issue
#313
15 October 2002
t
a l k i n g a b o u t c a d
|
issue
#313
|
|
|
Contents Editorial: Parametric AEC CAD is Reaching Critical Mass Q&A: Five Minutes with Eagle Point Software ADT
vs Revit: Discussion
Group Excerpts Below
the Radar, - - - - - -
|
Parametric AEC CAD is Reaching Critical Mass Guest Editorial by Paul Seletsky The use of parametric-based (aka single-building model) CAD software, in my estimation, truly reflects the future paradigm for most architects and large-scale design firms. Properly utilized, it saves hours of last-minute construction document changes, particularly in the realm of door- and window-schedule changes. One of parametric CAD's particular strengths is hyperlinking from section and detail symbol bubbles on the floor plans, directly to the actual section and detail drawings. This eliminates the checking and rechecking of sections and details to ensure they are coordinated properly with the building's floorplans and elevations. This hyperlinking development is the CAD-equivalent quantum leap in process change found comparatively between spreadsheet vs. the abacus. In short, there is no comparison -- the CAD process has been reengineered to its inevitable, new, intelligent model. Architects are well advised to look at this new technology -- such as those products purveyed by Autodesk (Revit) and Graphisoft (ArchiCAD). I believe they will be reluctant to do so, however, until the software developers begin to address the cultural changes needed before widespread adoption can begin. Foremost is the issue of training; this is not your father's (or mother's) old CAD software. The level of collaboration that parametric CAD fosters, nay demands, easily becomes overwhelming to the design team facing its first client presentation deadline. Architects are a creative lot. They demand software tools that adapt to their way of thinking, especially when it comes to conceptual design and design development. Parametric CAD must be able to readily address these needs, particularly in the realm of non-orthogonal building components, such as walls that curve in two axes. A notable example of this realm would be the Guggenheim Museum in Balbao, Spain by the award-winning architect Frank Gehry. Recently, I asked a parametric CAD developer if their software could be used for developing such a design. They replied that I could not, but that Frank Gehry's work was an exception to the rule of what mainstream architects required. Would any creative individual accept such an answer? In summary, architects will find parametric CAD a welcome tool in their palette of electronic imagination devices. Software developers of such programs, however, are well-advised to remember that the old marketing techniques promoting the one-thousand new features in such programs, simply won't be enough this time around in selling the product. Paul Seletsky is director of technology at Davis Brody Bond Architects <http://www.davisbrody.com>, New York NY USA.
Q&A: Five Minutes with Eagle Point Software Founded in 1983, Eagle Point provides CAD-related software for civil engineering, surveying, hydraulics and hydrology, landscape and irrigation design, and presentation software. John Biver is the ceo of the company. - - - upFront.eZine: At the AEC Systems show last June, you announced a new direction: client-centric. Has this worked for Eagle Point? John Biver: Overall it has been working great. Since taking
control of the company on December 21 of last year, we have been
going through a systematic process of transforming our company from
being centered on share price and shareholder satisfaction (which
is typical of public companies) to putting our focus on our clients.
Put simply, we realize that if we center our attention on building
relationships with each of our clients and truly helping them to
solve their problems then in the long run we will benefit in return.
This is obviously a major undertaking and will not happen overnight.
upFront.eZine: At the press conference, you said that Eagle Point is now concentrating on the long-term, five to ten years out. What are some of the practical implications of this tactic? John Biver: One of the most practical implications of
this tactic is no more temptation to push gimmicks. As a public
company, an easy way to keep revenues and profitability increasing
is to continually build and release versions of software that have
more and more features. These features are portrayed to the market
as being efficiency enhancing tools. In some cases these enhancements
have limited or even no real -world application. However, the temptation
still exists because these feature (gimmicks) will cause some percentage
of the unsuspecting market to spend more money.
upFront.eZine: Which CAD platforms do you develop for? John Biver: All of our desktop products currently run on:
We are almost ready to support MicroStation V8 but we will not release until the combination of the two products working together reaches a satisfactory level of stability. Releasing products only after they have reached high quality is one of our strategies. As such, we are maintaining our discipline in waiting to release support for V8 until both products are truly ready for production work by our clients.
upFront.eZine: Is IntelliCAD still a viable platform? John Biver: Today, yes it is still viable. We are using it as the engine for our stand-alone products. The future is obviously somewhat uncertain. Therefore, we continue (as we have always done in the past) to evaluate other potentially viable platforms.
upFront.eZine: Is Eagle Point profitable? John Biver: Now that we are private again, we have chosen not to divulge direct financial information to the public. What I can say, however, is that we are meeting the financial plan we developed prior to closing on the leveraged buy-out. Furthermore, day by day we are seeing signs that in the long run we may have been somewhat conservative in the overall financial plan.
ADT vs Revit David McFadden writes, "I have added a new ADT/Revit forum topic: 'As an ADT User, When and How Should We Adapt Revit?' There will be a shift to the Revit platform this decade. How do we prepare for this transition?" Contribute your thoughts at http://www.cadstoreonline.com/Forum/index.php?f=0 In the meantime, there is a fascinating ADT vs Revit discussion going on at http://www.cadstoreonline.com/Forum/read.php?f=6&i=3&t=2 . Here are some comments from participants: - - - "Do you think Autodesk will finally realize that the 'kitchen
sink' approach isn't the best way to sell CAD software? The purpose
of CAD software is to get the drafting job done. That is it. ...
Maybe the distinction needs to be made between professional CAD
drafters and professional architects who can do electronic drafting?
Maybe these are and need to be re-defined as distinctive career
paths?" "I started using Revit about nine months ago. I found the
learning curve to be quite short and the software to be quite intuitive.
The greatest thing is no more layers and all the overhead associated
with them." "I feel that Revit is not as good of a drafting program
as ADT, and is not as good of a rendering program as [3D]
Studio VIZ." "Being about to commit to the final push (heavy use of extended
object data [for at least ten years]) it's frustrating to
be wondering if it's all going to be for nothing. Why bother 'building
the model' if you have to rebuild it every few years as the 'preferred
software of day' changes. To leave that data sitting in a 'dead'
or 'dying' program is not viable either." "What everyone seems to miss [is that] Autodesk is in it
for the money. Revit will come out 'on top' because it is the new
source of revenue. It will probably be subscription-based (monthly
fees). This will continue until someone rehashes some code and interface
changes, [and] calls it some inane acronym. This debate will
again resurface." "I object to objects, and wish to be emancipated from enablers."
Below the Radar A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting: - - - General CADD Products decided to release General CADD as a "pre-release" version after beta testers voted 3-to-1 that the beta contained sufficient functionality. General CADD is fairly compatible with Generic CADD, a low-cost DOS-based CAD package abandoned by Autodesk ten years ago. You can purchase the pre-release now at a 25% discount from <http://www.generalcadd.com/orderform.htm> and get the official release free. Floor Plan for PalmOS lets you sketch floorplans with exact dimensions and angles in metric or Imperial units; calculates areas. More info at http://www.palmgear.com/software Inventor 6 began shipping Oct 14 from Autodesk. It includes
a drag'n drop library, free for a limited time from http://inventoruser.autodesk.com/parts
[requires IE v5.5 and up]. The Pro/ENGINEER Student Edition Suite (US$150) is now available for professional engineers, as well as students, allowing professionals to use Pro/ENGINEER and Pro/MECHANICA when taking courses, refreshing job skills, or just for personal use at home. http://www.journeyed.com . The new Matrox Parhelia graphics board (US$399) can run three three displays from a single chip. With the bundled AECīVIZ (an integration module for AutoCAD), designers can package AutoCAD content for sharing with others without leaving AutoCAD and most vertical products. http://www.matrox.com/mga/archive_story/sept2002/workstation.cfm Alibre has licensed LightWorks technology for its PhotoRender module. And is offering an Alibre Design 5.0 and Rhinoceros NURBS Modeling bundle for US$995, a US$395 savings. http://www.cadalog.com/alibrespecials/index.php GiveMePower has a public beta of PowerCAD Architect. To be sold at US$995, qualified beta testers receive a $500 discount when registering at http://www.givemepower.com/powercad_arch.html . ASPire3D now has an Internet version of FlexiChanger, its automated 3D to 3D feature-based translator. http://www.aspire3d.com/FlexiChanger ToleranceCalc (US$395) is an an automated tolerance analysis add-on for conducting tolerance studies of parts and assemblies. Works with most MCAD products. http://www.tolerancecalc.com VPHybridCAD v7 features direct raster-to-vector conversion and tracing of colored drawings. Demo download at http://www.hybridcad.com
Seminars & Conferences SolidWorks World 2003 International User Conference and Exposition, Jan 19-22, at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Orlando, FL USA. http://www.solidworks.com/swworld
People/Companies on the Move On 1 Nov, Hewlett-Packard will change its name to HP -- no more Hewlett , no more Packard, perhaps as a final dig against Bill Hewlett, who tried to stop the Compaq acquisition. - The Inquirer PTC now has 78 resellers in Europe.
Computer News Summaries IBM's new PowerPC 970 CPU will be a 64-bit CPU running at 1.8GHz. The chip is expected to power new Apple computers, but will not ship until late 2003. - Reuters NTT DoCoMo of Japan has successfully tested base and mobile stations transmitting data at 20Mbps up and 100Mbps down. This "4G" (fourth generation) wireless networking technology is due out in 2005. - pdaGeek Vietnam now requires businesses and organizations to get government permission before setting up new Web sites. In March, police arrested physician Pham Hong Son for translating and posting an article on democracy from a US State Department Web site. Under current law, Internet offenses are punishable by fines of up to US$3,250 or up to three years in jail. - Associated Press Intel's Itanium processor violates patents owned by Intergraph,
rules the court. The 64-bit Itanium infringes on Intergraph's RISC
[reduced instruction set] technology patents for parallel
instruction computing. Record companies are hoping DVD-Audio and Super Audio Compact Discs will replace CDs like CDs replaced LPs a decade ago. Both formats, which are incompatible with each other, contain watermarking, allowing record companies to limit how their customers can listen to the music. - CNN
Market News IT spending to continue flat, at least in Europe. "There is not even a glimmer of hope that IT [information technology] budgets will grow next year, latest research from Merrill Lynch & Co has confirmed, with two-thirds of European business CIOs [chief information officers] ... expecting their budgets to be flat or down in 2003 compared with 2002." - http://www.theregus.com/content/7/26618.html Executive Manufacturing Technologies, makers of VisualPlant, completed a $7 million round of funding. The company notes that "this investment comes at a time when 98% of companies seeking venture capital are unable to receive funding." ESI Group paid US$3 million for 74% of VASci's capital and 49% of its voting rights. VASci makes digital simulation software for high-frequency noise and vibration engineering.
The WorthWhile Web http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-961117.html
http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html
Spin Doctor of the Moment "Of course, that's just a guess. There's no way to know
for sure. But it's a reasonable explanation."
Notable Quotable "Of late we've noticed a certain growth in articles in the
public prints on why DRM [digital rights management copy protection]
is your furry little friend, and we'd deduce a Redmond marketing
offensive underlying these."
|
|
Return to www.upfrontezine.com. Entire contents copyright Š2002 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide. Article reprint fee $500. All trademarks belong to their respective holders. "upFront.eZine," "Talking About CAD," and "On your desktop every Tuesday morning" are trademarks of upFront.eZinePublishing, Ltd. Letters to the editor may be reproduced in an edited form for clarity and brevity. Opinions expressed in letters are not necessarily shared by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. |
donations This e-newsletter is shareware. You may read this free. If you would like to support the author in his work, I suggest a donation of US$25.00 to PayPal in the account of grabowski @telus.net. Click here to make payment.
|
