Frustum did something wrong last month. They moved their cloud-based design software, Generate, from the cloud to the desktop. That's not supposed to be happening in our "post-PC" era, as former Apple CEO Steve Jobs infamously labeled it.
The genesis of Generate is to topple traditional CAD by reversing the design process we've all used until now. Instead, Generate works like this (see figure 1.):
- Select the machine with which the part will be made (additive or subtractive).
- Specify constraints, such as an optional volume boundary, bolt holes, and expected stresses.
- Draw the part.
 Figure 1: Left: Part being simulated in Generate; right: finished part 3D-printed (all images sourced from Frustum)
Except that in the case of Generate, the part is drawn by the software, not the drafter.
I spoke last week with Frustum CEO and founder Jesse Coors-Blankenshipabout the thinking behind the software, the move to the desktop, and the company's future plans.
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Ralph Grabowski: You first released Generate as a Web app, running in browsers. Was it difficult to move Generate from a server to the desktop?
Jesse Coors-Blankenship: The cloud is good for students and beginners, and for engineers experimenting without permission from the IT department. We are not abandoning our cloud product, this is an expansion of our product portfolio to meet the needs of the market.
But we saw that it needed to be a desktop product to be fully functional. Windows allows real interactivity by using all available CPU and GPU[processors in the graphics board] power. Windows lets us show the software updating changes live as they are made to the model, even on a laptop.
Grabowski: Someone like Autodesk would argue that the cloud has more compute power than the desktop -- as they put it in their implausible marketing slogan, "infinite computing."
Coors-Blankenship: The cloud makes sense for batch processing, but our interactive approach to generative design does not require thousands of independent calculations the way that Autodesk does.
In the future, as we begin to get into very large assemblies, interactivity may be difficult to achieve simply with desktop computing. This is where batch processing in the cloud may be more suitable. We imagine we could connect our Windows product to our cloud product at some point in the future, but for now we want to take advantage of all available compute power on Windows.
Grabowski: Talk to me about the process of rewriting the server-based software to run on the desktop.
Coors-Blankenship: We did not need to rewrite our core technology, TrueSOLID [proprietary modeling kernel]. Generate for Windows is a totally new application written in C++. (See figure 2.) The lazy approach of boxing up the Web product would not have allowed interactivity, so we started fresh.
Figure 2: Generate for Windows showing volume boundary in light gray
Grabowski: Did you write the Windows version in a way so that it could be ported to other operating systems?
Coors-Blankenship: Yes.
Grabowski: You also have the TrueSOLID kernel that you license, but there are several new kernels on the market. Tell me how yours is different.
Coors-Blankenship: We are also a component company, which is not all that common for a new CAD company, given the amount of energy it takes. In the past, we put most of our energy into TrueSOLID. Now that is has come to fruition, we are able to focus on productizing it with Generate.
TrueSOLID is a generative design engine that consists of three parts:
- At the bottom is a geometry modeler, which is an implicit geometry kernel, based on volumetric modeling to handle indeterminate solutions. It does not use surfaces (b-reps) as most other kernels do. The modeler is what enables operations like freeform topology optimization, blending, and lattice forming.
- The next layer is our simulation framework, something we emphasized already in the early days; it makes use of multi-threaded CPUs and/or GPUs when available.
- Finally the top layer is the optimization framework that enables interactive generative design, design for manufacturing, and topology optimization.
I predict that volumetric modeling will become more common. It hasn't been used much in the past because it can be computationally heavier, but for complex designs like lattices, it is better than surface modeling.
Another benefit to volumetric modeling is that it gets the 3D printing output directly from the volume data. This makes a lot of sense for additive manufacturing, which can handle a lot more geometric complexity than can subtractive manufacturing.
['Additive' manufacturing is like 3D printing, where material is added to make the part; 'subtractive' modeling is like milling machines and drills, which make the part by removing material from a stock piece of metal. 'Casting' and 'molding' make parts by melting metal or plastic and pouring it into a mold.]
We can do STL, the lowest common denominator b-rep which is triangle mesh. Surface patches are still in process for topological design, but not for lattices as b-rep is not good for representing lattices.
Grabowski: You received funding from Siemens and they use your technology in NX and Solid Edge.
Coors-Blankenship: We provide their topology optimization (see figure 3), but not their lattice work.
Figure 3: Frustum technology running inside SimCenter from Siemens PLM Systems
Grabowski: What are your future plans for Generate on the desktop?
Coors-Blankenship: Following user requests on our latest Generate release, we will focus on lattices and modeling. We are still figuring out how to expose the implicit modeling, but it would certainly involve primitives, extrusions, and preset parts like bolts (from a parts library) for connecting the geometry.
We are learning from our customers how to close the workflow, which we see being like this: specify the bolts (fixtures) along with some kind of envelop (optional) and physical requirements and manufacturing requirements, and then the software determines the part. Should infill be a part of it, such as lattices? That would be an option.
We want to work more closely with all the [manufacturing] machines out there, allow the user to select the machine and get the ready-to-make part automatically with no retouching necessary. (See figure 4.) In the future, customers might tailor their Generate software to the five machines in the shop, enabling useful workflows and customization.
Figure 4: A part modeled with the same parameters but designed for different kinds of manufacturing in mind
In a future release, we plan to scale across multiple nodes [networked computers] to optimize any number of parts in an assembly. As a continuous-release product, we plan to ship updates each quarter.
As we continue to update our offering, we are not interested in providing a traditional CAD solution. It can't be CAD, because that already exists. We are trying to shoulder into the market as the next generation of 3D design software.
www.frustum.com
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View the results from last year's BIM survey by Design Master at designmaster.biz/blog/2018/02/mep-bim-2017-survey-results/
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Ex-Autodesk-er Noah Cole is now director of public relations at Siemens PLM Software.
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For late-breaking CAD news, be sure to follow upFront.eZine on Twitter at @upfrontezine. |
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Fyi, the link to nanosoft in your newsletter does not work very well. Chrome and Firefox show it as an insecure site. However, the site www.nanocad.comdoes work fine. I enjoy your newsletter BTW
-Pete Segal
The editor replies: Normally I check every link, but I missed this one. It is interesting that they do not use nanosoft.com domain. Thanks for finding the error!
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In your interview, Dr. Sarkar [ceo Vectoworks] mentioned, "We were among the five companies that first began this initiative, and we contribute ideas and bug reports." Do you know what the other four companies are?
Do you think an IFC-to-Revit will ever be possible?
- Dave Edwards
The editor replies: I think that Bricsys and Graphisoft are part of the five, but the actual list is not being broadcast.
As for the IFC-Revit xlator, Open Design Alliance ceo Neil Peterson says, "Our IFC project is still in an early phase, but once it is finished we will be in a position to provide this type of solution based on our independent Revit and IFC SDKs. The priority of this issue among our members is not clear at this point, but from a technical perspective there is nothing preventing a solution in this area."
The difference between CAE [computer-aided engineering] and CAD is that in CAE one size does NOT fit all. Every little company (and many of these are very small) has its own unique algorithm for a specific engineering process. Consolidating this industry via a CAD company (or holding companies like Hexagon) would be like playing Pokemon Go ... gotta catch them all!
- Randall Newton (via WorldCAD Access)
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Spin Doctor of the Moment
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"To best meet the needs of Canadians, LG Canada will not be releasing the LG V40."
- LG spokesperson
mobilesyrup.com/2018/10/04/lgs-v40-thinq-can-be-purchased-in-canada-through-bh/ |
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