LiveWorx is PTC's annual user conference. As it was online this year, anyone could attend -- even me. CEO James Heppelmann in his pre-recorded keynote speech reported that Creo 7.0 had been completed by programmers working from home, and was the largest release since Creo was first announced a decade ago as Pro/Engineer's replacement.
What's New in Creo 7
Creo 7 is the 35th release of the company's flagship MCAD software that began at the company's founding with Pro/Engineer. The two emphases in this release of Creo are on generative design and integrated analysis.
Generative Design. Last year, PTC purchased Frustum for its generative design software. PTC needed to catch up with competitors already offering it, such as Autodesk (through Fusion), Siemens (in NX), and even Hexagon (from AMendate). In Creo 7, it's available in two extensions:
- Generative Topology Optimization (GTO) runs inside Creo but does only a single analysis at a time (see figure 1)
- Generative Design Extension (GDX) runs on the cloud so that users can run multiple design analyses at the same time
Figure 1: Generative Topology Optimization (GTO) is based on Frustum (all images sourced PTC)
Right now, the two extensions handle structural analysis, with modal (vibration) and thermal analysis to come later this year.
PTC takes pains to point out the difference between topology optimization and generative design.
- Topology optimization minimizes material use through stress analysis, such as using an I-beam in place of a solid bar of steel
- Generative design requires designers to specify constraints, like bounding boxes and connection points, after which the software calculates all possibilities to satisfy the constraints automatically
So now PTC can offer both. PTC takes a shot at competitors by declaring that only its generative designs are parametric.
In marketing Creo 7, PTC talks up AI [artificial intelligence]. The best that I could determine is that some AI runs in GDX. Generative design has been criticized for its organic-looking output being manufacturable only by 3D printers, but Creo offers to limit generative changes to those that can be handled by traditional subtractive machining (lathes, etc), even specifying parting lines for moulds.
Simulation. Last year, PTC made a deal with ANSYS to start integrating all of its simulation software into Creo. So far, we see two results from the agreement:
- Creo Simulation Live is ANSYS Discovery Live, which updates fluid flow and heat analysis in real time as designers change shapes of parts. (See figure 2.)
- Other types of analyses aren't available in Live, so the "new" ANSYS Simulation add-on provides structural, modal, and thermal analysis functions inside Creo 7.
Figure 2: Creo Simulation Live performing real-time fluid flow analysis
Elsewhere. To further catch up to competitors, PTC adds multi-body design to Creo 7 so that users can work with disjointed, touching, and overlapping geometry in a single part.
For AM [additive manufacturing], Creo gets stochastic lattices that identify and follow the edges of prismatic shapes. For SM [subtractive manufacturing], the Mill Turn Work Center now outputs designs to Swiss-brand turning machines.
You can download a 30-day trial of Creo 7 from ptc.com/en/products/cad/creo/trial, after registration. Students from Kindergarten on up can run Creo, MathCAD, and Onshape for free.
PTC in a Time of Coronavirus
A number of CAD vendors (but not all) are offering their customers respite for working from home, like an automatic second license, free access to training, and/or no-charge collaboration software.
Here, PTC is offering customers no-cost license options to work from home for a temporary period. PTC offers its augmented reality app Vuforia Chalk free through to the end of June. PTC's eLearning site is free for now so that users can upgrade their skills. Medical device and health-tech customers receive the highest level of support at no additional charge. To learn more about PTC's support options during WFH, check out the details at ptc.com/en/support/enablement/COVID19-Resources. For example, it explains to registered users how to run Creo at home.
COVID-19 is a marketing opportunity for PTC. "The world of engineering software has to move to the cloud," said Mr Heppelmann during his LiveWorx keynote address. He credits PTC with having the foresight to buy Onshape in November, right before desk workers had to relocate to their homes through stay-at-home orders mandated by some governments. He noted that PTC's PLM [product lifecycle management] software, Windchill, always had been a thin-client cloud application.
While Onshape-powered Atlas is the future platform for "many other PTC products that will be coming out in the future," Creo is still the workhorse, because when PTC speaks about Atlas, it uses hedging words. This is appropriate, as the abilities of Atlas are not yet proven. For instance, in speaking of the apps running on Atlas, "they will also exchange data with one another very easily, because they'll all use, potentially, common databases," said executive vp Jon Hirschtick (emphasis mine).
For apps that will be running on the Atlas/Onshape platform, PTC now has in development Vuforia AR modules, generative design, "and we're working in other areas, too." In the meantime, here is the workflow PTC offers customers today:
- When a designer makes change in Creo desktop MCAD...
- the change is recorded in Windchill PLM...
- through a workflow defined by ThingWorx connectivity software...
- so that clients receive an email about the change...
- who then click on the link to view it in Onshape online CAD.
Trying Out Vuforia Chalk
PTC is really pushing Vuforia Chalk as its primary coronavirus solution at ptc.com/en/products/augmented-reality/vuforia-chalk-free-access. This remote assistance software displays AR models overtop images seen by a smartphone's camera. Employees can mark up (redline) the view to document maintenance and repair issues, which are then sent back to the office. See figure 3.
Figure 3: Vuforia Chalk marking up a real-time image on a smartphone
To better understand PTC's reason for hyping Vuforia Chalk, I downloaded the app to my new AR-capable Android 10 smartphone, but found, unfortunately, that it was a no-go. Unless you own one of a very, very few supported Android models (although most iOS phones are supported) and are able to contact a Chalk administrator, Vuforia Chalk does nothing useful for you.
Mr Heppelmann in late April reported that the use of Chalk had gone up 10-fold. During LiveWorx, he noted that its usage percentage grew faster than Zoom. PTC promotes the free use of Chalk with the aim of seeding future sales. "These companies using Chalk represent a big upsell pipeline to pursue in Q4 and beyond," he told financial analysts.
PTC's Future Vision
While office workers transitioned easily to working from home, Mr Heppelmann stated that there is a need "to bring digital data to 2.7 billion front line workers." It seemed to me that "front line" means manufacturing workers, as the examples shown would not work for hospital, grocery, and sanitation front line workers. The solution from PTC is to use AR to virtualize front line (manufacturing) work.
Spatial Computing is PTC's new term for physical and digital convergence. It combines AR, IoT [Internet of things], PLM, and CAD into digital twins, a computer model that replicates what's happening in the real world. The AR part is Vuforia Spatial Toolbox, and for PTC it represents the first example of an interface between machines and humans -- "walk the factory floor from your home office," said Mr Heppelmann. "AR is IoT for people." See figure 4.
 Figure 4: Vuforia being used to define a robot's path
It is still very early days for Spatial Computing. How it can be broadly deployed is a something PTC is leaving up to you, and so Vuforia Spatial Toolbox is available as an open source model at the PTC Web site. PTC hopes you'll help figure it out.
When Mr Heppelmann forecasts, "You click on a link, and within 15 seconds you're in any part of the suites doing anything that we can do," PTC is pivoting to be like Dassault Systemes and its 3dExperience platform by offering a SaaS [software as a service] suite. "We believe that the Covid crisis will accelerate the SaaS tipping point for the engineering and software industry by several years," he said.
http://www.ptc.com
[Portions of this article first appeared in Design Engineering magazine, and are reprinted by permission.] |
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| The following posts appeared in recent weeks on my WorldCAD Access blog:
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Re: The Future of IFC
You wrote, "Slow parse speed -- I've waited 15 minutes for an IFC file to open" Well, I'm witnessing Uptown.ifc take ***4 freaking hours*** to read from one Revit into the next Revit. See 3d.bk.tudelft.nl/projects/geobim-benchmark/uptown.html.
I miss the "What does Ralph think" part
- HnsaCAD (@CadHns on Twitter)
The editor replies: The binary IFC file and partial BIM data exchange represent important progress needed by IFC, but both are so early in the development of the more efficient format that I wonder how long it will take.
Mr HnsaCAD responds: We will be too old to implement.
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Thanx for an informative IFC update.
- Chris Cadman
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Reading your piece on IFCs reminded me of when our tiny startup Heavyware.com (then a proposed multi-fabricator catalog and in retrospect, a doomed entity) joined the IAI in 1999. We found that all IFC classes were design-side; there were no fields that a contractor might want.
When we raised it at a meeting, many people were surprised at the idea that a contractor might want his own data. This oversight arose because the initial sponsorship of 12 in the consortium were software companies, architects, an MEP [mechanical, engineering, plumbing] engineer, large corporations that did MEC-related manufacturing, and a large developer -- basically large Autodesk customers plus other interested software entities, as well as AT&T.
Put another way, in the fragmented world of AEC [architecture, engineering, construction], this started as purely an AE initiative, zero C. Given the incredible complexity involved in designing and building very large prototypes (as in commercial construction), it turns out that streamlining the process takes a long time.
- Leo Schlosberg
www.planetcommercialconstruction.wordpress.com
The editor replies: I recall in the early days of IFC when advocates showed me how data from a CAD program could be exported (via IFC) to an energy analysis program. They seemed relieved when the demo worked. IFC has come along ways from then. Thanks for telling us your early history with IFC!
Mr Schlosberg responds: Energy analysis was a hot topic then and probably very labor intensive to compute. The initial consortium was 25% energy-related companies (Carrier, Honeywell). Big developers greatly value the energy analysis during design.
Tiny comment from the subcontractor perspective. The shift from paper to CAD meant that you could send files electronically. This meant that the former practice of general contractors often sending you a set of prints so you could bid something, morphed into emailing you the file or telling you where you could download it.
When that began, no one had screens that were useful [big enough with high-enough resolution] for looking at this stuff and so you had to buy a plotter and pay the costs of plotting in order to bid. It was a mild shifting of costs downstream. It clearly was one lesson in understanding information flow in construction: all kinds of things beside water and data flow downstream, the biggest being risk.
The industry is still addressing this, since building off a model can be a risky venture. It depends on who owns the model and whose knowledge went into it.
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