u p F r o n t . e Z i n e
t h e b u s I n e s s o f c a d
Issue #633 | February 16, 2010 | English Edition
< Previous Issue | Next Issue >
Write the editor. Make him smile! | Through PayPal, consider donating $25 in support of upFront.eZine. | We're trendy. We have a Weblog. Read WorldCAD Access. | Twitter us on @ralphg.
In This Issue
1. The Cloud's Fundamental Flaw
- I Own the Data; I Take Responsibility for It
2. SoldWorks World 2010, Part II
- Meeting with AMC Bridge
- Press Conference with Solido
- Press Conference with James Cameron
3. Out of the Inbox, and our other regular columns
The Cloud's Fundamental Flaw
The good thing that came out SolidWorks and Dassault Systemes showing snippets of their vague plans for running SolidWorks with Envoia on the cloud is that it ignited an after-show debate about the drawbacks to cloud. We heard only of its many theoretical benefits at SolidWorks World; now it was time to mull over the practical problems. The debate is going on amoungst CAD editors and users on blogs and email lists.
Over at Matt Lombard's Dezign Stuff blog, for instance, reader Kevin Quigley describes his experience in renting think3, and what happened when the annual rent jumped from $2,650 to $6,850 (at current exchange rates). http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/?p=3119&cpage=1#comments
The primary concern of users is over the safety of their data; CAD vendors counter the fear with the soothing but unprovable reassurance that "your data is safer in our hands than at your house." This should not, however, be the primary concern of user-owners.
The fundamental flaw of the cloud is the reassignment of responsibility. It shifts away from the user-owner.
I Own the Data; I Take Responsibility For It
Let me go back to just before the advent of the personal computer (1974), when we sat at terminals that interacted with mainframe or mini computers. There was much to resent about the arrangement. We had to commute to the terminal room in the computing center. We paid for computing time by the minute. We had to wait our turn for printouts. Playing the ASCII StarTrek game was forbidden, and so highly desirable -- as were computer nerd friends who knew the backdoor access code. When the system crashed, we could only eye the red "System Down" light and hope the outage wouldn't last more than a half hour or so. And when we left, we couldn't take the data with us, except on a large tape reel that probably didn't work at the next place. (I have one, never reused.)
It was in that air of resentment that we eyed the potential of the personal computer eagerly, at first too expensive but within a decade indispensable. We adored the PC, for it gave us freedom from the mainframe; as the decades progressed, we learned to take on the responsibility that came with the freedom: the updated anti-virus, daily backups, selective upgrades, perpetual software licenses, and redundant hardware.
CAD vendors want to negate some of the progress we made:
- backups are made on distant servers, run by uncertain owners.
- upgrades are automatic, with no warning of new bugs.
- software is licensed annually, and stops operating the day you stop paying.
Be sure of this: CAD vendors are not pushing the cloud in order to lower their revenues. In exchange for losing responsibility, you will pay more.
SolidWorks World 2010, Part III
Meeting with AMC Bridge
SolidWorks has an API but most designers don’t want to deal with it, for it involves a knowledge of programming and running Microsoft’s Visual Studio compiler. It would be great if designers could figure out the API, for it would help optimize their workflows. This lack of everyday customization is a pity, because SolidWorks’ API is so powerful, a cheerful Igor Tsinman told me.
He is chief technical officer at AMC Bridge, and it is this gap between engineer and programmer gives him an opportunity. From the name of AMC Bridge, you can tell that he provides that programming link between CAD operators and their software. Most of his work comes from engineers wanting to link their drawings with data management systems, because they want to seamlessly transfer data or to deal with configuration management.
There are two solutions for the non-programmer designer, he said: (a) hire consultants, who end up being expensive; (b) hire AMC Bridge, and then get instant access to a programmer via GoToMeeting; his programmers also provide remote API development and installation. Of course, it’s not US-based Mr Tsinman doing the programming, but 100 programmers in Ukraine.
He provides second-order efficiency to SolidWorks users:
Stage I: Switching from hand drafting to 3D modeling.
Stage II: Making SolidWorks run more efficiently.
The company provides no-charge examples of its programming expertise at its Web site, where you can download the Print.Works (print at any scale), Sound.Works (adds sound effects to SW operations), and FamilyTable.Works (more flexible tables) plug-ins.
Press Conference with Solido
Solido [pronounced Solid-oh; previously named “Solid Dimension”] undertook to shake up the 3D printing market by slashing the price of its 3D printer from around $12,000 to $2,950 – and even $1. I don’t know if this pricecut had been the plan all along, or was made in reaction to HP’s announcement that it would rebadge Stratasys 3D printers later this year.
The problem with the Solido pricing, however, is that mimics the pricing of inkjet printers: the printer is cheap, the supplies astronomical. You cannot, in fact, buy the printer for $2,950; you have to pay $9,950, which includes roughly a year’s worth of supplies: 24 kits containing rolls of engineered plastic material, glue and anti-glue, knives, software, and recycling bag. To get the printer for $1, you take out a three-year financing plan at $514/month (total cost = $16,504), after which you purchase that printer – at which point it would be obsolete anyhow.
Solido has a unique method of 3D printing. A fat roll of thin plastic sheeting is fed into the printer, sliced into one sheet at a time, and then laid on top of the previous sheet. The previous sheet has received a thin layer of glue where the sheets are to stick together; the printer also lays down an anti-glue where the sheets are not to stick. A tiny knife cuts along the boundary of each sheet. The process is repeated and repeated, taking about 4 hours to create a small plastic 3D model. When the printing is finished, you peel always the unwanted portions of plastic, and then throw them into the recycling bag.
(The printer uses XY plotter arms to place the glue and to cut the plastic. The glue, anti-glue, and knife are mounted in stubby pens, and the whole thing looks like a flatbed pen plotter from the 1980s – except that it is housed in a swooshy futurist looking case. The process is patented.)
There are drawbacks and benefits to approach by Solido. The problems are that its printer cannot produce working models, such as of intermeshing gears, or parts within parts, such as a ball inside a sphere; 3D printers that use other technology can produce such parts. While the Solido cannot change colors or materials during the printing process (as some others can), each part can be made of a different color -- currently red, white, black, dark blue, and clear are available.
The benefit of Solido's design is that the plastic parts can be bent, folded, and snapped into place. One sample is a sheetmetal-like part that you can fold into a box; another is a cable clip with serrated teeth that clips and unclips. These sorts of abilities are not found in the output of other 3D printers.
What puzzled the media assembled at the press conference was Solido’s claim that they want to place their 3D printer into the bedroom of every child. The Bill Gates-like hyperbole was meant to emphasize the company’s aim to drive down the cost of 3D printing through volume sales. They admit the $2,950 price is subsidized by the cost of supplies. Problem is, the volume isn't there: the company expects to sell a mere 12,000 a year in 2015 – up from 4,500 last year.
Despite the high cost and slow ramping of sales (roughly 20% more each year), Solido chairman (and majority owner) Jason Barzilay (a founder of Packard Bell) enthusiastically described his printer as "not a Yugo, not a Ferrari," but as a "printer for the masses." Through high volume and low cost, it would be available to "everyone in the world." He showed photographs of the manufacturing plant in China, where the units were lined up like automatons ready into invade the world.
He said he does not want to compete with Stratasys, but want to become like a spreadsheet that enables engineers to perform what-if analyses with 3D models -- albeit, spreadsheets with four-hour regeneration times!
Scott Harris was one of the co-founders of SolidWorks, the inventor of the Cosmic Blobs software, and now sits on the board of Solido. He remarked we "can scale the price; we cannot scale the process." Consumers would not even need to know CAD software, since there are "hundreds of millions" of free STL files already on the Web, such as on SolidWorks’ own 3dcontentcentral.com.
At the former cost of the printer alone, you now get the printer with a large amount of supplies. This could be a very interesting proposition. The number that really interests me is the current cost of a Solido-produced 3D model: 99 cents a cubic inch. In the future, we will be watching that per-cu-in price come down.
Press Conference with James Cameron
While we waited for James Cameron to arrive at the press conference room, Jeff Ray took some questions. SolidWorks is looking at using game technology to predict the moves a CAD operator might make to his 3D model, in order to make CAD modeling operate faster over the Internet. [I know the pattern: fillet, undo, fillet, undo, fillet...!]
He again pulled out the pep talk of looking at futuristic computer systems illustrated in movies -- like Ironman and Avatar -- to get ideas on how CAD interfaces might develop. (Later, James Cameron noted that all interfaces in Avatar were 3D, even pictures hung with magnets on fridge doors.)
When I asked how much of DS's V6 technology was in the next release of SolidWorks, he jokingly replied that it was 17.36%. but then did not answer the question.
A reported asked about the problems of latency and security. Mr Ray feels that latency will go away as more fiber is put in, and that greater use of the cloud will drive the installation of more fiber. As for security, he says, "I'm glad that customers worry about it." SolidWorks is trying to learn from open source systems and how they handle security. "We're now comfortable using credit cards on the Internet." Hesitation in moving to the cloud, he added, is no different than when CAD was hesitant about switching to Windows and overcoming the problems Microsoft's operating system created. (Ironic, then, that there is now this move away from Windows.)
The bigger security risk, he insisted, is from employees taking data on cell phones, USB keys, and the like. Google's servers are more secure than ones located in offices and homes, he feels. SolidWorks itself learned its lesson after its source code was stolen by a contractor firm in India some eight years ago.
Then he went philosophic: "We are tools of our tools. Is this really the right way to do it?"
When James Cameron arrived, he was asked many questions by reporters; here are his answers to a few of them:
Q: Is the technology you are developing being used outside of movies?
A: There is some interest from the military and spy agencies, but no deals yet.
He noted that a single stereographic frame takes 50 to 100 hours to render. By using 40,000 CPUs, the time is reduced to 4.5-9 seconds. He doesn't like head-mounted video displays, since their movement does not match what our eyes expect to see. This is why he used a hand-held camera.
[Disclosure: all attendees of the press conference received a personally signed photograph of Cameron.]
Next week: Part III
[Disclosure: SolidWorks provided me with airfare, hotel accommodation, and meals.]
Out of the Inbox
RansdellBrown updates its plug-in for Google Desktop. It displays lists of DWG files containing found text, previewing the drawing files with each piece of text highlighted in yellow. Standard Edition is no-charge (leaves out the highlighted text previewer) and the Professional edition is $49. Try the pro version for a 60-day trial from http://dwgindex.com/Google_DWG_Indexer.html
IntelliCAD Technology Consortium releases IntelliCAD 7 Beta 2 to its member companies, featuring:
- DRX object oriented API (developed by ODA) with custom IRX extensions specific to IntelliCAD.
- UI enhancements.
- real-time rendering support.
- Support for DWG 2010 format.
- Support for VSTA.
- Direct editing of AutoCAD Architecture objects using ODA ADTdirect.
Graebert announces that the Linux, Mac, and WIndows versions of its new ARES CAD software are currently in beta; the price upon shipping wil be $495 (regular version) and $995 (Commander Edition). Sign up for the beta program at http://www.graebert.com/#18
Open Design Alliance licenses the Adobe PDF Library SDK from Adobe Systems. Once integrated into the ODA platform, the SDK will allow rendering of DWG 2010 PDF underlays, and easier expansion of PDF support . http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/library
Visual Integrity releases developer and automation tools based on pdf2cad for converting PDF, PostScript and WMF/EMF into DXF and HPGL vector drawings. Batch tools can be accessed via command line, scripted or used with a watch folder; DLLs can be integrated into apps with two lines of code. More at http://www.flybatch.com and http://www.flysdk.com
CCE updates its Open Data Exchange libraries for the latest versions of NX and SolidWorks, providing read/write access to native files -- without needing a license for the CAD systems. http://www.cadcam-e.com
Eagle Point Software releases Surveyors' Companion ($595) for AutoCAD Civil 3D with simplified COGO routines and user interface. http://www.eaglepoint.com/survcomp
Lightworks enhances Lightworks Author 8.2 with Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (more subtle shadows in real-time), Lightworks Real-time Ray Tracing (progressive, photorealistic rendering), Reflection Catcher (associates reflections with models), and Multiple Lights in CgFX (support of multiple lights in CgFX rendering). http://www.lightworkdesign.com/features/lightworks_82
And Lattice Technology updates its converters for converting 3D CAD data to the highly-compressed XVL format. Version 6.1 adds support for Wildfire 5, Inventor 2010, Solid Edge ST2, and Wildfire 5 64-bit platforms. Converters are available as plug-ins or stand-alone. http://www.lattice3d.com/products/products_converters_3d_software.html
- - -
These were some of the news items posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>. now with 4,400 daily readers:
- Deelip - How Does He Do It?
- Dassault blames Toyota's problems on immature simulation software
- For some CAD users, the drawback of the cloud ain't so new
- Oh my! Dassault revenues down 9% on the year
- Apple beats Dassault at patenting 3D virtual stores
- Multi-OS ARES officially launches today; shipping "soon"
- Too much digital prototyping a trap - Toyota
People/Companies on the Move
Bricsys: "We have left the ITC."
ITC: "We terminate Bricsys' membership."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Library Association, and other groups are urging an appeals court to deny Autodesk's attempt to make secondhand software sales illegal. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/021210-eff-library-groups-argue-against.html
Bentley Systems acquires Enterprise Informatics and Exor Corporation. Enterprise Informatics's eB Insight software provides configuration and change management for infrastructure, while Exor information's software manages linear networks, like roads and railways. The acquisition prices were kept a secret. http://www.enterpriseinformatics.com and http://www.exorcorp.com
Now that Autodesk aquired PlanPlatform of Israel, it is using the office as a research and development center in Tel Aviv specializing in Web-based design and collaboration software.
PTC acquires Planet Metrics for its environmental analysis, and plans to add it to its Insight Product Analytics software. Price kept hidden from the curious.
Notable Quotable
I'm typing this on my blackberry in a hotel lobby in berlin, I'll hit send, and it will be published and read by roughly 5,000 people today. Compare that to what it takes to get the Tom Friedman column 'Time To Reboot America' which is sitting in front of me in the International Herald Tribune newspaper printed and delivered to me. Printing and distribution infrastructure cannot compete with bits on a wire...
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/12/bits-of-destruc.html
Contact!
upFront.eZine is published every Tuesday, except during summer and Christmas vacation. Editor: Ralph Grabowski. This newsletter is read by over eight thousand subscribers in 70 countries. Your comments are welcome! Deadline for submissions is every Monday noon.
To Subscribe
Send the message 'subscribe upfront' to subscribe@upfrontezine.com. All 600+ back issues at www.upfrontezine.com/welcome.htm.
Donations & Subscriptions
upFront.eZine is shareware. You receive this newsletter free. To support its publication, suggested one-time donations is US$25 or the equivalent in your country. If you prefer to pay an annual subscription fee of $25, you will be reminded each year around May 1.
Payment
- PayPal - send payment to the account of grabowski@telus.net
- Checks or money orders: 34486 Donlyn Avenue, Abbotsford BC, V2S 4W7, Canada.
- Direct bank transfer: email for details.
Japanese Edition
Editor: Yasu Ohgushi <yasu@rrcorp.co.jp>
Address Change
Send both your old and new email addresses to subscribe@upfrontezine.com.
To Unsubscribe
Send the message 'unsubscribe upfront' to editor@upfrontezine.com. I appreciate knowing reasons for unsubscribing.
Advertising
US$340 per two weeks. Position Available ads are $320 for three weeks; Job Wanted ads by the unemployed are free. Other rates available. For more info, email advertise@upfrontezine.com.
- - -
Entire contents copyright ©2010 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide. Letters sent to the editor are subject to publication. Article reprint fee: $250 and up. All trademarks belong to their respective holders. "upFront.eZine," "The Business of CAD," and "On your desktop every Tuesday morning" are trademarks of upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. Letters to the editor may be edited for clarity and brevity. Translations and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd.
* 10741