Seems like forever waiting for Inventor 2011 to be released. I have been running the BETA for literally a few months, I actually forgot that it was BETA. Quite a few tweaks to the Inventor interface and workflow, adding to an already solid – solid modeler.
The feature I found most interesting, was including a connection to Autodesk Fusion. As many know, its the modeling modeler that is offered for free on the Autodesk Labs site.
What that means to us CFD geeks is a free forming way to optimize my designs and let the simulation results drive my decisions. Check out Luke doing his thing above. Only the first steps with Fusion, stay tuned.
Sometimes I procrastinate, sometimes I don’t. About a year ago, I attended PLM World and was introduced all that is Siemens. I have to admit, for a guy used to bopping around in flip-flops and shorts with his ipod blaring, I was a bit taken back by the Siemens attendees. A much more formal group, giving a more sophisticated, dare I say “uptight” vibe. This all sounds like a dig, but in reality, I say it resulted in some of the most passionate, in-depth technical discussions I have ever seen at a user conference. I was lucky enough to be allowed to sit in a “birds of a feather” discussion on the good and bad of simulation in a design environment. It was amazing to me, as I felt like I took a porthole back in time to beam-element theory discussions, but what I was witnessing was hardcore engineering types digging in and getting to the base of the matter. No BS!!! The facts were clearly presented and the whole room agreed. I was on the edge of my seat as what I thought I knew, may actually be a bit different.
As we all know, much of the Siemens technology is driven with NASTRAN “under the hood”. So? As I simulation geek, I think this is one of the most unspoken, under-delivered gems of the Siemens offering. They have FEMAP (and slices/dices of their technology) on the front end and the engine is driven by a new-generation NASTRAN solver. Hmmm, if I was a marketing person, I’d be driving these facts home with a sledge hammer. You have big gun technology and are re-packaging it to simply work. That is different than everyone else. Why? Because it is proven technology that is scalable. Nobody has that in the MCAD world.
The simplicity is where Solid Edge Simulation comes into play. Like in a fairy-tale blog post, I literally rolled out of the birds of a feather discussion to a hands on session of Solid Edge Simulation. Hoping to finally physically meet @burhop in the flesh, I was informed that he left the day before. I am becoming more and more convinced that he only exists on twitter and second life and is just a figment of the marketing of Siemen’s invention. Maybe, I’ll never know??
But anyway, I sat through an FEA 101 for about 5mins with pleas of not jumping ahead. But, I’m a jumping ahead kind of guy and dove head first into the goodness of Solid Edge Simulation. I was pleasantly surprised. I was flying through, creating loads, materials, results viz off all sorts. For the most part, not handcuffed by nonsense and able to do what I wanted and more importantly, the guys running the show- when asked for something advanced, knew what I wanted. They might not have had it, but they knew what I meant. That’s huge to me! I don’t expect you to have it in your 1.0 version, but I like to know that you know what I mean and that it is at least on some road-map to the future, or not. But at least, you know what I am asking for.
To me, that’s the difference. One of the dangers of an MCAD company having an FEA offering is that is exactly what it is- an offering. What I saw at Siemens was deeper than that. I saw hardcore simulation people intertwined with design MCAD dudes. A possible, powerful combination that I will critically say isn’t exploited enough by the Siemens folks. You have a different story than everyone else, I for one, would like to hear it- in your words.
Because time is limited, I am going to ride Kenneth Wong’s coat tails and embed his video of Solid Edge Simulation and link to his article. He is what guilted me into speaking up and giving my two cents. Could be my old eyes and inability to handle colors well, but I dig the “purple” tones in the color spectrum of SE Simulation. I think they are just buttering up to me, but I find them really engaging. Do you buy a simulation package on colors? No! But it sure as hell grabs your attention!! You go, Solid Edge, about time you got yours!
Most software companies tend to “surprise” us with their new release. Feels like a surprise, to us the user. In fact, I suspect its just as much a surprise to the development/release team as well. Up until about two years ago, we followed this same paradigm. We developed and released roughly annually and came out with just about 3-4, maybe 5 updates along the way. At the time, it seemed like it was working really well. We then took a step back and thought, what if we actually committed to a schedule?
The plan was an annual releases with quarterly updates. And get this, we planned to post the release dates to our user community. Seemed totally logical to me, the product manager. But, needless to say, there was quite an uncomfortable vibe in development and QA. Rightfully so, our product is immensely complex and we are tweaking and adding buckets of new functionality all the time. The pace takes a bit of getting used to. At the same time, we adopted a completely new development environment. Change is always good:)
Interestingly enough, the good people that develop ubuntu follow the same philosophy– they call it a “cadence”. Check out Mark Shuttleworth speaking about it below.
I am proud to announce that we are coming up on releasing our sixth release perfectly on time. The quality and predictability of our software has never been better. It allows us to respond to enhancement requests, fix bugs add new functionality and plan in a very efficient manner. The stress of delivering everyday is immense, but I feel that it’s what holds us all accountable. Not only accountable to the product, but accountable to the community.
I’ve been on a bit of a rant and tear on forums, blogs and twitter lately defending the big bad “cloud”. Seems that SolidWorks put everyone in a tizzy when they did a “technology preview” showing some of their futuristic works in progress. Joe Dunne, if you are listening- I thought it was killer! Really innovative, really helpful and really pushing the limits. What did you promise me? Nothing! You simply showed some things that are being worked on and what could be possible. You certainly implied that some of it could show up in a web browser near me real soon. Guess what, I can’t wait.
Some really interesting blog posts over at deelip.com with various CAD heavyweights chiming in on the cloud, the greediness of the whole thing and how people will ultimately make irrational choices to change vendors if pushed to the cloud. Are you kidding me? You don’t even know what the concept is because its not real. It’s conceptual at best right now. I’m the first to acknowledge that if they lock you out of your data, can’t provide a secure environment and try to gauge you out of your IP- than by all means, abandon ship!
I get the fact that mechanical engineers are conservative, don’t embrace change and tend to be slow to adopt new technology. Honestly, its to our downfall to do so. Embrace change and new ideas- it’s healthy! You have every right to be a skeptic and insist the ideas need to be proven to you. But, don’t be an old blowhard about it.
I realize I am unique in countless ways. But, I am using the “cloud/web/whatever” everyday to work really, really efficiently. I think many people don’t like to merge work and pleasure. But, ask yourself- ever bank online? Ever order something from amazon? Do you have a gmail or yahoo email account? Dare ask yourself have you ever used facebook, flickr, linkedin, twitter? If so, delete them all because, guess what they are all in the cloud. Not the same thing you might be saying?
How about this. How do you communicate with colleagues in other locations? Webex? Skype? Ever use Jing or screencast.com to share ideas and concepts with others? How do you do virtual design reviews? Ever use Google docs? If not, why? Because Word is “more secure”?? Cheaper?
So let’s turn it back to MCAD/CAE. I wouldn’t jump right into sketching and modeling via the web as an only option. Might be nice to have that choice- but surely, I don’t want to be forced into it. Some possible uses of the cloud..
Suppose edrawings (or something similar) existed in a web browser and better yet, it allowed you to upload and shoot an email or text to someone and they simply entered a password and were spinning your model in real-time. Take it one step further, suppose you could collaborate on the model together, in real time?
How about PDM? Seems logical that people would want to have the option to having the MCAD vendors hosting the vault etc.. It could reduce the IT overhead drastically for one thing. But that exists today, so what else would you want it to do?
Ever have to deal with tech support and have a need to upload your files or show a screen shot or record a video? Wouldn’t it be great to avoid the hassle and work in a secure web environment that you could grant access to your info without having to deal with firewalls, vpn etc?
How about simulation? Feeling good about having FEA/CFD etc loaded on your desktop? Be nice to have unlimited computing power and access to modules that you only need this month.
Ok, I know that I either got you thinking or pissed you off. I completely realize that people aren’t going to embrace this with open arms. But, what I suggest is to think – “how could I leverage the web more?” The more you speak up, the more you help design and guide what the vendors will try and sell you.
Are you sick of hearing about the “cloud” and how its the future? Lots and lots of skepticism with a sprinkle of panic, it seems, about running software as a service. People seem to be worried about some valid points, such as, security, cost, “who owns the data” and a variety of other “things”. Seems to me, that many of the concerns absolutely have to be addressed and are being addressed but why are people still skeptical? Change! The engineering circle is always slow to change. Things must be laid out in a crystal clear fashion or at least have the data to backup the claims.
What’s the benefit to us as a user?
Pay as you go/pay for what you need model. Allows for flexibility on making a capital investment for a piece of technology that is yet to be proven valuable and that is used only some of the time.
Near instant fixes to “problems”. No need to update software or download anymore, its just there and it works.
Access to software from anywhere, from any device on any platform. Freedom to choose what you want, not being dictated what to use by others.
I could go on forever, but even the short list above seems valuable. But the interesting concept is the name “Software as a Service (SaaS)”. I have been thinking about this one lately, what is the “service”? Access to the software? The fact that the software is more accessible, is that really a service?
What if vendors truly provided a “service” along with the software? Instant chatting, file sharing, file storage, project work, implementation, training, additional computing power, real engineering help all via the web? Now things could get interesting. Imagine having the “platinum” package and you have access to a support infrastructure “on-demand”.
Suppose you are in the midst of an engineering project and you want to create a really slick rendering for a proposal, but you never quite got the rendering stuff or better yet, you don’t have access to it with your license. You could log into “the site”, your model is already there and chat with the “service” team and you guys spec it out really quickly what I want. The turn around time could be anywhere from minutes, to hours to over night. Why? The web enables and promotes efficiency. The vendors will have to think this through well enough to be able to support it, but their “services” company can easily be around the clock, around the world. The models are already “up there”. Now its just getting the specifics. Especially if you have a “services” contract built into the cost of the well, service?
Think of how this scales out to automation of processes, SIMULATION, design help, the list is endless. I’d be interested to hear people talk about the service side of it and worry less about the software. At the end of the day, do we want to engineer or do we want to drive software?
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for March, 2010.
