Marisa Martin

ESI Pro-SiVIC 2016 models how sensors perceive scenes and smart products make decisions

August 29, 2016 By Marisa Martin Leave a Comment

By Bruce Jenkins, President, Ora Research

New tools for development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous (self-driving) vehicles are highlights of Pro-SiVIC 2016, ESI Group’s latest release of the sensor simulation platform it acquired last year along with the software’s developer, CIVITEC.

unnamed — Realistic 3D scene of vehicles driving around a city: ESI Pro-SiVIC lets engineers model how sensors perceive scenes and how smart products make decisions. Source: ESI Group

Targeted primarily at transportation industries, ESI Pro-SiVIC lets engineering organizations virtually test the operational performance of the various perception systems on board a ground vehicle or aircraft design. By helping engineers build realistic, real-life 3D scenarios and experience them interactively in real time, Pro-SiVIC is intended to reduce or eliminate the need for physical prototypes. The software models environmental factors that influence sensor performance such as lighting conditions, weather, and other vehicles sharing the road. The goal is to let users quickly and precisely study the performance of embedded systems in both typical and critical use cases, to ensure the product will be safe and reliable in operation.

Accelerating design and prototyping of embedded control and security systems

Pro-SiVIC is the result of ten years’ research and development by the French Institute of Science, Transport Technology and Network (IFSTTAR). CIVITEC is an IFSTTAR spinoff formed in 2009 to productize this R&D, together with IFSTTAR’s know-how in perception sensor simulation and algorithmic development.

Upon acquiring CIVITEC in March 2015, ESI Group chairman and CEO Alain de Rouvray said, “This new expertise of assistance to human perception, coupled with the excellent IFSTTAR partnership, provides opportunity to take into account the interactions of a vehicle, or any other industrial product, with its scalable immersive environment. Once integrated into digital 3D modeling, it will enable dramatically accelerated design and prototyping of embedded control and security systems and thereby strengthen the value of our global solutions in virtual prototyping.”

de Rouvray continued, “For ESI Group’s industrial partners, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) present a major technological challenge, as efficiency must be built upon the quality of interaction between digital modeling and human perception. The growing requirements in terms of active safety make it important and urgent to integrate ADAS systems in virtual prototyping, complementing the existing constraints of passive safety during product development.”

Integrating sensor models based on cameras, radar, LIDAR, ultrasonic sensors, GPS, more

Pro-SiVIC helps engineering and manufacturing organizations develop perception assistance systems from the design phase to final testing. “Implementation of such modules is highly complex, as it requires 3D modeling of ultra-realistic environment conditions, digitally transcribed using sensor simulation, and wrapped in an optimized interface that improves operators’ perception,” ESI notes. “The man-to-machine interface must provide the operator, such as a vehicle driver, with the best information available to enable him or her to make better decisions.” ESI observes that perception assistance systems are critical to the deployment of active safety systems, today considered crucial in the automotive and aircraft industries.

Pro-SiVIC model of vehicle and scene from occupant’s viewpoint. Source: ESI Group

The latest release, version 2016, addresses sensor specialists, ADAS designers, and ADAS integration and validation teams. To support their daily work, Pro-SiVIC integrates sensor models based on a wide range of technologies including cameras, radar, LIDAR (laser scanners), ultrasonic sensors, GPS, odometers and communications devices. This makes the solution suitable for applications in industries that use sensing for systems command and control including automotive, aeronautics and marine. Sensors can be integrated into realistic 3D scenes; for automakers, for example, Pro-SiVIC provides environment catalogs containing representations of various road types (urban, highway, countryside), traffic signs and lane markings.

Pro-SiVIC 2016 introduces new radar sensor models that not only cover the functional aspect of the sensors but also provide detailed modeling of antenna characteristics and their impact on performance and on-board processing, plus the characteristics of radar targets such as radar cross-sections. These options result from the ability to couple Pro-SiVIC with ESI’s computational electromagnetics solution, CEM One.

ESI reports that Business France and BPI France, two leading organizations that promote international development of the French economy and foreign investment, have chosen Pro-SiVIC as one of eight French technologies for their program “Ubimobility—Connected Cars France,” aimed at helping French companies compete in the North American autonomous vehicle market.

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ANSYS, GE partner to bring simulation to the Industrial IoT

August 16, 2016 By Marisa Martin Leave a Comment

By Bruce Jenkins, President, Ora Research

A top CAE vendor has partnered with a world industrial giant to help engineering and manufacturing organizations capitalize on the Industrial Internet of Things.

Part of the recent agreement between ANSYS and General Electric expands GE’s use of ANSYS engineering simulation solutions to accommodate GE’s 2015 acquisition of Alstom’s Power and Grid businesses. But of broader import is what the deal will do to extend simulation beyond product development into operations—a key aspect of Predix, the new “Industrial Internet platform” from GE. Predix is an operating system and platform for building applications that connect to industrial assets, collect and analyze data, and deliver real-time insights for optimizing industrial infrastructure and operations.

GE characterizes Predix as “the world’s only industrial cloud offering designed specifically for industrial data and analytics across such industries as aviation, transportation, oil and gas, and healthcare. Organizations use this platform to create innovative Industrial Internet applications that turn real-time operational data into insights for better and faster decision-making while maximizing machine efficiency.”

Predix-based simulation-as-a-service apps will help analyze real-world performance of smart machines to better predict future performance

Leveraging its broad and deep portfolio of engineering simulation software, ANSYS will collaborate with GE Power Engineering to pilot new simulation-as-a-service applications built on Predix. These applications will help companies analyze the performance of smart machines in real-world operating conditions, then make confident predictions about their future performance. ANSYS explains the benefits: “Physics-based simulation with big data analytics and industrial devices augmented with embedded intelligence can reduce risk, avoid unplanned downtime and speed up new product development.”

The collaboration follows ANSYS’ announcement last September that it joined GE’s Predix Early Adopter Partner Program, through which GE provides training and co-development support for businesses getting started with Predix. The program is open to ISVs (independent software vendors) creating apps and services powered by Predix, technology partners creating Predix-ready devices and solutions, and systems integrators and consultants developing Predix-certified services.

Extending engineering simulation to the full product lifecycle

Engineering simulation software has traditionally been used in the design phase, where it has helped drive innovation in product design and development. “With the Internet of Things, simulation is becoming even more essential as advanced products now combine mechanical, fluid, electronics and embedded software,” ANSYS noted. “A complete systems-level model is now necessary to benchmark operational field data analytics with simulated system performance.” ANSYS said its collaboration with GE “will demonstrate the benefits of extending engineering simulation to the full product lifecycle, from initial design to operation and maintenance and back again to design of the next-generation machines.”

By combining machine connectivity with a data lifecycle management platform powered by engineering simulation, ANSYS and GE “will enable organizations to optimally design their products for the Industrial Internet, then take the data being relayed on their performance and use it in the development of the next generation of those products,” ANSYS concluded.

GE also partnered with PTC

This is not GE’s only such alliance with the engineering/manufacturing software industry. Around the same time as ANSYS’ initial announcement last September, GE and PTC unveiled a partnership to deliver a new manufacturing solution within GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite, a set of technologies field-tested and optimized within GE’s own factories to help customers maximize manufacturing production performance through advanced real-time analytics.

The new GE-branded manufacturing solution “leverages the capabilities of PTC’s ThingWorx Industrial Internet of Things application enablement environment,” the companies said. “The result is an industry-hardened solution that features flexible dashboards and powerful data analytics integrated with GE’s software capabilities on the manufacturing plant floor.” The joint solution connects disparate systems from shop floor to ERP, and offers a dashboard and differentiated user experience with consumer-like drag-and-drop capabilities tailored to each user’s role.

All part of the GE Digital transformation

All these moves are connected to GE Digital, an initiative launched last September to bring together all the digital capabilities from across GE into one organization. The company said GE Digital would “integrate GE’s Software Center, the expertise of GE’s global IT and commercial software teams, and the industrial security strength of Wurldtech,” GE’s cybersecurity subsidiary.

Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt explained, “As GE transforms itself to become the world’s premier digital industrial company, this will provide GE’s customers with the best industrial solutions and the software needed to solve real-world problems. It will make GE a digital show site and grow our software and analytics enterprise from $6 billion in 2015 to a top 10 software company by 2020,” when GE expects more than $15 billion in software and solutions revenue driven by Predix scale and internal productivity.

GE Chief Digital Officer Bill Ruh added, “Digital technologies and open-source software have transformed the consumer space in radical ways, but industry has been slow to adopt these new innovations. Now is the time to capitalize on the extraordinary opportunity to transform the industrial landscape by leveraging Predix to collectively build apps, which will reveal exponentially greater value than what we have seen in the consumer space.” GE believes the global industrial app economy could grow to more than $225 billion annually.

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FeatureScript amps up power of Onshape

August 1, 2016 By Marisa Martin Leave a Comment

By Bruce Jenkins, President, Ora Research

Full-cloud CAD pioneer Onshape amped up the power and utility of its software with FeatureScript, a new programming language that lets users create new parametric features that look, feel and behave just like Onshape’s built-in features.

FeatureScript Curve Pattern. Source: Onshape

This is the same language used by Onshape itself to develop all of its software’s current features—Extrude, Fillet, Shell, Loft and the like. Now available as an open language, FeatureScript lets users create their own built-in parametric features in Onshape.

Under the open-source MIT License, Onshape is also sharing the FeatureScript source code for all of its own features, allowing customers to copy, modify or adapt them as they see fit. New features can be created, and existing features edited, in Onshape’s new Feature Studio, a user-friendly development environment with an editor, in-line help and documentation.

Putting the user in control of feature enhancements

By making both FeatureScript and the source code behind its own features public, Onshape is offering what it characterizes as the first truly customizable parametric CAD feature set. We agree with the company’s assessment that its software is the first professional CAD solution to offer this level of customization to its users.

FeatureScript Lighten. Source: Onshape

Onshape Director of FeatureScript Ilya Baran explains, “This is the first time that a professional CAD system has made the implementation of its parametric features open and extensible. In the past, the only way to change your feature toolbar would be to submit an enhancement request to your CAD vendor and wait forever. And most of those requests are never fulfilled. FeatureScript swings the pendulum back and puts you in control.”

Beyond macro scripting: FeatureScript features are “first-class citizens”

Baran continues, “In traditional desktop-installed CAD systems, it is possible to write add-on or macro features, but they are never as good as the built-in ones. FeatureScript offers the first opportunity to create features that are first-class citizens—as much a part of the system as the ones the development team wrote themselves.”

Onshape describes a few of the many possible uses for FeatureScript:

Creating new high-level parametric features that perform complex or customized geometric modeling tasks. The benefit of such custom features is to let users design their products faster than they could with traditional off-the-shelf features.
Customizing existing features to suit user preferences for working fast and efficiently—for example, a surface split feature that splits and preserves exactly the pieces that a particular user prefers.
Combining existing features into one, such as a drafted filleted pocket.
Filling in some current gaps in CAD functionality, such as a customized extrude option, or a particular type of 3D spline curve fitted through points or driven by an equation.
Creating surfaces using data from uploaded CSV or other data files.
Building specialized patterns such as sinusoidal or other unusual pattern geometries with unique per-instance behavior.
Building a specialized toolkit for an individual company’s specific application needs—for example, custom gears, enclosures or connectors that are used over and over again in the company’s products.

Custom features yield up to 30X productivity gains

Onshape founder Jon Hirschtick observes, “For 30 years, feature-based modeling has relied on a limited set of off-the-shelf features. With FeatureScript, we are ushering in a new era of custom parametrics. Our early adopters have proven that with the ability to use custom features that they write or have others write for them, they’re able to significantly speed up their design process.” Early adopters report that FeatureScript features provide as much as 30-fold productivity gains, according to Onshape.

Pointing to still more potential leverage from the new technology, Hirschtick adds, “Customers who develop new features in FeatureScript are free to do with them as they please. Some may wish to sell them or share them with the community. Others might choose to keep their FeatureScript features proprietary as a competitive advantage.”

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Predictive engineering analytics: Simcenter unifies, advances Siemens PLM’s simulation/test portfolio

June 24, 2016 By Marisa Martin Leave a Comment

By Bruce Jenkins, President, Ora Research

Source: www.siemens.com/press

One of Siemens PLM’s hallmarks is its track record of outstanding management of its acquisitions over many years. It consistently presents a compelling strategic rationale for the move, makes sensible, comprehensible commitments as to how it will operate and integrate the acquired business and its technologies—then follows through, robustly and on schedule.

When Siemens announced its agreement to acquire LMS International in 2012, it said the acquisition would make it “the first product lifecycle management (PLM) software company to provide a closed-loop systems-driven product development solution.” Now, with its just-announced Simcenter portfolio, the company has taken possibly its single greatest step both to continue delivering on this vision and to further extend it.

Source: www.siemens.com/press

In addition to incorporating its most recent acquisitions—CFD leader CD-adapco, and the HEEDS design exploration technology from CD-adapco’s Red Cedar Technology subsidiary—Simcenter also introduces Simcenter 3D, a “next-generation 3D CAE solution built on the Siemens NX software platform and combining the capabilities of several solutions to cover a wide range of simulation disciplines and industry applications.”

Beyond that, the company characterizes Simcenter as a “comprehensive portfolio of simulation software and test solutions to enable digital twins to drive innovation through all stages of product development” that “supports Siemens’ digitalization strategy and systems-driven product development.” The overarching message is that Simcenter “combines simulation and physical testing with intelligent reporting and data analytics to help produce digital twins that more accurately predict product performance throughout all stages of the product development process.”

The digital twin

What’s a digital twin? “A digital twin of your product,” says Siemens, is “a multi-fidelity model that reflects reality and continually evolves throughout the product lifecycle to accurately simulate performance from concept through actual use.” In this way, “Simcenter helps you go beyond simple verification to performance prediction by combining simulation, physical testing and data analytics to spot unforeseen trends.”

More specifically, Simcenter is designed “to address these challenges and realize Siemens’ predictive engineering analytics vision by combining multiple technologies in simulation and test.” These include computational solid mechanics (CSM) and finite element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), multibody dynamics, controls, physical testing, visualization, multidisciplinary design exploration, and data analytics. These technologies are then managed in a PLM context, using Siemens’ Teamcenter software, to support the engineering and development of complex systems.

Predictive engineering analytics

Simcenter advances a concept that Siemens calls “predictive engineering analytics,” or PEA, in support of closed-loop, systems-driven product development.
“Closed-loop, systems-driven product development involves deconstructing the design into separable elements, yet considering their intended interactions and controlling the global system behavior from the start,” the company explains. “Individual elements can be further developed as details become available.” The intent of this approach is to minimize risk and avoid late-stage changes by enabling clear target or boundary setting for subsystems, and full understanding of the global system’s dynamic behavior throughout the development process.

This process is traditionally supported by continuous verification and validation at the component and full-system level, limiting physical prototyping cycles. “PEA pushes this approach to the next level,” according to the company. “It includes all the tactics and tools that will help you predict product behavior in actual use. Deploying a PEA vision will help you develop a replica that remains synchronized with the actual product.”

The goal of PEA, says Siemens, is to “bring revolutionary improvements that will make simulation a predictive driver of development. PEA achieves these objectives by introducing new technologies and providing a strong alignment between 1D simulation, 3D computer-aided engineering (CAE), controls development, design exploration, data analytics and physical testing. The latter is essential to reach the appropriate modeling realism and enables effective component and final prototype testing.”

“Simcenter,” the company sums up, “enables PEA by bringing all disciplines together under one umbrella.” With the introduction of Simcenter, Siemens says it is “taking the next step forward in its digitalization strategy and predictive engineering analytics vision, which foresees the transformation of design simulation and verification into an analytical tool critical to systems-driven product development.”

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ASCENT releases introduction to Parametric Modeling Title

June 16, 2016 By Marisa Martin Leave a Comment

Rand Worldwide, a global leader in providing technology solutions to organizations with engineering design and information technology requirements, today announced that its courseware division, ASCENT– Center for Technical Knowledge, a member of the Autodesk Authorized Publisher Program, has released a new learning resource for Autodesk Fusion 360. Autodesk Fusion 360 Introduction to Parametric Modeling will be available in Video-Enhanced eBook and Video-Enhanced eCourse formats, as well as a print format with access to the video lessons.

“Fusion 360 is rapidly garnering the interest of students and professionals in the mechanical design, simulation, and manufacturing spaces. Early adopters have quickly responded with an abundance of crowd-sourced tips, suggestions, and videos. These resources, while helpful, don’t always give learners the essential fundamentals they need to fully harness the benefits of Fusion 360. This new offering from ASCENT provides an excellent foundation of the core fundamentals of the parametric modeling tools of Fusion 360. It will enable everyone to get the most out of supplemental community-generated knowledge available from other end-users,” says Paul Burden, director of product development for ASCENT. “Whether new to CAD or experienced with other CAD/CAM/CAE platforms, Autodesk Fusion 360 Introduction to Parametric Modeling provides users with clear workflow descriptions, instructional videos, and hands-on practice exercises accelerating the ability to get up and running with Fusion 360.”

Available in electronic format as a Video-Enhanced eBook or Video-Enhanced eCourse format, plus available in a print version from Amazon.com with access to the video lessons, Autodesk Fusion 360 Introduction to Parametric Modeling incorporates video content from 4D Technologies’ CADLearning. The inclusion of video and hands-on exercises appeals to a variety of learning styles. It allows instructors to reinforce teaching with visual demonstrations and it gives students the ability to see the software in action before using it themselves.

Offering a balance of instructional and hands-on content, Autodesk Fusion 360 Introduction to Parametric Modeling covers the following topics:

The Autodesk Fusion 360 interface
Creating, constraining and dimensioning 2D sketches
Creating and editing solid 3D features
Creating and using construction features
Creating equations and working with parameters
Manipulating the feature history of a design
Duplicating geometry in a design
Placing and constraining/connecting parts in assembly designs
Defining motion in assembly designs
Creating components and features in assembly designs

On August 17th, 2016 at 12:00pm (EDT), ASCENT will host a webcast with Jennifer MacMillan, author of Autodesk Fusion 360 Introduction to Parametric Modeling, to share insights and highlights about this latest ASCENT offering. Attendance for the webcast is free, but registration is required.

ASCENT
www.ascented.com

Rand Worldwide
rand.com

From PLM to Product Innovation Platforms

June 2, 2016 By Marisa Martin Leave a Comment

By Bruce Jenkins, President, Ora Research

Is the new term “product innovation platform” simply a rebranding exercise to refresh the aging “product lifecycle management” (PLM) label? Or is there more to it?

“Autodesk Fusion product innovation platform unites every stage of the product development lifecycle”

Autodesk observes, “Manufacturers are facing a dizzying array of technology and industry disruptions. Crowdfunded start-ups can design a new product, 3D print prototypes, refine it based on real-time collected data and outsource on-demand manufacturing in record time. This future of making things is upon us, and it compels product developers to innovate or get eclipsed by more nimble competitors.”
What’s Autodesk doing about it? “To help companies big and small adapt to this changing environment, Autodesk introduced its Fusion product innovation platform, which unites every stage of the product development lifecycle in a single platform,” the company says. The foundation of this cloud-based platform is Fusion 360, which provides parametric and direct modeling, mechanical engineering, drawings, visualization, simulation, machining and additive manufacturing, all in one place and available on demand from any device via subscription starting at $25/month (free for students and startups).

“Product lifecycle management, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and data management are also essential in this new era of product development,” Autodesk adds. To better integrate all those elements, Autodesk just added Fusion Lifecycle and Fusion Connect to its innovation platform. Fusion Lifecycle is the new name for Autodesk’s cloud-based PLM 360 software, while Fusion Connect is the new name for SeeControl, the Industrial IoT software acquired by Autodesk in 2015.

“The old way of doing product development required multiple disconnected software tools, often costing tens of thousands of dollars apiece,” says Stephen Hooper, Autodesk’s senior director for manufacturing industry strategy. “It was cumbersome, slow and expensive. Autodesk is working to fix this with a single cloud platform that is affordable and supports the complete product development process—not just design and manufacturing, but even the post-sale period of product monitoring and innovative sensor-driven services.”

Siemens PLM: “Smart Innovation Portfolio”

Another major example is Siemens PLM Software, which describes the challenges its customers face today: “In a world of smart, connected products, where entire markets can vanish with a single innovation, manufacturers must take a new approach to business. Some closely watch how products are being used, and feed data back from product utilization into product ideation and development in order to anticipate trends. But even if you know what to make, you still have to make it. That’s why manufacturing—the realization phase of innovation—is vital in this new era.”

For Siemens PLM, its differentiation from competing technology vendors is its ability to extend the “digital thread” all the way from product design through production and in-service life. “Manufacturers must weave a digital thread through ideation, realization and utilization,” the company says. “It’s not enough to digitize. That just mimics processes digitally for incremental improvement. You have to digitalize. Digitalization makes the digital thread of knowledge a proactive agent in driving your business. With a fully optimized ‘Digital Enterprise,’ you are better equipped to initiate or respond to disruptive innovation.”

To help its customers “activate digitalization,” Siemens PLM is building what it first unveiled as a “Smart Innovation Platform” before evolving that characterization to “Smart Innovation Portfolio.” This portfolio, the company says, delivers “engaged users who receive the right information at the right time—by transforming information so that only what’s relevant is delivered in a context suited to each person’s role; intelligent models that evolve throughout the process with the information necessary to optimize themselves for how they need to be built and how they should perform; realized products that achieve business goals through the integration of virtual product definition and real production execution; and an adaptive system that helps you efficiently deploy solutions today, while maintaining future flexibility.”

“SOLIDWORKS cannot simply be a faster pencil”

SOLIDWORKS is yet another leading vendor jumping in with both feet. “Providing tools to make you more productive and efficient is not good enough anymore,” says SOLIDWORKS CEO Gian Paolo Bassi. “SOLIDWORKS cannot simply be a faster pencil. No, it needs to transform into a platform that renders many of your less creative tasks obsolete. You shouldn’t need to spend time optimizing geometry. You should be spending time acting on ideas to create new products or improve upon old ones. Finally, you need to have the choice to design on your terms: whether on a desktop, online or connected. To meet your changing needs, we are building an innovation platform that will support the development of the best new products, the way you want to develop them, now and in the future.”

Bassi continues: “Users don’t want to focus on how to optimize geometry. They want the computer and the software to be smarter and be able to optimize based on the information they have provided. They need tools that enable them to focus on creating the next great product. What are the elements that foster innovation in companies? Innovation is an ideative process; you don’t invent something in a vacuum. It requires the generation of hundreds of ideas. You need insight from research, advice from other peers, experimentation, etc. You don’t need a better pencil or tool. You need a way to connect all these ‘dots,’ and transform all that data into knowledge, because all of these elements are fundamental to innovation. That won’t be done by a CAD tool. It must be a platform, a place that encompasses all of these things—people, technology, products, infrastructure and services.”

“The emergence of the product innovation platform is clear, but not complete”

Industry analysts agree that all this will ultimately reach well beyond simply a rebranding of PLM. Gartner research vice president Marc Halpern observes, “IT enablement for business is evolving from specialized enterprise applications to plug-and-play ‘apps’ supported by mega-vendor technology platforms. Product Innovation Platforms reflect this trend for the PLM software market.”

CIMdata president Peter Bilello elaborates: “Many industrial companies and software providers no longer believe that a single monolithic enterprise information technology application is sustainable and robust enough to serve all of their business functions. In many ways the complexity of extended enterprise processes, organizational requirements and information constructs cannot be addressed by any single solution provider—an open and robust business platform is required.”

Bilello continues: “The emergence of the product innovation platform is clear, but not complete. Its vision is to enable applications from multiple providers to be seamlessly deployed using an architecture that is resilient and can withstand rapid changes in individual business functions or delivery modalities…the vision [is] where apps from platform and non-platform providers are downloaded and instantly available for use, just like we experience with our smartphones.”

The vision for product innovation platforms remains in great part aspirational today, with much work still to be done by all stakeholders. But the concept is already a practical directional template for engineering organizations preparing their technology infrastructure to meet the product development, delivery and service-life challenges of today and tomorrow.

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