DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

At Siggraph 2010, a not-so-subtle battle is taking place.  It’s the battle of the graphics computing future.  Depending on whom you listen to, the path to graphics performance nirvana is paved by graphics processing units (GPUs), central processing units (CPUs) or a combination of the two called heterogeneous processing units (HPUs) by analyst Jon Peddie.

At Peddie’s annual luncheon on Wednesday, the graphics processing future was discussed by a panel of high-ranking technologists, some with vested interest in which acronym comes out on top:

Eric Demers, GPG CTO of AMD
Brian Harrison, CTO of SolidWorks Labs
Rolf Herken, CEO & CTO of mental images
Bill Mark, Senior Research Scientist for Intel
Paul Stallings, VP of Software Development for Kubotek

Cheaper and faster

The principal area of interest for designers and engineers, of course, is how high-end rendering can improve their work, now and in the future.

Prices for heterogeneous computing are dropping dramatically, according to Peddie, giving more designers and engineers access to capabilities such as real-time ray tracing on lower-cost workstations.  More bandwidth, better compression and optimized software are making it more feasible to work with computer graphics via the cloud, whether over a company intranet or public internet.

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Nvidia’s new 3D Vision Pro, one of the many new 3D technologies on show

The show floor opened Tuesday in Los Angeles for SIGGRAPH 2010, the 37th edition of the conference and exposition that sets the stage for where computer graphics technology is going to take us. And although a few splashy demos were on display, there was little in the way of concrete product introductions to set hearts racing for CAD/CAM/CAE professionals.

Siggraph is the place where we first hear about exciting developments that make their way into the CAD/CAM world: 3D graphics; solid modelling; real-time rendering and ray tracing; textures, shadows and image mapping; and graphics processing units (GPUs) as stand-ins or maybe even superior alternatives to central processing units (CPUs).

Over the years, the Siggraph exposition has migrated from a general computer graphics event that included CAD/CAM and workstation vendors to one geared to the entertainment business. It’s an atmosphere of hope and sometimes desperation, a bit like a sports camp: A few of the prospective technologies on display are potential breakthroughs, but many will never quite find a lucrative application.

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As a magazine that primarily deals with software developers, the last year has seen pretty much all the main protagonists come out with some statement or demonstration of how their products could work on the cloud. Companies, such as Autodesk, are actively trialling CAD solutions which run over the web from a central server, as well as rendering, simulation and document view and mark-up applications. Dassault Systems, SolidWorks (a DS company) and Siemens PLM (now renamed Siemens Industry Software) are all due to launch commercial cloud applications later this year. So, in design, the Cloud hype is soon to become a reality.

However, perhaps all is not well in the world of cloud-based computing, with some suggesting that customers are not ready for this and the technology is not proven for reliability. Having watched the ‘Tweets’ coming from SolidWorks World attendees, one could watch an arc of euphoria as future cloud technology was demonstrated, followed by a generic feeling of hangover as customers appeared to question if they really wanted to work over a web connection. These customers, it seems, are joined with the developer of Pro/Engineer, PTC. I recently was contacted by Brian Shepherd, Executive Vice President, Product Development who wanted to go on record as to how PTC saw all this talk of cloudy futures for CAD.

PTC already has a cloud application, its Windchill PLM solution is and has been available as an online service through partners such as IBM for a number of years. However, the firm is concerned at the level of hype around running CAD on the cloud.

Shepherd explained, “We are agnostic around the cloud. We don’t feel the need to, or think we should be championing CAD on the cloud to our customers. With our conversations with customers, they have not identified a problem that cloud delivery of CAD would address. To be clear, we are not anti-cloud. Areas such as grid computing around CAE is interesting, and can make some sense but there just hasn’t been the demand for CAD on the cloud.”

“Today we don’t sense that kind of overwhelming desire or drive for this.  We are not listening to analysts, or to cloud providers and trying not to get distracted by hype. We are just trying to address the real problems. Customers are not saying they have problems with deployment or scaleable infrastructure. Our focus for the future of CAD is around ‘Project Lightning’ which addresses usability, interoperability and assembly management.” (Project Lightning is PTC’s vision and strategy to define the next 20 years of CAD and can be read about here )

So, while PTC can see PLM as a cloud service and potentially for CAE analysis, when it comes to modelling over the cloud, Shepherd appeared at a loss as to what the benefit would be.

He continued, “Will CAD be faster on the cloud than it is on the desktop? Maybe for CAE that could be true but for CAD that might not be true, which is a surely a step backwards In fact, cloud computing in CAD sounds like a solution in search of a problem today.”

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For many years organisations such as EngineeringUK and Young Engineers have been banging on about how we need to enthuse and inspire young people about careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (otherwise known as STEM). In fact research done by the Careers Research Advisory Council show that young people are not choosing STEM subjects because they are seen as too difficult, un-aspirational and un-sexy whilst EngineeringUK recently reported an alarming statistic that only 7% of careers advisors and lecturers say that they would currently recommend a career in engineering to their brightest students.

So, what better way of motivating and informing young people about how exciting and quite frankly sexy science and engineering can be than by bringing them all together in one action packed and interactive event. This is exactly what the Big Bang Fair has set out to do - celebrate and raise the profile of young peoples’ achievements in science and engineering as well as encouraging them to take part in STEM initiatives. The regional Big Bang Fair London was held recently at Westminster Kingsway College and over 1300 young people attended who were all captivated by the demonstrations, workshops, exhibition stands and theatrical shows taking place.

The fair also showcased 74 student projects who were all competing in the London regional heats of the Young Engineer for Britain, National Science and Engineering Competition and CREST Awards. For 15 to 18 year olds there were certainly some quite impressive ideas such as Charles Barton, a pupil at Westminster School who won the Young Engineer’s competition for 17-18 year old category for his Sunlight Lamp, an RGB LED desk lamp that wakes you up naturally by imitating the colours of a sun rise. Other winning projects included the world’s smallest water museum, an antidote to chilli, metallic jewellery, a ladder attachment to store your tools and a hydroponics garden.

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