Following the Open Design Alliance's 2019 DevCon conference, the media peppered ODA CEO Neil Peterson with questions for 1.25 hours.
Duomo cathedral in the center of Milan
(all photography by Ralph Grabowski)- - -
Q: Is there a demand for XR/AR/VR in Visualize?
A: We are not getting a lot of demand for virtual and augmented reality. Our Visualize API is usable for that, and we demo’ed it last year.
Q: What about getting Visualize to do ray-tracing renderings?
A: We are not doing that; there already is lots of software for that.
Q: Both Unity and Unreal/ Epic Games have industry-specific divisions [aimed at CAD]. Do you have any gaming folks as members?
A: Epic Games is an ODA member.
Q: What does Epic Games do with your stuff?
A: I don’t really know. Perhaps they use it to pull DWG into their software.
Q: CAD vendors are aligning with either Unity or Unreal to produce high-fidelity gaming walkthroughs and interactivity. Gaming companies are looking for a whole new turf, and took it to areas like WebXR with real-time rendering. It is magic to put on a VR headset, open a Web page, and then walk through a model.
- - -
Q: Autodesk came up with proxy objects to represent custom entities in DWG files, but CAD packages don’t necessarily display them well. Does ODA have a solution to the proxy problem?
A: We are intending to put together proxy objects that work nicely across all systems. It is a long-term issue for the industry with people going off in different directions. Bricsys has one approach where it stores all its objects as regular geometry, so that when you see the model in a different CAD system, you can see it, even if the BIM or constraint information is missing.
Q: Printing from Web apps is really weak. It involves exporting the drawing to PDF, and then doing your own thing. Is ODA doing anything about that?
A: No.
Q: There are so many detailed features in outputting from AutoCAD, like lineweights and color tables, that are complicated for end users.
A: You can set that up in the CAD software the way you want.
Q: Would you say DWG is not being changed that much [by Autodesk]? Do you feel you have to change it?
A: We are adding on to it, not changing it. For example, our git-like version control uses a single repository to allow branching, merging, and versioning. But there seems to be inertia in adopting it as people are comfortable with making multiple copies of the same drawing. Bricsys is using our version control on their 24/7 online service to save space.
Another addition in DWG is working with DWG data in a browser, along with other formats. Programmers can write scripts to do batch processing of DWG and other files on the server side.
Q: Is there interest in your ReCap work?
A: We are seeing interest from some areas, again from actual users of ReCap and not CAD vendors.
Q: What is VSF?
A: Visualize Stream Format is our custom format for storing optimized graphics, created by our visualizer. It has LOD [levels of detail] built in: you can pull out just the part of the model from the VSF files that is visible on the screen [to speed up loading].
[LOD is a way of showing fewer details than are in the drawing file to speed up loading and display times.]
Q: I only ever hear about LOD with architecture or plant design. I see it rarely used in manufacturing.
A: AEC and GIS is where it is used the most, but it can be used across the board.
Q: When importing a VSF file, the memory size is greatly reduced, but why does the loading time take longer?
A: The VSF format allows partial loading, visualizing it, and then sending it to the screen -- so the entire model does not need to be in memory at the same time. That was the point of Robert Graebert’s demo, when he put the 40MB drawing on a tablet. It takes a longer time because of the extra processing time of loading and unloading from memory -- that’s the trade-off in viewing a huge Revit model.
 ARES Touch from Graebert Gmbh loading a 40MB drawing
In Web browsers, the problem is bigger than with tablets: the data sits on the server, and you don’t want to send the whole model, just the chunks that are necessary to see what is visible on the screen. With client-server computing, the amount of RAM is meaningless; it’s about the time it takes to send data over the Internet.
The conversion to VSF format happens behind the scenes; the user thinks he sees a Revit file.
Q: What is the relationship between facet and solid modelers?
A: Facet modelers deal with solids that are represented by meshes (polygons); solid modelers deal with solids shown as b-reps [boundary representation]. Facets are inherently not smooth; b-reps are. We can use either one to display the geometry visually, but you get better [smoother] results from a solid modeler.
Q: That LOD thing was really cool. What does Hugues Hoppe come from?
A: The tech allows us to take a mesh and refine it down to a very simple form. When the object is not close to the viewpoint, you just need to see an outline. This cuts down the number of faces by a factor of ten, and so speeds up the rendering significantly.
 How the Hugues Hoppe algorithm reduces polygon complexityWhat Ralph Grabowski Thinks
Open Design Alliance ODA is not giving up on DWG the way a “large, well-known CAD vendor” is. It is expanding its role rapidly, and as it learns how to create a complete solution in one area, it finds it easier to do it in other areas. In just the last year, it added the Open Cloud and ReCap APIs, and so it will be interesting to see where it expands to next.
ODA now has 90 programmers working for its 1,000+ members. The conference had 150 attendees.
http://www.opendesign.com
[Disclosure: ODA provided me with airfare, accommodation, and some meals.] |
|
| Nanosoft releases nanoCAD Plus 11 with digital signatures, standards checking, OLE objects, DWF/DWFx output, and more. For the full list, see nanocad.com/products/plus/updates/. Download 30-day trial from nanocad.com/products/plus/download/.
- - -
Ansys paid 12.5x multiple for Livermore Software Technology Corporation and its LS-DYNA crash test software. Get the details from Monica Schnitger at https://schnitgercorp.com/2019/09/11/quickie-ansys-to-acquire-ls-dyna/
- - -
Graphisoft's BIMx Web Viewer is now available from https://bimx.com. The built-in Hyper-model viewer has been updated and is now available on the BIMx Model Transfer site https://bimx.graphisoft.com
- - -
Exit returns from USA investments by venture capitalists:
- 51% lost money
- Average return is 2-2.5% after ten years
- 4% produced a 10x or greater return
medium.com/correlation-ventures/venture-capital-no-were-not-normal-32a26edea7c7
- - -
Here is a good read on why it's better to have less to work with than more. "For me to develop resourcefulness, I needed to spend a significant time in an environment of scarcity, not abundance." Resourcefulness: a trait developed only when resources are on empty.
techcrunch.com/2019/09/12/how-to-stop-vanity-marketing-from-killing-your-startup/
- - -
How to tell if you have any of the 235 apps Apple already knows won't work with 64-bit Catalina:
- 1. In current MacOS, click Apple icon.
- 2. Select About This Mac | System Report | Applications
- 3. In column 64-Bit (Intel) look for ones marked No.
Those won't work.
- - -
10-year-old enterprise AR maker Daqri "told its customers that it was pursuing an asset sale and was shutting down its cloud and smart-glasses hardware platforms by the end of September." Daqri had raised $275 million in funding.
|
|
Re: This is how much more you'll pay for Autodesk software
Autodesk just shut off my permanent license, and I'm in the middle of a deadline. Yes, my copy is ancient -- 3ds max 2010 -- but it always worked fine for the type of animation content I create. I already paid for my license. Why can't I just use this old software, warts and all, as is?
I don't want to convert my license to a lease. My business cannot support that kind of expense. But if -- IF -- I went ahead with the month-to-month software lease, could I then use it for a 3D job, and then cancel my monthly lease, just pay for that month. Then resume the lease again when another 3D job comes in?
If that strategy works, then I may be able to do the lease after all. But I refuse to pay for all the months when I don't use the software. I already did that when I bought the original software.
- Peder Rudling
The editor replies: Yes, that does work: Autodesk allows you to rent by the month. Just remember to go into your account and turn off auto- renew.
- - -
Switching to other CAD systems is easier to do with AutoCAD or manufacturing workflows. In AEC where Revit is king, I don’t see things changing for a while. I think players like Unity offer a lot of possibilities at displacing Autodesk provided they don’t sell out.
I’m also hearing rumors that Autodesk is close to starting to increase the cost to users of their Forge partners even more.
- Darren Young
Hermanson Company
- - -
When you mentioned Eudora, it brought back some memories. I used to LOVE Eudora on my Mac. It was by far the best email client available at the time. Reading some of the history of Eudora today was really interesting and I thought I’d share this link:
computerhistory.org/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/
- Sam Scholes
Solidworks Solutions
The editor replies: The Eudora code's been placed in the public domain, and so I am hopeful some of its advances will be employed by eM Client and others.
Re: CAD Can't Use Cores
Here is another tech discussion about single-threaded CAD / design software: boxx.com/Files/Images/2017/How_To_Configure_Revit_Workstation.pdf
However, with Revit I notice that I spend a LOT of time awaiting screen refreshes (NOT content creation), which should be the purview of the video system, so why the delay? I also find opening and saving Revit files to be the most time-consuming.
- Peter Lawton
Affiliated Engineers
The editor replies: I believe the slow speed is due to the computer reading the RVT files, and then the time it takes to convert the data to raster format for the screen. I am unfamiliar with Revit, bur I wonder if it is single-threaded.
Mr Lawton responds: Yes, Revit is largely single-threaded, except for rendering and wall-joins and some other stuff. It is the software of choice for most architects these days, who are working on buildings larger than 10,000 sf.
I am just thinking about the days before and after Autodesk created their screen/video refresh revolution back in the early days; the name of that escapes me, but it made a huge difference in performance.
The editor replies: I recall an Autodesk marketing person back then in 1986 describing it as, "It's so fast, it'll slice your nose off if you are too close to the screen."
- - -
"Reverse virtualization" [as proposed by Peter Lawton] is a fantastic idea! I wonder why the industry hasn’t made a move to implement it over the years? Thanx for these 2 links!
- blog.bricsys.com/cpus-for-cad
- cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
- Chris Cadman
Re: SHX vs TTF
Do you have any idea the percentage of Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Korean) files that use TrueType vs SHX fonts these days? I had assumed that it has largely switched from SHX to TTF, but most of the sample files we are getting are still SHX-based (or nominally SHX-based but override the font in the text string with TTF). I don’t know if it is just our customers or if that is still the case?
- S.T.
The editor replies: I suspect people still use SHX because (a) it is traditional; (b) simplex.shx is still the default on some CAD systems; and (c) users don't know the difference between TTF and SHX. SHX is also useful for placing text around a curve, where the text string has to be broken into characters.
- - -
I checked in with out Japanese team and it seems SHX is still more used than TTF in that market but unfortunately we have no hard data on this.
- Robert Graebert, CTO
Graebert Gmbh, Germany
Re: Open Design Alliance DevCon 2019
Good work Ralph, can't believe you got it done so quickly.
- K. M.
The editor replies: I was fortunate to get it all written on the plane ride home.
|
|
Thank you to readers who donate towards the operation of upFront.eZine:
- Richard Webb
- Chris Needham: "I have been reading the newsletter since March 1999. Have a copy of every one since #145!"
To support upFront.eZine through PayPal, then the suggested amounts are these:
Should Paypal.me not operate in your country, then please use www.paypal.com and 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. |
|
"The more they spoke of their virtue, the tighter we clung to our plastic straws."
- Richard Fernandez (@wretchardthecat) on Twitter |
|
|
|
Comments