3D CAD NEWS

This week at CADCAMNETtv, Greg Smith, our Big Mac Guy (you'll understand the double meaning when you watch) gives an overview of both Parallels and VMwareFusion running Windows XP, with AutoCAD and Rhino software, on a Macintosh.

If you've ever been curious about whether you can run your CAD system on a Mac, well this might give you pointers. However, be warned that only a select few Windows CAD products will actually run on the virtual machine, but at least it opens up the options a little more from what we have now for CAD on the Mac.

To watch the review, go to www.cadcamnet.tv; Greg's review is about half way through the broadcast. If anyone knows of any other CAD products that work on the virtual machine, please do share!

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A world-class list of speakers is scheduled for a London conference on architectural design-to-fabrication using Rhino, the free-form 3D modeling software from Robert McNeel and Associates. Architecture and engineering firms on the podium include HOK Sport, Buro Happold SMART Group, ARUP, and Zaha Hadid Architects. Representatives from each firm will present signature projects in which Rhino was a primary design tool.

"Mobile Art Pavillion" Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects

“Shape to Fabrication 2: Rhino for Architecture” on October 25, 2007, is the second such conference sponsored by UK Rhino dealer Simply Rhino. Last year’s event highlighted the then-upcoming Rhino v4; this year the emphasis is on user stories. There will also be presentations from various technologists, including:

• Andy LeBihan, McNeel US—Rendering in Rhino
• Bob NcNeel, McNeel US—Inside McNeel
• Matthew Lewis, Metropolitan Works—Digital Manufacturing Technologies
• David Rutten, McNeel US—Parametric Relationships in Rhino
• Eyal Nir, Ph.D., ParaCloud—Driving Parametric Modeling into Rhino with ParaCloud and Excel
• Cristina Gomez, Asuni CAD—Parametric/Associative Architectural Rhino Plug-in
• Claude Vuattox, CivilWorks—CivilWorks Topographic Plug-in for Rhino
• Rivka Oxman, Salford University—Digital Design Theory and Methodology

"Haymarket Hub," Courtesy Reid Jubb Brown Partnership

“Shape to Fabrication 2” is sponsored by Metropolitan Works, a London firm supporting London's creative industries and related manufacturing.

The conference registration fee is £50 + VAT per attendee. The venue is London Metropolitan University. For more information, visit the conference website or email the conference administrator.

Tomorrow over at CADCAMNet we conclude a three-part series on what makes MCAD products doodoo what they voodoo, or something like that. For the most part, the series boils down to describing the difference between the two leading MCAD technologies, and helping the reader to understand which is best for various tasks. For the uninitiated, it must seem like Spy vs. Spy; the two are fighting but it is hard to understand why.

In today’s marketplace, if you want to buy a top-selling mid-market MCAD product, you can choose from a variety of constraint-driven, history-based products. SolidWorks, Inventor, SolidEdge, and several others all work on the same principle. The geometry on the screen is a reflection of the steps listed in the history (or structure) tree. Every modeling step is recorded, in order, in the tree.

A typical history-based modeler, relentless in its ability to log every piddling detail of how the model came to be; just don’t suggest changes at the last minute.

History-based models have been leading the market for more than a decade, and to a large degree they have defined MCAD. But in recent years 3D modelers that do not rely on a history tree, but allow users to directly define and edit geometry, have been gaining momentum. These products are described by various terms. Rhino uses the phrase “free form modeling;” KeyCreator says “geometry-based design;” and CoCreate says it is “dynamic modeling.”

A typical history-free modeler, a tireless crusader for free geometry. History tree? We don’t need no stinkin’ history tree.

In editing the CCN series, I realized I have a personal bias in this matter. I understand the importance of locking down design intent with a structure tree, but it still comes across to me as control-freak behavior. Give me a free form modeler any day. Unless I’m designing a brake assembly. Or a motor. Or a 10’ mining auger. Or a jet.

 

 

 

 

Good CAD? Bad CAD? It never ends.

See the problem. It doesn’t matter if I have a personal bias, there is no one tool for the job. No wonder Black Spy and White Spy fought for years, and there was no clear winner. They must have worked for enemy CAD companies.

Alibre, Inc., the other MCAD company from Texas, has just annoucned Alibre 3D Publisher for Google SketchUp. It works with all versions of the product, from the basic free-as-in-beer-not-free-as-in-speech version to the $2K Professional model. This sneaky new add-on is also free-as-in-beer-not-as-in-speech. But it is about much more than Googlemania, as I explain if you are nice enough to keep reading.

The idea behind this MCAD mash-up (never thought I'd be putting those two words together) is to allow product designers a way to get their goods on display in Google 3D Warehouse and Google Earth. I guess somebody could accurately illustrate the contents of the city dump. "Look Mommie, I drew the toaster we threw away."

"Google SketchUp is widely used for conceptual and architectural design while Alibre Design is primarily used for precise mechanical design," we are thoughtfully told in the Alibre press release.

Now, here's the sneaky stuff. Using Alibre 3D Publisher for Google SketchUp, ANY 3D model from ANY CAD or modeling system can be exported in industry standard formats such as STEP, IGES and SAT, as well as models created natively in Alibre Design. Then the model can be published directly to the Google SketchUp format, then edited or enhanced in Google SketchUp and uploaded to the Google 3D Warehouse or placed on Google Earth. As Alibre says in its press release (we are not making this up) "This means millions of visually accurate 3D designs from thousands of popular 3D design and CAD programs, including SolidWorks, Pro/ENGINEER, CATIA, Unigraphics, SolidEdge, Inventor, Rhino, Maya, and more, can be used in Google's most popular graphics programs." I guess Alibre knew that most of those big-shot MCAD programs wouldn't be caught dead playing in Google's 3D Warehouse.

Once converted to the SketchUp format, mechanical models can also be edited directly in SketchUp via its "revolutionary and easy to use "push-pull" interface" (again quoting Alibre). To continue to quote--and please note the precise techical terms about to be used: "Unlike other conversions that simply dump out a glob of unrelated facets or triangles, [those are the technical terms I warned you about-- Editor] Alibre's 3D Publisher constructs geometrically correct models which can be directly edited in SketchUp. This provides an excellent platform to modify or create new conceptual designs relative to existing precise mechanical models, such as mounting hardware or consumer packaging. Other examples include precise woodworking models like furniture or cabinetry that can be parametrically designed in Alibre Design and then incorporated into a SketchUp model of an entire house or building."

Google SketchUp is rapidly becoming the de facto standard for 3D design among the great unwashed masses who have never considered buying CATIA. It was a smart move for Alibre to hook their star to Google in this way.

Alibre would like you to know that if you want more information about the Alibre 3D Publisher for Google SketchUp, you should visit their website at www.alibre.com/Products/3Dpublisher.asp.

Two months after shipping Rhino 4.0, publisher Robert McNeel & Associates finally got around to announcing the new product.

“I need to apologize for not telling everyone sooner that we were shipping Rhino 4.0,” explained Bob McNeel, McNeel’s CEO, in the press release. “Our plan was to inform the beta users first, followed by the registered Rhino users, and then the subscribers to our newsletter and the public, all within a few days, but by the time we let the beta and registered users know we were shipping, we were overwhelmed.”

Most CAD companies make a big production out of a product launch. Teams of marketing people, sometimes with the aid of an outside public relations firm, plan every detail. Bob McNeel runs his company a bit differently. Of the 45 or so employees in the Seattle headquarters, only two are dedicated marketing employees. They turn to a PR firm (CAD specialist StrategicReach of Denver) only occasionally. The majority (23) are programmers and related development staff.

I saw Bob McNeel last week at COFES and we talked about this “oh, by the way” launch announcement. He said they had all hands in shipping for weeks, trying to get out the orders that rushed in when they announced Rhino 4.0 to the beta users. “We literally didn’t have time to do anything else,” Bob McNeel said.“We were swamped.”

Now, about the product. McNeel says Rhino 4.0 “is the most significant new version in the history of Rhino.” There are over 800 new features and enhancements. If you want to catch up with it all, check out the video at www.rhino3d.com/4/newfeatures.htm. If you plan to buy, there are 700 dealers worldwide with copies in stock. They found time to ship them some before the announcement, too.

If the high-end CAD products (CATIA, UG) are the Lexuses of the CAD industry, so we can regard the mid-range CAD - SolidWorks, Inventor, Cocreate etc - as the BMWs and Audis, then the 'affordable' CAD (Alibre, Rhino, TurboCAD etc) are about to become the Toyota Camrys and Honda Civics of the world - used by the 'everyman' who needs to get around in 3D.

There is a documented, growing market in what we can call the 'hobbyist' market - people who don't just want to dream about designing a product in their basement, but now actually want to design and build it. And with sub-$1,000 products available, which have growing sophistication, these hobbyists are increasingly able to do exactly that. These people who used to aspire to eventually buying AutoCAD, maybe after a rare, hefty tax refund, find themselves able to afford 3D design without much thought!

Coupled with this is the rising availability of 'home' milling machines - Tormach, with its sub-$7k CNC machine, is a prime example. So now for less than $10k total, these people can go home, create an idea in 3D and then simply machine it in their garage...pretty cool. Even better, the Tormach systems do not need any additional electrical supply, and can be delivered on a truck with a hand-held forklift for placement.

While I have always been advised not to make predictions, well, here goes...Affordable 3D CAD is perfectly placed to undermine the traditional individual user-base of the mid-range CAD vendors, and this will only continue. The 'low-end' 3D CAD market has seen such an increase in sophisticated tools, functions and abilities, that the trend is already occuring under our noses. The low-end 3D CAD is rapidly catching up to the features and functions in mid-range 3D, and is blessed (most of them anyway) with newer kernels, less legacy development data and not hindered by legacy formats that can stymie new development. Their progress has been very rapid. And this will only continue. Mid-range vendors need to beware.