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Issue #445 : : October 4, 2005 |
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C o n t e n t s From the Editor GraphiCalc Advanced Technology 20th Anniversary Quiz, 40 Answers Below
the Radar, and other
regular columns. |
Write the Editor. Donate to upFront.eZine with Paypal. Access nearly-daily CAD commentary at our blog: WorldCAD Access.
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At last week's annual Solid Edge User Summit, to which upFront.eZine was not invited, UGS revealed the existence of its mid-range PLM package, named "UGS Velocity Series." (This isn't quite true: the company provided details of Velocity to select non-CAD media in the days leading up to the conference.) Studying the details, it turns out that Velocity package new updates of existing software: Solid Edge 3D MCAD software, Femap finite element modeling, and Teamcenter Express product-data management bundled together. Price was not announced; the software ships by the end of 2005. The name "Velocity" appears to have been chosen to emphasize "speed to market." UGS marketing got Monica Schnitger of Daratech to provide a quote: "...a clear commitment by UGS to provide solutions to the mid-market while offering a clear path for future scalability, unmatched by competitive offerings targeted at the mid-market." I am sure PTC will jump on the part that talks about "future scalability," while Autodesk will launch an offensive against the "unmatched by competitive offerings" comment. www.ugs.com/velocity - - - In conjunction with Velocity, UGS said it would start to sell more of its software through resellers, starting in January. It hopes to bump indirect sales from 20% to 50%. - - - NX 4 A week earlier, UGS announced NX4, its high-end 3D MCAD software. New features include:
Whither That Free 3D MCAD Software Alibre got the attention of the CAD media (incl. me) when it anonymously launched its X-CAD Web site last summer. The premise: 100,000 sign up and they get free 3D MCAD software. Never mind that several other products were already named X-CAD, including a famous $500-burnout from Asia. (The company behind X-CAD was quickly determined, after it failed to adequately cover its Web tracks. A minute of research showed that the Web site was registered in the name of an Alibre employee; confirmation emails arrived from Alibre's email server.) For free, you don't get the equivalent of UGS NX 4, 'natch. Alibre Design Xpress is limited in a number of ways. For example, assemblies can have only 25 unique parts, and larger assemblies can only be viewed. The biggest limitation is this: it requires an Internet connection so that it can display Google ads along the top. Don't want the ads, or want to work Internet-free? Pay US$49. Also, the ad-free Learning kit: $79; ad-free training plus: $195. Naturally, Alibre really wants you to upgrade to its pricier software offerings, although they are cheaper other 3D parametric CAD packages. - - - Did 100,000 really sign up? While the counter on the X-CAD Web site registered more than 100,000, comments from signees indicated that there were a few cases of multiple sign-ups. Would Alibre have canceled the promotion if only 99,999 signed up? I think not. As of earlier today, 160,363 downloaded the software. /www.alibre.com/xpress Hurricane Updates AVEVA has one of its offices in Houston TX. The company reports, "Thankfully all staff are well and unharmed, however, many friends and family members were not so lucky. Please join AVEVA and continue your support to the many storm recovery organizations." Docupoint is offering free licenses of Docupoint Discovery to affected government agencies in the US Gulf states. The software, which is downloaded from www.docupoint.com , searches for AutoCAD and Office documents based on their content, using a Web browser. A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting: Adobe gets its PDF/Archive format approved as a standard by AIIM and NPES. PDF/A is designed for archiving digital documents, so that they can be read, even after the creation software (and hardware) becomes obsolete. www.aiim.org/article-pr.asp?ID=30413. VariCAD releases VariCAD 2005 1.12 with improved STEP file import for Windows users. For Linux users, this release improves dynamic view manipulation. Get yer trial copy from www.varicad.com Pathtrace says its EdgeCAM v10 CAM [computer aided manufacturing] software supports Autodesk's Vault data management software. www.edgecam.com CoCreate Software now has a direct connection between its 3D CAD software and Workbench simulation environment from ANSYS. www.cocreate.com Lattice3D has a XVL Converter Scheduler and Manager that notices updated CAD files and republishes them in XVL format. The company says they have over 500,000 users at over 2,000 companies. www.lattice3d.com CAD Schroer of Germany releases their MEDUSA Design Automation Suite on Linux. www.cad-schroer.com MicroSurvey Software releases its MapScenes 2006 and Evidence Recorder 3 software for crash and crime scene evidence collection. www.mapscenes.com/news/press-release/news_major_upgrades.htm Broad hints indicate that AutoCAD 2007 will sport a new rendering engine. With Microsoft adding PDFout to Office, maybe there'll even be a PDFout command added. AutoCAD 2008 might include a new programming interface and a new look to its user interface, thanks to Vista. - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog < worldcadaccess.typepad.com >:
Hardware News Oce's TDS100 large format copier handles any size of media, turns on instantly, and accommodates single- or multi-copy sheetfeed, and one or two media rolls. www.oceusa.com Seminars & Conferences IntelliCAD World Meeting 2005 takes place Oct 19-20 in The Netherlands. (I'll be speaking there on the topic of "Understanding the Bigger Picture.") www.intellicad.com/WorldMeeting2005 2005 ARCHIBUS/FM Users' Conference-Europe is Nov 6-8 in London, UK. www.archibus.com/usersconf/eu/reg_01.cfm Construction Computing 2005 is Nov 9-10 in London UK. Register free at www.constructioncomputing.co.uk EASTPO 2006 International Machine Tool Fair is March 20-23 in Pudong Shanghai, China. www.eastpo.net People/Companies on the Move Alias is a founding partner of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design. www.Icsid.org Brand New CAD Books/eBooks "SolidWorks 2006 for Designers"
"Tailoring AutoCAD 2006" Letters to the Editor [A note to readers who submitted letters to upFront.eZine: if you don't see it here, don't think I'm mad at you. I have a backlog of 250 letters to work through.] Re: Counter Punch! UGS Socks it to Dassault "I find it interesting that after the volumes you and others have written on proprietary formats and vendor lock-in, you seem to believe that it would be a bad thing for a user to be able to access CAD data without having a particular CAD package on their computer. "I'm not sure that Microsoft even knows where [Dassault's 3DXML and UGS' XPS] might lead. After all, this was a demo during a keynote address Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. I'm sure that they wanted something in 3D and who better to provide this than CAD companies. Plus, as was the case between the last conference in 2003 and this one, many things will probably change before Windows Vista ships. "Concerning 'all those Xs', had the W3C decided to use the
'e' instead of the 'x' in eXtensible Markup Language then you'd
probably be seeing a lot of Es!" The editor replies: "My objection is twofold: the ever growing body of open formats, which are largely PR exercises by CAD vendors; and that this format appears to limited to use with an operating system that few people will be using in the foreseeable future. (Windows 2000 is still the most popular.)" <worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/counter_punch_u.html> Mr Dekoning responds: "I'm not familiar with these other 'X' formats, but if at least they are XML-based, the data would be available (perhaps requiring intricate data mapping). Fortunately, I am not exposed to PR exercises like you are. Microsoft has indicated that they will backport some of this technology to Windows XP (not 2000). I guess we'll see."
Re: GrafiCalc Advanced Technology "Similar products were Mechanical Engineering Workbench, and Premise DesignView -- the latter founded by Jon Hirschtick. (He sold it to ComputerVision, and went to work there before founding SolidWorks.) "Neither product was successful in the market, not because the concept was poor, but rather because of strategic platform weaknesses:
"Think of Geomate as being the computer equivalent of a napkin sketch. An engineer can work out some of the basic parameters of a problem quickly and easily, without committing to a full-blown CAD model. "Shyamal Roy has been around the industry for many years.
He's really done a good job with Geomate in creating a useful tool,
and marketing it intelligently. He keeps the company small and focuses
on the product."
Re: 20th Anniversary "Hey, I racked my brain for at least a couple of seconds on every question. I'm not into trivia or collecting stuff, but would I pass on a chance for a little word play? Not too often. To me the weakest attempt is to not do anything. "So, I reached my goal: got published again."
"I greatly enjoyed the 20th Anniversary questions! Good stuff bringing back many memories. Over the years, I collected a number of items, but to keep things somewhat contained, I zeroed in on coffee mugs and baseball caps. My pride and joy? Definitely the Evans & Sutherland Supercomputing and Evans & Sutherland Driving Simulation coffee mugs. "BTW, there's an interesting phenomenon that I've noticed.
A company can issue a baseball hat or a coffee mug, but to issue
both is usually fatal."
"Wow, 20 years! I remember the VERY first CADalyst. You,
David Cohn, Barry Bowen. My-o-my, how time flies when you're having
fun."
"I received the first issue of CADalyst from Lionel when
I was at Colorado State University. In November, I will begin my
20th year in the consulting business. Not once have I regretted
the move. My guess is that you're also having a lot of fun with
your business."
"It may surprise you but 20 years is how long I have known
of you. You mentioned CADalyst's black and white issues: we had
some of those at Comprador Business Systems, and it took a long
time for them to arrive in Australia by mail, but we got'em."
"Viecon from Bentley Systems still is: we use it almost daily for our vendors all over the world. "I got you beat: I got 10 t-shirts at AEC 2001. Wish I came
home with one of those cars [given away by Bentley Systems]."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "Global warming blamed for hot summer, poll says."
Notable Quotable "You can keep it hidden, or get those voices out there and
deal with the problem."
Copyright 2005 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide Article reprint fee US$250.00.
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. |
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