upFront.eZine #841
Happy New Year!
Welcome back to another year of upFront.eZine. It's hard to believe that our newsletter is turning 20 this year, what with the first issue that was emailed out on 1 May 1995. The very first article of that very first issue was titled "Autodesk Announces Release 13 for Windows 95," and with that upFront.eZine earned the distinction of being the very first independent email newsletter in our industry.
Thank you to the thousands of readers who support upFront.eZine by reading and discussing it. Thank you...
- to those who send in their donations
- to those advertisers who faithfully repeat their ads
- to the CAD vendors who send me on great trips and share with me their insights.
But thanks most of all to you who take the time to write to disagree (see Letters to the Editor below) or agree with what you read here. Above all, upFront.eZine is meant to stir discussion about our industry.
- The editor
About Fusion 360
by Ralph Grabowski
upFront.eZine interviews Autodesk director of Fusion 360 Kevin Schneider about the software he oversees:
upFront.eZine: What now is the line of MCAD products from Autodesk, aside from peripheral software like simulation?
Kevin Schneider: Inventor and Fusion 360 are the two products.
upFront.eZine: Mechanical Desktop is no longer available?
Kevin Schneider: No, it isn't.
upFront.eZine: How is Fusion 360 different from Inventor?
Kevin Schneider: There is a bit of history behind this. Inventor Fusion was the first version of Fusion, and it only did direct modeling. It was provided as a companion to Inventor [and AutoAD]. Most of the technology was moved to Inventor as native tools, so there is no more standalone Inventor Fusion and it is no longer supported.
Fusion 360 became a commercial product last year. It has some similarities to Inventor Fusion, but consists of code completely rewritten for Mac and Windows. For example, it has invisible server management for collaboration and multi-device access.
upFront.eZine: The Mac and Windows versions of AutroCAD are quite different. Is this the case for Fusion 360?
Kevin Schneider: There is no difference between the Mac and WIndows versions. Well, there are very minor differences. For instance, the Mac has gesture navigation and there are hardware-specific differences, but otherwise the code base is identical. [Fusion 360 Ultimate will be available for Macs in the near future.] Mac users are quite skeptical about mechanical CAD on Macs, but now we find that 30% of Fusion 360 users are Mac customers. It is available through the Mac App store or our eStore.
upFront.eZine: Is there a difference in price?
Kevin Schneider: No difference in price, and no price difference anywhere in the world, except for currency exchange rates. We sell the software at only two price points [by subscription only]:
- Fusion 360 is $300/year (includes 2.5 axis machining)
- Fusion 360 Ultimate is $1,200/year (includes 3-axis and 3+2 machining, with 5-axis to come in mid-2015)
upFront.eZine: Fusion first ran on the desktop, and then there was the dual version, partly running on the desktop, and some of the computations running on Autodesk's servers. How does it run today? How much of Fusion 360 runs today on local machines?
Kevin Schneider: The easy answer is, "It is variable." We try to answer the question, "How do we provide the least latency, the most interactive work experience?" Drawing a line is computed locally, as is rendering a preview. But advanced rendering will take place on the server [in the future]. All translation is done of our servers, done asynchronously in the background. Model updates are local or remotely, as determined by the user or workflow.
Translation is a game-changer with Fusion 360. If I send a model to three or four vendors, I might have to export my model in formats that Solidworks or Inventor or Solid Edge users can use. But now that the data is in a project that can be shared, the receiver chooses the format in which to download. Pick STL or Parasolid, and the translation is done on the fly by our servers.
upFront.eZine: Where is Fusion 360 headed?
Kevin Schneider: We ask ourselves, "What is the future of making things?" and we see three metatrends:
- Means of production is changing through 3D printing, composite machining, additive manufacturing. How can you use these new ways of manufacturing?
- Products are more likely to have integrated electronics, and there are more customized products on the market.
- Lifecycles are getting shorter, with faster times to market.
The two big functions we are adding to Fusion 360 by mid-2015 are version control and sheet metal. Fusion currently has a version control system for storing versions automatically, and so answers the question, "Where was I two weeks ago?" But we now want to answer a different question, "How do I quickly spin out five or six ways to solve this mechanical problem, such as housings?"
We are adding new tools for design variations that are based on software development. The new system lets users define a branch to the main design. Users can work on local variations, and then decide to keep all, some, or no changes of the branch design to the main design. This lets users iterate more easily for greater customization; they no longer need to keep different versions in folders or through filenames. While Fusion 360 has history-free direct and direct parametric modeling, it lacks vertical tools, and so we will release sheet metal design by mid-2015.
upFront.eZine: Do things like FEA (simulation) and CAM work with Fusion 360 or are new interfaces needed?
Kevin Schneider: There is no standalone CAM or rendering software to add to Fusion 360, because it is included. As for simulation, it was standalone, and we are working on how to integrate it. We will introduce directly integrated simulation throughout 2015. Having all these capabilities built-in is not a burden to the user or the software. Users can switch through workspaces, and each one is dedicated to a task, such as rendering or machining. So, if the user never uses machining, then machining never appears in the user interface and is never loaded into memory.
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upFront.eZine: Users might not like the add-ons you integrate; can they add their own?
Kevin Schneider: Yes, we have partners such as Keyshot, a parts library, Brighthub for contracting engineering services, and Protolabs for quotes for fast turnaround machining and injection molding. Some are free, some users buy.
"We are always looking," Mr Schneider concluded, "for these burdens of unnecessary work, and then try to automate them. We use server side processing where appropriate, and local process where appropriate."
http://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360
What Ralph Grabowski Thinks
From the interview, we learn that Fusion is a work in progress with more coding to be done. Missing are functions like advanced rendering, sheet metal, simulation, and so on.
It is brave of Autodesk to think about tossing aside all the work they did to get Inventor rolling, back in the day when they needed to face the Solidworks juggernaut. But this move is not uncommon in Autodesk's history: The Engineer Works (acquired externally) was tossed aside for AutoSurf and Designer (both acquired externally), which were tossed aside for Mechanical Desktop (acquired externally), whichwas tossed aside for Inventor (developed internally). Reinvention can be good; it's not, however, when the new one leaves out functions users have come to find useful in the old one. Fusion is in that unhappy inbetween state, perhaps explaining the reason there is no steep upfront cost to using it, as there is with Inventor.
From the interview, we learn alsothat Autodesk appears to be abandoning its only-the-cloud fixation. Fusion employs a more sensible hybrid approach to processing data, where most is done locally, and some is done on distant servers. The word "cloud" was rarely used in the interview.
Then there are these other differences to note between Inventor and Fusion:
- Fusion provides customers fewer choices than Inventor in how to pay for a license
- Fusion runs on Macs, and could presumably be ported to Linux (Inventor cannot because it is locked into Microsoft-based programming and graphics)
- Fusion gets away from a Microsoft-determined user interface to one that Autodesk thinks better suits users
Should Autodesk follows the tend that its history provides, then one day the company will put Fusion out to pasture for its next iteration of MCAD.
And One More Thing
Hexagon is one of those huge companies we rarely hear about, because their primary business is selling software and hardware that measures manufactured products accurately, like car bodies and turbine blades. The company, however, counts as one of the largest CAD vendors in the world, by being the newish owner of Intergraph.
The company's Metrology division last month launched PC-DMIS 2014.1 as an update to its measurement software, such as point cloud inspection and reverse engineering. For instance, the new New Mesh command create a single mesh from any number of point clouds.
http://www.hexagonmetrology.us
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http://www.okino.com
Even More News
WorldCAD Access is blogging on a nearly daily basis, with articles about CAD and tips about computers. (Feed also available on RSS and through email alerts.) These articles appeared on the blog over Christmas:
- This is how much more you'll pay for Autodesk software
- What it's like to own a smartwatch
- Available now: BricsCAD V15 for AutoCAD Users
- About the aerial photography in Pink Floyd's new album
- What's next for AutoCAD workalikes
- Calculating percentages correctly
- AutoCAD Designer
- foto of the sunday: Moscow subway riders
On Twitter @upfrontezine offers throughout the day CAD news, late-breaking updates, and wry commentary from the editor of upFront.eZine on Twitter
To donate to this newsletter's operation through PayPal, click http://www.upfrontezine.com and then choose the Donate $25 (personal) or Donate $500 (corporate) button. A big thank you to these readers who donated last month:
- Susanna Holt, Autodesk
- Anna Wood, Acro Designs
- Darren Young: "Figured I'd use some of my Autodesk University speaker fee to support you, seeing as your newsletter helped get me where I am today. Thanx again for the great info and have a great Christmas."
Letters to the Editor
Re: Books I've Been Reading
Here's one I'm reading that you would probably enjoy, "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/1491518243).
I'm not halfway through it, yet, but it's great so far. Steven Pinker points out in the Forward that it's not a work of fiction, and tells you the ending. Basically says, "Here's the hypothesis that I thought up and I feel that I have proven it, and the following is the proof." The guy's a Harvard prof, so you have to deal with the obligatory chapters that explain that Christianity is a load of hooey the any intelligent person rejects out of hand. But once he's checked that box, he gets down to business.
And here is a good editorial pointing out some connections that the author doesn't get:
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/worldview/yes-world-getting-better
- Jess Davis
The editor replies: I am guessing that Mr Pinker is in the rationalist camp. Does he find the source for our "better angles"?
Mr Davis responds: So far he's mostly working on proving that violence is decreasing. Maybe he'll have some conjecture on why later in the book.
Hugo Chavez as a dictator, n'est pas? Mr. Grabowski, you've made your opinions on socialism and capitalism fairly clear over recent years. I think of somewhere in past times where a reader/responder (presumably an American) called you a "socialist". Your response included the words, as I recall: " A socialist? Never!". Then on your blog in the past year or two I recall your, again I am putting a gloss on it, enamored stance on Ronald Reagan (in a review of a book you were reading, I believe) … a man who continued and forwarded with great zest the 100 years of US intervention, meddling and overthrows in many of the countries of central and south America. I've heard over the past year or two since Mr. Chavez' death some significant, usually mainstream, American news writers juxtapose the two terms "Dictator" and "Chavez". A quick search on "Was Chavez a dictator?" yields some interesting articles on this topic including some that discuss the American mainstream disposition towards this conflation. (And in all honesty, what would one expect from a significant portion of the citizenry where single payer medicine is considered "Socialism"). Of course one can 'prove' anything by selectively choosing articles or support documents to support one's case—your case or mine. I don't think Chavez was any angel; but given the demons the American apparatus has installed in the past 100 years of history of this hemisphere (or tried to in the case of the attempted ouster of Chavez during his presidency) you might wish someday to critically examine your statement. Once you are finished reading one of your favorite' journalists', associated with the NY Times I believe, Thomas Friedman, try another journalist formerly associated with the Times, Stephen Kinzer—almost anything by him. No evil socialist, Mr. Kinzer might provide an interesting challenge to the current and unexamined views on south and central America. And of course, there are lots of others.
Or, just perhaps …. Never the twain shall meet!
- Robert Moore
The editor replies: You are right: Mr Chavez was always democratically elected to his post. On the other matter: If it weren't for capitalism, you would not be receiving this newsletter.
Re: Acad2Shapes
Thank you so much for mentioning acad2shapes in your newsletter. Would it be possible to correct the link? The link text itself is okay, except the URL only reached htm, not html.
- Robert Pantangco
CAD Systems Unlimited
The edit notes: The correct URL is http://www.slickwin.com/acad2shapes.html
Re: Is Google really evil?
Last year we discussed this case. It's the one where Google allegedly stole IP from architect Eli Attia. Here's an update: http://www.therecorder.com/litigation-news/id=1202678431190/Architect-Accuses-Google-of-Stealing-Sustainable-Building-Designs (behind a paywall). It would appear that the architect sold his IP rights to a firm in the US. That firm is now taking legal action against Google.
What are your thoughts about the purchasing of this and what the outcome may be?
- Rick Feineis
CAD Training Online
The editor relies: I heard architect Mr Attia speak earlier this year at COFES, and unfortunately I doubt his idea (called Engineered Architecture) would work. It is kind of an all-encompassing way to construct skyscrapers. It is as all-encompassing as IFCs, except in the construction sense, taking into account every possible need in advance. Another drawback is that it requires all buildings to be round, which is an inefficient space.
I notice that his complaint site no longer works, http://www.googleandme.org. Google says the design team left Google X to set up its own company, Flux Factory at https://flux.io/metro. Here is a story of the new law suit that isn't behind a pawall: http://calconstructionlawblog.com/2014/12/22/the-stuff-of-novels.
I am due to retire, April next year. Many thanks for all the interesting articles.
- Lee Barnard
Notable Quotable
"Any questions? I have no answers, but feel free."
- Vidra Guy, ceo, The New Republic
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-collapse-new-republic
Contact!
upFront.eZine is published every Tuesday, except for during summer and Christmas vacations. Editor: Ralph Grabowski. This newsletter is read by 8,000 subscribers in 70 countries. Your comments are welcome at [email protected]; deadline for submissions is every Monday morning.
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About
Entire contents copyright 2015 by upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved worldwide. Letters sent to the editor are subject to publication. Article reprint fee: $840. 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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