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After a Decade, IntelliCAD Holds a Conference

Issue #965

  

by Ralph Grabowski Someone in our industry asked me, "Why are they still around?" It's a fair question to ask about IntelliCAD. We have today plenty of CAD software to choose from, with systems at the high. middle, and low ends, on desktops, Web browsers, and on mobile. IntelliCAD Technical Consortium (ITC) is the organization that programs IntelliCAD, and by its own admission has been rather quiet -- other than a few press releases announcing mid-stream updates to the latest version, V8.  It helps to understand that ITC doesn't sell IntelliCAD. Its 20 member companies do, positioning the software as a low-cost AutoCAD workalike. Should ITC be marketing itself when it has nothing to sell to end users? Probably, as this provides blanket coverage for its members. ITC is much like the Open Design Alliance, that API developer that doesn't sell AutoCAD-compatible programming products directly, but licenses them to 1,200 members. (That the two organizations have a similar business model is no surprise, given they birthed from the same source. Visio, a maker of diagramming software popular in the 1990s, had dreams of expanding into the CAD market and so acquired a DWG read-write toolkit from Marcomp, and IntelliCAD from Softdesk via Autodesk; it's a long story. But selling CAD is difficult when the market is new to you -- I describe it to newcomers as a six-dimensional cube that is also highly incestuous -- and so Visio failed to move much product. Just before Microsoft acquired it, Visio spun the two off as independent organizations -- first ODA, then ITC.) The ITC organization is now nearly 20 years old. After many stumbles (another long story), ITC got into a smooth pattern: updates to IntelliCAD; members who pay annual fee and then resell the software in their geographic areas, with some customization to the core program. Often they are accompanied by vertical add-ons for jobs such as civil and structural design under names like FrameCAD, MicroSurvey, and Carlson Software. ITC licenses the DWG read-write code from the ODA, and negotiates better licensing pricing for third-party add-ons. For example, in rendering there is a link to ARTISAN Renderer and for 3D parametric solids modeling there is a link to the C3D Toolkit. The organization's reason de etre is not, however, unique. Its sales model faces competition from other developers who license AutoCAD-workalike software, such as Graebert (through ARES OEM), Bricsys (BricsCAD BSB), and from Autodesk itself (AutoCAD OEM). So, who needs it? Well, anyone who wants to sell a ready-made CAD system. Sometimes it's a large corporation that wants a 2D editing tool for internal use. With Autodesk having gone subscription-only (meaning if you don't keep paying, the software stops working), corporations have a new interest in protecting themselves from an unexpected loss of their tools. One CAD vendor, who earlier had broken free of ITC by doing a complete rewrite of its CAD system, re-entered the fold after being sued by Autodesk for copying some AutoCAD code. The ceo told me he went back under the ITC umbrella for the legal protection the organization offers him.   What ITC Plans for 2018 ITC has been quiet, with its last conference in Greece a decade ago. This year's conference in New Zealand signals a new start to gain visibility, gain members. And I must say that the announcements that came out of Auckland were remarkable. First off, ITC announced it will be offering a native DGN editor, which edits files created by the much more expensive Microstation from Bentley Systems. ITC tells its members, "Take your existing code that runs and customizes IntelliCAD for .dwg files and have that same code work for .dgn files." The new code draws and edits DGNs simpler entities natively for now. (See figure 1.) While there is at least one other DGN editor out there, it is has not been updated for over a decade. Figure 1: CMS IntelliCAD displaying a DGN file  Work is underway to get this year's release of IntelliCAD 9 to understand files saved by Revit. The first step ITC made was to attach RVT and RFA (family) files as underlays. Even AutoCAD cannot do this; ITC and other architectural CAD vendors are implementing the function through APIs provided by the ODA, which Autodesk boycotts. Related to Revit are IFCs, the "industry foundation classes" format used by the architectural industry to exchange drawings neutrally. At the conference, ITC showed how IntelliCAD can attach IFC files as underlays, toggle layers on and off, and then explode the underlay into entities.  The user interface of IntelliCAD is being enhanced with workspaces to switch between different setups, a new drag'n-drop Customize dialog box, and contextual ribbon tabs. The provided APIs include scripts, AutoLISP-compatible LISP, ADS-compatible SDS, .NET and .NET Classic, and ARx-compatible IRX, plus APIs for accessing data and models from MicroStation DGN, AutoCAD Architecture, Civil 3D, AutoCAD Mechanical, Autodesk Revit, IFCs, and a facet modeler. ITC already has Android and iOS apps for viewing DWG files, as well as for formats like ACIS and COLLADA. DGN support is coming soon. One member, CMS, is marketing it under the name eToolbox at etoolbox.com/compatible-cad-erp, and says it has over 100,000 downloads. (See figure 2.) Figure 2: CMS eToolbox displaying a DWG file on an Android tablet ITC plans to release IntelliCAD 9 to its members in March, following which it will take a few days or weeks for members to customize the program to their needs, and then start selling it to the public. The revitalization of ITC is good news for our industry, as it gives a competitive push that makes all CAD software more useful. www.intellicad.org [This article was first published in Jon Peddie Research's Graphic Speak blog: gfxspeak.com.]    Sponsor: Okino Graphics == 3D Conversion of Ultra-Massive 3D Models via DWF-3D & Okino's PolyTrans|CAD ==   One of the most refined aspects of Okino's PolyTrans|CAD software is in transforming ultra-massive MCAD models of oil and gas rigs, LNG processing plants, 3D factories, and other unwieldy datasets into Cinema-4D, 3ds Max, Maya, and Unity (among others).  What often takes days using blindly incorrect methods takes minutes or an hour with Okino's well-defined optimization and compression methods using its DWF-3D conversion system.  Popular CAD data sources include SolidWorks, ProE/Creo, Inventor, AutoCAD, Revit, Navisworks, DGN, IGES, STEP, Parasolid, and JT. DCC data sources are Cinema-4D, 3ds Max, Maya, FBX/Collada, and many more. Perfected over three decades, we know 3D data translation intimately, providing you with highly personalized solutions, education, and communication. Contact CTO Robert Lansdale at [email protected] . http://www.okino.com   Redo "(image source: JPR Graphic Speak)"? Ahem.      - Steve Johnson (@SteveJohnsonCAD) via Twitter The editor replies: Here's what happened: I had been looking for a graphic of ADSK losses to the latest quarter. Could not find it. Then I found one in the download folder of my phone. I didn't know where it came from, but it looked like the one Randall Newton produces for Graphic Speak. The correct source is Steve Johnson and CAD Nauseum at https://www.cadnauseam.com/2017/12/06/adsk-bubble-trouble/   The Rest of the News Some of the most recent posts on my WorldCAD Access blog: PTC ceo describes how he won at BMW: digital transformation PTC ceo speaks quite frankly about a new customer: a win with BMW - - - Time's up! "Three years from now, it will be surprising to me if anybody is really running very much perpetual desktop software," Carl Bass, former ceo at Autodesk, speaking in August 2014 to financial analysts. http://www.cgchannel.com.  - - - New from MEPcontent is their Line Placer for Valves, which copies diameters from pipes in 3D models and then sees which valves are available for that diameter. Works with Revit. https://store.mepcontent.eu/ - - - Foveated rendering: "A small, high-resolution spot that follows where we are looking, but displays a steadily lower quality image in our periphery, in order to save on processing power" for virtual reality headsets that mimic how our eyes do it. - - - Vectorworks adds AR [augmented reality] capabilities to its free Vectorworks Nomad mobile app on iOS using Apple's ARKit -- apparently the first to do so in the CAD world. Video showing it at work here -> https://youtu.be/jOE2OH1D7ow - - - Datakit's new Revit read-interface converts RVT files to IGES, STEP, PRC, and 3D PDF, with more formats promised for the future. It is independent of external APIs, and so does not require a Revit license. Software vendors can integrate it in their applications. http://www.datakit.com - - - If it sounds like a revival of the old A/E/C Systems, it is, asGeorge Borkovich is in charge. AEC Next Technology Conference and Expo is June 5-7 in Anaheim CA, and then again December 4-6 in Washington DC. https://www.aecst.com - - - Now that the US corporate income tax rate has fallen from 35% to 21%, what will PTC and Autodesk do with their newfound wealth? A. Hire more people B. Buy back stock (to drive its price higher) C. [I don't include option C: lower prices.] - - - The independent group of Canon Solutions America production print customers, thINK Forum, holds its 4th annual user conference in Boca Raton on Sept 5-7. https://www.thinkforum.com/ - - - "AMAZON plans to put camera, microphone in every bedroom."  I remember when the same was said of 3D printers. Never did happen. - - - It's rare for a Russian company to make a breakout in the American CAD market, but LEDAS is saying they did just that. 2017 saw the USA being #1 in market share for clients and projects for Novosibirsk-based LEDAS. Germany is #2 for them. http://ledas.com/ - - - Lots of changes at the top at Dassault Systemes. Leaving the company: Philippe Forestier, executive vice president for Global Affairs & Communities and a founding member of Dassault Systèmes when it was created in 1981 Monica Menghini, chief strategy officer and the public face of DS for many years Getting promotions: Thibault de Tersant from Chief Financial Officer to General Secretary Pascal Daloz from executive vice president of Brands and Corporate Development to chief financial officer and chief strategy officer New hire: Florence Verzelen is new executive vice president of Industry Solutions, Marketing, Global Affairs, and Communications - - - For late-breaking CAD news, follow upFront.eZine on Twitter at @upfrontezine. Letters to the Editor Rene writes "I don't believe in pre-cooked systems containing endless structured data models. Each data model is very discipline-specific: an architect's view is completely different to that of the janitor. The structure of a BIM has to fit the specific needs of the parties involved in the project." I totally agree. In building, managing, and maintaining a building there are many many disciplines involved. I expect that the main obstacle to full use of  BIM is that the party who has to initially fill the majority of the BIM, the architect, is also the one who has the least gain from using it -- meaning architects are not being paid to fill a BIM project properly.   Their responsibility for getting it right exists only at the most general level. This is not totally unreasonable, particularly since they  are not paid to do more.      - Leo Schlosberg     www.caryconcrete.com  - - - I found your eZine back in 1998 or shortly thereafter. I was working as a tester on the AutoCAD team. Saved my pennies and started Avontus back in 2002, so I love staying abreast of the CAD industry with your news.     - Brian Webb     avontus.com - - - After 20 years of receiving your eZine while working as a software tester and developer at Autodesk, I have been let go as part of the November-announced restructuring. I have unsubscribed from your eZine with my Autodesk account, but will continue following you on a personal account. I’ve always enjoyed reading your perspectives on the industry.     - N. D. Notable Quotable "Upon the next crisis, the rules will suddenly change for the benefit of the elites; not the rest of us."      - Charles Smith

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Autodesk Wasn't Adobe, After All

Issue #964

 

In the years leading up to Autodesk unilaterally imposing subscription payments on its customers, Carl Bass told financial analysts that he liked the example set by Adobe. (At the time, Mr Bass was ceo of Autodesk.) Adobe had switched to accepting only subscription payments, abruptly and apparently successfully. (Older Adobe software purchased with a permanent license continues to work.) Mr Bass wanted Autodesk to also make the switch successfully, even as he recognized that "While there are certainly similarities between Autodesk and Adobe, there’s also a big difference," as he told financial analysts in 2014. The differences included license payment types and classes of software offerings. Since then, the transition became a financial nightmare for Autodesk, with the company suffering losses for nearly three years non-stop (10 financial quarters in a row, to date) -- the longest streak in its 35-year history. For this article, we reviewed Autodesk's quarterly conference calls with financial analysts going back to 2010. Losses total $1.38 billion (image source: Cad Nauseum)   So, what when wrong? In my opinion, it appears that the differences between Autodesk and Adobe were far greater than the executive suite realized before they embarked down this leg of the wye. The result of our analysis is that two major factors played a role: price and third-party development, along with a few other factors.   Pricing of Subscriptions The biggest problem Autodesk created for itself was where it set the price of annual subscriptions: 1/3 of the old permanent license cost. That's expensive. Monthly subscriptions cost more than annual ones; three-year subscription terms offered by the company do not cost less. I argue that PhotoShop is more important to the overall design world than is AutoCAD, yet Adobe charges far less. Adobe's low price makes it easier to convince customers to buy in; even my professional photographer daughter can afford Adobe. Adobe charges $20/month for any software package Adobe charges $600/year for all of its software, 20 titles in all Autodesk charges $185/month for AutoCAD (9x more than PhotoShop) You cannot subscribe to all of Autodesk's software; the closest are collections of vertical programs that cost $2,040 to $2,690/year, depending on the focus (3.4x more)   Cost Increases Adobe keeps its subscription prices on an even keel. Since introducing subs in 2013, the price has not gone up. Sometimes, 50%-off sales bring prices down to $10/month. Autodesk has already raised the cost of subscriptions twice, and promises to continue doing so in the future. Sometimes, a 20%-off sale brings down the annual price. While the three-year subscription guards against annual increases, customers then pay later for a bigger spike, should they renew.   Third-party Developers Both companies support add-ons written by third-party programmers, but Autodesk's is much stronger than Adobe's. Add-ons for Adobe software are helpful but not crucial; many are free. Those for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit are significant, and that's a crux for Autodesk. Let's take a company like Intergraph (now Hexagon PPD). It has a $5,000 add-on for designing processing plants in 3D. It comes with a permanent license, but the software that it runs on, AutoCAD, can expire after a month or a year or three. If we cannot afford the payment at that time, AutoCAD simply stops working after a month's grace period. For a company like Intergraph, this level of unreliability is unprofessional, and so it looked for an insurance policy on behalf of its process plant and P&ID customers: a second CAD platform. So it worked with Bricsys to port the CADWorx software -- in its entirety -- to BricsCAD. Customers again have the reassurance that comes with a permanent license on both halves of the package. That the platform BricsCAD software costs 4x less than AutoCAD is icing on the cake.   Mature Markets Let's take a look at some of the other factors affecting Autodesk's agonizing transition. Both Adobe and Autodesk explain that they needed to switch to subscriptions in order to smooth out the quarterly ups and downs from "big-R" annual releases. Both also said subscription are needed to access functions performed on remote servers and by mobile apps. Nevertheless, Autodesk continues big-R releases for its desktop software, beginning anew each year in March. Left unsaid by the duo is that the desktop market is mature. Our software does pretty much everything we need it to do. Most of the programs I use to make my business productive have copyright dates ranging between 2000 and 2006. In recent years, Autodesk seems to have become surprisingly miserly in doling out new functions inside AutoCAD, which just might not inspire confidence in prospective subscribers.  Because it's can be hard to charge customers for upgrades with new feature sets that might be seen as shallow, the tactic is reversed: Charge customers first, with a promise of some future value. Mr  Anagnost has stated that he wants hesitant customers to give him a year to prove the value of subscriptions. Time's nearly up.   Share Price, Up! The contraindication to my doom-and-gloom story is the ADSK share price. It has zoomed up as losses mounted. For most of last year, it repeatedly breached all-time highs. (Share price represents the future value a shareholder places in the company, not its current value.) Wall Street has been liking Autodesk's story of millions of more customers switching -- very soon! -- to annual subscription payments. How many millions? Autodesk includes in its count pirates, who apparently are willing give up free software and start making annual payments: "The other base is the 12-million pirate base that is going to move from pirated software to subscriptions. We understand that base, we know they're moving forward," Mr Anagnost told financial analysts a year ago. You understand Wall Street's excitement: the implication is that 12 million new customers paying roughly $1,000 yearly -- why, that's a $14 billion-a-year future for this $2-billion-a-year company! Another part of the stock price enthusiasm comes from the $1.76 billion the company cannot touch; this too is future income. At the same time, the hoard of cash is part-reason for its ongoing losses. When a company receives subscription income, accounting rules permit it to recognize only 25% each quarter. The other 75% is stuffed in the  bank account, and then in each quarter another 25% can be recognized on financial statements. The more subscribers Autodesk enlists, the less money it initially makes than it otherwise would. The irony is profound. The price of ADSK shares dropped in late November when Autodesk admitted practical fallouts from the ongoing losses: no increased spending into 2019, and massive layoffs. Reality finally hit home, as a thousand employees lost their jobs just before Christmas. (Autodesk has never celebrated Christmas.) Before the subscription embroilment, Autodesk had been pretty close to a $2.5-billion-a year company; now it seems stuck at the $2-billion level, while arch-competitor Dassault Systemes races towards four billion in annual revenues.   Then There's the Competition Speaking of competitors, Autodesk has viable ones, far more so than Adobe. While there are alternatives to PhotoShop, the market offers many more alternatives to AutoCAD LT and AutoCAD, and even to Inventor and Revit. For instance, instead of paying $50 every month for AutoCAD LT (which lacks all APIs), it makes sense to switch to Draftsight, which also lacks all APIs, but is free. Other examples abound. Not that customers with permanent licenses need to switch away. Not at all. With the software being mature, Autodesk and Adobe customers can keep right on earning a profitable living by using their valuable permanent licenses -- as do I.   Summing Up Two years ago or so, I predicted that Autodesk would do poorly financially due to the onset of subscriptionitis. Last year, I refined my diagnosis by declaring that it was due to two fundamental flaws: the high subscription pricing and the conflict with third-party licenses. Autodesk has millions of customers who have not switched to subscription payments. Autodesk reports nearly two million on annual "maintenance" payments. (Maintenance = a permanent license + annual support.) Autodesk is deliberately increasing the cost of maintenance in an attempt for force them to switch, because new ceo Andrew Agonost wants all the 'maints' on subscription by late 2019 or early 2020.  The switch these millions might make, however, is to the competition. #PermanentSecurity

The Rest of the News

Trimble acquires Stabiplan of the Netherlands, a supplier of 3D CAD and BIM content, such as parts libraries. Financial terms were not disclosed. https://www.stabiplan.com/en-us Here is a look at the new logo:   - - - Graebert Gmbh ships ARES 2018 for Linux, MacOS, and Windows, and the basis also of Draftsight, CorelCAD, and so on. Download the demo version from www.graebert.com/en/component/productselect/downloads - - - Monica Schnitger (@monica_schnitge) reports, "Hexagon PPM starts 2018 by acquiring IBS plant commissioning." More at schnitgercorp.com/2018/01/12/hexagon-ppm-starts-2018 - - - NCG CAM Solutions releases NCG CAM v16.0 with selected surface machining for waterline passes, combined passes for waterline and constant stepover, tangential extension for raster passes, 5-axis flank machining, and more. Download the demo version from http://www.ncgcam.com/demorequest.html  The company promises that "Perpetual Licenses are available and will NOT be discontinued." #PerpetualFreedom  - - - Open Design Alliance jumps ahead of Autodesk in DWG development with last week's release of Teigha Drawings v4.3.2 with revision control for .dwg. Here is how the ODA describes the new Revision Control:       "A commit to Teigha Revision Control stores only the modified .dwg data, in a compact disk footprint with fast differencing. Revisions are stored in a repository file, and the data is 100% compatible with standard .dwg." Also released by the ODA last week: Teigha Civil with rendering support for pressure networks and intersections, and more civil entities created programmatically Teigha BIM with improved parameter APIs, new export to 3D PDF, and incremental saving Only ODA members have access to the updates, which will then be integrated into their software. http://www.opendesign.com  - - - Bruce Schneier reminds us that "In this era of electronic leakers, remember that zero-width spaces and homoglyph substitution can fingerprint individual instances of files." www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/01/fingerprinting_6.html - - - OPTIS is working with Leddar Tech to simulate its digital signal processing technology used in automotive  LiDAR (light detection and ranging), where a laser is pulsed and its reflected rays measured to make a 3D map.   OPTIS is working also with Lucid Motors to test virtually the headlights for itsLucid Air luxury sedan: a multi-lens array lighting system. www.optis-world.com/More-OPTIS/OPTIS-Blog/Partnership/Developing - - - Onshape has information about what it calls "Parametric Modeling 2.0" in a longish blog write-up at www.onshape.com/cad-blog/introducing-parametric. It includes the following functions, some of which were released last year: Multi-part design Configurations Standard content Managed in-context design Simultaneous sheet metal tools Custom features Getting on the optimization bandwagon, Onshape wrote a script with its FeatureScript programming language to generate hex infill for saving weight and material, such as when 3D printing. https://www.onshape.com/featurescript - - - Vention's v-shaped extrusions are now Patent-Pending. They say that their proprietary "V-shape" interface eliminates angular errors (as found with T-slot extrusions) and increases their load-bearing capacity at assembly nodes. More at their blog  https://www.vention.io/blogs/43 In other news, the company received $3.5 million in seed financing, and released to the public their free Cloud-CAD platform. - - - And finally, here's a look at the cover for my latest book, "Inside BricsCAD V18." You can download it from this direct link (PDF, free, 386 pages): www.bricsys.com/InsideBricsCADV18-en_INTL.pdf   - - - For late-breaking CAD news, follow upFront.eZine on Twitter at @upfrontezine.

Letters to the Editor

Re: Autodesk Subscriptions I am a 15-year user of AutoCAD LT. It was par for the course when studying engineering at TAFE, and working for other employers as a drafty. Now I only work part time from home (in reality about 2 hrs per week, just to keep my mind honed), as I care for my frail aged mother. It is impossible to go on subscription for the small amount I use. There are alternatives out there. I no longer use Autodesk. Their upgrades were nigh-useless for what I do, they have lost me!      -  Ian T (via WorldCAD Access) - - - It might be worth introducing these folks to DraftSight, the free 2D CAD program from Dassault Systems. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and some Linux distributions too. 3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/free-download/     - Sam Scholes     Goengineer.com

Thank You, Readers!

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Notable Quotable

"I don't even care enough to send an automated response."     - Management Speak (@managerspeak on Twitter)

 

*6354

 

Why BIM Needs Integrated Project Delivery

Issue #963

 

Guest Editorial by Leo Schlosberg   I have been learning this business for 29 years. As I transition to retirement, I get reflective and annoyed. Annoyed, because certain things do not get better; they may be getting worse.  Recently I bid (on behalf of Cary Concrete Products) on some simple precast panels for a retaining wall (a.k.a. lagging panels or soldier piles). I have done a few similar projects. Therefore I know a little, though not much, about them. If you are unfamiliar with these structures, search for “lagging panel” or “soldier piles” (see figure 1). They hold back dirt.   Figure 1: Examples of retaining walls The bid documents were created by a very large multi-national design firm. The plan section of one drawing showed a detail I had never seen before (see figure 2). The intent was clear: to visually cover up vertical H-beams.   Figure 2: Original detail drawing, plan section But to my knowledge, the detail smelled of serious installation and constructability problems, and would likely suffer from durability problems, as well: The design does not reflect real life tolerances for placing the piles. The steel H-beam is pounded into the ground; the slot in the concrete panel is much smaller than the pile-to-pile variance.  The front face will never have good panel-to-panel alignment.  The concrete panel holds back dirt, and the forces from that get concentrated on the thin portion of the panel that presses against the steel.  If the tab does not crack initially from soil loads, then over time as the steel corrodes and expands it may crack the tab. Once the concrete starts to crack, water gets into the crack and subsequent freeze-thaw cycles will cause further deterioration of the concrete, leading to the eventual failure of the whole system. It will take many years, but likely be much quicker than the life expectancy by the design.  I called a general contractor bidder I knew to be highly experienced with this type of wall. He concurred that the detail was borderline nightmarish. I then found five further confusions or errors in the bid documents pertaining just to the precast structures -- what about the rest of the project? I summarized the main problem by asking, "Has the use of the slot been fully engineered, and is there a known example where it was both successfully installed and remained durable?" Subsequently one of the many addenda issued to the bid documents featured a different detail (see figure 3). The revised detail was new to the project and obviously new to the original designers, but not new to anyone with experience building piles; in fact, it is common. It hides the steel from view but without all the real-world complexities of the original slotted precast. It transfers load from the panel to the steel where the panel is strong (close to full thickness)   Figure 3: Revised detail drawing   Lessons Learned What lessons are implicit in this situation? Designers sometimes wing it. They may have no idea of the best way to solve a problem. They are under the gun to get drawings out, so they just take a stab at it. Not uncommon in my experience. Contractors are the designers’ proofreaders. The pre-bid questions and subsequent RFIs [requests for information] are made by people with more knowledge in checking and commenting on the work than those who are actually paid to design -- but have less knowledge of specific materials, such as precast concrete or its interface with steel beams. The cost of all these people-with-relevant-knowledge reviewing the work of those-with-limited-knowledge never shows up as a design cost; it is included in the overhead of every bidder. Once upon a time, there was a Master Architect. Everyone I know who has worked from historic drawings (75 years or older) is impressed with the level of detail and precision, and how the drawings generally match what was built. Today, however, it no longer is possible for an architect to have deep knowledge of what they are designing, and there are good reasons for this:  The huge variety of materials available, each with its own variants and considerations; a typical project today has 10,000 - 12,000 products  Change does not stop, and so new products and new construction techniques emerge regularly  Building codes are way more complicated than they used to be  Expectations for speed have accelerated   Somewhat surprising to me is how little the design process has changed, given how much the reality has changed. Big name = big size + good marketing. To stay big, big firms have to be good at getting lots of work. The firm may have a world-class expert in one of its offices, but that knowledge may never make it to a project, as in this case. In contrast, small boutique firms often bring much deeper knowledge directly to the table. Owners are not in a position to assess the expertise of the people assigned to design the project. The drawings I showed here were made by a design firm considered to be a leader in “knowledge management”; what must the laggards look like? This phenomenon is not unique to construction. Many small independents are much better at doing the work, but not at marketing themselves. IPD is critical to the success of BIM. The enormous complexity of construction is not obvious to people who are not intimately involved with actually building the design. A model that does not reflect deep, usable knowledge does not contribute to efficient construction. This was recognized with the early experiences with BIM [building information modeling]. Problems led to the incorporation of IPD [integrated project delivery].  Knowledge has to come from somewhere. Subcontractors have deep expertise and are financially committed to the project, and IPD is a method to bring them to the process much earlier than the design-bid-build process does. IPD was not originally tied in with BIM, but today the two should be tightly coupled.  We are still far from having knowledge embedded in design tools. This is not clear when you listen only to people who want to sell you their software. But IPD is a method for efficiently transferring knowledge from people’s heads (where in large part it still resides) to the design. - - - For more on IPD, see http://ipdfl.net/why-us/our-history Leo Schlosberg is vice president of Cary Concrete Products. This editorial is expanded upon the one which first appeared at planetcommercialconstruction.wordpress.com   More More News Here are recent blog entries on our WorldCAD Access site: Reflection: What are Drawings?: Guest editorial by Alexander Yampolsky Fixing problems with HP's Elite laptop: Not so elite - - - "Everyone wants to control your life: Google, Apple, Amazon...everyone. It's what I've been calling the feudal Internet. I fear it's going to get a lot worse" (Bruce Schneier). How will the tech backlash, which began in 2017, affect CAD vendors in 2018? - - - IronCAD 2018's new Bulk Drawing Creation transforms 3D views into 2D drawings and sheets automatically with predefined templates. I've seen the demo, and it is impressive. I don't think any other CAD package is doing this. All new 2018 features are here: http://www.ironcad.com/blog/ironcad-2018 - - - Altair and solidThinking this month preview Click2Cast 2018 to design and optimize the entire casting process within a single environment. www.solidthinking.com/click2cast_land.html  - - - IntelliCAD Technical Consortium releases IntelliCAD 8.4b with improvements to large drawings, clipped external references, and memory management. https://www.intellicad.org - - - Secret menu in HP's C6200-series inkjet printers, and maybe on yours, too: Press Red Eye Removal and Print Picture buttons simultaneously. When prompted, press those two buttons in this sequence: RER, PP, RER Press > button to navigate through menus, press OK to execute - - - DIAL is speeding up lighting calculations in its DIALux evo 7.1 software by eliminating furnishings from room  renderings. https://www.pressebox.de/pressemitteilung/dial-gmbh/ - - - 3D printer firm Carbon gets another $200 million for its digital light synthesis technology -- including from shoe designer Adidas. Investment now totals $420 million. https://www.carbon3d.com/  - - - C3D Labs lands a big client for their C3D kernel. Altium is implementingC3D Modeler in its Altium Designer 3D PCB software for designing printed circuit boards. C3D Labs says that "Altium was especially interested in our advanced capabilities, such as surface modeling, curve projection, collision detection, and working with large assemblies." http://c3dlabs.com/en/news - - - Orthocad v1.9.2 gets Teamwork, where two people can work on the same drawing, using multiple tablets to measure rooms and their contents in a single project. https://www.orthograph.net/ - - - To download a copy of my "BricsCAD V18 for AutoCAD Users," follow this link: https://www.bricsys.com/en-intl/documentation/. The 348-page ebook is in PDF format, sized for two-sided printing, and is free. … Letters to the Editor Re: Autodesk Subscriptions Still using the old mechanical desktop for my small business. I think I bought it late 1990s. It's on a DVD with codes to install. Had to reinstall Windows XP and disconnect my CAD computer from the Internet to keep it working.  As little as I use it I could not justify a yearly subscription. Software companies have gone insane the last 5 years, including Microsoft. Well, the good thing is it will bring competitors. Linux has come a long way the last 5 years. Maybe there is hope.      - D Decker      (via WorldCAD Access) - - - I'm a sole owner-operator. My AutoCAD 2005 still works on Windows 10 but slowly and with a few glitches. I got 12 years out of it, and now finally, I am using another CAD software.  I work for myself, not Autodesk. Bye-bye Autodesk!      - Thirty-two year user     (via WorldCAD Access) Thank You, Readers! Thank you to readers who donate towards the operation of upFront.eZine: LEDAS, Ltd: Novosibirsk, Russia. Should you wish to support upFront.eZine through PayPal, then the suggested amounts are like these: $25 for individuals > paypal.me/upfrontezine/25 $150 for small companies > paypal.me/upfrontezine/150 $625 for for large companies > paypal.me/upfrontezine/625 Should Paypal.me not operate in your country, then please use www.paypal.comand the account of [email protected]. Or mail a cheque (US$ or CDN$ only, please) to upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd., 34486 Donlyn Avenue, Abbotsford BC, V2S 4W7, Canada.   Notable Quotable "The security of pretty much every computer on the planet has just gotten a lot worse, and the only real solution -- which of course is not a solution -- is to throw them all away and buy new ones."  - Bruce Schneier   www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/01/spectre_and_mel_1.html

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