upFront.eZine News Archives

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Welcome to the archive pages of upFront.eZine, the e-newsletter that for 25+ years has been reporting on the business of the computer-aided design software industry. We launched 1 May, 1995 and today bring thousands of subscribers our edgy opinion, weekly news reports, and beloved travelogues.

 

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Read the Back Issues

We keep all issues since 2012 posted -- in full! -- for your browsing comfort right here on this Web site. Use the links to jump to the first issue of each year:

• January 9, 2017
• January 5, 2016
• January 12, 2015
• January 6, 2014
• January 8, 2013
• January 9, 2012

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Ever since 1995, upFront.eZine has been working hard at keeping alive the history of our beloved CAD industry. These our back issues are for your convenience bundled by year into a single ZIP file.

1995            2005

1996            2006

1997            2007

1998            2008

1999            2009

2000            2010

2001            2011

2002            2012

2003            2013

2004            2014          

After you download these files from Dropbox and unzip them to your computer, use any Web browser to read the newsletters.

 

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Copyright 2015 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All right reserved worldwide. "upFront.eZine," "The Business of CAD," and "WorldCAD Access" are trademarks of upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All trademarks are acknowledged as belonging to their respective holders.

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Q&A With the CEO: The Future of Vectorworks

Issue #1,062 | July 6, 2020 by Ralph Grabowski Over a Zoom meeting facilitated by Vectorworks Senior Media Relations Manager Lauren Burke Meyer, CEO Dr. Biplab Sarkar and VP of Product Development Steve Johnson discussed with me their plans for... Read more →

Readers Respond: Lots of Letters to the Editor

Issue #1,061 | June 29, 2020 Moderated by Ralph Grabowski From the Editor So many of you wrote thoughtful letters about recent upFront.eZine articles that this issue is monster-sized and is dedicated to you, the writers. - Ralph Grabowski -... Read more →

LiveWorx 2020: PTC's Annual User Conference

Issue #1,060 | June 22, 2020 by Ralph Grabowski LiveWorx is PTC's annual user conference. As it was online this year, anyone could attend -- even me. CEO James Heppelmann in his pre-recorded keynote speech reported that Creo 7.0 had... Read more →

2 Guys Talk CAD

Issue #1,059 | June 15, 2020 A reader and I corresponded over the status of the CAD industry. He asked to be kept anonymous. - - - PL: It seems like Solidworks and Inventor have gotten good enough to reduce... Read more →

The Future of IFC: Enabling Partial BIM Model Exchange

Issue #1,058 | June 8, 2020 When Autodesk developed IFC in the mid-1990s, it was constructed for interoperability based on the way files and data were exchanged back then. Architectural and engineering designers use IFC [industry foundation classes] to exchange... Read more →

Our Limits of Understanding, Part II: How the Mighty Fall (book review)

Issue #1,057 | June 1, 2020 Book written by Jim Collins Reviewed by Ralph Grabowski This article is the second in a series in upFront.eZine examining complexity and what we can understand about it. Here we learn about failure and... Read more →

Dassault Systemes vs Solidworks: Part II

Issue #1,056 | May 25, 2020 Another viewpoint by Ralph Grabowski When it comes to high-end MCAD, Dassault Systemes is the go-to company. Its software designs most of the automobiles we drive and aircraft in which we (used to) fly.... Read more →

Solidworks at 3DExperience World 2020

Issue #1,055 | May 18, 2020 Guest Editorial by Nikolay Snytnikov For several days in mid-February the cowboys in downtown Nashville Tennessee had to make room for 6,000 Solidworks users, developers, and resellers as the city became the temporary capital... Read more →

Atlas-Onshape as the Future of PTC

Issue #1,054 | The Business Side of CAD | May 11, 2020 by Ralph Grabowski In the days when Parametric Technology Corporation (now PTC) introduced parametric design to the world in 1988, it was normal to run MCAD software on... Read more →

Potential Impacts of Coronavirus on PLM

Issue #1,053 | May 4, 2020 (PS: Celebrating upFront.eZine's 25th Anniversary! ) Q&A led by Stan Przybylinski The Q1 financial results we are seeing from CAD vendors show flat or slight increases in sales, the result of the pandemic's effect... Read more →

How Proxies Work in DWG Files

Issue #1,052 | April 27, 2020 by Dietmar Rudolph Our interview with Neil Peterson of the Open Design Alliance in upFront.eZine #148 brought up the issue of how proxies work across DWG editors from different software developers. Dietmar Rudolph wrote... Read more →

The One Thing That Could Cause the Cloud to Crush CAD Vendors

Issue #1,051 | April 20, 2020 Opinion by Ralph Grabowski Software corporations, who are in love with cloud-based software, love its promise of recurring revenue reaching into the infinite future. They may have failed to take into account a cost... Read more →

Cesium + Smart Construction

Issue #1,050 | April 13, 2020 by Ralph Grabowski Though an interview last month with Cesium, I learned that there is an open competitor to Google Earth that works with CAD. Cesium Geoimaging Even though Cesium -- the company --... Read more →

From Things to Life: 3 Reasons Dassault Is Changing Focus

Issue #1,049 | April 6, 2020 Updates on Coronavirus Support A number of CAD vendors added and clarified their support for customers working from home. See the Letters to the Editor section, below. by David Levin with Francis Bernard The... Read more →

W. F. H. (Work From Home): Here's who's helping you

Issue #1,048 | March 30, 2020 by Ralph Grabowski With an estimated three billion people asked/ordered to stay at home, many of us in the CAD industry are fortunate to be able to continue working remotely. Someone like myself has... Read more →

Q&A with ODA's Neil Peterson

Issue #1,047 | March 23, 2020 As the Open Design Alliance gets busier and busier, I thought I'd get an update from CEO Neil Peterson. We talk about LOT Network, proxy objects, the latest APIs, and open cloud. LOT Network... Read more →

Readers Respond: Letters to the Editor

Issue #1,046 | March 16, 2020 Re: The Limits of BIM Thanks for your informative gatherings of insight and innovations in our AEC universe. The Snyder discussion is thoughtful, trenchant. However, I'm (easily) puzzled by this model-vs-drwg "conflict." Ignorance is... Read more →

The Limits of BIM: Jettisoning the Idea of Models Replacing Drawings

Issue #1,045 | March 9, 2020 by Rob Snyder [From the editor: This article is the first of a series that I hope to run in upFront.eZine examining the limits of human understanding, and the related field of epistemology, which... Read more →

The Test That Failed

Issue #1,044 | March 2, 2020 by Herbert S Grabowski The first job my father held was apprenticing in an aircraft factory. Later he became a drafter, for which I also had a knack, and that's why now you read... Read more →

Autodesk at 2020

Issue #1,043 | February 24, 2020 by Ralph Grabowski Life is good for Autodesk. This year the 38-year-old software firm will finally pulled out of its US$2-2.5-billion-a-year doldrums and is guiding analysts to expect $3.25 billion this year, up a... Read more →