Lagoa going from simple rendering to Parasolids cloud-based MCAD

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

Who or what is Lagoa? And what makes a relative newcomer think they can go up against a reigning champion?  CAD Insider readers know of Lagoa for its cloud-based renderer and a user part library/gallery. It was a hit at SolidWorks World, where it was nominated for a Best of Show.

I am invited to see them last week at COFES, where they rented a suite. I expected them to show me a newer version of what I had already seen. I'm expecting a hit; I have no idea they'll be swinging for the fences.

I find Lagoa founder and CEO Thiago Costa and marketing guy Chris Williams finishing an earlier interview. Thiago is talking in English, then switches to French. He is from Brazil -- I think -- and Lagoa may be named for a town in Portugal, but the company was once Canadian. Recently, it has situated itself in Boston. And that's where they find their pot of gold -- as in VC money.

Then it's my turn, and they ask if I had heard their announcement: "We will be releasing a 3D modeling program." I hadn't. There was nothing on the wire, nothing on Twitter. It was being leaked at COFES.

"It's a soft launch," says Chris. Chris is known at COFES, and in previous years he pushed his collaboration product, Vuuch. Now he is handling Lagoa marketing and has talked Thiago into coming to Scottsdale, Arizona. "We're telling a few press people," says Chris. 

It's All Happening in Boston

Boston has proved fruitful to Lagoa. The area is a beehive of CAD activity, old and new. PTC, Dassault and Autodesk have offices in nearby Waltham. Talent bred at MIT in Cambridge is grown with VC funding pools nearly which seem as deep as those in Silicon Valley -- at least for design and engineering software. GrabCAD has recently benefited from this largesse ($13.6 million in funding). But the one on which all eyes seem to be riveted is Belmont Technologies, now named Onshape. The name is not as important who is in it: none other than originators of Solidworks, Jon Hirschtick and his gang. 

Onshape has raised $34 million. Everyone bets on the horse that won the last race so VC money piling up behind Jon Hirschtick and company should be no surprise. Thiago is betting his horse is faster, younger, and, in contrast to the very secretive gang at Onshape, this horse has jumped the gate.

"We are backed by some of the investors of SolidWorks," he says. "And Siemens." Lagoa has raised almost $7 million. They have 30 employees. Now this is getting interesting.

What Does Lagoa Have?

The Lagoa modeler (company name and product name is the same) is cloud-based and will work through a thin client on your browser. It can be used on mobile devices though not on my iPad at the time of this writing. The model resides on the cloud, which Lagoa will provide.

The model can be passed around with a hyperlink. Two users can operate on an assembly regardless of their location. Moving a part around on one screen will update the part on the other screen. "The model is no longer tied to the user's desk," says Thiago.

The price has not been determined. Currently, only Lagoa's rendering products are for sale.

You Really Want to take on SolidWorks?

"What is Solidworks except an interface to Parasolid?" asks Thiago. "We are using Parasolid, too." A brash young challenger could be easily dismissed. Hasn't Solidworks had 20 years to refine its tools? Generated an immense user base? Emerged as the language in which mechanical design is spoken?

Blame the confidence on youth. Thiago, his knit hat pulled over his head, doesn't quite fit in among the, um, shall we say distinguished attendees who take the Congress on the Future of Engineering Software quite seriously. Will they dismiss Thiago, who looks more like a game developer?

Moms on SolidWorks

But according to Thiago, CAD is easy compared to special effects (which he did) and game development. "My mother could use SolidWorks," he says.

He shows Maya on his MacBook on a screen so cluttered with commands it shrinks the Maya work window. Mastering such a software require not just a knowledge of a myriad of commands but writing scripts. "Film guys are making things that no one else has made," says Thiago. A film company had to create the skeletal muscle system to get realistic facial expressions in CG characters.

Supermoms to the contrary, is Lagoa really easy to use for the casual user or non-CAD user, the sort who has no experience with CAD or desire to learn to learn it? He just wants to get a model made so he can 3D print it, for example.

Thiago concedes Lagoa is not easy enough to use just yet, but by the time of release, he promises it will be.

http://home.lagoa.com

[Reprinted with permission of CAD Insider.]

Comments

[cadguy]

"What is Solidworks except an interface to Parasolid?" asks Thiago.

So is every software - its a layer above the software below it :-)

[Jon Banquer]

"My mother could use SolidWorks,"... Logoa founder and CEO Thiago Costa

I'd have a request for Thiago Costa's mother. Can Thiago ask her to explain to me some of the complex parent/child relationships that SolidWorks creates that I often find to be very complex and really time consuming to understand.

I've been around CADCAM for well over 20 years and I realize I still have a lot to learn.

Jon Banquer
CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn

[Dries Vervoort]

"...use SolidWorks..."
Definy 'use', please? Some skills in CAD take years of honing, no matter what the tool...
Targetting SolidWorks users is just ridiculous imho. I can't see this going any way beyond conceptual design work, which clearly is not the core purpose of SolidWorks. They might stand a chance as an alternative to SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual. It's also supposed to be quick and intuitive. However, that one isn't based on Parasolid and its 'direct edit' tools will be far more advanced (also under the hood) than anything Siemens is willing to license to 3rd parties. For quick and robust (!) concept work you want direct edits, not features.
Don't get me wrong. The idea of having cloud-based feature modeling and rendering is truly amazing, but at least Lagoa should think really hard about the users they're targetting. A SolidWorks user isn't going to switch to this. Especially not if there's tons of legacy data to take along.

[Ralph Grabowski]

You make good points.

Dassault is strung by its need to use its own CGM modeler and its need for all software to be V6-compatible (even though only 400 customers use V6 to date).

A Lagoa (or other vendor) conceptual modeler that is Parasolid-compatible would be strong competition against SWMC.

[Ralph Grabowski]

Also, we need to remember that the background of the folks at Lagoa is gaming, not CAD, and so they might not understand the fine differences and long history of how our industry works.

We saw the same thing with sunglass.io, who gave the impression they could win the online CAD war. At least one other MA-located cloud-CAD company has dropped out of sight (I forget the name right now).

[Dries Vervoort]

Ralph,
And a Parasolid-compatible conceptual modeler would also be vastly more compatible with legacy SolidWorks than SWMC. :-)
Maybe that's what Lagoa is aiming for? Catch the SWMC hesitators and pull them over with the Parasolid argument?
But then again... How much of the essential conceptual modeling technology is Siemens willing to license? ST is exclusive to SolidEdge and NX.

[Ralph Grabowski]

Well, people could licence similar-to-ST technology from LEDAS/Bricsys.

[Jon Banquer]

From what I can tell, Lagoa simply doesn't care to learn from experienced CAD users. I wish Lagoa the best of luck because they're going to need it.

Jon Banquer
CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn

[cadguy]

>> At least one other MA-located cloud-CAD company has dropped out of sight (I forget the name right now).

http://www.to3dnow.com/

The URL is down so they sank ...

[Jon Banquer]

I think we should all be keeping an eye on David Taylor and what he's doing with CADstack.

https://www.facebook.com/cadstack

His ideas for better CAD are often brilliant... CADStorm (ComputerVision), SpaceClaim, etc.

Jon Banquer
CADCAM Technology Leaders group on LinkedIn

[cadguy]

sunglass.io also seems to have gone down (i cant login). All their developers have moved on ...

[Ralph Grabowski]

I can get to the site, but when I sign in, it reports "Server is down for maintenance."

Last tweet was June 2012, but last Facebook entry was May 24, 2013.