NOVEDGE blog

Interview with Al Dean, DEVELOP3D Co-founder and Editor

It is difficult for me to write an introduction for Al Dean. On one hand I have read several articles and blog posts by Al, but on the other hand I've never had the opportunity to meet him personally (this interview was done by e-mail). What I like the most about Al and what keeps me going back to his blog is his frank attitude in expressing his opinions in a clear and honest way. This is a refreshing stance in a press world where the usual concern is more toward pleasing advertisers rather than informing readers. Al's rebellious attitude gives him credibility and makes his magazine not only a source of great information (professionally organized and beautifully formatted), but also a trusted one. On behalf of the CAD community I want to thank Al for his courage and determination in starting a new CAD magazine at a time when so many publications are simply disappearing.

Al, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

Sure. I’m co-founder and editor of DEVELOP3D, it’s a web-site and a print magazine. As for background, how far back do you want to go? I’m British, grew up in a city called Wolverhampton; it has that multi-cultural, working class, post industrial kind of thing going on. Lots of burnt out factories, machine shops – it used to be the lock and motorcycle making capital of England, but as is inevitable, that all disappeared. Over the years I’ve been a barman and bouncer, butcher’s assistant, worked as a roofer on heritage buildings and for three hellish summer months spent 12 hours a day in a refrigerated chicken processing factory. That taught me four things. Firstly, never to put my fingers in a machine I didn’t understand. Secondly, how to sharpen a machete. Thirdly, that I can never face KFC again. Lastly, that I really didn’t want to wear white wellington boots and thermal underwear to work for the rest of my life.

[At MCAD] I got the job because I was under 40 and used more than AutoCAD

I trained in product design in the early 90s just as CAD was getting into the university mainstream, got myself a master’s degree and at the same time worked a lot of very short term contracts as a Pro/E monkey. After one memorable three-week period designing fridge handles, I decided enough was enough and applied for a CAD reviewer job at Computer Aided Draughting and Design magazine, which eventually become MCAD. I’m told I got the job because I was under 40 and used more than AutoCAD. I gave up wearing ties and haven’t looked back since.

At a time when many newspapers and magazines are switching to online editions only, you decided to start a new printed magazine. What were the reasons behind this initiative? Was there any overconfidence on your part or just faith in the destiny of your new, serious, professionally-written magazine?

Two things Franco. Firstly, look at the newsstand. What do you see? A lot of magazines. People love them. I know the future is the web, but until there’s a compelling method of reading them without lugging a laptop around, then people are going to continue to love magazines. Let’s be clear, this is about hardware, not delivery. Until you get a device that’s as easy to roll up, pop into a bag or just have lying around, magazines are liked and loved. I love my MacBook, but I’m never going into the restrooms with it and I suspect that most people are the same.
Now, does that extend into trade publications? Do people love magazines still? Yes, I believe they do – but not the run of the mill magazine that flick through and bin on a monthly cycle. The vast majority of publishers these days are lazy. They spend little effort on the look and feel and yes, content of their publications. They are typically defocused and badly designed. It’s a stream of revenue that they’ll run into the floor until they give up or the market gives up on them. This isn’t a reflection on the editors, but the powers above them – unless you have a passion for a subject, you don’t really care and you don’t really understand your community.

[...] to give those involved in design, product development and manufacturing, quality content and to engage with them

The concept behind launching DEVELOP3D was to give those involved in design, product development and manufacturing, quality content and to engage with them. You can write the best content in the world, but if it’s not laid out in an eye catching manner, in a visually compelling style, then no-one is going to read it.
Was there overconfidence? Sure. I have the luck to work with the most talented guys in this field and we freelance out to others that have incredible skills (josh @ solidsmack.com for one). We did a lot of research, and had a pretty good idea of what people like. What surprised me was exactly how much people liked the first six months. It’s nice to get that feedback and validation. We’re not stopping and have to continually evolve what we do – that’s the problem that many publishers face; same old shit, month in, month out - it doesn’t cut it. You have to change your game and realize that print is still incredibly viral. I’ve been giving out copies of DEVELOP3D wherever I can and the thing that I notice is how people interact with it, feel it, turn it in their hands and flip through it – then read it, cover to cover. When you hand someone a magazine and the first thing they do is flip it open and smell it, you know you’ve got something right.

Looking at DEVELOP3D, I see a great integration between online and offline content. Can you share some insights about your holistic approach as a publisher?

Content is king. But the online and offline world are different. Online (blogging if you have to use that word) is about speed, reaction and grabbing people’s attention. It’s quick, fast and dirty.

Content is king. But the online and offline world are different.

With print, you have more time, you can create a more interesting story, you can do things with design, with graphics that help to enrich that story – whether that’s a user story, about how they develop products at Lego, or Nokia, or whether it’s a product review. Would I run a story that’s written for a blog in print? Probably not, but with the comments you get, the feedback you receive, you can adapt and refine it and ensure that you do the story justice.

What is in your opinion the impact of social media on CAD users? Are engineers reading blogs and following Twitter discussions?

Are engineers and designers reading blogs and such? Yes. Of course, they are. But are they engaging and interacting with them? No – absolutely not. Not to any great extent. As for twitter, there’s a handful.

[in the Social Media] there’s a very small core number of users that are involved, the alpha geeks

If you look at the CAD/3D modeling within the design and engineering community, there’s a very small core number of users that are involved, the alpha geeks if you like. These are the same people that comment on each other’s blogs, write their own and generate the interlinking that makes the whole thing work. It seems a lot bigger than it really is, in comparison to the size of the user community as a whole. It’ll grow I’m sure and more rapidly than we probably expect, but at present, it’s a small percentage.

British magazines in several technical fields have a good reputation and are widely read in the US. Do you have plans to move to the US with the printed copy of Develop3D?

In an ideal world, we’d be there now, and we certainly plan to be there soon. We’ve been seeding a few places with the magazine to try and gauge what people think of it. The reaction has been good, solid and encouraging. But comparing the US to the UK, it’s a nightmare: logistically and financially. Mail costs outweigh the cost of printing the magazine to a good, solid standard. A lot of US magazines use much lower weight paper and feel pretty nasty (for good reason, it’s cheaper to mail) – we don’t want to compromise on quality – the audience we’re talking to deserve a good, solid and quality magazine.

[...] the interest is not just North American, it’s global. At the moment, the rest of world equals that of the US.

So, we’re stuck in the position that people like the magazine, we want to get it there, but we simply don’t have a way of funding it – unless people pay for the magazine, which is something we’re looking into. But one thing’s for sure,everyone will always have the PDF version.
What else is interesting is that the interest is not just North American, it’s global. At the moment, the rest of world equals that of the US. Considering that the magazine is English, this surprised the crap out of me. I love the idea that every month there are nine people in Lima in Peru, digging into Develop3D with their coffee in the morning.

As a journalist you have a view on the market that is perhaps wider than the rest of us. Looking back on 2008 what will be remembered as the most emblematic event or technology?

Do you mean for the CAD world or the world at large? For the world at large, I think the social media thing is endlessly fascinating – that’s perhaps the biggest revolution there’s been in decades, since the advent of email. Perhaps it’s even the year that email became secondary (personally, I hate it and its rigid structured ways). There’s also multi-touch. The iPod touch and iPhone aren’t the beginning and end of this but they herald a new way to interact with data and UI.
On that subject I think we need a massive shift in interaction hardware before it gets adopted for 3D CAD. For visualization and presentation, it’s perfect, immersive and interactive, but imagine using a multi-touch interface, however it’s configured, for 12 hours a day. Arm’s up, blood flow to your elbows. It’s a recipe for RSI. That’s something I can’t quite figure out – how it’ll work.

What will 2008 be remembered for? That’s got to be the rise of the dynamics, direct modeling technology

But what will 2008 be remembered for? That’s got to be the rise of the dynamics, direct modeling technology. Products like IronCAD, CoCreate and Kubotek have been around for many years, but with the introduction of Synchronous Technology from Siemens, SpaceClaim and now Autodesk with Inventor Fusion, then this is the year that things got really serious. Is it marketing hype? A little bit – most of the new generation of tools are highly embryonic, but it’s coming and coming soon. I think CAD just took the next leap – we’re just not too sure where it’s going to land and how well it’ll recover from the impact. But we’ve got consumer driven graphics hardware advancing, CPUs are going multi-core at a quick rate and with the code base change to accommodate these changes, we have the potential to see drastically improved usability and capability.

As a CAD user, what kinds of limitations of current systems do you have a hard time accepting or understanding?

Data exchange is the age old one that isn’t going away. Aside from the simple mismatch of maths and geometry and there’s a huge desire NOT to make it happen which means it won’t be cured soon. The idea that the rise of direct/dynamic modeling systems will change this is interesting. The ability to edit geometry between systems, because you don’t need the history/parameters and can create them on the fly is valid, but experience tells me, it’s not that simple. When you have two core solid modeling libraries that define something as simple as a cylindrical hole differently, then there’s a lot of work yet to do.

The speed at which UI trends change is incredible, and today, it’s driven by consumers to such a large extent that CAD vendors can get caught out

Ease of use and interaction design is something I’m endlessly fascinated by. How different developers work, what appears to be a good idea in one system, gets clunky in another. How good ideas proliferate – and bad ideas. The speed at which UI trends change is incredible, and today, it’s driven by consumers to such a large extent that CAD vendors can get caught out. There was a perfect example recently. A CAD vendor developed a web-based front end to a data management product that looked like MySpace. If they’d looked this year and last year it’s all been Facebook or more recently, Twitter. The product should have matched that. CAD vendors need to look around more regularly to get a feel for what’s happening and where the trends lie, otherwise they end up looking like dinosaurs.
For someone with a background in the conceptual side of things, the last one is that there’s a lack of decent 3D conceptualization tools out there. Something that builds in sketching and 3D. Autodesk is working on something - Alias has always been strong in that area, but I think other vendors could do a much better job. Design always started with a sketch, be that a digital one or an analogue, sharpie on a napkin type of thing. That gets forgotten. Same with model making – with the rise of rapid prototyping (something of which I’m a huge fan), the manual element is being forgotten and from that tactile input, that manual process, we can gain so much.

I would like to thank Al Dean for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Al or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer. You can also follow Al on Twitter where he is twitting as alistradean.

Franco Folini

Interview with Chris Randles, SpaceClaim CEO

Direct-modeling is the new trend in CAD. No doubt about it! Some call it Synchronous Technology, some Interactive Solid Modeling, and some direct-editing. All of these approaches differ, but all are trying to overcome the limitations of existing parametric systems. If we were to identify one original source that started this trend, we would certainly have to recognize that SpaceClaim was the first company to openly and successfully claim that the parametric era is over. This new idea has spread like wildfire -- proving that it was the right concept at the right time. A design system is much more than just a good idea; it takes time to transform one idea into something that can be successfully added to the existing design and deliver real benefits. I believe SpaceClaim is approaching this pivotal point. It's time to look at it -- not any more as a "great idea" -- but as a "great system." Who better than Chris Randles, the new SpaceClaim CEO, to help me check if my impressions are correct?

Chris, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your new position?

Until recently, I was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Borealis Ventures, looking at and advising emerging companies – including SpaceClaim. My goal was to join and lead an early stage company and SpaceClaim was the right opportunity for me. Prior to Borealis, I led the management buyout of Mathsoft and served as the company’s Chairman, President and CEO until Mathsoft’s acquisition by Parametric Technology. Earlier I was the Senior Vice President and GM of the Engineering and Education Division of Mathsoft.

I am in the process of meeting with our customers and partners to hear their feedback

As President and CEO of SpaceClaim I am in the process of meeting with our customers and partners to hear their feedback and to help focus our efforts on the market segments with the greatest potential. SpaceClaim has a world-class development team with a rich heritage in 3D design, led by Danny Dean and our technology is very good. We also have a first-class investment team, including Kodiak Venture Partners, Borealis Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners, all of whom have significant experience in engineering and technical software. Rich D’Amore of North Bridge Venture Partners, for example, was an early investor in companies like SolidWorks, Revit and Mathsoft.

The launch of SpaceClaim induced a sudden and unexpected shift in the perception of CAD technologies. The parametric approach, until then considered as the most advanced, is now perceived as obsolete and too complex. While other manufacturers have been quick to adapt to the new trend favoring direct-modeling, SpaceClaim has not yet been able to fully capitalize on the trend it has created. What’s your opinion on that?

We don’t compete directly with 3D parametric CAD products. In our early days, the perception was built that we were going to go head-to-head with these vendors, but that is not the case.
We are targeting users that today don’t use 3D tools, such as conceptual designers, CAE and manufacturing engineers, because those tools are hard to use, overly rigid for their purposes and very expensive. We agree the trend in the market for 3D solid modeling is toward non-parametric solutions and PTC’s acquisition of CoCreate is an example that validates that view. We feel we are at the center of this trend.

we are targeting users that today don’t use 3D tools, such as conceptual designers, CAE and manufacturing engineers

We have a product that defines the category: it was built from the ground up for direct modeling, it has a modern easy-to-use interface and, above all, it contains smart capabilities to help our target audience create, edit and share 3D designs. We are making steady progress: we are moving our customers from investigation, to pilot and successful deployment of SpaceClaim software.
Right now our focus is on customer satisfaction. We’ve established some important partnerships, with companies such as ANSYS, ALGOR, Robert McNeel & Associates and Bunkspeed and will continue to assess other opportunities.

In the past the role of SpaceClaim in the design and manufacturing process has been described in different and not always consistent ways. Who are your target customers and why should they use SpaceClaim?

You are right about lack of consistency and we are changing that. SpaceClaim is a young company: it’s only in its second year in the market, so it’s inevitable that it will get distracted as it grows. That said, we have great products and great product development capability, the 3D market is changing and the industry is definitely ready for a step change. It is up to us to stay focused, deliver on the promise of the product and to execute our strategy well.
Our market is among designers and engineers, who are not today’s typical CAD system experts.

in many cases expensive and complex parametric tools are over-deployed, when less costly solutions could be much more effective

As mentioned, we are targeting conceptual designers, CAE and manufacturing engineers – many of these users do not have 3D CAD tools that they use every day. Additionally, in many cases expensive and complex parametric tools are over-deployed, when less costly, solutions could be much more effective. The value we bring to our customers are a faster time-to-market, ease of use, precise accuracy and about 1/5th the cost of CAD tools. These expansion markets (like CAE) are growing much faster than the core 3D CAD market, so that is where we see the most opportunity. It has the potential to mark a paradigm shift in the industry, just like the invention of 3D parametric CAD was a paradigm shift back in the 1980s.

The CAD market is changing very slowly with the transition from one system to the next happening in geological times. What is going to be the SpaceClaim strategy to rapidly attract new users?

Well, again, we are not targeting displacement of 3D CAD seats in their core market. We feel we are in the sweet spot targeting the evolution of non-parametric solutions to meet currently under-served 3D design and productivity engineering requirements. This market is just evolving and is starting to demonstrate real innovation – SpaceClaim is at the forefront of that movement.

we will attract new users by demonstrating [...] that we have a good solution

The way we will attract new users is by demonstrating to the market that we have a good solution. We are making great progress with many brand name customers across different industries, such as in consumer products, automotive, and medical devices. As we gain traction, the traditional method of marketing in engineering industries – word of mouth – will add momentum to our own efforts.

Many CAD companies built their fortune opening their system to third party plug-ins. Will SpaceClaim be more oriented to provide an open platform available to any developer or concentrate on promoting a few selected integrations?

We have already opened our APIs to third party developers, and there continues to be a lot of interest there. This is an important step for SpaceClaim as it builds its industry ecosystem.

we are going to be selective about these arrangements [with third parties]

We anticipate that third parties may also license our application and technology. We are going to be selective about these arrangements as we move forward.

You have important previous experience with products in the same price range as SpaceClaim. How should marketing and sales be different in the SpaceClaim price range compared for example to the SolidWorks price range?

We are pursuing different channels of distribution depending on geography, including direct sales, VARs and resellers, including Rhino resellers.

back in February we announced a partnership with Novedge to distribute SpaceClaim over the Internet

As you know, we announced a partnership back in February with Novedge to distribute SpaceClaim over the Internet. For a young company, with break-through new technology, we also understand that direct involvement in marketing and promotion are critical to reaching, and understanding, the market.

When the last major new CAD system entered the market (SolidWorks 1995) the specialized press was probably the most critical item in the market strategy. Today the situation is much more complex with press, bloggers, and online communities all playing an important role in shaping end user opinions. How do you plan to benefit from these diverse ways of communicated with customers?

We already are in contact with this broad community and understand the value they bring to keeping customers apprised and knowledgeable. We actively respond to blogs as relevant to offer our point of view – in fact one of the co-founders of SpaceClaim, Blake Courter, is active in the blogging community.

As CEO I plan to regularly meet with these key influencers [bloggers, online community leaders]

As CEO I plan to regularly meet with these key influencers as part of our mission to get across the company’s story – and make sure that people understand that we are new and different, and not really even a threat to the current 3D CAD market. We see the potential to expand the use of 3D, and to bring benefits of faster creation, revision and (overall) time-to-market for our customers. We are part of a major shift in the market and we have the pedigree to do well.

I would like to thank Chris Randles for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks also to Leslie Minasian for her valuable support in putting together this interview. If you have any questions for Chris or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer. SpaceClaim is available through the Novedge website.

Franco Folini

Interview with Biplab Sarkar, CTO of Nemetschek NA

With the recent release of Vectorworks 2009, Nemetschek NA made an important change in the product architecture with implications that are expected to extend well beyond this release. They replaced their obsolete geometric software library with a powerful and reliable state-of-the-art geometric engine: Parasolid. While geometric engines have been widely used in mechanical CAD for at least two decades, the large majority of AEC systems are based on simpler and more obsolete solid modeling technologies. This kind of decision requires clear vision, a brave approach, and a leadership that few players in the AEC market possess. Based on my MCAD background I can only fully support Nemetschek's choice and strategy. To explore the complex implication of such a change and the future plans of Nemetschek for his flag product Vectorworks, I interviewed Biplab Sarkar, the CTO of the company.

Biplab, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Nemetschek NA?

I joined the company, in 2000, just after it had been acquired by Nemetschek AG. My background was primarily in MCAD at the time, with about ten years experience in the development of several products at ICEM Systems (ICEM DDN), Intergraph (Solid Edge), and Computervision/Parametric Technology (Pro/Desktop).

recently, I was appointed Chief Technology Officer of Nemetschek NA

Initially, my responsibility was to enhance the modeling and rendering capability in the Vectorworks product line as a manager of the 3D geometry and rendering teams. Subsequently, I oversaw the design and development of a number of other areas of the product, including presentation and drafting. Just recently, I was appointed Chief Technology Officer of Nemetschek NA, in charge of development, documentation and QA.

Vectorworks 2009 adopted Parasolid as the geometric kernel. What was your experience with the transition process going from the previous geometrics system to Parasolid?

Vectorworks 2009 is the first phase of our transition to Parasolid. It took the 3D team about a year to implement the first phase.

what Parasolid provides is performance and robustness unparalleled with any other kernel

The primary problem we faced was the forward translation of older files, mainly because of geometric issues; for example, the G1 continuity angle in Parasolid is different from what we used in older files, or the fact that although Parasolid supports tolerant modeling, the files from prior versions had models with very high edge tolerances, leading to intersection problems. Also, we had to focus a lot of our attention on processing the self-intersecting geometry and non-manifold conditions in our existing files. But of course, what Parasolid provides at the end of the day is performance and robustness unparalleled with any other kernel that I have used.

When compared with MCAD, AEC systems have been late in adopting solid modeling as a foundation. How would you explain the delay?

I think there are several reasons behind it. Traditionally, the geometry for most of the architectural objects has been planar, requiring a polygonal model, and not as complex as in the MCAD world requiring solid models. Clash detection and accurate volume calculations are easily obtained using solid models, and we are hearing more and more about these with the acceptance of BIM in the AEC world.

the geometry for most of the architectural objects has been planar, requiring a polygonal model, and not as complex as in the MCAD

BIM also requires model-view coordination and change-management schemes that solid models—along with constraint solvers—are quite capable of producing. As the products move more towards the building life-cycle model, the solid models would become an integral part of the modeling foundation. So the delay of solids adoption in the AEC CAD products could be attributed to lack of: (a) complexity of the models, (b) cost of implementation—and thus, cost of the CAD products, and (c) need for a single digital model across the design, construction, and maintenance phases prior to the adoption of BIM initiatives.

What are the specific benefits of Parasolid compared to other geometric engines such as ACIS?

Parasolid provides unsurpassed modeling quality and robustness. The quality of the kernel is never in question, as they go through rigorous regression testing daily. Also, the number of man-years that has gone into developing Parasolid is quite astonishing, much more than what has gone into developing ACIS.

the number of man-years that has gone into developing Parasolid is quite astonishing

Another aspect that I must mention is the customer support, which is superb; the responsiveness of the whole support team is commendable. And in my opinion, the modeling operations in Parasolid are much more powerful, especially in exploring “what if” conditions, doing extreme modeling, or in handling drastic topology change conditions - where you can end up with a topology quite different from what you started with.

What are the limitations and benefits of developing a complex software such as Vectorworks for both Windows and Mac platforms?

The benefit of developing Vectorworks on both platforms is freedom of design; users can select the operating system of their choice. The Mac platform, especially, has a very strong appeal in the product design community.

the maintenance of platform specific subsystems like user interface, event handling, file formats, etc. needs regular attention

Some of the problems we face are OS-specific behaviors from third party systems like OpenGL libraries, imaging systems like Quartz (on Mac), and GDI plus (on Windows), printing issues because of OS-specific driver implementations, etc. In addition, the maintenance of platform specific subsystems like user interface, event handling, file formats, etc. needs regular attention. We are occasionally limited when a specific functionality can only be implemented on one platform, but not on the other because of technical reasons.

How much of the design of a new version of Vectorworks is based on user feedback versus the company's vision?

Up until a few years ago, most of the new features were driven by user feedback. We were reacting to customer wishes and suggestions on a regular basis. Since then, we have taken more of a theme-based approach to product development. Internally, we have developed a number of major theme areas according to the company’s vision on where we want the product to be in the long run.

we have developed a number of major theme areas according to the company’s vision on where we want the product to be in the long run

We have been working on at least two of the major themes in every release of Vectorworks. Having said that, we still provide a number of usability features in every release, as a result of direct feedback from customers.

While the CAD market seems to be in the process of re-orienting itself toward a direct-modeling/explicit approach, Nemetschek is announcing a plan to implement the parametric approach in the next major release. Why has Nemetschek chosen parametric over direct-modeling?

The direct-modeling approach is winning the hearts of CAD users in the MCAD arena, as it vastly increases design freedom when compared to history-driven CAD systems. And, I think after 20 years (since Pro/Engineer was introduced in 1988), we are seeing a paradigm shift in some sense.

we think the parametric approach is key for enhancing the BIM workflow in Vectorworks

What these explicit or direct-modeling systems are providing is a way to design parts without retaining the history, but while maintaining some of the parametric relationships of the model; this is true of many systems, including the synchronous technology introduced by Siemens/UGS in Solid Edge. The constraint driven relationships between model elements are essential for inferring the design intent, as well as for performing design changes. So, we think the parametric approach is key for enhancing the BIM workflow in Vectorworks.

The parametric approach fits well with mechanical design because there is a good match between design features (e.g. fillets, holes, extrusions, etc.) and 3D solid modeling operations. Can the same be said for architects and landscape designers?

The way we think about the architectural model is similar to the assembly of parts in an MCAD system. You have the floorplan, consisting of a network of walls constrained to each other, similar to sketches on a working plane for an extrude. Once the walls are created, you can insert doors and windows in them—essentially creating cutouts or holes.

we think that the architectural and landscaping designs can benefit a lot from solid-modeling support

You could also add other projections or niches to the walls, similar to additive or subtractive features on the top of the initial extrude. Once the model is designed for one story, it can be constrained to the floor or ceiling of other stories of the building, similar to constraints between mechanical parts in an assembly. In Vectorworks 2009, the wall creation and the window/door insertion process is completely based on Parasolid solid models, very similar to an extrude with holes on the side faces. So, we think that the architectural and landscaping designs can benefit a lot from solid-modeling support.

I would like to thank Biplab Sarkar for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks also to Jessie Newburn for her valuable support in putting together this interview. If you have any questions for Biplab or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer. All VectorWorks versions are available through the Novedge website.

Franco Folini

Interview with Paul Brown, NX Marketing Director

Siemens NX, with various names and affiliations, has been around for several years. Nobody would really expect a well establish CAD system to become the lead innovator of a new technology. Usually those kinds of CAD systems invest in maintaining their user base rather than trying to acquire new users and push technological limits. For these reasons I was quite surprised when I read that the new Synchronous Technology, developed by UGS first and then by Siemens, was being deployed not only on the younger Solid Edge but also on the more complex and older UG NX. These radical changes are  happening not too long after the acquisition of UGS by Siemens (May 7, 2007). To learn more about this important transition and the implication it is having for all NX users, I asked Paul Brown for an interview.

Paul, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

My company, Siemens PLM Software, is a business unit of Siemens Industry Automation Division and a leading global provider of PLM software and services We have 51,000 customers worldwide with 5.5 million licensed seats of software out there. I am senior director of NX Marketing worldwide. So I head up the marketing for the NX CAD product line.

we have 51,000 customers worldwide with 5.5 million licensed seats

I have been with our company more than 20 years, serving in various roles including technical support and marketing. I have a background in engineering and computer science. I got started in product design at a machinery company. One of my key roles is to work with customers and our development organization to look at how NX can meet the challenges that users face in their day-to-day work.

What impact has the acquisition of UGS by Siemens had on NX evolution?

We continue to lead the PLM market in R&D investment and we remain steadfast in our commitment to our digital product development software suite of products that help our customers develop innovative products faster and more cost-efficiently.

Siemens was impressed with [synchronous technology] enough to help accelerate the development project

One example of this was seen with our launch of synchronous technology. We disclosed the technology during the due diligence process and Siemens was impressed with it enough to help accelerate the development project. We believe the technology is a major breakthrough that is sustainable in the market for years. NX 6 features synchronous modeling in our “Design Freedom” tools.

NX has ambitions to set a new standard for usability in the CAD world. Can you explain how the NX approach is different from other CAD systems?

Traditionally, the approach is to remove functions in order to de-clutter an interface for enhanced usability.  I think the main problem with this is it assumes usability is all about two things…can I find the command I want to use and does it work in a way I would expect it to? And that’s fine for new users, but the problem is that usability is more than just those two things it does include those, but as my skills improve I then start looking for more efficiency in the way I have to use the system.  So just removing functions can leave you with a system that runs out of power when I get to more complex problems.

users have the ability to access more of the system as they become more efficient

So with NX we wanted to challenge that approach with a new interface that delivers usability without losing functionality. Our users kept telling us that they wanted something that was easier to use, but they didn’t want to lose functionality, so with that as a challenge we had to find a way to get new levels of usability without causing those existing users problems.  So we did this by focusing on the workflows our customers had  and working to make sure that as a user gets more experienced he can still be productive.We put a significant amount of effort into analyzing how CAD programs are used in a user’s day-to-day workflow. We leveraged an external firm to advise us on how workflows were done in NX vs. competing programs. And we focused interface changes to areas that could make the biggest impact to usability and productivity.
So that’s what lead us to the role-based interface you see in NX today. It means that users have the ability to access more of the system as they become more efficient.
We first introduced the roles-based interface in NX 5 to allow companies to decide exactly what they need in NX. For example, a company can choose to remove a command they never use in their design process, such as performing an extrude to add taper at the same time. We also looked at a number of standard workflows and built pre-packaged roles based around industries.  I think that’s important because when somebody installs NX they get a starting point that they are familiar with and can work from.  If we had simply said, you can do what you like and offered no guidance as to what you can do the effort we put in probably would not have had the same effect.
NX 5 really helps people get started into NX, but one thing we kept hearing from customers was that they wanted to be able to use more of the screen space. “Why do I want a tree like navigator down the side of my screen and dialogs taking up space? If I’m designing a product I want to see the product! ”That’s a fair question. With NX 6 we built on the foundations we made in NX 5 and added new tools that allow users to remain productive as they become more advanced.  So we added a full screen mode which we combined with customizable pop-up toolbars so you can get maximum size of graphics, as big as the monitor you purchase and have all of the commands you want to use used commands right under your cursor.  It’s also made even better by technology we’re calling Trueshade which brings advanced visualization capabilities to every user, it has pre-packaged lighting and environments so you can work full screen with shadows, mirroring, material properties. When we review versions with existing customers this is one thing they all like trying out.
This focus on ongoing productivity, allowing the user to control what they really need, makes NX both easy to begin using and highly efficient for the skilled user.

Why in your opinion is direct-modeling reappearing only now after being dismissed by many for several years as an ineffective technology?

I think that there are a number of technology advances that have made it more effective. The fact was the historical approach to direct modeling had mathematical restrictions which limited the types of changes that could be performed. Topology changes were either difficult or simply not allowed. Given that restriction the amount you could change was limited.
Another factor was that it required a lot of very specific user input to identify what geometry needed to be included in the calculation. Recent advances in geometry inferencing and selection have simplified the process. At the same time the underlying mathematics have improved to solve more complex cases making direct editing easier and more robust.

we’re combining geometry, rules and the geometric relationships that appear in a design and solving them at the time of editing

At Siemens PLM we took this drive into direct modeling technology further when we announced synchronous technology. We believe that NX 6 Design Freedom powered by synchronous technology takes this type of modeling beyond simple “direct modeling” that is purely a modification of the topology used in a design.  It takes us into what we are calling synchronous modeling. What we’re doing is combining geometry, rules and the geometric relationships that appear in a design and solving them at the time of editing. We automatically recognize and maintaining relationships such as tangency and symmetry in real-time as the geometry is modified. This gives us the ability to make model changes that can’t be done with traditional direct modeling.
Having said it’s clear that there are still cases that are not suitable for direct interaction. That’s why we continue to invest in the underlying architecture and the user interaction, allowing users the ability to work the way they want. Our goal inside NX is to give designers the freedom to work the best way to get the job done, offering parametric history-based and history-free approaches to design.  We’re not saying direct modeling is the only approach to design, we’re really saying you need the best of both worlds.

What is the status of JT as an open file format? Does JT have a new role to play in the context of a big company such as Siemens?

With over five million JT-enabled licensed software applications installed worldwide, JT is the most widely used lightweight 3D data format for product visualization, collaboration and interoperability throughout the CAD and PLM industries, making it very useful in today’s multi-CAD environments.

in December 2006, the comprehensive JT File Format Reference document was published and made available for free download

As for its status as an open format, a couple of items come to mind. First of all, the JT Open Program is accessible to all organizations and makes the JT toolkit available to all members – including companies that directly compete with Siemens PLM Software. Second, in December 2006, the comprehensive JT File Format Reference document was published and made available for free download from the Siemens PLM Software web site. This completed the next logical step in establishing a common, open 3D language for the PLM industry to share product related information and further established JT as a long-term data retention format.
As for JT’s role within Siemens, the company has been a long-term user of JT with an internal user community sponsored by its Corporate Technology department that provides advocacy and support for the growing JT usage throughout the global Siemens enterprise.

What sort of changes should users expect in their CAD system in the next few years?

I think that there are a number of ongoing challenges that users are looking for their vendors to address.
In terms of modeling technology, users continue to seek solutions that are quick and easy to work with especially when working with geometry that they haven’t designed. This may or may not have parametric history, so the freedom to work directly on models with a level of intelligence that gets added at edit time rather than at creation time.

users continue to seek solutions that are quick and easy to work with especially when working with geometry that they haven’t designed

There will always be improvements to usability, such as the display of relevant information to support the decision process, or alternative input devices (it’s hard to see that the traditional 2-D mouse and keyboard approach will be the only way forward).
I believe you will also see more use of alternative representations of data, polygon modeling that has traditionally been targeted at reverse engineering applications could have a wider use in CAD technologies. One thing is clear, nobody in this industry is standing still.

I would like to thank Paul Brown for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks also to Dora Smith for her valuable support in putting together this interview. If you have any questions for Paul or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

Interview with Gaetano Tavano, Founder of MechWorks

When Solidworks was first released in 1995 it changed forever the way design and manufacturing companies approach CAD software. Compared to the contemporary 3D modeling systems, Solidworks had a significantly lower price and was much easier to learn and use, with almost no compromise on features. This was a clear call for a new generation of PDM systems. As designers were rapidly switching to Solidworks they started asking for new software tools to manage all their design documents and models powerful enough to handle the dynamic and flexible processes typical of small and medium companies. One company stood ready to answer this demand for a new generation document management system. That company was MechWorks. Today MechWorks software is used by thousand of designers and remains faithful to its original mission of delivering an affordable solution without compromising on the functional level. The people who envisioned this new generation of PDMs and who were able to deliver it to all Solidworks and now Inventor users are Ciro Ettorre and Gaetano Tavano. Here is my interview with Gaetano Tavano.

Gaetano, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

MechWorks was incorporated in 1998 to develop add-ins for SolidWorks with the scope of porting our legacy CAD/CAM product. We soon realized the total lack of document management and decided, based on our previous experience, that a database based Document Manager was needed.

more than 12000 designers are benefiting from DBWorks/DBInventor

We started the development of DBWorks together with the porting of our 3 axis cam software. 2 years later we made the decision to focus entirely on Document Management and sold our CAM product business. Today more than 12000 designers are benefiting from DBWorks/DBInventor Data Management.

Document Management, more than any other software category, has to compromise between simplicity and features. How do you handle this intrinsic dilemma at MechWorks?

In the past we have seen the slogan “Out of the Box” used extensively by some PDM vendors. It was needed to comfort the customer that the software could be used right after installation. This was misleading.

[the concept of] “Out of the Box” PDM was misleading

By nature the PDM implementation needs to understand deeply the company’s processes and therefore need to be tailored to the company’s needs. What must be really understood is that the PDM system must offer a blend of basic functionality with a comprehensive API toolbox to make this happen in terms of weeks and not months or years. In DBWorks we try to accomplish this by offering a very rich set of options giving the user the possibility to add /remove specific functionality.

Many PDMs solutions are forcing companies into rigid processes leaving little space for flexibility. How important is flexibility for your customers and how can it be implemented with DbWorks and DbInventor?

Our European customers see flexibility more important than our US customers. In order to accomplish this DBWorks and DBInventor API’s have the possibility to override certain restrictions and make the “special case” part of the implementation.

You have been working with SolidWorks for many years. In the mean time SolidWorks and parametric feature-based technology have become almost mainstream. How has the way people use SolidWorks changed through the years?

The most fundamental change we have seen through out the years is the fact that the companies would like to model their entire product in 3D. At the beginning just portions of the product was modeled in 3D due to performance issues and software limitations.

today the software limitations are falling but we still see performance issues

Today the software limitations are falling but we still see performance issues that limit the size of complete machinery that can be managed with today’s hardware. Of course more complex the machinery modeled more challenge for the PDM system. At the very end it looks like performance is never enough.

How critical is a product like DbWorks for companies making a decision to adopt SolidWorks as their main CAD system?

The choice of the PDM system that will rule the CAD implementation and product development is becoming a very important factor for all companies. While in the past the CAD system was chosen first, and afterward the PDM, it has become clear now that you must think about the PDM from the beginning.

many PDM implementations are taking place in companies that have worked with the CAD system for years up to the point where product development was not manageable anymore

As a result of this many PDM implementations are taking place in companies that have worked with the CAD system for years up to the point where product development was not manageable anymore. On the other hand starting with the PDM in first place may make the 3D CAD system usage slower at the beginning but with a long term advantage.

Your products offer an extensive API to support customization and integration. Can you share with us some of the most unexpected uses of API done by your customers?

The ability to define relationships between documents and projects, independent from the 3D CAD documents, has been used by our customers to model their product structures in DBWorks/DBInventor from various perspectives. An interesting application of this has been the definition of spare parts kits defined as a logical generic document container related to 3D cad documents. Also a customer managing URLs as documents was quite unusual but very effective.

How is the US market for Document Management different from that of Europe?

We see major differences between the two markets. Part is due to the fact that the US market is composed of bigger companies and that they are geographically present in more than one state so global collaboration is more a requirement.

workflow is much more adopted in the US than in Europe

The other difference is a higher level of a formal product process definition in the US. Workflow is much more adopted in the US than in Europe. Partially this does depend on the company size but also on mentality. I also think that the European users are more open to evaluate solutions and are less marketing driven than the US users.

I would like to thank Gaetano Tavano for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Gaetano or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Roberto Ciarloni, think3 CTO

Current CAD systems are all based on only a few core geometric engines. Among those software engines, the ones that integrate solid modeling with free-form surfaces can be counted on one hand. One of those few engines is made by Think3, an Italian company that has been trying for several years to enter the US market with an interesting and powerful CAD solution.  The key person behind think3 software is Roberto Ciarloni, Chief Technology Officer. I've known Roberto for a long time and I'm glad to have the opportunity to interview him for the Novedge blog. Here are my questions and Roberto's insightful responses.

Roberto, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

In my 24 year career I have participated to the birth and evolution of three-dimensional CAD systems. I have contributed to the architecture and development of several CAD products in a very demanding market. Some of these products are still used by thousands of companies around the world. I have started with B-Spline surfaces, migrated to NURBS, and then to Boundary-Representation solid modeling. I have led teams of developers in locations around the world, innovating the software development process. I have been professor of computer graphics at the University of Milan where I have tried to systemize the interdisciplinary subjects of CAD and 3D modeling.

some of these products [I developed] are still used by thousands of companies around the world

Currently I hold the position of Chief Technology Officer in think3 and my job is to explore new directions and new technologies in the 3D CAD world. Think3 is a privately held company that operates in the CAD and PLM business. Think3 provides CAD products (ThinkDesign) in the areas of mechanical and industrial design. It also provides PLM products (ThinkPLM) to help engineering departments in managing their data and their activities. Together with off-the-shelf products think3 offers consultancy in the CAD/PLM domain and helps companies who want to move some design activities off-shore.

Direct Modeling seems to be the new trend in CAD. What is think3's approach to this technology and your long term goals?

Indeed direct modeling is gaining a lot of attention at this time. As you know this approach is as old as the “standard” history-based approach but in the past it has never been able to be competitive. Now times have matured mainly because the traditional Pro/E-like products have become more and more complex to use. The potential of direct editing is great because it allows a much more natural interaction with the model and does not require extensive training to be used.

the potential of direct editing is great because it allows a much more natural interaction with the [3D] model

I have been fond of it for a long time and my team delivered it in ThinkDesign in 2006 under the name ISM (Interactive Solid Modeling). The reaction of our customers has been enthusiastic and we have gotten a lot of pressure to extend and improve it. However I believe that this approach will never replace the history-based approach but rather will complement it. The history graph of a parametric model contains a huge amount of information and design intent and it will never be possible to replace it using things like feature recognition to feed the direct editing approach. In some sense a parametric model is a program to build a family of models and we know that in principle it is impossible to reconstruct a program just by sampling its behavior.
In Think3 we believe that a modern CAD system must allow several modeling strategies. I’ll talk more about that later in the interview.
Our plan on Direct Editing/ISM is to extend its application outside the traditional part modeling where it was born. We are now applying it to design problems in tooling and we are studying its application in assembly design. At the same time we are working hard on the base geometric algorithms to improve its reliability and applicability in complex situations.

Many companies are outsourcing big chunks of their design activities to India and China. What is the impact of these changes on the way CAD systems are used ? How is this kind of outsourcing influencing the evolution of think3 CAD system?

Think3 indeed has a branch of its business dedicated to help companies to outsource design activities to India, where think3 has set up several design centers working on a project basis for European companies.

think3 has set up several design centers working on a project basis for European companies

We feel that this trend is strong and we want to exploit our competence in design services and in outsourcing.
This trend is influencing CAD products (including ours) in two ways: we need systems that are easier to use and more standardized, so that the average engineer will take less time to exploit them, and we need a software that is able to digest low-quality data without a glitch. This sometimes means healing the model but also it means much more powerful and intelligent algorithms. I think that this is definitely one of the challenges for the years to come.

How far can the integration of the two technologies of direct-modeling and parametric-modeling be pushed without turning the CAD system into some sort of Frankenstein?

I have read about this objection and frankly I don’t see it as a big problem. In thinkdesign the ISM functionality can be inserted in the history graph like the other features or it can be used without history. I think that the objection relies on the case of a traditional feature (e.g. a hole) with some relations and parameters that can be “tweaked” by a later ISM modification so losing its semantic. But the same tweak can happen also with traditional features like face draft so where is the difference?

think3 is providing also a third modeling approach that is Global Shape Modeling (GSM)

It must be pointed out that think3 is providing also a third modeling approach that is Global Shape Modeling (GSM). In this powerful approach the user can make editing using shape semantics like bend, twist, or even change from one section to another. This approach is much better suited for complex shapes where the face-dragging metaphor of direct editing is less appropriate. So in think3 we provide the user all the freedom and the potentiality to obtain the shape he/she has in mind.

Looking at the parametric-modeling and direct-modeling technologies, is it possible to identify categories of users or types of organizations that are more likely to benefit from one specific approach rather than from the other?

SpaceClaim has recently tried to divide the field: parametric history-based for designers and direct editing for all the others (e.g. persons in manufacturing or marketing departments). It sounds reasonable but I feel it's a bit too shallow: how to coordinate the changes? (Especially if the departments use different CAD programs as SpaceClaim is pushing). However having systems like ThinkDesign or others able to provide all approaches will tell us how the companies’ organizations will exploit them and so maybe the SpaceClaim classification will prove to be roughly correct.

direct editing seems better in the conceptual stage of design

A classification that comes to my mind is that direct editing seems better in the conceptual stage of design where it can be too hard to build all the parametric relationships and rigidity to discover that the design needs a radical change.

What’s your approach in utilizing user’s feedback into the development process?

The users’ feedback and requests are inserted in our process in many ways. Marketing, Sales, and Customer Care daily filter all the customer base input and update our databases of bugs, requests, and use cases. These data is then processed regularly to influence releases’ content.

we encourage in several ways the contact between developers and customers

However we don’t believe in the approach where developers are just executors of someone else's plan and so we encourage in several ways the contact between developers and customers to increase the developer’s sensitivity in real customer problems and attitude.
Obviously no meaningful product can be done just by collecting customer requests and so we try hard to insert a precise vision and mission in our products. For example one of our visions is to achieve both high-quality modeling precision and ease-of-use, two concepts often in contradiction with each other.

What are the challenges in 3D CAD that you see for the near and medium term?

There are dozens of challenges that are still to be solved in 3D CAD. Among them I will quote reliability, interoperability, collaboration, knowledge capture, and bad data management. However there is still a more basic challenge that awaits a better solution: 3D is still difficult.

there is still a more basic challenge that awaits a better solution: 3D is still difficult

I will describe this problem in a simple way: given a complex 3D object and given a modern 3D CAD system (e.g. Solidworks, ThinkDesign, etc.) what are the commands to use to model it? Consider the same situation with a 2D object and with AutoCAD: even a very poorly trained person will achieve the goal quickly using lines, arcs, trim, extend, etc. I think that this difficulty will never vanish completely due to some intrinsic mismatch between the 3D space and our perception system but we have still a long way to go to improve the situation. As stated above one of the keys of the success of direct editing has been exactly that is going in the right direction. For me the most misleading statement that is often mentioned in relation to this is “we must build a system as easy as clay modeling”. But achieving a definite and precise shape with clay is unbelievably difficult! Ask the modelers who build automotive mockups. So we are back to the challenge to imagine and envision new ways to define 3D objects.

I would like to thank Roberto Ciarloni for taking the time to answer all my questions. If you have any questions for Roberto or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer. All think3 products are available in the US through the Novedge website.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Michael Gibson, MoI CEO and Founder

It's part of my daily job to stay in touch with new technologies and systems by reading CAD news and playing with trial versions. Over the years I've become immunized to most of the CAD marketing buzz. Despite the grand announcements, the CAD world evolves at a slow pace with few real advancements each year. This is why when I looked into MoI (Moment of Inspiration) the first time, I wasn't really expecting much. After a short while I noticed that the system created by Michael Gibson was not just another modeling system. With surprise I saw some new ideas and a strong effort to rethink the modeling problem with a fresh approach. In particular I appreciate a system that is easy to use and that manages to hide the complexity of the underlying mathematical model. I thought it would be interesting to get a first hand look into Michael's innovative ideas and vision. Here is the interview.

Michael, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

Hmmm, well I’ve had a long-time interest in computer graphics. The first 3D modeling program that I wrote was Sculptura, which was a project I started during summer vacation at college.

I created a program which I called Rhino which was a brand new CAD system

A little bit after that I started working at Robert McNeel & Associates, and there I created a program which I called Rhino which was a brand new CAD system based on the Applied Geometry kernel. I worked pretty much by myself on that for a few years while others at RMA were working on bringing the AG kernel to AutoCAD as a plug-in. Eventually my stand-alone project was looking more promising than the plug-in so the plug-in was dropped and the focus shifted to Rhino instead, and that has been a big part of RMA’s business ever since. I gained a whole lot of experience and background in CAD software design at this time.
After a while I decided to shift away from CAD for a while and went to work for Microsoft at MSN for about 5 years. I learned a lot of stuff at Microsoft, but eventually I decided that I wanted to return to CAD and try out some new ideas for my 3rd generation modeling software. So that’s how I ended up starting my own business and my new MoI project, which I’ve been working on now for the past 4 ½ years.

What makes MoI, the product, special and different from all other modeling systems?

There is actually quite a bit of unique stuff in MoI. It’s kind of a side effect of my own interest in pursuing new areas instead of just trying to clone features from existing programs.
When I started MoI I did a survey of current CAD programs, and other than SketchUp (which is great for Architecture but not so much for general Industrial Design) there just did not seem to be a whole lot of fundamental changes or new things available.

[CAD systems] tend to get more and more complex over time and harder and harder for beginning users to start with

Most of the stuff out there seemed to be the same bunch of well established programs. Those tend to get more and more complex over time and harder and harder for beginning users to start with. It really seemed to me like a beginning or casual user (by casual I mean someone who doesn’t have a lot of time to devote to the software) was just kind of “left behind” by the current CAD companies.
So I thought that would be a good area to focus on - making it quick and easy to do simple stuff. This would enable some people like artists to benefit from using CAD who would have otherwise found it out of reach either in cost or too high of a learning curve.
So just that whole intense focus on “ease of use” is one big different area.
Also to make an “artist friendly” CAD I wanted to make MoI work well with a pen drawing tablet – the standard type of CAD user interface tends to require lot of right-clicks and modifier keys, which can be awkward when using a pen tablet. A unique aspect of MoI is that it can be used without touching a keyboard - this makes it run a lot more smoothly when using a drawing tablet or Tablet PC.
Some other parts that are unique are the high quality graphical display (anti-aliased curves on low-end cards, and very fast display meshing to allow for a smoother less polygonalized display than typically used), and also a high quality polygon mesh export that supports creating n-gons with a clean wireframe instead of a whole bunch of triangles.

Who are your target customers? Who can benefit the most from the features of MoI?

Actually a lot of times I do tend not to focus so much on a single ideal target customer, and instead focus more on refining a particular task (like making it easier to sweep a shape, etc…) which may be useful to a fairly broad range of different people.

one factor in making things easy to use is streamlining operations and using fewer steps to get stuff done

But if I had to pick one I would probably say that it would be an artist who could use some basic solid modeling tools to help them do their work, but who have just not been successful doing that because everything they have tried has been too difficult to use. Someone like that would likely have the most to gain since they may not be currently using the computer to assist their work very much.
I kind of try not to pigeonhole it as _only_ for beginning users though - one factor in making things easy to use is streamlining operations and using fewer steps to get stuff done. That also brings a type of “modeling speed” increase along with it and that can be of interest to advanced users to get simple stuff done very quickly as well…

Despite the popularity of products such as Rhino, surface modeling systems are still very difficult to use, with only a few exceptions like MoI. Based on your experience, what do you think are the reasons for such a slow evolution?

It’s just a natural “path of least resistance” in software and UI development to adopt an already existing design or framework rather than build something new.

[Designing a UI] It’s really risky to build something totally brand new

It’s really risky to build something totally brand new. UI design is just not quite like a precise science – in many cases you can’t just follow a few specific steps or check stuff off of a list to then get “easy to use” automatically.
So rather than risk a big UI disaster, it is more normal for developers to say “just make it work like X” (MS Office, AutoCAD, etc…) and then we don’t have to worry about it.
That actually also saves a huge amount of development time as well. But at the same time it tends to make for very slow and more incremental progress instead of major improvements.
For a frame of reference, it took me about 1 entire year’s worth of work just purely on UI development for MoI. For me it was more interesting and fun to take the risks involved and I also had a catalyst of trying to get a tablet-friendly UI as well which helped to force me out of the more common path.

What are the reasons and implications of not having a proprietary file format?

It’s actually a strategic thing for me to be able to share data easily with other programs, because there are a lot of things that MoI does not currently do on its own like for example rendering.

using a proprietary format is just an extra piece of work that is nice to eliminate if possible

Instead of trying to build in a renderer to MoI right in the first version, it is just more practical for me to focus on doing a good job of data transfer to other programs that already do rendering. That lets the user accomplish what they need to do without me having to have the entire feature set for every possible thing all built into MoI at once, which is simply not feasible for me to do especially in a first release.
Once you have a focus on data transfer as a very important function, using a proprietary format is just an extra piece of work that is nice to eliminate if possible.

Steve Jobs as well as Henry Ford believe that to develop a product you have to listen to the users, but not do what they ask for. What is your experience on that?

I believe the concept there is that users will tend to ask for things that are within the framework of what they currently have. If you don’t dig in to understand more of the problem underlying what they are asking about, you may be missing a chance to make a much larger fundamental step forward rather than just an incremental step.

user feedback is a huge raw resource that is extremely valuable to tap into

But the whole area of incorporating user feedback is a rather complex and subtle thing.
It’s actually literally impossible to just do exactly what all users ask because different users can (and will) ask for mutually exclusive things.
But at the same time user feedback is a huge raw resource that is extremely valuable to tap into, it sort of builds a much larger pool of ideas to draw from than what I would have all on my own. That’s why I spend so much time interacting with my users.

Can you share with us some of you plans for the future of MoI?

At the moment I’m almost ready to release the first beta for MoI version 2.0. The first batch of new features are for pretty basic editing and drawing type tasks. There is a new edit frame that appears around selected objects so that you can quickly rotate or scale them, similar to how a 2D illustration program works, and also some new abilities to easily draw directly on surfaces.
I think it is really important to continue to refine the pretty basic “bread & butter” type functions.
Pretty soon I’ll be adding some additional file format support for SAT and STEP.
Another big focus for v2 will be some object organization tools, similar to layers and grouping type mechanisms, to make it easier to work with more complex models.
I have some interesting ideas to improve the history-editing type functionality.
Further out I do also want to add what I call “communication” oriented type features (because they will be for helping others understand your design), which will include some basic rendering and dimensioning.

I would like to thank Michael Gibson for taking the time to answer all my questions. If you have any questions for Michael or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.  Moment of Inspiration is available on the Novedge website along with a trial version.

Franco Folini

What if PTC never happened?

The launch of new products like SpaceClaim and new technologies like Synchronous Technology by Siemens is bringing some fresh air into the design software world. But is this air really so fresh? Or is it more like the air trapped in the Genie’s bottle that is bursting out after SpaceClaim rubbed it almost twenty years after being trapped in by PTC?

Let’s roll back the clock to the late 80s and review the story. At that time solid modeling was in its infancy, mostly limited to simple bounding surfaces if not polyhedral based modeling (remember CATIA V3?). Commercial kernel modelers were almost non existent with the exception of Romulus (indeed mostly limited to simple bounding surfaces); ACIS and Parasolid were still on their respective drawing boards. And the dominant model creation technique was based on Boolean operators.

Then PTC appeared on the market and within a few years it became the dominant player. Its product was an overnight success and it introduced the world to the concept of parametric solid modeling. The technology was brilliant (and PTC’s sales force was not shy) and all the established competitors were caught like a deer in the headlights. They all scrambled to at least replicate what PTC had. Some survived and some, like ComputerVision, never recovered.

In the process everybody focused on parametric solid modeling and forgot about any technique that interacted with the solids directly without any parametric constraint. Over time the parametric modeling technology evolved into a methodology and became “the way we do things” in solid modeling. And in the mid 90s SolidWorks sealed the direct modeling Genie’s bottle even tighter bringing to the market the first successful parametric solid modeler for Windows.

But maybe parametric modeling does not solve all the issues of solid modeling -- it has never really successfully evolved to handle free form surfaces, handling of models with large numbers of parameters can be very difficult and often simple modifications can be very complicated to carry out because the parameters graph needs to be untangled first. What if PTC never happened and we spent the last 20 years developing direct modeling?

Most likely, if PTC did not do it somebody else would have. We would probably be more or less where we are now. The time was ripe for parametric solid modeling to happen one way or another. But, hypothetically, if PTC did not happen we might have a different modeling paradigm, possibly based on some sort of direct, feature-based modeling as well as parametric modeling too.

In my opinion, the PTC success strongly polarized the design software development in the parametric solid modeling direction and I am glad that SpaceClaim and others are bringing back the direct modeling paradigm. I have the feeling that we are about to see what the last two decades would have looked like if PTC never happened.

Cristiano Sacchi

Why Direct/Parametric Modeling Hybrid is an Oxymoron

Parametric CAD systems are based on a complex internal data-structure that represents each geometrical and dimensional constraint as a relationship among two or more entities. When the end-user requests a change to a parameter (dimension), the CAD system propagates the modification to the entire 3D model (it’s called model evaluation) following those relationships while preserving the validity of each single constraint.

In the data structure of a direct-modeling CAD system there are no constraints. They are created on the fly as a way to support high-level modification of the 3D model. For example, if the CAD system sees a tangency between a planar face and a cylindrical face it likely will assume that it’s a constraint and that it should be preserved to guarantee that the behavior of the system follows the original design intent.

The power and beauty of the direct-modeling approach is that in different moments the set of active constraints can change radically. Constraints “captured” to support modification "A" can even contradict constraints “captured” during modification “B”. This is great because gives the end-user incredible flexibility and power.

On the other hand, in a parametric CAD system the set of constraints can be changed only with tedious and complex operations. The benefit of this more rigid approach is that your CAD system knows all the constraints and doesn’t have to guess them. This makes parametric CAD systems more predictable and reliables. If the 3D parametric model was carefully created by a skilled CAD user this can be a huge advantage.

Because of the intrinsic difference between the two approaches, there cannot be a hybrid CAD system where I can create a parametric part, change it using some of the flexible tools offered by a direct-modeling system, and still have a fully parametric part.  A direct-editing modification to a parametric model is possible, but it becomes a non-return point -- the data structure that supports the parametric nature of the model will not survive.

The recent marketing brochures and blogs that are describing a possible future of CAD based on the hybrid approach make me smile. But we all know that marketing knows no limitations…

Franco Folini

An Interview with Ron KC Cheng, CAD Writer

Ron KC Cheng is the author of a new book Inside Rhinoceros 4 published by Thomas Learning, an introduction to the latest release of Rhino, the popular NURBS modeling system by Robert McNeel and Associates. This is not the first book about Rhino written by Ron; he is also the author of Inside Rhinoceros 3, a sort of classic for the Rhino community. Despite the rich set of training and learning resources available over the Internet, many people like the idea of having a real book to browse through as a reference or even read sitting on the porch. Ron has plenty of experience with Rhino as a professional and as a teacher and I'm sure his book will help Rhino to reach an even wider audience. To learn more about Rhino and the book, I asked Ron for an interview.

Ron, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

Thomson Learning has published for me seventeen English books related to computer-aided design applications

Leading the Engineering Design and Communication Unit of the Industrial Center of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in addition to teaching, my main areas of interest are designing and product development related, in particular, to four kinds of projects (industrial, engineering, integrative, and manufacturing).
Over the years Thomson Learning of the United States of America has published for me seventeen English books related to computer-aided design applications. Among them, the Autodesk Inventor book was translated into Russian and the latest publication is the Inside Rhinoceros 4 book. In addition to the English books, the China Technology Press of Hong Kong also published for me computer aided design books in Chinese and a series of paper automata toys (Figure 1.)
Together with my team, through sensitive exploration, dynamic steering, critical changing, and strategic creation of needs, I continually develop and provide four major kinds of tangible products in terms of project works: industrial projects, engineering projects, integrated learning projects, and manufacturing projects. Basically, industrial projects and engineering projects are externally oriented, with clients mainly from the industry outside the university. These projects usually have clear definitions on what will be needed in the final product, in terms of aesthetic and functional requirements. In essence, they are similar in nature but differ only on emphasis, with industrial projects having more focus on aesthetic outcome and engineering projects having heavier engineering ingredients. In common, they are all unique, challenging, and interesting because they are dynamically driven by the market. The lead time for these projects is usually short and reaction to market enquiry has to be fast and immediate. Showing in figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 are some of the industrial and engineering projects.
Contrary to externally orientated projects, integrated learning projects and manufacturing projects are internally oriented, with clients being our students of the university. The common goal of these projects is to enable the students with different backgrounds to achieve specific learning outcomes, with the integrated learning projects being the primary projects and the manufacturing projects being the secondary projects. Here, primary and secondary refer to the stages in delivery in the course of learning but not their importance. As primary projects, integrated learning projects have to match individual program’s detail syllabus in terms of coverage in various processes, with preference on the balance of emphasis and leading to the advocating of product and process integration in the design and development of projects. Being secondary in the stage of learning, manufacturing projects are more flexible in nature and scope, as long as engineering application and problem solving techniques are properly emphasized. Figures 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are some examples of the integrative projects and manufacturing projects.

What is so special about Rhinoceros 4.0 to explain its great success?

Rhinoceros is very user-friendly and can be picked-up in a couple of hours

There are several points contributing to Rhinoceros 4’s success. First of all, as compared with other 3D modeling tools, Rhinoceros does not require heavy hardware configuration. We can run Rhinoceros 4 on a computer with a Celeron CPU with as low as 256M Ram. Naturally, we need to turn off History recording. Otherwise, memory requirement will become quite high. Part of my Rhinoceros book was written while I was traveling on trains, using an ultra mobile PC, as shown in Figure 12.
Rhinoceros is very user-friendly and can be picked-up in a couple of hours, because it allows users to input command through pull-down menus, toolbars, as well as command prompt area. In particular, it allows users to select command options by selecting them from the command prompt area. To facilitate 3D manipulation, there are three default construction planes. In conjunction with using the Control key, we can input 3D coordinates very easily. Naturally, we can always set up our own construction planes whenever necessary but that would need a bit more knowledge on Rhinoceros. In terms of surface modeling, it supports both NURBS surfaces as well as polygonal meshes. NURBS surfaces are powerful tools for building 3D free-form surfaces. Using Rhinoceros, the NURBS curves and surfaces can be easily built and manipulated. With Rhinoceros’s UDT (universal deformation technology), we can manipulate NURBS surface objects to obtain very free-form organic shapes. On the other hand, polygonal meshes are useful in rapid prototyping. We can use it as a tool to manipulate rapid prototyping files, such as the bubble car in my latest book and the penguin toy in Figure 13.

NURBS is a very powerful technology, but not the easiest one to grasp for end-users. What has been done and what could be done to make it more user-friendly?

Rhinoceros’ development team has done a great job to make the construction and manipulation of NURBS surfaces easy even for the beginners

Indeed, Rhinoceros’ development team has done a great job to make the construction and manipulation of NURBS surfaces easy even for the beginners. By laying one or more background images in the default construction planes, even the novice can use the curve tools to produce curves and use the curves to construct various kinds of surfaces. Using various tools, such as curves from objects tools and curve and surface rebuilding and improvising tools, NURBS surfaces can be built and improvised with great accuracy and smoothness.
To illustrate how easy it is to use Rhinoceros in surface modeling, I am going to present the rendered images  (Figure 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) of the car models produced by my students, with the models constructed by using Rhinoceros 4 and images rendered by using Flamingo. Among these models, apart from the Audi car model, which is produced by a student who has prior knowledge on using other CAD applications, the remaining models are done by students who are CAD novices, learning Rhinoceros in my intensive course of 8 meetings (three hours in each meeting) within four weeks. During the course, I first let them work on the bubble car case study delineated in my latest Rhinoceros book and subsequently on a series of tutorials. Then they work on their own to produce the car bodies which I require them to export to Autodesk Inventor, from there they continue to construct the solid model of a transformer toy, transforming a car to a robot (take a look at the video).

Each CAD system has its own personality. How would you describe Rhino's personality?

it is so easy to use that we can use it to construct even illogical curves

Rhinoceros is very user-friendly. As a surface modeling tool, it is so easy to use that we can use it to construct even illogical curves, illogical in such a way that the curves intersect themselves, and use the illogical curves to construct surfaces that cannot be produced physically by any manufacturing process. Sometime even the curves do not intersect, but because of the shape and radius of curvature of the curves, the surface produced from them intersects itself, preventing physical models to be produced from the surfaces. Naturally, this brings about fallacious negative criticism that Rhinoceros surfaces, collectively, are no good for making physical models. However, I still consider that allowing illogical surfaces to be produced is a good point in terms of learning because it allows us to experiment with organic free-form shapes as perceived in our mind.
Consequently, we need to emphasize a water-tight and non-self intersecting surface model, if we are going to use Rhinoceros models in down-stream computerized operations such as solid modeling and rapid prototyping. Naturally, models do not need to be water-tight and non-self intersecting if we concern only about visualization. Here, the car models my students are working on need to be water-tight and non-self intersecting because the models are required to be used in Autodesk Inventor for making a transformer toy. Showing in the video is the Audi car to robot toy constructed by my student Wing-Keung Li, using Rhinoceros to construct the surface model, exporting the Rhinoceros surface model to Autodesk Inventor, and using Autodesk Inventor to produce the solid model of the robot toy.

What has been your approach in writing your last book about Rhino?

CAD should be used in design in much the same way as we would use the word processor in writing an essay

To most people, it may be very unusual to start with a series of case studies and then follow by the main description delineating the application. Therefore, some may say that I have done my book in a strange sequence by beginning with level 2 training and then proceed to level 1 training, reversing the normal process. Frankly speaking, I do not quite agree on clear cut level division in training because nowadays, CAD is no longer a separated, isolated operation in the product development process in which someone produces the sketches or concept drawings and someone else constructs the CAD model. On the contrary, CAD should be used in design in much the same way as we would use the word processor in writing an essay, because more and more designers and architects would wish to construct the CAD model themselves to realize their concepts.
Over the years, I learned from many designers and architects and my students that they want to learn how to produce 3D models of their designs quickly, caring very little about the details of the commands and the options of the commands. This is similar to when we first learn word processing, we always have an immediate need to know about how to use it as a tool to write an essay; and very few of us would, from the onset, care about the many functions, like page making and web publishing, of the word processor. Realizing that construction of surfaces is simple but making the curves is not, I designed some interesting case studies and prepared the template files in the Case Studies of my book, encouraging the novice to taste the sweetness of making a model by using the surface construction tools on the curves provided. To let the students know more about why and how, I put the main chapters after the case studies. This is why I wrote my book in such a way, beginning with a series of case studies. In fact, I have more case studies placed in the CD accompanying the book because of page number limitation. Showing in Figure 24, 25, 26, and 27 are the case studies in my book and an additional case study developed after the book is published.

What has been the role of the Rhino community in your latest book about Rhino?

The good thing about such a long WIP and beta period is that it gave me ample time to think about what should be and what should not be included in the book

Writing of my latest book about Rhinoceros, in fact, started since Rhinoceros released its first WIP (work in progress) version, which I learned about from the editor of Thomson Learning, who urged me to complete the book as soon as possible, in order to catch up with the pace of the release of Rhinoceros 4. Ironically, the WIP lasted for years and there were so many WIP versions that I cannot recall how many versions have been released. Following the WIP versions were the Beta versions. It took me nearly two years to keep track on the changes of Rhinoceros and thus revise my book. The good thing about such a long WIP and beta period is that it gave me ample time to think about what should be and what should not be included in the book, as well as to try out the case studies with my students. The bad side of such a long period is that it tends to become boring to keep track on a single CAD system for such a long time, because I am also interested in other solid modeling systems such as Autodesk Inventor, using it in designing. Over the years, I met a lot of people from the Rhinoceros’s company and they gave me a lot of help and information about the development of Rhinoceros. Among them, special thanks go to Jerry Hambly (my old friend) and Yoko of McNeel company.

From your personal point of view, how do you see the future of CAD?

In the future there will remain two kinds of CAD systems: the surface modeling and the parametric feature-based

Many years ago in the early 80’s, when PC was starting to become popular, people debated about whether to move forward to using CAD instead of drafting manually because in those days, PC based CAD systems are mostly 2D in nature, which were only marginally more advantageous than drafting manually. Later on, there are more powerful PC based CAD systems capable of handling 3D. However, those PC based 3D objects were still quite primitive, with limited modeling functions, leading to the debate of whether to move forward from 2D CAD to 3D CAD. Over the years, advancement of PC based CAD systems has escalated in such a pace that they are now capable of representing and realizing various 3D objects electronically in the computer. Naturally, CAD has and will become a very fundamental skill for designers and architects, like word processing skill for everyone. In the future, I would perceive that, basically, there will still remain two major kinds of CAD systems, the surface modeling system such as Rhinoceros and the parametric feature-based solid modeling systems. Rhinoceros will still be used extensively because it is simple to use and it has cutting edge on providing a set of low cost and easy to manipulate tools for designers and architects for them to realize their conceptual ideas quickly.

I would like to thank Ron KC Cheng for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks to Janet Brock for help in arranging this interview. If you have any questions for Ron or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini