WorldCAD Access

Your cloudy future, part LVII

Google updated its Google Chrome Web browser, and now elements of its Google Docs software keep crashing. Read more →

alcove9 prez speaks about Google's shutdown of Mini

Google Mini was a piece of hardware that looked like a rack server, and boasted of being able to search the contents of 220 file types, in-house, at Google Search speeds. It cost $5,000 to search 300,000 documents a year. Recently, the company discontinued the hardware, as part of the new ceo's efforts at eliminating distracting projects. Not all Web pages, however, pertaining to Mini have been wiped from the Internet, yet: google.com/intl/en_uk/enterprise/mini. Sam Abu-Hamdan is the president of search company alcove9, and he had this to say about Mini's demise: Google’s withdrawal from this market is not surprising. Although... Read more →

Alternatives to Autodesk's cloud rendering service

Amongst the controversy created by upFront.eZine's benchmarking of Autodesk's cloud rendering service, RevUp Render president Ry Bruscoe wrote to tell me that he has an alternative. His competitive service seems more comprehensive than the one provided by Autodesk. For instance, it has an EasyView window that shows you the progress of the rendering as it is performed by nVidia GPUs on Amazon's computer farm. (Video.) The video shows a model taking six hours to render in Revit, but just a few seconds on Amazon. (Using a RevUp browser window, the model viewpoint is changed, and the scene is re-rendered in... Read more →

Survey hints at paying for a premium AutoCAD WS

Autodesk this week asked AutoCAD WS users to answer questions in an online survey. As matter of course, I ignore requests to fill out surveys (does anyone actually offer their comments on "Web site experience" surveys?), even those that provide a lure, like winning an iPad (I know I won't win it, and neither will you). But perusing surveys of CAD vendors can provide hints of things to come, if not biases in their current thinking. Both were on display in the AutoCAD WS survey -- in addition to the usual mundane queries, like how many people in your company?... Read more →

Sunglass.io releases its API

We introduced Sunglass.io and their HTML5/WebGL CAD system in upFront.eZine #738, and today the company is spilling the first beans about its API [applications programming interface]. The official announcement is next week, Thursday. Sunglass API logo For now, we know the following about the API: Powers plug-ins to Rhino and SketchUp initially, with more to come Hooks desktop software into Sunglass's Stage interface Directly accesses Sunglass's HTML5-based cloud collaboration If We Build an API, Will They Come? It's one thing to make your software available to others -- third-party developers, private corporations, other CAD vendors -- through your API; it's... Read more →

And they're off! The cloud storage war beings among CAD vendors (corrected)

Autodesk offers 1GB cloud storage for everyone, and 3GB for those who pay an annual subscription fee. It upped to limits to 3GB for anyone, and 25GB for subscribers (thanks to Mark Dooley for the correction). Vectorworks offers 1GB, but only to those paying the annual sub fee (no outsiders). Until this morning, when the company lifted the limit to 5GB. Autodesk, now it's your move. www.vectorworks.net/cloudservices Read more →

Q&A with Vectoworks

Vectorworks is one of the pioneers in desktop CAD, and now it is a pioneer in cloud CAD. The company began in 1985 under the name Diehl Graphsoft, first releasing its 3D architectural software on the Mac, and then extending it to Windows in 1997. In 2000, the company was acquired by Nemetschek after the German company failed to plant its Unix-based AEC software in the United States. Today, the company is known as Nemetschek Vectorworks, and its founder, Richard Diehl, is still chairman of the board. CADdigest's Ralph Grabowski and Roopinder Tara spoke with Jeremy Powell, the Global Director... Read more →

How expensive is cloud computing?

Autodesk charges if you want to render more than 50 images. Vectorworks has said that cloud storage is cheap, but cloud computing is expensive -- and so will be charging its customers (eventually) for processing 3D drawings into 2D plans online. So, how much does the cloud cost? In summer 2011, Cycle Computing delivered a 30,000-core cloud for under $1,300/hour, using Amazon Web Services. [source] For an end user, employing the service for a few seconds, it's going to cost just $1.80 or so. For a Cloud Services Reseller like Autodesk and Vectorworks, it's going to cost $1,300 an hour... Read more →

The future of browserCAD

Normally, Chrome (shown above) and Firefox support WebGL. But every couple of weeks, nVidia's display driver for its Quadro 2000 graphics board crashes on my Windows 7 computer. The screen blanks a couple of times, and then things seem normal. Except that WebGL no longer works... ...and the computer typically abruptly reboots spontaneously some time after that. Read more →

Which Web browsers can run 3D CAD?

The promise of "run anywhere"-CAD has always been a hollow claim, no matter how often a marketing department repeats it. Running something as tough as CAD requires fast hardware and the most up-to-date Web browsers -- and a sufficiently fast Internet connection and the right operating system and the correct graphics support... HTML5 and WebGL are the standards by which today's CAD-in-a-browser operates, and here is an overview of which browsers work (credit To3D) on desktop and laptop computers. Notice the limiations I highlighted in italics: WebGL is a binding of OpenGL ES 2.0 for Javascript. It lets webpages do... Read more →

Generation 3.0 online CAD busting out all over!

Shortly after the Internet become consumerized in the mid-1990s, the first promise for online CAD was made by VRML -- virtual reality markup language. It was a way for Web browsers to display 3D polygons by specifying the locations of vertices and edges, along with color, surface textures, and so on. It was so exciting a concept that I even published a newsletter about it (CAD++VRML). VRML was efficient for our dial-up systems of the time, but didn't get beyond a promise due to its clunkiness. With high-speed consumer connections towards 2000 and the resulting Internet bubble that came from... Read more →

The Sunglass.io press relelase, in full

I couldn't find the press release on the Internet, not even at the company Web site, and so I am reproducing it here, together with the pr person's introduction: I'd like to introduce you to a new company, Sunglass, that launched today at TechCrunch Disrupt and is one of 6 companies advancing into the final round. Founded by two TED fellows, Sunglass is looking to shake up the CAD industry which hasn't seen much change in the last 30 years. Sunglass is breaking the 3D design mold by launching a democratized, browser-based solution that finally gives designers freedom to design... Read more →

Designing MCAD software in the 2010s

In the 1970s, turnkey CAD was the new thing, and it ran on Unix. The highlights: ComputerVision and Intergraph. In the 1980s, desktop CAD was the new thing, and it ran on DOS. The highlight: AutoCAD. (Oh, and Pro/Engineer, too, though still running on Unix.) In the 1990s, the new thing was running desktop CAD on Windows. (Well, and on Mac, too.) The highlight: SolidWorks. In the 2000s, it turned out that the new thing wasn't the Internet, and so CAD continued on Windows. The highlight: direct editing. In the 2010s, the new thing is portable CAD running on anything.... Read more →

AutoCAD WS hearts Google Drive

Writing in upFront.eZine, I speculated over the reason Autodesk provided just 1GB/3GB free online storage for its 360 cloud service. (See "How much cloud storage space is enough?".) Could it be that Autodesk was relying on others to provide the space, such as Dropbox and SugarSync? After all, you can't even buy more space from Autodesk. Today, we learn that the answer is Yes. Following a seven-year wait and repeated eruptions of speculation, Google launched its cloud storage service late, calling it Google Drive. Now, there always had been an unnamed cloud storage service form Google, where it stored files... Read more →

The cloud's basket of eggs breaks

One of the boasts made by software companies pushing cloud-based storage and computing is that the security around their servers is stronger than that of your office -- a claim I do not believe, because it cannot be proven. And now The Register this morning reports that hackers have found a trivial way to compromise cloud security w-a-y over there at the client end, outside the thick-walled, spotlight- and machinegun-infested, barbwire-topped, moated bunkers housing the servers: The ZeuS-based Trojan works by capturing a screenshot of the payroll services web page when a malware-infected PC is used to visit the site.... Read more →

Infoworld: 3 big screw-ups you can expect from cloud providers in 2012

As just one or two CAD vendors roar full throttle into cloud services in 2012, Infoworld writer David Linthicum reminds us that there are three issues that he sees being/becoming the problem: Blunder No. 1: Security "specifically, the need for identity-based security down to the fine-grained service layers. Most cloud computing providers aren't yet smart about this." Blunder No. 2: Cost of Migration "is that adopters who underestimate the costs will end up with project overruns that in turn cascade into failures as the cloud migration projects get larger and larger." Blunder No. 3: Performance as "the providers need to... Read more →

Using SugarSync with AutoCAD and AutoCAD WS

Autodesk has a cloud infrastructure for its software, and so I wondered if it is possible to use a third-party cloud service, such as SugarSync or DropBox. (I have accounts with both, but use SugarSync since it has the advantage of optionally restricting shared folders as read-only; DropBox doesn't.) I found that SugarSync works just fine: I could save a drawing in desktop AutoCAD and view it on AutoCAD WS. Here's how I did it: 0. When you sign up for SugarSync, you designate a SugarSync folder on the desktop. Any file in this folder is uploaded to the cloud... Read more →

Already the leader in CloudCAD, Autodesk goes just about whole hog

In a Live Meeting presentation that was marred by a lack of VoiP (no sound for distant participants like myself), Autodesk laid out the next batch of cloud offerings -- most of which is limited to the roughly one-third of customers who pay an annual fee to Autodesk. Among the new items: DesignReview for iOS devices, but limited to 2D/3D DWF files (no DWG support). Strictly speaking, not a cloud product. 3GB storage space. Cloud-based optimization for models created in Inventor. Energy-use analysis for buildings designed in Revit. The now-decade-old Buzzsaw (Autodesk's first "cloud" product) gets syncs to some mobile... Read more →

AcadNETwork survey asks, "What will happen for AutoCAD august 16 2011?"

Here's the survey options given by AcadNETwork at http://www.acadnetwork.com/topic-128.0.html, and my response to each: LISP will arrive in AutoCAD LT: Nope. Autodesk follows Microsoft's dictates when it comes to APIs. An AutoCAD Linux version: Nope. The Mac version is selling in insufficient quantity that a Linux version is out of the question. A free AutoCAD LT reduced version: Nope. LT is 2D, and for Autodesk the future is 3D, such as the already-free 123D. 3D arrives in AutoCAD LT: Nope. See above. AutoCAD LT on Mac: Nope. With so many features missing from Acad/Mac, it already feels like an LT... Read more →

In upFront.eZine this week: Dassault tells us about their design-on-the-cloud

This week, upFront.eZine has for your reading pleasure: 1. Dassault Moves 3D Authoring and PLM to the Cloud - Q&A 2. Where is the Anti-Trust in CAD? - Readers React 3. Out of the Inbox and other regular columns You can read all about this week's business of CAD at www.upfrontezine.com Read more →

ZStore where zee apps cost $4,000

According to their press release, "Zero Wait-State Announces the First Ever Application Store for PLM." More specifically, it is supposed to have applications that work with Oracle Agile, PTC Windchill, and Dassault Enterprise PDM. The company says their own apps will be there, as well as ones from GoEngineer, shortly. An app store for PLM! This sounds interesting, and so I checked it out at zerowait-state.com/store and found a few problems: - The store is populated with just 12 products so far, some software, some training. - Prices range from $1,500 to $4,000 and "Call for Pricing." So, not exactly... Read more →

Stefan & Ivonne's wedding, live

My son, Stefan, is marrying Ivonne on Saturday, and we have set up a UStream channel for watching it live -- WiFi speed permitting. The ceremony begins at 1:00pm Pacific (22:00 Europe) at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ivonne-and-stefan-s-wedding Wedding photography by Katrina Grabowski Read more →

Tablets? I'll wait for next year's models... or longer, maybe much longer

There are a tonnne of tablets available now, and I've realized I'm buying none. There's two reasons: (1) I don't need one; and (2) next year's models will be much, much better. As Apple, HP, RIM, and Google announced and delivered tablets, I debated which one might be best: iPad? Definitely not, since it is hobbled by lack of Flash. PlayBook? Nope, now that Microsoft has its tentacles growing into it. TouchPad? Maybe, out of nostalgia for the 10+ years I owned a Palm PDA, but then I realized that it is going to be DOA. Android? Fer sure! ...or... Read more →

Cloudy CAD vendors should copy Google's new delayable updates

Whenever I install a software update -- or have an update imposed on cloud software, like GMail -- I have a feeling of hope underlaid by a sense of dread. I am hoping the upgrade will do wonderful things for my productivity (the sole reason for using software); I am dreading that the upgrade will (a) make things more unstable and/or (b) erase functions I find useful. Hence, it is useful to let bleeding edge users get burned by the update first, while the rest of us sit back and wait for yelps of pain to emerge -- or not.... Read more →

Bricsys gets communal through its Bricsys Meeting Point launching minutes ago

Bricsys just launched its new Bricsys Meeting Point hub with some interesting new twists. Here's what the portal allows: This is a three-way hub, that lets users, third-party developers, and Bricsys support staff interact. It supports third-party apps running on Bricscad, as well as AutoCAD, surprisingly enough -- this sounds like Bricsys is making a play for ADN members. It lets customers and developers send messages to each other -- this ends up being a free support center for third-party developers And it provides third-party developers with a way to sell their software by accepting credit cards and automated invoicing... Read more →

Doing solid modeling in Web browsers

(A tip of the hat to Josh Mings of SolidSmack for uncovering this item yesterday.) Benjamin Nortier figured out how to make a solid modeler work in nearly any Web browser. Read about it on his blog here. In brief, the three components are as follows: An HTML5 WebGL-enabled browser running scene graph library (SceneJS) for rendering the models, and Javascript for the UI. Only geometry operations are sent to the RESTful API running on a server. His video shows Google's Chrome browser. The RESTful service running in an Erlang VM. It handles geometric modeling requests, tesselates e models for... Read more →

If you wondering what SolidWorks Cloud will look like, we've got pictures (of the next best thing)

After the SolidWorks Cloud marketing fiasco of the last year, nothing was shown from the main stage at last week's SolidWorks World 2011. Nothing! The only time it got mentioned was when new-CEO Bertrand Sicot promised that there would be always be a locally-installed version of Solidworks (*koff* as long as there is a demand in the market *koff*). (I'm starting to wonder if nothing was shown because the project is hugely delayed. Last year, ex-CEO Jeff Ray said he was showing us the result of three years' work. In a recent interview, it sounded like there was another year... Read more →

Dave Ault asks 40 tough questions about the cloud. We've got all 40 of them

Dave Ault writes: Sitting here this morning pondering the upcoming Solidworks convention and the Dassault Systemes obsession with the cloud, I have a list of unanswered questions. Personally, I see nothing but downsides to this whole cloud thing and would really like to stop it dead in its tracks. It is my opinion that most CAD users have not really thought much about what could be coming down the pike to them soon; the trendy bunch can't seem to get past how cool this will all be -- without thinking of practical answers for just how is all this wonderful... Read more →

About the flooding in Australia

by Tony Zilles, Digital Business Media It's always good to get reports direct from the field, unfiletered by the establishment media's need for eyeballs. Here, Tony Zilles reports from Melbourne, Australia about the flooding affecting his country. I've know Mr Zilles for more than a decade, and spent a delightful day with his as my tour guide during my visit to Sydney some years ago. - - Floods in Queensland and Northern New South Wales are of no immediate effect on me personally as I live around 1,700km (1,056 miles) south of Brisbane in Melbourne. However it will affect others... Read more →

The Twitter case against the cloud

This week marked the latest twist against the cloud. Twitter said it was going to court to protect tweets against subpoena by the Obama government. The announcement is a good move, for it revealed a troubling aspect of cloud-based data. Twitter and other data storage providers are not allowed to tell the owners of the data that the subpoena exists. Paul Carr of TechCrunch reports: The New York Times says over 50,000 “national security letters” are sent each year -- but even more concerning is the fact that often these subpoenas are sealed, preventing the companies from notifying the users... Read more →

Bricscad does point clouds

Daniel Marcotte sent me a screen grab showing Bricscad displaying data input from a 3D laser scan file. He writes: I wrote a point cloud custom entity for Bricscad while back as a programming exercise, it reads points in from .las files. If I remember correctly, the upper limit was about 7 million points. I added Delaunay triangulation too, but I have no idea if this would be useful -- just not my field. I've posted the source at www.theswamp.org And here's the screen grab: Read more →

Dark days ahead: Enter the cloud computing brokers

I thought cloud computing was supposed to be easy, transparent even. Apparently not. Rachael King of Blomberg Business Week writes about a new job category: Cloud Services Brokers. Here's why she says brokers might be needed: In the future, companies may hook up with more than a dozen different cloud services providers. Brokers would serve as intermediaries, offering such services as customization, integration, security, and aggregation. Sounds to me that "cloud broker" is just a rewrite of the more familiar term, systems integrator. Indeed, on page 2 of the article, that's what gets admitted. Nevertheless, there is this deliciously dire... Read more →

The Vleeschhouwer Report: Observations on the AU 2010 user conference

by Jay Vleeschhouwer Autodesk’s annual Autodesk University conference -- for customers, developers, resellers, other industry partners, and a gaggle of analysts -- reinforced several recurring themes about the company, namely its almost unique position in the industry in terms of the breadth of its product portfolio for addressing multiple end-market design technology requirements. Attendance was up nicely from last year, though not back to pre-recession levels. The conversations with various relevant channel partners suggest that the business is doing well (though not back to 2008 levels in every case, as we can see from Autodesk’s own recent segment results), but... Read more →

It has to be YOUR data stored on the Amazon cloud

One of the battles in CAD is over this question: Who owns the data? Users like to think that they do, but CAD vendors instead act as if they do by employing tricks that make it hard for users to do simple things, like separate their data from the CAD system. (It is ironic that CAD vendors call their software "tools," a term that appears to emphasize the distance between the tool and the result, when in CAD it is the tools that define the result. Object enablers, anyone?) CAD vendors are looking to the cloud as a way to... Read more →

EU gives $20M to Siemens & others to study the Cloud

Jeremy Kirk of IDG News reports on the European Union giving some $2o million to Siemens, IBM, SAP, and a couple of universities to research cloud computing. The "Virtualized Storage Services Foundation for the Future Internet" project has three years to figure out the following issues: Attaching metadata, such as video, to storage objects. Computational storage (storelet programs that run inside the cloud to analyze data). Content-centric storage (cloud runs scripts upon demand). Sharing data securely (ie, limited access) through any device. Ability to easily move data to other cloud providers, such as continuing to access data at one storage... Read more →

Let's talk about the Cloud topic that CAD vendors won't discuss

The corporate reaction to CAD on the cloud ranges from "it's stupid" (PTC) to "it's gonna make your desktop useage painful" (DS SolidWorks) to "try it now for free" (Autodesk). But none will discuss price. I figure CAD vendors haven't talked about cloud pricing, because they are desperately trying to figure out how to make it expensive. They have the rest of 2010 and a few months into 2011 to set their prices. Next year, 2011, they have to deliver -- or else find a different "future" technology with which their marketing departments can distract us. (Hint: CAD-friendly Android devices.)... Read more →