Deelip Menezes

Synchronous Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:19:19 -0500

Just a short note to lay down a few facts about my series on Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology.

My understanding, views and conclusions on Synchronous Technology that I have expressed in this series are based on my experience with the Beta version of the software alone. Siemens has not shared with me any information regarding the internal working of the software or the logic used in the technology. Siemens sent one of it's Applied Specialists to my office who gave me a demo. He also gave me a Siemens coffee mug and nothing else ;-)

I write software for a living, not reviews. But after a recent incident, I decided to take some time off work and blog a little. I have been wanting to write about Synchronous Technology for a long time now, but was gagged by virtue of the fact that SYCODE is a Solid Edge Voyager Partner. I thank Dan Staples, the Director of Solid Edge, for making an exception in my case and letting me wag my tongue, although I think he will not regret letting me do so.

Personally I believe that innovations like Synchronous Technology is the way forward and I wish Siemens and all other developers of direct modeling software the very best.

Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology Series
Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - Steering Wheel
Part 3 - Live Rules
Part 4 - Dimensions
Part 5 - Procedural Features

Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology - Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:40:21 -0500

In this part I will discuss the fourth and final concept of Synchronous Technology: Procedural Features. I also intend to answer the question: "Is it really a hundred times faster?". Before we get to procedural features, let's spend some time on ordinary features.

Traditional parametric modelers have a feature tree that contains a set of features in the order they were created. The problem with the feature tree is that the child features depend on their parents for their existence and/or shape. Modifying a parent feature can affect it's children, and not always positively.

Solid Edge ST creates features the same way they are created by a traditional parametric modeler, but does not order them using parent-child relationships. It's like plucking out all the features from a feature tree and dumping them into a feature basket. If you edit one particular feature in the basket, the rest adjust themselves as necessary. If you remove a feature from the basket, again the rest of the features adjust themselves as necessary. Now this is what everyone raving about Synchronous Technology seems to believe.

However, I feel the need to point out something here. The features that are seen in the Solid Edge ST Path Finder (the equivalent of the traditional feature tree) are very different from the features we see in the traditional parametric modelers. In a traditional parametric modeler, you can edit a feature by specifying new values for it's parameters. For example, for an extrusion feature, you can modify the extrusion distance and the feature will be updated. You cannot do this with a feature in Solid Edge ST. This is because the features here are dumb and have no parameters to edit. The only way to change the extrustion distance is to pull/push the face you extruded in the first place or set up a dimension and edit the dimension. The features in Solid Edge ST are merely a collection of related faces that make up the feature. They do not even know which sketch was used to create them. You can go ahead and delete all the sketches in a part and the model will hold up just fine.

People using traditional parametric modelers may consider this as a drawback, when in fact, it is the greatest advantage. This is precisely what gives Synchronous Technology to power to edit features in any order. Let me try and explain this by means of an simple example. The figure below shows a part consisting of three boxes created as extrusions one on top of the other. In a traditional parametric modeler, creating such a part would automatically set up the parent-child relationships from bottom to top.

When I delete the middle protrusion, the top protrusion gets orphaned and is left dangling in space, yielding a multi body part. Doing the same thing in Solid Edge ST gives a different result.

Now watch what happens if I try to increase the height of the middle box.

The parametric modeler (left) pushes the top box upwards, whereas Solid Edge ST (right) keeps the top box where it was and simply reduces it's height. Which effectively means that I have edited the middle feature without interfering with the feature above and below it. How this happens is quite interesting and needs a little explanation.

Every edge in a water tight solid model has exactly two faces that touch it, one on either side. Moving the edge (which is what happenned in the figure above) affects both faces and they are trimmed or extented as necessary. If one of the faces is deleted (as was the case when I deleted the middle box) the other face spills over the edge and proceeds to find a face that will trim it. When all such faces get trimmed we end up with a watertight solid once again. Even if one of the faces does not get trimmed, the software reports a modeling error.

So as you can imagine we need not be bothered about the order in which the features were created. We are only concerned with the faces of the model (irrespective of the feature that they belong) which will need to be extended or trimmed in order to keep the model water tight.

So to answer the question: "Is this a hundred times faster?", the answer is "For large models, yes. Maybe a lot lesser for smaller and simpler models". Imagine you have a large part with more than a hundred features and you wish to change a parameter in one of the features high up in the feature tree. Your traditional parametric modeler will need to rebuild the entire model while you sit and twiddle your thumbs. Synchronous Technology will only look for faces in the vincinity that will be affected and extend/trim them quickly. It does not matter how high or low in the feature bucket the feature lies. To Synchronous Technology a feature is just a bunch of related dumb faces.

Using the benefit of hindsight, I now wonder why PTC took the heirarchal feature tree approach dedades ago and everyone followed them blindly. Seems like we have been unnecessarily taking the longer route all these years.

Anyways, so does Synchronous Technology employ parametric features at all? Yes, they do and they call it Procedural Features, most probably to distinguish them from ordinary features discussed above. Although pulling, pushing and rotating faces does the trick in most cases, there are times when you need to rely on good old parametric features. For example, I cannot think of any face to pull, push or rotate in order to double the number of holes in the flange below.

This is what traditional parametric modeling is famous for and Synchronous Technology has adopted some of these key aspects. Rectangular and circular patterns are examples of procedural features and work more or less the same way as in traditional parametric modeling. Other examples are holes, thin walls (shell) and rounds. Like I said before, Synchronous Technology offers the best of both worlds and I like the mix.

Here is a video that shows the circular pattern procedural feature.

This wraps up this series and my understanding of Synchronous Technology. But there is still one unanswered question that I asked in Part 1: "Does the industry really need Synchronous Technology?" If you have been following this series then I guess you already know my answer. I would like to know yours. What do you think?

Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:42:23 -0500

In Part 1 I mentioned that I would try and find answers to a few questions floating around with respect to Synchronous Technology. One of them was, "Is this really new?". Up untill now I have discussed the Steering Wheel and Live Rules, both of which are not new. There is at least one CAD system that has implemented both of them before Siemens did. It's SpaceClaim. SpaceClaim has something known as the "Move Handle" and an advanced face search and selection window (not sure what fancy name they have given it, if at all) which does more or less the same things as the Steering Wheel and Live Rules of Synchronous Technology.

And here is where the similarity between Solid Edge ST and SpaceClaim (and probably other similar direct modelers) ends, at least with respect to the capabilities of Synchronous Technology.

One of the main reasons why parametric solid modeling became a hit when it was first introduced by PTC many years ago was it's ability to capture design intent. Another was the ease at which you could edit features or delete them. Yet another was the concept of having patterns or arrays of the same feature in an ordered manner. Synchronous Technology offers all these advantages without the overhead of the dreaded feature tree. This is truly the best of both worlds.

In this part I will discuss design intent and how it is encoded into a model using dimensions. For those of you familiar with parametric solid modeling you already know how dimensions can drive the geometry of a model. So for the benefit of those who are not familiar, I will take a very simple example of a box with a hole at its center. Now, as a designer it is my intention that the hole should always stay at the center of the box, no matter how much I increase or decrease it's length or breadth. So I create dimensions for the length and breadth and set up formulae for the hole dimensions (in red) to be exactly half of the length and breadth respectively.

Now I can give my "intelligent" model to any other designer who can look up the formulae that I set up in the variable table and deduce my design intent. And if I or someone else decides to pull a face in order to increase the length of the box, the formulae will ensure that the hole is repositioned back to the center of the box.

As you can imagine, you can do far more complicated things, but I think you get the point. Solid Edge ST is the first direct modeling system I have seen that offers such functionality. If you know of any other please do let me know.

In the next part I will discuss procedural features. Stay tuned.

Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:10:22 -0500

In Part 2 I discussed the Solid Edge ST steering wheel, a smart tool that adapts to the geometry it is attached to. In this article I will be discussing a concept called "Live Rules". To put it simply, live rules is a set of instructions that the user passes on to the steering wheel. The steering wheel decides the direction in which the faces should move/rotate. The live rules simply decide which faces should take part in the operation.

In the figure below I intend to move the hole further away from the center of the handle. The most obvious thing to do it select the hole (highlighted in orange) and pull it along the Y axis. This is what would happen in other solid modeling applications.

The hole moves all right, but the rest of the model stays put. Not what I had in mind. But if I do the same thing in Solid Edge ST, the hole moves and the rest of the model adjusts accordingly. Exactly what I had in mind.

This happens because of live rules. So now you must be thinking, "Wow! This live rules thing must be really smart." I got news for you. Live rules is the dumbest part of Synchronous Technology.

Please allow me to explain. First I need to show you the live rules window in Solid Edge ST. This is what it looks like.

This window pops up everytime you select a face. It is basically a extended face selection utility. A tool to select faces other than those you have already manually selected with the mouse. When I was moving the hole, the "Concentric" live rule was checked. That is why the outer cylindrical face of the hole (which happens to be concentric to the cylindrical face that I picked) was added to the selection and both faces were moved together. The other live rules kicked in to maintain tangency. Which means that if I had unchecked the "Concentric" live rule and then moved the hole, the rest of the model would stay put and give me the same undesired result as the first figure above. And this is exactly how other solid modeling programs work. To move the hole I would need to select the hole as well as the outer cylindrical face and pull them both to get the desired effect.

So why am I calling the live rules in Synchronous Technology dumb? Well, because they are not set automatically every time you select a face. The live rules window simply pops up with the settings you last used. And this is the fundamental difference between Solid Edge ST and other solid modeling programs. The developers of these programs have tried to make the software smart enough to guess what the user intends to do and set up similar rules internally. In effect they make the software think for the user, and not surprisingly, often get it wrong. In Solid Edge ST, the user thinks for the software. He sets up the rules and the software simply follows instructions. If the result of the operation is undesirable, then the user has himself to blame and not the software. Using this approach the user will always get a desirable result because he is the brain behind the operation and not some artificial intelligence coded into a complex face selection algorithm trying to read the user's mind.

As you can see, in both programs the same thing happens - two concentric faces are moved. The only difference is that in the solid modeling program the user has to manually select both faces, and in Solid Edge ST the user selects only one face and leaves instructions for the software to select the second. Basically Siemens has simply put the intelligence back where it belongs, in the human. Just that they have made it easier for him to use it.

They way Siemens has packaged this live rules thing into Synchronous Technology is brilliant. I salute the person who came up with it. When I model a part in Solid Edge ST everything happens exactly how I had planned. I have to remind myself that it is because my brain is driving the modeling operations. The software is simply following my instructions. The modeling process is so smooth that one can easily lose sight of that simple but profound fact.

Suggestion
Making a user set live rules is a good thing but I think Siemens can lend a helping hand here. I suggest that when I select a face, it would help if there is some visual feedback that shows me which other faces will be party to the operation due to the live rules that have kicked in. These faces could be given a glow or something that makes them look different from the rest of the model. This will save the user a lot of undo operations. When I select a face I find myself doing some mental calculations to figure out which other faces are going to join the party. While this may be quick and easy for small models, things can get complicated for complex models where the probability of gate crashers can increase. Sometimes I skip the mental calculations and go ahead and move/rotate the face and then find myself looking around to see of anything else is moving. This is a major distraction and takes away the joy of working with this technolgy.

Another Suggestion
When working with large models you often need to zoom into a particular section to interact more closely with that part of the model. It may so happen that a live rule that you set up may end up selecting a face which is out of view and out of your intented plan as well. For example, take the "Coplanar" live rule which automatically selects faces that lie in the same plane as the face you selected. You may want to move just the face you selected, but may end up moving another face that is out of view and that is coincidently coplanar with the face you selected. I suggest that in such cases, a visual feedback warning the user of something happenning out of the current view would be helpful. May be a thin band touching the side of the window most closest to the face which is out of view.

In the next part I will discuss 3D dimensions. This will address the issue of "design intent" that skeptics of direct modeling software have been talking about.

Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:33:23 -0500

While direct modeling software has been around for a while, I started paying close attention only when SpaceClaim came around. I am now convinced that this is the way ahead and whether the CAD vendors like it or not, their customers are going to ask to be served this dish. So they had better learn to cook it sooner than later.

For the benefit of those completely new to Solid Edge ST, I will first explain a few concepts. In my opinion, the main concepts that need to be understood are:
1) Steering Wheel - The direct editing tool that does all the magic
2) Live Rules - The rules that decide how this tool behaves
3) 3D Dimensions - Geometry driven by dimensions
4) Procedural Features - Arrays and patterns

The Steering Wheel

This contraption is responsible for all the direct editing in Solid Edge ST. It pops up when you click the mouse on a face. The big sphere at the center is called the origin knob and is positioned at the location where you clicked the mouse. The steering wheel can be moved to another face or even left dangling in space. To move the steering wheel simply click and drag the origin knob and the steering wheel moves along with it.

The long arrow is called the primary axis and automatically aligns itself to the face normal. In case of non-planar faces, it aligns with the normal at the location where you clicked the mouse. The primary axis points to a small sphere called the primary knob which can be dragged around to reorient it.

The small arrow is called the secondary axis and points towards one of the four secondary knobs on the steering wheel. To point the secondary axis to a different knob simply click the knob. There is also a blue disc between the origin knob and the wheel which is used to move geometry in its plane.

By now I guess most of you must be saying, "Enough of this axis and knob stuff. Tell me what this thing actually does?". Well actually, the steering wheel does just two things: Move and Rotate. They call it the synchronous move and synchronous rotate. These two are fundamental to understanding how direct editing occurs in Solid Edge ST. You get this wrong and you will find yourself clicking and dragging stuff around and getting weird results. Given below are two very simple examples of a synchronous move and synchronous rotate.

Synchronous Move

Synchronous Rotate

In the first case, I moved the top face along the primary axis. In the second case I reoriented the steering wheel while keeping its origin on the top face, and then rotated it about the new primary axis. The top face got rotated as well.

Now reorienting the steering wheel can be a hassle. It involves setting the secondary axis correctly and then dragging the primary knob around. You can often skip this step. Simply find another face to attach the steering wheel to. In my case, I moved the steering wheel to the front face and then rotated it. The front face was not selected and hence did not get rotated. The top face was selected and got rotated instead. Exactly what I had in mind.

I have only scratched the surface of the steering wheel. There is a lot more that can be done. To give you an example, there is something known as "Solve Type", which basically contols how adjacent faces on the model react to the modification. You can set it to simple or adaptive. In case of simple, adjacent faces are extended or trimmed as required, but will maintain their original orientation. In adaptive, adjacent faces are extended or trimmed as required, but can also change their orientation. The figure below shows the same face rotation operation with simple solve type on the left and adaptive on the right.

Simple and Adaptive Solve Types

Suggestion
I noticed that double clicking on the various parts of the steering wheel does not do anything. Actually the double click is processed as two single clicks, which means that the programmers have not processed the double click mouse event at all. Since reorienting the steering wheel can sometimes be a pain, it would be nice if double clicking the various parts of the steering wheel could do something intelligent and useful. For example, double clicking on a secondary knob (one of the four knobs on the wheel) could reorient the steering wheel to make the primary axis point in that direction. So in the case above where I reoriented the steering wheel manually by dragging the primary knob and waited patiently for it to snap somewhere, I could have simply double clicked on the required secondary knob and my steering wheel would have been already set up.

Similarly double clicking the origin knob could move the steering wheel to the centroid of the face or maybe someplace else. Double clicking the primary or secondary axis could swap them, and so on.

Next time I will discuss Live Rules. That's when things will get really interesting.

Bags of Money

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:28:36 -0500

One of my customers sent me this email today: "If you can come up with a piece of software that would allow SolidWorks users to save to a previous version of SolidWorks you’d do quite well with it. That’s a major problem for all SolidWorks users, lack of reverse compatability. Even if the file wasn’t fully functional (a newer version may have features that didn’t exist before) it would still be useful to save a file that was a solid with some features in the feature tree. Just a suggestion, you’d make bags of money with that one."

I replied, "Yes, and most probably get myself fired from the SolidWorks Partner Program as well."

The Fight Over DWG Heats Up

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:21:06 -0500

For those who are wondering what this new noise between Autodesk and the OpenDesign Alliance is all about, here are some quick details. Autodesk has sought to cancel all six of the ODA's trademarks and service marks for "OPENDWG" and "OPENDWG and Design" in various categories citing the following reasons:
1) Autodesk has been using the term DWG since the 1980's
2) The ODA changed it's name from OpenDWG to OpenDesign in October 2003.
3) The ODA obtained the marks fraudulently.

The first two reasons do not need an explanation. However, the third one does. We all know that the ODA's entire business revolves around DWG. So how could they have possibly obtained a trademark for "OpenDWG" (the name of their libraries at that time) fraudulently?

Autodesk claims these reasons for fraud:
1) The ODA never used the mark in commerce as of the claimed date of first use.
2) The specimen of the mark submitted by the ODA was a photocopy of a CD. Autodesk claims that the ODA never distributed any CD's since all their software was available as a download only.
2) The ODA never used the mark for the claimed services: "providing multiple-user access to a global computer information network for the transfer and dissemination of a wide range of information".

There are a few other reasons as well. The first two reasons do not need an explanation. However, the third one sounds interesting. According to some Trademark Manual, "providing multiple-user access to a global computer information network for the transfer and dissemination of a wide range of information" refers to the service of Internet Service Providers and the ODA is certainly not an ISP. So why did the ODA register it's marks as an ISP? I have absolutely no clue. But it certainly seems like this one is going to come back to bite them.

Autodesk points to an earlier case where the judge observed that "if fraud can be shown in the procurement of a registration, the entire resulting registration is void".

So has the ODA shot itself in the foot?

RasterDWG

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:30:12 -0500

Ralph Grabowski's recent post on the RasterDWG trademark assignment agreement between softelec and Autodesk made me dig a bit deeper. As I understand it, Autodesk appears to have convinced softelec to hand over their "RasterDWG" trademark "for good and valuable consideration". Ralph is of the opinion that ownership of RasterDWG is important to Autodesk for it's appeal in canceling ODA's ownership of OpenDWG. Makes a lot of sense. The more DWG related trademarks Autodesk has, the better will be its chances to get the trademark for "DWG" itself, and in the bargain, cancel the DWG related trademarks held by its competitors.

But what does not make sense is that the presumably well paid law firm hired by Autodesk have ignored one of the main rules of trademark registration and branding: "GET THE DOMAIN NAME". I was quite surprised to find out that rasterdwg.com was not owned by Autodesk. What's more? rasterdwg.com has never ever been registered by anyone, not even by softelec, which has owned the RasterDWG trademark since 1997. Shocking!!

So I decided to do Autodesk a favor and registered rasterdwg.com before a cyber squatter went ahead and registered it and then demanded a "good and valuable consideration" for it. I have redirected rasterdwg.com to point to autodesk.com. If Autodesk wants the domain name, all it has to do is ask. I will gladly transfer rasterdwg.com to them for no "good and valuable consideration" whatsoever.

Anyways, I have serious doubts about Autodesk being able to pull off this "DWG" trademark stunt. More so since it is now pretty obvious to me that the law firm that they are using gives absolutely no importance to something as important as a domain name.

From the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board documents, I gather that the law firm representing Autodesk in the DWG related trademark cases is Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Incidently, they have the perfect domain name: wsgr.com. This the same firm that is represeting Google and YouTube in defense of a highly publicized copyright infringement action brought against them by Viacom. This is what their web site says about the services that they provide their clients related to Trademarks, Copyrights and Advertising:

"Our attorneys counsel clients on the selection, protection and enforcement of company names, brand names, slogans and trade dress for U.S. and worldwide markets, including registration and licensing. We also assist clients with a wide range of counseling and litigation regarding copyright, consumer protection, unfair competition, and advertising and marketing practices."

And yet they concluded that rasterdwg.com was of no use to their client. Or maybe they are waiting for some unsuspecting cyber squatter to squat on the domain and then charge their client a bomb to sue the crap out of the him.

Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:17:04 -0500

Since I missed the Solid Edge ST product launches in India, Dora Smith, the Director of Public Relations at Siemens PLM Software was kind enough to fly a Siemens employee all the way from Bangalore to give me a demo at the SYCODE office in Goa. Shivakumar Channal, an Applied Specialist from Siemens ran me though the various aspects of Synchronous Technology and patiently answered all my questions. Over the next few days, as and when time permits, I intend to take Solid Edge ST for a drive and find answers to a few questions that people have been asking. Questions like: (1) Is this really new? (2) Is it really a hundred times faster? (3) Does the industry really need Synchronous Technology? And so on.

As I was driving Shivakumar to the airport, I asked him whether Siemens appeared to be in the mood of licensing Synchronous Technology to SolidWorks and other competitor. "No way," came the reply, "This is what sets us apart from the rest".

Taking a look at SolidWorks 2009 I am begining to wonder. SolidWorks 2009 looks a lot like 2008 minus the bugs and plus a few bells and whistles. Yes, I have seen the 171 page "What's New in SolidWorks 2009" document. I cannot believe that the SolidWorks development team has been only fixing bugs and adding bells and whistles in the past year. Something tells me that they are busy building SolidWorks 2010 ground up using the CATIA V6 technology. They had better, otherwise I believe that there is a fat chance of losing market share.

And when I say "losing market share", I do not necessarily mean that SolidWorks customers are going to abandon ship and move to Solid Edge ST or another feature inference modeler. I mean that the flood of AutoCAD users who are steadily deciding to go 3D are more likely to adopt a software that does not convolute their minds with a feature tree and yet gives them the power of a parametric modeler.

Which brings me to Inventor. Autodesk had better be doing something related to feature inference modeling, either counting the money to buy someone or spending money to develop their own. Because I do not believe that their loyal AutoCAD customers would extend their loyality and adopt Inventor in its present state, no matter how good an offer Autodesk makes them.

As you may have already guessed, I am impressed with Synchronous Technology. I now intend to rip it apart and see whether it has got what it takes to start a revolution.
Watch this space.

Autodesk and DWG

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:11:24 -0500

Ralph Grabowski has been doing a good job reporting on Autodesk's escapades with the DWG trademark. Autodesk has been trying to trademark DWG and cancel trademarks of other companies that have DWG related trademarks such as SolidWorks, OpenDesign Alliance (ODA), etc. His last post resulted in some interesting comments by Evan Yares, the former president of the ODA and Arnold van der Weide, the current president of the ODA.

Evan is suggesting that Autodesk may be trying to legally harrass the ODA and drive it to bankruptcy. Evan's opinion got my attention quite simply because he ran the ODA long enough to know what the ODA can and cannot do financially. Little wonder that Arnold was quick to point out that, thanks to it's wealthy sustaining members, bankruptcy was not in the ODA's future.

I cannot help wondering that if the ODA is financially well off, then why couldn't they use a better (and more expensive) legal team in the TrustedDWG law suit. If I remember correctly the Autodesk lawyers tool the ODA legal team to the cleaners on that one. But then maybe that's because they had a weak case to begin with.

I would like to repeat something that someone pointed out to me recently, "Adobe has not trademarked PDF. Microsoft has not trademarked XLS. Yet Autodesk is attempting to trademark DWG". I wonder what Autodesk is really up to here. Can a file extension be trademarked in the first place? What do you think?

Working Too Much

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:11:23 -0500

Like all workaholics, I have always felt that I lead a perfectly normal life. Untill today. I left home this morning for office and as I drove my mind wandered to an algorithm that I have been working on. I reached office, turned off the engine and was getting out of the car when I noticed someone on the back seat. It was my son. Instead of dropping him off at school, I had driven straight to office.

In these four and a half years, my son has looked at me in different ways. But nothing like the look he gave me when he asked, "Dada, what are you doing?". I mumbled something, got back in the seat and drove away to his school.

I am just 32 and by the looks of it, I will be needing the services of a shrink pretty soon. I dread to think what crazy things I will end up doing at the age of 60, if at all I last that long. If any of you have been through this and have managed to stay out of a mental asylum, any sort of advice would be greatly appreciated. I badly need it.

SolidWorks 2009 Beta 1

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:00:41 -0500

SolidWorks 2008 was a nightmare for many third party add-in developers such as myself. I am pleased to report that SolidWorks 2009 will not be a repeat show. At SYCODE, we have updated our SolidWorks add-ins (all 16 of them) to work with SolidWorks 2009 Beta 1. We are now testing them to check for weird behaviour. So far everything looks good and I sincerely hope that it stays that way till the final release.

In my opinion, people may adopt SolidWorks 2009 much faster than they adopted SolidWorks 2008. In fact, I will not be surprised of the early adoptors are the ones that skipped SolidWorks 2008 altogether.

What do you think?

Adobe LiveCycle ES Goes 3D

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:16:08 -0500

Yesterday Rak Bhalla from Adobe spent some time with me explaining the first update to their Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES). One way to describe LiveCycle ES would be an enterprise wide software solution with the aim of reducing or eliminating paper. The interesting part to us CAD people in this update is the addition of something known as PDF Generator 3D ES, basically a server based solution to automatically create and distribute 3D PDF files.

Priced at $60,000 for a perpetual site license, it's quite obvious that LiveCycle ES is not meant for the individual user or even small businesses. It is targeted towards medium and large businesses running an ERP or PLM system or some equivalent home grown business process system. The "E" in LiveCycle ES stands for Enterprise, and like all enterprise solutions, it does not work out of the box and needs to be customized.

PDF Generator 3D ES sits on a server and keeps an eye on special network folders. As soon as users dump files into these folders, it determines what to do with them (that's the customization part) and then does it. As the name suggests, it generates PDF files and places them in another set of folders or sends them across to the concerned people within or outside the company. For example, lets say someone from the procurement department wants to send a Request For Quote (RFQ) to a bunch of suppliers. He will simply drop a Word document and a CATIA model into one of the network folders. PDF Generator will immediately spring into action. It will automatically read the CATIA model and insert it into a PDF RFQ document created from data stored in the Word document and then directly send it to the suppliers via email. Later it will accumulate the data from the PDF files returned by the suppliers, assimilate it into a single concise PDF file and send it to the concerned person in the company for further action.

As you can see, the aim here is not just to reduce paper, but to reduce time (and possibly employees) as well. And as you can imagine, such a solution work will need a great deal of customization. So I imagine that the $60,000 for the site license will be the least of the problems.

Adobe LiveCycle ES Update 1 is expected to become available on 17th July 2008. As regards competition, Rak was of the opinion that Microsoft was the only company worthy of consideration. Incidently, LiveCycle ES works on Windows only.

Feature Inference Modeling

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:30:16 -0500

I'm not sure who coined the phrase "Feature Inference Modeling", but I am reading a lot about it from Evan Yares. In his interview with Franco Folini, Evan stated that feature inference modeling is the next major revolution in MCAD. One particular statement struck me, "What’s exciting about this new revolution is that it’s not about overthrowing the last revolution; it’s about completing it. Feature inference modeling and feature-based modeling are complementary technologies, that, when used together, have the potential to completely transform the product development process."

Quite obviously, Evan is referring to Solid Edge ST. Unfortunately, thanks to my company being a Solid Edge Voyager Partner, I cannot say anything about Solid Edge ST, apart from the fact that our Solid Edge add-ins have been updated for it.

However, I think I can say that I do not completely agree with Evan about feature inference modeling and feature based modeling complementing each other. Yes, I agree that in Solid Edge ST, they seem to be complementing each other. But I believe that this is just a temporary fix on the road towards the final goal of moving completely away from feature based modeling.

I know some of you think I am crazy. Take a step back. In fact, take many steps back. Imagine Mike Riddle developing Interact, the prototype for the first version of AutoCAD. Now try telling him that something called parametric solid modeling is going to make his stuff obsolete. I leave it you to guess his reaction. My guess is that his reaction would be the same as the people who feel that parametric solid modeling is going to remain supreme till kingdom come.

Please Sue Me

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:53:39 -0500

"Please sue me", is what R. Paul Waddington appears to be telling Autodesk. In his latest article on his blog, Paul explains why he thinks that Autodesk's EULA is not enforceable and is effectively calling Autodesk's bluff. Paul says, "With this post I have firmly ‘nailed my flag to the mast’; if I am wrong consequences must follow." In summary, Paul declares that he rejects Autodesk’s Subscription and Licence Terms and Conditions but will continue to use Autodesk’s products.

I am not sure Autodesk is interested in taking up the challenge, especially since they recently had to eat humble pie in their case against Timothy Vernor. Maybe Vernor's judgement is what finally emboldened Paul to raise his war flag. Moreover, I believe Autodesk is more interested in spending the time of their legal team in helping them evaluate which companies to buy, as opposed to having them drag another harmless individual to court.

Alibre Design and YoYo Design

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:04:29 -0500

A Google alert on "Alibre Design" led me to this discussion thread at YoYoNation.com. The thread is titled "What can Alibre Design do?" and is about novices seeking information about CAD and CAM. I was about to close the browser when I noticed a long and detailed reply explaining CAM and even a introduction to Rapid Prototyping. What surprised me was that the username assigned to that particular reply was listed as "gregmilliken".

Now, to the best of my knowledge, Greg Milliken, the CEO of Alibre, is not the kind of a person to spend his time on a web site like YoYoNation.com and reply to questions like "Can someone explain how a CNC lathe works?". So I pointed Greg to the thread and asked if it was really him, although I thought I already new the answer.

His reply floored me, "Yeah it really was. I actually have a really good discussion with a number of the guys there going now. Not that yoyo design is the next big thing but I find reaching out to folks in all manner of industries provides valuable feedback."

Wow! It sure looks like Alibre is going out of its way to put it's "Personal CAD" message across with it's free Alibre Design Xpress.

Adobe Acrobat 9

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:30:50 -0500

Today Adobe announced Acrobat 9. They have dropped the "3D" tag and are now calling the full blown version Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended. Last Thursday Rak Bhalla from Adobe spent an hour and a half showing me the new features of Acrobat 9. Here are the few things that got my attention.

Adobe claims to be getting wide industry support for 3D PDF. The names I heard included SolidWorks, PTC, Lattice, Right Hemisphere, Quadrispace, Bentley, Seemage and Actify. Conspicious by its absence was Autodesk, quite obviously since Autodesk would want to promote their own DWF format. I don't know how many of you have noticed, but for many versions now, when installing previous versions of Acrobat Professional, the installer searches for certain installed applications (such as Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, etc.) and installs plug-ins for these applications that allow them to create PDF files. I could never understand why Adobe's plug-in for AutoCAD created only 2D PDF files. Upon inquiring I was told that things would change. Since Autodesk doesn't seem to be interested in making their products output 3D PDF, I guess Adobe will have to do it themselves.

Acrobat 9 now has native support for Flash. So you can seamlessly integrate Flash videos into a PDF file. In fact, you can include just about any kind of document inside a PDF file, thanks to something that Adobe refers to as PDF portfolio. As I understand it, a PDF portfolio is something like a zip file which contains a bunch of other files. So if you want to send someone a brochure, a solid model, a training manual document or whatever, just put them all into a PDF portfolio and send it. Anyone with the free Acrobat Reader will be able to extract the files out.

One complaint has always been that Acrobat takes a jolly good time to load, thanks to the various DLL's it loads at startup. Apparently, this time around loading has been made 2 to 3 times faster. One way I see this happenning is by making DLL's to load when required and not on startup. Or maybe Adobe has another trick up it's sleeve.

Adobe has decided to put their domain name Acrobat.com to better use. Acrobat.com (currently in Beta) offers a bunch of online services for file sharing and storage. Using Acrobat.com you "take control" of a PDF file being viewed by another person anywhere in the world. The person controlling can zoom, pan and rotate the 3D objects in a PDF file on his computer and the same will happen on the other side as well. Since the data transmitted between the computers involved is only the camera position, there are no irritating lag times. Creating an account at Acrobat.com is free.

Speaking of zoom, it brings me back to something I said on this blog more than a year ago when I was fiddling around with Acrobat 3D 8. At that time I could not find a way to do a Zoom Window. I could only find a Zoom icon which let me zoom in and out. In one of his comments, Mike Kaplan, Director of Engineering, Acrobat 3D, enlightenned me that right-click-drag would let me do a Zoom Window. I found that odd, and confusing as well, because for the text part of a PDF file you need to left click and drag a Zoom Window. In fact, Acrobat 3D 8 is the only "CAD" application I know that does it this way. And they have not changed it in Acrobat 9.

Another problem I had with Acrobat 3D 8 was Adobe's idea of wireframe. The wireframe in Acrobat 3D 8 was actually the render mesh, the bunch of triangles that are used internally to display a 3D NURBS solid model on a 2D screen. This is very different from what we in the CAD world know wireframe to be. The real problem was that Acrobat 3D 8 used this render mesh to perform measurements on the 3D model - a disaster for any engineer. This is what I said at that time:

"I am not quite sure what Adobe's view of collaboration is. You just cannot give an engineer down in manufacturing a mesh (however fine and hence unmanageable it may be) and expect him to "collaborate" effectively with an engineer in the design department. He needs to know distances, angles, surface curvature and continuity, etc. precisely, from a NURBS model, not based on some stupid render mesh. A 3D model is not any ordinary document like a purchase order, and I feel Adobe needs to realize that."

I regret to inform you that Acrobat 9 does not do things any differently. It uses the same render mesh to calculate measurements. But now there is a very valid reason for that. The reason is Adobe 3D Reviewer, an application that comes bundled with Acrobat Pro Extended. The 3D Reviewer was intially developed by TTF, a company that Adobe bought, which gave it the technology to step into the 3D world. You can do precise measurements with the 3D Reviewer, and a lot more. The bad news is that you cannot buy the 3D Reviewer alone. It comes only bundled with Acrobat Pro Extended priced at $699. You don't even get it with Acrobat Pro, which is priced at $499. The entry level Acrobat Standard is priced at $299.

Adobe believes that for every 3D PDF file created there are 50 downstream users. That is to say that 50 people will view, edit, markup, etc. each and every 3D PDF file. I have absolutely no idea how they arrived at that figure, but it sure sounds interesting. I wonder what number Autodesk would put on DWG.

Adobe is not going down the subscription road, at least not with Acrobat. That's nice to hear. Almost unbelievable, if you ask me, considering that they are this giant money making machine. Another thing that I was extremely pleased to hear was that Adobe does not intend to ribbonize Acrobat. I just hate the ribbon from the bottom of my heart. It's ok if you use just one CAD application and maybe a few other programs now and then. You simply brainwash your mind and start from scratch. But if you are someone like me who uses different CAD applications (almost always simultaneously), then finding things becomes a nightmare. At least with the menu/toolbar combo you had a sense of where things would most probably be.

Towards the end, I asked Rak who Adobe considered was it's closest rival in this sphere. Very tactfully, he replied, "Paper. We are having a hard time convincing people to stop using paper."

I noticed that all of Adobe's 3D software is related to viewing, sharing and collaborating geometry, never in creating it. I asked Rak if Adobe was interested in pursuing developing software to create 3D content. Rak replied in the negative. As far as Adobe is concerned it intends to leave 3D geometry creation to others.

Acrobat 9 is due to ship in July 2008. If you want to be notified when a trial becomes available you can fill out a form here.

Adding Insult to Injury

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:35:27 -0500

A software crash is probably the worst thing that can ever happen to a user, and is sometimes a good reason for some to get pissed enough to let the world know. Today one such user posted a topic titled "SW CRASHED for no reason !!!!" on the SolidWorks Discussion Forums. He vented out his anger in the following manner:
"For no reason, SW just CRASHED ! This is totally ridiculous !!! In Inventor, I can guess when it crashed. Before I made any complicated change to a model, I thought IV might crash then I saved the model before making a change In SW, sometimes I made some simple change to a model and SW CRASHED. I just lost couple hrs of working this morning. This is rideculous and unacceptable"

To which a wise man replied, "I'm sure it had a reason...it just chose not to share it with you."

Talk about adding insult to injury.

eBay Pirate may Sail to Jail

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:06:09 -0500

InformationWeek reports that "Jeremiah Mondello, a former student at the University of Oregon, pleaded guilty to copyright infringement, aggravated identity theft, and mail fraud. He faces fines of up to $500,000 and imprisonment from two to 20 years."

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) appears to be stepping it up. They have brought 26 cases against people selling counterfeit or pirated software this year.

I am always pleased to listen to news like this. It makes my day and gives me more energy to spend on writing, debugging and testing software.

Is Autodesk Outfoxing the ITC?

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:54:53 -0500

The article about Autodesk's patents in today's upFront.eZine got my attention. Take a look at the following patents related to sheet sets:
Automatic view creation in a sheet set manager for a graphics program
Sheet set fields of a sheet set manager for a graphics program
Sheet set manager for a graphics program
Sheet set publishing in a sheet set manager for a graphics program
Transmittal and archive tool in a sheet set manager for a graphics program
User interface elements of a sheet set manager for a graphics program

I think I know who these patents are designed for - the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium.

Obviously Autodesk is fed up of the ITC cloning their software and relieving them of their customers. So now they are patenting the new features so that the ITC cannot copy them. And if they do, Autodesk can sue the hell out of them. Judging by the way Autodesk has been shopping around for companies of late, I guess they have kept aside a fat bundle for legal expenses.

Sounds like a good plan, if you ask me. What do you think?

A Close Encounter with Mumbai Pirates

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:55:03 -0500

Everytime I visit Mumbai, I try and find time to visit the street which is notoriously famous for selling pirated software. Not to buy some for myself. Thanks to my partners, I get all my software for free or next to nothing. I wander this street to get a sense of how bad the situation is. I see changes every time I visit this street - changes for the worse.

Some years ago, I had to follow someone into a dark alley, up the staircase of a dilapidated building and into a room where I was shown a bunch a CDs, each at a fixed price of Rs. 100 ($2.5), irrespective of the software. I found it funny that I could purchase IntelliCAD and AutoCAD at the same price.

Later, the pirated CDs started appearing on the street, but under cover. The pirates would set up a small table on the street and pretend to sell blank CDs. If you asked them for "software" they would reach down into a plastic bag and hand you a bunch of CDs to choose from.

I believe I saw the worst when, on a subsequent visit, the blank CDs dissappeared and the pirated CDs were arranged neatly across the tables, in broad daylight. They started openly running promotions, like buy 2 get 1 free. They actually followed you down the street, with pirated CD's in hand, and pestered you if you left without buying anything. It looked like they were doing everything that a CAD vendor would want their resellers to do. It was that bad.

So imagine my surprise this time around, when the cabbie dropped me off at the street, I found nobody. The pirates were all gone. I asked a roadside vendor selling old books on the sidewalk, where the pirates were. He told me that one fine day some officials from the muncipality came by, trashed their things and took some of the pirates away, and possibly trashed those who could not bribe their way out. But he added that there may still be some operating under cover. I decided to find out.

I walked the street asking roadside vendors for "software". I got a standard reply in Hindi, which translated to, "It's all stopped now". I never thought that I would see this day in my lifetime.

Then something weird happenned. A shady looking character started following me. After a while I turned around and looked at him questioningly. He gave me a big smile which had the words "I have software" splashed all over it. He asked me to follow him into a lonely alley, which I did. And then into another lonely alley, and then one more. As I walked I realised that one of two things was going to happen. I was either going to see some pirated software or I was going to get mugged. I hoped it was the former.

We finally stopped in the middle of an alley. I couldn't see any sign of pirated CDs, just some broken furniture and trash lying around. I began to get worried when he started to make idle talk. He asked me where I was from and how long I was going to be in Mumbai. Mustering all the bravado I could, I told him sternly that I didn't have the time for idle talk and that if he had software, now was the time to show it. He immediately lost the macho man mask and rushed to apologize. As it turns out, he was trying to guage whether I was an "authentic" buyer or some cop trying to entrap him.

He then asked me to stay where I was and proceeded towards the dead end of the alley. He reach behind a pile of old, broken furniture and fished out a plastic bag. While he was doing that I fished out my camera phone and took a picture.

He came back with a handful of CDs. I don't know why he didn't take me to his treasure chest instead. Maybe he was selling something more than just pirated CD's back there.

I started "browsing" the CDs and began to lay them on a wooden crate neadby. I wanted to take a picture of them as well, but the pirate wasn't in the mood of leaving my side. I have absolutely no idea why I did what I did next, but I am pretty sure I will never do it again. With the pirate by my side, I fished out my camera phone and pretended to dial a number. While he thought I was looking down at my phone and keying in a number, I actually clicked a picture of the CDs on the crate.

I always turn off my phone's camera sounds. I do this because I often click pictures of my six month old son while he sleeps like an angel, and the shutter-like sound on my camera phone is so loud that it sometimes wakes him up. So the pirate had no way of knowing that I was actually taking a picture.

So after clicking the picture, I realised that I was supposed to speak to the person I had just "dialed". I put the phone to my ear and pretended to speak to a friend, and asked him whether he wanted Pro/E. Looking back, I now wonder what would have happened if my phone had rung while I was "speaking" to this friend. After I "disconnected" I let the pirate know that the version of Pro/E that he had did not match what I wanted and proceeded to thank him for his time. But surely the pirate didn't take all this trouble for nothing. He then did something which left me speechless.

He started making the case that Inventor was far better than Pro/E and that I should buy Inventor instead. He began running figures, saying that a majority of his "customers" chose Inventor over Pro/E. He even stated that Inventor was far more easier to use than Pro/E. I tried my best to maintain a straight face and stood there in silence as he made his sales pitch. The more he spoke the more I realised how he would make an excellent sales executive at any CAD reseller. Although most of what he said was utter crap (he said that Inventor can also edit images like PhotoShop), I was amazed by the way he said it. This guy badly wanted to make a sale, and it showed.

When I realized that I couldn't take it anymore, I reached for my wallet, paid for the Inventor CD and put it in my backpack. He tried to sell me more, but I told him that I was in a hurry and had to leave. I found my way back to the street and hitched a cab. As I paid the cabbie I gave him the Inventor CD and told him to give his kids a new "shining toy".

I am definately going to visit this street again the next time I visit Mumbai. And if I manage to keep my life and limb intact, you are definately going to read about it here.

IntelliCAD Stuggling to Catch Up

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:38:48 -0500

Today I got a marketing email from an IntelliCAD vendor stating that their new version of IntelliCAD is "now fully compatible with AutoCAD 2008". I am not sure whether I am supposed to be impressed here.

The ITC is supposed to release a beta of their new IntelliCAD in the second quarter of 2008. I guess the IntelliCAD vendors would prefer to compare their product with AutoCAD 2009. It will be interesting to see if the new IntelliCAD can make that happen.

Out Of Control

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Sun, 04 May 2008 02:47:38 -0500

The comments on my post "Alibre Reacts to Synchronous Technology" have got out of control. I relaxed my tolerance limit for a while in order to give it a chance to subside. But clearly, that is not working. To put things back on track, I have deleted all the comments starting from when one person began an unwarranted personal attack on Greg Milliken, the CEO of Alibre. The sad thing is, although this person appeared to have made some good points, the manner in which he did so overshadowed the substance of his comments. I requested him to tone it down, but unfortunately his reply gave me no indication of him ever heeding my plea.

Although I have deleted these comments, I am not banning anyone from commenting on this blog. Neither have I turned on comment moderation and I still allow anonymous comments. As you can see from the first few comments in the post, I had an excellent and healthy discussion with an anonymous commenter. I do not want to lose the ability to do that.

Having said that, I would like to also say that I put a substantial amount of time and energy into this blog and I do not believe I am in the mood of allowing it to become a pissing contest.

SolidWorks Finally Loves Me

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:36:38 -0500

It took three service packs for SolidWorks to love me, or rather our add-ins. In my earlier article ("SolidWorks Woes"), I lamented how SolidWorks 2008 blocked the loading of our add-ins. As they released each service pack, major and minor, I hoped that my Service Performance Request (a nicer term for a bug) was addressed. Finally, in the recently released SP 3.1, my wish was granted.

Today we released 2008 compatible versions of our 16 SolidWorks add-ins. And guess what, SolidWorks 2009 is just around the corner. I hope this time around things move smoothly.

All's well that ends well. And sometimes all's well that ends.

Autodesk to Buy MoldFlow

noreply@blogger.com (Deelip Menezes) — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:16:03 -0500

The press release says, "This agreement demonstrates Autodesk’s commitment to provide a comprehensive Digital Prototyping solution to manufacturers of all sizes, giving them the ability to optimize, validate and improve their designs earlier in the process. The acquisition will make analysis capabilities for plastics manufacturing available to manufacturers using Autodesk Digital Prototyping solution."

Brings to mind the words of Buzz Cross that I heard at COFES 2008, "Over the next ten years we will buy companies that have digital prototyping technologies that can be integrated into Inventor."

While the rest run after PLM, Autodesk seems to be running in the different direction. If digital prototyping is eventually going to solve people's problems, then by the time others realise it, there may not be any companies left to buy.