• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

3D CAD World

Over 50,000 3D CAD Tips & Tutorials. 3D CAD News by applications and CAD industry news.

  • 3D CAD Package Tips
    • Alibre
    • Autodesk
    • Catia
    • Creo
    • Inventor
    • Onshape
    • Pro/Engineer
    • Siemens PLM
    • SolidWorks
    • SpaceClaim
  • CAD Hardware
  • CAD Industry News
    • Company News
      • Autodesk News
      • Catia News & Events
      • PTC News
      • Siemens PLM & Events
      • SolidWorks News & Events
      • SpaceClaim News
    • Rapid Prototyping
    • Simulation Software
  • Prototype Parts
  • User Forums
    • MCAD Central
    • 3D CAD Forums
    • Engineering Exchange
  • CAD Resources
    • 3D CAD Models
  • Videos

Autodesk News

Autodesk to integrate Inforbix into PLM 360

August 28, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

Inforbix is not a big company. It’s, by any measure, a small technology start-up. Autodesk acquires small companies all the time. So why does Inforbix matter?

Start with Oleg Shilovitsky, Inforbix’s CEO. He is what many people call a “thought leader” in PLM. He writes the PLM Think Tank and Beyond PLM blogs, and expresses his thoughts on PLM regularly, and publicly. He’s quite respected by people who know what they’re doing.

But, beyond Oleg’s presense, it’s the Inforbix software that’s interesting. It’s a software as a service (SaaS) application that helps users find, reuse, and share product data. If most PLM systems work like traditional databases, Inforbix works more like Google.

The Inforbix software will be incorporated into Autodesk’s PLM 360 cloud-based application. No big surprise there: When PLM 360 came out, it took Oleg and team a couple of hours (at most) to integrate Inforbix. Here’s a video showing what the combination can do:

Now, about this acquisition: I think was more a matter of “when” than “if.” It’s a natural fit for Autodesk. And Inforbix gains greatly by being part of a company with a large customer reach.

Ultimately, this acquisition is a reflection that Autodesk is dead serious about their PLM 360 product. And, for users of PLM 360, it’s nothing but a win.

 

Filed Under: Autodesk News, Evan Yares, Featured, News Tagged With: Autodesk, Inforbix

The Autodesk Skunkworks is hiring

May 21, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

I found them on Autodesk’s career site: job postings for a software architect, senior principal engineer, and senior software engineer, at Autodesk’s Boulder, Colorado development office.

Two things caught my eye about these postings.  First, they’re for very senior people; the kind that head-up major development projects. And, second, Autodesk didn’t used to have a Boulder, Colorado development office.  Not before last week, that is.

Here’s what the posting for the senior principal engineer job says:

The Autodesk Consumer Group is a new and exciting team that is passionate about providing powerful and fun design and visualization tools, platforms, websites and communities that unlock the creativity in everyone. Whether it’s a kid looking to have some fun, a seasoned pro, or just someone who wants to amp up their creativity, the ACG is all about helping them turn their ideas into reality and share them with the world.

We are seeking an experienced Software Engineer to help drive this effort by providing strong technical leadership and software design and development expertise in the creation of the 3D tools, platform and services that make up the Autodesk 123D family of design and fabrication products. As a lead engineer, you will have a huge impact on how we design, build and deliver our tools and services to millions of people.

Maybe a little bit of background might help:  Boulder is heavily populated with talented graphics programmers.  For example, Sketchup (formerly owned by Google, and now owned by Trimble) and Spatial are both in the Boulder area.  But they’re just the start.  If Autodesk wanted to start a skunkworks development operation, Boulder would be an ideal place to locate it.

It looks like the Autodesk Consumer Group’s Boulder development office is going to focus on some of the coolest product lines Autodesk has. They’re going to build stuff that’s going to be used by millions of people.

If you’re a 3D graphics rocket scientist, working on this team could be a dream job.  You can check out the job postings at Autodesk’s career site.

Filed Under: Autodesk News, Evan Yares, Featured Tagged With: Autodesk Consumer Group, Boulder, Skunkworks

Autodesk ForceEffect now has motion

April 17, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

Autodesk shipped its free iOS (iPhone, iPad, or iPod) based ForceEffect program several months ago, and it was an instant hit, especially with students and makers. It allowed users to do static free body diagrams, in a most elegant way.

Autodesk has just released ForceEffect Motion. It too is free. It appears to be a phenomenal tool for doing conceptual design of kinematic systems. And probably a great excuse to ask your boss to buy you an iPad.

Autodesk ForceEffect Motion

Filed Under: Autodesk, Autodesk News, Evan Yares Tagged With: Autodesk, ForceEffect

In the future, will Autodesk products all be used online?

April 4, 2012 By Evan Yares 7 Comments

TechCrunch just posted this video, where Andrew Keen interviews Autodesk CEO Carl Bass.

The interview is about 12 minutes long. About 2 minutes in, Bass makes possibly the most interesting comment in the interview:

“I’d say two to three years from now, every one of our products will be used online. The only way to use them will be online.”

If that happens, it will be a truly transformative and disruptive event.

But how can it possibly happen?

Autodesk has, over the years, built or bought a large stable of high-end graphics applications, including 3DS Max, Maya, AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and many others. The company continues to invest massive resources in all the tedious details of updating, fixing, and connecting these products. Customer wish lists still include items from years ago. Performance and bugs are still issues. Within this context, how can Autodesk transform the architecture of these major applications, used by on the order of 12 million people, so that they will run efficiently online?

Possibly the answer will reveal itself. Two or three years from now. If they manage to pull it off, it’ll be impressive.

Filed Under: Autodesk News, Evan Yares, Featured, News Tagged With: Autodesk, Carl Bass

Autodesk provides real-time DFM for plastic part design

April 3, 2012 By Evan Yares 1 Comment

There’s a lot of benefit to be had by doing manufacturability analysis (DFM, Design for Manufacturing) early in the design process, rather than waiting until later, when design changes are far more expensive.

A couple of years ago, Autodesk Labs previewed a product, Project Krypton, which ran inside of 3D CAD programs (including Autodesk Inventor, DS SolidWorks, and PTC Pro/E), and gave real-time feedback on manufacturability, cost, and sustainability of plastic injection molded parts.


Project Krypton has now reappeared, in commercial form, as Autodesk Simulation DFM (Design For Manufacturing.) It works as a plug-in, running in a number of versions of Inventor, Inventor LT, Wildfire, Creo, and SolidWorks. It is available as a subscription benefit for Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Adviser 2013 subscribers, or as a stand-alone product, at US$2,000 for a license to run on any of the supported CAD platforms.

It’s reasonable to argue that engineers who are designing plastic parts should know enough to be able to recognize manufacturability, cost, or sustainability problems. And, if they don’t, they should take the time to learn (for example, by taking a few hours to read any of the many freely available books on the subject, such as General Design Principles for DuPont Engineering Polymers.) Even though that argument is reasonable, it doesn’t recognize human nature. People, even engineers who should know better, don’t always take the time to “read the manual.” Often, it makes sense to build the “manual” into the tools that engineers use every day. Simulation DFM does that, and quite a bit more.

For inexperienced designers, Simulation DFM provides quick feedback to help them avoid rookie mistakes. It’s sort of like an “idiot light” on a car’s dash, that warns you when something is wrong. And while old-hands might say they prefer gauges to idiot lights, experience has shown that idiot lights are useful to experts (even F1 drivers and fighter pilots) for catching their attention, and getting them to actually look at the gauges.

Simulation DFM doesn’t require that users have any background in molding simulation. It uses “green is good, yellow is not so good, and red is bad” indicators to identify potential manufacturing, cost and sustainability issues, showing the source and location of the problem. Any issues that pop-up can be expanded upon, to provide more detail on the exact source of the problem, even showing, for example, mold filling analyses.  The software requires no additional training, and doesn’t require much user input.

The open question with Simulation DFM is “how good is it?” Since it’s based on the Autodesk Moldflow simulation engine, it should be quite good, even for relatively complex parts (though it doesn’t support multi-body parts.) Yet, even if its capabilities were modest, it would still be of value, in either helping beginning designers to learn good design practice, or helping old-hands catch mistakes they might have otherwise missed.

As an engineer, I’ve long had the habit of using the “anything I can see” test to evaluate the usefulness of software. I look around the room, looking at anything I see, and ask myself “would this software have helped the engineers who designed these things?” In this case, as I sit in my office, I can see at least 20 items (without even turning to look behind me), each with multiple injection molded parts, that would have been quicker, easier, and less-expensive to design, had their engineers had access to up-front DFM software, such as Autodesk Simulation DFM.

The most significant benefit of Autodesk Simulation DFM comes not from its detailed capabilities, but rather from its clean integration into the design workflow. A user need not press a button, or take any specific action when designing a plastic part to benefit from it. All they need to do is notice, as they design, whether the software has picked up any obvious red-flags.

That Autodesk decided to make Simulation DFM available for Pro/E, Creo, and SolidWorks (as well as Inventor) shows that rational minds sometimes do prevail: There are untold thousands of PTC and SolidWorks customers who design plastic injection molded parts, and who are unlikely to switch primary CAD tools any time soon. The challenge Autodesk is going to face is in getting Simulation DFM in front of those users (since PTC and SolidWorks sales reps and dealers are not likely to recommend it.) Maybe not so much of a challenge: Many of Autodesk’s existing Moldflow customers are Pro/E and SolidWorks users.

There’s a certain charm to software that does something of great value, but does not impose any extra demands on its users. Autodesk Simulation DFM looks like it may be that kind of product.

Autodesk www.autodesk.com

Autodesk SimSquad simsquad@autodesk.com

Filed Under: Autodesk, Autodesk News, Creo, Evan Yares, Featured, Inventor, News, Pro/Engineer, Simulation Software, SolidWorks Tagged With: Autodesk, CAE, Creo, DFM, Inventor, Moldflow, Pro/E, simulation, SolidWorks

Autodesk Inventor ETO gets webified

March 20, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

Autodesk has just introduced a new release of Autodesk Inventor Engineer-to-order (ETO) software that can be deployed over the web.

The new browser-based access is powered by the Autodesk Inventor Engineer-to-Order Server, which includes the ETO (Intent) Rules Engine and the Inventor Server (for model and drawing generation), as well as web services and server farm management software. Graphic display is via the Autodesk DWF format, for browsers with the Autodesk’s DWF Viewer browser add-on, and via raster graphics otherwise.

The Inventor ETO Server is licensed on a per-server basis, supporting 10 concurrent users. The included server farm management software supports load balancing and scaling. Because the server framework is session-based (i.e., not stateless), system requirements are about the same as for Autodesk Inventor. With big and complex models, you’re going to need to have pretty stout servers.

Autodesk is not currently offering Inventor ETO Server with software-as-a-service (SaaS) licensing, though, from a technical perspective, there doesn’t seem to be anything to prevent this. The software can be run in a virtual machine (VM), and hosted on a cloud service. The applications at http://etosamples.autodesk.com, for example, are running on Amazon EC2 instances.

Applications to be deployed on the Inventor ETO Server are created with the Inventor ETO Series product, using a Visual Studio-based development environment, supporting the Intent language and .NET languages like VB.NET and C#.

While the Intent language has evolved and been modernized for .NET compatibility, and based on feedback from users, its heritage traces back to the mid-1980s, to ICAD, one of the pioneering products in Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE.)

The Intent Rules Engine used by the Inventor ETO Server is powerful enough to implement nearly any sort of engineer-to-order application you could envision. It can be used to capture geometric and configuration knowledge, as well as business rules. Because the Intent Rules Engine provides the capability to create dependencies between designs (objects), it effectively allows the creation of workflows.

Out of the box, Inventor ETO Server has no ready-made integrations with enterprise systems, such as ERP, SCM, CRM, PDM, or even, for that matter, Autodesk’s new PLM 360 product series. This is not to say such integrations are not possible or practical. Autodesk has done integrations, for example, with ERP and CRM systems, either by direct access to the ERP/CRM database (support for Oracle, SQLServer, Access and IBM DB2 is included), by reading a database extract file from the ERP/CRM system, or by reading an XML based export file from the ERP/CRM system.

Autodesk has a number of large implementations of Inventor ETO, and has apparently had some solid successes with the product. Swedish hydraulic press manufacturer, AP&T, for example, notes that Inventor Engineer-to-Order has helped it reduce cost estimate errors on key components from 10% to 1%. Hytrol Conveyor currently uses 800 seats of Inventor ETO (and is likely a good candidate for the new web-deployed version.)

Interestingly, all of the companies referenced in Autodesk’s customer showcase worked with Autodesk Consulting to develop their Inventor ETO applications. This is not a big surprise. The Intent rules engine and language are definitely powerful, but they’re not for dilettantes (or average Inventor users with no programming skills, for that matter.) You can get a sense of this for yourself, by looking at the source code for Autodesk’s Inventor ETO samples.

Web deployment greatly changes the reach, and the economics, of Inventor ETO. Rather than deploying their Inventor ETO apps on notebook computers carried by salespeople, companies can deploy those same apps on the web, and make them available to their customers, worldwide, 24 hours a day. On a per-licensed-user basis, Inventor ETO is more expensive to deploy over the web than on notebook computers—but, when you account for actual utilization of the software by concurrent users, it’s likely far less expensive.

The actual licensing cost of Inventor ETO is probably only a minor part of the total cost of an implementation, when the cost to develop and deploy applications is factored in. The decision of whether to acquire Inventor ETO probably requires some careful analysis. If you are already an Inventor shop, you have a significant sales volume in configure-to-order or engineer-to-order products, and you have a commitment for enough budget, resources, and time to do the implementation right, you’re probably on the right track.

Autodesk Inventor Engineer-to-Order

 

Filed Under: Autodesk, Autodesk News, Evan Yares, Featured Tagged With: Autodesk, ETO, Evan Yares, Inventor

High-tech tools for a cool ride

January 23, 2012 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

When Marcus Hays first heard about an electric bike, he was less than enthusiastic. Why load a bike with battery weight, turning the human motor into passenger in the process? That was 1995 and Hays was working with Lee Iococca to develop electric cars and bikes.

Electric bikes use less than 1,000 watts of total power and can be used on bike paths. When Hays first encountered these hybrid vehicles, most models were imported from a variety of countries. They relied on an injection molding manufacturing process which produced parts made of a variety of thermoplastics. While initially pleasing in appearance, the plastic parts raised questions of reliability and tended toward unsightly discolorations and dangerous cracks. “As an advocate for electric bikes,” said Hays, “I felt these problems had to be solved.”

To efficiently produce a more reliable and environmentally friendly electric bike, Hays’ company Pi Mobility took a minimalist approach. For Hays and his team, the longer a product will last is a key factor in making it more sustainable. Rather than rely on brittle plastics for a multitude of parts, Pi Mobility used an elegant, solitary arch of recycled aluminum for its bikes’ iconic frame. The recycled aluminum lasts longer than plastic and the batteries and electronic components reside safely within the aluminum tube rather than an injection molded plastic battery enclosure.

Recycled aluminum requires one-thirteenth the amount of electricity to produce compared to virgin aluminum. And, a Pi Mobility bikes produces 300 lbs of carbon dioxide per 12,000 miles of travel, making it 20-30 times more efficient than a motorcycle or cart. The single tube used in the PiCycle and PiMoto models’ battery agnostic design means they can conceivably handle any battery or chemical process that produces electricity, allowing for easy upgrades in the future.

Thanks to the less labor-intensive design of the single tube, Pi Mobility has been able to maintain production in the US and still be profitable. “We can form a tube in about 30 seconds,” said Hays. “With the help of Autodesk software, changes to the design can be embedded very quickly. Our manufacturing method offers very rapid scale at competitive prices, but it also reduces the required labor to a fraction of more traditional electric bikes. By producing our bikes locally, much of the transportation carbon that often affects even environmentally sustainable good can be eliminated.

The company’s testing program makes durability and sustainability its top priorities, before appearance. Pi Mobility seeks to combine all three elements at every opportunity. The Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping helped the company to optimize its design and bring new products to market faster.

Hays said,” We use Inventor, Vault, Alias Design, and Showcase. Our design team took to the software immediately. After just three weeks the team produced a 3D digital prototype using Inventor. It proved that by increasing the diameter of our tube by a half inch, we could save $335,000.”

Pi Mobility

www.picycle.com

Autodesk, Inc.

www.autodesk.com

 

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, Autodesk, Autodesk News, CAD Blogs, Inventor Tagged With: 3D CAD, Alias prototyping, Autodesk, electric bikes Vault, Inventor, Marcus Hays, Pi Mobility, Showcase

New software slated to change the workplace

January 3, 2012 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

CAD software vendors have touted product usability for a long time. However, they haven’t really delivered on that promise until recently. There were a few software debuts in 2011 that changed that premise. True user usability could lead to a broader CAD audience and a bigger market share.

The product development team at PTC came up with the idea of a creating single program that does everything versus offering diverse programs with no connectedness. The strategy addresses its customer base and the trend toward solid modeling for the masses. Creo 1.0 is the result of that concept. The software currently has nine applications including Creo Parametric, Direct, Illustrate, Schematics, View MCAD, View ECAD, Sketch, and Layout.

The company focused on a group of traditional user problems and applied a core of technologies against them, specific roles having options for modeling modes with the click of an app. Simplifying a process that has plagued engineers and designers for decades makes using the software and being productive all the difference. The Creo GUI is much cleaner than the Pro/E GUI. According to those who have used the new product, the GUI strategy is most evident in Creo Parametric and Creo Direct. PTC leveraged the best features from CoCreate and made it easier to use. The company added features to Creo Parametric that will make Pro/E seem like ancient technology. Creo proves that a feature can live in a history-based and history-free environment keeping the parametric relation to features within each if needed.

Another 2011 debut was SolidWorks 2012 that also sports new features to help a more diverse audience. The software has improvements in assembly and drawing capabilities, built-in simulation, design costing, routing, image and animation creation, and product data management. Dassault Systemes says SolidWorks 2012 will help automate design functions, change product development processes, and extend support for collaboration and connectivity. This technology could change how the software is marketed and sold. The product helps users streamline design processes by removing traditional steps.

Autodesk’s AutoCAD 2012 and Design Suite 2012 series are available in a range of offerings including web and mobile applications. Thus more users have access to the technology and can stay connected to their work no matter where they are.  In addition, AutoCAD 2012 and Design Suite 201212 are directly connected to the free AutoCAD WS web and mobility application.

With CAD pretty much saturating the engineering and manufacturing arena, CAD vendors are realizing that pumping out a redressed version of what went out the door at the last launch is not going to work much longer. They have to offer tools that appeal to other audiences. We have seen that starting to happen in the retail, hobby, and jewelry industries where non-engineering types are using 3D programs to crank out new products.

PTC
www.ptc.com

Dassault Systemes
www.3ds.com

Autodesk
www.autodesk.com

Filed Under: Autocad Blogs, Autodesk, Autodesk News, Catia, Catia Blogs, Catia News & Events, PTC News, SolidWorks, SolidWorks Blogs, SolidWorks News & Events Tagged With: 3D CAD, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Catia, Design Suite, PTC Creo, SolidWorks

Printer shifts from 2D to 3D

December 22, 2011 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

Voith Paper decided to improve its design process across its centers of competencies around the world. Each center specializes in particular parts of a paper machine: due to its massive size and complexity, a finished machine requires design input from several design centers. Voith knew that speeding up its design and manufacturing processes would mean aligning its dispersed design teams.

Moving its designers onto a standard platform worldwide meant integrating the Autodesk manufacturing technology with other key enterprise systems. As a result, Voith has synchronized its design teams and achieved new heights in speed and efficiency levels. “By integrating our 3D models into our SAP ERP system, we can make design changes more quickly. Every engineer has access to the same information, said Voith’s Olaf Spitzer. “This allows us to respond to our customers’ needs faster.”

Frederich Spitzer, PDM Support Manager, IT Solutions for Voith, “We are organized into centers of competencies, so every location with manufacturing capabilities has competencies for a certain product in the finished machine. By installing a common Inventor SAP ERP system with help from Autodesk Consulting, we bring all the information that is generated by these different locations together in one system.”

Voith is also gaining efficiencies associated with the enterprise parts management system built by Cadenas GmbH. The PART system reduces design time by providing access to components and assemblies. Design and development engineers are able to see relevant part information such as price, delivery time, and release status in one user interface.

With a common database, Voith’s design team now uses the same items with the same information. By streamlining parts numbers, Voith facilitates procurement, inventory, and maintenance.

Today, Voith is creating more accurate designs faster. Each machine is designed by several of Voith’s centers of competencies and then assembled at the customer site. Since adopting Inventor, Voith has reduced assembly problems.

“By integrating Inventor with our ERP system, we can respond quicker to our customer needs,” said Olaf Spitzer. “We are able to show them designs before we build a machine. For one project in China, a company ordered parts of a paper machine. We showed them the design and they had changes which we were able to make overnight. We then presented the new design to the customer the next day and secured an order.”

Autodesk

www.autodesk.com

Filed Under: Autodesk, Autodesk News, Inventor Tagged With: 2D, 3D, Autodesk, Cadenas, ERP, Inventor, SAP, Voith Paper

Surface deformation software

December 15, 2011 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

Kickstand launched a campaign to evolve StretchMesh Surface Deformation software into Open Source technology – opening the door for artists working in Maya to incorporate the surface deformation technology into their 3D workflow. The initiative allows programmers and developers of software programs such as Autodesk 3D Studio Max and Softimage, NewTek LightWave, Luxology modo, and Maxon Cinema 4D to incorporate advanced surface deformation functionality in future product releases.

StretchMesh introduces new techniques and gives polygonal geometry a “stretch” quality for better control over the movement and skin elasticity of 3D modeled characters. The software features advanced relational vertex and shape preservation technology, offering animators and technical directors working in feature film, broadcast, and game development the ability to create smooth character deformations using Maya software.

StretchMesh takes advantage of multi-threading in Maya software, and incorporates several features for advanced character animation including greater flexibility and performance when animating collisions with primitive sphere and primitive curve colliders, the ability to pain an influence on a collision object for per-vertex control over collision behaviors, curve attractors provide the ability to pull vertices toward the closest point on  a curve, and a “Scale Safe” mode that allows users to scale a mesh while safely preserving its initial shape.

Kickstand

www.kickstand.tv

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, Autodesk, Autodesk News Tagged With: 3D, Autodesk, Cinema 4D, Kickstand, Luxology, Maya, modo, NewTek LightWave, Softimage, StretchMesh

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

3D CAD NEWSLETTERS

MakePartsFast

Follow us on Twitter

Tweets by 3DCADWorld

Footer

3D CAD World logo

DESIGN WORLD NETWORK

Design World Online
The Robot Report
Coupling Tips
Motion Control Tips
Linear Motion Tips
Bearing Tips

3D CAD WORLD

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Advertise with us
  • Contact us
Follow us on Twitter Add us on Facebook Add us on LinkedIn Add us on Instagram Add us on YouTube

3D CAD World - Copyright © 2021 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Privacy Policy