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 of cloud, mobile, and social offer intriguing possibilities.

Yet, there are potential problems with cloud CAD, at multiple levels.

The issues are substantial enough that it’s not practical to address them all at once. So, with this article, I’ll dig into with just one issue: the difficulty in actually creating a cloud CAD program.

CAD is difficult

CAD, even without being cloud-based, is difficult to create. Mike Riddle, one of the best known CAD architects, estimates that CAD is about an order of magnitude more complex than typical Office type applications. He ‘s not talking about lines of code (though CAD programs do clock-in with tens of millions of lines of code.) Rather, he’s referring to the Chess-like complexity and difficulty of creating a CAD program that can actually model the things that its users want to model.

Understanding CAD architecture

CAD programs are built up out of a large number of software components. Some, such as geometric modeling kernels, constraint managers, graphics pipelines, and translators, are developed by fairly well-known companies, and licensed to a large number of CAD developers. Other components, such as those for manipulating raster images, zip files, or unicode characters, are available through open-source repositories, such as SourceForge. Many more components are created by CAD developers themselves.

The real magic in creating a CAD program comes in how the software compenents are arranged and connected. This is the essence of software architecture. It is largely what distinguishes great programs from lousy programs.

Once the architecture for a CAD program has been set, it can be really difficult to change.

Consider, for example, how CAD programs, almost as a rule, seem to take very poor advantage of multi-core processors. This isn’t because the CAD vendors (and the programmers who work for them) don’t want to provide good multi-core support. It’s because the architecture of their software, and of the component libraries which comprise their applications (particularly the geometric modeling kernel, if we want to point fingers) were not initially designed to support concurrency (the underlying requirement to support multi-core processors.)

Though CAD vendors could rip their software down to the ground, and re-architect it to support concurrency, it’s not so easy as just putting a team of programmers on it, and giving them a budget for coffee and Red Bull.

CAD software architectures generally creep, in an organic fashion, from release to release. Initial versions of CAD programs are often architecturally consistent because they are created by small development teams comprised of very experienced CAD programmers. Yet, over time, demands to add new features and capabilities on too-short schedules, and the addition of more programmers to development teams, can lead to hacks which compromise the architectural integrity of later versions of the software.

The result can be a CAD program that works pretty well in most cases, but which has persistent instabilities that can’t be easily fixed—either because no one actually completely understands the CAD program’s architecture, or the instability has become “baked into” the architecture. (Not to point fingers, but there are a number of well-known CAD programs which suffer from persistent instability.)

For a CEO of a CAD software company, the prospect of embarking on a re-architecture project has got to be chilling. Too many of these projects (the most infamous being AutoCAD Release 13) end up being expensive disasters.

Cloud CAD architecture

There are two ways to approach cloud CAD. One way is to use an existing desktop (e.g., Windows, OSX, or Linux based) CAD program, and run it, mostly unchanged, on virtualized servers. This is the approach that companies such as Citrix and CloudSwitch enable—and it’s nothing new. The other way is to build a CAD architecture that’s optimized for use on the cloud.

An optimal cloud CAD architecture would support scalability, both in the number of concurrent users, and in the size of CAD models. That means, essentially, breaking the CAD software down in to a number of interoperable services, which can run concurrently on multiple loosely-coupled server instances.

The problem that CAD developers run into is that, even though their existing desktop CAD systems are built from a large number of software components, those components were never designed to work in a loosely-coupled environment, and they were not, except in rare cases, designed to support concurrency. It’s simply not practical to take an existing CAD program, break it down to its components, then use those to build a cloud CAD system.

The only practical way to build a scalable cloud-based CAD system is to start from scratch, with a new architecture. While some components from existing CAD systems may be reusable as is, most are not.

Where are the cloud CAD programs?

The buzz about cloud CAD started in early 2010, with DS SolidWorks Corp previewing the cloud-based SolidWorks V6 at their user conference, and Autodesk opening up Project Butterfly, a cloud-based CAD application, on their Autodesk Labs site.

SolidWorks V6, despite its name, is built on the Dassault Systems V6 platform. It won’t be available until 2013, at the earliest, and even then, it won’t be entirely compatible with today’s SolidWorks program (because, among other reasons, it will be using a different geometric modeling kernel—one that’s quite different from the Parasolid kernel used in SolidWorks for the last 17 years.) SolidWorks V6 will be a functionally different program than SolidWorks.

AutoCAD WS, the released version of Project Butterfly, is the only notable cloud CAD application currently available. Despite its name, it’s not based on AutoCAD. It’s based on technology developed by PlanPlatform, a company acquired by Autodesk in 2009. While it does read and write AutoCAD compatible DWG files, AutoCAD WS is not a functional match to AutoCAD.

What of the other cloud CAD products?

There are none that are notable. (Or, rather, I don’t know of any that are particularly notable. I expect someone will send me straight on this if I’m wrong.)

While it’s possible that Siemens PLM or PTC have secret projects to develop cloud-based CAD programs, it’s likely that, if they do, those programs won’t be a functional match to their existing desktop CAD programs. Just like DS SolidWorks and Autodesk, they’ll need to start from scratch with cloud-based CAD.

Desktop CAD is here to stay

There are many CAD-related things you can do well on the cloud, including storage, rendering, CAE, and collaborative markup. But CAD itself? It’s easier to say than to do.

Cloud CAD is really difficult, if you want to do it right. As much as CAD company CEOs might like to talk about their visions of the future, they know that cloud CAD won’t replace desktop CAD for a very long time, if ever.

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Autodesk has just released ForceEffect Motion. It too is free. It appears to be a phenomenal tool for doing conceptual design of kinematic systems. And probably a great excuse to ask your boss to buy you an iPad.

Autodesk ForceEffect Motion

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A couple of years ago, Autodesk Labs previewed a product, Project Krypton, which ran inside of 3D CAD programs (including Autodesk Inventor, DS SolidWorks, and PTC Pro/E), and gave real-time feedback on manufacturability, cost, and sustainability of plastic injection molded parts.

Project Krypton has now reappeared, in commercial form, as Autodesk Simulation DFM (Design For Manufacturing.) It works as a plug-in, running in a number of versions of Inventor, Inventor LT, Wildfire, Creo, and SolidWorks. It is available as a subscription benefit for Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Adviser 2013 subscribers, or as a stand-alone product, at US$2,000 for a license to run on any of the supported CAD platforms.

It’s reasonable to argue that engineers who are designing plastic parts should know enough to be able to recognize manufacturability, cost, or sustainability problems. And, if they don’t, they should take the time to learn (for example, by taking a few hours to read any of the many freely available books on the subject, such as General Design Principles for DuPont Engineering Polymers.) Even though that argument is reasonable, it doesn’t recognize human nature. People, even engineers who should know better, don’t always take the time to “read the manual.” Often, it makes sense to build the “manual” into the tools that engineers use every day. Simulation DFM does that, and quite a bit more.

For inexperienced designers, Simulation DFM provides quick feedback to help them avoid rookie mistakes. It’s sort of like an “idiot light” on a car’s dash, that warns you when something is wrong. And while old-hands might say they prefer gauges to idiot lights, experience has shown that idiot lights are useful to experts (even F1 drivers and fighter pilots) for catching their attention, and getting them to actually look at the gauges.

Simulation DFM doesn’t require that users have any background in molding simulation. It uses “green is good, yellow is not so good, and red is bad” indicators to identify potential manufacturing, cost and sustainability issues, showing the source and location of the problem. Any issues that pop-up can be expanded upon, to provide more detail on the exact source of the problem, even showing, for example, mold filling analyses.  The software requires no additional training, and doesn’t require much user input.

The open question with Simulation DFM is “how good is it?” Since it’s based on the Autodesk Moldflow simulation engine, it should be quite good, even for relatively complex parts (though it doesn’t support multi-body parts.) Yet, even if its capabilities were modest, it would still be of value, in either helping beginning designers to learn good design practice, or helping old-hands catch mistakes they might have otherwise missed.

As an engineer, I’ve long had the habit of using the “anything I can see” test to evaluate the usefulness of software. I look around the room, looking at anything I see, and ask myself “would this software have helped the engineers who designed these things?” In this case, as I sit in my office, I can see at least 20 items (without even turning to look behind me), each with multiple injection molded parts, that would have been quicker, easier, and less-expensive to design, had their engineers had access to up-front DFM software, such as Autodesk Simulation DFM.

The most significant benefit of Autodesk Simulation DFM comes not from its detailed capabilities, but rather from its clean integration into the design workflow. A user need not press a button, or take any specific action when designing a plastic part to benefit from it. All they need to do is notice, as they design, whether the software has picked up any obvious red-flags.

That Autodesk decided to make Simulation DFM available for Pro/E, Creo, and SolidWorks (as well as Inventor) shows that rational minds sometimes do prevail: There are untold thousands of PTC and SolidWorks customers who design plastic injection molded parts, and who are unlikely to switch primary CAD tools any time soon. The challenge Autodesk is going to face is in getting Simulation DFM in front of those users (since PTC and SolidWorks sales reps and dealers are not likely to recommend it.) Maybe not so much of a challenge: Many of Autodesk’s existing Moldflow customers are Pro/E and SolidWorks users.

There’s a certain charm to software that does something of great value, but does not impose any extra demands on its users. Autodesk Simulation DFM looks like it may be that kind of product.

Autodesk www.autodesk.com

Autodesk SimSquad simsquad@autodesk.com

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The new browser-based access is powered by the Autodesk Inventor Engineer-to-Order Server, which includes the ETO (Intent) Rules Engine and the Inventor Server (for model and drawing generation), as well as web services and server farm management software. Graphic display is via the Autodesk DWF format, for browsers with the Autodesk’s DWF Viewer browser add-on, and via raster graphics otherwise.

The Inventor ETO Server is licensed on a per-server basis, supporting 10 concurrent users. The included server farm management software supports load balancing and scaling. Because the server framework is session-based (i.e., not stateless), system requirements are about the same as for Autodesk Inventor. With big and complex models, you’re going to need to have pretty stout servers.

Autodesk is not currently offering Inventor ETO Server with software-as-a-service (SaaS) licensing, though, from a technical perspective, there doesn’t seem to be anything to prevent this. The software can be run in a virtual machine (VM), and hosted on a cloud service. The applications at http://etosamples.autodesk.com, for example, are running on Amazon EC2 instances.

Applications to be deployed on the Inventor ETO Server are created with the Inventor ETO Series product, using a Visual Studio-based development environment, supporting the Intent language and .NET languages like VB.NET and C#.

While the Intent language has evolved and been modernized for .NET compatibility, and based on feedback from users, its heritage traces back to the mid-1980s, to ICAD, one of the pioneering products in Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE.)

The Intent Rules Engine used by the Inventor ETO Server is powerful enough to implement nearly any sort of engineer-to-order application you could envision. It can be used to capture geometric and configuration knowledge, as well as business rules. Because the Intent Rules Engine provides the capability to create dependencies between designs (objects), it effectively allows the creation of workflows.

Out of the box, Inventor ETO Server has no ready-made integrations with enterprise systems, such as ERP, SCM, CRM, PDM, or even, for that matter, Autodesk’s new PLM 360 product series. This is not to say such integrations are not possible or practical. Autodesk has done integrations, for example, with ERP and CRM systems, either by direct access to the ERP/CRM database (support for Oracle, SQLServer, Access and IBM DB2 is included), by reading a database extract file from the ERP/CRM system, or by reading an XML based export file from the ERP/CRM system.

Autodesk has a number of large implementations of Inventor ETO, and has apparently had some solid successes with the product. Swedish hydraulic press manufacturer, AP&T, for example, notes that Inventor Engineer-to-Order has helped it reduce cost estimate errors on key components from 10% to 1%. Hytrol Conveyor currently uses 800 seats of Inventor ETO (and is likely a good candidate for the new web-deployed version.)

Interestingly, all of the companies referenced in Autodesk’s customer showcase worked with Autodesk Consulting to develop their Inventor ETO applications. This is not a big surprise. The Intent rules engine and language are definitely powerful, but they’re not for dilettantes (or average Inventor users with no programming skills, for that matter.) You can get a sense of this for yourself, by looking at the source code for Autodesk’s Inventor ETO samples.

Web deployment greatly changes the reach, and the economics, of Inventor ETO. Rather than deploying their Inventor ETO apps on notebook computers carried by salespeople, companies can deploy those same apps on the web, and make them available to their customers, worldwide, 24 hours a day. On a per-licensed-user basis, Inventor ETO is more expensive to deploy over the web than on notebook computers—but, when you account for actual utilization of the software by concurrent users, it’s likely far less expensive.

The actual licensing cost of Inventor ETO is probably only a minor part of the total cost of an implementation, when the cost to develop and deploy applications is factored in. The decision of whether to acquire Inventor ETO probably requires some careful analysis. If you are already an Inventor shop, you have a significant sales volume in configure-to-order or engineer-to-order products, and you have a commitment for enough budget, resources, and time to do the implementation right, you’re probably on the right track.

Autodesk Inventor Engineer-to-Order

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What’s little known in the CAD industry, and rarely mentioned today, is that AutoCAD had an ancestor that predated the founding of Autodesk. A product called INTERACT.

This is a photo of the INTERACT CAD system, circa 1978. The hardware is an S-100 computer with dual 8″ floppy drives, and a 640×480 pixel graphics board.  Input is through a Houston Instruments digitizer and a Televideo terminal.

INTERACT was the first CAD system to run on mainstream microcomputer hardware. (Other contemporary systems ran on mainframes or minicomputers.) Its first commercial customer was Atlantic Richfield, which used the system to plan deep dives for offshore oil rigs.

INTERACT was written by Mike Riddle. He had previously worked on a ComputerVision CADDS3 system, which was used by his employer, Marathon Steel, to detail the structural steel used in the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, west of Phoenix. With the self assurance that many hackers have, Riddle figured he could do better than CADDS3.

He wrote INTERACT in his spare time, starting in 1977. He was slowed down by the state of hardware at the time — he had to write the program in pieces, and assemble it as larger memory boards became available. Ultimately, he decided he needed a processor that could support hardware multiply. Marinchip Systems, owned by John Walker and Dan Drake, made an S-100 main board with a TI TMS-9900 processor that fit the bill.

When Walker saw INTERACT running on the Marinchip Systems computer, he was impressed enough to become a dealer for the software.

In late 1981,Walker, Drake, Riddle, and about a dozen other people, came together to co-found what, in January 1982, would become Marinchip Software Partners, and shortly thereafter, Autodesk. INTERACT was rewritten in the C language, to run on the new IBM PC, and was rechristened–first as MicroCAD, and then (when the MicroCAD name was sniped by another company) as AutoCAD.

Today’s AutoCAD bears little resemblance to INTERACT.  Yet most of the original INTERACT commands still work in AutoCAD 2012.

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Electric bikes use less than 1,000 watts of total power and can be used on bike paths. When Hays first encountered these hybrid vehicles, most models were imported from a variety of countries. They relied on an injection molding manufacturing process which produced parts made of a variety of thermoplastics. While initially pleasing in appearance, the plastic parts raised questions of reliability and tended toward unsightly discolorations and dangerous cracks. “As an advocate for electric bikes,” said Hays, “I felt these problems had to be solved.”

To efficiently produce a more reliable and environmentally friendly electric bike, Hays’ company Pi Mobility took a minimalist approach. For Hays and his team, the longer a product will last is a key factor in making it more sustainable. Rather than rely on brittle plastics for a multitude of parts, Pi Mobility used an elegant, solitary arch of recycled aluminum for its bikes’ iconic frame. The recycled aluminum lasts longer than plastic and the batteries and electronic components reside safely within the aluminum tube rather than an injection molded plastic battery enclosure.

Recycled aluminum requires one-thirteenth the amount of electricity to produce compared to virgin aluminum. And, a Pi Mobility bikes produces 300 lbs of carbon dioxide per 12,000 miles of travel, making it 20-30 times more efficient than a motorcycle or cart. The single tube used in the PiCycle and PiMoto models’ battery agnostic design means they can conceivably handle any battery or chemical process that produces electricity, allowing for easy upgrades in the future.

Thanks to the less labor-intensive design of the single tube, Pi Mobility has been able to maintain production in the US and still be profitable. “We can form a tube in about 30 seconds,” said Hays. “With the help of Autodesk software, changes to the design can be embedded very quickly. Our manufacturing method offers very rapid scale at competitive prices, but it also reduces the required labor to a fraction of more traditional electric bikes. By producing our bikes locally, much of the transportation carbon that often affects even environmentally sustainable good can be eliminated.

The company’s testing program makes durability and sustainability its top priorities, before appearance. Pi Mobility seeks to combine all three elements at every opportunity. The Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping helped the company to optimize its design and bring new products to market faster.

Hays said,” We use Inventor, Vault, Alias Design, and Showcase. Our design team took to the software immediately. After just three weeks the team produced a 3D digital prototype using Inventor. It proved that by increasing the diameter of our tube by a half inch, we could save $335,000.”

Pi Mobility

www.picycle.com

Autodesk, Inc.

www.autodesk.com

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The product development team at PTC came up with the idea of a creating single program that does everything versus offering diverse programs with no connectedness. The strategy addresses its customer base and the trend toward solid modeling for the masses. Creo 1.0 is the result of that concept. The software currently has nine applications including Creo Parametric, Direct, Illustrate, Schematics, View MCAD, View ECAD, Sketch, and Layout.

The company focused on a group of traditional user problems and applied a core of technologies against them, specific roles having options for modeling modes with the click of an app. Simplifying a process that has plagued engineers and designers for decades makes using the software and being productive all the difference. The Creo GUI is much cleaner than the Pro/E GUI. According to those who have used the new product, the GUI strategy is most evident in Creo Parametric and Creo Direct. PTC leveraged the best features from CoCreate and made it easier to use. The company added features to Creo Parametric that will make Pro/E seem like ancient technology. Creo proves that a feature can live in a history-based and history-free environment keeping the parametric relation to features within each if needed.

Another 2011 debut was SolidWorks 2012 that also sports new features to help a more diverse audience. The software has improvements in assembly and drawing capabilities, built-in simulation, design costing, routing, image and animation creation, and product data management. Dassault Systemes says SolidWorks 2012 will help automate design functions, change product development processes, and extend support for collaboration and connectivity. This technology could change how the software is marketed and sold. The product helps users streamline design processes by removing traditional steps.

Autodesk’s AutoCAD 2012 and Design Suite 2012 series are available in a range of offerings including web and mobile applications. Thus more users have access to the technology and can stay connected to their work no matter where they are.  In addition, AutoCAD 2012 and Design Suite 201212 are directly connected to the free AutoCAD WS web and mobility application.

With CAD pretty much saturating the engineering and manufacturing arena, CAD vendors are realizing that pumping out a redressed version of what went out the door at the last launch is not going to work much longer. They have to offer tools that appeal to other audiences. We have seen that starting to happen in the retail, hobby, and jewelry industries where non-engineering types are using 3D programs to crank out new products.

PTC

www.ptc.com

Dassault Systemes

www.3ds.com

Autodesk

www.autodesk.com

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Moving its designers onto a standard platform worldwide meant integrating the Autodesk manufacturing technology with other key enterprise systems. As a result, Voith has synchronized its design teams and achieved new heights in speed and efficiency levels. “By integrating our 3D models into our SAP ERP system, we can make design changes more quickly. Every engineer has access to the same information, said Voith’s Olaf Spitzer. “This allows us to respond to our customers’ needs faster.”

Frederich Spitzer, PDM Support Manager, IT Solutions for Voith, “We are organized into centers of competencies, so every location with manufacturing capabilities has competencies for a certain product in the finished machine. By installing a common Inventor SAP ERP system with help from Autodesk Consulting, we bring all the information that is generated by these different locations together in one system.”

Voith is also gaining efficiencies associated with the enterprise parts management system built by Cadenas GmbH. The PART system reduces design time by providing access to components and assemblies. Design and development engineers are able to see relevant part information such as price, delivery time, and release status in one user interface.

With a common database, Voith’s design team now uses the same items with the same information. By streamlining parts numbers, Voith facilitates procurement, inventory, and maintenance.

Today, Voith is creating more accurate designs faster. Each machine is designed by several of Voith’s centers of competencies and then assembled at the customer site. Since adopting Inventor, Voith has reduced assembly problems.

“By integrating Inventor with our ERP system, we can respond quicker to our customer needs,” said Olaf Spitzer. “We are able to show them designs before we build a machine. For one project in China, a company ordered parts of a paper machine. We showed them the design and they had changes which we were able to make overnight. We then presented the new design to the customer the next day and secured an order.”

Autodesk

www.autodesk.com

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StretchMesh introduces new techniques and gives polygonal geometry a “stretch” quality for better control over the movement and skin elasticity of 3D modeled characters. The software features advanced relational vertex and shape preservation technology, offering animators and technical directors working in feature film, broadcast, and game development the ability to create smooth character deformations using Maya software.

StretchMesh takes advantage of multi-threading in Maya software, and incorporates several features for advanced character animation including greater flexibility and performance when animating collisions with primitive sphere and primitive curve colliders, the ability to pain an influence on a collision object for per-vertex control over collision behaviors, curve attractors provide the ability to pull vertices toward the closest point on  a curve, and a “Scale Safe” mode that allows users to scale a mesh while safely preserving its initial shape.

Kickstand

www.kickstand.tv

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“Autodesk provides the technology and expertise to streamline our entire design process, so we can beat our competition on the track and in the marketplace. Now that we have incorporated Autodesk Product Design Suite, it has enabled us to further enhance our workflow.”

Following a race weekend, the drivers brief Kelly Racing’s in-house design and engineering team on what precisely went right and wrong during the race. The designers then set to work with Inventor Professional software to make modifications to the existing car parts that can enhance performance and save the team time. For example, improvements to the front end of the car, in particular the suspension assembly, has increased traction and grip by 8%, leading to faster lap times or shaving 1% of total car weight through design and material optimization.

Even the most minor modifications play a vital role in a sport where a fraction of a second can be the difference between first and 21^st place. Engineers then test revised designs with Autodesk Simulation CFD to optimize aerodynamic performance and ensure the components are able to perform at speeds of up to 300 kilometers (188 miles) per hour. Autodesk Simulation Multiphysics software is also used to predict and validate the mechanical performance of the new components. Autodesk Vault Professional data management software helps manage the design process from initial concept to final release, providing the engineering team with greater control over the design process right up until the component or part is manufactured, released to the race department and put on the car.

Embracing Digital Prototyping has been a winning strategy for Kelly Racing. A new racing team typically takes six or more years to register its first win, but just barely into its third season, Kelly Racing has already scored two victories along with nine podium finishes.

Autodesk, Inc.

www.autodesk.com

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