Lombard: How to Improve History-based Modeling

20 years ago, it was brilliant; today, it is in a rut. Matt Lombard is writing a thoughtful series of blog entries on improving history-based modeling. Certainly, adding in non-history or direct 3D modeling, such as found in CoCreate and SpaceClaim, is part of the answer.

Here're the links to his thinking:

1. Is history-based modeling a flawed idea?

"What if there were no such need for best practice, because the only thing that mattered was the final product, not the process by which you arrived at the final product?"

2. How would you improve history-based modeling?

• Straighten the tree
• SolidMap-like display
• Freeze features [of the tree, not the software!]
• Manual rebuild
• Limit saved data

Comments

[Jon Banquer]

You have most of the major CAM companies rushing to come out with CAM systems that run inside of SolidWorks (Mastercam, Featurecam, etc.) despite the fact that SolidWorks has no way to easily make modifications to non-native solids.

The only reason these companies are working on CAM to run inside of SolidWorks is because the CAD parts of their systems are so far behind the times that it's hopeless to try and fix them.

I see a serious window of opportunity for SpaceClaim to license their source code by trying to convince the CAM companies that they should not put all their eggs in one basket and should control their own destiny. A good license agreement with SpaceClaim for SpaceClaims source code solves the problem of CAM systems having horribly outdated CAD and also give a CAM company a much better user interface to build their next generation CAM system on.

Mastercam, Featurecam, Smartcam, Surfcam, Gibbscam, etc. using SpaceClaim source code for their CAD and SpaceClaims user interface for their CAM makes a lot of sense to me... much more so than a CAM company staking their future on SolidWorks Corp.

Many CAM companies are so desperate to ride SolidWorks coattails to new sales and shed their horribly dated CAD that they don’t realize that light at the end of the tunnel is really an on coming freight train.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA