3D CAD NEWS

To all 3DCADNews Readers,

The 3D Editorial Team wishes everyone a great Holiday week, in whatever it is you are celebrating, and we wish the entire CAD/CAM industry the best of fortunes in 2008.

We are by no means signing out until the New Year and will be continually tracking and watching the CAD news at all of our sister sites at:
AECnews,
CADCAMNet
CCNtv
TeamDWf and more,

Please have a fun time reading our sites and watching our broadcasts, and may your God be with you as we step into the New Year.

3D CAD News editorial team

Russian technology news site CNews is reporting the murder of an Autodesk Russian distributor.

Vladimir Kurochkin was Director General and sole owner of MasterCad, a successful Autodesk distributor. Investigators say he was shot in the head; a 9mm cartridge was found at the scene of the crime.

The full article, in English, is at: http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2007/12/19/280330.

Since 1999 Apple has been hounding online news site ThinkSecret, which has a reputation for reporting on new Apple products and initiatives long before the company speaks publically on them. In 2005 it sued the publisher for exposing trade secrets. Today the publisher, a college student named Nicholas Ciarelli, settled with Apple by shutting down his website.

A terse statement was jointly issued by Apple and Ciarelli today:

December 20, 2007 - PRESS RELEASE: Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides. As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published. Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret’s publisher, said “I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits.”

Ciarelli is an undergraduate at Harvard University, and has been an editor at the student newspaper The Harvard Crimson. ThinkSecret was his labor of love as a self-admitted rabid Macintosh fan.

(left: ThinkSecret Publisher and Harvard Student Nicholas Ciarelli)

This sets a terrible precedent. Apple already stands alone in the computer industry as the most paranoid about its image and its ability to control news about its products. Now they have succeeded in using an army of corporate lawyers to shut down a college student’s blog. This is corporate bulling of the worst sort, as well as a show of haughty contempt for the rights of a free press in the United States.

The phrase “amicable settlement” strongly suggests that Apple paid Ciarelli off. You can’t blame him. What would the average college student/blogger do if, while fighting a lawsuit from one of the biggest companies in the computer industry, they offer cash to make you just go away?

ZDNet’s  Larry Digman put it well today:

I can’t blame Ciarelli. When it comes to lawsuits Apple has a cannon and ThinkSecret has a pea shooter (if that). Why wouldn’t you want to put this lawsuit behind you? But a shutdown sets a bad precedent. Every time a blog writes something a company doesn’t like–Apple is a big stickler–or leaks information a publisher will have two choices: Shutdown and save your financial life. Or get destroyed by an army of lawyers.

 

Another round of artillery fire, in what seems to be an ongoing feud in the rapid prototyping industry was lobbed this week when RP vendor 3DSystems was granted a preliminary injunction in Germany against rival RP vendor EnvisionTEC. It was your basic "shut your mouth" injunction.

To work from the present and going backwards (the story has length but is worth it), this week 3D Systems obtained the injunction to prevent EnvisionTEC from further publishing statements it made in a November 28, 2007 press release, which stated 3Dsystems' "V-flash unit system is potentially infringing on its German issued patents."

3DSystems' December 18 2007 press release about the injunction states,
"The preliminary injunction prohibits EnvisionTEC from the further publication of those statements in Germany and stated that EnvisionTEC GmbH may be subject to a fine of up to €250,000 or that its legal representatives are subject to arrest and imprisonment for up to six months for each violation of the court’s prohibition order." (editor comment: ouch)

But this is a huge step forward from the war of words in the weeks before: 3DSystems' December 4th announcement initially responding to the claims made by EnvisionTEC has the following quote:

“As a company, we are keenly aware of the importance of intellectual property, and we make every effort not only to protect our own intellectual property but also to respect the valid intellectual property rights of others,” said Abe Reichental, president and chief executive officer of 3D Systems. “In this regard, we are currently involved in litigation with EnvisionTEC in the United States charging that its Perfactory and Vanquish prototyping systems infringe a number of our United States Patents. With respect to EnvisionTEC’s recent press release, we believe that EnvisionTEC does not have sufficient technical information or a factual basis for the statements it makes in that release.”

Here's a curious point: the offending November 28 2007 press release issued by EnvisionTEC is almost nowhere to be found on the web, anywhere, even on the company's web site. It implies a lot about EnvisionTEC's press release distribution ability and I even started to think that they may have simply sent it to their sibling rivals at 3DSystems for some fun and giggles near Christmas. But no, thank goodness for Ralph Grabowski, who kindly dug up the text from the cache archives of Google. It reads as follows:

BREAKING NEWS - EnvisionTEC Gmbh Claim Patent Infringement

November 28th, 2007 - EnvisionTEC Gmbh has officially notified the
German distributor of the V-flash system manufactured by 3D Systems
company that the V-flash unit system is potentially infringing on
its German issued patents.

"Our intellectual property is very essential to our strength in
delivering innovative solutions to our customers, and growing our
market share in the Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing market. We
intend to vigorously defend our patents when we believe that they are
being infringed upon" said Mr. Siblani, CEO of EnvisionTEC Gmbh.

EnvisionTEC Gmbh is based in Gladbeck Germany and manufactures a
complete line of rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing systems
known as the Perfactory Standard, MINI , and Desktop. It also
manufactures the Perfactory Vanquish Flashcure System as well as its
latest offering, the Perfactory Xede.

But the squabble doesn't end there. In a clear pattern of feudal hissing and squabbling in the RP family, 3DSystems is currently involved in litigation in the US regarding EnvisionTEC's possible infringement of 3DSystems' US patents. That began in 2006; 3D Systems issued a press release on March 9. Part of it reads:

"3D Systems’ complaint asserts that the defendants are infringing these U.S. patents by importing, marketing or selling prototyping systems, including their PERFACTORY and VANQUISH modeling systems, used for creating physical three-dimensional models of objects." This legal action is still ongoing and is referred to in the Dec 4, 2007 press release by 3DSystems.

But then the story twists. In a moment of what we at 3D CAD News see as pure hypocrisy, 3DSystems asserted the following in its December 4th 2007 press release:

"“It is regrettable that EnvisionTEC has chosen to issue a press release concerning its views with respect to its patents and our V-Flash™ Desktop Modeler. We prefer that legal issues be confined to the appropriate legal forum and that companies compete fairly in the marketplace,” concluded Reichental. “Unfortunately, EnvisionTEC’s public statements have left us with no alternative but to respond in order to make our distributors and customers aware of the facts and our position.”

Now then, who issued that first opening shot, publicized via press release, on March 9, 2006? It could, just perhaps, have been 3DSystems, non?

And while members of the RP family continue to lob grenades back and forth as a form of distraction from the job at hand, rich cousin Stratasys continues to experience record growth. You can see more about the financial health of Stratasys and 3Dsystems at CADCAMNet's lead story last week, at www.cadcamnet.com. (Free trial subscription or paid subscription required.)

David Prawel, who has organized and hosted the 3D Collaboration and Interoperability conference with SME for the last few years, has announced the conference will now be hosted in Denver, CO, on May 15-16, 2008.

Despite the best efforts of many, interoperability of 3D data can still remain a frustrating problem. Even with the many work-arounds and neutral file formats in existence, the translation of usable 3D data still often doesn't work. According to our CADCAMNet Interoperability survey back in May 2007 (Subscription or free trial required), while interoperability has become more manageable, it is still by no means resolved.

The conference will follow its standard format, with a few extras thrown in such as:

• Multi-CAD interoperability,
• Migrating CAD data,
• Cross-PDM interoperability,
• Lightweight 3D formats,
• and, of course, a lot lot more.

This intimate conference will convene at the beautiful Denver Athletic Club, with stunning views of the Rockies (just so you don't forget how insignificant mountains can be). Early registration ends January 15th 2008.

You can find out more at: www.longviewadvisors.com

Stratasys today announced that John McEleney of SolidWorks fame, has been elected to its board of directors. McEleney, who is still a director at SolidWorks after resigning his post as CEO of the company earlier this year, is also on the board of Newforma, a company which develops AEC project management software.

Stratasys is a pretty cool RP company, and has recently moved into the areas of direct digital manufacturing with its latest system, the FDM 900mc. It has seen consistently good revenue growth over the last few years, and is anticipating 2007 revenues to be between $109 - $112 million.

We suspect that John's influence on the company will be good for them all. He is respected across the industry, not just for his MCAD smarts but his business savvy.

We found a fascinating post on the Denver Craigslist job boards this week - a publishing firm based in Loveland, CO, which we are guessing is Penton, is seeking "Managing Producer to develop content for Engineering TV, an online video program for engineers."

With our very close connection to CADCAMNETtv, we took a quick look at the requirements. With a stated aim to produce four weekly broadcasts, the company wants something that is almost amusing in its naiveté: the applicant must be an experienced video camera and AV operator, video editor, experienced writer, journalist, on-screen personality, and engineering expert.

Now if they find this person, we will applaud. But the reality is that these roles are typically highly specialist skills that take very different kinds of personality and a vast range of training. Many of them can be mutually exclusive: just in training alone, this person being sought will have to have the following to qualify:

Today PTC published an open letter to CoCreate customers from CEO Richard “Dick” Harrison, welcoming them to the PTC happy family. Sifting the usual marketing drivel from the interesting stuff, the news seems to be that CoCreate will continue as a product line.



As CEO, Harrison gets first dibbs on all new acquisitions.

Harrison said PTC will:

• Maintain, enhance and further develop all CoCreate products indefinitely, including OneSpace Modeling, OneSpace Drafting, OneSpace Model Manager, OneSpace Drawing Manager, OneSpace Live! and OneSpace.net;
• Continue to offer all CoCreate solutions as stand-alone offerings.
• Integrate CoCreate solutions with complementary PTC solutions (such as the earlier acquisitions from MathCAD, ITEDO, and Arbortext, as well as existing PTC products including Windchill).
• Drop the term “dynamic modeling;” from now on, PTC will refer to CoCreate’s history-free approach as “explicit modeling.”

Also today, a note from Ulrich Mahle, VP Marketing and R&D for the CoCreate division, says that OneSpace 2008 will go to product stabilization and QA after Christmas. He promises the 2008 edition will offer a new approach to creating patterns of user-defined form features, such as sets of faces building a boss or a pocket. Once defined, a form feature can be applied to the model repeatedly. For example, Mahle says, a user could position several instances equally in a circular arrangement. It will also be possible to unshare features from the pattern for individual modifications, and a feature can also be modified and the modification used in other features shared in the pattern definition.