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issue #562 : : june 3, 2008
In this issue:
3D
Reviewer from Adobe
-
Acrobat Pro Extended
-
Acrobat 9
- Acrobat.com
- Dates and Costs
Out of the Inbox, and the other regular columns.
Write the editor. Make him smile!
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We're trendy. We have a Weblog. WorldCAD Access.
Some months ago, a rumor circulated that Adobe was eliminating Acrobat 3D by adding its CAD features into Acrobat Pro. The rumor was true: The "Acrobat 3D" name is eliminated. The rumor was false: Acrobat 3D is renamed Acrobat Pro Extended. Adobe changed the name after Acrobat 3D customers thought they need to also buy Pro, not realizing 3D includes all of Pro.
For us CAD users, however, the name change comes at a bad time, because Acrobat 3D/Extended is more 3D than ever. The highlight feature is 3D Reviewer, included free (and only) with Extended. It's a viewer that TTF originally developed, TTF being the France-based CAD translation company Adobe bought a couple of years ago.
3D Reviewer opens all the same CAD format as Extended, including Catia, Inventor, B-reps, and STL files. You can create exploded views, slice 3D models, compare two similar models for differences, determine physical properties, measure, add balloon callouts, generate animations, and output all this as technical documents -- using Adobe Reader as the viewing platform, 'natch.
You might want to buy Extended just to get Reviewer. The only drawback is that Adobe has not yet "acrobat-ized" the user interface; maybe next release.
Figure: 3D Reviewer slicing a plastic bottle.
Acrobat Pro Extended
Adobe has been courting the MCAD world, and with v9 begins making love to AEC users as well. Pro Extended reads IFC [industry foundation classes ] models from programs like Revit and Graphisoft, converts them to 3D PDFs, and preserves all IFC data.
And there's a wink for the GIS community: images and drawings now have geospatial coordinates (latitude and longitude). Taking measurements on PDF-ized maps returns real-world dimensions, such as the distance along a road in miles.
On the MCAD side, Pro Extended now exports STL [stereolithography] files for rapid manufacturing. More PMI [product manufacturing information] data is imported, such as projected views from Catia. You can add 3D comments -- text that always faces you, no matter how the 3D model is rotated. Encryption is doubled from 128 to 256 bits.
Documents containing text and images can be compared side by side, showing changes. Tooltips show the before and after changes. (CAD models need to be compared in 3D Reviewer.)
When exporting AutoCAD drawings in PDF format, 3D CAD models are flattened to 2D, and can be exported in the PDF/E [engineering] standard. There's also batch creation utility.
The are big changes to how forms are created and summarized. I won't go into details, except to note that Acrobat now semi-automatically collects data from returned forms, presenting results in a simple database-like interface. This is useful for generating and collecting RFPs [requests for proposals] and bids from multiple vendors.
Slides can be imported from PowerPoint, and then turned into training software by adding an audio track and creating interactive quizes -- all with Acrobat Pro Extended.
Acrobat 9
All versions of Acrobat 9 integrate Flash. The effect of this is that PDF documents can now handle the following:
- Flash animations and graphics.
- Convert WMV and AVI movies to Flash (converter is included).
- Mark up movies with redline-style clouds and comments.
- Mildly edit movies, such as trim portions.
- Integrate Flash utilities, such as a calculator and lives links to blogs.
The new Portfolio is an upgrade of the existing Packager. It generates title pages and interactive tables of content -- all based on Flash. The new release directly displays foreign file formats, but only when the source apps are on the same computer. For example, DWG and PPT files can be displayed by Acrobat if AutoCAD and PowerPoint are installed.
This URL used to point to www.adobe.com/products/acrobat, but now becomes its own Web site. Adobe hopes it'll become a destination for Acrobat users wanting to collaborate. It's offering the following for free:
- Buzzword collaborative word processor.
- ConnectNow Web conferencing for three participants.
- 5GB of storage for hosting online documents.
- Developer API [application programming interface]
Dates and Costs
The software ships in July. Prices are the same as for version 8:
- Acrobat 9 Standard = $299 (upgrade $99).
- Acrobat 9 Pro = $449 (upgrade $159); also available for Mac.
- Acrobat 9 Pro Extended = $699 (upgrade $229).
The rumored name change and an earlier $300 price-cut had made me wonder if Adobe was getting out of the 3D CAD business. Acrobat 9 cancels the thought, and shows Adobe willing to make itself into a new competitor to entrenched CAD businesses. As Adobe puts it, they want "to make information less voluminous."
- - -
Deelip Menezes has further comments on Acrobat 9 at www.deelip.com/2008/06/adobe-acrobat-9.html
Patent
Watch:
IPIX
You might recall the IPIX name from the early days of the Internet. In the 1990s, they had a Web browser plug-in for viewing 360-degreee photographs: up, down, and all around. And then the company seemed to disappear. But last week, they sent out a press release that mentioned Autodesk, and the curious wording had me research the history of the IPIX name.
- - -
In 1997 and 1999, Ford Oxaal received patents for constructing 360-degree (spherical) photographs from photos taken by cameras with fish-eye lenses (extreme wide-angle lenses, and another patent for spherical photographs constructed from multiple photographs.
From my readings, it appears that Oxaal attempted to commercialize his technology by showing it to TeleRobotics International. TRI appeared interested, apparently licensed Oxaal's technology, changed its name to Omniview, and then attempted to get a patent on technology similar to that of Oxaal's.
Omniview again changed its name, this time to IPIX (short for Interactive Pictures). They claimed to have exclusive rights to Oxaal's technology, but then went after Oxaal for trade secret theft. IPIX also launched lawsuits against just about anyone else who seemed to be doing similar types of immersive photography. Oxaal fired back with a patent infringement suit. In out-of-court settlement three years later, IPIX agreed to license Oxaal's patents.
With law suits flying around, no one was particularly interested in developing 360-degree photographs, and so it seems fitting that IPIX filed for bankruptcy in 2006; by then, its losses totaled nearly $500 million.
A year later, IPIX auctioned its patents to Sony; it's not clear what Sony has done since with the patents. In another auction, the IPIX trademark name and software were won by Minds-Eye-View -- the company owned by Oxaal. His bid beat out one from former IPIX CEO James Phillips.
Minds-Eye-View now co-markets software for 360-degree photography into security environments, along with 360-degree hardware from Grandeye.
- - -
Which brings me to the press release that mentioned Autodesk. It seems that the IPIX division of Minds-Eye-View had licensed its immersive media patents to Realviz. Realviz was recently purchased by Autodesk. And so the press release has this to say:
"Autodesk now has certain non-exclusive rights under the seminal Oxaal patent portfolio. These patents cover, among other things, 360x360-degree immersive media applications, and more broadly, the ability to 'Lookaround' in electronic media."
Links:
www.tbk.de/ftp/doc/oxaal-ipix%20real-story.pdf
www.secinfo.com/dUM7d.23a.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPIX
www.knoxnews.com/news/2006/sep/18/history-of-ipix-corp/
www.ipix.com/
CAM Market Shares
CIMdata figures that Dassault Systemes had the biggest sales of CAM [computer-aided manufacturing] software last year; CNC Software shipped the largest number of industrial seats; Planit Holdings has the largest number of installed industrial seats; SolidCAM the fastest growing vendor.
The company notes that "...the CAM software market continues to be highly-fragmented and competitive. There is no single vendor or small group of vendors that dominate the worldwide market. CIMdata tracks approximately 50 CAM software vendors..."
The market shares are as follows:
15.1% -- Dassault Systemes
12.8% -- Siemens PLM Software
6.9%
-- PTC
6.4% -- Delcam
6.2% -- Planit
4.4% -- NDES
4.2%
-- Tebis
3.0% -- Cimatron (excl. Gibbs)
2.9% -- CND
33.7%
-- everyone else
Dassault Systemes quietly launches the 6.0 series of its CAD and other software. The company says that "CATIA, DELMIA and SIMULIA V6R2009 are native PLM 2.0 online solutions with a patent pending, unified user interface." They run on ENOVIA's collaborative IP [intellectual property] platform. www.3ds.com/V6
PTC introduces ProductView 9.1 for viewing up to millions of parts in digital mockups. In related news, PTC announces a SharePoint version of its WindChill PLM software. www.ptc.com/go/windchillproductpoint
Scia Engineer 2008 is faster at analyzing concrete and steel components, and has a better connection to Allplan BIM 2008. Scia is short for "Scientific Applications." The Belgium-based company is owned by Nemetschek, and has 8,000 licenses in use. www.scia-online.com
Integrated Industrial Information forms Rights Management Practice based on Adobe's LiveCycle Enterprise Suite and PLM/ECM connectors to PTC's Windchill software. www.i-cubed.com/rmp.html
Elysium updates its CADdoctor EX3.0 data verification software. www.elysiuminc.com
Datakit does what Dassault cannot: its new SolidWorks 2007/8/9 [2009? Wow, they are ahead of SolidWorks!] plugin exports SolidWorks parts and assemblies to Catia V5. Download a trial licence from www.datakit.com
Bunkspeed's HyperShot now works with native Pro/ENGINEER files.
- - -
These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog < worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
- Acrobat.com
- 3D Reviewer from Adobe
- Speculation: Autodesk to Buy Bentley Systems?
- Why the Ribbon is Wrong
- 15% Fewer Journalists at BE 2009?
- Half-a-Billion Richer -- No Way!
- BW Interviews CB
- Free CAD Files from Via
Hardware News
As leaked last week, nVidia yesterday announced Tegra, its dime-sized computer-on-a-chip CPU for "mobile Internet devices" -- small computers with long battery life that access the Internet, play high-end games, display high-def video, and cost $200-$250. Sounds yummy.
Magazine/eZine/Weblog Updates
Where in the world is Martyn Day? Al Dean? Operating in semi-stealth mode, the British powerhouse CAD-journalist duo quit their day jobs and last week unveiled DEVELOP3D. They're outputting a monthly magazine in print and PDF formats, as well as maintaining the www.develop3d.com Web site with the emphasis on manufacturing. www.x3dmedia.com
The SLDI Knowledge Projecta wiki dedicated to promoting and enabling sustainable land development. www.sldiknowledgeproject.com/index.php/SLDI_Knowledge_Project
People/Companies on the Move
JETCAM and FCC Software AB provide integration between FCC's AutoPOL 3D CAD software and JETCAM's nesting software. www.autopol.com
Right Hemisphere is pretty pumped that its file viewing technology will be integrated into the next version of SAP PLM software. And that another software vendor has licensed some of Right Hemisphere's technology for its technical illustration product suite -- but I can't tell you who until tomorrow or later. www.righthemisphere.com
I don't report on education grants, unless the numbers are _really_ huge. Siemens PLM Software gives an in-kind software grant (commercial value of US$46 million) to Shanghai Dianji University.
Market News
Due to the merger of Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase, coverage of all companies by the Bear Stearns Equity Research Department is withdrawn.
WorthWhile Web
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/146371
"Court Finds Dell Guilty of Fraud"
by Nancy Gohring
Letters to the Editor
Re: Cost of Autodesk Testing
"The cost to have a third-party application certified by Autodesk to work with the latest release of Inventor is zero. From Autodesk's perspective, the third party has already invested plenty of time and money integrating their application with Inventor. No reason for Autodesk to add to their costs by making them pay for certification.
"In the spirit of full disclosure, a company does have to
be a member of the Autodesk Developer Network to have their application
certified for Inventor -- a membership that does have a modest cost:
$1,295 a year for the lowest cost membership that includes unlimited
API support from Autodesk, access to most Autodesk products, etc."
-
Jim Quanci
Autodesk
Re: How Oce's CrystalPoint Technology Works
"I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'History of Oce', as I still
smell the 'reek' of Heinkel's blue printing room, where I was a
student employee at age 14, working next door in the revision department."
-
Herbert Grabowski
Re: Freeform Design in Inventor 2009
"This doesn't surprise me. Prototyping isn't exclusive to manufacturing design. More and more, architects are investigating and using non-traditional tools in the design process. The Jan/Feb '08 issue of 'Technology Review' pointed this out at www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19848/ and www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19869/ (registration required, but free).
"There is a hole in Autodesk's product line for serving
this user base. Architects are filling this with FormZ or Rhino
or even SketchUp. Why wouldn't Autodesk want a piece of that pie?"
-
Steve Howatt, Firmwide Design Applications Development Leader
Perkins+Will
The editor replies: "The idea was that the enhanced 3D of AutoCAD 2007 was supposed to compete with SketchUp. AutoCAD has the ability to directly manipulate 3D solids with grips. But I wonder if using AutoCAD for conceptual design is akin to me using my Palm TX as an MP3 player. It works, but I prefer using my Zen Micro, a dedicated MP3 player."
Spin Doctor of the Moment
"Guys like us avoid monopolies. We like to compete."
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Bill Gates, Microsoft
d6.allthingsd.com/20080528/monopolies/
Notable Quotable
"Now that the first burst of enthusiasm for social networking
has died, people are realizing that Web 2.0 is actually a huge time
sink."
-
Betsy Schiffman, Wired Magazine
blog.wired.com/business/2008/04/web-20-expo-pre.html
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