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With this beta release, Bricsys is back in the architectural biz

Bricsys has been hinting at getting back into the architectural design market, and today they released the first beta of the BricsCAD BIM Module. Here's what you need to know about it:

• Uses Bricsys' direct modeling technology, and links to the Chapoo portal for project management and file translation

• Addon loads into BricsCAD Pro and Platinum versions only (not Standard version)

• Works with 32-bit BricsCAD v13.2 only (not 64-bit or earlier releases)

• For Windows only (not Linux)

• Free download from https://www.bricsys.com/common/applications

Bricsys ceo Eric DeKeyser tells me, "It is a beta version that can be used in day to day work. We are very ambitious in our plans for the coming years regarding BIM."

(The Bricsys staff has experience with architectural CAD, through the earlier development of TriForma software, subsequently sold to Bentley Systems, and Architecturals software.)

Expect the BIM module to be developed slowly, and not rushed out as today's mobile apps are. Bricsys' thinking is long-term. Their idea is to build an entire CAD ecosystem based on solely the DWG file format: 2D, 3D, MCAD, and BIM.

 

 

My new toy: the first phone built for Firefox OS

There's the Big 3 in mobile operating systems, of course, Android, iOS, and Blackberry 10. And then there are a lot of wanna-be's that you may never see -- or even hear about. I missed out on getting a WebOS phone or tablet, and so I was determined to get the latest wanna-be, one of the rare phones that run Firefox OS natively.

There are only two smartphones (might be more, it's not clear to me, although Foxcon says they'll be making the first tablet) that run the beta version of Firefox OS, both from GeeksPhone of Spain. (You could install FireFox OS on certain Android phones, but after paying $280 to recover my Android tablet from a OS replacement I botched up, I'm not doing that anymore!) Buying one is tough, however, because the Web site usually is out of stock. After clicking compulsively for over a month, I was lucky when a few actually were available, and I ordered the Peak. (Later in the day, the site was again sold out.)

I mean, how cool is it to walk around with a phone labeled, "Developer Preview"!

The site sells two models, a low-end e91.00 Keon and the e149.00 middle-spec Peak. The prices may seem cheap for unlocked phones sold at full price, but by the time I added shipping from Spain, customs duty into Canada, and the Euro->dollar exchange rate, the Peak peaked at $275. As the phone was shipped to Canada, I didn't have to pay the 21% Spanish sales tax (saved me $44).

The phone arrived quickly: I ordered it on a Tuesday evening, and the UPS driver handed it to me on the following Monday, along with the import bill. (The site has no accessories for the phone.)

Here they are. In the orange is the Keon, in the white the Peak; there is no choice in colors. (The photo is a bit misleading, as the Keon is smaller than the Peak.)

 
The phone is cheap and feels cheaply made. The bezel is wide, the screen is probably plastic, the plastic back comes off but I pretty much have to bend it to get it back into place, and vibrate mode feels like there is a small unbalanced motor wobbling around inside the housing. It was designed in Spain and so looks elegant, but was made in China and feels like the discount Android tablets I buy from there.

There is just one button, which returns the phone to the home screen. Double-pressing the button brings up the task switcher. As is lacking on the iPhone, I wish the Peak had a universal Back button, as on Android.

Being an unlocked phone, I can stick in any (full size) SIM card and so use it just anywhere in the world on GSM and UMTS bands, plus Edge, 3G, and WiFi for data. As well, it has both kinds of tethering, WiFi and USB.

Tech Specs 

The Peak phone has the following specs and features:

• Dual-core 1.2GHz CPU (sometimes bogs down, but hey, this is beta!)

•  4.3" 960x540-resolution IPS (sharp-looking and bright!)

• 512MB RAM for running programs and 4GB for storing apps and data

• MicroSD slot for 32GB additional storage

• 8 megapixel camera on the back with flash, and 2 megapixel front

• Other: FM radio, microUSB for charging and data transfer, GPS; light, proximity and gravity sensors; Wifi N and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR; full-size SIM slot

• 1800 mAh replaceable battery

It came with a USB/microUSB cable, headphones with mic, and a USB charger. The charger has the European plug instead of North American unfortunately, but it will be useful when I travel to Europe this fall.

This Phone Is Not For End Users

This phone is not for end users, I repeat. It is meant to test the beta of FireFox OS, and so receives daily updates. This cell phone operating system is not yet shipping, and so it has rough edges in some areas.

For example, I could not import contacts from my Google account (this will be added in a later update) but in the meantime someone wrote a separate contacts importer app, which ran at a speed of about 100 contacts per minute. Although the phone runs the Firefox Web browser ('natch), I was disappointed that it does not accept any of the thousands extensions from Mozilla -- yet.

OTOH, there were already some nice touches. The email software is pretty good, and instantly connected with GMail after I typed in my username and password. Calendar also works with Google Calendar. The phone's camera software has editing and filters, and the mapping (from Nolkia) is as good as Google Maps. There are already lots of Firefox OS and HTML apps to search through and download.

How Firefox OS is Different From Android

If you use an Android phone, then you can immediately use a FireFox OS phone. There are many similarities, such as the drag-down task bar.

This is not an Android phone. And so when you turn on the phone, there is no prompt from Google, and so none of your GMail, Calendar,  Contacts, or Android apps are going to magically appear in short order, as they do on Android phones.

The primary UI difference is that there are no dedicated back or menu buttons. These appear in the apps; a soft back button usually appears in the upper left corner (inconvenient to reach with the thumb) and the OK or Next button usually in the upper right (much better than at the bottom of the screen, which often is covered by the keyboard on Androids).

The other primary difference lies in the apps. All Firefox OS apps are written in HTML5 only; Mozilla added some extensions so that the HTML5 can access the hardware and run faster types of code. You need to be aware that there are two kinds of apps:

(1) pure HTML5 apps, which are Web pages that are accessed from the Internet in real time, and run on the phone like when the Firefox browser is in full screen mode; these do not operate when the phone is disconnected from the Internet.

(2) native HTML5 apps, which are like regular Android apps that reside on the phone; these operate whether the phone is connected to the Internet or not.

Not an Android Replacement 

In summary, the Peak is not going to replace my Android-running Nexus. But I do look forward to taking part in watching Firefox OS mature.

In upFront.eZine this week: how Haswel ignores the needs of desktop CAD users

In upFront.eZine #780 this week, we have for you:            

1. What Marketing Gives, Engineering Takes

2. All About the New Russian-developed 3D Kernel 
     - Part 2

3. Out of the Inbox, and a few other other regular columns.

You can read all about the business of CAD at www.upfrontezine.com/2013/upf-780.htm

 

P.S.: Next week's issue of upFront.eZine will arrive early in your inbox, as I am scheduled to attend Solid Edge University 2013 across the river from Cincinnati Ohio.

Do CAD vendors contribute to PRISM?

A report from Bloomberg this morning says that an awful lot more than just eight firms are contributing to the American NSA monitoring of communications:

"Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence..."

Of the thousands implicated, the report names just two, Microsoft and Intel-McAfee. However, the way Microsoft supports the NSA sheds a light on how CAD vendors might be helping out. Microsoft secretly provides advance notice of bugs to the American government, allowing agencies to exploit the bugs on computers running overseas. This from a company that pretends to be outraged when Google releases early information about bugs in Microsoft software.

Frank Shaw, [vice president of corporate communications] for Microsoft, said those releases occur in cooperation with multiple agencies and are designed to give government “an early start” on risk assessment and mitigation.

The article notes that when companies provide information willingly, then no FISA oversight is needed by the government. In addition, very few within a company -- "a key executive at a company and a small number of technical people" -- know that they are disseminating information customers assume is being held in confidence.

Data generated within Canada is particularly vulnerable, because Internet pathways between two points in Canada may well travel through the USA when routers deem it more efficient. As this traffic is deemed foreign, it so requires "less legal scrutiny."

 

Canon mixes up its reality

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

Canon is a company we know best for fine cameras (and less so for the purchase of OCE and their large-format printers). It seems, however, less intent on seeing things as they really are, but rather how you wish they were. With its MREAL virtual reality system, they can show NX models inside an existing, real world environment. 

Here at the Siemens PLM Connection 2013 exhibit hall, I enter this virtual reality world with my hand in front of me. The cameras detects my position, and the display shows the model with with my hand on it; I virtually handle the part inside the real world.

How is this not what we have seen before? and referred to as "VR" or "AR" (virtual or augmented reality)? I had just come from the zSpace booth down the isle, where I wore only a clip-on over my glasses to see virtual models. The Canon head gear seems bulky and excessive. I am told it's still better than other VR head-mounted displays, which cut off the rest of the world; I think of deep diving helmets. I can see enough with MREAL to not trip over the furniture. And it has to be far less of an investment than a full blown CAVE (cave automatic virtual environment). 

Canon's MREAL lets users interact with their NX model at Siemens Connect in Dallas. Rubber glove help isolate hand from surroundings but will not be needed.

MREAL has been available for nine moths for NX. A CATIA version is due soon. Shown here for manufacturing use with NX, the MREAL could also be used in architecture, museums, and safety training. Canon mentions oil rigs. (Now that they mention it, it would certainly be nice to to run through an evacuation tunnel in a virtual oil rig rather than a real oil rig with flames licking my butt. But I'm not sure how I can use MREAL on the run, as wires seem to tether the system to a computer, but let us continue.) 

In what appears to be a attempt to establish itself in virtual reality, Canon will "work with you" to rather than quote a price for the system. "We're more interested in getting some good case studies, says Peter Johnson of Canon. The MREAL system was first used internally by Canon themselves to design their own products, but now Canon must have realized that they could actually sell it to others.

For more information, see the Canon site at http://usa.canon.com/cusa/office/standard_display/Mixed_Reality_Overview

[Reprinted with permission of CAD Insider.]

 

In upFront.eZine this week: we ask, does NSA's Prism capture cloud-based CAD data?

In upFront.eZine #779 this week, we have for you:           

1. Drawings=Data

2. HP's newest large-format printers were designed by users 
    - Q&A

3. Out of the Inbox, and a few other other regular columns.

You can read all about the business of CAD at www.upfrontezine.com/2013/upf-779.htm

AMD FirePro gets a 1-year head start on Creo over nVidia Quadro

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

 In the war between the two superpowers of CAD graphics AMD and nVidia, AMD's FirePro has scored a major victory over NVIDIA's Quadro for the PTC Creo crowd -- according to AMD spokesman Antoine Reymond.

I'm at the opening of a PTC user event. Openings of big CAD user meetings are usually an excuse to eat and drink. Held in the exposition hall with the hopes of uniting users with vendors and their products and services, most users are instead occupied with the free chicken quesadillas, cheeseburger sliders, crab cakes, and more. Most wander from food station to food station, having a free beer along the way; a few stations have wine. Drink coupons were included with registration, although press were denied. (Do we have that reputation?)

But the ever-alert Antoine is not swayed by temptation. He flags me down to show me a leapfrog in performance over their archrival. This was an opportunity he could not squander. It was a story that must be told. No matter that it was Miller time, a Sunday night, on a show floor that was about to close. 

But I am happy to oblige. What is more fun than covering a good fight? NVIDIA, the marketing heavyweight, has been outspending AMD to promote its superiority in the battle for the CAD workstation. But here is Antoine telling me that his Firpro W7000 is up to 17 times faster than the nVidia Quadro K4000, specifically in GPU-accelerated transparency mode. His colleague, Jon Clark, quickly adds that other modes are also substantially improved.

To prove it, AMD shows otherwise identical PTC Creo v2.0 systems side by side. Sure enough, the AMD system does appear to meto be a bit smoother with fewer glitches as it rotates Creo models. The technical advantage AMD seems to have attained is not without some intrigue. Antoine tells me that PTC allowed AMD exclusive access for one full year. It's the only way they could have gained such a clear advantage. 

Oh, boy. I can't wait to get over to get to the nVidia booth tomorrow!

[Reprinted with permission from CAD Insider.]

 

My second look at Vectorworks Nomad, part ii

Here is a walk-through of the Nomad viewer-redliner from Vectorworks:

After installing Nomad from the Google store on my Android tablet, I signed in using my complimentary subscription account:

 

User Interface

Once signed in, I saw this list of drawings. (Sample drawings provided by Vectorworks.)

 

I picked one drawing, and then a few moments later it appeared on the screen. A button on the upper right opened all the sheets included with the drawing (see the list of thumbnails on the right.)

 

Along the bottom of the screen is a short tool bar that switches modes between viewing, redlining, and measuring (left to right). In the figure above, I opened the redlining mode, and you can see the buttons available: add a note, draw freehand, add text, draw a line, draw a square-rectangle, or draw a circle-oval -- all in red.

Measurement mode measures distances (two picks), angles (three picks), and areas (four picks). As my finger moved around to find the start of a measurement point, a magnifying glass showed the drawing elements under my finger (see figure below). Each vertex of a measurement vector had a handle for me to edit the location. In the lower left corner, Nomad reported the length, angle, and/or area. There is no way to export the measurements, and they disappear from the screen with the next action.

 

Viewing mode does zooming (double-tap or spread two fingers) and panning (one-finger drag). View quality is good: as I zoomed in, the image was fuzzy for a moment, and then cleared up so that I could see details. Viewing and loading times are excellent, even on my older dual-core Android.

Sharing 

A sign of openness is if a mobile app allows links to external services, such as email or Dropbox. I tapped the Share button, and up popped this list of options:

This not the list an Android user usually sees, and so I'll explain the meaning of the options:

Share Link to a Server PDF File -- generates a link to the PDF that looks like this: http://cloud.vectorworks.net/portal/link/cxxxe-cxx0-1x2-bxx6-12xxxxxxx94f. The file opens in the recipient's browser using the PDF viewer; no password or account is needed. All sheets associated with the drawing are in the PDF. Links expire after two weeks.

Share Link to a Server VWX File -- same, but the link is to the original Vectorworks drawing file, and when I click on it, my Web browser prompts me to save the ZIP file to disk on my desktop computer.

Share Links to both PDF and VWX Files -- same, but generates two links, one to each file format

Share as File Attachment -- as below.

After choosing one of the options, Nomad then displays the menu Android users expect to see:

 
The list varies depending on the utilities installed on the Android, but here is what the ones in the figure would do:

Add a subscription (through gReader, a Google Reader replacement) -- didn't work for me. If it did, then maybe I'd get RSS notifications?

Add to Dropbox -- uploads the file to my Dropbox account.

AquaMail (a GMail replacement) and Outlook.com -- email the file.

Bluetooth -- transfers the file to a nearby device, such as my cellphone.

Firefox Sync -- didn't work for me.

OfficeSuite Wi-Fi Direct -- uses a utility in OfficeSuite (a Microsoft Office replacement) to send the file to a linked computer through wireless networking

Skype -- didn't work for me.

Of this list, I am likely to use Dropbox primarily and AquaMail secondarily. (After the PRISM revelations, I might want to only use WiFi direct and Bluetooth!)

Preferences

Here is the Preferences screen, which is brief, thankfully:

 

Web Site

In the Preferences dialog box, the Open Your Cloud account option takes me to my account at Vectoworks' Web site (using the Android browser), which also displays the drawings I have hosted there. As I noted earlier, this is much nicer looking than the equivalent Dropbox provides:

 

 

It's a bit too subtle, but to select a file, tap the nearly-invisible square in the lower right corner of a thumbnail. Then you can delete or email the file(s). Tapping the New option prompts me to choose a file to upload to the Web page: VWX, TIFF (raster images), or OTF (open type font); presumably this is meant to work from my desktop computer, and not a tablet, which would not have these file types normally.

What Nomad Doesn't Do

In my April review, I wished that Vectorworks would let potential users access Nomad without an account; they could be limited to the three or four sample files. Vectorworks told me they are thinking about it.

Nomad doesn't do 3D. It will not let me erase or rename files; this is best left for the Web page.

There is no caching, so that each time I went to the file list page, or reopened a drawing, Nomad downloaded the data from the Vectorworks server. This is to ensure users in the field access the latest version.

Nomad crashed on me several times, but restarted immediately. I am not too concerned about this, because even GMail and Maps crash on my Android tablet (one reason I swtiched to non-crashing AquaMail).

Footnotes 

Vectorworks provided me with the subscription account free, as well as a free copy of Vectorworks 2013. I reviewed the software on my ASUS Transformer TF-101 tablet running Android 4.1, which I paid for.

Nomad is available from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.vectorworks.nomad

 

My second look at Vectorworks Nomad, part i

When in April I tried to review Vectorworks Nomad, their app for Android and iOS devices, I couldn't get any further than the login screen. because only paid-up users of their annual subscription program can get access. The folks at Vectorworks noticed, and set me up with a complimentary access for a second try.

In brief, Nomad views PDF files of 2D drawing sets and rendered 3D models created by Vectorworks, and has some actions for marking up and measuring the drawings. Nomad does not read native Vectorworks files. The PDFs are strictly 2D, and so can be zoomed and panned but not orbited in 3D space.

Now, I am assuming we could do the same as Nomad on our own, and avoid the subscription fee: getting our CAD system to generate PDFs through a Publish-type command, and then using a combination of Dropbox and Acrobat for mobile devices to view the drawings on smartphones and tablets. Everyone on a project can share the same Dropbox folder.

What then is the advantage to Nomad over the generic Dropbox-Acrobat solution? As best as I can tell, two:

1. Vectorworks' severs (Amazon EC2, actually) generate the PDFs, including rendered drawings, read by Nomad. The company says that this decouples "inefficient workflows, shifting calculations needed to generate sections, elevations, renderings, and BIM data from the desktop to the cloud."
2. Nomad records redline-style markups made to PDFs.

A third advantage is that the online environment for storing drawings is nicer that the stark Dropbox one.

In part 2, I will next week walk through Nomad and the related Web site.

 

 

Dassault won't give you this free SolidWorks-Catia xlator, but CCE will

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

 SolidWorks-Catia conversions have been the source of much consternation among users, most of whom don't understand how two programs owned by the same company (Dassault Systemes) won't talk to each other. 

CAD blogger Josh Mings has reported on Dassault's CATIA-to-SolidWorks converter that costs $3,000 upfront, plus another $1,000/year for maintenance. I couldn't find it on Dassault's site or SolidWorks' site, but I should not be surprised. It's not something that Dassault is likely to promote, maybe for fear that it will cause a mass migration to the cheaper product (SolidWorks). 

Into the void come a few companies offering the much needed conversion, either with expensive off-the-shelf software (can Elysium really charge $10,000?), or cheapo apps by little known companies that will probably waste your time, or data translation specialists who offer to customize a solution (you can imagine what that might cost!). 

But in a most unlikely place -- the annual gathering of NX and TeamCenter users in Dallas, TX --the solution to the SolidWorks-Catia interoperability conundrum presents itself when I pay a visit to the CCE booth.

CCE is a heavyweight in the interoperability arena. They have a labs site from which they are determined to give away software. It's like Autodesk Labs, though on a smaller scale; in fact, there are only four products available: two are CAD viewers, one of which handles large assemblies.

But most important is a bidirectional SolidWorks-Catia translator in 32- and 64-bit versions. It's free. You do have to log in using Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or Twitter so that CCE ends up with a way to contact you, but isn't this a small price to pay for solving a longtime source of frustration -- or as an alternative to pricey or shady alternatives?

[Reprinted with permission of CAD Insider.] 

Sandy @CADcrush Is CCE a "dumb" geo SW-CATIA translator? Or do you get the parametrics and meta data too? Didn't v6 solve this issue?

Debankan @DebankanC Our translator product does not transfer features/parametrics. But neither does Dassault's own prod. Even better, ours is free!

 

In upFront.eZine this week: our exclusive interview with Vero Software about its CAM business

In upFront.eZine #778 this week, we have for you:          

1. Vero Software's View of the CAM Industry
   - Exclusive Interview 

2. All the Nitty-gritty Details AboutRussia's Brand-new 3D Kernel
    Part 1: Modern Architecture with Innovative Solutions
    - Multithreading
    - Calculations on GPUs
    - Multiple Platforms
    - Multiple Documents
    - Solids and Hybrid Modeling
    - Precision

3. Out of the Inbox, and a few other other regular columns.

You can read all about the business of CAD at www.upfrontezine.com/2013/upf-778.htm

Following this week's CAD conference in Russia

There is a triple CAD conference going on in St Petersburg this week, and although few American media are attending (and none are reporting live, best as I can tell), Alex Bausk took it upon himself to be the live reporter, and for this I greatly appreciate his efforts.

• His twitter stream is @bauskas

• His blog is at http://www.writandraw.org/en/category/talk/cofes/

In addition, he is involved in several talks, as he is passionate about MBE (model-based engineering, which, he reminds us, is not BIM) and programming in Python. (Another of his passions is being anti-cloud.) Here is a photo he took from his MBE talk (click for larger image): 

Mr Bausk helps design nuclear power plants, and is located in the Ukraine.

 

 

Android apps I use (no, that I need)

As my needs change and as apps improve, the list of programs I run on my many Android devices (8 devices, at last count) changes. Here are the ones I find most useful, and think you might like them too:

Best WiFi. When your home or office has multiple WiFi access points, Android devices don't switch to the strongest signal automatically. This is what Best WiFi does.

(The limitation to this app is that all access points need to have different SSIDs. If your location has access points that use the same name, then there is another app that will do the switching. Sorry, I forgot its name, but it is out there!)

WatchDog. I find that the Android devices I use a lot (phone, tablet) start to slow down. They become painfully slow after waking up, and sometimes it can take minutes to get back to normal speed. WatchDog is a dynamic task closer that shuts down apps operating in the background that consume too many CPU cycles. Since installing this app, I have not had to wait any longer.

AquaMail. I don't like GMail's manner of forcing emails into threads, because I find it is too easy to miss the most recent email. On my phone, I now use AquaMail, because it eschews threads: all emails are listed in the order in which they arrive, as God meant them to be.

CheckItOff. I need reminders, but I don't want to plug up Calendar with trivial reminders, like the next doctor visit. CheckItOff is a widget that lists tasks under each day. I love it, because it has the best interface I have found for entering tasks. One flaw is that it does not display the due time, so I have to add it manually.

DicePlayer. There are all kinds of video players for Android, and Dice was the first to enable hardware playback. Over the years it has improved with useful functions like a bar showing how far through each video is, press the spacebar on tablets to pause and play, drag the screen to change the brightness and volume.

GasBuddy. Tells me where the cheapest gas is near me, all over Canada and USA. Before long trips, I use its map mode to see which stations are cheapest along my route.

Railteam Mobile. Gives me information for nearly all trains in Europe. It was especially helpful on my trip earlier this month when a delayed Deutsche Bahn train made me miss the day's last connection in Frankfurt.

Widgetsoid. This app lets me customize the information displayed by status bar. For my phone, I set up Brightness (10%, 30%, 100%, and Auto), WiFi toggle, Mobile Data toggle, and Orientation toggle.

WorldClock. One of the least fancy clock apps, but I like this one because it creates a scrollable widget. This means that I can see the weather for the home towns of me (in Canada) and my daughter (in Germany) in the space of a single widget.

PhoneUsage. A widget that reports the number of texts, minutes of phoning, and megabytes of data I have consumed in my monthly plan. It lets me know when I am getting close to the limit, so that I can switch to TextPlus or Skype.

Of course, there are other apps I use, but these are some of the most important ones.

In summary, I find it amusing to read reports from longtime iPhone users who get exposed to Android, and are stunned by the functionality they are missing.  The list I present here may well end up making iPhone diehards envious.

 

 

 

In upFront.eZine this week: Graphisoft gives ArchiCAD 17 the details

In upFront.eZine #777 this week, we have for you:         

1. For Graphisoft, ArchiCAD 17 is all about details
   - Q&A
   - What Ralph Grabowski Thinks

2. Out of the Inbox, and our other regular columns.

You can read all about the business of CAD at www.upfrontezine.com/2013/upf-777.htm

There's gold in them thar maker faires

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

The line to get into Maker Faire is a mile long. Spread out over the San Mateo Fairgrounds, just south of San Francisco, this show expects 120,000 people over the next two days. Some of the halls will be so packed by later this afternoon that I will not be able to get from one end to the other.

The last big show before Maker Faire I went to was Comdex. The biggest CAD show I go to is Autodesk University, but AU pales by comparison as it cannot summon even 10,000 attendees. I’m certainly not the only CAD insider trying to figure this out. Exhibiting at this show are Autodesk, Trimble (SketchUp), NVIDIA… and a host of 3D printing vendors.

Could this maker movement be the next phenomenon? And is there money to be made selling to all these makers?

Dale Dougherty, founder of Make: magazine and the wildly successful Maker Faire, introduces a speaker during the press event

 

As I survey the sprawl of exhibits, how to tap into the maker market may not be very clear. As varied as it is big, Maker Faire is at first glance a loose collection of disparate movements, trends, arts, and crafts. Among mechanical fire breathing contraptions (the Burning Man crowd is well represented), there is also produce from inner city gardens, robot kits that promise on-time meds, to Chinese grandmas, aerial farm drones, and a hundred products from science fairs.

From these minds of whimsical artists, two things seem clear to me:

1. Everybody is making something
2. Everybody is young

Maker displays are often wildly creative, such as this huge draw at Maker Faire Bay Area

 

Making something invariably involves materials and resources. With the numbers Maker Faire can produce, it was only a matter of time before corporate America came a-knocking. Not just CAD companies, but insurance companies; Intel making music; Radio Shack just signed a big partnership; and more.

Young makers may be spending their allowances or their parent’s money and the artists their welfare checks, but that’s still more than the average bear. I hear the typical maker manages to spend $1800 a year. Quick SWAG [scientific wild-ass guess]: Maker Faire claims a total audience of almost a million. Let’s suppose that 9 of 10 makers are too busy tinkering, soldering, sewing, or cooking to even show (that’s very conservative), and so we can estimate the total spend of the makers to be about $10 billion!

Some of this has to be on design software. Of course capturing the young hearts could only produce greater dividend over time. Successful tinkerers and inventors mature over time, increasing their buying power and influence. Get them while they are young, right?

[Reprinted with permission of CAD Insider. Click here to read insightful comments on the original site: http://cadinsider.typepad.com/my_weblog/2013/05/chasing-maker-gold.html#comments]

 

With NetSuite linkup, Autodesk confirms that it's no longer just a CAD company

Autodesk adds a bi-directional integration between PLM 360 and NetSuite, which it calls the "world's #1 cloud ERP solution," and calls its own PLM 360 "the fastest growing in the market" -- a point that was repeated. Of course growth for any new product is fast because of the mathematics of percentages on small bases. (ERP is short for "enterprise resource planning;" PLM is short for "product lifecycle management.")

The announcement was made to us media last week, but we had to keep the news secret until today. I'd heard of the NetSuite name, but don't know anything about it. So here is some of what Autodesk told us it can do:

• Approved vendor list and vendor audits
• Work orders
• Product development from concept to recycling
• Create M-BOMs [manufacturing BOM]

For me, this is all eye-glazing stuff -- like "Step 2: Create initial vendor record in NS as inactive."

Ken Wong: Will this cost additional fees, or will NetSuite be available to all PLM 360 subscribers?

Autodesk: Customers already of NetSuite will purchase PLM 360. PLM 360 customers will have to contact NetSuite to pay them. [Autodesk is providing the integration only.]

Randall Newton: How easy or tough was it to put together the technologies to make this happen?

Autodesk: We use our PLM Connect for integrating systems like this. It is similar to integrating with traditional PLM. On a relative scale, it was easier than with traditional, because Web-based technologies make integration easier.

Unknown media: How customers get it: are you or your resellers are reselling it? Or do customers contract NetSuite separately?

Autodesk: It is the latter. We will each have listings on our partner pages. We will work with our respective sales teams to help customers get the joint solution.

In Other PLM 360 News

In other news, Autodesk told us that they have new partnerships with Assent, Octopart, and Jitterbit. PLM 360 will have its own app store with several categories, like quality management. Last October, Autodesk acquired Inforbix and now its search technology is built into PLM 360: it recommends other documents that are potentially related. For example, search for a BOM item and related drawings are also returned.

Some 70% of Autodesk customers who started up PLM 360 did not have PLM before, mainly SMBs (small and medium businesses).

Kenneth Wong: What are these partnerships allow people to do? If I am working on an assembly in Inventor, will I be able to see costing or compliance? Or is it confined to the PLM environment.

Autodesk: Most of the data will be inside PLM, but not from inside Inventor.

Al Dean: I have a question-- It is completely gone! It's quite late in the day. Sorry!

Autodesk: That's my favorite type of question.

Al Dean: Got it! You said 2/3 of customers of PLM 360 did not use PLM. How many used PDM [product data management] or EDM [engineering data management]?

Autodesk: A majority, if not all of them. There are a bunch of our Vault users in there. We are getting a lot of Solidworks users, as well. A majority of PLM 360 users work in multi-CAD environments.

Al Dean: Pulling compliance data-- this is going to be useful to pull this information at a very early stage. Can you see it going to the guys using Inventor? Or will it always be a two-stage process?

Autodesk: We have nothing for that yet. There might be a bridge we might make one day. That is a future expansion idea.

So it seems that information is being kept in PLM 360, and isn't particularly available to MCAD and AEC designers early enough in the project. From the answers given to the questions posed by Kenneth and Al, we can summarize that the "product" and "lifecycle" parts are truncated in PLM from Autodesk, but that the "management" part is growing. 

http://usa.autodesk.com/360-lifecycle-management-software/plm

Graphisoft announces ArchiCAD 17

In all modesty, upFront.eZine was going to be the first to announce what's new in ArchiCAD 17. We did the interview and demo last Friday, but logistics prevented the story running in yesterday's issue of the newsletter. Gosh, editors hate it when we lose an exclusive!

(I notice that Graphisoft, a division of Nemetschek, does not call itself "Nemetschek Graphisoft," the way that "Nemetschek Vectorworks" does.)

Anyhow, the big deal in 17 is details, with Graphisoft harnessingg multi-cores and background processing to automatically generate details of junctions (intersections of walls and floors), even slanted ones, through a new super attribute that prioritizes materials, so that the software knows which to trim and which does the trimming.

I hope to run the story on Graphisoft 17 when upFront.eZine returns from vacation on May 27. Meantime, here is the official page: www.graphisoft.com/archicad/archicad_17/overview.

 

 

The unthanked who put on CAD events

We show up at CAD marketing events and expect it to be interesting, worthwhile the trip. Some are not; many are. While we in the media show up on the day the event starts, others have been preparing and practicing.

The CAD vendor's staff can spend entire days just doing dress rehearsals. Staff are trained in how to react positively, enthusiastically towards the media. Spiral bound photocopied notebooks document the resumes of every media attendee so that the CAD staff have an easy source of conversation making. And at the end of the event, sometime a CAD staff member will let it slip by looking exhausted. We don't notice any of this, but do complain about the food or the transportation or the content of the presentations or the location of venue. (My pet peeve location: Orlando.)

So it is with interest that I read today's press release from ZWSOFT, which contains a thank-you to the staff that put on the company's annual reseller event. The headline features the over-the-top adjectives characteristic of Chinese marketing: "Behind GPC 2013: The Bitter-sweet Story of 100 ZWSOFT Young Staff."

Here are excerpts from the press release:

---

GPC 2013, an annual gathering for ZWSOFT global partners to exchange ideas about product development and business opportunities, concluded satisfactorily in applauses and cheers. While behind the curtain, there is the unsung heroes -- the 100 ZWSOFT young staff, who have worked tirelessly for over 3 months and put together their minds to ensure the success of the conference. 

...Representing the future of ZWSOFT, some 100 young staff assumed the responsibility of this great work. Every detail, from keynote speech discussion and rehearsal, to venue selection and decoration, has been well-designed to give a professional and impressive experience to partners.

During the three-month preparation, though everything stayed within schedule, to ensure perfectness, no one knows how many modifications of speech contents have been made to ensure the quality of the presentation, how many rehearsals of award ceremony have been organized to make sure every detail is well considered and how many free talk topics have been changed to make them fruitful and beneficial. During the tough three-month period, the young staff clubed ideas and exertions to combat every difficulty. Their work was proven by the consummate conclusion of the big day.

After long preparation, ZWSOFT unveiled the most exciting part of GPC where they managed to present the result of their extraordinary efforts in the past three months. On the stage, ZWSOFT management team made a stirring speech about the remarkable achievements made together with global partners. At the same time, groups of young people were carrying out their responsibilities behind the scene to ensure the conference to run smoothly. Some of them were listening to every word of the keynote speaker and made adjustment to PPT, sound and lighting, while the others were busily preparing tea break and live demo. When hearing the conference successfully concluded, they were so moved that everyone was surrounded by cheers and hugs.

After a whole day’s hard work, these young people had fun with global partners and fully enjoy at the thank-you banquet... This banquet is not only for ZWSOFT partners but also for their team members.

 

In upFront.eZine this week: CAD war in Russia, and a cross-cultural wedding

From the editor: This week is the one time a year when I ask for donations to upFront.eZine. Please consider sending $25 (for individuals) or $500 (for corporations). To pay by PayPal, I have added buttons at www.upfrontezine.com. Thank you for supporting upFront.eZine!

In upFront.eZine #776 this week, we have for you:          

1. CAD Wars Erupt in China and Russia
    - Part 2: In Russia

2. Dual-Culture Wedding in Germany

3. Redo, and just a few of our other regular columns.

You can read all about the business of CAD at www.upfrontezine.com/2013/upf-776.htm

Note:
upFront.eZine takes a break for two weeks as I travel through Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands. See you again on May 27.

What Kind of a Threat Does Autodesk Faces from China? (part 2)

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

In the wake of the GstarCAD8 launch last month in Beijing, to which three of us western journalists were invited, I reflect on the chances of success of a Chinese CAD company in the US and world market.

GstarCAD8 was launched with sufficient fanfare. There were pretty girls, bright lights, a big stage. As more CAD companies are choosing to soft-launch major releases from behind WebEx screens, this did make us sit up and take notice. One might read a lot into their willingness to fly three Western industry journalists half way across the world to see the unveiling.

We listened through translator headphones as company executives extolled the product’s technical prowess, as well as to their deliberate, longterm campaign that over the years sought to establish Gstarsoft first as a regional CAD product, then as an international tool of choice. 

Can they do it? We are only too well aware to what China has done to us with manufacturing. Can they do it with software?

Guess what: Your software is probably already made in China – and India. I cannot think of a major CAD vendor that does not have a development team in China or India [or Russia] – or use Chinese or Indian labor on its home soil. A CAE vendor once told me that almost all of its developers were in two distinct groups, one from China, one from India. That was 20 years ago. The world has only got flatter since. 

Still, to hear one Chinese company extolling their CAD product is not enough to convince me that it will rule the CAD world. GstarCAD has only about 400 employees [Autodek has 7,500]. It is funded privately, and not by the vast concerted might of the country itself. Autodesk and other CAD companies can exhale.

There are signs, however, of a national directive for China to establish itself as a major player among software vendors. At the GstarCAD8 launch, president of GstarCAD Ky Xiang told us, "China will be the software center of the world."

Clearly, China is no longer content to be bridesmaid, earning pennies for factory, sweatshop, and cubicle labor while it sees US stockholders pocket the big bucks. This has to hurt. God help our current CAD market leaders should China ever get its act together. Even current heavyweight Autodesk would be knocked clear out of the ring if that happens.

[Reprinted with permission of CAD Insider.]