Issue # 1,127 | Inside the Business of CAD | 21 March 2022
Tech Soft 3D is a “plumbing” company for the CAD world. They are one of the companies providing underlying SDKs [software development kits] that make CAD work.
The secret behind the CAD software you are using is that the CAD vendor probably didn’t write most of it; instead, it bundled together a bunch of modules like reading/writing files, displaying models, the user interface, solids and mesh modeling, translating files, and printing.
In Tech Soft 3D’s case, the HOOPS Visualize [hierarchical object-oriented picture system] platform provides components for doing tasks like displaying 3D models, generating PDFs, and translating between disparate systems. As well, the company bundles software components from other suppliers, such the geometric kernel from Siemens, and then offer a complete package.
I spoke with ceo Ron Fritz and chief tech evangelist Jonathan Girroir about trends in our industry, and about how their company works.
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Tech Soft 3D is seeing the market for SDKs expand by many new types of firms. More are seeing the value of 3D data in their workflows, such as in manufacturing and building construction.
Tech Soft 3D sees an increase in BIM [building information modeling], which is due in part to the IFC [industry foundation classes] having caught on as the standard, through which vendors know that they will be compatible down the road. The company also has an SDK to read Revit files, and in some areas is cooperating with the Open Design Alliance, besides doing work on their own.
There is a critical interest in building and construction firms taking data from IFC and Revit files. A large building can have regions, such as kitchens in apartments, and users want to be able to navigate it in different ways. Tech Soft 3D’s software allows that.
Outside of AEC, there is metadata in mechanical CAD that tells users how parts are connected in assemblies. This is useful for employing higher level concepts, such as what happens when a constraint is removed or a part is swapped out.
For many years, AR/VR [augmented/virtual reality] didn’t care about CAD, but now firms involved in these areas see the value of CAD models and want to visualize scenes with them. Between visualization and translation, Tech Soft 3D feels it can help populate the metaverse [digital worlds] with CAD data, such as through Unity.
Hardware companies are becoming software companies. For instance, companies that make milling machines are acquiring software, or else are building their own systems. The benefit to them is that the software distinguishes them from their competition in that they own the entire stack. As well, owning the software allows faster iterations and optimizations. (In this area, 3D printer manufacturers were ahead of the game, as they had to include software from day-one.)
Last year, Battery Ventures invested funds in Tech Soft 3D, allowing it to acquire Ceetron AS (3D visualization of CFD [computational fluid dynamics] and FEA [finite element analysis]) and Visual Kinematics for its CAE [computer-aided engineering] software components. The investment amount was not announced. The reason for the acquisitions is that Tech Soft 3D saw the trends of simulation analyses moving closer to the design stage. Before 3D printing a design, you need to know that it is printable. Before you finalize a design, you need to know that it will stand up to stresses in the field.
Another area of growth is in cloud apps, which these days need to accompany desktop software.
Visual fidelity is more important these days. So the company is seeing PBR [physics-based rendering] with multiple layers of materials, without the GPU-hit from photo-realistic rendering. So the company created an animation engine SDK for animating, for example, a construction site over time — assembly of construction parts, disassembly, making sure piles of dirt are not in the wrong place, and so on.
Q&A
Ralph Grabowski: How big is your company in terms of employees and revenues?
Ron Fritz: We have 120 employees, and are seeing 10-15% growth a year. We don’t report revenues. We have 700 companies using at least one of our components, and we support specific features asked for by customers.
Jonathan Girroir: Back in 2010 we bought translation company, TTF, from Adobe. Our data exchange platform now supports 30 CAD file formats. Last year, we updated 13 of the formats.
Grabowski: Who do you see as competitors?
Girroir: We have a broad portfolio of software products, so it is hard to name competitors. Depending on the vertical market, it could be Autodesk Forge, Open Design Alliance, Datakit; Spatial might be considered the broadest competitor because they have a full portfolio of components, but in fact we have a reseller relationship with Spatial, as well as with the Parasolid group at Siemens.
New from us last year was a collection of integrated SDKs through our Integration Partner Program where we package our products with those from others. An example is that we can include high-end rendering or a solids modeler, which we do not provide ourselves. As we have already integrated them, there is no further development for customers to get rendering or solids modeling in their software.
Our Integration Partner Program makes it easier to get cool stuff faster. Customers can start at a low level with just one SDK, or at a high level with several SDKs working together.
Grabowski: What do you do with software you sell that isn’t yours?
Fritz: We integrate them with ours to provide a single-vendor advantage, such as bundling our tools with Parasolid. A CAD program has to bring together a number of building blocks, and connecting them is labor-intensive, so we provide those bridges between them, and then customers just customize them for their industry.
Customers want universality for this data: to be able to read, edit, visualize, and publish data. This is what a platform means.
Our ultimate goal is to make it as easy as possible for our customers to be able to build the applications they need using the highest quality tools.
And in Other News
Matrox sold its imaging division to Zebra Technologies, while keeping its video division. At one time, Matrox concentrated on graphics boards for CAD displays, but left when the field got too crowded.
Anyone still remember Artist Graphics/Control Systems (threw the best parties at A/E/C Systems), Renaissance Graphics, Nth Engine (introduced display-list processing), Vectrix, Hercules (first to combine text and monochrome graphics), Sigma Graphics, or 3Dfx (first with a GPU)?
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PTC appoints former Autodesk co-ceo Amar Hanspal to its board of directors.
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Monica Schnitger reports that Swedish holding company Addnode acquired Microdesk to create the world’s largest Autodesk dealer network under the brand name of Symetri. Addnode also acquired DESYS Gmbh, a German Dassault Systemes dealer. Earlier CAD-related acquisitions include ProCAD (Irish Autodesk dealer) and Budsoft (Polish Dassault Systemes simulation dealers).
CAD vendors normally don’t tolerate software from competitors being sold by the same reseller; perhaps in this case the conflict of interest is tolerated as a holding company is doing business at an arm’s length.
Many more details at schnitgercorp.com/2022/03/16/the-var-economy-reseller-consolidation-continues.
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Here is one of the posts that appeared recently on my WorldCAD Access blog:
You can subscribe to the WorldCAD Access blog’s RSS feed through Feed Burner at feeds.feedburner.com/WorldcadAccess.
Notable Quotable
“I am not saying that we have restarted the strategy or that a green light has been authorised, but we have unpaused the situation.”
- Management Speak
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