WorldCAD Access

San Diego's Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge

by Roopinder Tata, Tenlinks.com

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands (Bentley Be Inspired Conference), Oct 26, 2010 - It's a wonder bridges get built at all. Public outcry seems to increase in proportion to size, and therefore big bridges suffer the most. San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate bridge took 50 years of convincing, Forces amassed against it included not only ferry operators (of course) but many of the public who considered the bridge would mar the view. Ironically, now the most expensive city residences advertise their "bridge to bridge view" (Golden Gate to the Bay Bridge). And then there is the money. Lots of it. if you think signing for a mortgage makes renting an apartment seem not so bad after all, you can understand how a community may balk at a billion dollar bridge. Hmm, the ferry rides are scenic. The drive around the bay is a great way to get to know the area. Anyone up for a swim -- it's such good exercise.

The Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge may have suffered its own gauntlet of detractors (a pedestrian anything in Southern California is weird, people here look at walkers with suspicion -- unless they are on a treadmill in a health club). But will soon arch over San Diego's Harbor Freeway with in what may very well be known as one of the most graceful and unusual pedestrian bridge in the US (Yes, there are a few).

Built by T.Y. Lin International of San Diego, California, the project was among the finalists for the 2010 Be Inspired awards being held last week in Amsterdam.

In typical civic brochure-speak, the bridge "realizes a 100 year old dream to to connect the historic Balboa Park with the scenic San Diego Bay." Oh yeah, it will also connect the multi million dollar new high rise Hilton to San Diego's new multi million baseball park. I imagine the $24 million pedestrian bridge to be a minor line item in this context.

Unlike almost every bridge you can think of, the Harbor Drive bridge is supported by cables only one side. Doing this to a straight bridge would have warped the deck. Picture pedestrians falling onto a busy highway. So the bridge ended up being curved in the plan view. Somehow, the curvature acts to keep the bridge deck flat. It's complicated. Luckily, the bridge engineer chose not to refresh our 3D statics class and remind us of what dopes we had become.

I'm in San Diego several times a year and I'll make it a point to walk this bridge, but I'll be careful not to complement any natives on what a nice bridge they have. I made that mistake with Redding's now famous and flaunted Sundial Pedestrian Bridge (http://www.turtlebay.org/sundialbridge) not too long after it was built. My friend, a minister who attends to Redding's many less fortunate, told me quite nicely, "You know, a lot of people questioned the necessity of that bridge."

[This blog entry was reprinted with permission from The CAD Insider.]

WorldCAD Access is live at PTC's CREO media event, now! (Updated)

 

Alight, we've been let into the Castle across the street from our hotel. The inside is decked out like a prison, for we have entered CAD PRISON! There is a holding cell, spotlights are sweeping the floor, gray tables, aluminum chairs, six pieces of bread per table, water, and blues music on the squawky speakers.

It looks like PTC has pulled a SolidWorks here, inviting everybody who is anybody. I met one Dutch CAD journalist (who remembered me from the ODA meeting in Leiden a few years ago). He flew in yesterday, flies home to The Netherlands this afternoon. Based on the number of chairs and tables, 288 could be here.

We've been given the "turn off all cellphones and Blackberries" warning.

 The show begins! Sirens go off. Prisoners in orange jump suits are being marched into the holding cell, and handcuffed. "Prisoners creativity and teamwork are in lockdown." The prison warden is addressing us, telling us we are in prison because of irresolvable problems. "Over time, you have come to accept it, because you have realized it is your fate. With CAD, this is the way things are.."

The evil prison warden wants to keep you in your CAD prision.

He is interrupted by someone yelling, "No, there is a better way: unlock potential." Big video screen starts up, showing clips of people running away.

Jim Heppleman is on stage. We're being given a brief history of CAD. He remarks that he was part of CoCreate, first of HP, then purchased by PTC. He is linking 2D with Autodesk and Bentley; 1987 was the dawn of PTC and its then-radical 3D parametric modeling + assembly modeling + automatic generation of 2D drawings from 3D models.

Everyone else copied PTC "verbatim" he remarks. Then CoCreate had a different approach (direct modeling). The need is to model objects the way they are in the real world, something that does not exist.

New PTC ceo Jim Heppleman on stage.

(Follow the conversation on Twitter: #projectlightning.)

Now he is saying that analysts were wrong in claiming the CAD industry is mature. There are four unsolved problems:

- hard to use, overkill for many users (you won't accomplish anything the first week you acquire parametric modeling, he says)

- no interoperability, forced standardization

- technology lock-in; it does not matter if another vendor innovates, you cannot switch without great cost and time. If customers cannot switch, then there is no need for vendors to innovate.

- realistic assembly modeling, no validation or downstream use of serial-number-specific configurations.

Mr Heppleman is saying PTC is unique by having the best software in every area of CAD -- 2D, 3D direct, 3D parametric, PLM, etc.

Next video: Unlocking the Potential. Letters are dropping down, fireworks, and the new name:

CREO, a PTC product.

 Creo is the Latin word for "create" and is used in other languages to mean "think, believe, create."

PTC is announcing a suite of simple apps today: 2D, 3D, and Assemblies. As well as powerful apps for 2D, 3D, and Assemblies.

Creo Architecture consists of a PLM Platform + Data Compatibility Layer as the basement. It has elements of PRo/E, CoCreate, and ProductView + patent pending technologies. It has four "breakthrough" technologies:

1. AnyRole Apps -- apps that are tailored for different job roles. Getting our first look at the UI. And the ribbon is in. No parametrics; just the tools needed, such as interference checking, markup. Note that these are specific to the role of design checker.

Now we see a different version meant for conceptual designers. Surface creation tools, no analysis, no parametrics. Specific features are exposed for each role. There is a 3D CoPilot cursor that looks like the one in SE ST.

Another version is for analysts, who don't need surface creation; instead, this role gets direct modeling to modify parts, and then apply loads to do FEA. "He's not overwhelmed, he's not overserved."

Another version is for deliverables, creating animations, generating technical documents, assembly instructions.

And now a 2D drafting environment. Looks like it has auto-dimensioning.

Another one: validating tool paths. Mould design. Progressive die design. Marketing wanting pretty pictures, so there is yet another app dedicated to rendering. UI had two tabs, seven buttons.

All those apps are associative, whether 2D, 3D, rendering, or whatever. Some apps from PTC, a larger number from third-party developers.

2. AnyMode Modeling -- includes a 2D conceptual design environment, meant for the start of a new model, based on existing parts or from scratch. Not a sketcher, not parametric. Not 2D drafting. This sketches in 2D, meant for exploring ideas, and then adding intelligence, such as dimensions and relationships. "This fluency between 2D and 3D has never been done before."

Now showing a purpose-built app that does direct modeling. Not a subset of a larger program. In tis case, able to interactively change: translation along an edge, relocating parts from one side to another; can create ribs, etc. All is done on a common data model.

The model can be opened in any other Creo app. Here he opens the direct model in a parametric app, which shows the changes made by the direct modeler. ("Knocking, knocking on Fusion's door.") Changes can be accepted or rejected.

He switches to the 2D editor, makes some changes to a rib, which show up in the 3D model. "This is build on the most powerful geometry kernel on the market is now unleashed on direct modeling."

The point of Creo is to "work in either paradigm with no loss of design intent or flexibility."

3. AnyData Adoption -- this is the item I am interested in: how has PTC solved the file exchange problem. "We live in a multi-CAD world that isn't going to change any time soon. What about CAD data created in another system; how does it move into Creo?"

 They are showing parts of a turbocharger designed in NX, Catia, and Pro/E. All four parts are now assembled in Creo. They call it "any data adoption" to indicate that they can be edited inside Creo, using direct modification.

Clearly, it is one way. So, out of the CAD prision and into the PTC prison. There is no export back to other CAD systems. PTC is suggesting that you won't want to: "the ability to move forward the data from legacy systems." The analysts sitting around me are astounded that data flow is one-way, instead of round-trip to other CAD systems.

4. AnyBOM Assembly -- here the idea is to easily generate lots of variations of a model, also known as configuration management. These create tons of BOMs (bills of material). WindChill is the configuration kernel; this is optional.

(On Twitter, Deelip Menezes notes that PTC does not own the creo.com domain name; it belongs to a printing company.) More info at www.creo.ptc.com

Delivery date: It'll be  a long wait. First seven apps due out next summer. Next set plus updates in Fall 2011. Beta is Spring 2011.

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And that's it for the live coverage here on WorldCAD Access. We'll have more about Creo in next Monday's upFront.eZine.

[Disclosure: PTC provided airfare, lunch, corporate gifts, and a night's hotel stay.] 

What's so g-g-g-r-reat about Project Lightning?

Dunno, and that's what I (and other CAD journalists and analysts invited to Boston) find out tomorrow. PTC marketing is pushing the Hype-O-Meter well into the red zone with its claim that this is the "product that will transform the CAD marketplace." Talk like that sinks the journalists' Skept-O-Meter into deep purple zone, and explodes the analysts' Whitepaper-O-Meter as it goes off the deep gold scale.

The purple comes from experience. Siemens PLM Systems fell flat when they initially over hyped synchtech v1, and it took a couple of years for (a) people to figure out even what the heck they were talking about, and (b) for the technology to sufficiently diffuse through SolidEdge, NX, et al for it to be meaningful. Then there was Autodesk's Fusion, which has gone quiet following its days of exhilaration as the media's darling earlier this year.

PTC has been hyping Project Lightning for nearly half a year now, letting out these hints (let's see if l can out-hype them):

- fundamental ease-of-use (3D gestures? no ribbon?)

- assembly management (no limit on model size? create assemblies from parts in competitors' files?)

- solves the problem  of technology lock-in (no longer locked to PTC software? a neutral file format to rule us all?)

- scalable (PTC always claimed to be scalable, and here's their chance to scale down to Android devices)

- interoperable (hopefully this means more than just, "We read our competitor's files" or "We read our old files")

- open (see #3 above)

- easy-to-use (see #1 above)

- right-size solution for each participant in the design process at the right time (cloud-based apps that you pay for by the hour?)

- full upwards compatibility with existing PTC software, specifically Pro/E, CoCreate, and ProductView (a single product that replaces all three? that requires customers to pay a big upgrade fee? PTC does l-o-v-e that maintenance revenue)

- transforms the CAD marketplace (like Apple's Mac App Store, only better!)

(What they left out of their list: "whirled peas.")

Emin's apps for Android

Patrik Emin has written lots of apps for Android, as you can see by searching for "Emin" among the 100,000 apps at Android Market using your Android device. Most are one of general interest and/or are in French, such as "Mark Twain Quotes" and "Quotes Cafe du Coin."

Some, however, are of interest to AutoCAD users:

• Autodesk Blogs -- reports latest entries from Autodesk's many official blogs as a full-screen app and in a widget.
• Autodesk AutoCAD Forums -- as above, but for Autodesk's AutoCAD forum. 
• AutoCAD VarSys -- displays in English a different AutoCAD system variable in a widget every hour. 
• AutoCAD SysVar -- as above, but in French. 

Winds buffet Adobe as it ponders on a plateau

It seems that 2010 is the year Adobe arrived on a plateau, where it found foes attacking the company whose market capitalization is 2x that of Autodesk. (The difference is usually much larger, but ADSK is at a 52-week high, while ADBE is near a 52-week low.)

Apple's animosity towards the company is remarkable. Flash missing from the new MacBook Air computers is a foreshadowing that it will be eliminated from all future Macs.  (My guess is that Apple does not support Flash, because Flash is used by many ads, and Apple wants to run its own ad delivery technology on iOS and OS X devices. This is about ad revenue, not problematic technology; as he has often shown in the past, Steve Jobs misleads about his intentions.)

One bit of good news: Google is bundling Flash with Chrome downloads.  (I wonder how much Adobe paid for the product placement?)

It spent the last year working on giving up on the 3D MCAD translation market; when I asked about the future of CAD in Acrobat, the company gave a vague answer about not abandoning it totally.

Anyone interested it Acrobat X? (I thought not.)

Its software is so feature-complete that customers are in no hurry to upgrade. I found very little changed between InDesign CS4 and CS5, certainly not enough for which to pay an upgrade fee. Plus, CS5's .idnn file format is incompatible with CS4's, which causes headaches for some of my clients.

It even suffered the embarrassment of a take-over rumor. (Being taken over by Microsoft: ugh!)

OTOH, their software for professionals is much cheaper than Autodesk's. You can get every bit of Adobe desktop oftware in the "Master Collection" bundle for a mere $2,600.

foto of the sunday: New York dusk

Dusk in New York City. Notice the cone-headed water towers atop the buildings. Taken from my 23rd-floor hotel room window in September, 2010.

Statement by Adobe on the future of CAD in Acrobat

Monday morning Adobe announced Acrobat X. I asked the company if there was a CAD angle in the new release. The carefully worded response:

Specific to CAD, as you're aware, after a detailed assessment of the 3D business, Adobe determined that the best way to support the interests of our manufacturing customers and partners is to migrate  the ongoing development, delivery and support of the 3D translator technologies to a company with focus, expertise, and well-developed sales channels within the PLM market. Enter Tech Soft 3D.

Tech Soft 3D's history of supporting and selling 3D translator technology and other OEM component technology and their familiarity with the Adobe PDF libraries make them exceptionally well qualified to support our current and future customers.

But I want to emphasize that Acrobat X and Reader X will still support 3D viewing/interacting with 3D data in PRC and U3D formats.

 

In upFront.eZine this week: A double take from Bricsys

In this week's issue of upFront.eZine:

1. Bricsys Two-fer
2. And in Other News

 

You can read all about the business of CAD this week at www.upfrontezine.com/2010/upf-664.htm

 

 

Five g-g-g-r-reat things about AutoCAD for Mac

Sure, AutoCAD for Mac has its limitations, but there are a few things that make it more interesting than the Windows version. Here are some of the things I found that you won't find in the Windows version:

1. Press Tab to show and hide all palettes instantly.

2. Hold down the spacebar, along with the left mouse button, to pan the drawing.

3.  Creating tables is now interactive: instead of a Windows dialog box asking you for the  number of rows and columns, you just drag the mouse to show AutoCAD. As you drag the mouse, the number of rows and columns increases, depending on your drag direction.

4. When it comes to fields, creating custom date and time formats is now interactive. Drag and drop date and time elements, and then edit them as necessary.

5. Similarly, field elements are customizable inside the AttDef dialog box. When you add field text, it appears with a blue background and sports a white arrow. Click the white arrow for options, such as Convert to Text.

Bonus tip. One of the drawbacks to Acad/Mac is that CUI does not customize keystrokes. I found that the work-around is to use OS X's own keystroke customization facility. But there are a couple of twists to do thing: You may had to add autocad.app to its list, and you have to enter the menu name (no the command name) to associate with the keystroke.

I (still) don't get what's G-g-g-r-reat about Macs

So I've been using this MacBook for about three months now, pretty much every day, nearly all day long.

In this time, I've written three books about CAD for Mac, using software like Adobe InDesign CS5 (which is identical to the Windows version), OmniGraffle Professional (an immature replacement for Visio), FireFox (why can I not zoom the browser window with the mouse?), AutoCAD for Mac (for about six weeks), ARES for Mac (ditto), OpenOffice (once in a while), and I installed Parallels.

I use the MacBook with a PC mouse (Logitech bluetooth), and an external PC monitor for a dual-monitor setup. It's on my 1Gbit network, but only once did it briefly see the rest of my PCs, then never again. My PCs see the MacBook on the network, but cannot open any its folders. I use a USB transfer cable instead.

(The MacBook's goofiest bug: I wake it up, and it sometimes forgets it has a built-in screen; it only displays on the external monitor. One time it locked up so bad, I had to wait 5 hours for the battery to drain; no keyboard shortcut would arouse it from its pale blue screen of death.)

I don't get the awe Mac fanbois have for it;  I wonder if some are stuck in the far past, such as the one commenter who talks about "beige boxes" -- a derogatory term used by fanbois to describe the color of PCs from the 1980s. A neighbor across the street praises her MacBook as being simple, "because I can just drag and drop things." (She has never used a PC.) The myopia, deliberate or otherwise, is sad to experience.

I find that Windows 7 is better than OS X in many small details. Here's one I don't get: OS X is based on Unix, and yet I have to reboot it after installing updates, just like Windows; that time-waster is simply unknown on Linux.

I think maybe my problem is with the limitations Apple imposes on its hardware and software. Go with Apple, and you are stuck with their "take it or leave it" attitude. I don't care for the look of the OS X and iOS user interfaces, nor of Apple software. The hardware has its flaws that should not be in products marketed as cadillacs.

A year ago, I bought a 64GB iPod Touch. I found it interesting at first, but then got frustrated with its limitations. Last month, I replaced it with an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant for just $50 more, and am so much happier. Stuff on Android makes more sense to me; it isn't restrictive; the UI is better. The many functions of the status bar alone are worth the switch. I can change the UI: imagine that!

But then I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like others dictating to me, which is why I am self-employed. I am a child of the PC revolution; my computing experience will not be dictated to me by someone else. Even a decade ago, I remember thinking that our computing world would be a very scary place if Apple had won the war against Microsoft.

It's g-g-g-r-reat that we still have choice.

Next up: I begin work on my first book about CAD on Linux. I'll be writing it on my PC, not the MacBook.