My opinion–simulation hasn’t been adopted in organizations due to lack of pain and vision. Many people spend a great deal of time talking themselves out of investing in new technology, rather than looking at their existing process and considering, “how could we improve our current process?”

If you aren’t feeling the pain currently or lack the vision to step outside the box and look to improve, you most likely will toe the line of status quo.

The sad part is your competitors aren’t doing the same.

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.

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Now playing: Phish – Piper
via FoxyTunes

I think my friend, “the cloud”, has gotten a bad rap. It definitely took a ribbing at SolidWorks World 2010, where engineers were trying to make a drinking game out of it all. My sense is that its easy to make fun of something that you either don’t quite understand or that you don’t exactly see the value. I suspect its the latter in most cases.

If you have read anything on The Virtual Engineer, you will know that I am a huge fan boy of the good ole “cloud”. What is my definition of the cloud? In very simple terms it is web-enabled, web-based, web-hosted, web-stored, web-collaborated computing. Common theme here, “the web”. We all use it, many of us depend on it and some of are are even slightly addicted to it.

upfront cfd external flow simulaiton

So, why does using the word cloud cause anxiety? I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, because I clearly don’t get it. Am I the minority? Not sure. But, it dawned on me the other day that I have felt the pain of “the old way”. If you haven’t, I’m not sure you will appreciate the value. The old way is a collage of bloated hard drives, sorry-ass USB external drives, various copies of files, handfuls of thumb drives full of stuff. I’m tired of being a VPNing, remote desktoping, begging for more horse power, tired of ftp-ing slave to status quo. I want a new way. I want to have access to my files, wherever, from whatever- laptop, netbook, iphone. If I want to share my files, I want to be able to send a link to someone with highly encrypted password protected safety. I want to be able to, at a minimum, preview my files in a browser. How can I be the minority? Doesn’t everyone want this?

But, the above is just the tip of it. I’m a simulation driven, upfront CAE doing, design guy. I am drinking a Big Gulp size of the the Kool-Aid. But, you want to talk about pain. I’m not sure there is a better reason today for engineers to openly embrace the cloud than in the simulation community. But not just the simulation community, the “upfront cfd” simulation community. Why?

1. Design engineers tend to want to try numerous what-if scenarios, resulting in numerous back to back runs that ideally could run around the clock
2. CFD models are getting bigger and bigger and are requiring more and more power
3. Every design engineering department on the planet is trying to reduce cost of hardware, minimize capital investment- so paying for what you need, when you need it is a no-brainer
4. More and more engineers find that they are on the go, out of the office and need access to their data, models, computing power from anywhere

I think we are on the cusp of a major break through in the way we engineer. There are a ton of things that need to be figured out. Security, licensing, bandwidth, hardware etc are simply just the basics that need to be worked out. Exciting to see some of the most talented people in the world working on it.

Unfortunately, they took the “top down” approach. They were both respectively veterans in the CAE space that had “analyst” tools that were successful in their own right, and now they were changing their tune and exposing their technology to the design community. They found themselves in a very difficult place. They were taking what they knew and tried putting it in different terms. So, the end result was making FEA “easy to use” and making structural analysis “possible for design engineers”. But, I bet if you poll engineers and ask them how many are looking for an “easy to use FEA tool” or an FEA tool created for “design engineers”. I suspect, you will get a mixed bag. Let’s face it, most engineers are not looking for an FEA tool or a CFD tool, for that matter.

Engineers and their managers are looking for a tool that allows them to make better design decisions, reduce the number or physical prototypes, provide information whether a design passed or failed based on some failure criteria. Right? Most engineers could care less that its FEA or CFD. They expect and in many cases, demand that its easy to use. They also should not have to deal with status quo. They need tools that help them make decisions.

Where am I going with this? Don’t be fooled when looking to improve your design process. Don’t just get in line and assume that the “traditional analysis” companies or even worse, the MCAD companies, really understand how to help you make better design decisions. Each one of them is focused 100% in what they do. And what they don’t do is upfront CAE.

Traditional FEA/CFD companies are focused on working with analysts. MCAD companies are focused on 3D design. Each has a “solution” for you or so they claim. But, the reality is they are not focused on what you need.

There are very few companies that know and own the “upfront” FEA and CFD markets. Go out there, bang on google, cream rises to the top.

Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself. But, don’t believe the hype. Make sure you are making the right decision.

Jeff Ray got up and introduced Bernard Charles, CEO of Dassault Systemes. This, apparently, was the first time that Mr. Charles has attended a SWW. He gave a good insightful presentation on who Dassault Systemes are, gave a bit of history and referred to them as an investor in SolidWorks. He spoke about the six “lovemarks” in DS – specifically, SolidWorks, Catia, Simulia, Enovia, Delmia and 3dvia. Lovemarks still makes me giggle, probably sounds better in French At the end of it all, I think it went over fairly well. But, can’t help feeling like big brother was up there about to drop a bomb on something. Here is an image of the “brands”.

He then did a demo of 3dvia on an iphone. I am getting a much better idea of what 3dvia is all about. I met Cliff Medling last night and over a few Fat Tire’s he schooled me on some of the coolness that is 3dvia. Check out 3DVIA TV.

At the end of the day. I think Dassault Systemes has had a very positive effect on the SolidWorks product and organization. They may come across as this large corporation, but its clear in my next post that their input in “cloud” technologies is huge for SolidWorks.

Just dawned on me, that the last #sww I attended was in 2001. It was in Orlando and it was one of the first software shows I attended and I was floored. This was back when Jon Hirschtick was CEO and Jon McEleney was COO. Vic Leventhal did a fair amount of the mc-ing. Might seem like I am name dropping. Just trying to put things in perspective, I certainly don’t know any of these guys personally, but they are all figure heads in the SW community. Hirschtick is on twitter now and posted that he will be hosting another tweetup. How things change. All for the good.

Even in the 9 years since I was hear last, I still recognize many of the faces. I remember sitting on the edge of my seat as Aaron Kelley was on stage demoing What’s New in I guess is must have been SW2001. Those moments were defining for me as a software AE, demo jock.. SW defined what it was like to burst on the market and show the world how it was done.

To put things in perspective, here are a few points between then and now.

• winXP hadn’t been released yet
• Inventor was only a concept at the time
• PDMWorks, CosmosWorks, FloWorks, CircuitWorks and a whole slew of others were Gold Partners
• Hirschtick made a big deal about being on the road to 100k seats (I thought he was out of his mind)
• The name DS SolidWorks was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind

I’m pleasantly surprised to see the young, badass feeling still is alive and well, so far. Let’s see how I feel after a few more days.

We work with all of the major MCAD systems, so it is crucial that we understand the workflow, new features and general coolness of each package. This way, when we add new functionality to CFdesign, it looks familiar and even promotes the functionality in the MCAD system.

Some of the things I am looking forward to the most.

1. Sustainability Hands-on – Definitely a buzzword this year at #au2009 and now at #sww10. Clearly has the momentum. How it will help engineers select materials is awesome, BUT – think of how simulation can fine tune this and take it to the next level. Selecting the proper cooling material for a heat sink, what impact on the world does the fluid you are using have? Suppose you could virtually “swap” materials in a virtual design study?
2. What’s New in SolidWorks 2011- I’ll be blunt, what I really care most about is how will SW/DS truly leverage the web more. All of the other stuff users will care about- making SW slicker is always cool, but come on people take 3D MCAD to the next level in the cloud. First to acknowledge that I don’t know exactly what that means, but I suspect SW does.

Tonight, is one of a few Blogger/Tweetups that I am really looking forward to. Great to meet up with some old friends as well as put a face to a tweet. Much more to come.

Touch screen seems to be the hot topic in CAD right now. What do people think about head jestering. Obviously, this video takes it to the extreme. I can’t visualize myself moving my head that much (as shown in the video), but the concept is AWESOME! Got me thinking of the next generation of interacting with 3D models in the CAE space.

Recently noticed that even the local weather folks are using fancy touch screens. Imagine it even bigger than this. Imagine taking this to the next dimension and interacting with a holograph. Check out this video that was posted a few months back.

All exciting stuff.I used to be a big time user of the spaceball. I don’t seem to use it as much today. Nothing wrong with it, just not driving CAD as much as I used to. But, coming from someone who is spinning models around daily and creating presentation after presentation. I am looking for the next generation “model manipulation tool”. I might trademark that name. Just came to me…

The Problem

MCAD tools have been around for awhile, they were built from the ground up to design 3D parts, generate 2D prints and the like. They can be fairly intensive programs with tons of features. Many companies have laid an FEA program on top of this foundation and have been fairly successful. SolidWorks Simulation is super popular for structural simulation. It does a great job for design level simulation. Structural simulation is fairly straight forward these days. Users tend to plot deformation and von mises (others as well) stresses to determine if something passed or failed. Often, you can get away with a simple static image to compare across designs.

In CFD, we tend to look at “pressure drop”, “peak velocity”, “max temperature” etc. We use these values as our pass/fail criteria. But this static data isn’t enough to tell you why one design passed over the other. A static image often just doesn’t cut it. This is where Concurrent CFD begins to break down. The CFD system is laid on top of the heavyweight CAD system, so having the ability and flexibility to compare models quickly and easily in 3D becomes impossible. You are now spitting out images and laying them on your desk, really hard to see what’s going on “inside” the model. This is one of the fundamental differences between CFD and structural FEA. The action of structural FEA happens on the outside (surface of the model). With CFD, the magic, often happens on the inside. In other words, having the ability to slice/dice and COMPARE in 3D is essential.

Often, users find that the honeymoon of CFD living inside their CAD system lasts for a very short time. Many of the CAD embedded programs are developed by 3rd parties which requires them to add functionality on top of the CAD framework. The result is that you have 20+ brand new dialog boxes that are popping up on the screen. So are you really in a familiar environment anymore? I’d argue that all of the familiarity and comfort of flying around in your CAD tool goes out the window. You are often locked down by wizards and forced to follow a specific recipe. This works fantastic day 1 of training, but many of us want to take off the training wheels and do it our way.

The Solution

Upfront CFD isn’t a new term to learn. It’s been around for 18 years. It has been developed from day 1 to address one simple purpose – to empower design engineers to solve fluid flow and thermal design challenges early and throughout the entire design process. Upfront CFD has all of the comforts of your CAD system- mouse operations are the same, layout is native and clean (works exactly the way you expect), CAD materials and attributes are read directly from the native CAD system as well as being fully associative. But the gem of Upfront CFD is the ability to properly do what-if scenarios.

The real impact of Upfront CFD is the ability to conduct multi-scenario design studies in a single environment. The environment is completely associative, you can clone designs or scenarios and update any change made to the CAD model. These clones are extremely lightweight, not simply entire copies of the previous, and give you the flexibility and power to do numerous what-if scenarios. Automation is one of the fundamental concepts of Upfront CFD. The data can be reused intelligently from one scenario to the next with a simple click of a button as well as being reused for future simulations.

multi-scenario design study environment

Once you have your defined results, whether they are critical values such as max temperature or pressure drop or 3D results, you can compare the data side by side instantly. Imagine having 4 designs that you want to see the flow behavior or temperature profile in 3D side by side? Click of a button in Upfront CFD, impossible in Concurrent or Traditional CFD. That’s the difference!

The Disclaimer

Many of you know this, but fair to state that I’m the Product Manager for CFdesign, so this may come across as grand standing. Not my intention. I am just trying to lay out some of the facts and dispel the myths. There is a place in the world for traditional CFD- PhD-type research problems, extremely massive models that require compute farms to crank out and when comparison is not important. This is a fairly niche market, but valid nonetheless. Same goes for Concurrent CFD. The market is even a bit more niche as it caters to very simple problems, that are fairly small in size and complexity and comparison is of little value.

Don’t take my word for it- go out there and check it out. Google it all- the facts are there.

The next level is when the try to entice you to “upgrade”. Most are subtle and you can tend to ignore them without having to “turn off” the notification. There have been many that I have ignored for quite some time and eventually jumped into the deep end and bucked up. Examples of this –dropbox, evernote, flickr and jing. Many of these programs offer the “free version” and offer extra goodies when you put up some cash. I find my tolerance is based on the impact/cost ratio.

Meaning, many of the above programs offered me surprisingly tremendous value for free, so I felt obliged to take the step. Part of the reason is that I love the new up and coming fighters. The other part is that the upgrade process was simple and the price was reasonable. All of the above range from $15-100/yr.

So far so good, right? I recently received a new machine and was going through the ritual of reinstalling and downloaded XOBNI. They started out as they all do with the free version. I LOVED it. However, the love affair ended this morning. Why? I felt pressured and annoyed. They recently went to a premium option. Fair enough. One of the options in the premium version was to auto-fill your To: box much better than Outlook.They had a slick way of showing you (greyed) out what could have happened if I was on premium, still ok so far. But, I found it very difficult to turn off the teaser and found it to be in the way. I clicked to check out the link and the price was $29.95. Seemed steep, really steep. Enough that I had to think about it and decided to wait. I then noticed that I had to go to options to turn off the premium teaser. hmmm.. Now, I am pissed– annoyed really. So, what did I do?

I uninstalled it. Why? The teaser was annoying, too difficult to turn off and the impact/cost ratio was too high.

MORALE: It is ok to be a bit pushy, but be careful. Above all else, make sure that your impact/cost ratio is within reason. In my case, $9.95 would have been a no-brainer. $14.95, I’d have to think about it. Above that, no thanks. Not one to typically gripe about this sort of thing. But, unfortunately, you got me on a bad day. live and learn, I hope.