upFront.eZine Issue #807
Guest editorial by Nikolay Snytnikov
Recently Ralph Grabowski in his article "Introducing Core, Autodesk's Other Solid Modeling Kernel" drew attention to the re-branded Gen6 geometric kernel, the technology used inside TinkerCAD's Web-based CAD system acquired by Autodesk in 2013. Along with the re-branding, Autodesk introduced Creative Platform based on the TinkerCAD API [application programming interface], which is supposed to be extended by contributions from the community. Autodesk says the platform and Core kernel are applicable for other offerings in its ecosystem of consumer products. So Creative Platform is not restricted only for use in TinkerCAD.
TinkerCAD's Gen6 (now Autodesk Core 1.0) is interesting to the CAD world, because (a) it was designed to run in a cloud environment using clusters of servers, and (b) it is a voxel-based [3D-volume element] solid modeler -- whereas other modern commercial modelers use B-Rep [boundary representation] solids. Voxel-based representations and algorithms are ideally suited for scaling up to hundreds and thousands of processors. However, they lack sufficient accuracy to represent CAD models. Without a significant improvement by Autodesk, Core can be used only for niche solutions in education and 3D printing, where the accuracy requirement is weaker. Further details on this subject and a discussion of parallelization in other kernels (Parasolid, ACIS, CGM and the recently developed RGK, Russian Geometric Kernel) can be found in my article "Evolution and Revolution."
Why Autodesk Needed a Second Kernel
So why would Autodesk need to develop a cloud software platform based on a new kernel? Probably because the time-proven ACIS-based Autodesk ShapeManager (ASM) does not sufficiently support parallel computation. It does, however, have multithreading, such as multithreaded Boolean operations, as announced at least a year ago. (See Grabowski's report "From AU 2012: An Early Look at Fusion 360" following an Autodesk University 2012 press-conference.)
But there is no evidence that the capabilities are available to end-users today. This is easy to verify with ShapeManager-based applications, such as Inventor Professional 2014 and Fusion 360. Both CAD applications are installed locally on the PC and use the most recent version of ASM.
In scenarios consisting of the Boolean union of two bodies with many intersecting faces, solving the Booleans takes 2-3 minutes on today's typical four-core PC. (See the figures 1 and 2 below.)
Figure 1 (at left): Two identical bodies with 20 NURBS faces each, with one rotated by a small angle are unioned.
Figure 2 (at right): Two identical bodies with dozens of torus-based faces.
The Windows task manager utility reports that only one processor core is employed by each application. When I compare their performance with another geometric kernel that explicitly supports multithreading, I see that the latter is significantly faster, because it uses all processor cores during solving.
It should be noted that scenarios in the design office are for the most part simpler than my test case, and so are executed instantly, even on single-core machines, without the need for parallelization. Other times, however, performance becomes critical when end users work with large models containing a considerable number of faces. This then becomes a case for running CAD computations on cloud environments, performing all computations with CAD applications installed on remote servers.
For example, Autodesk's 3D design running in a browser powered by OTOY software and NVIDIA hardware, and installed on the Amazon Web Services environment. (See Octane Cloud Workstation - Autodesk Edition on Amazon.com.) When a seemingly-powerful remote server with hundreds of processors/cores doesn't respond instantly to the user's request, then frustration comes.
Speaking of Autodesk's 3D design system in a browser, announced in a press release in November 2013, I was disappointed when I could not launch any of the supported applications in my browser. As it turned out, it is not for anyone. I can use OTOY technology with Autodesk's applications only by choosing the appropriate GPU hardware (NVIDIA Grid) from the list of Amazon's available hardware configurations. And to be allowed to choose this hardware, I must have a sufficient client history, i.e. paying bills to Amazon for some time. I think the problem is that Amazon didn't install enough NVIDIA Grid GPUs in its servers, so it is forced to restrict the number of users. So, it's not easy to test the browser version of Autodesk software, but I believe that the capabilities of ShapeManager will not be different on this version.
If ShapeManager doesn't support multithreading, then there is a lot of work for the development team to do to adapt it to the cloud. And so perhaps this is what Autodesk wants to do: run the new Creative Platform as an experiment of how a cloud-based CAD system can be used by a community of enthusiasts, and the way in which it will be extended. Depending on the results of this experiment, Autodesk might either:
- Develop the Core kernel further
- Or else introduce parallelization to ShapeManager
In the case of further development of Core, Autodesk must first improve the voxel-based approach, as well as solve the precision issue. In any case, either kernel requires non-trivial algorithmic problems of geometric modeling solved.
At LEDAS, we have begun similar R&D projects, inspired by our participation in the RGK (Russian geometry kernel) project. One of our projects is aimed at developing a scalable geometric kernel for the cloud environment. Such a kernel is efficient at deploying all resources available from powerful computing environments with their dozens or hundreds of processors, and so is able to handle tasks involving native B-Rep data of any complexity, instantly, without compromising accuracy.
Nikolay Snytnikov is the Chief Operating Officer at LEDAS and a research scientist at the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics in Russia.
[This article was reprinted with permission of isicad.net.]
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And One More Thing...
Bricsys releases BricsCAD V14 for Linux with emphasis on MCAD, with a redesigned context-sensitive Quad cursor, sheet metal design module, associative section views, and other features completely new for the Linux market. BricsCAD uses direct modeling to edit sheet metal parts, which unfold automatically and then can be exported to CAM systems.
There's also annotative scaling, a 30,000-parts library in parametric 3D, and more. Price is around $985; 30-day no-charge demo from http://www.bricsys.com/BricsCAD
Heard on Twitter
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine): Siemens launches $100 million fund to back Startups aiming to disrupt manufacturing" -> http://www.techcrunch.com/2014/02/17/siemens-launches-100m-fund-to-back-software-startups-that-can-disrupt-manufacturing/
upFront.eZine: Industry of the Future Fund from Siemens' Industrie 4.0 provides capital to firms whose tech has potential to change the landscape of mfging
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Alex Bausk (@bauskas): "BIM lies ahead" is an incredibly deep phrase if you think about it
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Owen Wengerd (@owenwengerd): [Outside The Box] Don't catch what you can't handle -- http://otb.manusoft.com/2014/02/dont-catch-what-you-cant-handle.htm
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Randall S. Newton (@RSNatWork): Dassault Systemes revenue up 5% for quarter and year; Catia sales flat. Report inc. 11 custom charts http://bit.ly/1b6lC6P
upFront.eZine: Dassault announces 3DEXPERIENCE R2014x, which despite the release #, is the 1st release of 3DEXPERIENCE platform; "shipping" as of Feb 24.
upFront.eZine: List of law firms doing the dogpile on Dassault's purchase of Accelrys for the miserly sum of three-quarters of a billion dollars:
upFront.eZine: Rigrodsky&Long, Brodsky&Smith, Harwood Feffer, LEVI&KORSINSKY, Ryan&Maniskas, Faruqi&Faruqi, Kirby McInerney, Pomerantz, Finkelstein Thompson
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upFront.eZine: "The Day We Fight Back!": Today is the day thousands of tech companies and groups protest NSA by doing not much of anything particularly.
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upFront.eZine: Wired magazine calls TinkerCAD "3D design for idiots" but then it also calls Sketchup a "web-based drawing program."
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upFront.eZine: I wonder in which year olympic athletes will finally be replaced by 3D graphics?
Letters to the Editor
Re: Autodesk Completely Acquires Delcam
"Regarding Autodesk becoming the newest licensee of Siemens PLM's Parasolid kernel: I know of no serious player in the engineering software industry who has ever complained of anti-competitive treatment by the Parasolid folks. While there is sometimes wild speculation in the blogosphere, the Siemens PLM Parasolid and D-Cubed Components people have a rock-solid reputation with the people who actually know what they're talking about.
"If Autodesk chooses to transition Delcam products away from Parasolid, it'll be for their own technical and business reasons. Personally, I predict that they'll take a two pronged approach, maintaining Parasolid in existing products, and building a new generation of cloud CAM products with ShapeManager."
- Evan Yares
The editor replies: "I assume the same (that Autodesk will do.) This was a question that didn't come up at the press conference last week, but I have since asked Adesk about it. See what they say."
"Delcam has been very successful with their products as they're currently architected and like the rest of their business we have no plans to make substantial changes."
- Noah Cole, senior manager of corporate public relations and social media
Autodesk
Mr Yares resonds: "As responses go, it's probably reasonable. Translation: 'We don't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg'."
"I don't recall seeing any mention of Mechanical Desktop in your article. I used it for a couple of projects but found it to be fairly crude with several bugs. When AutoDesk wanted an annual subscription fee equal to the original purchase price (wtf) I dropped it and went to Alibre."
- Alex Apostoli, AAE Structural Ltd.
Canada
The editor replies: "MDT ran on top of AutoCAD, using ARX to do its mech-specific functions. So, it used the same kernel as AutoCAD."
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"On another completely different note: while my office cubicle was disassembled and our area was painted and carpeted, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask if my employer wouldn't mind setting up my desk as a stand-up workstation. All that was required was a taller cubicle wall for one side and two small cabinet tops for my file drawer towers. Turned out pretty nice. I read up on it and found two great articles which helped me make the decision to go vertical (along with the two herniated discs just above my tailbone). Sitting just happens to be the worst thing for my back.
http://tristandenyer.com/benefits-and-drawbacks-of-a-standing-desk/
http://erickellyobregon.blogspot.com/2011/04/stand-up-at-work-literally.html
"Perhaps a number of your users are like me – getting older and can't sit for long periods of time? We'll see how this feels in a month. Nice thing is, I can just pop the work surface and drawer tower tops off and move them back down to 30" height and no-harm done. I want to push through any pain for a while and see if I can take this though.
"I'm still looking for a gel mat to stand on, and a pair of extra monitors (and a quad stand) since I am running an Alienware Aurora workstation with twin AMD Radeon HD6900 cards and a Mirror driver supporting four DVI cables."
- Ron Powell
Notable Quotable
"Problem is, there is no Easy button."
- Patrick Hughes (@Time_Trvlr) on Twitter
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