November
9, 2004
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406
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- - - C
O N T E N T S Drafting
and 3D Design: Below
the Radar Write - - - Donate
$25 - - - Look for additional,
nearly-daily CAD commentary at our Weblog: --- Visit our new digital photography Weblog at The Canon S1iS Fan (ADVERTISMENT) Updated and Expanded for AutoCAD 2005! Tailoring AutoCAD 2005 is the new e-book for AutoCAD 2005. Download as a 260-page e-book in PDF format (US$26.95) or on CD ($31.95). 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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Graphisoft is looking for a growth strategy. They've got their CAD software (ArchiCAD) and FM software [facilities management], and they've dabbled in other areas, like supporting Autodesk's IFC [industry foundation classes] for exchanging AEC models between software packages. Graphisoft's Clay Freeman called last week to tell us that his company thinks it's found a big winner: virtual construction. It fits nicely between their CAD (design) and FM (operations) software. Virtual construction software looks a lot like CAD, but the approach is different: the software determines how best to construct buildings. This isn't the kind of software that a CAD vendor cooks up at an off-site skunkworks; it needs to be created by the people doing the constructing. On their own, several mammoth construction companies have written software that helps them figure out how best to build a building. The problem is not trivial:
The idea is to provide the details needed for construction, not design. For example, a CAD drawing doesn't have to show all the rebar inside concrete slabs; construction software does. But how is construction data displayed? One way is by "construction zones" -- as opposed to layers, sheets, and other groupings used by pure CAD programs. All this is to pre-announce the launch of new software -- Constructor 2005 (US$6,000) and Estimator 2005 (US$4,000) -- and a new service, Construction Services to help transition firms from old to new. To be available in December. The software includes ArchiCAD CAD software, but uses links to third-party scheduling software. Next year, Graphisoft hopes to add change management to the software. The cost savings may be only 2-3%, Graphisoft hazards to guess, but the time savings may be more significant. Graphisoft got their software from YIT, a Finish construction company. Their BOMs (bills of material) are 99.5% accurate. I asked how transferable Finish-developed software is to other countries and jurisdictions. Mr Freeman said that large companies have their own cost data, which they import into the software. A new class of software means a new class of software operator. Mr Freeman noted that companies cannot hire stock CAD operators fresh out of community college CAD class. Instead, this software is to be used by mature operators with experience in construction. As far as Graphisoft knows, they are the first to integrate CAD with constructability software in the AEC world. www.graphisoft.com/products/construction/ Drafting and 3D CAD: I feel that I must respond to Kevin Thickett: 'If you can draw a hat, you can draw a pair of shoes'. This is an appalling view of CAD! Yes, if you are a freehand sketch artist, you can draw either, but 3D or 2D CAD systems are meant to produce design and manufacturing information. The users must have experience of the product they are designing. Materials, production processes, cost -- the list is endless, even disregarding technical expertise. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. It
really bugs me that people and companies believe that if you can
switch on a computer and use a CAD system, it immediately makes
you a better designer. Wrong! Anyone can be trained to use a computer;
it is only a tool. Product knowledge is invaluable and can only
be acquired through experience.
For those using Pro/E as their 3D system, there is a solution. Cad-Schroer <www.cad-schroer.com> has two products that address these issues. Medpro is an add-on to Medusa (both the older Medusa NG and the latest Medusa 4) that allows users to move data painlessly between Pro/E and Medusa. Then there is Stheno, which is the core of Medusa 4 with a Pro/E-like interface. This is aimed at companies who have Pro/E, but would like better 2D capabilities. In both cases, you can save the 2D sheets either in Pro/E format or as external Medusa/Stheno format. Regarding the view that 2D drawings are not required anymore, this may be true for some areas, mostly in mechanical work (tooling design is one example), but there are still lots of areas where 3D simply cannot repay the extra expense and time invested in the models. I used to work in brewery design and development, and was asked many times why we not deliver pretty 3D models to the customer. Our reply was that such a 3D model will be precise but not accurate. At the design stage, we did not have sufficiently detailed information to build an accurate 3D model of the building, let alone the exact dimensions of all the equipment. Without this information, it's meaningless to start doing 3D piping. On top of this, the as-built end result is always different from the original design. Who pays the cost of documenting exact positions of thousands of components in the finished plant? What benefit is there to the owner in such a database, unless he maintains it constantly over the life of the plant? This is the situation regarding 'greenfield' jobs, when you are doing upgrades in existing plants, some of which are very poorly documented, the problem just gets worse. And when you work in Eastern Europe or other low-wage area, the price difference between Western engineers doing detailed design and the local pipesmith doing the actual work is so great that the benefits of 3D design vanish. Some time ago you ran a series of articles
pointing out much the same conclusion in the architectural area
-- despite all the propaganda from the 3D companies, 2D is still
a valid tool. The smart company uses the appropriate tools for the
job.
It seems from readers comments that most CAD users knife-and-fork it out the best they can, with little time to look up to see if there are better ways of doing things. Sure, 3D design tools are all full of their own idiosyncrasies -- but, lest AutoCAD users forget, so are many of the tools they have got used to using. Fear of the unknown is to be expected, particularly if it is seen as a threat. But, as your readers rightly point out, 3D tools do not all yet give the same quality 2D tools to make the detailed construction or assembly drawings necessary to allow something to be made or put-together. And we all know that cascading changes through from 3D to 2D in a model brings its own set of problems in accommodating those changes in the associated drawing sets. But is that the fault of the 3D model, rather than the process itself? So before we all declare that things were better in the old days, that no one understands drafting, that standards are falling, etc, etc, we should not forget that despite all the faults there may be in our design and drafting tools, things are made quicker, cheaper and better than when Autodesk introduced AutoCAD back in the early 1980s. What really concerned me in the feedback was
that no one seemed to have plans to train those who would obviously
benefit from better tools, that personal development seemed to be
constrained by a Luddite-like view of new technology. In the UK
such questions are often answered with, "We do OK doing things
the way we are", and, "If I train him, he'll either go
somewhere else or demand more money!" Though short-sighted
and rather blinkered, this response does illustrate what Mark Twain
said, "I'm all for progress; it's change I hate". And
there perhaps is the biggest constraint. The editor replies, "And so it may take another generation before students trained in 3D take over from us who still learned on the drafting board." Mr Ballard responds, "Though, of course, change does not necessarily mean progress! Hence our natural skepticism at the next big thing. Speaking of which, sorry to hear your VoIP experiment failed! Back to the copper wire."
Q1: Do 3D jobs still need to follow the normal route of producing general arrangements, and then 2D details and isometrics? The question relates to how the design intent is communicated to the procurement, construction, and operating teams downstream. The measure of a 3d design project is not how well the 3d model is built but rather how effectively the project was completed. When it comes to the documents used to build a plant not much has changed. The more progressive constructors have used the 3d models to help visualize the final product or even animate the construction. They likely prepared their bid from paper drawings that could have been manually drafted (Isos, Plans, Section, Details). If the industry ever does do away with these deliverables it will be because value was added to the process and not that the 3d systems could not effectively produce them. Q2: Do companies using the 3D concept produce 2Ds from the model, or do they use AutoCAD (or similar) for the drafts? The use of a 3D model as the basis for drawing creation is not a new idea. Before computers and software were available for this we used plastic models. In those days the drafters would need to huddle around the model to sketch the orthos or isometrics. Each time an individual reads, processes, and reenters information two things happen:
You can measure the effectiveness of your design processes by how many times information is recreated and/or verified. In this regard an effective 3D system must generate the deliverables as a by-product of the model. Q3: Has anyone ever produced a good PDMS 2D general arrangement comparable to, say, an AutoCAD drawing? AutoCAD and MicroStation were created first as drafting tools and developed into the modeling environments that allow Plant Design applications to exist (PDS, AutoPLANT,PlantSpace, CADWorx). It follows that applications that use a CAD environment will be capable of producing quality CAD deliverables. Features such as annotation, dimensioning, linewidths, linetypes, titleblocks are second nature to these environments. Systems like PDMS come at the problem from the other end. They were created to build models. While output of orthographics is possible this has always been a weak point in the model-centric design tools. Q4: Do 3D modelers have to be multidisciplinary, or does a piper only do piping, and a structural guy only structures? The most effective 3d design process has each designer developing his area of design. With today s tools it must not be CAD data entry . Unfortunately you will still find individuals creating 3d models based on the designs of others. This is typically due to the following:
Below the Radar A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that we found interesting: - - - upFront.eZine Publishing ships its "Tailoring IntelliCAD 5" (US$24.95) e-book. More info at www.upfrontezine.com/ti5 . Also updated: "Tailoring AutoCAD 2005" at www.upfrontezine.com/ta5 CoCreate Software releases OneSpace Designer Modeling 2005. Request an evaluation CD from http://www.cocreate.com/prod_eval.cfm Business Graphics from Schott Systems is a new program for creating business graphics, and is based on 3D CAD software. www.schott-systeme.com/business.htm Autodesk is "fulfilling its commitment to provide mainstream manufacturers with a complete data management solution" [aka PLM]: a "limited" release [is that like a beta release?] of Productstream v2 that allows reuse of designs, automatation of processes, and sharing of designs. The software is built on Vault, and works with Inventor. www.autodesk.com/productstream One new release of EdgeCAM Solid Machinist directly reads CATIA V5 part and assembly files; another reads .sat and .sab files. www.pathtrace.com Not to be outdone, Camtek's latest release of PEPS SolidCut CADCAM software direct handles of component and assembly data from SolidWorks, Solid Edge and Inventor -- at no extra cost. www.peps.com Integrated Structural Software has a freeware version of their ROBOT Millennium structural analysis and design software. Try to register your request at www.issrobot.com -- I looked, but couldn't find it. ENGINEERING.com has a student-priced version of CATIA V5R13 with one month of support for US$149. products.engineering.com/catiastudent/index.htm SolidWorks releases Cosmic Blobs 3D graphics software (US$39.99) for children aged 7 to 14. www.cosmicblobs.com ALGOR is adding FatigueWizard fatigue analysis software it its finite element analysis software. www.algor.com TransMagic View supports CATIA V4, Unigraphics, Pro/Engineer, ACIS, Parasolid, STEP, IGES, STL, HSF, and optionally CATIA V5. www.transmagic.com BlueBeam Software plans to add DWF support to their until-now PDF-only Pushbutton Plus conversion software. DWG->DWF batch processing is also planned for next year's release. www.bluebeam.com And, Radica Software makes available Electra 2005 (US$799)-- electrical CAD software that is runs on Visio 2003. www.radicasoftware.com Seminars & Conferences Build Boston is Nov 16-18, 2004 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston MA USA. www.buildboston.com 11th International Conference on Information Systems Analysis and Synthesis is July 14-17 in Orlando FL USA. www.infocybernetics.org/citsa2005 People/Companies on the Move Proficiency picks Trenton Brown as president and ceo. Mr Brown is the former executive vp of worldwide sales and chief operating officer for RAND Worldwide. Cyon Research appoints Todd McCall as director of sales. Mr McCall is the founder of MBA, Inc. Computer News Summaries Office 12 will not ship until July, 2006, reports BetaNews.com. That's three years between releases. In the meantime, expect beta 1 in August and beta 2 in December, 2005. "12" includes Visio and a new charting application. Market News Vistedge picked up funding worth US$5 million, with which it plans to (a) list on the American Stock Exchange; and (b) acquire smaller 3D technology media companies. Ingenuus Software closed their first round of funding from Pragmatica Ventures LLP for an undisclosed amount. Brand New CAD Books/eBooks "VectorWorks By Project" New 2005 Estimators and Cost Books "Solid Edge for Designers Version
16" WorthWhile Web www.sign.co.za/safety.htm
news.com.com/Photos+Inside+Dells+Austin+assembly+plant/2009-1001_3-5425401.html?tag=nefd.pop CNET www.unfortunateeventsmovie.com
Letters to the Editor Re: Google Desktop Search "I was eager to try out Google Desktop, but after installing it while logged in to my Windows XP Administrator account I discovered a serious limitation (described at desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10722&query=administrator&topic=&type=f ) "It continues to perplex me that one so often runs into Windows software that doesn't work properly under a reasonable security model: use an admin account only for administrative tasks, and a regular account for everything else. "It's especially perplexing that software
from the folks at Google would suffer from this problem. Being Internet
developers, they probably do most of their development in Unix,
in which different levels of user rights is a fundamental aspect
of the operating system. So they should know a thing or two about
the issues involved in creating software for a multi-user OS in
which different users might have different privilege levels. - - - "I have been looking around at different
engineering design retrieval and I have come across a new product
that looks very interesting called CADFind, that allows users to
sketch a part and search for it in a large database website:
www.sketchandsearch.com
" - - - "With all the knowledge I've attained
through your weekly magazine and others I was able to secure
a new position today as Supervisor of Technical Services. Nice paying
job, too." "It's always interesting reading your
eZine. Thanks for all the CAD news." "Congratulations for your so usefull
newsletter." Spin Doctor of the Moment "Safety." Notable Quotable "They keep inventing new ways to celebrate
mediocrity." |
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