SolidWorks 2009 Beta 1

SolidWorks 2008 was a nightmare for many third party add-in developers such as myself. I am pleased to report that SolidWorks 2009 will not be a repeat show. At SYCODE, we have updated our SolidWorks add-ins (all 16 of them) to work with SolidWorks 2009 Beta 1. We are now testing them to check for weird behaviour. So far everything looks good and I sincerely hope that it stays that way till the final release.

In my opinion, people may adopt SolidWorks 2009 much faster than they adopted SolidWorks 2008. In fact, I will not be surprised of the early adoptors are the ones that skipped SolidWorks 2008 altogether.

What do you think?

Adobe LiveCycle ES Goes 3D

Yesterday Rak Bhalla from Adobe spent some time with me explaining the first update to their Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES). One way to describe LiveCycle ES would be an enterprise wide software solution with the aim of reducing or eliminating paper. The interesting part to us CAD people in this update is the addition of something known as PDF Generator 3D ES, basically a server based solution to automatically create and distribute 3D PDF files.

Priced at $60,000 for a perpetual site license, it's quite obvious that LiveCycle ES is not meant for the individual user or even small businesses. It is targeted towards medium and large businesses running an ERP or PLM system or some equivalent home grown business process system. The "E" in LiveCycle ES stands for Enterprise, and like all enterprise solutions, it does not work out of the box and needs to be customized.

PDF Generator 3D ES sits on a server and keeps an eye on special network folders. As soon as users dump files into these folders, it determines what to do with them (that's the customization part) and then does it. As the name suggests, it generates PDF files and places them in another set of folders or sends them across to the concerned people within or outside the company. For example, lets say someone from the procurement department wants to send a Request For Quote (RFQ) to a bunch of suppliers. He will simply drop a Word document and a CATIA model into one of the network folders. PDF Generator will immediately spring into action. It will automatically read the CATIA model and insert it into a PDF RFQ document created from data stored in the Word document and then directly send it to the suppliers via email. Later it will accumulate the data from the PDF files returned by the suppliers, assimilate it into a single concise PDF file and send it to the concerned person in the company for further action.

As you can see, the aim here is not just to reduce paper, but to reduce time (and possibly employees) as well. And as you can imagine, such a solution work will need a great deal of customization. So I imagine that the $60,000 for the site license will be the least of the problems.

Adobe LiveCycle ES Update 1 is expected to become available on 17th July 2008. As regards competition, Rak was of the opinion that Microsoft was the only company worthy of consideration. Incidently, LiveCycle ES works on Windows only.

Feature Inference Modeling

I'm not sure who coined the phrase "Feature Inference Modeling", but I am reading a lot about it from Evan Yares. In his interview with Franco Folini, Evan stated that feature inference modeling is the next major revolution in MCAD. One particular statement struck me, "What’s exciting about this new revolution is that it’s not about overthrowing the last revolution; it’s about completing it. Feature inference modeling and feature-based modeling are complementary technologies, that, when used together, have the potential to completely transform the product development process."

Quite obviously, Evan is referring to Solid Edge ST. Unfortunately, thanks to my company being a Solid Edge Voyager Partner, I cannot say anything about Solid Edge ST, apart from the fact that our Solid Edge add-ins have been updated for it.

However, I think I can say that I do not completely agree with Evan about feature inference modeling and feature based modeling complementing each other. Yes, I agree that in Solid Edge ST, they seem to be complementing each other. But I believe that this is just a temporary fix on the road towards the final goal of moving completely away from feature based modeling.

I know some of you think I am crazy. Take a step back. In fact, take many steps back. Imagine Mike Riddle developing Interact, the prototype for the first version of AutoCAD. Now try telling him that something called parametric solid modeling is going to make his stuff obsolete. I leave it you to guess his reaction. My guess is that his reaction would be the same as the people who feel that parametric solid modeling is going to remain supreme till kingdom come.

Please Sue Me

"Please sue me", is what R. Paul Waddington appears to be telling Autodesk. In his latest article on his blog, Paul explains why he thinks that Autodesk's EULA is not enforceable and is effectively calling Autodesk's bluff. Paul says, "With this post I have firmly ‘nailed my flag to the mast’; if I am wrong consequences must follow." In summary, Paul declares that he rejects Autodesk’s Subscription and Licence Terms and Conditions but will continue to use Autodesk’s products.

I am not sure Autodesk is interested in taking up the challenge, especially since they recently had to eat humble pie in their case against Timothy Vernor. Maybe Vernor's judgement is what finally emboldened Paul to raise his war flag. Moreover, I believe Autodesk is more interested in spending the time of their legal team in helping them evaluate which companies to buy, as opposed to having them drag another harmless individual to court.

Alibre Design and YoYo Design

A Google alert on "Alibre Design" led me to this discussion thread at YoYoNation.com. The thread is titled "What can Alibre Design do?" and is about novices seeking information about CAD and CAM. I was about to close the browser when I noticed a long and detailed reply explaining CAM and even a introduction to Rapid Prototyping. What surprised me was that the username assigned to that particular reply was listed as "gregmilliken".

Now, to the best of my knowledge, Greg Milliken, the CEO of Alibre, is not the kind of a person to spend his time on a web site like YoYoNation.com and reply to questions like "Can someone explain how a CNC lathe works?". So I pointed Greg to the thread and asked if it was really him, although I thought I already new the answer.

His reply floored me, "Yeah it really was. I actually have a really good discussion with a number of the guys there going now. Not that yoyo design is the next big thing but I find reaching out to folks in all manner of industries provides valuable feedback."

Wow! It sure looks like Alibre is going out of its way to put it's "Personal CAD" message across with it's free Alibre Design Xpress.

Adobe Acrobat 9

Today Adobe announced Acrobat 9. They have dropped the "3D" tag and are now calling the full blown version Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended. Last Thursday Rak Bhalla from Adobe spent an hour and a half showing me the new features of Acrobat 9. Here are the few things that got my attention.

Adobe claims to be getting wide industry support for 3D PDF. The names I heard included SolidWorks, PTC, Lattice, Right Hemisphere, Quadrispace, Bentley, Seemage and Actify. Conspicious by its absence was Autodesk, quite obviously since Autodesk would want to promote their own DWF format. I don't know how many of you have noticed, but for many versions now, when installing previous versions of Acrobat Professional, the installer searches for certain installed applications (such as Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, etc.) and installs plug-ins for these applications that allow them to create PDF files. I could never understand why Adobe's plug-in for AutoCAD created only 2D PDF files. Upon inquiring I was told that things would change. Since Autodesk doesn't seem to be interested in making their products output 3D PDF, I guess Adobe will have to do it themselves.

Acrobat 9 now has native support for Flash. So you can seamlessly integrate Flash videos into a PDF file. In fact, you can include just about any kind of document inside a PDF file, thanks to something that Adobe refers to as PDF portfolio. As I understand it, a PDF portfolio is something like a zip file which contains a bunch of other files. So if you want to send someone a brochure, a solid model, a training manual document or whatever, just put them all into a PDF portfolio and send it. Anyone with the free Acrobat Reader will be able to extract the files out.

One complaint has always been that Acrobat takes a jolly good time to load, thanks to the various DLL's it loads at startup. Apparently, this time around loading has been made 2 to 3 times faster. One way I see this happenning is by making DLL's to load when required and not on startup. Or maybe Adobe has another trick up it's sleeve.

Adobe has decided to put their domain name Acrobat.com to better use. Acrobat.com (currently in Beta) offers a bunch of online services for file sharing and storage. Using Acrobat.com you "take control" of a PDF file being viewed by another person anywhere in the world. The person controlling can zoom, pan and rotate the 3D objects in a PDF file on his computer and the same will happen on the other side as well. Since the data transmitted between the computers involved is only the camera position, there are no irritating lag times. Creating an account at Acrobat.com is free.

Speaking of zoom, it brings me back to something I said on this blog more than a year ago when I was fiddling around with Acrobat 3D 8. At that time I could not find a way to do a Zoom Window. I could only find a Zoom icon which let me zoom in and out. In one of his comments, Mike Kaplan, Director of Engineering, Acrobat 3D, enlightenned me that right-click-drag would let me do a Zoom Window. I found that odd, and confusing as well, because for the text part of a PDF file you need to left click and drag a Zoom Window. In fact, Acrobat 3D 8 is the only "CAD" application I know that does it this way. And they have not changed it in Acrobat 9.

Another problem I had with Acrobat 3D 8 was Adobe's idea of wireframe. The wireframe in Acrobat 3D 8 was actually the render mesh, the bunch of triangles that are used internally to display a 3D NURBS solid model on a 2D screen. This is very different from what we in the CAD world know wireframe to be. The real problem was that Acrobat 3D 8 used this render mesh to perform measurements on the 3D model - a disaster for any engineer. This is what I said at that time:

"I am not quite sure what Adobe's view of collaboration is. You just cannot give an engineer down in manufacturing a mesh (however fine and hence unmanageable it may be) and expect him to "collaborate" effectively with an engineer in the design department. He needs to know distances, angles, surface curvature and continuity, etc. precisely, from a NURBS model, not based on some stupid render mesh. A 3D model is not any ordinary document like a purchase order, and I feel Adobe needs to realize that."

I regret to inform you that Acrobat 9 does not do things any differently. It uses the same render mesh to calculate measurements. But now there is a very valid reason for that. The reason is Adobe 3D Reviewer, an application that comes bundled with Acrobat Pro Extended. The 3D Reviewer was intially developed by TTF, a company that Adobe bought, which gave it the technology to step into the 3D world. You can do precise measurements with the 3D Reviewer, and a lot more. The bad news is that you cannot buy the 3D Reviewer alone. It comes only bundled with Acrobat Pro Extended priced at $699. You don't even get it with Acrobat Pro, which is priced at $499. The entry level Acrobat Standard is priced at $299.

Adobe believes that for every 3D PDF file created there are 50 downstream users. That is to say that 50 people will view, edit, markup, etc. each and every 3D PDF file. I have absolutely no idea how they arrived at that figure, but it sure sounds interesting. I wonder what number Autodesk would put on DWG.

Adobe is not going down the subscription road, at least not with Acrobat. That's nice to hear. Almost unbelievable, if you ask me, considering that they are this giant money making machine. Another thing that I was extremely pleased to hear was that Adobe does not intend to ribbonize Acrobat. I just hate the ribbon from the bottom of my heart. It's ok if you use just one CAD application and maybe a few other programs now and then. You simply brainwash your mind and start from scratch. But if you are someone like me who uses different CAD applications (almost always simultaneously), then finding things becomes a nightmare. At least with the menu/toolbar combo you had a sense of where things would most probably be.

Towards the end, I asked Rak who Adobe considered was it's closest rival in this sphere. Very tactfully, he replied, "Paper. We are having a hard time convincing people to stop using paper."

I noticed that all of Adobe's 3D software is related to viewing, sharing and collaborating geometry, never in creating it. I asked Rak if Adobe was interested in pursuing developing software to create 3D content. Rak replied in the negative. As far as Adobe is concerned it intends to leave 3D geometry creation to others.

Acrobat 9 is due to ship in July 2008. If you want to be notified when a trial becomes available you can fill out a form here.