DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

Many of the people in CAD dealerships have been selling CAD for many years. While Channel managers and sales folks at the CAD vendors come and go with the seasons, these dealership principles are the main industry constant. The sales of whatever CAD system they have affiliated themselves with puts bread on their tables and hopefully pays their mortgages. These people are business folks that have to take a long hard look at how they can grow their businesses with the least risk and in a controlled, sustainable way. This is typically at odds with the rate at which the CAD vendors want them to grow. Of course it is also possible to grow your CAD dealership through developing more added-value services, or selling additional products, perhaps in a different market segment - but then this does not favour the CAD vendor, as they want to sell more boxes of branded product.

So there is a lot of pressure on dealers at the moment to increase sales, hire more staff and be more aggressive about new-seat business. However, long-term, I see trouble on the horizon. The route to the customer will, in the next 2 or 3 years change, as the old Value Added Reseller (VAR) model will have to sit with Web-based delivery and the ability to order CAD products and services direct over the web. No vendor will talk at any length on how the existing channel and direct downloads will work, yet they are all developing web delivery businesses.

It all boils down to the value that the vendors see in having an experienced channel and the revenue they want to give to these dealers in an increasingly web-delivered world. Perhaps being a big dealer, with many expensive sales staff, will be a disadvantage in the future? Can the dealers trust the vendors to look after their interests?

I’ve been plugging through everything I’ve learned so far about Synchronous Technology, so here it is. The essential difference between Synchronous Technology and other systems out there that many are comparing it with (let’s be frank, that’s SpaceClaim, CoCreate and to a much less extent, IronCAD), is not so much the ability to interact directly with geometry, but rather the manner in which you add intelligence to your 3D product model.

When we design a product, we have two things in mind. What it looks like, whether in terms of aesthetic quality, but also that it need to fit and provide a certain function, and that’s often governed by form - after all, parts need to interact with those around them. But alongside this, you also need to be able to specify how a product is formed. Rough dimensions don’t cut it, you need to be able to tie information down, lock it out and ensure that the geometry you create fulfills a need, for function and performance.

In traditional history based systems, the latter part is much easier, as you are defining geometry from a very root level, which captures your design intent - but only just. the fact that you often have to add excessive dimensions and constraints at a feature/sketch level, means that the process is counter intuitive. In other words, history-based modeling is too over burdened.

What it DOES give you is the ability to add a lot of intelligence, so design change can be automated, dimensions and constraints interlinks between sketches, features, parts and sub-assemblies. But the end result is a dataset that’s horrendously complex and effecting even a small change can result in a parametric nightmare that take herculean effort to resolve - and in many cases, user remodel from scratch just to avoid it.

Direct Editing applications (such as CoCreate and SpaceClaim), work from the other end, where you play with the geometry and the constraints you apply (be they dynamically input, or more commonly, just a case of drag and drop geometry) are not maintained and stored. So, you can add dimensions if you need to, but they can’t be maintained and commonly accessed at a later date.

What Siemens has done is develop an architecture in which you can mix and match both. you can play with geometry to get it into shape, to ensure that the rough state of your model is how you want it. you can make changes very quickly indeed, by using inferred relationships, dynamic detection of ‘informal’ topology relationships - such as concentricity, parallelism, perpendicularity. this just enables to you edit the geometry and topology very quickly. But the trick is that when time comes to lock down feature size, dimensions, constraints, you can do is, just as you do already BUT, you can maintain them. Dimensions remain consistent, are stored and accessible, features are maintained, in respect to the dimensions, rules, constraints you provide.

But

They are applied after the geometry has been built - and this is key. you design, then you engineer. For me, the most interesting illustration i could find is the one shown here. its a model with parametric dimensions, but one that’s fully constrained - but the difference is that the ONLY dimensions, parameters and constraint you create, are the important ones - that, is the crux of the point and key to understanding what Siemens have developed.

Its a complex thought process to figure this out, with over 20 years of parametric, history-based modeling that the majority of us are familiar with and it’ll take time to settle and learn more.

NOTE: it’s been pointed out that I left Kubotek and its products out of these articles. Apologies to the guys over here.

It’s not often I get animated about printing, but when I first saw Oce’s new CrystalPoint technology in action on YouTube recently I was genuinely excited - so much so I that immediately showed my girlfriend the video. She now thinks I’m genuinely ‘sad’.

This ‘sad’ individual has just got back from the official launch event at Oce’s headquarters in Venlo, Holland, so what is all the fuss about? Well, for starters, it’s the first new wide format print technology for a number of years and is designed to bridge the gap between inkjet and LED by offering full colour, faster colour print speeds, and there being no need for coated paper.

To do this CrystalPoint uses TonerPearls instead of inkjet ink or powder-based toner. Each TonerPearl is about the size of a small marble and is heated into a gel which is then jetted and crystallised onto plain or even recycled paper.

The first machine to bear this technology is the ColorWave 600, which Oce claims will beat any inkjet on the market when it comes to throughput. From what I saw today it is undoubtedly a fast technology, but image quality, while great for linework, fell a little short of my expectations for full colour - it’s good, but not photo inkjet quality.

It’s certainly a cool technology, and one that could have huge implications on engineering and architecture with the ability to produce colour prints in real volumes. However, I have to say I’ve calmed down a little since first seeing the video. This is undoubtedly a good thing for my relationship.

We’ll have a full review in the first issue of DEVELOP3D.

www.oce.com/colorwave

So, everyone’s talking about Siemens and its Synchronous Technology recently. While many are talking about it, details are scant and everyone’s guessing, but from what I have seen (and questioned the #%^ out of Siemens on) so far, I can say this: it’s dammed impressive - this technology has massive potential and will provide Siemens with solid base for the years to come. But you kind of guessed this already, right? Want some more details? OK - let’s go.

To understand Synchronous Technology, you need to consider the background of Feature and History-based modeling. When developed (over 20 years ago) the 3D CAD systems were not capable of solving both Geometry and Topology at the same time, for a complete model - it was computationally too complex.

So, the developers compartmentalised the process, split it up into a list of features, which construct the model, which is solved in series, one after the other. The hardware could compute each stage more easily and output the results. These are the basics.

Systems like IronCAD, CoCreate, SpaceClaim differ in that they give you very powerful tools for editing geometry, but don’t handle topology changes well, where faces disappear, are subsumed into other geometry.

And never the twain shall meet?

Not exactly. What the technology does is solve five things at once: Geometry and Topology. But into this, it also solves Features, Design Rules (or Live Rules) and Dimensions - all at the same time. this means that editing a model, features, parameters, doesn’t have such an impact on calculation times - as there’s no history to replay - the system solves all these aspects in one go. And it’s slick people, very slick indeed.

What else did I find out?

Productisation: Synchronous Technology will be implemented differently in the two core modeling applications in the Siemens PLM arsenal (NX and Solid Edge). Both development teams are co-operating on the technology, but how it’s implemented will differ between the two product streams - and rightly so. This is a huge sea change for both and time needs to be taken to evaluate and do the job properly - and we all know what rushing into UI changes can do.

We’re going to cover this emerging technology more and more in the coming month as details and products emerge, but one ting is clear. Siemens has something pretty unique on its hands and the development has paid off. Other CAD vendors rely on Siemens PLM components for its core technology (such as Parasolid and D-cubed), but this is different in that it is an application layer in NX and Solid Edge.

Stay Tuned - more to come…