But what if you could stop buying those machines, and instead give CAD users regular-old PCs?

That’s the promise with the NVIDIA GRID.  It’s a special GPU card designed for workstation virtualization.  Put a stack of powerful servers with these cards in your data center, and your CAD users can get access to all the power they need though their regular desktop or notebook computer.  All they need is an internet connection.

Here’s the NVIDIA press release on the GRID.

NVIDIA GRID Unleashes Graphics For Virtualized Desktops

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Citrix Synergy – NVIDIA today announced that it is unleashing the full graphics potential of enterprise desktop virtualization with the availability of NVIDIA GRID™ vGPU™ integrated into Citrix XenDesktop 7.

NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology addresses a challenge that has grown in recent years with the rise of employees using their own notebooks and portable devices for work. These workers have increasingly relied on desktop virtualization technologies for anytime access to computing resources, but until now this was generally used for the more standard enterprise applications. Performance and compatibility constraints had made it difficult for applications such as building information management (BIM), product-lifecycle management (PLM) and video-photo editing.

Two decades ago hardware-based graphics replaced software emulation. Desktop virtualization solutions stood alone as the only modern computing form without dedicated graphics hardware. As a result, an already busy virtualized CPU limited performance and software emulation hampered application compatibility.

The situation began to improve a year ago with the introduction of the non-virtualized GPU in Citrix XenServer. But efficiency gains were limited because each user still required a dedicated GPU.

With the introduction of new HDX GPU sharing and deep compression techniques in XenDesktop 7, NVIDIA and Citrix customers can immediately take advantage of the hosted-shared form of desktop virtualization to deliver rich, graphics-intensive applications. Using the Microsoft Windows Server RDSH and XenDesktop 7 platform can enable the sharing of GPUs across multiple user sessions.

Furthermore, the combination of Citrix XenServer and NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology allows customers to efficiently share GPUs across multiple virtual machines. This allows businesses to address a broader set of users with their desktop virtualization infrastructure across a spectrum of verticals, including:

• Architects, engineers and contractors using computer-aided design (CAD) tools, like Autodesk BIM.
• Manufacturing businesses that want to automate the connection between product design and operations using PLM tools, like Enovia 3DLive, PTC Windchill PLM Connector and SIEMENS Teamcenter software.
• Digital-content creation workers using video and photo editing tools, like Adobe® Photoshop® software.
• Health-care specialists using picture archiving and communication system (PACS) applications, like GE Centricity EMR.

Citrix CEO and President Mark Templeton introduced XenDesktop 7 with NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology today in his opening keynote address at the Citrix Synergy 2013 user conference.

“With NVIDIA GRID vGPU, even the most intensive graphics applications can be delivered by XenDesktop 7,” said Bob Schultz, vice president and general manager, Desktops and Applications Group at Citrix. “Now businesses can provide their users with the performance that they expect and need for engineering, design and video applications, while centrally securing and managing valuable intellectual property and sensitive information.”

“For the first time, NVIDIA GRID vGPU gives users of virtualized desktops the performance, stability and compatibility of hardware-accelerated graphics,” said Jeff Brown, vice president and general manager of the GRID business unit at NVIDIA. “Millions of those involved in everything from product design to manufacturing to supply chain management can now enjoy the benefits of desktop and application virtualization with NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology.”

Leading Citrix Resellers Endorse NVIDIA GRID 
M7 Global Partners, a consortium of the top nine Citrix platinum-level IT providers in the U.S., announced its support for NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology. Collectively, the group reaches thousands of clients around the world. M7 customers looking to deploy visually rich applications in businesses of all sizes, healthcare settings and schools have expressed interest in the capabilities of the NVIDIA GRID vGPU.

“I’ve been selling desktop virtualization solutions for 18 years and the single greatest source of pain in that time has been customers who want to centralize the delivery of graphics-intensive applications,” said Mike Strohl, CEO of Entisys Solutions, Inc., Agile360 and founding partner of M7 Global Partners. “The NVIDIA GRID vGPU is a game changer. At Entisys and across M7 we look forward to not only holding the spear, but to being at the tip of it as we bring to market this amazing technology, which our customers have truly been asking for.”

NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology is being shown in NVIDIA’s booth 303 and in the XenServer demonstration area at Citrix Synergy in Anaheim, Calif., through May 24. General availability is expected later this year. More information is available at NVIDIA GRID.

About NVIDIA GRID
The NVIDIA GRID portfolio — comprised of hardware, software and appliances — delivers GPU acceleration from data centers to any user. It includes the NVIDIA GRID VGX platform for enterprises; the NVIDIA GRID Visual Computing Appliance (VCA) for small and medium-size businesses; and the NVIDIA GRID Cloud Gaming Platform for gaming-as-a-service companies. Follow us at @NVIDIAGRID.

About NVIDIA
Since 1993, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has pioneered the art and science of visual computing. The company’s technologies are transforming a world of displays into a world of interactive discovery — for everyone from gamers to scientists, and consumers to enterprise customers. More information at http://nvidianews.nvidia.com and http://blogs.nvidia.com.

3D CAD World

A model of an anisotropic s-shaped material was generated using the automated curvilinear coordinates feature in COMSOL Multiphysics. Simulation results reveal highly directed heat conduction through the material with heat originating at the center disk. These types of materials are used as passive coolers for flat screens and smart phones.

New Application-Specific Modules
With the introduction of the five new modules, users in key application areas from major industries now have access to the new modeling and simulation tools offered by COMSOL.

• Multibody Dynamics Module – Provides users with the ability to analyze the assembly of rigid and flexible bodies. Transitional and rotational displacements, as well as locking, can be simulated for a variety of joint types, including prismatic, hinge, cylindrical, screw, planar, ball, slot, and reduced slot joints.
• Wave Optics Module – Allows users to analyze electromagnetic wave propagation in optically large structures, such as optical fibers and sensors, bidirectional couplers, plasmonic devices, metamaterials, laser beam propagation, and non-linear optical components.
• Molecular Flow Module – Offers the capability to simulate rarefied gas flow in complex CAD geometries of vacuum systems. This includes such applications as mass spectrometers, semiconductor processing, satellite technology, particle accelerators, shale gas exploration, and flow in nanoporous materials.
• Semiconductor Module – Enables the detailed analysis of semiconductor device operations at the fundamental physics level allowing for the modeling of PN junctions, bipolar transistors, MOSFETs, MESFETs, thyristors, and Schottky diodes.
• Electrochemistry Module – Tailored user interfaces are now available for electroanalysis, electrolysis, and electrodialysis. Typical applications include: glucose sensors, gas sensors, chlor-alkali electrolysis, desalination of seawater, waste water treatment, and control of electrochemical reactions in biomedical implants.

Model of a three-cylinder reciprocating engine developed using the Multibody Dynamics Module. Simulation results show the von Mises stress in a connecting rod during crankshaft rotation.

COMSOL Multiphysics Capabilities
The new features delivered with the COMSOL product suite include enhancements to CAD importing and geometry handling, meshing, physics, solvers, results, and productivity tools that offer increased usability and performance throughout the product development process. COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b brings tremendous enhancements to features in existing modules, thus augmenting simulation speed and the capabilities of the entire product suite. COMSOL continues to impact design processes by positively influencing the accuracy and immediacy of analysis results.

• Geometry and Mesh – A new feature allows users to make quick what-if studies by taking a 2D geometry from the cross-section of a 3D geometry. A new curvilinear coordinate system tool makes it easier to define anisotropic materials in curved geometric shapes. Additionally, increased automated swept meshing capabilities allow for faster modeling.
• Interfacing and Productivity – The new One Window Interface with LiveLink for Inventor allows users to work with COMSOL Multiphysics from within the Inventor environment. New updates in LiveLink for Excel allow the import of multiple models and export of material data from Excel to COMSOL.
• Electrical – A new magnetics solver facilitates faster stationary and time-dependent magnetics simulations. A new electrical contact feature is added to the AC/DC Module; the electric current flowing between two surfaces now varies according to surface properties and contact pressure. The periodic structures for electromagnetic waves feature is now available in the RF Module.
• Mechanical – Bolt pre-tension and beam cross-section analysis can now be simulated in the Structural Mechanics Module. Cumulative damage for fatigue analysis with random amplitude loads is now available in the Fatigue Module. The Heat Transfer Module has been enhanced with multi-wavelength surface-to-surface heat radiation, heat transfer with phase change, and thermal contact features.
• Fluid – The new frozen rotor feature in the CFD Module efficiently solves for the pseudo-steady flow field in rotating machinery for laminar and turbulent flow. A new thin screen feature for thin permeable barriers allows the simulation of wire gauzes, grills, and perforated plates. Additionally, the SST turbulence model and a new CFD solver are now available.
• Chemical – The new thin impermeable barrier for mass transport feature allows users to represent thin walls as interior boundaries with a no-mass-flux condition on both sides.

A model of silicon ICs soldered onto a circuit board was meshed using the enhanced automatic sweeping feature available in COMSOL Multiphysics. Automated sweeping substantially reduces the amount of user interaction required to create a structured mesh.

In keeping with the modeling simplicity and effectiveness that users have come to expect from COMSOL, the new modules and features implemented in the simulation platform follow the same intuitive modeling process. Since the modeling environment remains the same, both the new and existing modules can be combined and coupled to create simulations specifically designed by the user to address their unique simulation needs.

Software Download Now Available to Subscribing Users
COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b is now available worldwide for download. On-subscription license holders of the RF Module, Structural Mechanics Module, or Microfluidics Module will receive the Wave Optics Module, Multibody Dynamics Module, or Molecular Flow Module, respectively, and for free. For more information about the new release, click here.

COMSOL
www.comsol.com

3D CAD World

MSC Software founders Robert Schwendler (left) and Richard MacNeal (right), 1963

MSC Software is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It was literally one of the first software companies, and though its been through some changes over the years, it’s still in the business of creating tools for engineers to simulate and analyze complex systems.

Last week, I spent a couple of days with MSC, at their user conference in Irvine, California. While small in scale compared to the massive conferences put on by the big CAD companies, it was still good sized, with a solid group of attendees from a wide cross-section of major manufacturers.

My goal in attending was to get a read on the state of the company, and its products. About three and a half years ago, MSC was taken private by a private equity firm, and Dominic Gallello was brought in to be its new CEO. It was a major transition — one with no guarantees of success.

About Dominic

Dominic Gallello is a veteran of the engineering software industry. He held top management positions with Intergraph, Autodesk, Macromedia, and Graphisoft prior to taking over at MSC. To those of us who’ve also spent our careers in the industry, Dominic is a singular figure. Consider this anecdote: About 20 years ago, during one of Autodesk’s dealer meetings, there was a major power outage. Dominic happened to be on an elevator when the power went off, and was stuck for some time. After the power was restored, the story spread like wildfire: Turns out Dominic wasn’t the only person on the elevator. Also stuck was one of his direct reports — who, by the time the power came back on, had a big stack of new work to do. Dominic is a hard worker, and he demands the same of the people who work for him.

Since taking over at MSC, Dominic has substantially cut the overhead formerly associated with being a publicly held company, while simultaneously putting big money into product development. While at the user conference, a former MSC salesperson (who now works for a partner company) told me a story, from when Dominic first started with the company. Dominic had gone with the salesperson to visit a major customer, who was none too happy about the state of Patran, one of MSC’s major products. On the way back to the office, Dominic called ahead, and told one of his top managers that the customer had told him about problems in Patran, and that they needed to hire more engineers to work on it.

This focus on product quality is starting to show results, throughout MSC’s portfolio. Nastran, Marc, Patran, and Adams—all legacy products—are seeing substantial improvements. And, from my conversations at the MSC user conference, customers are pleased with the direction things are taking.

New products

In the last couple of years, MSC has made some interesting acquisitions. In 2011, they acquired Free Field Technologies, developers of Actran acoustic modeling software. In 2012, they acquired e-Xstream engineering, a company focused on multi-scale modeling of composite materials and structures. My sense is that, in both cases, the acquired companies were likely courted by other major CAE companies, but chose to join with MSC, because they felt it would lead to a better result.

MSC has also spent quite a bit of development effort on internal development. Last year, I wrote about Adams/Machinery in Design World. It continues to grow in capabilities. Soon to be released is MaterialCenter, a “materials lifecycle management system,” that keeps track of both materials and related manufacturing processes. This looks to be a major product.

The secret project 

As a condition for attending the user conference, MSC asked me to sign a non-disclosure agreement, in order to see a preview of a new technology. In truth, I don’t even know if I can tell you the code name for the project. Here’s a stastement from MSC that they will let me reprint:

“MSC introduced new game changer technology today at their 50th Anniversary User Conference in the U.S. There was no public announcement made as it is MSC’s desire to demonstrate the technologies to their customers and solicit feedback at the 20 user conferences around the world over the next few months before any public announcements. ”

For those of you who are justifiably cynical about marketing hype, seeing the phrase “game changer” probably sets off alarm bells. But consider this: I’ve seen the technology. It’s real. And it’s going to be big.

3D CAD World

A few weeks ago, at COFES 2013, I sat down with Jon Hirschtick, and recorded a six minute video, where he talked about the complexities of creating great CAD software — and why he loves working in the CAD industry.

You may know that Jon and some of his friends recently founded a new CAD company, with the working name Belmont Technology (they’ll change the name to something snazzy when they get close to shipping.) In this video, I didn’t ask Jon about Belmont, for a simple reason: They’re not ready to go to market. I’d prefer to wait to see what they come up with rather than spending a lot of energy speculating. It’s just a matter of being practical: I’d rather talk about the tools you can use today, rather than those you can’t buy anytime soon. However, if you really want to give it a try, you could watch this video, and make some guesses as to what Jon and his friends are working on. (I’ll give you a clue: it’s a CAD program. Beyond that, I know nothing more.)

3D CAD World

Alibre has now found a new home, and a new name. It has been folded into the 3D Systems Geomagic group, and its suite of products, formerly known as Alibre Design, is now known as Geomagic Design. Will this make a difference to the product? I think the answer is yes.

If you look back at Alibre Design before it was acquired by 3D Systems, it was a bit of a mess. The software was functional, but suffered from inadequate investment in development. A lot of the work on the software seemed to be targeted at filling checkboxes on comparison charts. The software didn’t feel like a quality product. It may be that 3D Systems knew this before they bought Alibre, or they may have figured it out after the fact. But, no matter: with the financial stability of a new corporate parent, Alibre’s developers were able to focus on doing what needed to be done. They went back, and fixed many of the mistakes from the past, making the software much cleaner and more consistent.

The 2013 version of the software formerly known as Alibre Design, and now known as Geomagic Design, just shipped on April 17. While the list of changes in the software is 60 pages long, there are two areas of improvement that are quite significant. The first is in consistency of operation. The software feels much better thought-out in the details of operation. Menus, dialogs, and pop-ups have a consistency to them that makes using the software a lot more pleasant than it used to be. The second area is 2D drawing. It’s been cleaned-up and filled-out, so that now it’s possible to produce really high-quality drawings without undue pain.

Let me put all this in context: It used to be that the main reason why many people would buy Alibre Design was because it was what they could afford. And, though it would get the job done, it was more irritating to use than it should have been. With this new version of Geomagic Design, you’ll get your work done easier, with more stability and less irritation, for the same bargain price—starting at $199, up to $1,999. (To be fair, even the most popular CAD systems are more irritating to use than they ought to be. But that’s another article, isn’t it?)

The development work for this release was largely completed before 3D Systems acquired Geomagic. So, to be fair, the Alibre development team should get the credit for this version. Starting now (or, actually, a month or two ago), the Alibre team will be working under John Alpine, the VP of Engineering of the new integrated software division at 3D Systems (Geomagic, Rapidform, Alibre and probably more.) Alpine is a CAD industry veteran, with serious technical and management chops. This bodes well for the future of the software.

3D Systems Geomagic www.alibre.com

Note: Yes, the images still say “Alibre,” and so does the website. The rebranding to Geomagic Studio just happened very recently, and some things aren’t done yet.

3D CAD World

That’s probably a pretty good working definition, but it’s not really quite right. I went back to a 2010 U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command presentation, and found a more complete definition:

A 3D annotated model and its associated data elements that fully define the product definition in a manner that can be used effectively by all downstream customers in place of a traditional drawing.

The central concept embodied in MBD is that the 3D product model is vehicle for delivery of all the detailed product information necessary for all aspects of the product life cycle. Any number of views of the model can be composed, detailed, and annotated for specific downstream operations including codification & classification, cost analysis, producibility analysis, process planning, assembly simulation, procurement, manufacturing, quality assurance, standards compliance, and many others.

The advantages of MBD can be compelling:

• Faster design revisions,
• Build and test components and assemblies in a virtual environment (do-overs are no problem),
• Infinite viewpoints and exploded views of assemblies,
• Direct to rapid prototyping,
• Direct to engineering analysis (stress, thermal, interference fit, tolerance stack-up, etc.),
• Reduced manufacturing lead time and cost,
• Automated generation and update of drawings (when drawings are needed), and
• Generation of technical manuals directly from model data.

Of course, with all those benefits, you can’t expect it to be easy to implement. There are both technical and cultural issues that have yet to be completely ironed out.

Rather than writing a long article on MBD, it occurs to me that it might make more sense not to reinvent the wheel. Last fall, I attended the Boeing/Northrop Grumman Global Product Data Interoperability Summit, where several people who spend most of their business days working on MBD (and the related concept of Model-Based Enterprise) gave some impressive presentations on the subject.

So, I give you five presentations on MBD:

I found each of these presentations to be informative, and thought provoking. If, by any chance, you too find the subject interesting, and would like to learn more, I’d like to suggest attending the 3D Collaboration and Interoperability Congress, May 21-23, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Judging by this year’s agenda, it should be well worth the trip.

3D CAD World

With the CADENAS PARTsolutions online configurator, engineers can quickly find and design the exact part they need, all directly within the Crouse-Hinds website. In just a few clicks, engineers can configure a part number and generate an interactive 3D preview on-the-fly. They can then download the exact model they need in over 150 CAD and graphic formats including native formats in Autodesk  AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, PTC Wildfire and CREO, Siemens NX, CATIA and many more. This on-demand capability makes the jobs of design engineers easier and delivers an exceptional customer experience.

Cooper Crouse-Hinds now has over 40 families of harsh and hazardous electrical products available through their PARTsolutions configurator, and will be working towards 100 families by the end of 2013.

Cooper Crouse-Hinds added the CADENAS PARTsolutions embedded product catalog to their website to better meet the needs of engineers who need high-quality product models to include in their designs. In the past, Cooper Crouse-Hinds offered CAD models by request only and in a limited number of formats.

Cooper Crouse-Hinds
www.crouse-hinds.com

CADENAS PARTsolutions
www.partsolutions.com

3D CAD World

For engineers and designers in the United States, Russia doesn’t often come to mind when thinking about sources of CAD software. Yet, Russia is one of the global centers for the development of advanced CAD software.

Russia’s rise to preeminence in CAD software development was spurred by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, after which many of Russia’s top minds in the physical and theoretical sciences found themselves reduced to penury. Beginning in the mid 1990s, as economic reforms allowed private investment in Russia, multinational corporations, including IBM and Intel, started to take advantage of the large pool of highly-educated scientists and mathematicians in Russia. Intel, in particular, recognized that Russia was an ideal venue for the development of mathematically intense graphics software.

One notable CAD vendor that, early on, recognized the mathematical strengths of Russian software developers was Dassault Systemes. In 1996, DS started working with the Russian Research Institute of Artificial Intelligence, and, subsequently, with Ledas, a spin-out of the institute and the AI Lab of the Institute of Informatics Systems in Novosibirsk, Siberia. DS and Ledas worked together continuously until 2011, successfully completing 11 major contracts. The components developed by Ledas as part of that relationship were incorporated into DS’s CATIA V5 and V6 CAD programs, and have, according to DS, proven their reliability and performance in a full industrial context.

While DS was one of the first CAD vendors to develop software in Russia, they were not alone for very long. By the late 1990s, Russia was on its way to becoming a major force in CAD and CAE application and component software development. There is no complete list of Russian developed CAD and CAE programs, but it’s not hard to find examples. FlowEFD, from Mentor Graphics, and FlowVision, from Capvidia, are both highly advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) programs developed in Russia (not by the same people, but by people who at least know each other.) TurboCAD, from IMSI, BricsCAD, from Bricsys, and IntelliCAD, from the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium, are all developed in Russia—as are the Open Design Alliance’s Teigha interoperability libraries, which are used by hundreds of CAD vendors around the world. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a significant CAD program that doesn’t include component technologies developed in Russia.

With all the success that multinational CAD companies have had with Russian software development, it’s hard not to ask, what about Russian CAD, developed for the Russian market?

It’s an interesting question, with an interesting answer. CAD development for the Russian market started in 1989, somewhat after the arrival of the PC, and somewhat before the break-up of the Soviet Union. It has been ongoing, ever since.

But it’s not been easy. The largest CAD vendor in Russia is Autodesk, and their biggest selling—or more accurately, most popular—product is AutoCAD. In Russia, for many years, the biggest competition for domestic CAD vendors came from pirated copies of AutoCAD.

From the perspective of an engineer in the United States, there are at least three really interesting Russian CAD companies, with products that are in the same league as those from companies with more familiar names. They’re companies you should know about, not only because their products are good, but, because, as organizations, they’re battle-tested. They’ve proven that, even while enduring economic and political upheavals, they can innovate, and deliver high-quality products that can handle tough problems.

KOMPAS
Founded in 1989 by Alexander Golikov and Tatiana Yankina, ASCON was one of the first CAD developers in Russia and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries. Over the years, it’s grown to become the largest native Russian CAD/PLM company, with 550 employees, of which 200 are in research and software development.

ASCON’s flagship products are KOMPAS-3D and KOMPAS-Graphic, 3D and 2D CAD programs, respectively, that compete in the mainstream market.

Photorealistic rendering of an engine, showing FEA mesh, created with ASCON KOMPAS

KOMPAS-3D and KOMPAS-Graphic both use ASCON’s internally developed C3D geometric modeling kernel. Rather than being patched together, they have been designed, from the beginning, to provide a unified 2D/3D solution, supporting a wide range of modeling methodologies. In 3D, this includes solid modeling, and sculpted surface modeling, using explicit, parametric, or variational direct modeling methods. That last method—variational direct modeling (VDM)—is based on solver technology developed by Ledas, and now owned by Bricsys, which has been integrated into the C3D kernel. It is distinguished in supporting smart editing and reparameterization of models, irrespective of whether they were originally created in KOMPAS.

While KOMPAS includes a full feature set in its standard form, ASCON offers a large number of optional components, including steel structure design, 3D piping, kinematic simulation, mechanism design, photorealistic rendering, mold and die design, and quite a bit more.

To give you a sense of KOMPAS’s capabilities, it’s used by more than 7000 industrial and engineering organizations in Russia and abroad, and finds application in a wide range of disciplines, including machinery, automotive, electronics, shipbuilding, atomic energy, aerospace, defense, plant design, civil engineering, and architecture.

KOMPAS has a reputation for solid reliability, and excellent interoperability. With the inclusion of variational direct modeling, it’s likely to be quite capable in hybrid workflows, where you need to work with CAD data from multiple sources.

CATIA was used to model the airframe of the MiG-29K, but ASCON KOMPAS-3D was used to design its life-support system. The assembly includes 350 parts.

T-FLEX
In the late 1980s, seven graduate students of the Moscow State Technological University “Stankin” started working together, with the goal of creating a parametric CAD software package for industry. By 1989, they had a usable piece of software, and they started providing it to Russian manufacturers at no charge. In 1992, they officially registered Top Systems Ltd.

Their CAD product, T-FLEX, has been continuously developed through the years, and has evolved into an exceptionally capable system, supporting unified operations for all types of documents and entities, including drawings, assembly drawings, solids, surfaces, parts, parts with multiple solid bodies, assembly models, sheet metal, and bill of materials.

People who are familiar with the CAD market point to Pro/Engineer as the first parametric feature-based 3D solid modeling CAD system. Most CAD systems that have come since have pretty much copied the Pro/E approach, using a similar form of history-based parametrics. At first glance, T-FLEX seems also to be following this approach. But only at first glance.

Parametrics are at the core of T-FLEX. Any thing in T-FLEX can be related to anything else. Variables can be assigned at any time for component names, visibility, material, or any numeric or text attribute of any entity. They can then be processed with any algebraic or logical expression to control the behavior of the design. Parameters can be calculated from graphic dependencies, using, for example, measure and distance functions. Parameter values can be dynamically selected from internal tables, or external Excel, database, or other types of files, depending on the conditions of other parameters. This capability is used by T-FLEX to create parametric library elements.

T-FLEX is right at home working with highly parametric complex assemblies.

T-FLEX lets you create parametric 2D drawings from scratch, with no limit on the number of constrained 2D entities. T-FLEX parametric sketches (for 3D operations) immediately update to any changes, regardless of their source. T-FLEX includes fully parametric drawing documentation, including dimensions, tolerances, text, and drawing notes. You can create parametric 2D assemblies by inserting parametric 2D components with complex parametric relations. And you can create fully parametric 3D assemblies.

As a start, the flexibility of T-FLEX parametrics allows you to explicitly add design intent to 3D models and assemblies, rather than relying on the implicit intent in their construction history. An obvious use of this flexibility is to create families-of-parts. But the logical extension to this is much more interesting: with T-FLEX parametrics, it’s possible to implement mass-customization systems, such as assemble-to-order, configure-to-order, and engineer-to-order. It’s even possible to use T-FLEX as an Internet engine in these applications.

T-FLEX includes an impressive set of capabilities beyond parametrics. It supports integrated surface and solid modeling, and direct editing with retained history. It includes extensive detailing and annotation tools including PMI (Product and Manufacturing Information.) Associative bill of materials (BOM) and integrated sheet metal design are included standard, as are a broad set of import/export CAD data translators.

Top Systems offers a substantial number of optional modules for T-FLEX, including mold design, Finite Element Analysis, motion simulation, weldment design and documentation, dynamics, and CAM.

nanoCAD
Spend some time looking at nanoCAD, and you’ll probably come to the conclusion that it’s not particularly exotic, for a CAD program. Its user interface looks not too dissimilar to AutoCAD. Its command set is rather like AutoCAD too. It reads and writes AutoCAD compatible DWG files. And it has an API that’s rather like AutoCAD’s as well.

There are only two things that really set nanoCAD apart. First is that it’s a really well-crafted program. There’s nothing slap-dash about it. Second is that it’s free, for commercial, educational, or other purposes, as an individual or corporate user.

nanoCAD looks a lot like AutoCAD. The resemblance is intentional.

The obvious question to ask is how Nanosoft, the developers of nanoCAD, can get away with giving this program away. The answer is that their main business is CAD application development, for various industries. They charge for those applications, which they build on nanoCAD. They give nanoCAD away.

As an aside, you might wonder why the developers at Nanosoft didn’t just license IntelliCAD, or some other AutoCAD compatible program. While they probably won’t say this out loud, the answer becomes evident when you use nanoCAD. As I said before, it’s a really well-crafted program.

If a software developer is going to build CAD applications, the obvious platform to choose is AutoCAD. Except, of course, for the fact that it’s expensive. Trading genuine AutoCAD for an AutoCAD clone (which is cheaper, but of unknown quality) might seem like a reasonable choice for most CAD developers. But there are a very few software developers out there who have both the experience and the skill to be able to build a serious CAD program from scratch, and do it better than most of their competitors. Though I can’t prove it, I believe that’s the case with the developers at Nanosoft.

Did I mention that it’s a really well-crafted program?

If you need an AutoCAD compatible program (and many engineers and designers need one from time to time), nanoCAD is a sweet choice.

Reprint Info>>

ASCON
www.ascon.net

Top Systems
www.tflex.com

Nanosoft
www.nanocad.com

Ledas
www.ledas.com

UPDATE: More interesting things continue to happen in the Russian CAD market.  Starting this week, on April 11, key participants from ASCON, Top Systems, Fidesys, and Ledas will be attending COFES: The Congress on the Future of Engineering Software, in Scottsdale, AZ. I’m pleased to say that I’ll be there with them.

3D CAD World

While I think it’s healthy for SolidWorks to periodically remind its customers that it still loves them, in this case, the message was made a little bit more urgent, as Dassault Systemes head Bernard Charles had been a bit overly enthusiastic at a customer meeting last year, and made a statement that pretty much sounded like DS was going to ditch Parasolid. OK — it was more than “pretty much.”

So, record set straight: SolidWorks Mechanical CAD (the name they’re now using for the existing  SolidWorks product) will continue to use the Parasolid kernel. There is no plan to change the kernel. They will continue to develop and improve SolidWorks Mechanical CAD, and have no end-of-life plan for it. They’re not going to do anything to alienate their largest customer base.

That is all.

We now return you to your previously scheduled programming.

3D CAD World

In this Design World editorial Webinar, Jennifer Herron discusses best practices in managing mass properties in CAD assemblies.

Jennifer is the owner of Action Engineering, a company that specializes in the promotion, process development and standardization of 3D CAD Model Based Design. With over 16 years of experience creating and building complex hardware systems for the aerospace and defense industry, her experience runs the gamut from flight hardware mechanisms to spacecraft layout and configuration. She is an expert in multiple CAD packages, which she uses along with her practical design experience to hone standards and processes that optimize the ROI of CAD systems. In addition to her involvement developing many flight satellite systems, Jennifer has designed military robot platforms and holds a patent for a snake propulsion mechanism.

3D CAD World