This Book Catches Your Ideas

Issue #908

 

by Ralph Grabowski

It was first introduced to the public at the annual Solid Edge University last October, and now Catchbook is out of beta. It is a parametric sketching app for Android, iOS, and Windows 8.1/10. (See Figure 1.You can sketch with your finger or stylus on the touch screen, either leaving the sketches as they are, or else having the software interpret them as lines and arcs, and placing parametric dimensions. You can, as well, take photos with your tablet, and then sketch over them in Catchbook. Figure 1 Catchbook saves pages (shown at top) in books (at bottom)  I interviewed global product marketing manager for NX Paul Brown and director of innovation, research, and strategy (NX) Ken Hosch about the new software.    Q&A Q. Where did the idea for Catchbook come from? A: We wanted to use all of the technology we have in different fashions. With our CAD programs, we do a very good job of understanding the workflows of designers, but not so much of engineers. We are trying to focus on better communications with engineers and provide them with tools. Q: I wonder if you have a different definition of engineer than me. In my background as an engineer, I did the designs, the calculations, and the drawings. A: In many companies we work with, engineers only do the calculations. In some firms, engineers are actually looked down upon if they make drawings; that's the job of designers. Other firms are like what you experienced, engineers do the calculations and the drawings. Q: So the idea of using your technology [in a different fashion] led to something for mobile devices. A: We interviewed engineers, who complained that they end up spending hours in PowerPoint. Although PowerPoint is very easy to learn, they could have sketched the same thing by hand in a minute. On the other hand, there are proper drawing programs like NX and Solid Edge, but they take time to learn.  So we wondered if there could be something between the two extremes for which we could use our technology. The desire of engineers to sketch naturally means using a finger, not the mouse.  Q: DO I understand correctly that Catchbook incorporates constraint technology from Siemens PLM D-Cubed?  A: Thousands of dollars of tech is packed into this $6 app! (See figure 2.) We have all this technology available; the trick is making it accessible in small form factors [like on smartphones and tablets]. We spent as much time on the user interaction as on hooking up the technology in a small memory space. Figure 2 Editing objects in Catchbook Q: So D-Cubed is running on the tablet, not on a server? A: When we were working on it, we asked ourselves, "Can we keep it all local, or do we have some of DCM [D-cubed constraint manager] running on severs." But any latency while drawing can be distracting, so we put it on the tablet. The 2D DCM package is pretty small; all of Catchbook is between 30-60MB, depending on the platform [Android, iOS, or Windows]. Admittedly, there are limitations to what a mobile device can do, especially when there are many curves on the page. Q: What were some of the pros and cons of working on Android, iOS, or Windows? A: I am not sure I am allowed to say! We have to work with all of them. They each have their own unique differentiator. It is more about how each online store does things, each has its own certification process.  We wanted to be cross-platform, and we didn't want to have to write natively for each one, so we used Xamarin as our cross-platform development system. [It uses a shared C# codebase], and binds to the UI in each platform.  Q: What is the market share split between platforms? A: Our desktop software is focused on Windows, with a little bit on Linux, so we were surprised at the different download numbers on the mobile platforms. iOS is the biggest market at 75%, with Android and Windows evenly sharing the rest. I think, however, that Windows is in the long term a very good fit, especially as we progress to the industrial flavor. Q: I notice that Catchbook has only 1,000-5,000 downloads on Google Store as of this morning. A: Our biggest challenge is that this giant Siemens is not known for consumer apps. In Europe, it is a strong plus, but not in America. We don't have a lot of experience on the app front. A base challenge is awareness of the app. Q: $6 is very aggressive price. A: It is. We don't have comparison points with pricing for enterprise apps on mobile devices, but there are lots of 99-cent consumer apps. We purposely priced along the lines of artistic apps, which tend to be $4 or so. We are looking towards a subscription model, because we have to get recurring revenue going. If you want apps doing really cool things, there has to be ongoing revenue. Q: What can you tell me about future plans for Catchbook? A: We are working on some function enhancements that I can't tell you about yet. We are working on improving the initial experience, letting the user understand better how to use it. The UI bar is really high among apps; other mobile apps might not have much technology, but they have a great UIs.  We are focused on consumers so far, but ultimately we want to make a strong app for the industries we serve. Consumers are a proving ground as they have high usability expectations, but we want to add good connections to NX, Solid Edge, Teamcenter, and so on.

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Q: I notice that there is no link to your own CAD systems. A: There is no direct link, but Catchbook uses DXF and SVG for export to any CAD system.  Q: One problem is that Catchbook is not for me, because I am terrible at sketching, and so I was glad when CAD came along in the 1980s. I spent the last two months on a kitchen renovation, and whenever I needed to "sketch" something, I'd whip out BricsCAD [an AutoCAD workalike] to determine the amount of backsplash tile or baseboards or flooring needed. I can't sketch stuff. A: It is not necessarily a tool for designers, because they are experts in CAD and can do everything in CAD software. However, Catchbook can be useful to designers “on-the-go” when they want to sketch an idea and send it to CAD later to continue working. Catchbook resonates much better with people who can't (or don’t want to) use CAD, but like to sketch their ideas.  Even if they are not “good” at sketching, Catchbook makes it easy to get the result they want, as every curve is editable through push/pull interaction and touch. https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/Catchbook   What Ralph Grabowski Thinks I sometimes wonder if Siemens PLM Software thought Synchronous Technology would be all it needed to pull ahead of the MCAD pack. It reminds me of how PTC at one time thought Creo would be its “break out of jail” card. (PTC since went on to chase SLM, ALM, IoT,...)  ST has, however, proven to be a tough sell, even to the Siemens PLM user base. It requires a different way of thinking about design, one with which most history-trained MCAD users are unfamiliar and so resist using it.  It’s been eight years since Siemens PLM added ST to Solid Edge and NX, but now the company is trying new things. The first was rather weak, a co-promotion withMicrosoft for running Solid Edge on Surface-branded tablets. The truth is that SE will run on any Windows tablet with decent specs; see my own experiment athttp://www.upfrontezine.com/2015/12/what-its-like-running-solid-edge-on-a-cheap-windows-tablet.html. Then things got interesting. Siemens PLM began looking around at the impressive pile of top-end technology it controls -- such as the Parasolid kernel and D-cubedconstraints engine -- and realized it should put it into new stuff. Siemens AG now has a division whose job is to find and fund new technology, such as the Generateshape optimization software from start-up Frustum, on which I reported about inupFront.eZine #907 (http://www.upfrontezine.com/2016/07/how-frustum-optimizes-designs-on-the-cloud.html). (Not all new approaches necessarily have worked for the company. For an example of overreaching, watch how the health division of Siemens AG rebranded itself as “Healthineers” during a cringe-worthy launch event athttp://youtu.be/0GVViQdpcmI.) It’s not like Siemens AG is ignoring the mobile world. I count 50+ apps on the Google Store, although a lot of them are reference guides and calculators, not CAD. (See figure 3.) Figure 3 Sampling of apps written by Siemens AG for Android Catchbook is a different mobile app for Siemens. It is near-CAD. Or pre-CAD or concept-CAD. Which is important for a segment of users. The idea, however, is not new to our industry, as ArcSite from Arctuition was the first, though on iOS only (see http://www.upfrontezine.com/2015/09/arcsite-first-mobilecad-to-draw-with-real-time-constraints.html). CatchBook will face two roadblocks to adoption. People like me, who can’t sketch worth a hill of beans, and people who prefer to stay off the annual subscription bandwagon. Nevertheless, this is an app that I strongly urge you check it out to see if it fits into your workflow.

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And One More Thing...

The European MEPcontent Standard (EMCS) is an effort by  Stabiplan to provide MEP [mechanical, engineering, plumbing] designers in Europe with a uniform standard. EMCS emcompasses the RVB standard, ETIM RT [European technical information model for math and drawings], and the original Revit accounting function.  Figure 4 Pages from the EMCS standards document   Stabiplan now releases EMCS v3 with input from manufacturers and installers. You can get a copy of the 28-page standard (see figure 4) by leaving your email address with https://www.mepcontent.eu/Emcs.

Even More News

There is more at our WorldCAD Access blog about the CAD industry, tips on using hardware and software, and our popular travelogues. You can keep up with the blog through its RSS feed and email alert service. These are some of the articles that appeared on WorldCAD Access during the last week: How to turn off CapsLock on G-series keyboards My new keyboard (even though I didn't want it)  We're on Twitter at @upfrontezine with late-breaking CAD news and wry commentary throughout the day, such as.... upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Jul 13: Siemens displaces another Dassault account: Jet Aviation Basel picks NX and TeamCenter to replace Enovia and Catia, starting in September.

Letters to the Editor

Re: AutoCAD 2017, Inventor 2017, Fusion 360, and Beyond To clarify, Adobe PDF understands only five graphical object types, which includes text using TrueType fonts only. As a result, the drivers that create PDF files translate SHX text as PDF “path objects” that are composed of line segments and Bézier curves. When you import a PDF into AutoCAD, these PDF path objects are converted into individual geometric objects that provide a degree of visual fidelity. An alternative is to change the text style used in drawings to TrueType fonts before you export a drawing to a PDF file. The definitions for the Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol, and Zapf Dingbat font sets are embedded in PDF by default, but PDF will use any TrueType fonts available on a recipient’s computer, or it will use a substitute font with similar parameters. The primary attraction of PDF is that it’s widely used by many software products that offer interoperability features. PDF is familiar to most people, good for mixed text and graphics, and can be viewed in widely available PDF viewers. For some people, working with a higher level of precision offered by DWF (Design Web Format) has a higher priority. The maximum granularity of PDF exported from AutoCAD is 4,800 dpi, while the maximum for DWF is over 400,000 times as precise. DWF files can be viewed for free on A360 (https://a360.autodesk.com/viewer/). Because DWF can be included only as a DWG underlay, some people prefer distributing DWF files rather than DWG or PDF files for design collaboration. Of course, even collaborating using raster images won’t prevent someone from copying a design. While there’s some overlap between the use of PDF and DWF formats, ultimately the basic choice people make is between interoperability and precision. My best advice is to choose the right tool for the job, which might be PDF or might be DWF. In some circumstances, you might even consider distributing a portion of a DWG with WBLOCK. You could even hide a small watermark somewhere. Your readers might also be interested in what Scott Sheppard wrote about DWF a couple of years ago. Scott, who works for Autodesk’s CTO, went into detail about the history of DWF, Autodesk’s continued commitment to DWF, and then he answered a lot of questions at the end. http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/2014/02/vpipg-cto-brian-mathews-was-on-our-team-when-he-invented-the-dwf-format-our-first-foray-into-sharing-design-data-via-the.html      - Dieter Schlaepfer, Principal Learning Experience Developer     Autodesk The editor replies: AutoCAD includes TTF equivalents to SHX fonts, such as Txt.ttf. Perhaps these can be substituted during PDF export. Mr Schlaepfer responds: The problem is that not all PDFs of drawings were created by AutoCAD, nor can other programs take advantage of custom data added to PDFs. And finally, there are those customers who are telling us that they don't want us to make it easy for others to import geometric data, that they're afraid that their designs will be misused.   Re: How Frustum Optimizes Designs on the Cloud My professional relationship with you is summed up in this newsletter:  1. Frustum: "Where did he find out about them?"  2. Cyborg3D: "I wrote about them months ago."  :)      - Randall Newton The editor replies: 1. Their pr people contacted me about Frustum. 2. I only do one press release per issue, so sometimes there is a backlog.   Re: Which AutoCAD 2017 Book Mike Kaluski asked about which AutoCAD 2017 book is the best? How about "AutoCAD for Dummies, 17th Edition," which I authored [and Ralph Grabowski tech edited]. He specifically mentioned difficulties understanding dimensioning in the current release. 2017 did not make any changes to dimensioning. The last significant change to dimensioning was 2008, which introduced self-scaling annotations. If that is his problem then these two Cadalyst tutorials might help: http://www.cadalyst.com/cad/autocad/drawing-scales-part-1-practicing-our-scales-learning-curve-autocad-tutorial-6296 http://www.cadalyst.com/cad/autocad/drawing-scales-part-2-scaling-tallest-drawing-learning-curve-autocad-tutorial-6311 The editor replied: I had asked him for more info about his dimensioning problem, but he did not respond. I didn't want him buying a book not to have the problem solved by the book.   Re: Which BIM systems in mid-90s Thanks, Ralph! That's it! I knew that the same team developed Revit later. I also remember that Pro/Reflex was very, very hardware-demanding and heavy, and realistically not usable on the PCs of the time. Well, you could say much the same about Revit today.     - Djordje Grujic   Re: My new keyboard  (even though I didn't want it) There are many flavors of mechanical keyboards, some are stiffer, some are lighter. I'm a big fan of Cooler Master's Storm QuickFire Tk series, which I have in 3 flavors: Blue, Brown, and Green. The colors refer to color of the Cherry MX key stems.  I also have a Unicomp buckling spring keyboard, but for me the smaller ten-keyless keyboards reduces RSI [repetitive strain injury]. There are other mechanical keys, such as the Topre capacitive keys (used in the Novatouch TKL and others), Alps, Romer, and more. Supposedly Topres have a fairly soft touch and a long life, but I doubt you'll spend >$150 just to try them. The Logitech G-series is available in Red, Blue, Brown, and Romer-G.  I can't stand Cherry Reds, which have a linear response (no break over), although apparently a lot of gamers love them.  Cherry Browns have the lightest touch and are the most quiet, but still have some nice tactile feel.  The Blues are my favorite: still a fairly light touch, but more tactile feedback (and more noise). The Greens definitely take more force to use; I kind of like them, but for more force, I prefer the buckling springs (which are quite noisy).  My guess is that your G-Series has Cherry MX Blues, since they are the most popular.      - Tony Tanzillo via WorldCAD Access The editor replies: "Thank you for the overview of mechanical key systems. I went foolishly into the store, thinking they were all the same, and was puzzled by one Logitech keyboard was called Red, another Brown, when clearly they all were black!"   Re: Recovering Data I recall in one of your previous eZines that you recovered files deleted off an external drived. Can you tell me how you did that? I think I may need to recover files accidentally deleted off an external drive.     - C.C. The editor replies: "The problem is that Windows does not send files erased from external drives (such as SD cards or USB thumbdrives) to the recycling bin, probably because then the Restore function might not work, should the external drive be swapped out or missing. I currently use Recuva, from the same people who make CCleaner. This is a good summary of tactics and utilitiues for recovering files:http://lifehacker.com/393084/how-to-recover-deleted-files-with-free-software

Thank You, Readers!

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Spin Doctor of the Moment

"Intelligent machines can ask the tough questions that need to be asked."     - Accenture Strategy, on Twitter

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