Thursday, May 15, 2008

Breakthrough in CAD? Siemens PLM Software has announced what it terms a significant breakthrough in CAD technology. For those of you who have not kept pace with acquisitions, Siemens PLM was formed with the acquisition of UGS, which itself was a CAD/PLM player that acquired Tecnomatix that in turn had acquired SCADA supplier USDATA. This new technology aids digital product development with what it calls "synchronous" technology. It is a history-free, feature-based modeling technology that the company claims to increase the design experience by 100 times. It combines constraint-driven techniques with direct modeling. It will be integrated into the next versions of NXTM and SolidEdge software. The synchronizing involves geometry and rules. There are four key areas to the technology: Fast idea capture: Synchronous technology captures ideas as fast as the user thinks them. Designers can devote more time to innovation with new techniques that provide the efficiency of parametric dimension-driven modeling without the computational overhead of pre-planned dependencies. The technology defines optionally persistent dimensions, parameters and design rules at time of creation or edit, without the overhead of an ordered history. Fast design changes: The technology automates the implementation of planned or unplanned design changes to seconds versus hours thorough unparalleled ease of editing, regardless of design origination, with or without the presence of a history tree. Improved multi-CAD reuse: The technology allows users to reuse data from other CAD systems without remodeling. Users can succeed in a multi-CAD environment that enables them to edit other CAD system data faster than they can in the original system, regardless of the design methodology. A technique called "suggestive selection" automatically infers the function of various design elements without the need for feature or constraint definitions. This increases design reuse and OEM/supplier efficiency. New user experience: The technology provides a new user interaction experience that simplifies CAD and "makes 3D as easy to use as 2D." The interaction paradigm merges historically independent 2D and 3D environments, providing the robustness of a mature 3D modeler with the ease of 2D. New inference technology automatically infers common constraints and executes typical commands based on cursor position. This makes design tools simple to learn and use for occasional users, driving downstream use to manufacturing engineering and the shop floor. The next versions are scheduled for launch on May 21 at the annual Siemens PLM Software Analyst and Media Conference in Boston. You can view the announcement here. By the way, Siemens PLM has one of the few remaining user conferences that doesn't allow press. Saves me one trip in June. 7:14:44 AM    comment []

Video I've been toying with the idea of doing some podcasts as videos. Jim Pinto beat me to the punch. Here's one of his recent ones. He also gets his guitar out for another. I don't think I'll do that--unless I write a ballad of ISA100 or something like that. (That story seems more like an Irish ballad than a pop song.) So, does anyone watch much video? I'm getting Tekzilla video on my iPod Touch. But finding time to watch at times other than on a plane is tough. By the way, this is my 1600th post. Four-and-a-half years. We're putting the final touches on the 5th anniversary edition of Automation World. Can't believe it's been that long. Thanks to everyone who has supported us. We tried to do something different, and mostly succeeded to my expectations. Now, I'm looking for ideas to grow the next step and see what new angles we can take. Any suggestions? Send a note to me. 6:58:45 AM    comment []