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PTC

Look up in the sky, it’s CAD software

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A major CAD vendor is betting the modeling software’s future is in the cloud

By Jean Thilmany, Senior Editor

Onshape set off ripples across the computer-aided design community five years ago when it announced its computer-aided design software would exist completely in the cloud. Last fall, PTC acquired Onshape.

The purchase signals PTC’s conviction that engineering companies are ready to embrace CAD in the cloud. The SaaS model, while nascent in the CAD and PLM market, is rapidly becoming the industry’s best practice across most other software domains, said Jim Heppelman, PTC president and chief executive officer.

By bringing Onshape in-house, the software maker has placed itself ahead of the pack in what the engineering software maker sees as the inevitable industry transition to SaaS, Heppelmann said.

“Today, we see small and medium-sized CAD customers in the high-growth part of the CAD market shifting their interest toward SaaS delivery models, and we expect interest from larger customers to grow over time,” he said.

In the future, CAD sellers may reach unique arrangements with resellers to bring CAD in the cloud to a wider user base, according to one potential reseller.

But PTC isn’t going all-in with the cloud. It will continue to offer its on-premise CAD software, Creo.

With CAD in the cloud, designs reside on the software provider’s secure server —rather than on individual workstations. Because the software is accessed and managed online, engineers and designers can work on their models from any location and on any device. The SaaS refers to a provider’s capability to deliver everything needed to run CAD in the cloud—including the cloud infrastructure and the CAD software itself.

Though other CAD makers do offer some type of cloud capability, it’s generally the capability to check files into and out of an application on a cloud-based server; engineers don’t design directly with cloud-based software on other applications, said Jon Hirschtick, president of SaaS, PTC. Onshape differs in that its software exists fully in the cloud and can be used by multiple users in real-time, he added. (Hirschtick founded SolidWorks in 1993 and then went on to co-found Onshape with another former SolidWorks chief executive officer, John McEleny.)

The everyday cloud
You’re already using cloud technology. That’s almost certain. If you have an email account ending in gmail.com or yahoo.com, if you’ve checked a social media account from your desktop or mobile device, if you’ve streamed a movie via Netflix or Amazon or any other provider, you’re a cloud user. The email, social media, and streaming software exist on the software owner’s server (let’s say Google), as does your little piece of it—like your Gmail email address.

Though it’s been possible to run CAD as a SaaS for the past few years, CAD has always been slower than other large, graphic-intense and complex applications to pivot to new platforms, says Len Williams, content manager at designairspace, which gives engineering companies the capability to run any CAD system in the cloud.

“Last year’s acquisition is a very clear statement that vendors like PTC see cloud as a platform of the future for CAD and for all their other software,” Williams added, calling the acquisition a “Windows-level” move.

“CAD systems were originally based on UNIX running on silicon graphics workstations. Then Windows came along and people were laughing at the thought of using CAD on Windows,” he says. “Now most of the major CAD systems run only on Windows.”

Likewise, the way companies buy their CAD software has evolved, he said.

“We went from the old perpetual model, where you buy the software for a workstation, to today’s subscription-based model, where you rent the software,” Williams said. “The next step is when a CAD vendor is running it for you so don’t have to buy hardware or worry about upgrades.”

Large companies already run CAD in the cloud because of the benefits the delivery method offers, Williams added. The difference is, those companies—the French automotive manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen is one example—have the funds to build their own, private clouds. Designers, engineers, and suppliers at those companies can access CAD on the private cloud whatever their location: Tulle, France; Brussels, Detroit, or elsewhere.

Working remotely and sharing with suppliers
For the smaller guys, the cloud can bring the same benefits their larger counterparts already enjoy; mainly real-time working together and version management, Hirschtick said.

“Versioning” is built-in, which means file changes are tracked in a central database in real-time. Because any engineer with permission can access the software from any device with internet connection, engineers in different places can work together on a design, such as a power supply, for example. There’s only one power supply file; Onshape doesn’t copy it. But with cloud, everyone in the world accesses real-time single source of truth database. We’re not passing around copies all over the place, he added.

“If multiple engineers happen to be working on that file at the same time, it’s not a problem. If one engineer rounded a corner and another one drilled a hole, both changes get captured,” Hirschtick said. “If we’re both rounding a corner at the same time, you would see my hand there in real-time—at the same table—and a box around the corner would indicate that another engineer is editing that right now.”

The bigger the team is, the quicker the product development process, as everyone—even suppliers—has visibility into the real-time database rather than a copy of something emailed a week ago.

When the workflows are quicker, engineers have more design time and are more willing to innovate to try new things, he added.

Most cloud service providers automatically update their programs. Thus, IT staff can focus on other tasks and engineers know they are working with the latest version of the applications.

Also, engineers aren’t bound to their workstations. The software exists at one central server while engineers work from many. They can be globally dispersed and can work from home or other locations outside the office.

Smaller companies that scale their workforce and supplier base up and down as projects change also stand to benefit from SaaS CAD software. When suppliers move away from a project, the company can easily suspend their CAD license and use of the CAD system, Williams said.

When the coronavirus began making headlines in early 2020, engineering companies running one Onshape customer with offices in three major Chinese cities particularly welcomed the remote-work capability, Hirschtick said.

“Using Onshape analytics, they showed us where people were working before the virus situation in China,” Hirschtick said. As expected, employees worked at the offices in the three major cities.

“Then they showed a map of activity of first two weeks of virus quarantines and lockdowns in China,” he added. “This time there were 20 little circles in regions all over in China. They could see where their employees logged in remotely.

“It doesn’t matter if employees are caught at home with only an Android tablet, they can still do their work,” Hirschtick said. “Even with the phone they can even do some of their work.

There are cases where running CAD in the cloud just doesn’t make sense. Some companies may use CAD only a small amount of time and will do better essentially renting a CAD program, perhaps through the cloud, Williams said.

With cloud-based systems, issues of total cost of ownership and return on investment are generally murky because companies want to see how cloud applications compare to traditional on-site infrastructure.

“But there are so many intangibles wrapped up in the cloud that it makes it hard to put calculations on it,” said Andrew Sroka, CEO at Fischer International Systems, which helps companies manage identities for on-premise and cloud-based applications. “It’s important to factor in expenses like utility costs and power requirements.”

If you can’t buy, rent
With CAD in the cloud being not if, but when, designairspace has new ways to bring benefit to users and CAD makers; reselling vendor software in the cloud. The company would offer customers workstations with major CAD vendor’s programs already installed. Designairspace can track use, which allows the vendors to charge based on time spent using the programs.

“It would be just like mobile phone plans back in the day, where you buy a plan based on minutes. We can do this with CAD in the cloud,” Williams says. “Let’s say you buy a plan with 500 minutes. If you need it for only one or two days a week, you can buy it in a small, affordable plan that’s a small portion of what it would cost you to buy the software.

“Why limit CAD-in-the-cloud to large companies? In the olden days, only big companies could afford 3-D CAD systems. We want small companies to have cloud benefits,” he added. “They would still need to buy their own licenses, but at least they can run it in the cloud, like the big guys.”

The pricing model would benefit companies with project managers or suppliers who don’t design in CAD but log onto the program intermittently.

“These people use the software only a little bit at a time, so we can price it so it’s not so expensive for them,” Williams said. “This is a whole new market for major vendors.”

Becoming a CAD-in-the-cloud reseller and offering online training in those CAD programs is the “next step” for designairspace, he added. With the business model, potential customers can also receive on-the-spot, specialized training if needed and can test the software to see if it’s right for their needs before buying a priced plan, he said.

Or, engineering companies might choose to run hybrid CAD, in which they host some CAD systems at workstations on-premise and buy CAD in the cloud subscriptions for intermittent users, Williams said.

“That way you can gradually move more and more users to the cloud. You can move one or two and see if it works and if it does move more to the cloud,” Williams said. “The heavy users will never move to the cloud.”

That brings up another point. Workstations that run CAD will always be with us, he added.
Companies that do work for the defense department or for the military must do their engineering work on company workstations. They cannot work remotely, Williams said.
For his part, Hirschtick is dreaming big. He expects widespread cloud adoption for CAD as users begin to see the advantages.

“People think cloud tools don’t have the power or speed but that’s an old fable. Cloud tools have more advantage and speed, it’s not a fair fight,” he said. “With desktop tools, you have one CPU sitting on the desktop. With the cloud, we’re able to use unlimited amounts of CPUs. I gave a demo and opened up ten models with thousands of thousands of parts on Macbook in Chrome on a web browser. There’s no CAD workstation that could open them that fast, even the best desktop configuration.

“In a few years, people will be saying ‘how did you ever do CAD on a desktop. How was it fast enough?’” Hirschtick says.

While the future remains cloudy, PTC is backing clearing skies for CAD in the cloud. With a large CAD maker backing SaaS, expect to see a flurry of news and updates. In other words, don’t delete your desktop program.

PTC
www.ptc.com

Designairspace
www.designairspace.com

Accelerate spatial AR programming of machines and robots

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PTC announced the release of the Vuforia Spatial Toolbox platform. Created by the PTC Reality Lab. This open-source platform helps developers create, innovate, and solve spatial computing problems in a new way. Innovators can explore Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and Spatial Computing, accelerate prototyping for machines, and develop leading-edge spatial Augmented Reality (AR) and IoT use cases to support digital transformation initiatives.

With this spatial computing platform, teams can improve the operation of complex manufacturing environments and make IoT-enabled machines easier and more intuitive to control with on-the-fly programming. Robots can be operated and controlled through more intuitive user interfaces (UIs), and intuitive Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) can be quickly built, enabling improved human-machine interaction and merging the digital world and physical screens.

“Many developers, innovators, and researchers recognize that AR can help democratize the programming and control of connected machines,” said Mike Campbell, executive vice president and general manager, AR, PTC. “What they need are solutions that help alleviate development overhead for prototyping these innovative, next-gen AR tools. PTC is helping them develop tools and interfaces to spatially interact with and program the world of interconnected things around them.”

As the newest addition to the Vuforia AR product portfolio, Vuforia Spatial Toolbox complements the current commercial Vuforia offering. The Vuforia Spatial Toolbox is a system consisting of two components which combine to provide an industrial AR/Spatial Computing prototyping environment with pre-built UI/UX elements, spatial programming services, an intuitive UI app, and simplified connectivity to IoT with the Vuforia Spatial Edge Server. The open-source environment is designed to drive further exploration around the convergence of the physical and digital worlds and help to push the boundaries of innovation.

To enable users to take advantage of the new Vuforia Spatial Toolbox while working from home during this crisis, PTC created a basic hardware interface add-on that allows them to connect the Vuforia Edge Server with Arduino projects, children’s LEGO® BOOST and LEGO® Education WeDo 2.0 sets, and the Philips Hue smart lighting system.

The technology is the brainchild of Valentin Heun, Ph.D., vice president, Innovation Engineering, PTC, and former scientist at the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group, where he led the Reality Editor human-machine interface research. Dr. Heun is a leader in the AR industry, and an active author and speaker on topics related to AR.

PTC
spatialtoolbox.vuforia.com

PTC to acquire Onshape

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PTC announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Onshape, creators of Software as a Service (SaaS) product development platform that unites computer aided design (CAD) with data management and collaboration tools, for approximately $470 million, net of cash acquired.
The acquisition is expected to accelerate PTC’s ability to attract new customers with a SaaS-based product offering and position the company to capitalize on the inevitable industry transition to SaaS. Pending regulatory approval and satisfaction of other closing conditions, the transaction is expected to be completed in November 2019.

Located in Cambridge, MA, Onshape was founded in 2012 by CAD pioneers and tech legends, including Jon Hirschtick, John McEleney, and Dave Corcoran, inventors and former executives of SolidWorks. Onshape has secured more than $150 million in funding from leading venture capital firms and has more than 5,000 subscribers around the world. The company’s software offering is delivered in a SaaS model, making it accessible from any connected location or device, eliminating the need for costly hardware and administrative staff to maintain. Distributed and mobile teams of designers, engineers, and others can benefit from the product’s cloud nature, enabling them to improve collaboration and to dramatically reduce the time needed to bring new products to market – while simultaneously staying current with the latest software.

This acquisition is the logical next step in PTC’s overall evolution to a recurring revenue business model, the first step of which was the company’s transition to subscription licensing, completed in January 2019. The SaaS model, while nascent in the CAD and PLM market, is rapidly becoming industry best practice across most other software domains.

Onshape will operate as a business unit within PTC, with current management reporting directly to PTC President and CEO Jim Heppelmann.

Barclays acted as exclusive financial advisor to PTC on the transaction.

PTC
www.ptc.com

ThingWorx 8.5 coming in late summer 2019

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ThingWorx 8.5 combines new capabilities with domain-specific solutions to serve the digital transformation needs of industrial enterprises worldwide.

Among the new and enhanced capabilities are tools that simplify the composition and deployment of solutions. Customers will be able to configure applications faster and deploy them across multiple sites and geographies. For those who want more readymade solutions, ThingWorx also offers pre-built, pre-configured capabilities for engineering, manufacturing, and service. This latest version of ThingWorx brings enhanced integration with Microsoft Azure IoT and includes additional tools for rolling out solutions at an enterprise scale.

The new ThingWorx Navigate Digital Change Management Application enables internal and external users to actively participate in change management. The series of ThingWorx Navigate Contribute Apps will expand on NavigateView suite, which makes information easily available and facilitates collaboration across the enterprise. Powered by the digital thread, engineers have real-time access to connected product data in ThingWorx to drive the design of next-generation products.

Manufacturing
ThingWorx 8.5 is now compatible with Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk Analytics. Additionally, PTC will be releasing ThingWorx Kepware Edge to provide flexible deployment of reliable and secure connectivity for dispersed equipment.

Service
PTC’s service solution suite enables service organizations to transform from cost centers to profit centers and drive product and service innovation through new IIoT-enabled business models. The service optimization solution allows companies to improve margins by minimizing truck rolls and increasing first time-fix rates. With ThingWorx 8.5, digital
service delivery is enhanced through a deepened integration with Microsoft Azure,
enabling manufacturers to now use the ThingWorx Software Content Management App
with the Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Edge.

PTC
ptc.com

PTC adds AI and generative design to its CAD portfolio with acquisition of Frustum

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PTC announced that it has acquired Frustum Inc., an advanced generative design software company, for approximately $70 million. Frustum’s technology for generative design leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to generate design options. PTC says it is a transformative addition to the PTC Creo portfolio.

Based in Boulder, Colorado, Frustum offers patented desktop and cloud-based engineering software that enables designers and engineers to go beyond the limits of their personal experience by leveraging powerful AI capabilities that guide the discovery of high-performance, next-generation product designs.

“PTC is pushing the boundaries of innovation with this acquisition,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO, PTC. “Creo is core to PTC’s overall strategy, and the embedded capabilities from ANSYS and, later, Frustum will elevate Creo to a leading position in the world of design and simulation. With breakthrough new technologies such as AR/VR, high-performance computing, IoT, AI, and additive manufacturing entering the picture, the CAD industry is going through a renaissance period, and PTC is committed to leading the way.”

Frustum complements PTC’s strategic relationship with ANSYS, which was announced at LiveWorx in June 2018, and will bring analysis upstream to the very start of the design process. With embedded Frustum and ANSYS capabilities, Creo will be able to recommend design approaches using generative design, guide the user through the iterative design process using ANSYS Discovery Live, and ultimately validate the full product design at scale using the broader ANSYS Discovery suite. With these capabilities embedded in Creo, engineers will have unmatched capabilities to rapidly drive product innovation.

“This acquisition is a natural step for PTC and its customers,” said Jeff Hojlo, program director, product innovation, IDC. “AI and machine learning (ML) are widely discussed as two of the most impactful technologies of the future. For design, engineering, and R&D, the potential positive impacts of complementing the development process with AI and ML are astounding: lowering cost of quality (which is currently 20-25 percent of annual revenue at the average manufacturer), improving product success rate (which remains very low with more than 80 percent of products failing), and improving time to market and time to revenue by meeting customer needs accurately the first time.”

PTC
www.ptc.com/en

 

 

The Self-taught design system

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Just where will artificial intelligence fit in with CAD software? Here’s a look at where developments stand now, and a preview of what might be coming.

Jean Thilmany, Contributing Editor

Artificial intelligence has a place in the future of computer-aided design technology, but right now, the role AI will play isn’t clear. That’s the view of Jon Hirschtick, chief executive officer of Onshape, which makes cloud-based CAD software. While some CAD makers are delving into AI functionality, the marriage of AI and design software is in the early stages, he says.

“AI has great potential, but so far no one has illustrated how it will unfold,”

Hirschtick says in reference to CAD vendors. “I’m not saying developers are not working on ideas.”

CAD makers would be wise to consider how AI may fit into their software’s growth and expansion. AI should be a $16 billion industry by 2022, according to a projection from research firm Markets and Markets.

AI across industries

First, definitions are in order. Many terms have been bandied about of late, particularly in reference to Industry 4.0, which goes by a number of names, including smart factory and connected factory. Technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, Internet of things (IOT), and deep learning will come together to help realize Industry 4.0.

Nvidia installed its Drive PX 2 AI supercomputing platform into a signature- green, self-driving racecar that will compete in the Roborace Champsionship, a global autonomous motorsports competition. Image credit Nvidia.

All these technologies are related in that they build upon each other, says Will Ramsey, director of marketing at Nvidia, which designs graphics processing units. The company developed GPU-based deep learning, which uses artificial intelligence to approach problems like cancer detection, weather prediction, and self-driving vehicles. Here’s how Ramsey defines pertinent terms:

“AI is a broad field focused on using computers to do things that require human-level intelligence. It’s been around since the1950s but was little used because it was limited in practical applications.”

“Machine learning enables AI by providing the algorithms that make the machines smarter and thus give AI a way to actually become more intelligent as time goes on.”

Machine learning is what Ramsey calls an approach to AI, meaning a way to use AI for practical applications. The approach uses statistical techniques to construct a model from observed data. It relies on inputs, or what Ramsey calls “extractors” set by the humans programming these machines.

“It’s like the bag-of-word analysis that made spam filters possible,” Ramsey says.

The filters could search for certain words (determined by humans) within messages, then flag those messages as unwanted spam.

Machine learning algorithms can sift through and find insights in large data sets. Combine AI and machine learning and the algorithms become more able to recognize patterns and specific issues, such as—when it comes to something like speech recognition software—accents.

But where does the data used by machine-learning algorithms come from?

Earlier this year, Nvidia revealed a self-driving car powered by its new AI supercomputer, Xavier, which learns to drive by observing a human driver. Nvidia installed the AI in an autonomous Lincoln vehicle to demonstrate its capabilities. Nvidia Drive PX is an open, artificial intelligence-driven, computing system that can be used as the technology platform for automated and autonomous vehicles. Nvidia developed its own self-driving vehicle to showcase the system.
Image credit Nvidia.

“Now with social media, sensors, the internet of things, we have all these data,” Ramsey says. “And we have the challenge of understanding and extracting insights from it.”

His company uses what it calls deep learning, a method that automatically extracts and makes sense of all that information, and continues to learn from it or “learns to think.”

“Using deep learning, the fastest growing segment of AI, computers are now able to learn and recognize patterns from data that were considered too complex for expert written software,” Ramsey says.

What about design?

Hirschtick believes CAD programs will make use of AI, but in a more limited way in the near future, by using information the designer has entered to offer suggestions about design parameters and inputs.

Future programs might offer to the design default values for a shape based on the objects that person has designed in the past. AI would essentially learn what types of products the designer mostly works on and the inputs he or she has regularly used for those products. The suggested values may appear on the user’s screen in a dialog box, Hirschtick says.

“Or AI could offer something like: ‘Gee, I noticed you’ve done pattern of activity several times in a row, do you want that or was that a mistake?’”

And AI could make engineers’ search for needed and necessary parts easier. Hirschtick envisions a program, much like that which appears for Amazon shoppers, in which engineers could type in information about a part they’re searching for “and the program says ‘a lot of times people looking for that part also look at this one,’” he says.

Today’s wind turbines, like this one installed in Traverse City, Mich., can be outfitted with a myriad of sensors and actuators that will return real-time turbine operating information through the Internet of Things. Image credit: bengarrison

In the future, CAD software users may also ask speech technology software, rather than the CAD-company’s tech-support operators, questions about the software and instantly receive a pertinent, helpful response. The natural-language-processing programs that drive these responses learn how best to answer user questions thanks to machine learning technology.

Such speech technology software could aid fast-growing CAD companies that would otherwise need to train a slew of customer-support employees quickly.

Currently, those AI possibilities remain unrealized, says Hirschtick. “Right now no one has demonstrated any particularly compelling idea with AI.”

Making manufacturing inroads

Other CAD vendors may beg to disagree.

Autodesk is already moving to use AI for customer support, teaming with IBM to create Otto, a digital concierge that uses IBM Watson technology to manage customer and partner inquiries, says Gregg Spratto, vice president of operations at Autodesk. “Watson’s natural-language-processing and deep-learning technologies help Otto understand the intent of customer questions.”

To offer Otto initial “training,” as it were, the Autodesk team fed historical data from chat logs, use cases, and forum posts into the program to ensure it could understand and respond to a wide range of customer queries.

Then, as the project expands, Otto will use machine learning to handle increasingly complex customer requests and will scale up as call-volume grows.

Also, last October, Autodesk announced plans to embed an AI modeling engine into its IoT cloud platform, Fusion Connect. The Eureqa engine is from Nutonian, recently acquired by DataRobot.

With the AI engine on board, the IoT platform will be able to predict product failures or design flaws based on how a product or device is presently functioning in the real world, says Bryan Kester, director of IoT at Autodesk

The pairing is natural, as IoT offers continual feedback on how products are performing in the field, in real time. IoT makes use of sensors and actuators attached to a product that send back continuous information on how the product is operating, moment-by-moment, in the field.

Fusion Connect helps gather information from that network of sensors and actuators as well as upon RFID, Wi-Fi, and a range of other communications and monitoring technologies, Kester says.

The information is then analyzed and output in a format useful to engineers, who can use it to find where improvements can be made to existing product designs and to determine how new products could be designed better designed. All this based on present, real-world operation, he adds.

Similarly, PTC plans this year to link its Creo computer-aided design system, to the company’s ThingWorx IoT development platform. Developers use the platform to build and deploy enterprise-level IoT applications, says Paul Sagar, vice president of product management at PTC.

Though it’s not an AI application, after the ThingWorx and Creo interface is complete, engineers will be able to instrument their CAD model with virtual sensors that act in the same manner as the real-world counterparts do; that is, they monitor and report back about particular features of part or system operation.

These virtual sensors can offer more insight into model behavior than the what-if questioning and virtual experimentation engineers now use to explore model performance, Sagar says. The sensors can help answer questions like: is the virtual system running hot in a certain area? Is airflow too high or too low?

Fusion Connect Internet of Things software from Autodesk can help connect factory applications across a number of industrial machines and make sense of information returned from the connected machines. Image credit: Autodesk

With those questions answered, designers can redesign and repeat the process until they’ve optimized the model to meet—perhaps even exceed–specifications, Sagar continues.

AI aids 3D lookup

Introduced last summer, Autodesk’s Design Graph is another machine learning system that helps users manage 3D content, offering Google search-like functionality for 3D models, says Mike Haley, who leads the machine intelligence group at Autodesk.

“Machine learning and artificial intelligence are starting to make the first inroads into daily life, but to our knowledge this is its very first application for industrial design and mechanical engineering,” Haley says.

Design Graph algorithms extract large amounts of 3D design data from an engineering company’s designs. It then creates a catalog by categorizing each component and design using a classification and relationship system. Designers and engineers search across all of their files for a part type, such as a bolt or a bike seat, with the tool returning dozens or hundreds of pertinent options.

So how does machine learning come into play?

The system teaches computers to identify and understand designs based on their inherent characteristics–their shape and structure–rather than by tags or metadata, Haley says.

After all, whoever designed the part originally could label it any of dozens of ways, using full words or abbreviations. Metadata created by people, unless carefully managed, tends to be unreliable, Haley says. With Design Graph, the computer uses its own observations about the 3D geometry contained in every 3D model.

So while some AI capabilities already exist within CAD systems, look for more to come. After all, product design plays a key role in the connected factory and the IoT systems of the future. Without design, there’d be no need for a factory—no matter how connected–to make the products and nothing for IoT to monitor.

Autodesk
Autodesk.com

Nvidia
Nvidia.com

PTC
Ptc.com

Onshape
Onshape.com

PTC, ANSYS to develop platform solution enabling digital simulation for the Industrial IoT

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Bruce Jenkins, Ora Research

PTC and ANSYS partnered to accelerate the industry-wide move to bring engineering modeling and simulation to the Industrial IoT.

Just before the start of LiveWorx 2017, PTC’s annual mega-event around all things IIoT, the two leaders agreed to develop a solution that will let ANSYS engineering simulation technology be rapidly added to applications built on the ThingWorx Industrial IoT platform from PTC. Development of a connector between these two technology platforms will let customers transform raw data into new forms of actionable intelligence, the companies said. The connector will integrate intelligent digital simulation models with products as they exist and operate in the real world, the companies explained. The aim is to open up new opportunities for companies to create value by enabling them to optimize operations and maintenance and to integrate them into their product development processes.

Simulation helps companies understand how products will behave—and may fail—as early as possible in the engineering design cycle. When faced with limited access to historical data on product performance, now engineering organizations can instead leverage simulation models to generate an initial as-designed set of expected product performance outcomes. Those simulation results then serve as a rich source of data for supervised machine learning and predictive modeling. This ongoing connection between real-world performance, predictive simulation and machine learning will help manufacturers make sense of data that can lead to predictive models and a more insightful feedback loop, helping them improve their product design and modeling.

The IIoT is making it possible to create a digital twin that combines real-time data about a physical product with the organization’s digital information about the product, PTC and ANSYS note. Simulating digital twins provides advanced intelligence and insight into a product’s behaviors. The combination of the ThingWorx platform capabilities with ANSYS simulation models will enable companies to deploy powerful applications that can analyze current operating conditions, rapidly identify and diagnose operations issues, predict future operating conditions, and improve product performance. PTC and ANSYS will make the capabilities of this solution available within IIoT applications developed on ThingWorx.

“Obtaining value from the data generated by connected products is one of the primary reasons companies invest in the Industrial IoT,” said Catherine Kniker, chief revenue officer for PTC’s Platform Business. “Simulation technology combined with machine learning can help Industrial IoT solution builders identify and make sense of the data needed to improve product design and performance—and develop next-generation products. We look forward to seeing how solution builders will create new value by introducing our solution with ANSYS, a preferred simulation partner, into their applications.”

“Many of our customers are looking to digital twins to disrupt their industries by drastically lowering their operating and maintenance costs and by marketing their products as optimized services in real time,” said ANSYS general manager Eric Bantegnie. “By leveraging the solution that ANSYS and PTC will bring to the market, our customers will bring powerful capabilities to new Industrial IoT applications. We look forward to demonstrating the value of this solution at LiveWorx17.”

ANSYS
http://www.ansys.com/

PTC
https://www.ptc.com/

LiveWorx 2017
https://www.liveworx.com/

PTC Announces Creo 4.0 for Smarter Design

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PTC (NASDAQ: PTC)  announced the release of the latest version of its Creo 4.0 3D CAD software. Creo 4.0 introduces new capabilities for Internet of Things (IoT), additive manufacturing, augmented reality, and model-based definition (MBD). Creo 4.0 aids smarter design with an array of core modeling enhancements and new functions.

creo-4-0-variable-lattice-copy

With this latest release of Creo, product designers can design smart, connected products and capitalize on new technologies, such as additive manufacturing and augmented reality.

Key enhancements include:

Smart Connected Product Design

For the IoT, Creo 4.0 provides the ability to pull real-world information into the design process. It enables a design for connectivity strategy where developers proactively design products with custom data streams by integrating sensors into the design process.

Said Chad Jackson, Lifecycle Insights, “Connecting Creo’s 3D model with ThingWorx’s sensor model is key, as it allows organizations to virtually prototype sensor placement and emulate data streams without having to build anything physical.”

Additive Manufacturing
Creo 4.0 removes barriers to the efficient design of production parts built with additive manufacturing techniques. It delivers “design for additive manufacturing,” enabling designers to design, optimize, validate, and run a print-check in a single environment. With the ability to create parametrically controlled lattice structures, it helps designers optimize models to meet multiple design objectives or constraints.

Augmented Reality

Creo 4.0 allows for more engaging and informative visual experiences of designs by bringing the digital product into the physical world. Designers can seamlessly reuse CAD data to easily create engaging and informative visual augmented reality experiences of a design with a realistic sense of size, scale, and context.

 Model Based Definition

Creo 4.0 enables designers to implement MBD and increase efficiency in product development by reducing dependency on 2D drawings. Designers can reduce errors that result from incorrect, incomplete, or misinterpreted information by guiding and educating designers in the proper application of Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerance (GD&T) information. Creo 4.0 also validates that the GD&T is captured in the 3D CAD model in a fully semantic way, that the model is compliant with ASME and ISO standards, and that it constrains model geometry to enable efficient and error-free downstream use in manufacturing and inspection.

“Realizing the potential of the IoT is not just about getting more product usage data, it means you can use, refine, and analyze that data to design better and smarter,” said Brian Thompson, senior vice president, CAD segment, PTC. “Creo 4.0 helps designers replace assumptions in the design process with real-world data to make better product design decisions, and along with model-based definition, give designers a more complete digital definition of a product. The enhancements in Creo 4.0 not only enable designers to increase productivity, but also help designers leverage the IoT to support their digital engineering journey.”

PTC
www.ptc.com

CAD and the Internet of Things

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The Internet of Things is certainly being hyped, but is it overhyped? We’ll see when the technology becomes mainstream—as business analysts say it will– within a few years’ time. The way Internet of Things (IoT) will become part of designers’ and engineers’ job also remains to be seen. But engineering software maker PTC says there’s a definite role and that PTC itself will be a part of it.

Certainly designers and engineers will be creating the sensors used for IoT as well as ensuring the machines, manufacturing and transportation—and nearly everything else–they design will be IoT ready. Transport for London, for example, the organization that runs the London Underground (pictured), recently announced it’s implementing the IoT to streamline maintenance of the system, improve customer service and boost efficiency by 30 percent over three years.800px-Lancaster_Gate_tube-618x412.

The IoT calls upon wireless sensors that continuously monitor the operation of machines of all types, no matter where they’re located, and then aggregates the data so it can be broken out and analyzed to discover trends and make conclusions that can’t be drawn from local data or from lag-time feedback.

Management consulting firm Accenture predicts the global Industrial IoT landscape (IoT for industrial use) will be worth $14.2 trillion by 2022. Technology research firm Gartner Inc. forecasts nearly 26 billion devices on the Internet of Things by 2020.

To become linked with IoT, PTC has acquired ThingWorx, an IoT platform provider and Axeda, which provides cloud-based software for managing connected machines. Earlier this month, ThingWorx announced an agreement to offer semiconductor manufacturer Analog Devices customers an integrated sensor-to-cloud environment on the platform.

James Heppelmann, PTC chief executive officer, wrote last November on the stock market analysis and insights blog Seeking Alpha that IoT will redefine what CAD and PLM are about.

The company has embraced IoT by selling its ThingWorx and Axeda offerings to users outside PTC’s regularly customer base, he said.

IoT gives PTC also an opportunity to “improve the capabilities, value proposition and differentiation of our CAD, PLM, ALM and SLM offerings,” he wrote. Application lifecycle development (ALM) software is used to manage computer software while service lifecycle management (SLM) software is used to manage the delivery of services.

“As we land these new logos, we’ll work to expand our position by introducing SLM, which is really the killer app for IoT, as well as ALM, PLM and even CAD technologies over time,” Heppelmann wrote.

In other words, PTC will offer its engineering technologies for sale to its existing IoT customers. The engineering software maker still seems uncertain how to best merge, sell, and manage IoT, CAD, and PLM.

Which perhaps is as it should be with a technology like IoT that some researchers say will become as ubiquitious as the Internet itself.

Certainly many more engineered products will include sensors in the not-to-distant future and will be connected wirelessly. Designers and IoT will learn to play well together, though how that play will look and how far in the future it will become commonplace still is still unclear. Stay tuned.

PTC Introduces PTC PLM Cloud for SMB Market

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One of the last holdouts in cloud deployment, PTC, announced yesterday that it’s porting its Windchill PLM software to the cloud. The goal it appears is to address the needs of the small- to mid-sized (SMB) business market, a demographic that’s been largely left out of the PLM market. These companies often didn’t have the IT resources to support a full-scale PLM deployment and prefer the SAAS business model that enables them flexible, subscription-based pricing.

The PTC PLM Cloud is based on PTC Windchill, a proven technology with over 1.5 million seats deployed and a platform that was designed from the beginning as a web-based approach to PLM. The result is a true PLM cloud solution, specifically designed to enable team collaboration and product data sharing. This accelerates product development and helps design teams that are stretched across different locations, working with varying CAD applications or coordinating with partners and suppliers.

The PTC cloud offering eliminates the typical, but risky, SMB practice of shared folders and file naming conventions, which can hamper product development. With more effective and reliable data sharing in the cloud, customers are able to improve product development across teams in different locations, teams working with varying CAD applications, and with external teams such as partners and suppliers who are a growing part of the product development process.

PTC introduces a SAAS PLM solution for small and mid-sized businesses.
PTC introduces a SAAS PLM solution for small and mid-sized businesses.

“The value of PTC PLM Cloud is clear,” said Peter Bilello, President, CIMdata. “PTC’s offering has been designed to allow smaller companies, which have previously been unable to rapidly implement PLM capabilities, to quickly deploy and adopt key data management, visualization and reuse functionality. Those are all vital capabilities for any company in the business of developing products.”

Specific benefits of PTC PLM Cloud are:
Security. PTC’s cloud environment is compliant with ISO 27001:2013 which outlines standard protocols for information security management.
Availability. PTC PLM Cloud is based on PTC’s existing hosted PLM environment which achieves 99.5% availability.
Speed. PTC PLM Cloud performance has been optimized for distributed teams.
Time-to-Value. PTC PLM Cloud enables rapid PLM adoption and accelerated product development processes, enabling improved on-time delivery.
Total Cost of Ownership. PTC PLM Cloud allows for reduced technology acquisition and system administration costs.

“Our main objective when deciding for PTC Windchill on the Cloud was to have central repository of up-to-date product information and efficient delivery of that data to customers and technical support staff, but at the same time to minimize the burden on IT while maintaining a predictable monthly cost,” said Vinny Guercio, VP Engineering, RAB Lighting. “With PTC, we have met our goals.”

Availability

PTC PLM Cloud will be available March 2015 in the following packages:
Standard–a shared, pre-configured PTC Windchill instance that enables immediate go-live
Premium–a dedicated PTC Windchill instance that supports customer-specific system configuration
Enterprise–a dedicated PTC Windchill instance that supports customer-specific system configuration and integrations to corporate systems

You can find more information on the PTC PLM Cloud Resource page. You can also watch a PTC PLM Cloud demo video that shows a synopsis of how the solution will work here.

Barb Schmitz