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SpaceClaim

ANSYS Acquires SpaceClaim

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Consolidation through strategic acquisitions is nothing new in the CAD world, though I must admit to being surprised by last week’s announcement that ANSYS, a world leader in simulation technology, had acquired SpaceClaim Corp. for $85 million in cash. The transaction closed on April 30.

SpaceClaim took the “direct” approach to 3D modeling

SpaceClaim introduced direct modeling to the masses with the introduction of SpaceClaim 2007 Professional back in 2007. SpaceClaim, which my colleague Josh Mings referred to as “the company slapping the history out 3D modeling,” was founded in 2005 by industry big-wig Mike Payne, who also helped start up PTC and SolidWorks. The goal was to offer a 3D modeling tool that could be used by more than just CAD experts.

ANSYS and SpaceClaim have partnered up in the past to offer customers ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler as an option to ANSYS customers. These users, who are mostly analysts, work in 3D but didn’t want to become experts in traditional, feature-based CAD systems. With the software, users could create and modify 3D geometry models without needing to learn the complexities of the CAD software.

The functions in SpaceClaim's Prepare tab make it easy to simplify, de-feature and prepare models for analysis in ANSYS Workbench and GAMBIT.
The functions in SpaceClaim’s Prepare tab make it easy to simplify, de-feature and prepare models for analysis in ANSYS Workbench and GAMBIT.

By enabling ANSYS users to create and modify 3D models, simulation can be done upfront in the product development process, where the biggest payoffs (performance, cost and time-to-market) can be realized. The vision of ANSYS has always been to enable companies to leverage the value of computer simulation early in the design process to predict how a product will perform in the real world.

By adding SpaceClaim to its product line, ANSYS customer will have a 3D direct modeling tool for creating new concepts and then performing simulation on those models to iterate and optimize product designs. In addition, because ANSYS has always been an essentially open platform and SpaceClaim’s solutions are also relatively CAD-neutral, users can modify geometries regardless of what system was used to create them.

Benefits of acquisition

* Acceleration of ANSYS’ technological product roadmap and long-time vision for Simulation Driven Product Development. SpaceClaim can help simplify and automate what has traditionally been a time-consuming process of preparing geometry for use in a simulation system, enhancing ease-of-use to help ANSYS accelerate product adoption and the growth of the simulation market overall. The transaction enables ANSYS to accomplish what would have taken the company many years (if ever) to develop alone.
* Enhanced customer offering through complementary technologies. The transaction enablesANSYS to provide its customers with a 3D direct modeling solution to author new concepts and then leverage simulation to iterate on these designs.
* Drives growth through an expanded customer base and cross-selling opportunities. The broad appeal of SpaceClaim’s technology can help ANSYS deliver simulation tools to any engineer in any industry – at the earliest stages of the design cycle – expanding ANSYS’ user base from analysts and expert users to 5 million design and systems engineers.
* Increased innovation. SpaceClaim’s flagship product is SpaceClaim Engineer, 3D direct modeler, and offers UI/UX design for both 3D applications and mobile devices.

Of those proposed benefits, I think the one that stands out as obvious is the fact that acquiring SpaceClaim expands ANSYS’ user base from analysts and expert users to five million design and system engineers. We’ll certainly be watching to see how this shakes and out and will keep you updated on any new product announcements made as a result of this union.

For more information, check out the official press release from ANSYS.

Barb Schmitz

SpaceClaim Adds Support for 3D Printing

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It seems nearly hourly a story about 3D printing is hitting the newswires and showing up in blogs, on Twitter or in the mainstream media. The applications of 3D printing are widely varied, from 3D printed chocolates to cars to houses to perfectly fitted prosthetics. It seems that the possibilities for 3D printing are nearly limitless.

My colleague and Design World Managing Editor, Leslie Langnau, has been covering 3D printing from its humble beginnings. In a future issue, she and I will be covering 3D printing, from both the hardware and software sides of the equation.

One of the obstacles for users is how do you use CAD data to print a 3D part, as you can’t simply send the CAD file to the printer. CAD files must be converted to STL files, which in turn can be used by the printer. Problems, however, often rear their ugly heads when any file is converted to another file type.

We’re very interested in hearing how you all are doing this so feel free to comment or send me an email as we prepare on how to tackle this topic.

Facilitating the CAD-3D printing connection

In the latest release of SpaceClaim 2014 SP1, the company is introducing a solution to help with the problems being faced with 3D printing. The STL Prep for 3D Printing module prepares models for 3D printing not only repairs problems, but also modifies STL and CAD files. According to SpaceClaim, this new module also extends SpaceClaim Engineer’s intuitive interface, speed, and ability to work with any major 3D format into the 3D printing world.

The new STL Prep for 3D Printing Module for SpaceClaim 2014 helps repair printing problems and modify STL and CAD files.
The new STL Prep for 3D Printing Module for SpaceClaim 2014 helps repair printing problems and modify STL and CAD files.

SpaceClaim’s director of product management, Justin Hendrickson, was interviewed by Ralph Grabowski, editor of Upfront eZine, on the obstacles faced by users who want to create 3D printed parts using their CAD models.

These problems included:

* STL files have to be watertight (no gaps between surfaces)
* Shapes must be suitable for printing, such as merged assemblies, thickened ribs, and interiors removed
* Models have to be resized to fit the envelop size
* Fixtures added, such as exterior and interior supports
* Model reduced in complexity to reduce the data sent to the printer
* Additional considerations for material, such as shrinkage
* Inability to use 2D drawings or scanned data

To resolve many of these issues, SpaceClaim’s new add-on tools help users prepare CAD models for 3D printing. In today’s multi-CAD design environments, perhaps the most important tool is one that enables users to combine models from a variety of CAD packages. When the source file is a mesh, then the new 3D Print Prep tool cleans it up, removing gaps, holes and intersecting meshes, which makes them watertight.

Hendrickson explains a common scenario in which the software’s modeling tools can help users print something derived from a model, such as a mouth guard derived from a cast of someone’s teeth. The modeling tools can be used to create a generic mouthguard, and then subtract the mesh (of the teeth) from the mouthguard model.

SpaceClaim’s new 3D print prep module also handles these tasks: converts any model to STL or AMF [additive manufacturing format] files; previews the solid to mesh export, with adjustable settings; reduces triangles automatically.

STL Prep for 3D Printing is available as an add-on for SpaceClaim 2014 SP1 for an additional $1,200; Base package for SpaceClaim is $2,445. Find out more about STL Prep for 3D Printing here.

Barb Schmitz

Taking a Closer Look at SpaceClaim Engineer 2014

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Last week Design World hosted a very successful webinar entitled, “The Pros and Cons of 3D Modeling Paradigms,” during which industry experts discussed the benefits and downsides of each modeling paradigm–history-based and direct modeling–and areas of product development each are best suited.

Though most of you already know the basics of each approach, here’s a quick summary. Parametric, feature-based 3D modeling tools provide engineers with a methodical, orderly and powerfully automated way to create complex models, but require engineers to anticipate and define feature constraints, relations and dependencies. Though powerful, these tools often make doing edits difficult, especially when working with models created in different CAD systems.

Direct modeling, on the other hand, enables users to take a more flexible, intuitive approach to creating geometry and doesn’t carry the overhead of history-based dependencies. Users can directly manipulate model geometry without regard to how that geometry was created. To make changes, users simply grab, pull and drag geometry, making direct modeling an easier modeling paradigm to use.

Though both approaches were discussed during the hour-plus webinar, it seemed like the majority of time was used to discuss direct modeling, perhaps in part because it’s the newer of the modeling techniques.

SpaceClaim delivers direct modeling alternative to history-based systems

One company not represented during the webinar that perhaps should have been was SpaceClaim. The company introduced direct modeling to the masses with the introduction of SpaceClaim 2007 Professional back in 2007. SpaceClaim, which my colleague Josh Mings refers to as “the company slapping the history out 3D modeling,” was founded in 2005 by industry big-wig Mike Payne, who also helped start up PTC and SolidWorks.

This brings me (finally) to SpaceClaim Engineer 2014. Rolled out officially in December, the new release touts a 30% improvement in model load times; multi-threading support; live interference detection; and improved drafting using parting surfaces and automatic splits.

This new release also makes some headway in increased interoperability with a Solid Edge translator and on-demand floating translator, AMF export/import from AutoCAD, support for ASME 14.5 (GD&T), and a 3D PDF module.

SpaceClaim Engineer's 3D mechanisms capabilities include gear and tangent placement conditions and are completely integrated with SpaceClaim's direct modeling of parts and assemblies.
SpaceClaim Engineer’s 3D mechanisms capabilities include gear and tangent
placement conditions and are completely integrated with SpaceClaim’s direct
modeling of parts and assemblies.

Here’s a list of the new tools in SpaceClaim Engineer 2014:

* Pinned datums, axes, and points that follow the geometry from which they are defined for semi-parametric functionality
* Web-hosted model viewer

Simulation
* New mass property driving dimensions
* New surface simplification tool
* Support for baffle geometry when transferring to ANSYS Workbench
* Orient and surface fitting for improved modeling with meshes

Sheet Metal
*Unfolding torus forms
* Multi-edge hems
* Sheet metal blends
* Improved edge cleanup during conversion.

Manufacturing
* Move Body and Align
* Create Workpiece
* Unroll tool for flattening developable surfaces
* Angular component measurements for sequential rotations between two faces.

You can find more on SpaceClaim Engineer 2014 here. If you missed the “The Pros and Cons of 3D Modeling Paradigms” webinar, click here to watch it.

Barb Schmitz

Kenesto PLM Platform Re-launched

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Yesterday I had to opportunity to be reintroduced to the relaunched Kenesto, the company headed up by Mike Payne, one of the more renowned and revered figures in the CAD world, having started PTC and SolidWorks (then SpaceClaim). Pretty much anything that Mike is involved in draws interest from the industry and Kenesto is no exception.

Kenesto is a cloud-based PLM platform with its roots in workflow management. The platform is being relaunched with a renewed focus on collaboration, as companies are more comfortable owning up to needing this capability more than they are to admitting workflow issues.

Kenesto adopts OEM product strategy

Though the product has technically been around since it was introduced in 2011, in December of last year, the company officially announced that the product was ready to go to market. Nothing unusual about that though the way in which the company is marketing and selling the product is unusual. Due to the company’s relatively small size and lack of marketing muscle or resources, it is currently soliciting partnerships with third-party vendors to private-label the solution for subscription sales into their respective markets.

Logic behind the move is explained by Stephen Bodnar, senior VP of Products and Strategy at Kenesto (and former VP of PLM at Autodesk). “The framework we’ve put in place to support partners who wish to offer our technology to their customers, branded as their own, and through their own sales channels, makes great sense for us given where we are in our company’s lifecycle and the level of investment required to capture additional, much larger markets. It also makes great sense for enterprise software providers who wish to offer the kinds of cloud-based collaboration capabilities, such as those available in Kenesto’s solution, in a timely, cost-effective manner.”

Collaboration features with CAD benefits

An increasingly common acronym (we just love acronyms in the CAD industry) is Collaborative Product Design or CPD. Bodnar emphasizes that in Kenesto’s case, CPD can mean both collaborative project or product design, as he believes the software will fit just as nicely in other industries where file/task/workflow management remains a challenge, such as the insurance, mortgage and AEC industries. In fact, the company’s biggest customer thus far using Kenesto is a large PR agency.

Despite that, with the founders’ strong background in engineering design, that will the primary initial market they will go after with the product. As far as company size of target customers, Bodnar says they are primarily focused on small- to mid-sized businesses, a sweet spot for PLM vendors and a largely unserved market.

A colleague, Roopinder Tara, described Kenesto as “a Dropbox with CAD benefits.” Bodnar refers to it as “Dropbox on steroids.” Either way, you get the picture. The difference: Kenesto has discussion flows, where DropBox does not; Kenesto views 250 file types, Dropbox does not.

Kenesto can also store email conversations along with notes, text files, JPEGs, PDFs as well as CAD files. It is able to view major CAD files, both for MCAD and AEC, which the company sees as a big potential market for the product, and cloud rendering for Redit models. People receiving files via Kenesto do not have to be subscribers themselves, though the person sharing/sending the files must be a subscriber.

With Kenesto, everyone in the office can model their portion of the workflow.
With Kenesto, everyone in the office can model their portion of the workflow.

Platform focuses on workflow management

Though it’s common for PLM solutions to offer file and content sharing, project organization, task management, workflow diagramming, Kenesto goes about many of these quite differently. For workflow diagramming, Bodnar says, “people in an organization know only their part of the workflow; no one person knows it all.” So Kenesto allows each participant to model their portion of the workflow. The administrator then eliminates duplicates and overlaps. This capability to track workflows creates a audit trail for managers to get a higher view of processes.

You can give Kenesto a free test drive (after registering) here.

Barb Schmitz

SpaceClaim Engineer 2014 Now Available

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SpaceClaim today announced the immediate availability of SpaceClaim Engineer 2014. With advances in nearly every aspect of the software, from new tools and extended interoperability to significantly faster performance, this new release maintains the popular interface and intuitive work flow of SpaceClaim Engineer while introducing several benefits.

“We continue to invest every year in R&D to make SpaceClaim Engineer a better platform for design engineers, CAE analysts and manufacturing engineers to embrace the 3D modeling that was previously the sole domain of CAD experts,” said Chris Randles, SpaceClaim CEO. “This version of SpaceClaim Engineer is our fastest, easiest, most flexible and most powerful release ever. It brings the benefits of 3D to a new level, with new modeling capabilities, and exciting new collaboration tools.”

SpaceClaim Engineer 2014 brings faster performance for many functions throughout the software, including a 30 percent improvement in model load times and multithreading support in several areas, including file import.

“I find SpaceClaim Engineer 2014 refreshingly enjoyable to use. I use it for generating novel, complex parts from scratch; it is an excellent modeling tool,” said Hugo DeRrick, Principal Interdisciplinary Creative for Renishaw PLC. “We pride ourselves on creating innovative solutions to complex problems; SpaceClaim Engineer 2014 gives me the tools to do exactly that.”

SpaceClaim Engineer has become a valued tool in model pre-processing for manufacturing and simulation. Users will find this release offers several new tools that speed and automate common tasks, eliminating much of the repetitive and difficult work that stands between engineers and their goals. The new version also expands interoperability with new translators and file format compatibilities including Solid Edge® AMF and AutoCAD®.

Recently, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers approved ASME 14.5, which standardizes notation and inclusion of tolerance data with the geometry. SpaceClaim Engineer provides full support for this new standard, making geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) a fully integrated component of the model.

“Many of the enhancements in SpaceClaim Engineer 2014 come directly from user feedback, and eliminate time consuming extra steps from any user’s process,” said VP of software development, Frank DeSimone. “We are completely committed to making this product fast, powerful and easy to use, and will continue to seek good ideas for improvement from our users.”

With new features like direct drag and drop file access from Outlook and new semi-parametric functionality, SpaceClaim Engineer users will find the 2014 release to be even more intuitive and easier to work with than any previous version. This release also offers support for web-hosted, browser-viewable models that anyone can view and interact with using a PC, smartphone or tablet.

Finally, Dynamics for SpaceClaim is a fully integrated add-in from Algoryx Simulation available for the first time with the launch of SpaceClaim 2014. It provides motion dynamics for multi-body systems with joints and frictional contacts, driven by Algoryx’ market leading physics engine AgX Dynamics. When installed, a Dynamics tab in SpaceClaim offers mechanics modeling, interactive dynamics simulation, plotting and analysis, and full Luxion Keyshot integration for stunning photo-realistic simulation videos.
The product is available today. Anyone interested can request a trial through http://www.spaceclaim.com/en/trial.aspx.

SpaceClaim Corporation
www.spaceclaim.com

3D PDF viewing goes mobile

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One of the reasons 3D PDF is an important file format is because it doesn’t require a special viewer. If you have Adobe Acrobat Viewer on your desktop computer, which most folks do, that’s all you need.

But what about mobile?

Adobe has versions of its reader for IOS (iPhone, and iPad), and Android. But, when you view a 3D PDF file with one of these programs, you’ll find that you don’t get 3D. You get a snapshot of the 3D. Just an image.

For 3D PDF to be taken seriously, it needs a good mobile viewer. The real question is who should develop it?

Adobe would sound like the logical choice. Except they don’t actually do the development of the 3D portion of PDF anymore. They spun that technology off to Tech Soft 3D a couple of years ago.

You may not be too familiar with Tech Soft 3D. But the software developers who make the CAD software you use are familiar with them. Tech Soft 3D develops and sells component software technologies that are used inside of CAD and high-end graphics applications.

I spoke recently with Ron Fritz of Tech Soft 3D, and he said they’d thought about this problem of needing a 3D PDF viewer for mobile devices, and came to the conclusion that they ought to develop it. Not because they could make a bunch of money at it. (In fact, they did the math, and it wasn’t all that favorable.) They decided they should develop a mobile 3D PDF viewer because it would help drive acceptance of 3D PDF—and that is important to the companies which license their HOOPS Publish component software, for creating 3D PDF files.

The 3D PDF Reader (available now for IOS devices) works hand-in hand with the mobile Adobe Reader. If you open a 3D PDF file in the Adobe Reader, you can click on the 3D image, and it will open it up using the 3D PDF reader. At that point, you can navigate around in 3D, and, if the image is an assembly, drill down to individual parts.

There is one specific capability that is quite important in this viewer: support for 3D data encoded in the PRC format.

When 3D PDF first came out, it used a simplified format called U3D for representing 3D data. It was pretty good, but not really technologically advanced. Adobe shortly acquired an advanced technology called PRC, that was much more capable. PRC:

  • Allows storage of large CAD files in a highly compressible form that is a fraction of the original size. The complete product structure of the parts defined by the CAD system can be contained in a PRC file.
  • Can represent Product Manufacturing Information (PMI), which includes Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) and Functional Tolerancing and Annotation (FT&A).
  • Allows geometry use in CAD, CAM, and CAE applications. The geometry can be stored in either a tessellated or precise form.
  • Is well on the way to ISO standardization.

The 3D PDF Reader supports assemblies, and lets you drill-down through the product structure, to individual parts. It also supports 3D GD&T and PMI.

Based on the demonstration I saw of the product, its performance is quite good, as is its handling of reasonably complex assemblies. Still, running on IOS (or Android, in the future), memory can be an issue. But, I think it’s important to understand that 3D PDF is a document oriented format. It’s not really designed for doing digital mock-ups.

While the 3D PDF Viewer is capable of displaying U3D, PRC is the future for 3D PDF. Most of today’s CAD systems natively create 3D PDF files with embedded U3D data, not PRC—but this will change. (I believe SpaceClaim is a notable exception. It can currently not only write U3D-based 3D PDF files, it can both read and write PRC-based 3D PDF files—with PMI.) There are a number of good tools, separate from CAD, for creating PRC-based 3D PDF files, including Tetra4D’s 3D PDF Converter (coupled with Adobe Acrobat X), Anark Core, and PROSTEP PDF Generator 3D.

The 3D PDF Reader, is available for Apple IOS devices now, through the Apple App Store, for $5.49.

No, it’s not free. I had a chat with Ron about this, and I came to the conclusion that five bucks is cheap enough that it won’t stop people from getting it. And it immediately gives Tech Soft 3D real feedback on interest in the product.

You might ask, what about Android? Ron told me that they wanted to see what the interest was in the IOS version, before they ship an Android version. My thought is that it’s going to be a no-brainer. There will be plenty of interest in both.

Update: I think it’s important to mention that this is just a first release of the 3D PDF Reader.  As it is, it’s more than pretty good.  But future releases, which may not be that far away, will grow in capabilities.  Things I expect to see are an assembly tree (for more PDM-like navigation of product structure), sectioning, and more integrations (this first version works on 3D PDF files delivered through email and Dropbox.) And, of course, an Android version. Still, Tech Soft 3D does not want to get into the business of competing with its customers (that is, commercial software developers.)  I wouldn’t count on them delivering advanced 3D PDF viewer applications with integrated collaboration/markup tools, and cloud-based processing.  They have the technology to build this kind of software, but I’m betting they’ll let their customers tackle it.

Tech Soft 3D www.techsoft3d.com

SpaceClaim: Sheet metal design for pirates?

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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

Analysis linked to CAD

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Comsol’s latest update to its flagship multiphysics software Comsol 4.2a includes enhanced LiveLink capability. The new associativity to between Comsol and Creo packages means any changes to a feature in the Creo CAD model automatically updates the geometry in Comsol Multiphysics while retaining physics settings.

All parameters specified in Creo can be interactively linked with your simulation geometry which enables multiphysics simulations involving parametric sweeps and design optimization to sync up with the CAD program. The LiveLink for Creo includes all the capabilities of the Comsol CAD Import module and enables import and defeaturing of CAD files from all major CAD packages.

In addition, the Parasolid geometry kernel from Siemens PLM Software is now the default geometry kernel for those who use the CAD Import module and the LiveLink products for CAD. Parasolid enables the handling of more advanced geometry objects for any of the LiveLiink products, including versions for AutoCAD, Inventor, Creo Parametric, Pro/E, SolidWorks, and SpaceClaim.

Comsol

www.comsol.com