u p F r o n t . e Z i n e
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Issue #692 | May 16, 2011
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In This Issue
1. BIM Discussion Gets Heated in Russia
Guest Editorial by Alexander Bausk
2. Update on the Russian CAD/PLM Market
Commentary by David Levin
- Space & CAD in Russia: 50 Years since Gagarin's Flight
- Which CAD/PLM Topics are Most Popular in Russia?
- CAD Companies Operating in Russia
3. Out of the Inbox and other regular columns
BIM Discussion Gets Heated in Russia
Guest Editorial by Alexander Bausk
Here is a summary of the BIM [building information modeling] discussion that has been going on since last October on the Russian CAD news site, isicad.ru: http://isicad.net/articles.php?article_num=14108
First, though, some background: 3D building design in Russia and CIS is still an emerging technology. Lately, there has been much effort from vendors, especially Autodesk, to promote BIM to local customers. This is why there is debate over BIM taking place in Russian now -- unlike in the English-speaking community, which have had their battles of this kind since the mid-2000s.
The debate was sparkled by an magazine article by a senior engineer, Alex Jampolsky, and from comments made during a panel on BIM at COFES-Russia 2010. Since these two events, our AEC pundits have shown two extreme points of view:
(a) that BIM is a heavily promoted fad
(b) that BIM is the second revolution in building design, since computers.
I too published a mildly skeptical opinion on BIM, and received heavy flak from its proponents. Since November, Vladimir Talapov, an Autodesk-affiliated AEC professor, published a torrent of eulogies to BIM in what turned out to be parts of a future book, which were followed by an incredible mudfight between the two sides, and a very non-convincing backlash from BIM skeptics. Now there is a stalemate, as follows:
(a) BIM opponents are mostly practicing engineers who don't want a disruption to the processes they are used to.
(b) BIM supporters are mostly younger students or CAD industry folks, many suspiciously affiliated with vendors.
The debate moved to participant's blogs and CAD sites; in extreme cases leaving behind ruined relationships, unfortunately.
There's a one big problem with the opponents' arguments: they cannot propose anything better than BIM, much less a wholistic view on the industry's future.
But there are also problems with the claims by proponents, such as:
- "BIM is any number of dimensions"
- "BIM suits everyone, end of story"
- "BIM is heavily promoted by no particular vendor, no sir"
Any doubts about them is met with either royal hubris or pathetic hand waving. Of course BIM enjoys a huge wow factor for a clueless observer, but from an average engineer's point of view, that's pretty much it: a glossy toy to quickly show the investor how cool the design is, yet one that shatters to pieces and impedes work as soon as at construction documentation stage.
Personally, I think that BIM is an very useful concept, but is still a niche. It is useful for certain (mostly typical) projects, and to certain kinds of enterprises. You end up with workflows built from scratch, heavy vendor lock-in, lots of time and money to administer stuff and cope with problems. Design data transfer problems are significant, and the structure proposed by BIM often denies flexibility. I feel that flexibility and small tools for greater utility is where the effort should be directed in the future for BIM.
[Alexander Bausk is a structural design and inspection engineer working at the ONIL AES lab at Prydniprovska State Academy for Civil Engineering, Ukraine. He heads a team that analyzes structures critical to nuclear power plants safety.]
Update on the Russian CAD/PLM Market
Commentary by David Levin
Space & CAD in Russia: 50 Years since Gagarin's Flight
On 12 April is the 50th jubilee of the first man flight to the space. Rocket and space technology has always been on the cutting edge of technological progress; however, back in 1961 developers of "Vostok" could not use CAD because such tools simply did not exist. Russian Principal Designer Sergey Korolyov, and his colleagues used traditional engineering tools for that period: a drawing board and a slide rule.
The first CAD prototype, as we understand it now, appeared only in 1963. Today, the Progress Samara Space Center -- the company that for over fifty years has been producing legendary launch-rockets, from Vostok to Soyuz -- everything works on the basis of 3D models, from master-geometry to specific mock-up workpieces. Progress uses a lot of CAD and PLM tools from various vendors.
Which CAD/PLM Topics are Most Popular in Russia?
Some conclusions from my blog postings:
- Autodesk and ASCON are definitely the most popular CAD vendors in Russia
- Inventor hardly enjoys popularity of Autodesk; however, its popularity is at the level of SW, DS, PLM is perhaps honorable for Autodesk
- People are VERY sensitive to the topics of (il)legal software, which from my point of view reflects a considerable progress in overcoming the problem in Russia
- As always, people are obviously attracted by topics of competition, conflicts between vendors -- whatever flavor of sensation
CAD Companies Operating in Russia
ASCON is recognized as the biggest Russian MCAD vendor competing in this market niche with Autodesk. Each of them estimated as keeping about 20-25% of the market.
My own opinion is that ASCON is very dynamic, not only taking into account the company's attention to cloud technology and business schemes. One rather important aspect is that ASCON is very actively seeking business contacts with the Western market.
Autodesk is obviously leading in active marketing actions at the CIS market. In 2011, Autodesk complements its Big Forum (already scheduled for 21-22 Sept) with a series of road-show meetings to be held in 13 cities all over Russia and CIS. The key point of these meetings is that they bring together, on the one hand, activists of a so-called Autodesk User Community of CIS (3000+ registered members) and, on the other hand, local communities of the Autodesk actual and potential users.
In addition, Autodesk CIS is continuously extending its social-networking activity: above all, today they have user blogs on almost every Autodesk product, the situation which is so far not typical for the Russian market.
On April 14, a new head of the Autodesk CIS was appointed. It is Alexey Ryzhov who since 1999 has been working for Microsoft, also in Seattle.
Bricsys is noticeably extending its business in Russia, therefore I asked Erik de Kaiser, the founder and CEO, to tell readers more about his company:
"Historically we have very good experiences with Russian developers. It may be interesting to know that we have a team of 14 outstanding software engineers in Nizhni Novgorod. This Russian team works on the core of the Bricscad product. For us the Russian market has a huge growth potential. Since 2003 all our software products are available in the Russian language.
"Recently we have released the new Bricscad Classic for LINUX in Russian and we are positively surprised by the immediate interest in the Russian market, confirmed by the large number of daily downloads. Russia should always be in the top 3 of our most successful markets. We will do whatever we can to make this happen".
Dassault Systemes Russia started an explosion of networking activity: the Moscow office started publications in Russian LiveJournal, Habrahabr, and Facebook.
SolidWorks is rather successful in Russia. For the first time in history, DS established a position of the head of DSSW representative in Russia. Pavel Bruk (39), who was appointed to this position is a kind of unique guy: his CV includes education in airspace design, Computervision, Innovation and Design Center in Liverpool University, Unigraphics (working in Germany), Intel, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, and since Jan 2011 DS SolidWorks.
Intergraph's president of process, power, and marine Gerhard Sallinger said in a press-conference in Moscow that Intergraph, an USA company, is becoming more and more European. In particular, there is a goal to see Russia as the third income provider: this is rather realistic since in 2009-2010 Intergraph growth in Russia was at the level of 30% annually. In Russia, Intergraph provides supporting information which completely satisfies formal national standards.
LEDAS reconfigured the company structure, appointing Dmitry Ushakov as its new CEO. Former ceo David Levin is now president of the board.
[David Levin is co-founder of LEDAS and isicad.net of Novosibirsk, Russia. This article is based on items posted in Russian at his blog, http://levindavid.blogspot.com.]
DraftSight is a no-cost*, easy-to-use 2D CAD product that generally takes a few minutes to download and runs on multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, the Mac, and Linux.
I wonder why CAD vendors sometimes give small version numbers to big upgrades. Take Bricsys, for instance, whose v11.3 of Bricscad adds .Net API, text fields, tables, 3D-solids-to-2D-drawings flattening, and spline-to-polyline conversion. Try it out from www.bricsys.com
In related news, the company launched a new features poll on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/bricsys . Ask for, and vote on, new features.
Good on Autodesk for releasing an update for "old" software: you can read all about the fixes in Update 2 for AutoCAD 2011 and LT 2011 at images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/autocad_2011_and_autocad_lt_2011_update_2_en.html.
Last week it also released "new" software: 123D is a (so-far) free repackaging of Inventor Fusion at www.123dapp.com, and Buzzsaw Mobile for iPhone and iPad to edit drawings and save them to your Buzzsaw account at www.autodesk.com/buzzsaw-mobile.
In related news, Autodesk's Q1 revenues were $528 million, up 11% over a year ago.
Also free, Dassault Systemes' 3DVIA Studio game engine, now updated with terrain editor, customizable environmental effects, 3D curves support, global search, multi-threaded scripting, pro camera effects, enhanced pathfinding, enhanced virtual reality -- and, there is a link to CAD: improved handling of SolidWorks 3DXML files. www.3dvia.com/studio
nVidia is really starting to bust out of its niche as a supplier of GPUs for OEMers. Its new line of CPUs are driving tablets and efficient netbooks, and CAD vendors are applying its GPUs to their software. Dassault Systemes got its Abaqus 6.11 finite element analysis software to work with nVidia's Quadro and Tesla GPUs to run simulations 2x as fast as with [Intel or AMD] CPUs alone.
And then there's RevUp Render, who say they've got the first cloud computing system for architects. Their RevUpVCS 3.0 Virtual Cloud System runs on nVidia's RealityServer and [nVidia-owned] mental images iRay GPU computing render platform. It's compatible with the rendering modules of most CAD systems (ranging from AutoCAD to Rhino), and lets you generate renderings more quickly than on your desktop computer. www.revuprender.com
No surprise here, and Cambashi predicts 2011 software spending to grow, ranging from nearly 6% in aerospace and defense to half as much 3% in AEC. www.cambashi.com.
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These were some of the news items that were posted during the last week at our WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
- ZStore where zee apps cost $4,000
- Autodesk 2012 Suite unboxing photos
- Roopinder Tara takes the first look at Autodesk's new 123D
- Inforbix aims to be the Google of CAD metadata by Roopinder Tara
- Autodesk resurges the Maker movement: 123D (part 2) by Roopinder Tara
- Autodesk joins the Maker movement with 123D (part 1) by Roopinder Tara
Letters to the Editor
"Thank you. I need my CAD news fix."
- David Burianek
"Thanks, and keep up the good job."
- Ramaseshan Kannan
Re: AutoCAD for Mac Facecast
"Revit for Mac will not happen. Autodesk's AEC division is breaking down all their apps to work on the cloud, which will work on every platform. To rework Revit for Mac would not make financial sense, when in a few years time it will be platform independent. It will run at some point on a Mac, but through different technology than a straight port, as AutoCAD has been done.
"They have not sold many copies of the mac version. Surprise, surprise. It's over priced and under-capable. Nobody at Autodesk would go on record saying that, but that's how I see it."
- Martyn Day, publisher
X3Dmedia, England
The editor replies: "This is an interesting, alternative way to making CAD independent of OSes. Unfortunately, the way Autodesk words their statements gives Mac and Revit users hope that Revit will end up on Mac, native. Hmm... I wonder if the cloud will sell as well as the Mac!"
Mr Day responds: "Don't think AutoCAD on the cloud, think functionality like analysis and rendering on the cloud, as part of subs [by 2013]."
Re: Reviewing Cloud Services, Episode 1: Dropbox and Microsoft Mesh
"Dropbox may be suitable for personal use, but it's hopeless for corporate work:
"1. Because it encrypts files when it pushes them down to the client, the files bypass normal anti-virus software which scans files downloaded from the web. Because it can be set to automatically replicate files on its server onto the client PC, it can repeatedly attempt to send you files infected with a virus, and indeed in my firm we have experienced Dropbox doing exactly that. Even if your PC spots the virus and deletes it, Dropbox just keeps sending it to you in an attempt to re-synchronize! Virus authors must be rubbing their hands.
"2. The encryption is vulnerable to key theft. It stores a set of decryption keys on the PC which it uses to encrypt/decrypt the transferred files. If those keys are stolen, not only can someone access your files, but they can continue to do so EVEN after you change your password.
"3. Their terms and conditions are largely unacceptable for business use: they disclaim all liability for any data loss or theft, and there's no meaningful service level agreement. So if you stored customer data there and it was somehow leaked or stolen, you have no recourse against Dropbox, even if it was their fault."
- Brian Duguid, associate
Mott MacDonald, England
"We have been using DropBox for one year now and love it. Multiple people in multiple locations and never an issue with lost or duplicated data anymore. If you are smart from the beginning and can get everyone to set up the same file paths, you can then put links into messages that point everyone to the right file all the time.
"People were freaking out recently about the change in the wording of the DropBox security policy and it's simple to us: If you put it in the cloud and it's important, encrypt it. (LifeHacker has a bunch of good information on how to optimize DropBox.)
- Jim Martin, president
Jotne North America
"My experience with DropBox was fine, except that it doesn't really seem to be cloud-based. My client would add a drawing file or pdf into the mutually-accessed folder. I would then get a pop-up that says a file was added. However, I couldn't immediately access the file because it was actually being uploaded to my computer via my slow-ish DSL line.
"I could also tell that it wasn't truly 'on the cloud,' because I could access it immediately, whereas the usual case for such files, it would be downloaded to my temporary internet files first, which is not instantaneous. I believe it's really more of a sync system than truly cloud system. My connection is just not fast enough to open a 3MB file immediately.
"My observation and experience, not necessarily correct. Perhaps there's an editing option that we weren't using, but it was fine for transferring our large files easily."
- Joel Sampson
"While you are exploring cloud services, it would probably be worthwhile to examine one of the larger services out there, one that, despite backing by a huge global corporation, with vast numbers of customer and developers accessing it daily, still managed to fail for a month. I'm referring to Sony's Playstation Network. Is there any reason to believe that such an outage is going to be the only one that ever happens to cloud services?"
- JG Gerth
cadtag.com
The editor replies: "Amazon's cloud service recently suffered two days of downtime. Expect more in the future."
Notable Quotable
"Microsoft did not invent, research, develop, or make available to the public mobile devices employing the Android Operating System and other open source operating systems, but nevertheless seeks to dominate something it did not invent."
- Barnes & Noble counter law suit against Microsoft
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/27/barnes_and_noble_response_to_microsoft_suit/
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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 "WorldCAD Access" 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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