It's Paris. It's raining. And it's the summit for the media covering manufacturing at Autodesk.
There is much near-future talk here, hints and demos of where Autodesk plans to takes its MCAD line of software. I've got some notes here, with a fuller writeup in upFront.eZine on October 16.
We got a five-minute preview of conceptual design inside Inventor -- think of a simple version of Visio (or Actrix). What I saw looked like this:
1. Place some 2D shapes that define, say, a motor driving several gears.
2. Move the shapes around, signifying the links between parts.
3. Hit a button to generate the 3D model automatically.
4. Change the parameters, such as that of “M” (the motor) and the 3D model updates.
We were also shown CAD modeling for non-modelers, such as a way for conceptual designers to define plastic parts, like grills, joins, and ribs -- inside Inventor. This conceptual design then moves to the mold designer, who checks, modifies, and approves the design -– and then outputs it to the base mold design.
Franke
Right now, we are hearing from the CEO of Franke, a European manufacturer of kitchen equipment. MacDonalds and IKEA use their commerical products. Some very nice looking stuf, all made in stainless steel. They have the 20% market in kitchen sinks, about 7 million sinks a year. He has no idea who is buying so many sinks! He noted that, unfortunately, a growing market for Franke is in the prison market. And they are the world's largest manufacturer of beerkegs -- two half sinks welded together, with no design consideration.
Franke has 24 CAD servers in among their worldwide offices, with 350 CAD users. They depend on fast digital prototyping to stay on top of the market. They use lots of Autodesk software, plus BlueCielo for EDM and Pathrace for CAM. Sinks need reliable deep-draw molding.
"I am of the opinion there is no religion between 2D and 3D," he says. You use 2D where it makes sense, and 3D where it make sense. That's why they also use AutoCAD LT. Now he is showing sink systems rendered in Alias. "A handover from Alias to Inventor is key, " he tells Autodesk.
Competitors tell him that sink cannot be designed in Inventor. "I think it is the will to make these things work in Inventor that is important," as he shows us Inventor drawings of complex sinks designed in Scotland of synthetic materials.
"Why do we use software specifically from Autodesk,"he asks, and then answers himself: because of the simplicity of using it. He needs that when, for example, handing out 50 TabletPCs to people who have never used CAD.
At the end of his talk, he asked us media to help pressure CAD vendors to improve and fix
existing software, instead of being forced by the stock market to ship new products. he would be much more efficient if existing software worked properly. For an international company like his, his wish list for all CAD vendors is:
-- multi-language (able to switch languages on the fly in the software).
-- data migration between competitor CAD systems. As Franke acquires new companies, Franke tends to acquire non-Autodesk CAD systems.
-- backwards compatibility.
Paris Moment
The photo below is of the 246 steps that go up inside the Arc de Triumph.
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