WorldCAD Access

Navisworks vs ODA BimNv SDK

OpenDesign Alliance's BimNv SDK is a software development kit for dealing with Navisworks files and was developed independently of Autodesk. About Navisworks from Autodesk Navisworks is Autodesk's universal file format for viewing project files made with multiple software programs, such as AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor, as well as neutral file formats (like IFC, STL, and PDF) and proprietary ones, such as Pro/Engineer, Solidworks, and MicroStation. (See figure.) For more info on formats, see knowledge.autodesk.com/support/navisworks-products. Navisworks model (source: GrabCAD) For instance, you are designing a building with Revit that contains a machine designed in Solidworks, all on top of topology from... Read more →

Siemens Media Conference: Q&A

#SiemensMAC2020 The first day of the online Siemens Digital Industries Software Media and Analyst Conference 2020 ended with a lengthy Q&A session. All the questions I posted got answered, so that was cool. (That doesn't always happen.) Here are my notes on the questions that were asked: - - - Q: Siemens had a sketching app on Android a few years ago, which I notice hasn't been updated in over a year. Is NX Sketch based on this technology? A: Good catch on that. We learned from CatchBook how people sketch, but NX Sketch is brand-new and is built into... Read more →

LEDAS Reports on Business Through COVID-19

In my nearly 35 years writing about computer-aided design, I realized that CAD is largely immune to recessions. It seemed that each time economic activity declined, CAD use picked up as a way to benefit from the lowered costs. The sort-of recession caused by the rapid spread of coronavirus did a only small dip on the CAD industry. Here is a report from LEDAS on how coronavirus impacted their business. The company provides software R&D [research and development] services for the engineering market, and released an update on its business in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The firm is located... Read more →

How to Hack C++ with Templates and Friends

by Andrey Karpovskii Templates are a very powerful feature in C++, because they allow you to write generic programs that accept a data type as an extra parameter. This feature of them means that we don’t need to repeat similar code for different data types. When templates were first introduced in C++, their capabilities were unforeseen. Since then templates have grown into a separate functional language inside of C++. This language has its own syntax, rules, and huge number of specifics, one of which I will discuss later. How Templates Work Each template defines a family of functions. It is,... Read more →

The flyingshapes approach to VR CAD

Interactive d-sub modeling flyingshapes held a Webinar to introduce the way in which its VR-based CAD software works. Here are my notes from it. We are used to downloading demo software and minutes later working with it. 'Tis not the case with software like flyingshapes, because first you need VR goggles, naturally. Here are the ones supported: Oculus Rift and Rift S HTC Vive and Vive Pro Windows Mixed Reality Pimax Varjo HMD Next you need a Windows 10 computer and then one with at least an i5 CPU, and then one that has one of the supported graphics boards:... Read more →

What's New in nTopology This Month

Lattices galore nTopology is one of a very few independent generative design software firms; I know of just one other. Some of the others were last year snapped up by large CAD vendors: Frustum by PTC and AMendate by Hexagon. When I interviewed CEO Bradley Rothenberg last year, he maintained he wants his company to remain independent. This makes sense in terms of making the software available broadly. When a CAD vendor buys, say Frustrum, only PTC users from now on can access it. What is unique about nTopology is that they wrote their own kernel, which models 3D parts... Read more →

Graebert Gets Into BIM

Graebert Annual Meeting 2019 Graebert is no stranger to BIM [building information modeling], even though the company is never associated with the ArchiCADs and Vectorworks of the world. It has a subsidiary named iSurvey whose SiteMaster software is used to measure and model the interiors of buildings and kitchens in a BIM context for six years now. ARES Commander is Graebert's desktop DWG editing software, while ARES Kudo is its cloud-based DWG editor. The 2020 releases of both due early in the new year will introduce the first stage of a multi-year roll-out of BIM-related capabilities. The idea is to... Read more →

CIMdata on PLM Status & Trends

Hosted by CIMdata president Peter Bilello CIMdata last week hosted a Webinar on results from its annual global PLM [product lifecyle management] Status & Trends research, and here is my transcript of the Q&A. To listen to the entire Webinar, go to https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7009086853856478209, register, and then be ready to download and install GoToWebinar. To just view the slides on their own, download the PDF from https://www.cimdata.com/images/Webinars/CIMdata_Webinar_PLM_Status-and-Trends_9May2019.pdf Q: Why has it taken so long for PLM to be adopted? A: The education system is the biggest problem. Management understands paying people for transactions, but the nuance of product information escapes them.... Read more →

Archive: PTC introduces live FEA from Ansys

Creo Simulation Live Last year, ANSYS released Discovery Live, a real-time FEA analysis program. Last fall, PTC announced it would incorporate the software in their Creo CAD program. In February, it was released as an add-on to Creo, called Creo Simulation Live. PTC and ANSYS held a Webcast to describe how it works. Here are my notes from the event: - - - Taking in this morning's Webcast on ANSYS integrating its simulation and analysis software into Creo CAD software from PTC, starting with the real-time Discovery Live. Over 2,000 are listening in on the Webcast. If you thought Dassault... Read more →

Alexander Yampolsky: A Third-generation 2D Editor

Guest editorial by Alexander Yampolsky It is strange, there is much talk about digitalization, but nothing about how does it end? How do big data, virtual reality, generative design finish? As a rule, they result in the decision that a person takes using a model built in his head. Apparently, creating models in a human head is not considered as a big problem, otherwise building universities would have a special course introducing students into the basics of semiotics and linguistics. What will it take? Approximately, learning languages at schools achieves the similar result - elimination of illiteracy. Future constructors will... Read more →

BricsCAD V19's Best Three New Functions

I've been working with the beta version of BricsCAD V19 and found three commands that I feel (a) are unique to BricsCAD and (b) will prove pretty useful to end-users. Over the next three blog entries, I'll list describe them to you in detail. BricsCAD V19's new splash screen Read more →

Archive: Future of Simulation with Comet

SPDM Acronym alert! SPDM is short for "simulation process and data management" Aras recently acquired Comet, software that automates the many steps of running simulations, such as meshing the 3D model, running a variety of simulation scenarios, and then generating reports. Often in simulation demos given by CAD/CAE vendors are simplified to solve just one problem. In real world, however, simulation has to solve more than one problem. For instance, shown below is a simple model with four design objectives. Aras says that Comet would handle the four simulation tasks in a single run. The Comet workspace is shown below.... Read more →

Archive: Generate for Windows

Now on the desktop Frustum is one of a new spate of CAD companies that are deploying the latest mathematics and computing technology to leap ahead of established players and find themselves a niche. In the case of Frustum, their Generate software generates optimal 3D shapes; until now, it has run only in Web browsers. The company this week held a Webinar to introduce the desktop version of Generate (for Windows only). I listened in and grabbed some screenshots. - - - The Generate software determines the best design of a part based on input, such as stresses and connection... Read more →

Archive: MagicLeap's first developer conference

First Look MagicLeap is a secretive company that amassed a crazy amount of money over several years -- $2.5 billion in investor's money -- before finally getting around to showing its product a few months ago. This week, it held its first conference for third-party developers. This was an important event: what can it show for a couple of billion bucks? Two CAD vendors made brief presentation towards the end of the three hours, Trimble for SketchUp and Onshape. Here are the notes I took during the first three hours of the Webcast, which you can view at https://www.magicleap.com/LEAPcon -... Read more →

Nanosoft releases nanoCAD Mechanica v8.5

Now with international standards While CAD software from USA and Europe gets a lot of free publicity from industry magazines, software from other parts of the world tends to be ignored -- Asia, Russia, Africa, and so on. There is, for instance, a thriving CAD software industry in Japan, but we don't know about it, because the user interfaces are Japanese and it is written to Japanese standards. Software firms in Russia suffer the Japan problem: UIs written in Russian, and CAD written to Russian standards. Some firms are breaking out of the mold, such as C3D Labs (geometric kernels),... Read more →

Q&A from Unreal Studio launch

Users have questions When Epic Games announced Unreal Studio for CAD users, the Webinar was accompanied by a Q&A panel. I picked out the best questions and present them below; you can read the entire list at https://www.ustream.tv/qna/23532233 . I rearranged the questions to group them into categories, and did some mild edits to make the text clearer. - - - What Unreal Studio Is Q: So basically, Unreal Studio is the architectural workspace (where you import all the files and add the materials) and UnrealEngine is the renderer? A: That is one way to look at it. However, we... Read more →

MicroStation gets some competition

Goose: meet gander The CAD work-alike wars just went up a notch. The ITC (IntelliCAD Technical Consortium) has a working DGN editor. As they put it, now there's two of them in the world -- the other one being MicroStation from Bentley Systems. Admittedly, the initial offering is basic in its functionality. According to the ITC, the DGN editor does the following tasks, and more: Draws lines, polylines, circles, arcs, rectangles, text, blocks, leaders, revision clouds, and boundaries Zooms Applies grips and snaps Assigns colors and layers (called "levels" in Microstaion) Attaches xrefs Edits through, copying, moving, exploding, erasing, arraying,... Read more →

ANSYS Discovery Live Changes Everything

Massively-parallel computing on the the desktop In the minds of engineers, simulation is an afterthought. We concern ourselves primarily with solving designs geometrically, and many of our designs don't need to be tested against failure, anyhow. For those that do, we let someone else worry about it after it fails. And so companies that sell simulation software (and those that want to expand into the realm) are frustrated by our insufficient use of their software. The idea expressed by companies like ANSYS (which sells simulation primarily) and Autodesk (which sells it on the side) is this: if we can make... Read more →

HP's new VR system for businesses

Z VR Backpack G1 workstation It's being unveiled to the public today at Siggraph, but about 100 journalists got an online preview last week of HP's new Z VR Backpack G1 workstation. Yah, it's a backpack onto which we clip a small Z workstation, don VR [virtual reality] goggles and navigation controls, and then walk about in a synthesized 3D environment. The people are real, the car is not The backpack, workstation, and batteries are said to weight little more than ten pounds (4.6kg). "Batteries" in the plural, because there are two, so that we can hot-swap one out when... Read more →

CAD-related Y Combinator Demo Day

Y Combinator hosted 52 demos at the end of March. "Demo day" means that new software and hardware startups get to show off what they do in a brief demo to potential investors and the world, and hopefully get further funding. Two of them related to CAD. Here are the synopses quoted from TechCrunch at https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/20/yc-demo-day-winter-2017/. AON3D Low-cost Industrual 3D Printers AON3D makes a $15,000 3D printer that costs just $15 per pound of materials that it says can outperform traditional $150,000 3D printers with more pricey materials. It uses Peek, a revolutionary plastic it says is as strong as... Read more →

Intergraph now supports BricsCAD

The Intergraph division of Hexagon is making sure that CADWorx Plant 2017 R1 works with BricsCAD. Until now, the plant design software worked only with AutoCAD. By plants, we don't mean horticultural but piping in oil and other fluid processing facilities. http://ppm.intergraph.com/products/3d-product-family/cadworx Also being announced today is GT Studl for BricsCAD, Intergraph's structural design and analysis and software for concrete, steel, and reinforced concrete structures. It, too, previously ran only on AutoCAD. See http://ppm.intergraph.com/products/analysis-product-family/gt-strudl Intergraph says that the software works identically on AutoCAD or on BricsCAD Pro and Platinum. The primary difference is that after three years, BricsCAD Pro ($680-and-up... Read more →

A new file formats for CAD users

Colors captured In the last week, a new file format was announced that may be of interest to CAD users. Pantone File Format Pantone is the primary North American standard for specifying colors. Kind of like PDF ensures an exact reproduction of a document, Pantone ensures the exact reproduction of specified colors. (Other parts of the world use other color specification standards, such as DIC in Japan.) Using Pantone is easy: you select a color, and then specify the Pantone number. See figure below. Printers and publishers know which exact color to use, making the client happy. Every color in... Read more →

What’s New in BricsCAD V17 Communicator

Translation from MCAD files In addition to the new Communicator features described earlier, the V17 release adds these functions. ALTERNATE PATH You can now specify alternate paths for all supported CAD formats. This lets Communicator find standard parts that might be associated with assemblies being imported. HIDDEN PARTS When parts are designated as “hidden” in the original CAD files, you can now decide whether to import them or ignore them, depending on your preference. Not importing hidden parts makes the resulting file smaller. PRODUCT STRUCTURE When an assembly has components that are nested (both locally and externally), the entire structure... Read more →

What’s New in BIM for BricsCAD V17

Building Information Modeling This partial list of new BIM features in BricsCAD V17 is provided by Bricsys. They are in alphabetical order, followed by improved functions. For the full list, look at https://www.bricsys.com/common/releasenotes.jsp?i=4471 A SITE WITH MANY BUILDINGS AND STORIES To give you greater flexibility in developing BIM designs, a single drawing file now contains a “site,” which can have multiple “buildings,” with each building holding one or more “stories.” The default drawing holds one building with three stories. You specify properties for the new site, building, and story elements. BIMPATCH The new bimPatch command allows you to specify a... Read more →

What’s New in Sheet Metal for BricsCAD V17

Optional add-on This partial list of new sheet metal functions in BricsCAD V17 is provided by Bricsys. The new commands are in alphabetical order, followed by improved functions. For the full list, look at https://www.bricsys.com/common/releasenotes.jsp?i=4471 FORM FEATURES BricsCAD V17 adds parametric form features to the sheet metal module. “Form features” mimic the process when a forming tool deforms a piece of sheet metal. After the form is applied (using the new Form Features tab of the Tool Palettes panel), you can edit it directly and parametrically through the Properties bar. The library contains most commonly used form features, such as... Read more →

What’s New in BricsCAD V17

New and Improved for 2D drawing and 3D modeling This is a partial list of the new features in BricsCAD V17 provided by Bricsys. It lists new features in alphabetical order, followed by improved functions. For the full list, look at https://www.bricsys.com/common/releasenotes.jsp?i=4471 3D DRAWING COMPARE The new 3dCompare command opens two drawing files and then reports the differences in 3D solids and 3D surfaces using color coding. This lets you quickly see the changes made to otherwise identical-looking drawings. The differences are represented as separate entities displayed in two viewports – red entities for additions, green for subtractions. 3DCompare dialog... Read more →

Brief Interview with John Fox about Solid Edge ST9

With the recent release of Solid Edge ST9, I had the opportunity to ask Siemens PLM Software a few questions. John Fox is vp of marketing for mainstream engineering at Siemens. - - - Ralph Grabowski: How many users does Solid Edge have? Last figure I heard was 550,000. Is this total (commercial + educational) or purely commercial users? John Fox: At Solid Edge University 2014 in Atlanta, we announced that we had sold more than 500,000 seats of Solid Edge, not including our academic student edition, and not including our free Solid Edge 2D Drafting offering. It was a... Read more →

The Cyberthreat to CAD

Clicking that link A reader writes: One of my biggest challenges now is to accurately characterize the emerging threats of cybercrime and cyber espionage. Nobody wants to hear the bad news and the additional costs, but it’s only going to get worse. The trick for everyone is to determine the right level of response. I'd argue that the best approach for the cyber criminal is social engineering: getting the unwary to click. OTOH, I see a greater awareness of "don't click if you don't know." Elderly relatives I assist with computers are now paranoid about clicking on anything! I suppose... Read more →

Dassault's plan(s) for Solidworks this fall

Subs and clouds During last week's conference call with financial analysts, executives from Dassault Systemes described the timeline for Solidworks subscriptions and the cloud. Note that both are optional for customers. Here are quotations: Yes, we are introducing subscription with our next release, so potentially in earlier November. So, the price point for subscription is going to be good old and usual formula where payback is over three-year term. We also introducing, by the way, ... Solidworks on browser in the same timeframe. And it will only be available on the cloud subscription. Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3990499-dassault-systemes-dasty-q2-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript Read more →

PTC sees Augmented Reality as its differentiator

"Jim, you're going to need to add water." PTC ceo James Heppelmann on how augmented reality could help the company make more revenues: A lot of people are saying that AR [augmented reality] and AR hardware is the next-generation mobile device. Today you carry a screen in your pocket, and there's a screen in your car, and there's a screen on the wall in your house, and there's a screen on your computer, and there are screens all over the place. Maybe tomorrow you'll put the screen on your head and everything you look at will have digital displays without... Read more →

freeCAD is becoming lessCAD

When upgrades become downgrades As I work with recent updates to a variety of CAD programs, I notice that the updates are stripping functions out of the free and cheap versions of the programs. Customers are getting less by staying free. The reason is not surprising. The CAD vendors who are offering some of their CAD software for free now want you to pay. The free version is just the hook; in their thinking, it's high time for you to swallow the line and sinker as well. I have no problem with this. You would do well to pay the... Read more →

CIMdata: Developing a Sustainable PLM Strategy

CIMdata Webinar Peter Bilello, president CIMdata: "We are seeing a shift in expectations in what PLM is expected to do. Healthier business success, unhealthy ones fail. Even though PLM began in the 1980s, it still is not mature. It is not a stagnant industry by any means." Following the Webinar, Mr Bilello answers questions from the audience: Q: Agile development seems critical to your approach. Do you recommend a particular approach? A: No. Companies find one that works for them. Any agile approach can be applicable. Q: My company is using agile for prototyping and not for real system implementation.... Read more →

Russia to ban non-Russian software from government use

Blow to American and European CAD vendors As of 1 January, 2016 national and local Russian government offices are banned from using non-Russian software, when a local version exists. Minimum local ownership is 50%. An agency will create a list of acceptable programs. Russia has a healthy CAD industry, with ready replacements for MCAD, plant design, and AutoCAD; not quite so robust are BIM systems. Foreign software companies last year sold US$1.4 billion sales to Russia, of which $300 million was to Russian government agencies. Russia Today explains the reason for the blockage: While the latest [Russian prime minister] Medvedev’s... Read more →

Here's what's new to 3D in BricsCAD V16

The 3D cat long out of the bag At last year's Bricsys International Conference, the company gave a preview of what to expect in BricsCAD V16. (See http://www.worldcadaccess.com/blog/2014/10/heres-whats-planned-for-3d-in-bricscad-v16-next-year.html.) No 2D or other functions were pre-announced a year ago. The official BricsCAD V16 announcement will be made today in Munich. Until then, here is what we learned a year ago about new 3D features: Direct modeling will get lofting Array and mirror in parametrics Recognize assembly structures automatically Clash detection Large and lofted bends in sheet metal Different kinds of reliefs in sheet metal Associative dimensions and annotations on generated drawings... Read more →

IntelliCAD update a big one from ITC

IntelliCAD 8.1 Just a couple of weeks ago, the Open Design Alliance released an update to its DWG read-write libraries that added multi-core processing when opening and regenerating drawings, and so on. At the time I wondered how long it might take members to apply the new functions. Well, now it is a couple of weeks later, and the IntelliCAD Technical Consortium is releasing an update to IntelliCAD that incorporates it. Here's the details of what's new in IntelliCAD 8.1: Supports for Windows 10 Multi-core processing when opening and regenerating files, 1.5x to 3x faster Opens and saves DWG 2015... Read more →

Carl Bass talks about Autodesk's plans for IoT

From Q1 2016 Results Earnings Call Transcript Carl Bass, Autodesk ceo: This is probably the first time we've really talked about [Internet of Things], and it's one of the areas where our customers are really interested in. I was doing the prepared remarks last night when I came upon this tweet, and it made me pause about including it, because the tweet was something like "IoT is like teenage sex, everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone else claims they are doing it." And so it did... Read more →

SolidWorks founders to revolutionize MCAD again

by Ralph Grabowski, reprinted from Design Engineering magazine Around the year 2000, the Internet bubble was getting seriously big. Established CAD vendors looked for ways to show they were hip to the new thing. PTC integrated a web browser into Pro/E and Autodesk came out with a lean file format, DWF, so that drawings would be transmitted in less time over slow connections. Meanwhile, an unknown CAD company caught the attention of Microsoft, who was looking for software to promote its upcoming Windows 2000 launch. That company, Alibre, had figured out how to run MCAD software on servers, with the... Read more →

Q&A with Chris Yessios, CEO of AutoDesSys

by Ralph Grabowski, reprinted from CADdigest.com Apple’s 1984 introduction of the Macintosh computer spurred on researchers to take advantage of Apple’s unique, interactive, graphically-oriented interface. One of them was Dr. Chris Yessios, who at the time was the director of the Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) Graduate Program at Ohio State University. He could see that computers like the new Macintosh could become the future of 3D modeling, software that longed for interactivity. The result of his musings was formZ, one of the first 3D modelers designed with the user in mind. In this interview, Ralph Grabowski spoke with AutoDesSys CEO... Read more →

Renga Architecture is brand-new AEC software by an MCAD vendor

From ASCON Group Saint Petersburg's ASCON Group is best known for its MCAD software KOMPAS-3D. As the largest Russian CAD vendor, it has concentrated on the MCAD market for more than 20 years, along with more recent projects like its C3D geometric kernel and DEXMA cloud-based PLM system. When I visited them in 2009, they hinted at wanting to enter the AEC sector, which in Russia currently is dominated by foreign Autodesk programs. Under the radar, they've been working hard on AEC software, which entered beta in December. And within the next four weeks, ASCON plans to release it officially.... Read more →

Ten things you need to know about OnShape

Launched this morning at 8am Pacific 1. It's free. No limited functions; no time-out bomb; no limit to online storage. 2. It is a history-based feature modeler that is also a direct modeler-editor; it employs features, extrusions, parts, and assemblies -- just like Solidworks users are used to using. 3. It is a pure cloud play that runs in desktop browsers and on apps specific to Android and iOS. There is no local version; there is no local install; there is no local saving of files. The OnShape user interface, when the program first starts up in a Web browser... Read more →

Beta test the new 2D mechanical nanoCAD

nanoCAD Mechanica Nanosoft has this krazy idea that it can give away its CAD software and then make money on... Well, it sounded crazy back in the day (they've around quite a while), but now it's normal. It's just that today we call it making "in-app purchases." This week they announced a beta test program for nanoCAD Mechanica, a standalone 2D CAD program that comes with tools and a library of parts for creating mechanical designs. It uses "an industry accepted parametric engine" running on their nanoCAD CAD software. It has tools for pneumatics and hydraulics, piping design, gears, shafts,... Read more →

What Dassault plans for its future

To 2015 and beyond! During last week's conference call with financial analysts, Dassault Systemes ceo Bernard Charles talked about his plans for the future. - - - To reach our ambitious mission on strategy objectives, over the last three years we have completely reshaped our applications portfolio and adapted all facets of our organization. Research and development's significant efforts were quite visible in the first quarter of 2014, where we delivered our 3Dexperience platform and introduced an expanded portfolio of Industry Solution Experiences, including our first cloud-plus mobile solutions. And this effort followed a massive simplification of our product portfolio.... Read more →

What that other kernel, C3D, is doing

From St Petersburg Most of us are familiar with ACIS (from Dassault Systemes) and Parasolid (from Siemens PLM Software), the two solid modeling kernels that battle it out for market supremacy. But there are a lot of others, such as SOLIDS++ from IntegrityWare, CGM (from Dassault), Granite (from PTC), the open source Open CASCADE, and so on. C3D from ASCON Group is less familiar, and so I thought I'd parrot their press release on the latest updates. The kernel has three parts, a modeler of geometry, a solver of constraints, and a converter formats. Montage of functions new to C3D... Read more →

Live blogging the release 11 of Aras Innovator press event

Breaking down barriers to collaboration, they say Aras does PLM, something that we don't usually cover, but here we are. It's Release 11 that's being announced today, which is interesting in that the cloud promises to eliminate release numbers -- a bad thing in my mind. Anyhow, we are just waiting for everyone to show up and'll get started in a few minutes. Doug MacDonald is hosting the event as product marketing director, along with John Sperling, vp of product management. Today's agenda. Remember to press F5 to refresh this page. Who is Aras? 500 customers of their PLM (product... Read more →

Counting commands across operating systems

Command equality for all OSes When some years ago software companies like Bricsys and Graebert re-launched their CAD software, they did so with multiple operating systems in mind. The old mindset of writing programs using Microsoft's convenient programming and user interface toolsets (as well as DirectX)... well, all that has gone out the door now. Being locked to Microsoft is seen as restricting the size of one's market. OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS each have their desirability factor: OS X and Linux -- underserved by (M)CAD software, as compared to Windows; hence, more sales potential as compared to the... Read more →

What's Next for AutoCAD Workalikes

Open Design Alliance's Teigha Cloud 4.0.1 beta Press releases from Open Design Alliance are important, because they tell us today what AutoCAD workalikes like IntelliCAD, BricsCAD, and ARES (DraftSight, CorelCAD) are going to be doing tomorrow. ODA's API is called Teigha, and it gives them and a thousand other CAD developers access to file formats like DWG from Autodesk and DGN from Bentley Systems. In addition, ODA makes it easier for the companies to implement complex CAD functions, such as ACIS-based solids modeling. This week, ODA announced v4.0.1 of Teigha with these added functions: beta release of Teigha Cloud framework... Read more →

It is time to declare browserCAD in a deep funk

by Ralph Grabowski It was a scant two years ago that a flurry of start-ups launched 3D MCAD software that runs in Web browsers. The catalyst was HTML5 and other browser technology that allowed users to interact with 3D models in their Web browsers on any hardware. No more installs to desktops; no more being limited to Windows. Wanna run 3D CAD on an Android ultrabook or a FirefoxOS phone -- no problemo. (Well, almost no problemo. There were a few caveats. The hardware had to be powerful enough; the Web connection speed had to be fast enough; the Internet... Read more →

Solidworks 2015: Orphan No More

by Ralph Grabowski [This article first appeared in Design Engineering magazine, and is reprinted with permission.] Four years after Dassault Systems badly announced the successor to Solidworks (which led to a frenzy of speculation as its dedicated users debated the future of the company's mid-level CAD package), its future is secure. At the September launch of Solidworks 2015, Dassault executives reassured the assembled media that the world's #1 MCAD program would be updated and supported for another 15 years, at least. The uncertainly affected primarily only the chattering classes, because at 2.3 million users Solidworks continues to sell briskly, keeping... Read more →

Actual details of BricsCAD BIM

Building information modeling BricsCAD V15 is shipping today, and it includes the first edition of the return by Bricsys to architectural design. Recall that the company created the AEC software that was purchased in the 1990s by Bentley Systems for its architectural needs, TriForma. Here is the excerpt from the V15 release notes that talks about the new BIM functions: Concepts Instead of creating a set of dedicated BIM primitives like walls, slabs, columns, etc..., each with their own restricted behavior and properties, we opted for offering maximum flexibility. Any 3D solid can be used in a BIM model, whether... Read more →

New Capabilities in ACIS R25

by Ralph Grabowski, presented by Vivekan Iyengar, vp of R&D at Spatial Spatial is the exclusive provider of Dassault Systems technology, no surprise, given that the 25-year-old company is owned by Dassault. Currently, its V5 and V6 translators are built using Dassault technology, along with the CGM modeling kernel; other specialized components from Dassault include hidden line removal and the constraint solver, which Spatial makes available to 3D application developers. Their two primary products, however, are 3D InterOp for translation and 3D ACIS Modeler, a geometric kernel for solids and surfaces. 3D InterOp The 3D InterOp software natively translates CATIA... Read more →