Throughout the week-long CAD love-fest that is Autodesk University, the one thing you didn’t hear was the word AutoCAD.

For a company that was seen as the 2D behemoth, this was probably the first Autodesk event that demonstrated just how far the company’s product suite has diversified.

Under the leadership of Carol Bartz, Autodesk went from being a teenager to a corporate giant with one product and an attitude problem.

Now with technologist CEO, Carl Bass and team well established at the helm, Autodesk has more customers using a plethora of new products on mobile devices than it does using traditional CAD systems. Autodesk is now a company of experimentation, rapid development and broad ambitions.

As well-experienced AU attendees know, the main keynotes usually give some indication of what’s in the next releases.

This year the format changed somewhat with a concentration on how innovation, technology trends and an uncertain global economy are impacting our lives.

There was also a gaggle of inspirational thinkers who are devising different approaches to design, engineering, education and sustainability.

It’s not at all about what’s in the next software release but how all this new technology can be used to benefit mankind and prepare firms for the waves of change that appear to be increasing in these uncertain times.

Cloud

There was a big focus on explaining the benefits of cloud computing.

This took the shape of first calming fears and stating that the cloud does not mean that software will vanish from CAD workstations, that instead it will augment and expand what designers are used to using today.

The expanded processing and collaboration benefits of using cloud tools will mean not only near instant results for analysis and data everywhere, but will also unburden workstations to carry on designing.

In the future Autodesk envisages a cloud system which will mean that whatever is being designed will constantly be processed by smart super computer systems in the background, providing analysis and photorealistic renderings on demand. Autodesk is already developing analysis tools that will offer multiple optimisation solutions instead of just a single solitary result.

The raw power of the cloud is one aspect, the ability to share and update documentation and connect teams is another key driver for Autodesk development.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

In 2007 Carl Bass went on record denouncing the PLM industry as ‘a solution in search of an industry’.

At AU 2011, Autodesk joined in that search, with Bass backtracking and saying that he didn’t want Autodesk in PLM until it could be done right.

We are at a crossing point, where information is available everywhere and computing power can be distributed from desktop, to cloud to smart phone

A fair point given that the company has gone through a torrid time trying and failing to develop management systems.

The new PLM product expands Autodesk’s portfolio of document management solutions: Autodesk Vault and Buzzsaw with Autodesk Nexus. Nexus is a service that offers easy configuration, workflow and hooks into PDM systems.

Last year Bass told DEVELOP3D that he was impressed with PTC’s Windchill and could finally see how it was relevant for its users and Nexus is the result of that admiration.

Speakers

Just to get a flavour of the breadth of speakers, in a single ‘innovation forum’, we had short presentations from Sir Ken Robinson explaining how our education system kills creativity, Saul Griffith of Otherlab sharing some of the amazing designs he has created (including ‘soft robots’, electric vehicles, the fastest dinghy, bicycles) and Louise Leakey an paleoanthropologist (fossil hunter) that uses 3D scanning to research mankind’s ancient origins.

The presenters this year were really excellent and gave plenty of ideas for attendees to consider. Having been through a number of painfully flat conferences in the last two months, I would suggest other vendors would do well to attend and learn.

Conclusion

So, gone are the days when Autodesk was a one-product company and only supported one operating system and one platform.

The company’s tools are now liberated and run on many operating systems and hardware platforms. The impact of the Internet is still working its way through the software industry and we are indeed at a crossing point, where information needs to be available everywhere and computing power can be distributed from desktop, to cloud to smartphone.

As Autodesk develops its strategy, there will be more services included in the Subscription element of the portfolio. Where once Subscription was literally paying ahead for the next release, it will be a key to new productivity enhancing capabilities.

Autodesk University is now less about product and more about ideas. In that respect, AU felt more like TED than it did an Autodesk product platform.

For content AU 2011 was one of the best conferences of 2011 and demonstrated that computers and engineering software combined with humans can do so much more than drawing.

In the previous article (#15, DEVELOP3D October 2011) we balanced the loading and then applied a 3-2-1 minimal constraint.

So, let’s firstly remind ourselves of the problem at hand: {fig.1} shows a side elevation of the linkage with the loads acting on it.

If you did the previous homework you’ll have proved to yourself that the linkage is under force and moment equilibrium. T

he applied loads will cause stress and strain but, without constraints, we currently have a structure that is free to drift around in space. We therefore need some sort of constraint to render a unique set of displacements BUT not so much constraint that we falsely stiffen the linkage. 

To solve this we then applied a 3-2-1 minimal constraint, which restrained the linkage from movement with the lightest touch possible. A quick check of the summation of applied loads (and reactions) will show that these are near-zero as required. The stress results from this model (although not shown here) indicated a very localised P1 stress peak on the blend between the long arm and the central boss (251,567psi) and a larger area of high stress on the long arm itself (124,206psi).

Let us now look at two alternative solutions. {fig.2} shows contours of the P1 stress when the main bore is fully constrained instead of our previous 3-2-1 constraint. Here the loads that were applied to the main bore are removed and replaced by a constraint in the X, Y and Z translational freedoms.

The loads applied to the minor bores, A and B, are applied as before and these loads show up in the load balance (and are reported on {fig.2}). The analysis produces a set of unique displacements but these are not realistic. In practice, with normal engineering tolerances, the central bore can ovalise, even a tight-fitting pivot pin will not constrain (the main bore area) as harshly as this.

The previously reported stress peak (251,567psi) doesn’t appear and the the worst area of high stress has now moved to the concave radius on the long arm where the P1 stress is 124,250psi. We’ve actually analysed two separate cantilevers!

For a second attempt, let us follow the advice of the NAFEMS 2010 publication - “How to - Analyse Practical Problems using FE Software - Volume 1” which explains how to solve practical problems such as this linkage. {fig.3} replicates the methods recommended in that publication.

Apparently the main bore must be able to rotate so a radial constraint is applied to all the nodes on the inside of that bore. The specified load of 1100lbsf is applied to the lower half of the minor bore B and a local constraint is applied to one side of the minor bore A.

The so-called ‘local’ constraint prevents movement normal to the line OA (see detail view of constraints on {fig.3}). In addition to these constraints we will need to constrain at least one node in the Z-direction and this has been done (the aforementioned book used a 2D plane-stress analysis where the out-of-plane freedom was not active anyway).

Again we see that the stresses local to the main bore are not realistic. The main bore diameter has been constrained such that it cannot expand or contract in a radial direction.

The main bore constraint allows rotation of the linkage and shrinkage/expansion in the length direction of the bore but otherwise the bore is over-constrained. The previously recognised peak stress of 251,567psi does not feature in this model and, again, the peak stress now occurs on the concave region some way along the longer arm towards bore B (124,258psi).

Given that we want a quick solution without the inclusion of contact with the various pivot pins, then the ONLY way to do this realistically is with the previously described method of balanced loading and minimal constraint. Over-constraining the central bore will stiffen the linkage and allow it to carry more load than it would be able to do in practice.

In both the analyses shown here the localised high stress (in the blend with the main bore) has been missed, potentially resulting in a design which may fail in service

We have spent the last three articles in this Engineering Workshop series (#14, #15 and #16) examining methods of support so I hope you can see the importance of realistic constraints and what happens when they are too severe. The ‘artistry’ of Finite Element Analysis is to apply constraints which prevent the rigid-body motions but do not over-stiffen the component or assembly we’re looking at. The aim is to use as light a touch as possible.
                                   

DAMT has produced 16 articles for DEVELOP3D, the first 15 were checked by John Horspool. I am grateful for his excellent input and advice over this period. Unfortunately John recently passed away.

He had been battling bravely against a terrible disease and leaves his wife and two children. John will be sorely missed, we have “put the world to right” on many occasions. The FEA community has lost a major player and campaigner.

At DEVELOP3D we tend to review standalone workstations, rarely one that comes with a display and certainly not one that comes with multiple screens.

Scan’s new Core i7 workstation comes with three Dell UltraSharp U2410 displays

But we’ve made an exception for Scan’s new 3XS i7 Eyefinity workstation, which includes three professional Dell UltraSharp displays, all driven by a single AMD FirePro graphics card.

Powered by AMD Eyefinity technology, the FirePro V5900 is one of a handful of AMD professional graphics cards that can support three displays. It uses its two DisplayPort and one DVI outputs to drive
three of Dell’s impressive 24-inch Dell UltraSharp U2410 screens.

UltraSharp is Dell’s professional display brand and all monitors feature Image Plane Switching (IPS) technology, which not only delivers crisp images and excellent colour reproduction, but boasts much wider viewing angles than budget displays.

The U2410 features a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, slightly bigger than standard HD (1,920 x 1,080).

Apart from quality, one of the best things about the UltraSharp U2410 is that it can operate in landscape or portrait mode. While landscape mode is likely to be the most common use in a three-display array, in portrait mode they combine to form one giant desktop with a colossal 3,600 x 1,920 resolution.

In portrait mode we felt fully immersed in our design, which spanned all three displays. After a while, we even managed to ignore the bezels that surround each display and break up the image.

AMD Eyefinity automatically corrects for the bezelled edge that surrounds each screen. It cuts out a bit of the image so you don’t get a stepping effect when an image spans across multiple displays. It’s a neat feature as it tricks your eyes into thinking you have one continuous display, but can be a little frustrating as from time to time parts of the design are hidden by a bezel.

Bezel correction can be adjusted in the FirePro driver, and it can be turned off so no information is hidden, but we wouldn’t really recommend this as it tends to make images look a bit odd. One way of getting around this is to buy a monitor with a thin bezel. Samsung’s MD230 is a good example.

This is also sold by Scan, but not as a standard option. Spanning a 3D CAD model across three displays and rotating it on screen did have an impact on performance, but not by a huge amount – frame rates were reduced by about 25%. Some CAD applications, where the CPU is the bottleneck, rather than the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), probably wouldn’t notice any difference.

Landscape mode is likely to be used more day in and day out and here we found the three displays less spectacular. However, there are potentially huge productivity benefits here as it pretty much gives you instant access to all your key software applications and datasets.

Setting aside the centre display for the core design application, the flanking monitors can be used to dip into different datasets, or any combination of email, browser, spreadsheet, rendering, simulation or document management software.

It’s worth spending a little time setting up your workspace to get the most of the technology – you can even move toolbars or model libraries off the main CAD display to maximise the modelling space.

While the three monitor setup is something out of the ordinary, the Scan 3XS i7 Eyefinity workstation itself is much more familiar. The processor, Intel’s Core i7 2700K, is an evolution of the 2600K, a mainstay of workstations last year and a great CPU for general CAD or mainstream rendering or simulation.

There’s a little bit more performance on offer here though, with the 3.5GHz chip, clocked up to 4.6GHz. The CPU is backed up with 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz memory, which means the machine is equipped to handle some pretty sizeable datasets.

For storage, a 128GB Corsair Performance Pro Marvell Solid State Drive (SSD) is for operating system and applications, while a 2TB Seagate Barracuda, 7,200rpm is for data.

Prices of hard drives have gone up in recent months following major flooding in Thailand, the hard drive capital of the world, but not so much to make a big impact on the overall system cost.

Delivery and setup

Being a journalist isn’t the glamorous life you’d imagine, so when someone offers to not only deliver a system, but also unpack it ready to go, you jump at the chance.

This isn’t some veiled attempt on behalf of Scan to win favour with lazy journalists it’s a new service where a trained installer drives down from Bolton and sets everything up for you — and all for no additional charge, just the standard £35 delivery fee.

While this may not interest hardened IT managers, we can attest it was a welcome introduction to setting up a workstation with three displays. We were given an introduction to how to configure AMD Eyefinity, such as how to make sure the right image appears on the right screen.

The Eyefinity software is pretty simple to use, but it was great being given a helping hand to get you started.

Conclusion

It’s easy to forget about monitors when buying a workstation. At DEVELOP3D we certainly update our computers more regularly than our displays.

In order to get three screens running with the Scan 3XS i7 Eyefi nity workstation it’s not mandatory to buy brand new displays.

The FirePro V5900 can connect to a legacy DVI or VGA monitor via adapters, and this is fi ne if you want to run different applications on different screens.

However, in order to span a single CAD model across three displays in portrait mode, it’s important to use identical displays.

The Dell UltraSharp U2410 is an excellent all round monitor, though some may prefer a display that features a smaller bezel. This is less of an issue in landscape mode.

When you first start using three displays side by side it feels like a bit of a luxury — in much the same way as it does when moving from one to two displays — but you soon find an important use for every last pixel. It’s certainly not for everyone, and if you only use one design application, day in day out, plus a bit of email and web browsing, then two monitors should be more than enough.

But when you move into portrait mode, it offers an entirely different experience. It’s perfect for design/review sessions or when you need to see a lot of details at the same time, such as an entire assembly or a detailed 2D drawing.

The real draw of Scan’s system is the price. For just over £2,300 you get a powerful workstation which can also improve productivity by helping enhance workflow.

If you’re considering a new workstation, maybe it’s time to think about updating the whole system.

Moving beyond three displays with Eyefinity

Our review machine featured the AMD FirePro V5900, but this is just one of a whole family of professional graphics cards from AMD that can support three monitors using Eyefinity technology.

The FirePro V4900 is an entry-level card with 1GB GDDR5 memory. It features two DisplayPorts and one dual link DVI. It is ideal for entry level CAD/CAM/CAE software.

The FirePro V7900 (pictured) is a high-end card with 2GB GDDR5 memory. Its four DisplayPorts can drive up to four displays at the same time.

These can be arranged side by side, or in a 2 x 2 array, by mounting them on a wall or on a dedicated stand. This makes it great for design visualisation or design review.

The FirePro V8800 is double height high-end card, which features 2GB GDDR5 memory and four DisplayPorts.

The FirePro V9800 takes things up a notch with 4GB GDDR5 memory and six Mini DisplayPorts. It can drive six displays, typically in a 3 x 2 array.

Scan currently supports this with a six display bundle, complete with stand, based on Samsung’s thin bezel MD230 display.         

To view comparative scores from other workstations please click here
For details of all our specific CAD/CAM/CAE benchmarks click here

» CPU benchmarks (secs - smaller is better)
CAD (SolidWorks 2010) - 180
CAM (Delcam PowerMill 2010) - 1) 138 2) 209 3) 291
CAE (SolidWorks 2010 Simulation) - 79
Rendering (3ds Max Design 2011) - 223

» Graphics benchmarks (frames per sec - bigger is better)
CAD (SolidWorks 2010) - 48