3D CAD Tips

3D CAD Tips

Now that Siemens PLM has acquired Vistagy, will Dassault Systemes play nice?

You may know that Siemens PLM recently acquired Vistagy, whose Fibersim software has been used to design 80% of the composites currently flying in today’s aircraft. Vistagy has been a long-term third-party partner not just to Siemens PLM, but also to Dassault Systemes. Though DS has its own composite design solution, many of its most important customers use Fibersim. To say Vistagy has been an important partner for DS would be an understatement.My interest in Vistagy is... Read More

Why CAD is hard: Geometric problems

Imagine you were a CAD programmer (if you actually are one, play along with me here.) What problems would you focus your energies on? From my perspective, persistent bugs and software stability would be a good primary focus. But, let’s limit it to geometric modeling problems. Not just the run of the mill “fix this bug” stuff, but rather the real serious problems. George Allen, Chief Technologist & Technical Fellow at Siemens PLM Software, wrote an interesting paper... Read More

Cloud CAD is really difficult

If you believe the buzz in the blogosphere, there are a lot of engineers and designers who are not at all happy at the prospect of some day being forced to use cloud-based CAD. The public lashback on cloud CAD started building several years ago, and it’s hardly abated since. The conversation has taken on political/religious overtones. In the best of all worlds, clould CAD could be a revolutionary tool, allowing people to work where, when, and with whom they desire. The troika... Read More

Free math software

I recently wrote about MathCAD Prime 2.0 and Maple 16 in an article titled Math for Engineers, in Design World. Both MathCAD and Maple are powerful tools for doing engineering math, and are much better choices than the tool most commonly used for this: Microsoft Excel. Yet, they’re not the only choices. Wikipedia lists 61 different computer algebra systems, 36 of which are free open-source software. An embarrassment of riches. William Hunter, from South Africa, recently... Read More

Modo learns to speak NURBS

NURBS may be the standard surface representation for CAD, but that doesn’t mean they’re ideal for all design jobs. For conceptual design of organic shapes (for example, a motorcycle tank), there are certainly better choices. One surface type that’s become popular for this is the Sub-D, or subdivision surface. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1... Read More

The Dassault Systèmes Social Industry Experience Platform: 3DSwYm

Dassault Systèmes has just introduced a new release of 3DSwYm, its social innovation application. You can be forgiven if you don’t know what a “social innovation application” is. The best description I can cobble together is that it is a web framework, similar to a content management system (think WordPress, Drupal, Joomla), designed to manage communities of interest, and support business needs, such as ideation or knowledge sharing. Social networking with a PLM twist. The... Read More

What is saving 90% in engineering time worth?

Engineer-to-order (ETO) software has been around for a long time, with roots reaching back to knowledge management systems developed in the 1980s. The biggest reason more companies don’t use engineer-to-order software is that the front-end configuration, to set up an ETO system, has often been too much work, requiring lots of training and expensive consultants. Tacton makes a SolidWorks-based tool for ETO: TactonWorks. They just issued a press release reporting that one... Read More

Geomagic acquires Sensable. 3D just got even cooler.

CAD isn’t the only way to create 3D models. More and more, 3D models start out as 3D scans of real objects. Geomagic has been a leader in software to convert 3D scanned data into useable 3D models. Their software is used widely used for design, reverse engineering and inspection. Last week, Geomagic acquired Sensable’s 3D design and haptics businesses. Sensable is best known for two things: Their force-feedback haptic input devices, and their voxel-based organic shape... Read More

Siemens PLM

Now that Siemens PLM has acquired Vistagy, will Dassault Systemes play nice?

You may know that Siemens PLM recently acquired Vistagy, whose Fibersim software has been used to design 80% of the composites currently flying in today’s aircraft. Vistagy has been a long-term third-party partner not just to Siemens PLM, but also to Dassault Systemes. Though DS has its own composite design solution, many of its most [...]

Pro/Engineer

PTC announces Creo 2.0, Windchill 10.1, and shake-and-break 1.0

This week, PRC announced Creo 2.0 and Windchill 10.1. These aren’t big releases in the grand scheme of things, but they are important releases, and show that PTC is working hard to deliver on what it’s promised. Creo 2.0 This release includes fresh and updated releases of the 9 existing Creo apps, and adds a [...]

SolidWorks

Cloud CAD is really difficult

If you believe the buzz in the blogosphere, there are a lot of engineers and designers who are not at all happy at the prospect of some day being forced to use cloud-based CAD. The public lashback on cloud CAD started building several years ago, and it’s hardly abated since. The conversation has taken on [...]

Catia

Now that Siemens PLM has acquired Vistagy, will Dassault Systemes play nice?

You may know that Siemens PLM recently acquired Vistagy, whose Fibersim software has been used to design 80% of the composites currently flying in today’s aircraft. Vistagy has been a long-term third-party partner not just to Siemens PLM, but also to Dassault Systemes. Though DS has its own composite design solution, many of its most [...]