upFront.eZine Issue #849
by Ralph Grabowski
Joe Dunne does technical marketing for OnShape. He says that if he had only a few seconds to tell us the best way to understand the new MCAD program is to "take the good stuff out of Google Docs, the good stuff out of Solidworks, and that's what we are doing." He wanted me to be one of the first media persons to see the result, as I am a known cloud-skeptic [which is the proper attitude for any journalist, of course.]
He left Solidworks while working on Mechanical Conceptual and went directly to OnShape. The leaders working at OnShape are similar to those who worked on Solidworks in 1994, including ceo Jon Hirschtick. Today, OnShape has around 50 employees and is working with $64 million in funding.
OnShape vision statement sounds familiar: "Everyone working together with CAD, on any device, anywhere." So, are they able to pull it off?
Joe Dunne online with author Ralph Grabowski, next to slide of names of OnShape executives
About OnShape
OnShape is a feature-based, history-based solid modeler that also does direct editing and modeling. "We think that is a good thing: start with a sketch, extrude it, and so on, because users already know how to use this approach," said Mr Dunne. "OnShape is a feature-based modeler, because feature-based modeling is still preferred by designers. It is the same method used by Solidworks, Creo, Solid Edge, Inventor -- the dirty secret is that they are all largely the same under the hood."
On the other hand, it is like Google Docs or Sheets, in that all files reside on the Web, are available to anyone with Internet and file access, can be co-edited, and run in nearly all modern Web browsers.
"I think we have a stronger concept of what we are doing than many other recent startups in this space," said Mr Dunne. "Our target market is the same user as in 1995: professional mechanical designers." As they already know how to use Solidworks (or other applications), they know how to work with parts, assemblies, and drawings. "They are not relearning everything at the beginning," said Mr Dunne.
The most dramatic aspect to OnShape is its price: free. The complete software package and all its functions are free, with just one catch: after five private drawings, all your other files are public and so anyone can view them. Although others cannot edit your public drawings (without your permission), they can make copies and edit those.
Where the company will make its money (and pay back the $64 million it got from investors) is through private accounts. When firms want to keep their proprietary models private, then the cost is $100/month per user. "We want this to be as widely used as Acrobat and PDF files," said Mr Dunne.
To be a unified data management system, OnShape employs a container file format. Container files hold multiple files, like PkZip files do. DOCX and CUIX are examples of container files, as are the DMG and APK install files used by Macs and Androids. OnShape uses a container file format to organize and store all files and data (including PDFs, videos, and spreadsheets) related to the project in a single document which is in a single location. Container files mean that non-OnShape documents can be stored and displayed by OnShape without translation.
OnShape also uses the container file format to unify versioning control. Branching and versioning honors whatever is in the document. Every user has access to the data from the same place. (More on versioning below.)
Tabs separate organize models, so that you can have an Assembly tab along with one or more Part tabs. OnShape can have as many tabs as you want in a single document. There are no rules to what they have to contain, and so can display support files, like spreadsheets and PDFs. Each tab runs its own instance of OnShape, like running multiple Solidworks each on its own computer.
OnShape reads and writes all the major MCAD and standard files, such as Solidworks and IGES. The core code is based on Parasolid and D-cubed (licensed from Siemens PLM Software), code with which the ex-Solidworks programmers are familiar.
The OnShape user interface:
Top left: Collaboration interface
Right: OnShape running on an iPhone
Bottom: Tabs that segregate assemblies, parts, and other files
OnShape Demo
When I logged into OnShape, I used the FireFox Web browser on Windows 7 while Mr Dunne ran the program in Chrome on a Mac. As it runs purely in Web browsers, there is no software to download or install. "It feels like an installed application, without the limitations of installed apps," said Mr Dunne. I had to agree: there was no lag, although both of us were working off a server located relatively close by, just 300 miles away in Oregon.
OnShape opens drawings nearly as fast as Solidworks [loading over the Internet is always going to be slower than from a local solid state drive], but then works with assemblies interactively at the same speed as the venerable MCAD program. In the future, OnShape will exploit "unlimited" CPUs, Mr Dunne said, so that the performance will improve.
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During the demo, he also run the program on an iPhone (mirroring the image through Reflector so that I could see it on GoToMeeting). Later, I opened OnShape on my Nexus 4 phone, using mobile Chrome's desktop mode; the result was not pretty: slow speed and poor graphics. This is why the company will make available native apps for Android and iOS systems. The iPhone app I saw is the full version, but with a different user experience, such as UI elements collapsing to make more room for seeing the model on the tiny screen.
To share a model, just enter another email address (everyone has the OnShape account, because it is free) and permissions -- like Google Docs. The owner of the drawing truly owns the drawing and controls permissions.
I wondered about the granularity: at what level could we both work on a model? It turns out that there is no element or area locking, so Mr Dunne and I could work on the same feature at the same time. To prove this, we worked on the same fillet: as he resized it, I also resized it. A new size came into effect whenever one of us clicked the green checkmark.
"This is harder to do than with the original Solidworks," said Mr Dunne. "There is stuff happening all over the place."
Next Week
Part 2 covers 'Drawing Management', 'Pure Cloud Play', and 'Selling It' in upFront.eZine #850.
And One More Thing...
LEDAS has been working on software that compares geometry, and last month released an update that supports major MCAD formats: CATIA, Creo, Inventor, NX, Solid Edge, Solidworks, ACIS, and JT. (STEP, IGES, and Parasolid were already supported.) The Geometry Comparison software shows differences between 3D models, even when similar-looking models comes from difference CAD packages. An demo is available from http://www.ledas.com/products/geometry_comparison
Even More News
WorldCAD Access is blogging nearly every day about the CAD industry and tips on using hardware. (The feed is available on RSS and through email alerts.) The following articles appeared during the last week:
- Ten things you need to know about OnShape
- Outsourcing advocate gets outsourced
- This is what the 3D Systems CEO expects from Cimatron
- Spelling dictionary lists for BricsCAD V15 (and AutoCAD 2014)
On Twitter, @upfrontezine offers CAD news, late-breaking updates, and wry commentary throughout the day.
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.
Letters to the Editor
Re: About Trademarks, Copyright, and Protecting Against Legal ActionOpen
One of my brothers has been an IP attorney for twenty plus years, working in the DC Metro area. I hit him up regularly for advice. He's always said that 99.9% of all questions about patents, trademarks and copyright can be answered by visiting www.uspto.gov.
- Dave Stein
Saw this statement in issue #848: ' What DWG files lack, however, is a date and time stamp for every added entity -- and this frustrates lawyers, who like to have a clear timeline of events to prove that step #1 occurred before step #2. Using handles, we can see the order in which entities were added to the .dwg file. So we can say that entity #2 was added after entity #1, but we don't know when. After two years, the case is still in limbo, and I am not sure of its current status.'
The entity creation order of handles can easily be misordered by DrawOrder when the objects are copied:
1. Create four objects in order, say text with "1" "2" "3" "4".
2. Bring #3 to the top in draw order.
3. Copy all 4 objects.
4. Object #3 will be the last created object.
This adds another level to drawing forensics. Thanks for all your contributions.
- Dan Allen
The editor replies: Huh. I didn't know that. Thank you for updating my DWG knowledge!
Re: Oce ColorWave 500
Re: your calculation that Canon's Oce plotter doing 225 plots per hour = 3.25/second. My calculation: 1 hour = 3600 seconds. 3600/225 = 16. 16 seconds is still pretty fast.
- Nicholas Scott, workshop manager
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of British Columbia
Were you using metric minutes? If you divide 225 by 60 minutes, you get 3.75 sheets per minute.
-Peter Lawton
Actually 225 plots per hour would be one every 16 seconds (1 hour = 60 minutes => 3600 seconds / 225 plot = 16 seconds/plot). Still fast but not 3.25 plots per second.
- Scott Taylor
I saw a large electro-static Oce printer at a trade show years ago printing D-size sheets so fast that the current sheet was touching the previous sheet before the previous sheet had settled into the receiving bin. I would not be surprised if they can now do that in color.
- Rick Damiani, applications engineer
The Paton Group
The editor replies: I made that calculation at the last minute before sending out the newsletter, when I noticed that the "per hour" claimed seemed off. And so I was off by 60x.
Notable Quotable
"In my last communication with the [publication], I wondered if there was a slightly run-down apartment block in an out-of-the-way part of Toronto, or even Ottawa, where unaccomplished people heavy-laden with bilious opinions fester unhappily and come snorting and gibbering out of the undergrowth to snap at contrary-minded writers, for a small fee."
- Conrad Black, "A Word of Reply to My Critics,"
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/12/06/conrad-black-a-word-of-reply-to-my-critics
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