upFront.eZine News Archives

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Welcome to the archive pages of upFront.eZine, the e-newsletter that for 20+ 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

Download All the Back Issues

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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The Black Swan Story Behind BricsCAD - Part II

Issue #1,028 As told by Ralph Grabowski [In part I last week, we learned about the first strand of history that involved Cyco Automation. Their breakthrough in directly reading DWG files lead to a series of black swan moments in... Read more →

The Black Swan Story Behind BricsCAD, pt. 1

Issue #1,027 As told by Ralph Grabowski BricsCAD did not develop in isolation. It is the result of the rich history of CAD, some of which was the result of a black-swan event. Black swans are events that are completely... Read more →

Open Design Alliance Q&A with ODA CEO Peterson

Issue #1,026 by Ralph Grabowski Following the Open Design Alliance's 2019 DevCon conference, the media peppered ODA CEO Neil Peterson with questions for 1.25 hours. Duomo cathedral in the center of Milan (all photography by Ralph Grabowski) - - -... Read more →

The Milan Conference: Open Design Alliance DevCon 2019

Issue #1,025 by Ralph Grabowski There are a few conferences that deal with the future of CAD, and there is just one that describes the immediate future. The Open Design Alliance’s annual event tells us -- and its thousand member... Read more →

Apex Unifies the Future of MSC Software

Issue #1,024 by Ralph Grabowski The most critical part of the MCAD workflow is the simulation phase. This is where the design makes or breaks it, before going on to be manufactured. Simulating breakage with software is tricky, because it... Read more →

SuperD Modeling from Boulder Graphics

Issue #1,023 by Ralph Grabowski with Alyn Rockwood Alyn Rockwood is the founder of Boulder Graphics and is its chief scientist. He told me about the unique modeling system that he calls SuperD -- a take-off from sub-d (short for... Read more →

About NBS - National Building Service

Issue #1,022 by Ralph Grabowski National Building Service was established by RIBA (Ryal Institute of British Architects), and last year it was partially sold to Lloyds Bank. It has 220 employees in England, Canada, and Australia, with 260,000 users. Its... Read more →

2019 Survey: The AutoCAD Workalike Market

Issue #1,021 by Ralph Grabowski AutoCAD is targeted by many workalike software vendors precisely because it is the most successful general 2D/3D CAD program of all time. With four, six, eight, twelve million users (no one really knows) of the... Read more →

Graphisoft Q&A on Project Everest

Issue #1,020 Graphisoft CEO Huw Roberts and vice president of marketing Ákos Pfemeter spent 1.5 hours answering questions from five CAD journalists that had been invited to the company's annual Key Customer Conference, this year in Las Vegas. Here is... Read more →

HxGNn Live 2019: The Las Vegas Conference

Issue #1,019 by Ralph Grabowski Data can save the world" was this year’s theme for Hexagon's 9th annual user conference. Introduced by pounding music offering doomsday lyrics amongst thick, artificial fog and seemingly hundreds of multi-colored spotlights, Hexagon ceo Ola... Read more →

Graphisoft's Key Customer Conference 2019 in Las Vegas

Issue #1,018 by Ralph Grabowski The Graphisoft Story is a remarkable one, begun by a man who in 1984 had an Apple ][ computer smuggled through the Iron Curtain into Hungary. Gábor Bojár had conceived of the idea of using... Read more →

Modeling Scaffolding Systems with Avontus

Issue #1,017 by Ralph Grabowski, with Brian Webb Where there is construction, there is scaffolding. Figure 1: Scaffolding at a building site (All images sourced from Avontus) Scaffolding is one of the most complicated parts of construction. (See figure 1.)... Read more →

DEX Expo Abbotsford 2019

Issue #1,016 by Ralph Grabowski At last week's DEX Expo Abbotsford 2019 exhibition, the keynote panel's topic was training. "Oh, no!" I thought. Boring! And I'm sitting right up front. It'll be hard to slip out of this one. The... Read more →

Book review: "3D Thinking in Design and Architecture"

Issue #1,015 Book written by Roger Burrows; reviewed by Ralph Grabowski We are saturated in CAD, and so the close link between geometry and design is obvious to us. You can't have one without the other. Computer-aided designing is based... Read more →

Readers Respond: Dassault and Solidworks

Issue #1,014 That article filled in some gaps for me regarding the awkward relationship between Dassault and Solidworks. My company got out of Solidworks 18 months ago when we had to replace Workgroup PDM and realized that the Solidworks brand... Read more →

Dassault Really, Really Doesn't Want You Using Solidworks Anymore

Issue #1,013 Opinion by Ralph Grabowski A year ago at Solidworks World 2018, Dassault Systemes promised Solidworks users that it endorsed two pillars: Solidworks and 3dExperience. The two-pillars announcement was important, because two million Solidworks users had been rejecting Dassault's... Read more →

Q&A with Neil Peterson, Open Design Alliance

Issue #1,012 by Ralph Grabowski Having spent 20 years working on SDKs [software development kits] for desktop software, the Open Design Alliance last year began adding a Web browser-based SDK to its offerings. (The ODA develops software that lets CAD... Read more →

Q&A With Mark Sawyer of Trimble

Issue #1,011 by Ralph Grabowski Trimble (USA) has a certain similarity with Hexagon (Sweden). Both began in the measurement business, Trimble in surveying and Hexagon in post-manufacturing measurements. Both are bigger in revenues than almost any CAD vendor, with Trimble... Read more →

What Happens to BricsCAD? New from the Australasia BricsCAD Conference 2019

Issue #1,010 by Ralph Grabowski Last month's Australasia BricsCAD Conference (ABC) 2019 was the first conference after Hexagon announced its acquisition Bricsys, and so attendees were interested to know what the future of their software would be inside the $4.4... Read more →

Status as a Service

Issue #1,009 Commentary by Ralph Grabowski on Eugene Wei Social media was first known as Web 2.0. Whereas the original Web connected us directly to corporations (recall the “No intermediaries!” rallying cry of 2000), the second generation would directly connect... Read more →