January
27, 2004
Issue
#370
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January
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- - - C
O N T E N T S Competing
Against PDF, DWF, eDrawings Down: PTC's 2004 Financial Results - - - Below
the Radar - - - Donate Write - - - (ADVERTISMENT) Updated and Expanded for AutoCAD 2004! Tailoring AutoCAD 2004 is the first book for AutoCAD 2004. Download as a 204-page e-book in PDF format (US$24.95) or on CD ($29.95). Covers all areas of customization, from changing the user interface to writing toolbar macros and LISP routines. Click here to sample preview pages and place your order.
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What about that MyDoom/Novarg/Mimail virus, eh? It started arriving in large numbers here at around 4pm Pacific time. Make sure that (1) you don't open email attachments until (2) you update your anti-virus, once those vendors figure out how to i.d. the virus -- tough, they say, because the code is encrypted. - - - "Two years from now, spam will be solved," says Bill Gates, the same fellow who promised to make Windows software secure in a single month. That was a year ago; oh well, maybe nobody notices. - - - The Digital Preservation Specialist [now, there's a new niche job!] wrote to say that his state library has 500,000 hardcopy plans from architectural firms. He figures best way to store them is to scan them to PDF files. - - - For an RSS feed from our new Web blog, click on worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/index.rdf . RSS is short for "RDF Site Summary," and RDF is short for "Resource Description Framework." Others say RSS is short for Rich Site Summary. Either way, it's based on XML, which is developed on top of HTML, which comes from SGML. Clear? If not, read Adena Schutzberg's extremely helpful explanation at www.gismonitor.com/news/newsletter/archive/012204.php Competing Against PDF, DWF, eDrawings CEO and Readers Respond In the last issue, I puzzled over Informative Graphics <www.infograph.com> releasing the CSF file format to compete with PDF, eDrawings, and DWF. Several readers responded, as did the CEO of Informative Graphics, Gary Heath: - - - "To answer the question you posed (from our perspective): We are creating Net-It CAD plug-ins for all the major CAD systems, and therefore it is CAD-vendor neutral -- unlike eDrawings, DWF, etc. "By creating plug-ins for CAD systems, we can create smarter and smaller exports than by making PDFs. CSF [content sealed format] is designed for CAD concepts (like geometry-based measurement, and showing attributes). We do handle 2D and 3D in Net-It CAD for Inventor (SolidEdge and SolidWorks to be released soon). We are putting the finishing touches on Net-It CAD for MicroStation 2D, and then our plan is to loop back and support 3D in both AutoCAD and MicroStation. We also have Net-It Now that creates CSF files from any Windows application, like Visio, Project, and Office Suite. "I do realize that eDrawings now supports Pro/Engineer via the Geometric plug-in, but eDrawings doesn't support documents, images, etc. When you download eDrawings for Pro/E, I'm thinking you probably are going to get a call from a SolidWorks salesperson. "We think DWF is a reasonable choice if all you have to contend with is AutoCAD files. We certainly agree with Autodesk that DWF is better than PDF for CAD data. Our CSF files are usually about the same size of DWFs; if you have more then just AutoCAD products, we think CSF makes a lot of sense because it is optimized like DWF, but it will support many CAD systems -- as well as document and image content. "I think we call it 'publishing' (versus export) because the output process has an option to create Web pages using customizable templates (which can then be added to any Web site through products, like FrontPage, via drag and drop). "The last difference between eDrawings, DWF and PDF is Visual Rights. That allows the CSF file to expire, and allow the CAD designers to determine, as part of the publishing, what can be done with their content (i.e., can it be measured? do off layers publish or not? can the user turn off layers when viewing? can markups be created and burned in? make new revisions?). "I realize this is more then you probably wanted to know, but I thought your question was very valid and deserved a response from us."
Readers Respond "Yes, [I would use Net-it CAD] if I needed
DRM [digital rights management], and didn't want to go passing out
my CAD files in a format that recipients could misuse. Bid sets,
in particular, benefit greatly from having an expiration date."
"Publishing a DWF is more than exporting
or saving. 1) It recreates the data in a different format (from
editable DWG to noneditable DWF); 2) In one step, assembles many
sheets into a single file; 3) It retains design information in the
background; and 4) it places the drawing on an electronic sheet
suitable for printing or displaying on screen." The editor replies: "Of these, I'd agree that #2 is publishing." Ms Jackson responds: "I think one of the things we're trying to get across with the term 'publishing' is that the 'exported' item is noneditable, just as it would be if you published to print. It would be obvious that someone messed with it on hardcopy. They'd have to write over it, or try to reproduce the ink. The non-editable part is important." The editor replies: "That's a good way of defining publishing. Whereas, exporting means the data CAN be edited by another program."
"I am a long time user of both Pagemaker
and AutoCAD, and have opted to use AutoCAD for virtually all my
publishing activities. When combined with a PDF generator (like
PDF-XChange) the result is a digital publication which is easy to
transmit and/or print. I attach a document created just that way.
Of course, I use AutoCAD for my civil and architectural work, but
also as my word processor (for correspondence) and publication software
of choice." The editor responds, "Mr Haas included an eight-page document created for a yacht club. I recall when people used AutoCAD for typesetting before PageMaker and Ventura became popular."
Down: PTC's 1Q04 Financial Results "Down" describes the PTC's financials for its first quarter this year. Revenue was US$156.8 million, compared with:
Net loss was $26.5 million, compared with:
Leave out the restructuring charge of $21.6 million, and things look a bit better. The company still has $190.1 million in the bank. Revenues from CAD were down 4%, partly due to higher sales of lower-priced software. Revenus from PLM were down 6%. For the next quarter, PTC thinks that revenues will continue flat, in the range of $150-$160 million. With 80% of its restructuring behind it, PTC hopes to have a net profit soon. When the numbers are down, executives need to sound cheery: "We are in business to win, to be a PLM leader." And look for bright spots: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries gave up on CATIA 5 after a two-year attempt at implementation. This year, they bought $1-million worth of Pro/E seats. - - - Pro/E Wildfire 2 is due to ship in February or March. Below the Radar A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that we find interesting. - - - Eagle Point's series of land development software works with MicroStation V8.1. Read www.eaglepoint.com/resources/papers for the list of limitations. Coutts Design (formerly 123-D Software) has three versions of its ZiPCAD softare for PalmOS:
Demo downloads from www.zipcad.com SolidWorks sells 300,000 licenses of its SolidWorks software. AVEVA ships its XMpLant software for 3D CAD translation of plant [industrial, not horticultural] design software. www.aveva.com Alibre includes ModelPress Publisher in its Alibre Design Professional software, for publishing compressed 3D models, and then viewing with the free ModelPress viewer from Informative Graphics. www.alibre.com ESI Group's ProCAST 2004 software optimizes designs for high and low-pressure die castings, sand casting, and investment casting. www.esi-group.com And Trelligence launches Affinity for Residential 3.0 (US$795), calling it off-the-shelf project control and cost management for residential builders. www.trelligence.com Seminars & Conferences Society of Manufacturing Engineers' WESTEC 2004 in Los Angeles CA USA, Mar 22-25. www.sme.org/westec Solid Modelling 2004 is Mar 31 - Apr 1 in Birmingham UK. www.solidmodelling.co.uk Fifth International Symposium on Tools and Methods of Competitive Engineering (TMCE 2004) is in Lausanne, Switzerland, 13-17 Apr. dutoce.io.tudelft.nl/~jouke/tmce2004/ Bentley changes the name of its Bentley International User Conference (BIUC) to Bentley Experience (BE). Randall Newton notes that www.be.com is for sale, as a leftover asset from Be Software. People/Companies on the Move Moldflow announces the resignation of Richard Underwood, vp of sales. Doug Medley joins GiveMePower as regional sales manager. Mr Medley is a former Autodesk reseller. Surfware promotes Bryan Diehl to president and COO. Geodetic Services changes its name to Geodetic Systems. Computer News Kodak this year stops selling 35mm and APS cameras in North America and Europe. It will continue to sell 35mm and APS film, disposable and digital cameras. Market News IMSI agrees to acquire Aladdin Systems for US$8-10 million. The company markets utilities for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows. Moldflow acquires privately-held American MSI, a provider of hot runner control systems for the injection molding industry, for about US$12 million. Bentley Systems increases its credit facility from US$25 million to $75 million; it plans to use the money for acquisitions. Speaking of which, Bentley acquires the assets of ESSI, specifically its EWarehouse Suite of data warehouse software. The upFront.eZine stock index is at www.cadwire.net/to?upfrontezine/stocks Brand New CAD Books "Learning Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire, SolidWorks
2004, Autodesk Inventor 8 in One Day" by Sham Tickoo For more info, or to order online: www.amazon.com/exec Letters to the Editor Re: Force Upgrades Through File Incompatibility "Actually, most versions of AutoCAD have changed the file format, and the files are not backwards compatible. Some of these changes have been major. What they have done, however, is that AutoCAD will still read file formats from many releases ago. If they dropped the capability to read versions older than the precious release, then they would either force people to upgrade, or kill off their upgrade business. It is hard to say which with any certainty. "Microsoft is the same way with Office,
although they have not changed formats with the same regularity
as Autodesk. You can save into the older formats and the latest
version will read older files, but an older version will not always
read a current file (again, it depends on the version as some are
the same)."
Re: And the Award Goes to ... Us! "Your awards banter made me smile, for
exactly the reasons you state, I positively avoid buying anything
based on awards. In fact, in the post-Christmas sales here in the
UK, I was hunting for a bargain DVD player. I like magazines for
research and reviews, but 2 of the 3 quality magazines in this sector
were running their, '2004 Best Buys' (how can they know what will
come out in the second half of the year?). I bought the one that
wasn't!"
"Softcover was awarded a Cadalyst 'Best of Show Award' at AEC Systems 2001 for our low-cost raster-to-vector converter, Scan2CAD v5. It had been reviewed in a preceding month's issue of Cadalyst against several very expensive and well-known products and was rated 5 out of 5 stars (July 2001). Needless to say we thought it thoroughly deserved and were proud to receive the award. Given that Cadalyst had just recently reviewed Scan2CAD v5 the editor's retort (as described in your article) "that the show held no surprises for him" was entirely appropriate in our case. "Regarding ad spending and awards for
doing so, we are a small British software company who produced the
first low cost raster to vector converter at a time when the competition
was only very expensive programs. We agonized over advertising in
an 'expensive' US magazine, but after a product mention in Cadence
produced some sales we decided to a place a small 1/9th page ad.
Eventually we took the same ad in Cadalyst. If the Best of Show
Award was intended to reward us for placing all those 1/9th ads
(I really doubt that!), it worked. Today we have a full page slot
in Cadalyst, and are grateful to them for their continued interest
in our product. Thank you Cadalyst! It's just a pity we no longer
do shows!" The editor replies: "There's another editorial: why most products win 5/5 stars in magazine reviews."
Re: eMachineShop.com Offers free CAD "Their software appears to be home-grown.
I GREPed it for copyright information, and it is apparently written
by (or for) emachineshop. It will import only R12-DXF -- so it's
not too useful for serious users. (This is one of the only times
I've actually found a CAD program that I'd not heard of that didn't
use the OpenDesign Alliance libraries!)"
Re: AEC Harder Than Mech CAD "I work in the machine design world, but I have done some work with HVAC and architectural design. So I'm writing to give some of my observations on use of 3D CAD. "I take exception to your comment 'perhaps because the models tend to be smaller and less complex than buildings.' 3D CAD got its start in the aerospace industry because the shapes were too complex for 2D. Modern airliners are certainly bigger than a lot of buildings being constructed. Also no one dies if you put in a plumbing line incorrectly in a building. Architects, Gerhy et al, are just now getting into shapes complex enough to demand 3D CAD. "As far as benefits for the construction phase, they are there but will take along time to be adapted. Here are how CAM was/is being adapted in two other industries. In the manufacture of printed circuit boards (PCB) the process is completely digital. The board is designed in software and sent to the fab as files, no paper needed. In the machine design world there are an increasing number of machine shops that can accept and build directly from 3D files. But it not universal, you still have to ask about a shop's CAD/CAM abilities. "As for billable hours, in the end it will be a wash. You save on some tasks while others are greatly expanded. The best example of this is fillets in a molded part. In the 2D world this is handled in a single note 'unless otherwise specified all radius .XX inch.' Takes all of one minute. What you've done with that note is transferred the work to the construction phase. If a radius doesn't fit, a master moldmaker with a set of files takes care of it. In the the 3D world the designer has to fit every single radius. Instead of a minute it can take a day. But you make up the time, and hopefully more, during construction because there is no hand fitting. "Which brings up another reason for 3D,
the lack of skilled manufacturing/construction labor. Engineers
need to do those mundane tasks, filleting, so that a machine can
build it. Architects and designers are going to have to have much
more detailed plans to make up for the lack of skilled labor. Every
designer at one point or another has had a 'it will be fixed in
manufacturing' moment. As the quality of labor goes down that attitude
won't fly." The editor replies: "Your comments on the shifting of responsibility (and costs) are fascinating. Something we need to look into further." - - - "I look forward to receiving your insights
each week." "For years I have enjoyed keeping up
with the CAD software industry through your newsletter." Spin Doctor of the Moment "By 2007 or 2008, CDs will be something
only old people have." Notable Quotable "Diversity will not be achieved until
all think alike." |
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