Yun Kim (Gleacher): It looks like you mentioned the desktop CAD business had a very good quarter. How do you account for such a strong business in front of a major release coming up, Creo product, in about six months?

Jim Heppelmann: The desktop CAD number was strong for two main reasons. (1) One is there were some large deals that contained desktop CAD. Those were probably more a function of renewals that came up and got renegotiated, than any special connection to Windchill or anything else or Creo. (2) And then there was just good, robust strength in the SMB [small and medium business] channel, where most of the new buying behavior happened.

Creo is helping us a lot, because the Creo story, on one hand, is very interesting. On the other hand, it's fully upward compatible from the existing stuff. So excitement about Creo -- even though it's not delivered today -- actually does translate into a purchase of what's available today, because it's upward compatible.

Ross MacMillan (Jefferies): Could you just remind us of the phasing on Creo? As you move to the new product introduction, there are two elements. Can you just remind us (a) when we should expect to see those two elements, and (b) can you explain those two elements and how they relate to the existing install base today? Is phase I is really going to satisfy an upgrade path for the majority of the base, and is the second phase really all incremental new functionality?

Jim Heppelmann: We talked about before key capabilities: Any Mode modeling, Any Data as options, Any Rollouts, and -- what's the other one -- Any Bottom assembly. So three of those are meat and potato things that have much meaning for everybody. Those three are in the first release, which remains scheduled for the June time frame.

The next thing, the Any Bottom assembly is a more sophisticated concept that requires changes to Pro/E, Creo, and to Windchill, as well as change the way the two together do assembly models.

And so this is in the phase II release, which is a bit further out. But it's also not something that will have an immediate impact anyway, because it's a more compelling, but bigger, change for a company to make.

If you're thinking about it from a revenue standpoint, then that really comes down to our release 1 in the June time frame. That's what 98% of the customers plan to upgrade to -- or anyway, that they're excited about, let's say.

Litigation Settled

GE Japan had alleged that PTC employees were involved in fraud, inducing GE to provide $60 million worth of financing to Toshiba for purchasing PTC software. In the end, it cost PTC $48 million to settle the law suit last fall.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/249098-parametric-technology-corporation-ceo-discusses-q1-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript

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[674-7]

GstarCAD: Fast, powerful and DWG-compatible CAD software
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Try it from http://en.gstarcad.com

[675-8]

And In Other News
Branco Liu is replacing Jim Phelan in media relations at Siemens PLM Systems. Ms Lui is the former pr person for the company's Asia Pacific zone.

Geomagic Studio brings 3D scan data directly into SolidWorks as fully working models. http://www.geomagic.com

Okino Computer Graphics is updating their CAD conversion system for SolidWorks 2011, available at no charge to customers on maintenance. The pipeline converts native SolidWorks BREP [boundary representation] assemblies, parts, and presentations to all major animation and authoring packages, 3D downstream file formats, and VisSim programs. http://www.okino.com/solutions/solidworks.htm

Ashampoo 3D CAD Professional 3 plans building and renovation projects at an introductory price of US$209.99. New features include solids modeling and project wizards. http://www.ashampoo.com/products/0560

Catalog Data Solutions updates its CAD Model Search Engine for searching industrial suppliers and their online CAD models. The engine has been OEM'ed by PTC and Autodesk, and is available to everyone through http://www.catalogdatasolutions.com.

ASCON Group (developer of KOMPAS-3D MCAD software) is the official partner of the Selenokhod team, the only Russian participant of Google's Lunar X prize: be the first to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters on the surface, and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth. http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams/selenokhod

Wow, 25 years already. This year is the silver anniversary of TurboCAD's release in the United States. (It was originally developed in South Africa using TurboPascal.) I recall seeing it at a tiny booth at Comdex 86 in Las Vegas. Until the end of February, you can get the silver anniversary edition at a 60% discount. http://www.turbocad.com

And it's time again for Cyon's study of how you use software for design and engineering at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/upFronteZine. There will be versions of the 20-30-minute survey in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian, and it closes April 18.

- - -

These were some of the news items that were posted during the last week at our WorldCAD Access blog, which recently hit 2,000,000 page-views:

- We love analysts for the incomprehensible stuff they say...
- foto of the sunday: toilet, west coast style
- If you wondering what SolidWorks Cloud will look like, we've got pictures (of the next best thing)

Letters to the Editor
Re: Understanding Hybrid Workflows between CAD and BIM
We have translated and published your recent paper on CAD<->BIM, see http://isicad.ru/ru/articles.php?article_num=14193 .

At isicad.ru, we are having an unexpectedly hot and large discussion on "BIM or not BIM," as briefly reflected in my English posts at http://levindavid.blogspot.com/2010/11/hot-discussion-around-bim-at-isicadru.html and http://levindavid.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-or-less-optimistic-update-on-bim.html.

- David Levin, ceo
LEDAS, Russia

Re: PS vs EPS vs PDF
Adobe's description of PS vs EPS vs PDF is a bit inaccurate. I thought I'd share my experiences.

In the AutoCAD R12 days, you could output a Postscript file, but not an EPS. I created a program that changed the PS file to an EPS file. This was done to allow the file to be inserted into PageMaker or Quark Xpress. All the program did was insert an EPS header and footer into the file.

The problem with inserting one PS file into another is pretty basic. Certain PS commands (Scale) are global and affect all elements. If you simply inserted a PS file in the middle of another, commands like scale and linetype setting would affect all entities drawn after the code was inserted. This would wreck the image.

The solution was to add an EPS header and footer to the inserted file. When the PS processor saw the header, it stored all current settings on a stack, and when it arrived at the footer, it restored all the settings. This allowed you to insert an AutoCAD EPS file in the middle, and any scale commands would be limited to object between the header and footer. Code after the EPS file would be unchanged.

If this feels like AutoCAD blocks, you are dead on. PS didn't allow "block-like" insertions of PS code. EPS added encapsulation, permitting such "inserts."

EPS also extend the format by adding other feature, like an embedded bitmap preview. Sadly, they did a poor job on this. Macs inserted a PIC-format preview, while Windows used a WMF or TIFF preview. Thus your Mac layout artist inserting a PC-created EPS file saw a gray box rather than a preview image. It printed fine, but most layout artists would assume it wouldn't and complain about PCs. Here's a link with more tidbits about EPS: http://www.prepressure.com/library/file-formats/eps

- Ken Elliott

Re: SolidWorks World 2011
Curious: is it a harbinger of our CAD future that both PTC (CREO launch) and SolidWorks for its 2012 launch use a prison theme?

- John MacKrell, vice president
CIMdata

I was wondering about Kevin Bacon, too. Thought I missed something.

Funny issue! Thanks for not mentioning me by name at the hardware event. But just to you know, I said "Who cares" when presenter was going on about non-CAD apps.  Reminds me: I saw a blogger leaving the Intel presentation midway through, saying he couldn't stay awake –- and he's young and geeky.

Laughing to myself picturing PR staffers reading about their own bickering. I could hardly work sometimes in the press room listening to the steady banter from their station right outside the room. I think they had no idea how their voices carried.

- Name withheld by request

The connection to Kevin Bacon was (IMHO) the fact that he played John Swigert in the Apollo 13 movie, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_(film) . Cheers from Bodensee, Germany.

- Ralf Steck
Die Textwerkstatt

I departed Tuesday afternoon, so I missed Kevin Bacon. Maybe his connection to the event was Apollo 13. He played Jack Swigert in the 1995 movie.

- Terry Wohlers
Wohlers Associates, Inc.

 

The editor replies: Could well be. He was asked what CAD designers could do to help him out. He said: (1) find a way to deal with all the litter and discarded stuff from movie sets; (2) design a smaller suitcase.

I always enjoy reading your blog and e-magazine. I read the new issue of upFront.eZine (http://www.upfrontezine.com/2011/upf-675.htm) this morning and found a small link mistake. It's at the paragraph of POST3D, the link to this product should be http://www.post3d.com/solidworks not http://www.upfrontezine.com/2011/www.post3d.com/solidworks

Our biggest holiday has three more days to come. It will be the Year of Rabbit. I wish you and your family healthy and happy for the coming new year!

- Rayman Lei, channel manager
ZWCAD, China

The editor replies: Thanks for catching the bad URL. Adobe DreamWeaver considers URLs without the "http://" prefix as local, and so turns them into faulty links. Happy new year to you, too!

- - -

I'm a faithful fan and read your newsletter every week, but you gotta do a spell-check on "bricscad". More often than not you've spelled it "briscad", which sounds like a program for the drawing of a circumcision. ;-) . Respectfully,

- John MacFall, Senior Associate
MESQUITA & ASSOCIATES

Spin Doctor of the Moment

"If Edison had used 3D software, he would not have needed to create thousands of prototype bulbs. All he would've needed to do is design a bulb model in the software and press 'Enter'."

   - Patrick Williams, senior vp Asia-Pacific, Autodesk
   http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/7268358.html

Contact!

upFront.eZine is published every Tuesday, except during summer and Christmas vacation. Editor: Ralph Grabowski. This newsletter is read by over 12,000 subscribers in 70 countries. Your comments are welcome at editor@upfrontezine.com! Deadline for submissions is every Monday noon.

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Entire contents copyright 2011 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.

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