P2P initiatives supported by Intel, which sees P2P as an excellent load on computers, which then require faster CPUs.] http://www.3gacorp.com
SwapDrive announced DesignPACK to view, edit, and approve technical documents and drawings, including AutoCAD, via Web browser. http://www.swapdrive.com
For readers who want the CAD headlines delivered to their desktop on a daily basis, you can subscribe at http://www.tenlinks.com/News/subscribe.htm.
New
Software Releases
ConceptDraw v1.58 is a new program (launched by Computer Systems
Odessa just a year ago) for diagramming, business, and technical
drawing. The package includes 1,800 objects in 80 libraries. The
software is file-level compatible across Windows and Mac platforms.
US$125 for the downloadable version from http://www.conceptdraw.com/products
A free Visio-to-ConceptDraw converter is downloadable, but requires
Visio for the translation to work (just like Actrix). If you don't
have Visio, email the VSD file to visio@conceptdraw.com
and they'll translate it for you.
A third product, ConceptDraw Server, converts ConceptDraw files
to HTML on the fly for Web sites. Check it out at http://cds.compsys.te.net.ua
Bentley Systems has released beta 1 of MicroStation V8 for its 200,000 Select subscription members only. Not all new features will be included until Beta 2. The beta program is expected to last six months [sounds like an September release date to me]. http://www.bentley.com/products/beta/msv8pre.htm
A public beta test of HyperSpace 2.0, including a new version of Activate!, has commenced at http://www.kaon.com/dev .
Buzzsaw.com has released ProjectPoint v2.0.
Advances
in Hardware
One problem with inkjet printers is that their prints and plots
are not of archival quality. Indeed, some mistakes have caused
image to fade rather quickly. Epson has now developed archival
quality ink made from pigments for its new inkjet printer. The
company says will prints will last 125 years.
Conferences
Congress on the Future of Engineering Software, April 26-28 in
Scottsdale AZ USA. http://www.cofes.com/
People/Companies
on the Move
ESI Group appointed Marc Smadja as coo for product
development. Before joining ESI Group, Mr Smadja was president
of VMDS, a consulting company. http://www.esi-group.com
Redo
During the conference call, I misheard Autodesk's projected earnings
for its next fiscal year. The numbers should have been between
US$1.025 and $1.065 billion, hopefully attaining the goal of becoming
a billion-dollar corporation.
Computer
News Summaries
Good news from Intel: Intel this week cut the prices of
its desktop CPUs between 1% and 19%. The next round of price cuts
is expected on 17 May for notebook CPUs.
Bad news for Intel: A US federal appeals court decision last Thursday allows Intergraph to return to court to pursue royalties from Intel. Intergraph says that the Pentium CPU contains technology patented by Intergraph for its Clipper CPU. Ever since it began the lawsuit in Nov '97, Intergraph has been looking to these potential royalties to help it out of its financial difficulties.
With help from software and map maker Webraska, IBM begins its drive into the au-current wireless Location Based Services (LBS) sector, joining Intergraph and Autodesk.
Market
News
Privately-held Bentley says its annual revenues exceed
US$190 million. [I guess that means revenues were under $200
million.]
The
WorthWhile Web
http://www.uky.edu/%7Ekiernan/eBeowulf/guide.htm
Electronic Beowulf
http://www3.ndl.go.jp/cgi-bin/osform/RM_Service?osform_template=nishiki_summain.oft&MOVE_FLAG=0&START_COMA=2|6bc130
[should be one long URL]
National Diet Library
Scanned images of old Japanese prints.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0%2Caid%2C43182%2C00.asp
PC World
Users wish their computers were reliable and simple.
Letters
to the Editor
"Have you heard anything about whatever happened to an architectural
program from Alias called Upfront?"
- Jerry Bragstad <jbrag@worldnet.att.net>
The editor replies: "I have a copy of Upfront v1 in my bookcase of historical CAD packages. I seem to recall that Alias gave Upfront back to the original developer in the early 1990s. Maybe a reader can enlighten us to its ultimate fate."
"Your eZine is the only one I'm sure to read. It's concise,
accurate, and interesting. I also like the history bits."
- Alec Milton
Arup
"Love the eZine, it's great."
- Jana Miller
Bentley Civil Engineering Marketing
"Like a picture is worth a thousand words, the Spin Doctor
of the Moment and Notable Quotable section, says so much, so clearly,
in so little space. Thanks for the great ezine."
- Dean Bacus
Scott Paper
"I look forward to your e-zine every Tuesday. I like to
stay informed of changes in the CAD industry and your straight
forward, unbiased method of writing is appreciated. I also enjoy
reading your subscribers' experiences in the letters to the editor.
Keep up the fine work."
- John Kearney
Notable
Quotable
"The press release on this historic occasion witters on and
on in management speak and tells you nothing other than the fact
that top management talks a load of nonsense."
- The Register
Contact!