3D CAD NEWS

CADCAMNet is reporting today that engineering IT stocks have, as a group, dropped 38% in 2008.

Of 47 stocks in the report, only two are up for the year, (Delcam and Navtec) while 14 are down 50% or more.

The article shows results for each of the 47 companies, and also by categories (AEC/GIS/Plant, MCAD/CAE, CAM/RP, Channel/Services/cPDM, and ECAD). As a category, ECAD is down the most, while MCAD/CAE is down the least.

More information: www.cadcamnet.com.

The ignoble Pushmi-Pullyu (“push-me pull-you”) is a two-headed beast made famous by the Doctor Doolittle stories of the 19^th Century. The mythical animal is noted for its ability to do either two things at once or struggle to do nothing, and to oscillate between these two extremes. Our 21^st Century CAD equivalent is history-free feature-based 3D modeling. For years a few vendors struggled to gain market share with it (CoCreate and Kubotek come to mind), but suddenly Pushmi-Pullyu CAD has become the rage.

SpaceClaim got way more press than it deserved for its new “natural 3D design system” last year, then PTC embraced its inner pushmi-pullyu by buying CoCreate. Today Siemens PLM Software becomes the latest CAD company to abandon the CAD Reich gospel of parameters uber alles with the introduction of what it calls synchronous technology (as if there is something mysteriously asynchronous about using existing 3D CAD tools; but we digress).

The Pushmi-Pullyu, new mascot of Siemens PLM Solutions

No less an authority on these things than Dr. Ken Versprille, the father of NURBS and resident PLM guru at CPDA, says in a published quote (I’ll bet a dollar he was paid to write), “its ability to recognize current geometry conditions and localize dependencies in real time allows synchronous technology to solve for model changes without the typical replay of the full construction history from the point of edit.”

Ken’s quote is a real mouthful, so let us translate for the SolidWorks bloggers among our readership: You don’t have to redraw the damn part to make a single damn change all the damn time anymore. The good doctor goes on to say that “… users will see dramatic performance gains. A 100 times speed improvement could be a conservative estimate.”

Wow! Models 100x faster than with Autodesk Inventor and probably 300x faster than CATIA? Siemens resellers must be doubled over with orgasmic spasms at the mere suggestion of such superior results, especially because this new technology will be added to both NX and Solid Edge. Maybe Solid Edge will actually sell some copies again.

When you get the previous word picture washed out of your mind, let us consider something a bit more serious. CAD pundits (self glamourously included as shown below) refer to the Big Four CAD Vendors: Autodesk, Dassault Systemes, Siemens PLM, and PTC. A year ago not one of these had history-free feature-based modeling; now two do. Not that long ago Autodesk and Dassault entered into a bidding war over Seemage; perhaps SpaceClaim just might survive long enough to be so lucky.

A self-proclaimed Leading CAD Pundit caught in the act of meditating on synchronous technology at COFES 2008.

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.

 

Autodesk has gathered members of the CAD media from throughout the known world, assembling them in Paris for the Autodesk Manufacturing Media Summit, which starts today.

Our home for these three days is the Grand Hotel Intercontinental, next door to the Paris Opera house. Classy joint for a bunch of lowlife CAD media hacks (present company included).

Our neighboorhood for the Summit. The hotel is the triangular building lower left; the opera house has the green dome. (Image courtesy Google Earth).

I am still on US Left Coast time, so I was wide awake at 4am. At 7am I went on the streets of Paris, smelling remarkably fresh after a good rain last night. (I’ve been here before, I know it won’t last.) I am fond of strong protein at breakfast, but the French do not agree. So I had a bready thing with raisins in it, and of course that wonderful European coffee that Americans can only dream about. I am a tea person at home, but here the coffee is worth drinking. 

I cashed in miles to bring two of my teens with me; any excuse to fill a free hotel room. They have been asleep for 15 of the last 20 hours. I wonder if they will get to see much of Paris at this rate.

Josh and Brianna (Dad in middle) were awake long enough to pose in front of the fresh-cut flowers in the Hotel Grand Intercontinental. Neither are allowed to date or even speak to members of the opposite sex, so just move long, nothing here to see.

More to come, often, from both Rach and I.

 

In a move that took nobody by surprise, CoCreate Software commuted the death sentence of CoCreate OneSpace Modeling Personal Edition, AKA Junior CoCreate. Instead of being executied for participating in a short-term marketing campaign, Junior will serve a life sentence of delivering history-free 3D modeling at no cost for assemblies of up to 60 parts, in English, German, Italian, and Japanese.

The clemency move was greeted by puzzled looks inside the halls of the big Four MCAD Vendors, who are still working out how to get their history untangled from their geometry without getting thrown in jail for it.

More information: http://www.cocreate.com/free

Junior CoCreate was all smiles when removed from Death Row.