3D CAD NEWS

A few days ago in this space I wrote a phrase typical of the “bit of attitude” we try to bring to CAD reporting. I noted that the purchase of Seemage allowed Dassault Systemes to continue its pursuit of “proprietary 3D for all.” Which, while historically true of Dassault, isn’t really true at all when it comes to 3DLive, the 3D data viewer DS acquired in the Seemage acquisition; 3DLive reads many CAD formats. (Astute regular readers will notice the gratituous use of a semi-colon in the previous sentence, just to confound the amateurs in the audience.)

Anyway, Evan Yares (at his blog) jumped on the phrase “proprietary 3D for all” like a cat jumps on a mouse. He put it on a T-shirt that you can purchase. I’ve already ordered mine; you should do the same. If my baby (the phrase I wrote) is growing up to become a monster, at least we need to feed it. I intend to wear it for at least a few minutes at COFES, even if it does mean dressing down a bit at my favorite industry event. After all, I’m a journalist, no one expects me to dress to any particular standard. Buy your own shirt by following this link.


The infamous T-Shirt. Text by Randall Newton, Layout by Evan Yares. Production by CafePress.
Inspired by the hard work of the usual suspects.

As has been written elsewhere, the “news” from SolidWorks World last week can be easily summed up: 4,500 SolidWorks users had a nice party. Oh, and engineers who blog find some sort of deep mystery in the use of semi-colons. (Follow the link; I guess to one SolidWorks blogger, semi-colons are to CAD journalists what opposable thumbs are to mammals.)

Historic meeting of blogger (left) and CAD journalist at SolidWorks World. It seems bloggers have opposable thumbs; they just have not figured out how to write semi-colons with them.

But I digress. Sometimes the interesting stuff to be learned at such conferences isn’t said in front of a crowd. I learned from a conversation with a Dassault Systemes employee (out on the patio of the San Diego Convention Center) that the recent acquisition of Seemage was preceeded by an ugly bidding war between Dassault and Autodesk. Not ugly, obviously, to anyone who owned a piece of Seemage. Perhaps unseemly would be the better phrase. But all’s well that ends well, and now Dassault can continue to pursue its vision of proprietary 3D for all.

What’s that you say? What about the contest? Oh, yes. I’ll get to that in another post. I was waiting for one of those semi-colon-less bloggers to send me a photo. Moi is a writer, not a photog.

Dassault Systemes today announced today the acquisition of Seemage, a small firm that has specialized in the creation of XML-based tools for distributing engineering visual data. “This transaction will enable DS to provide innovative solutions addressing the growing demand of its customers in the diversified area of product documentation,” said the Dassault press release.

All too often when there is a marriage in the technology industry, there is someone in the wings suffering from unrequited love. In this case it is Lattice 3D, which also makes XML-based tools for sending CAD data out into the larger enterprise. And which thought it had a nice exclusive deal going with Dassault.

 

Speaking on behalf of Dassault Systemes, former US presidential advisor Karl Rove explains the company’s new policy toward Lattice 3D.

Purchase terms were not disclosed, which means there was a combination of unmarked bills and a few stock notes changing hands.

More later. Things are getting interesting here in Paris. It seems the Autodesk Manufacturing Media Summit is sharing the hotel with part of Fashion Week, and the lobby is crawling with models in robes waiting their turn on the runway that didn’t exist yesterday in the hotel’s Grand Salon. I don’t think I’ll tell Josh what’s going on downstairs.