u p F r o n t . e Z i n e
celebrating 15 years of reporting on the business of cad
Issue #656 | August 3, 2010 | English Edition
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In This Issue
- Bid Modeling for Sales Engineers
- Lean Product Development
- New in SpaceClaim 2010
2. Configuring Parts on the Cloud
- CAD FX
SpaceClaim 2010
It's the dead of summer when SpaceClaim releases the 2010 version of its namesake software. Despite that, co-founder Blake Courter is telling me that the aim of his company is to broaden use of 3D -- not to replace existing 3D systems. This must reassure the Autodesks and PTCs of the CAD world.
After all, it was SpaceClaim, he claims, that made direct modeling something everyone talked about, which the big CAD vendors subsequently scrambled to add. "Now PTC's Project Lighting is xeroxing our ideas. But is PTC's software collection the best? I'd probably use SolidWorks over Pro/E, Algor over Mechanica, SpaceClaim over CoCreate. It's hard to know what your blind spots are," he concluded.
As for the name, SpaceClaim is a term used in the automotive industry to define a working area, a bounding box.
Bid Modeling for Sales Engineers
Bid modeling goes beyond concept modeling, involving the mashing together of parts from a variety of sources. Customer sends out a working area, a bounding box, a space claim, and then the sales engineer can create a model that fits -- and also works with the CAE simulation expert, send to machine shop for quote, generate BOM and determine a more exact cost for bidding... and then sends the completed model to the customer, who inserts it into his own models.
"CAD is just not nimble enough for bid modeling," he asserted. I found it interesting that he seemed to be distinguishing his software from CAD, even though SpacClaim is CAD.
He said he is not interested in the CAD market, because it is too small, isn't growing, and its jobs are going overseas. Instead, he wants to make 3D as pervasive in an organization as Outlook. I don't know that Outlook is a good analogy, and in 25 years I've repeatedly heard from one vendor or another their desire to chase for the Holy Grail of 3D Everywhere.
"3D becomes the currency, the communications vehicle that everyone can use," says Mr Courter. "I thought this might be happening in five years, but now I'm hearing that we're here."
Lean Product Development
He expressed surprise that I understood the concept of "lean" when I defined it as "eliminating waste through continuous improvement by letting every worker provide their input."
When Mr Courter said, "You're the first journalist I've spoken to who thinks it's not just a buzword," I replied that it is crucial for my technical publishing business. "I'm always looking for ways to make procedures more efficient so that I lower costs."
So, how does SpaceClaim apply to lean product design? The concept he laid out for me looked pretty interesting, even if it had a yawn-inducing name: "Set-based Concurrent Engineering." Or in understandable language, "Instead of picking the best, you eliminate the worst." Here's how it works:
1. A lot of ideas of brain-stormed based on a few set requirements.
2. Several (or even a dozen) ideas are developed in parallel.
3. Over time, more ideas drop out, "the elimination of least fit".
4. Don't make any decisions until the "last responsible moment."
5. Arrive with high confidence for the final requirements.
At this point, CAD takes over with feature-based models to lock down the design. He noted that CAD software cannot be used for the process listed above, because many of them use a different file extension to differentiate parts made of 3D solids, plastic, or sheet metal. "You can't do everything with on mega-CAD-application; a bicycle is different from an SUV."
New in SpaceClaim 2010
There's many improvements to SpaceClaim with its 2010 release, such as placing mechanisms as ball joints, gears, tangentially, rigidly, or fixed. Many new features are not reflected in the user interface. For instance, when you pick a part, SpaceClaim automatically figures out the most likely axis for rotation. See figure 1.
Figure 1: SpaceClaim determines axis of rotation automatically.
(Click image for full-resolution version.)
"Relaxation solving" stretches whatever parts are needed. The Mechanism Solver uses direct editing to adjust parts in real time, where the entire assembly is solved in real time. Mr Courter thinks this might be a first in the CAD world. Indeed, the company is using own home-grown assembly mechanism, and not licensing the one from D-Cube.
When you add a part in sheet metal modeling, SpaceClaim automatically includes the relief; you can toggle the type of bend. It now generates flat patterns from 3D model; you can pick bodies, which are converted to sheet metal selectively. http://www.spaceclaim.com
Configuring Parts on the Cloud
Configuration software is common for programs like SolidWorks. It lets you create a basic design, and then generate variations. I had a student in one of my third-year MCAD classes write his own configurator in Inventor using VBA.
By their nature, configurators are limited in scope, because they are meant to adjust the sizes and number of options of specific products, such as for electrical boxes, conveyor systems, and lighting fixtures. While you can generate all kinds of variations of an electrical box with a configurator, it would not be able to generate a system of conveyors; they need to be customized for each product.
This means it can be a pain to set up a configurator; once set up, however, it is very easy to use, because you just select options from drop lists. CAD FX is a company that wrote configurator plug-ins for AutoCAD and SolidWorks, but then found their clients didn't particularly appreciate the fact that salesmen needed to carry the CAD software on their notebook computers when visiting customers -- at an added cost of $4,000 each, not to mention the hassle of upgrades.
It's for this reason, Matt Pearson told me, that his company came up with the idea of Web-based configuration software. Named WebConstruct, the front end runs on the computer's Web browser, and is seen by the salesman and his customers; the back end runs on a server, maintaining the database of parts and generating the drawings and reports. He emphasized that this system is not meant as a free-form design system; this is meant for specific applications: to generate designs that bypass traditional CAD.
Figure 2: Selecting options to configure a grid of pipes to drain storm water.
(Click image for full-resolution version.)
The demo he showed me determined the size and details for a storm water drainage field that drains rainfall away from buildings and parking lots. Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Log in. The administrator front-end shows a report of recent users, projects, and so on.
Step 2: Enter parameters by choosing them from droplists. (See figure 2.)
Step 3: View the resulting drawing. (See figure 3.)
Step 4: Generate drawings in 2D or 3D DXF and PDF formats (BOM, detail sheets, layouts, dimensions, and balloons).
Figure 3: Displaying and editing the resulting drawing.
(Click image for full-resolution version.)
The rules-based engine disallows inappropriate designs. A proprietary server holds all the parts and dimensional information as well the database of each project. Projects can be saved as revisions to existing projects, or as new projects.
"What about configuring parts within an existing drawing?" I wondered. WebConstruct will upload and read DWG files, and then convert them to raster underlays with sufficient resolution to read even small text. (It also handles PDF and raster formats.) The raster underlay is converted to appropriate units, and you can toggle layers.
Because each customer requires a custom programmed solution, Mr. Pearson says he found that programming is easiest with Silverlight for the browser, easier than Flash for custom applications, and that it runs on just about any browser, even Safari on the Mac. He plans on testing the Linux version of Silverlight, called Moonlight.
To use existing part drawings in Silverlight, they are converted from DWG to SVG, a vector-based Web format that is scalable. There is one drawback to Silverlight: it currently does not display true 3D. (He thinks this is because of performance problems with displaying 3D in Web browsers in general.) However, he tells me that the DXF output can still be 3D. http://webconstruct.cadfx.com
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And In Other News
Get ready to program in Ruby. SketchUp already uses it, and now IMSI/design plans to add the scripting language to "upcoming versions of our CAD applications," says Bob Mayer on Deelip.com.
3, 2, 1... Expect the Mac versions of three formerly-Windows-locked CAD packages to ship between this month and year's end. Too bad that the latest stats shown sales of Mac OS X declining. Quite frankly, I'd recommend that at least one of these CAD vendors rush out their Linux version instead.
Next name change: Siemens PLM Systems becomes Siemens Industry Software. Next up: entry in Guiness Book of Records for CAD Vendor with Largest Number of Name Changes. Next release: Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 3 comes out in October.
Good news/bad news: Chrysler selected NX from Siemens PLM Software for car designs; the auto maker currently uses Dassault software.
Leadeship change: Keith Mountain retires as ceo of Spatial, being replaced by Jean-Marc Guillard who was directeur systeme d'information at Dassault Systemes.
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These were some of the news items that were posted during the last week at our WorldCAD Access blog <http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
- Standing on the cloud: A summary of where large CAD vendors sit
- What consumes memory in drawings
- I'm virtually attending Planet PTC's virtual conference
Spin Doctor of the Moment
"Not wearing [3D] glasses could be more constraining than wearing glasses."
- Sean McCarthy, Motorola
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_3d-tv-could-be-mainstream-in-homes-in-two-years_1408464
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