There’s been a big push by simulation software vendors to get engineers and designers to start incorporating analysis tools into their product development processes. High-end simulation tools have traditionally been used by specialists or analysts who’s jobs are to run design geometry–created by engineers–through their paces using analysis tools to validate that designs will be […]
Autodesk Ships Integrated CAM Package For Inventor
There has been a real need in the manufacturing industry among users to have a tightly integrated CAM package that works hand in hand with users’ CAD systems. Users wanted CAM functionality but didn’t want to learn a whole new tool. Today, Autodesk announces that Inventor users now have such a package. Autodesk got to […]
The failed promise of parametric CAD, final chapter: A viable solution
What is the failed promise of parametric CAD? In short, model reuse. It’s a lot more difficult than it ought to be, for a variety of reasons. Several months back, I wrote a series of articles discussing those reasons, as well as some of the solutions that have come up over the years. What was missing […]
The failed promise of parametric CAD part 5: A resilient modeling strategy
The model brittleness problem inherent with parametric feature-based modeling is a really big deal. And it’s something, honestly, that I don’t have a great answer for. I’ve even asked a few power users who I know, and their answers seemed to involve a bit of hand-waving, and a reference to having lots of experience. While […]
The failed promise of parametric CAD part 4: Going horizontal
In the early 90s, Ron Andrews, a senior product designer at Dephi’s Saginaw Steering Systems Division, became fed-up with the difficulties of editing parametric CAD models. So, he and a team of his colleagues, including Pravin Khurana, Kevin Marseilles, and Diane Landers, took on a challenge of trying to find a solution. They came up […]
The failed promise of parametric CAD part 3: The direct solution
Direct modeling—a syncretic melding of concepts pioneered by CoCreate, Trispectives, Kubotek (and many others)–has shown the most promise to cure the parametric curse. Direct modeling is today’s hot CAD technology. PTC, Autodesk, Siemens PLM, Dassault (CATIA, but not so much SolidWorks), IronCAD, Kubotek, Bricsys, SpaceClaim (and certainly some other companies I’ve forgotten) all have their […]
The failed promise of parametric CAD part 2: The problem is editing
In the previous post, I wrote about the failed promise of parametric CAD: problems such as parent-child dependencies and unwanted feature interactions, coupled with no easy way to either prevent, or check for them. The difference between modeling and editing in a parametric CAD system is simply the difference between creating things from scratch, and […]
The failed promise of parametric CAD part 1: From the beginning
The modern era of 3D CAD was born in September 1987, when Deere & Company bought the first two seats of Pro/Engineer, from the still new Parametric Technology Corporation. A couple of years later, Deere’s Jack Wiley was quoted in the Anderson Report, saying: “Pro/ENGINEER is the best example I have seen to date of […]
Cheetah, Creo, and 2D geometric constraint solvers
Last week, I wrote, in Solving the CAD concurrency problem, about 2D geometric constraint solvers. Solvers are one of the major components used in 3D CAD programs, and are the main part of the sketcher used in parametric feature (history based) modelers. They’re also used behind the scenes in direct modeling CAD systems. They’re pretty […]
Solving the CAD concurrency problem
Earlier this week, I was doing some software testing on my lab machine. It’s a really nice Z1, on loan to me from HP. It has an 8-core high-end Intel processor. I brought up the process monitor as I worked, and watched, somewhat amused, as Autodesk Inventor pegged one core at 100% for several minutes, […]
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