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Evan Yares

Hot rod engineering workstations

February 20, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

When I was barely a teenager, in the early ’70s. I became interested in car magazines. In the back of some of those magazines, I’d often see ads for a company called Baldwin/Motion Performance. They sold brand new hot-rodded Camaros that were guaranteed to run 11.50 second or faster quarter miles at the drag strip. Baldwin/Motion Performance Camaros represented the epitome of tuner-built hot rods. They were fast enough that, according to Super Chevy magazine, you could buy one, and, with no further tuning, win the A/MP class at the Winternationals.

During the same period, other companies also sold fast Camaros. Though GM’s official policy in the late 60’s and early 70’s was that they didn’t support drag racing, there was a way to get nearly drag-ready cars, if you knew the trick. A few dealers, notably Yenko Chevrolet, managed to get Chevrolet to install Corvette 427ci L-72 engines in Camaros, through the “central office purchase order” process. These factory hot rod COPO Camaros came with a full factory warranty. Nearly perfect examples have sold for over $2.2 million USD at auction.

Muscle cars have little to do with CAD, but I was reminded of these cars, at least by analogy, when I was at the SolidWorks World 2012 show, in San Diego, last week.

While there, I attended a press conference announcing HP’s new Z1 engineering workstation. This machine is sort of analogous to a factory hot rod. It comes with a stunning 27” built in display, a quad-core Intel Xeon processor, NVIDIA Quadro graphics, and uses ECC (error correction code) memory—which is particularly desirable for critical engineering software applications (See Wikipedia’s entry on ECC memory for background on this.)

There’s no doubt that the Z1 costs more than a typical commodity PC. But, for people doing serious CAD, CAE, or CAM work, the performance and reliability the system offers is worth the premium.

While at SolidWorks World, I also had a chance to chat with Rick Krause, CEO of BOXX Technologies. BOXX makes what could be considered the equivalent of a tuner-built hot rod. Their 3DBOXX 3970 XTREME workstation is designed to provide the best performance possible for serious 3D CAD work. That is, it’s performance isn’t tuned for doing spreadsheets and web browsing (which benefit from multiple core processors), it’s tuned for doing serious CAD work (which requires fewer, but faster cores.)

Let’s go back to the car analogy: Yenko Chevrolet sold stock Camaros, with the biggest and best engines GM offered. Baldwin Chevrolet sold hot-rodded Camaros, also with the biggest and best engines GM offered, but tuned to put out over 500+ horsepower (while still being streetable.)

The HP Z1 engineering workstations use Intel’s biggest and best processors. The BOXX XTREME workstations also use Intel’s biggest and best processors – tuned (overclocked) for the most horsepower.

BOXX doesn’t really like to use the work “overclock,” because it implies that they’re pushing the processor past it’s design spec. BOXX works closely with Intel, to make sure they stay within the processor design specs. Since they use liquid-cooling, they can push the processor faster, without reliability problems. Their workstations are backed-up by a 3 year warranty, and, in their history of selling overclocked systems, they’ve never experienced a processor failure.

If you’re a serious CAD, CAE, or CAM user, and you can out-run your current computer, you need to take a serious look at getting a factory-built or tuner-built hot rod computer.

HP Z1 Workstation

BOXX Technologies 3DBOXX 3970 XTREME Workstation

 Photo courtesy Baldwin-Motion

 

Filed Under: CAD Hardware, Evan Yares Tagged With: BOXX Technologies, cad, CAE, cam, Engineering Workstation, Evan Yares, HP

AutoCAD’s ancestor

February 17, 2012 By Evan Yares 1 Comment

As of the end of last month, Autodesk is 30 years old.

What’s little known in the CAD industry, and rarely mentioned today, is that AutoCAD had an ancestor that predated the founding of Autodesk. A product called INTERACT.

This is a photo of the INTERACT CAD system, circa 1978. The hardware is an S-100 computer with dual 8″ floppy drives, and a 640×480 pixel graphics board.  Input is through a Houston Instruments digitizer and a Televideo terminal.

INTERACT was the first CAD system to run on mainstream microcomputer hardware. (Other contemporary systems ran on mainframes or minicomputers.) Its first commercial customer was Atlantic Richfield, which used the system to plan deep dives for offshore oil rigs.

INTERACT was written by Mike Riddle. He had previously worked on a ComputerVision CADDS3 system, which was used by his employer, Marathon Steel, to detail the structural steel used in the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, west of Phoenix. With the self assurance that many hackers have, Riddle figured he could do better than CADDS3.

He wrote INTERACT in his spare time, starting in 1977. He was slowed down by the state of hardware at the time — he had to write the program in pieces, and assemble it as larger memory boards became available. Ultimately, he decided he needed a processor that could support hardware multiply. Marinchip Systems, owned by John Walker and Dan Drake, made an S-100 main board with a TI TMS-9900 processor that fit the bill.

When Walker saw INTERACT running on the Marinchip Systems computer, he was impressed enough to become a dealer for the software.

In late 1981,Walker, Drake, Riddle, and about a dozen other people, came together to co-found what, in January 1982, would become Marinchip Software Partners, and shortly thereafter, Autodesk. INTERACT was rewritten in the C language, to run on the new IBM PC, and was rechristened–first as MicroCAD, and then (when the MicroCAD name was sniped by another company) as AutoCAD.

Today’s AutoCAD bears little resemblance to INTERACT.  Yet most of the original INTERACT commands still work in AutoCAD 2012.

Filed Under: Autodesk, Evan Yares Tagged With: AutoCAD, Autodesk, Interact, Mike Riddle

The SolidWorks World Communities

February 16, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

SolidWorks World 2012This week, over 5,500 people converged on San Diego for the largest MCAD conference in the world: SolidWorks World.

With around 1.7 million people using SolidWorks, it would be surprising if SolidWorks World wasn’t a large conference. Yet, the secret to its success is not just mere user count. It’s community building.

SolidWorks, the company, has for many years focused on building communities of interest among its customers. It does this more effectively, and more thoughtfully, than any of its competitors.

Consider user groups: SolidWorks provides model bylaws, funding, gifts, guest speakers, and just about any useful thing you could think of to help people start and run user groups. One need only visit www.swugn.org to see the level of support provided by the company. Richard Doyle, who runs SWUGN, even won the 2009 CAD Society Joe Greco Community Award.

Here’s a hint of how much value SolidWorks management places in their user groups: At the SolidWorks World SWUGN meeting, I watched both Jeff Ray and Bertrand Sicot (former and current CEOs of SolidWorks) taking audience questions, and answering them with complete candor. No filtering or blustering.

SolidWorks also spends a lot of effort on building its community of certified users. At SolidWorks world, you can tell the serious users by the CSWP (Certified SolidWorks Professional) ribbons they were wearing. And you can tell the really elite users by their CSWE (Certified SolidWorks Expert) ribbons. At this conference, SolidWorks hosted a reception for over 500 CSWP/CSWE users on the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum.

At SolidWorks World, there were also focused programs and events for resellers, educators, members of the press, tweeters, and even users from different geographic areas.

My sense is that one of SolidWorks’ biggest competitive advantages has been its focus on building and supporting communities of interest.

Dassault Systemes SolidWorks

http://www.solidworks.com

SolidWorks User Group Network

http://www.swugn.org

Photo courtesy Oleg Shilovitsky

Filed Under: Evan Yares, SolidWorks News & Events Tagged With: Community, SolidWorks, SolidWorks World

PTC shipping mobile apps with 10.1 release of Windchill

February 9, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

It’s a foregone conclusion that mobile computing is changing the way people work. If CAD and PLM vendors want to be relevant in the future, they need to address the mobile market.

PTC has been working on mobile apps for some time now, and is set to deliver its first generation with the 10.1 release of Windchill, in March.

In a phone call today, David Blair, VP of Product Management for PTC, provided some background on PTC’s mobile plans.

The company is delivering first on the iOS platform (iPAD and iPhone), with Android to follow.

Initial use cases will include:

  • Search for products, part numbers, and documents
  • Viewing of metadata, including attributes and lifecycle state
  • 3D viewing of parts and assemblies
  • Viewing of workflow tasks

Here are a couple of screen shots, as a preview:

 

PTC Windchill Mobile screenshot

PTC Windchill Mobile screenshot

There is more to come. These are some of the apps in development at PTC, and headed for the market this spring:

Mobile PLM for the engineer: Being able to log a problem report on a mobile device from the factory floor or in the field. Having access to your access PLM information on iPhone and iPad, such as accessing and approving tasks assigned to you, searching your development database, viewing product info such as meta data, and visualizing objects through a 3D viewer.

Mobile PLM for the administrator: Being able to check the server, and quickly see how everything is running without having to go into the office to fix any issues. In addition, the administrator can provide support for advanced modules, such as project data, advanced reports, or manufacturing process plans – again, without having to be in the office.

Mobile PLM for the service technician: Being able to access, update and implement relevant technical service information from the field to keep crews working.

Mobile Social Product Development: Being able to access all of your social product development communities from your mobile phone. Watch the team feed, see what people are talking about, how they are solving issues while you are in the waiting room at your doctor’s office.

CAD creation mobile sketching tools: Upgrade from back of the napkin drawings. Draw directly on your iPad and have the data automatically be stored in the PDS – or shared your social community.

 

Filed Under: Evan Yares, News, PTC News Tagged With: Creo, Mobile, PTC, Windchill

Should you buy your CAD software—or rent?

February 2, 2012 By Evan Yares 4 Comments

CAD software isn’t cheap. A mainstream 3D CAD program will set you back thousands of dollars upfront, and a bunch more in annual maintenance charges.

The cost can be daunting. But what if there was a way to spread it out, and pay as you go?

Rental: An idea that’s been tried.

A dozen years or so ago, a relatively new CAD vendor, Think3, started offering their CAD software on a monthly rental basis. It was an intriguing idea, but it would have worked better had Think3’s software been more mature at the time. People tend not to renew rentals when the software doesn’t do what they need.

More recently, Ashlar-Vellum has offered their line of CAD programs under a number of licenses, including permanent, one-year, and monthly rental. Though Ashlar’s software is highly respected (especially by industrial designers), the company isn’t one of the big players in the CAD business.

Solid Edge Design 1Recently, Siemens PLM, which is one of the big players, revisited the idea of renting CAD software—but with a new twist. They partnered with Local Motors, a company that does crowd-sourced design of cars. Members of the Local Motors community can rent (actually “subscribe,” but with enough flexibility that it seems like renting) a special version of Solid Edge called Design 1, for $19.95 per month.

Solid Edge Design 1 is a capable CAD program, incorporating Siemens’ Synchronous Technology direct modeling tools. It’s no toy.

There are a couple of key things that make this initiative interesting. First, Solid Edge Design 1 is capable of effectively importing and editing solid models imported from most common CAD systems, including SolidWorks and Pro/E. Second, Design 1 is a direct modeler (it doesn’t include history-based modeling), so it’s quite a bit easier for a normal person (as opposed to a CAD guru) to get up and running on than systems such as SolidWorks and Pro/E (or, for that matter, the full-blown version of Solid Edge.)

Simplicity can be compelling: Solid Edge Design 1 can work with the data you have, doesn’t take a whole lot of time to learn to use, and only costs 20 bucks a month, with no long-term commitment.

One good question might be why Siemens PLM is offering Design 1 through Local Motors, instead of directly. It’s probably because Jay Rogers, Local Motors’ CEO, came to Siemens PLM, and said “this is what we’re looking for.” Siemens PLM responded, saying “that sounds interesting. Let’s give it a try.”

The only real “catch” with Solid Edge Design 1 is that it’s really only intended to be used for Local Motors related projects. Its native CAD files can not be read by the commercial versions of Solid Edge (though, because it is a direct modeler, it can write perfectly good neutral files, such as IGES, STEP, and JT.)

Siemens PLM has recently gone beyond just offering a $20 per month version of Solid Edge to the Local Motors community. They’re now offering the full-range of Solid Edge versions, up to Solid Edge Premium, with full FEA simulation, wire harness design, pipe and tube routing, for rental prices ranging from $99.00 to $299.00 per month. These versions of the software can technical support from Siemens.

At first blush, $300 a month sounds like a lot of money. It might be, for a hobbyist who just wants some CAD software to play at designing cars. But, for a person who plans to use the tool for serious work, it’s not that much. Put it in context: A commercial license of Solid Edge Premium sells for on the order of $7,500 up-front, plus another $2,000 or so in annual maintenance fees.

To me, $300 per month for this software, including updates and direct support, seems like a bargain.

For small to medium size businesses, the ability to pay for software as an expense, rather than as a capital item, is pretty compelling. Even more compelling is the ability to control costs by adding or reducing CAD seats as needed.

Is software rental the wave of the future?

Software rental has three problems that CAD vendors don’t like: First, the revenue stream has to be recognized for accounting purposes as it comes in, rather than upfront. For publicly held corporations focused on reporting lots of revenue, that’s not very attractive. Second, it’s hard to pay front-loaded commissions and bonuses to salespeople on rentals. And third, there’s no guarantee that someone who is renting software will continue to do so. That is, it’s difficult to “lock-in” those customers (and their revenue) over the long term.

Siemens PLM could get away with this initiative for a few reasons: They limited it to Local Motors community members, so they can learn what works (and what doesn’t) without messing with their entire customer base. As Solid Edge is not the market sales leader, they’re more likely to displace competitive seats than their own. Since the Solid Edge product group is only a tiny part of the giant Siemens corporation, there’s not much risk that this program’s success or failure will impact their next quarter’s financial results (and stock price.) And, finally, they have enough confidence in their product to believe that a pretty reasonable percentage of the people who have a chance to use it will like it.

While the Siemens PLM/Local Motors partnership is probably a bit of an experiment, it’s encouraging. Anything that can make good CAD tools more affordable is likely to be popular with users.

Siemens PLM Systems

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com

Local Motors

http://forge.local-motors.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Evan Yares, Siemens PLM, Siemens PLM & Events Tagged With: 3D CAD, Licensing, Local Motors, Siemens PLM, Solid Edge

Should you buy an expensive graphics card?

January 27, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

You already know the answer to this question. If you’re perfectly happy with the graphics performance of your CAD system, then the answer is “no.” If you’d like faster, smoother, or more realistic graphics on your system, then the answer is “yes.”

The term “expensive graphics card” might be troubling to GPU suppliers such as Nvidia and AMD. Yet, it is probably more accurate than, for example, “high-performance graphics card.” For many years, all graphics subsystems used in CAD capable computers (whether built-in, or on an add-in card) have been relatively high-performance. When comparing entry-level with top-of-the-line graphics, the most stark difference is price: free (something that comes with the computer), versus not-free (something you need to pay extra for.)

It’s only after you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s worth paying that extra that you need to start digging into the question: How much extra?

The practical differences between $100 graphics cards and $2000 graphics cards are not all that obvious to the uninitiated. There is no simple number-of-merit on a specification sheet that will tell you how good a graphics card is. To choose well, you need to start by doing a little homework.

A good starting point is AMD’s ebook, Simplifying the World of Professional Graphics. It’s well worth the read, even if you’re already reasonably knowledgeable about graphics hardware.

Filed Under: CAD Hardware, Evan Yares Tagged With: AMD, cad, GPU, Graphics, Hardware, NVIDIA, Workstation

SpaceClaim: Sheet metal design for pirates?

January 25, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

Let this be a warning to all CAD vendors: Don’t encourage your application engineers to “be creative and have fun.” You might end up with product videos such as this one:

All seriousness aside, SpaceClaim does have compelling sheet metal tools for people other than pretend pirates. And, unlike some older CAD programs, SpaceClaim is relatively fun to use – probably because it doesn’t make you “walk the plank” to get your job done.

What this video alludes to, without coming right out and saying it, is that SpaceClaim, as a direct modeling CAD system, lets you use whatever existing part geometry you may have, from just about any other CAD system, as a starting point for sheet metal design. So, if someone throws a part file at you, and asks you to turn it into sheet metal, you can get it done with minimum fuss – even if the original CAD file is a mess (as many are.)

In the last few years, SpaceClaim has been starting to make an increasingly large impact on the market, not just because it works well, but also because it doesn’t require users (or the companies they work for) to throw-out their existing CAD tools.

After this video was posted, Blake Courter, a SpaceClaim co-founder, commented on Twitter that this year’s marketing campaign for SpaceClaim “consists entirely of setting up booths at renaissance festivals.” I think he was kidding (though I wouldn’t be surprised to see SpaceClaim at Burning Man later this year.) Until then, you might try visiting their website.

SpaceClaim 

www.spaceclaim.com

Filed Under: Evan Yares, SpaceClaim, SpaceClaim News Tagged With: 3D CAD, Blake Courter, Direct Modeling, Funny, sheet metal, SpaceClaim

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