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Issue #585 : : December 16, 2008 |
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In this issue: The Proper Place for the 3D Mouse
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The Proper Place for the 3D Mouse The 3D mouse (or spatial controller) market is an interesting one indeed. CAD users don't think they need one until they become accustomed to using one. Then they can't live without one -- yet they don't really talk about it. It's impossible to convey just what the device does using print or even video web media because there is no similar control to compare it to. People really need to touch and use one to know how they work. Sometimes the user's first experience proves uncontrollable and they don't persevere past the initial learning curve. To further complicate matters, many software implementations are quite poor, leaving users with a false impression of the technology. I find it a fascinating outcome that some multinationals have spatial controllers for all their thousands of engineers while other multinationals don't have any. Spatial controllers are a real productivity tool, provided the implementation is good and the user has gone through the learning curve. A good implementation provides three main modes of control corresponding to the spin center being: (i) located and fixed somewhere on the model; From my experience: (i) is the easiest to learn and use; A good implementation also exposes something called the perspective control distance; the distance from the eyepoint where the pan and zoom responses match those of an orthographic view. Items closer to the eyepoint will move faster across the screen and items further away will move slower. Input devices end up being used for the tasks they match. For instance:
I could go on for other devices like the microphone, joystick, Wii motion controller and multitouch screens. Similarly the spatial controller has proven to be, by far, the best device for 3D spatial control. Spatial controller technology provides the link from our brains' natural spatial ability directly to a computer. Any other device requires conscious effort to figure out how to drive the actual input device to produce the conceived motion. There are obscure but significant barriers to widely delivering the right response across the spectrum of 3D programs. These barriers are drastically hindering the growth of this technology. The 2D mouse was in exactly the same position before Steve Jobs brought the window GUI out of the lab, resolved the software barriers, and delivered the technology to the broad market. The rest is history. The spatial controller is still, after 25 years, waiting for the barriers to be resolved. We're now providing the appropriate motion algorithms but more noise is needed from the market for more software vendors to decide to incorporate these motion algorithms. Some issues also impede spatial control with the 2D mouse. For instance, isn't it obvious when panning a view that the graphic point under the mouse cursor should stay under the mouse cursor? This is like grabbing somewhere onto the scene and dragging it around. A few programs do this for orthographic views but hardly any do this for perspective views. Although current spatial controller products are targeted at the 3D graphics market, the control provided by this technology has huge potential in the real world; from lifting bricks off trucks to microsurgery. I firmly believe this technology will become commonplace well beyond the CAD market but sometimes I wonder if it will be in my lifetime!
[John Hilton is the inventor of the SpaceBall and Astroid spatial controllers beginning in the early 1980s. He heads up Spatial Freedom. www.spatialfreedom.com ] CAD, Linux, and 64 Bits I liked Pandelis Iatroudakis's piece on "The Future of CAD is Not Windows" [upFront.eZine #584]. Eric Raymond really does have a point on the 64-bit landscape. I've a coupla additional comments: 64-bit CAD computing is not always the answer people think it is. Quite often these days, the primary bottleneck remains in compute, and that's an artifact of how CPU throughput is progressing today. The move to more cores, after hitting the ~4Ghz limit, has been not the best one for plain old CAD. 64 bits, at this time, offers significant advantages for large assembly design, and or large/complex model design and detailing in the form of a much large addressable RAM memory space. This can cut I/O times and reduce the need to engage in complex assembly management schemes and is generally a good thing. However, the core of CAD, namely parametric technology, will remain a hold back for a while. It does so by essentially reducing a complex model to be a largely sequential affair. There are improvement in the CAD geometry kernels, and in rendering that do leverage multi-core. Results on these combined is a better experience for those living on the 32-bit edge. No question on that. Variational solvers do not have to do things in a sequential way, and I believe we are seeing a movement back that direction. Again, Siemens has introduced their synchronous technology, which at the core is a variational approach to part modeling and modification and to a limited extent today, parametrization. They own both Parasolid and D-Cubed, which gives them an edge exploring this stuff too. Finally, having absorbed SDRC, they have rapidly improved data management, and some the variational thought clearly has permeated their culture as well. I'm looking forward to more good things on that front. If those are realized, 64-bit multi-core machines could end up being as potent as commercial UNIX 64-bit machines were in the early Pentium days. Having said all of that, the larger RAM memory address space available, combined with the multi-core CPUs does relieve the bottleneck of compute when a user is demanding it across many applications, not just CAD. This is true in 32-bit land as well, and is a good development in general, worth noting. In short, the need for 64 bits is rapidly approaching. Linux 64 is a fine environment for these kinds of innovations to take place. Solutions are there right now, for those wanting to build up powerful systems. I have done so, and the results are generally very competitive. There is a distinct lack of vendor effort in this space, both on the part of CAD software companies either producing Linux software, or not, and computer systems manufacturers and their partners. On the software front, there are many small things that combined to make a Linux machine productive. Some common workflow, in particular UI element design, that makes sense for Microsoft, do not always make sense for Linux. There are teething pains to be resolved here. Linux is open, meaning many of them can be mitigated at the OS level, given someone actually does this. On the hardware front, it remains difficult to assemble certified Linux systems, and hardware vendors are often behind the curve with their Linux 64 offerings. Teething pains there too. Virtual machine technology has rapidly advanced to the point where running many, if not all the applications surrounding CAD, is now possible. It's even often possible to put them in their own window, thus preserving workflow for the user. (I think it's worth noting that Siemens does release a Linux version of their NX software. I believe their data management/PLM software, Teamcenter, runs there as well. Given it's Java, I think there are not any significant technical issues to doing this.)
[Doug Dingus works for Acuity Solutions in Portland Oregon, a VAR whose primary technology partner is Siemens. He's been involved with CAD and systems engineering since the early 90s.] From the Editor It's time for our annual break for Christmas and New Years, aka 'generic holidays' in some parts of the world. This means that the next issue of upFront.eZine comes out January 5. - - - Most of the changes in customizing AutoCAD 2009 relate to the Customize User Interface dialog box [grr: still no improvement to linetypes]. So, I took the CUI chapter out of 'Tailoring AutoCAD 2009' ebook to create a more affordable, stand alone ebook. 'Tailoring AutoCAD CUI 2009' is 130 pages long and covers all changes and additions to CUI, like ribbon tabs and panels, menu browser, quick access toolbar, quick properties palettes, and rollover tooltips. More info and purchasing instructions are at www.upfrontezine.com/cui9 . Autodesk goes crazy with BIM this week. It's planning to acquire BIMWorld, and then plans to integrate it into Seek, its building products sourcing site. BIMworld produces branded content for building product manufacturers. http://www.bimworld.com And Autodesk adds to Revit 2009 two structural analysis packages based on technology acquired from France's Robobat (hence the robotic naming; no, it there is no link to "The Day the Earth Stood Still"):
The Pro version has these features:
- - - Dassault's Spatial division announces 3D Mesh, an object-based software component that handles surface and volumetric meshing. It is integrated with its own ACIS and HOOPS 3D Application Framework. 3D Mesh works with mechanical design, structural analysis, heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, and more. www.spatial.com/products/3d-mesh It's fascinating to me how 3D meshing is becoming the "in" technology, after so many years (nay, decades) of the superiority of 3D solids being pounded into our brains. A lot of new CAD software is based on 3D meshes, and we are seeing old-timers crawling onto the meshing bandwagon. (One of the oldest CAD programs will be showing off new 3D mesh editing early in 2009.) Also of interest: Spatial did not develop 3D Mesh, but licensed it from Visual Kinematics < www.vki.com >. - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
WorthWhile Web "Ribbon component, AutoCAD 2009 and consistent UIs"
"Enterprise Software Vendors Now Vulnerable to Maintenance Payment Reduction"
Letters to the Editor Re: The Future of CAD is Not Windows "We have been hearing how Linux would take over the world ever since it was first released, some 15-20 years ago. Is the editorial just hanging on to the old hype?"
The editor replies: "I'd like to think of Linux as the iPhone of operating systems. Not the most popular, but it has it fanatical base."
"Wow. Should I really go there? OK: VariCAD industrial 3D design has been available on Linux for years. Our conclusion? The Linux desktop community wants a good CAD program. But they want it free. "progeSOFT tried to support Linux with their CADforLinux product. Our conclusion? The Linux desktop community wants a good CAD program. But they want it free. "Dassault Systemes reportedly experimented with CATIA V5 on Linux (not hard seeing it already runs on UNIX), but never made it available publicly. Why? The Linux desktop community wants a good CAD program. But they want it free. "Some make the mistake of confusing the Linux desktop community (free, please) with the Linux enterprise server community (professional, please). "Maybe Apple users probably have more respect for the hard work that gets invested in creating robust applications useful on a commercial scale."
Notable Quotable "I sweep the streets I used to own."
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