CAE in the Clouds

Constant buzz about this topic. Tons of speculation on where its going, pretty sure no one knows where it will end up. But I think its clear to many that the options are endless. A recent blog post, by Devon Sowell indicates that SolidWorks is getting into the game. To what extent, only time will tell. I was a bit surprised to hear that they are looking at CAD as SaaS, at least in the traditional sense.

I tend to mix cloud computing and SaaS as one in the same. But really, I see SaaS as the business side of things - how you access and pay for the software application. Cloud computing is a bit more general and simply means (to me) leveraging the web and hosted servers/sites to perform what you do (or wish you could do) locally today.

There are so many avenues that this can take on the CAD side. I suspect that as bandwidth is increasing, we can imagine that you will be able to interact, edit and create 3D models over the web. But, I am not sure from a user's experience this is in the near future. Tons of things have to be accounted for including RAM, video performance and overall processing power for complex CAD operations. Plus, one of the selling points of SaaS is to use it on demand, “when” you need it. This has a very part-time, occasional feeling about it. Even though CAD is easier to use now than ever before, its not word processing, so there will be a need for proficiency.

But, as we know, there are many facets to the CAD world. To me, the first logical step is data collaboration – files in the sky, on demand access from anywhere that can be viewed, mocked up and shared. Reducing the need for ftp, email and time draining “quick” design reviews. PTC is just dipping their toe in the water with their Social Product Development effort. So imagine you are collaborating with another site or a vendor or a supplier and you can all have access to the exact same CAD data on demand. You can collaborate on the spot or leave text or even video messages for each other so that time zones become less and less of a burden. This access needs to be anywhere, from any device. All the data – 2d drawings, FEA/CFD results, testing data, specs, BOMS -everything must be a click away. Some might be thinking, doesn't this already exist in PLM?? To a point, but it is still not mainstream enough to roll out to everyone. Once this is accomplished, then I think we will see the true power of cloud computing on this sector of the industry.

The next and more true to my heart is on the computation/simulation side of the world. FEA/CFD is becoming more and more mainstream. Sizes of models is increasing daily as well as the complexity of the physics being solved. This growth will not slow down and will always be bottle necked by the computing resources available. Many have tried and have been marginally successful in providing “on demand computing”. This will continue to be a theme from the simulation folks. So you can imagine that you may run CFD from time to time, but really don't want to maintain the computing power needed. You may run conceptual models locally and leave the big jobs to the cloud. No doubt we will see more and more of this. But how we interact with this environment is key.

If I sit at my desk and setup a model and then submit all the files etc needed to run the simulation to some server in the sky, this will take time. I also will want to interact with these models in some form or another. At a minimum, I want to know the progress, check quickly if things are moving along nicely, check preliminary results and a whole list of little subtle things that I check when running locally. The beauty of a cloud model is that I want to check that from anywhere at anytime. Might seem silly, but be nice if I had an iphone app that allowed me to see what jobs I had running and have a little dashboard that is customizable to look at certain things that “I” want to look at for all my models. Maybe I'm not an iphone guy and I simply want a text message or instant message when the model is finished. Maybe I am not a mobile device guy at all and simply want to “login” on my wife's home computer to see how things are going. To many this might be a foreign concept and many others are probably nodding their heads because they are feeling the pain.

I am closer to the simulation folks, so I could go on for days about the potential of SaaS/cloud in this space. I am interested in hearing from true CAD folks that are struggling everyday. Where can the cloud help you?

PHISH show - Camden, NJ

Little late, but have been thinking about the show last Sunday night in Camden at Susquehanna Bank Center. (former Tweeter Center). It's been a long five year hiatus/breakup for the boys. Timing couldn't have been better to hit the road for a summer tour. I was pretty adamant a few months ago that I was going to at least see one of the shows. Bummed I wasn't able to swing Hampton, but they posted all three s hows for free to LIVE Phish as a thank you. I quickly snatched all three nights and have been playing them since.

I procrastinated like hell and snatched a single via stub hub. Prices are a bit high, but that system is amazing. I placed my order online, email confirmation and I swung by a local hotel in Philly on my way to the show. Couldn't be easier considering I waited two days before the show.

So much has changed in the last five years. The venues are so much nicer AND more commercialized than ever. Parking is a madhouse with the typical fun insanity in the pre-show parties. As in sports arenas, the quality of the food is a bit higher than it used to along with the prices. $12 for a Hoegaarden. Seems insane, but the counter is don't drink or pay $9 for Miller Lite. I also scored a lawn chair rental for $5. Interestingly, I found that to be a bargain. The crowds were a bit younger than I remember. And, no, it has nothing to do with me being older.

PHISH camden favorites

The band sounded better than ever. The energy was at an all time high and it was obvious they were having alot of fun again. Above are two clips you can see for yourself. I have completely reengaged with my favorite band of all times. As with everything I do, I am totally addicted to their music and have been downloading/uploading like a fiend. I get the music via livephish and upload and stream via lala.com. I keep a backup of it all on a usb jump drive so I can manage music on my ipod via banshee or songbird. Songbird just released an update so I am currently testing out the music management tool I'll be using on ubuntu and will update that for another time.

I am in the process of scoring more tickets. Jealous of other folks that are traveling around. Had it been five years earlier, I'd so be there. If you are a fan and think you might have outgrown the scene, I can assure you its worth it.

The Simulation World: the designer and the analyst

If you have read more than a sentence of any of my posts, you know that I am a fan of simulation, FEA or CFD or other, to be done throughout the product life cycle. I think the earlier in the design process the better. Anyone that has done very early, proof of concept models can verify that if done properly the payback can be invaluable. In many organizations, the person responsible for this sort of simulation varies.

Some of the smaller/newer organizations tend to have multi-tasking engineers that are responsible for the entire gamut of tasks - design, testing, material selection, manufacturing, support and simulation. The larger and older organizations tend to be a bit more hierarchical and lines are a bit more defined.

My goal is to not pick sides here, although I definitely do tend to lean toward one side. I just wanted to point out some observations. I sat through some really cool presentations last week at PLM World, in particular the NX NASTRAN presentations. There were some really insightful conversations and ideas being presented. I was a bit surprised at the demographic of those presenting. The room was filled by veteran engineers, clearly with mountains of FEA experience and were passionate to bring the NX flavor of NASTRAN up to snuff.

Could be simply the group of folks that attend this sort of thing, but I was a bit surprised that there were not young, enthusiastic engineers in there pushing a new breed of ideas in with a passion. I know that the seasoned guys know there stuff, but I firmly believe that the new crew of engineers can and will drive the software companies to develop products of the future. So I began to accept this idea that the analyst demographic, for now, are the veterans in the audience.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I cruised down to the Solid Edge Simulation hands on session. I figured, this is where I will find the new breed banging away. There certainly were some, but it was clear that it was pushing comfort zones to the max.

My findings at this event are seen at every conference and in numerous companies all over the world. I love what the Siemens' folks are doing to position themselves as a leader in the simulation world. I hope that young engineers continue to push themselves to incorporate simulation as part of the design process.

I think that many young engineers are entering the work force with a fair amount of knowledge about simulation. It is now up to the engineering managers out there to open their minds, expand the comfort zone and allow the new breed to help implement the tools that are available.

A Partner View of Siemens PLM

Sitting at the close of the day at PLM World. Unfortunately, I came in the trailing end of day 2. So, with time to catch up, I spent the entire day soaking in as much info and vibe as possible. Fair to state that my impression of Siemens and the many previous names was that of respect but also that of a massive organization that had their fingers in a bunch of stuff but I had a difficult time tying it altogether.

I surely can't say that I totally get it, (it's me, not them- I'm sure). But one thing is for sure, they have some killer technology and like many have extremely passionate users.

I rode two main tracks today - the Simulation side and the Velocity Series side.

Let's start with Velocity. I have driven Solid Edge for many years and always thought it pretty descent but honestly found some of the "other" guys easier. Totally unfair assessment as I have never been trained in SE and more importantly, I never really heard the philosophy of it. Philosophy?

Yea, I have always gained tremendous insight knowing the thought behind it all when testing out a new product. Often, if you show me how it was intended to be used, I pick it up instantly rather than trying to figure it out. Anyway, I sat through a Solid Edge Simulation hands on, given by Mark Thompson. He gave a quick intro and guided people through it. Once I heard a little bit, I was off. It is still in its infancy, targeting linear static analysis, but based on a bigger NASTRAN back end, its solid. I haven't done structural simulation in awhile and I was flying through it. I totally got it and more importantly, I can "see" where its going. Check out a tiny blip.

I have to say, one thing that SE has going for them is that they are backed by one of the industry standards, NASTRAN. So the migration path is endless. That is something the other midrange CAD companies will have to wrestle with at some point. Being a former ANSYS user, I'd never give too much credit to NASTRAN :) but what I saw today is that there is a new NASTRAN in town. The NX flavor is a newer generation of any that I have seen in the past. Plus they have the power of FEMAP on the front end.

That leads me to the Simulation track. Very cool stuff and more importantly, there was a room full of passionate people that are not only into it but are willing to put the time in because they want it to succeed. On odd thing to say, perhaps, but building that tribe of dedicated folks is all it takes at times for there to be constant energy injected into a product.

I'm sure there has been this crystal clear clarity among Siemens folks for along time. But I can truly say that I enjoyed the education today and can say, I see it. Doesn't necessarily mean that it all makes perfect sense to me, but I see the potential.

It's interesting how much Teamcenter plays a part. Still seems super complicated to me, but watching a presentation on how it manages the how lifecycle of the product is super cool. What's even cooler is to hear that it is actually being implemented and goes beyond the demo.

Internet Radio: Slacker vs. Pandora

I think many of us count on music in some form or another to get us through the work day and take care of us in our non-work time. Some maybe are locked to the itunes library, or some other mp3 system. Many just prefer to listen to what they own or acquire, depending on how you roll.

Others of us are looking for diversity and enjoy listening to online radio. If you asked me six months ago, I would have swore by XM. But, we recently went through a sad divorce. I think satellite radio missed the mark on so many fronts - a rant for another day. I began to explore intenet radio and stumbled upon Pandora.

Initially I liked Pandora. It's free with commercials or can be upgraded for $36/yr for commercial free and a few other perks. It allows you to create your own stations by simply picking an artist, song or style of music. This seemed great initially, but I quickly felt that the selection wasn't vast enough. Lots of repeats etc. Plus, one thing I quickly learned is that there is no way to say create a "Counting Crows" station and expect nothing but Counting Crows. If you think about it, does make sense, otherwise, I might never buy another mp3 or album again. So, what you do get is similar mixes of like artists and songs. Plus they have an iphone app that worked really well. They have a "share" community based feature that you can see what oth

Saving...

ers are listening to and share, seems cool. I just don't use it. If Pandora was more popular, I could see this feature being really cool, link it to your Facebook account etc. Often I found that I just wanted to pick a genre and let it rip. This forced me to poke my head around and see what else is out there.


Enter slacker radio. This was recommended to me by a good friend. I tried it out and loved it. Immediately upgraded to the Slacker Plus for commercial free. What I liked about slacker is that there are a ton of pre-programmed stations, literally 13 different alternative stations. Plus they also have an iphone app which is an absolute requirement for me as I want to listen as I walk the trails. So far so good, I thought the hunt was over. But, not so fast. The performance of the slacker iphone app has fallen off the charts. It blanks out at least twice a song. Absolutely, unusable. Extremely disappointing as I use the iphone version 85% of the time. Without it, its a show stopper for me. I haot good.

Pandora now is back on my radar. I have been using it successfully on my iphone without any issues, whatsoever. When it comes down to it, performance is key. I like Slacker's selections more, the iphone interface is much nicer than Pandora's, but if it doesn't work....I can't use it. Therefore you come in as a distant second. If I didn't pay for the Plus service, I wouldn't feel like I had the right to gripe. But, if you want me to remain a customer, how about it works every time, no matter what.

Both applications have a desktop version, so you are not required to run in a browser. I didn't appreciate this at first, but it's extremely handy to not have to tab over in Firefox to change a station etc. Both use Adobe Air for their desktop apps. Every Air product that I have seen is really slick. I use twhirl for twitter on both Vista and Ubuntu and I really like the Air look and feel. I am looking to see how Air can be leveraged for some engineering type apps.

One last thing -- both services are trying to push their own player/device. I see the value in it, but the last thing I need is another device. I wish they spent a little more time allowing me to leverage it with my car radio system or existing entertainment system. Perhaps the portable device is the way to go? Rather just use my iphone, but that's me..

Anyway, open for discussion on this one. What is playing in your office?

A New Way of Thinking for the AEC Community: Upfront CFD Simulation

There is a good chance that where you are sitting right now there is some sort of environment control system-- fancy word for HVAC or simply a heating and cooling system. It is an ever expanding business. Architects and engineers are constantly being pushed to optimize the air flow distribution and temperature values. It can be a fairly sophisticated engineering problem involving humidity, comfort temps, solar radiation among other things. It's not getting any easier as there is more and more pressure to be green and maximize efficiency. It's not only being required from a budgetary perspective, new regulations are now requiring it. In the past, often the fix was to simply over size the unit, manually alter the ducts, and even more and more rigging to solve the problem.

One would think that a problem that involves air flow, ducts, dampers, diffusers, grills, filters, blowers, solar loading, ever increasing heat generating electronics- that computational fluid dynamics (CFD) would be a no brainer? Well, it's not really the case. In fact, up until recently it was used sporadically at best. Some outfits used it all the time, others rarely used it at all. But as with everything- times are changing. Now AEC firms are being required to provide simulation proof that the design will work and that the energy consumption meets certain requirements. This is sending folks scrambling to outsource the work, which is fairly costly. Others are investigating specific vertical very HVAC simulation tools. The problem is neither of these solutions really fits into their current process. Check out the variety of problems we are solving.


Historically, folks in this industry have used AutoCAD or Microstation. Their entire world has been born to think in 2D and expand into 3D. But with tools like Autodesk Revit making traction in this world, 3D is clearly a step in the right direction. There is really no benefit to going to a 3D MCAD CAD system, like Autodesk Inventor. But Revit now opens up an entire new world for this community. It is the launching point to really embracing CFD. Check out the videos below by CFdesign guru, Parker Wright. Parker has been fortunate to be right in the thick of things in this world. Working in the heart of NYC, he is hearing the evidence first hand right from the firms themselves. Check out his approach to solving the problem.

The below video shows the basic modeling inside Revit.

Here is setting up the CFD model leveraging the Revit geometry inside CFdesign.

Finally, reviewing the flow and thermal results in CFdesign.

I think we will be seeing more and more usage in this world. We are literally at the calm before the storm. The problems are only going to get bigger and happen more often. The good news is the technology and integration to solve the problem is growing even faster.

NX, gotta admit the ST stuff is awesome!

I'm the first to admit to not being a power user of UG, but over the last few years I have been driving the NX versions from time to time. I always thought it was fairly stable, but like all of the other high end CAD systems, I felt overwhelmed by the shear magnitude of features that I never really turned to it as my CAD system of choice.

Well, things are a changing. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by CAD power users everyday. All of the CFdesign engineers are power users of at least a few of the CAD systems. So between us we are a fierce CAD modeling group. There has always been a few guys singing the praises of UG, but I just chalked it up to "anything is easy when you know it". The lights went on for me with NX6, I sat through a webex with one of our guys and he was presenting a knarly model that he did as a services project. He showed me the model as received from the customer. It was an assembly that consisted of a few CAD systems, a few STEP files and an IGES file thrown in for good measure.

He then proceeded to show me how quickly and robustly he was able to bring this dead horse back to life in a matter of no time. Check out the above preview of a minor fraction of what you can do with the ST stuff.

I will presenting this alongside CFdesign 2010 at the PLM World conference on June 4th. Click here for specifics. Would love to hear other's experience with ST - both in NX and Solid Edge. Are people driving simulations with this stuff? I know we are seeing some awesome stuff. Let's hear what you got..

Ubuntu One; what's in a name?

Ever since Mark Shuttleworth announced the vision of Jaunty Jackalope and the cloud presence that was planned for the latest release of Ubuntu, I couldn't wait until it was released. Well, that day has come and gone AND now...I'm on the waiting list for the cloud service part. Boooo!

The service is known as Ubuntu One. The link explains it much better than I-- but essentially it is an online storage, sharing, syncing service provided by Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu. Anyone that has read my posts of the last year know, I definitely have a bit of an obsession with an online storage, syncing and accessible system. Not sure how much more room I need, but I need more for sure.

I have tried many different options and use Live Mesh to sync my work machines and Dropbox to share work and my Ubuntu netbook. I think the One service looks ok-- not sure its sized appropriately for my use. 2GB for free and $10/month for 10GB. Dropbox gives me 2GB free and for $100/yr I can get 50GB. Yea, 50Gb. Pretty close to pulling the trigger on an annual subscription with Dropbox once the well promised iphone app is available.

I am a huge fan of Ubuntu and love all that it and the community behind it stands for. So, I may still consider paying for the service to support the entire project. I will be very anxious to see if I can leverage this service to store music to drive Songbird or banshee.

What I found really interesting is the outcry from some members of the community that pitched a fit about the use of the Ubuntu name for a closed source (or at least 50% closed) project. I support FOSS, but also appreciate that there is a business behind all of this. Canonical, by law, has every right from what I can gather to use the name how they choose. Do we fault Canonical for attempting to build upon their business? I doubt anyone does.

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. But, I think this is an example of how the open source world gets carried away or at least further off the deep end than I can understand. I think some should take a step back and appreciate all that Canonical and the Ubuntu world has done for linux, in general. The service is a direct extension of the Ubuntu OS. Right now, it only supports Ubuntu, so does it make that much of a difference that Ubuntu is in the name?

If we are being petty-- what's up with the name "One"?

Are you doing your part to Recycle?

Not sure if it's me or are others seeing the idea of recycling spreading more and more. Personally, I have always tried my best to minimize waste and attempt to recycle when possible. Something I latched onto early in life. I surely am not perfect, but always trying. I remember doing "can drives" during little league. Anyone remember them? We would spend 1-2 Saturday's a season collecting aluminum cans and taking them to the Recycling Center. Any of the money we raised went back into the league funds.

We have made a big effort in our house to really, really pay attention and I'm amazed at how much the shift in regular trash vs. recycled is really weighing heavily on the side of recycled goods. Everything from plastics to glass to paper. I'm blown away how much my wife is into it. She has always been aware, but I think a bit of the team effort, plus including our 3 year old is making a difference. Give it a shot, just raise your awareness just a tiny bit more than it is today. I think you will be amazed at the difference. Count how much your trash decreases weekly? i expect you will see an immediate impact.

One-stop-shop may or may not be the solution

No doubt everyone is feeling the heat these days. CAE vendors are no different. When companies, big and small are looking for a solution, the criteria and the ROI requirements are higher than ever before. Vendors are being pushed to be flexible, shave a little off the top or simply adapt to the needs of the customer. Let's face it, it's always been this way, but the financial landscape has a big impact on how much effect this can have.

At the same time, we have seen this merger/acquisition roller coaster in the CAE world. From CAD to FEA to CFD, everyone is buying everyone. Many feel that "more is better" and that if a vendor can have everything under the sun in their portfolio, than they can deliver top-notch solutions to their customers. This can be true, all depending on how you implement it.

History has shown if not done properly (could point fingers, but I won't), things can quickly get out of hand. Not only do things begin to breakdown, but the messaging becomes misguided and you just appear to be buying things to "appear" that you are the all in one provider. EVEN if you are buying top notched technology, it is all about the positioning and implementation and most importantly, support of the customer.

Let's take CAD, for example. You would expect that if a CAD company acquired a PDM system, that at some point the integration would be very, very tight. Not day one, but clearly that would be part of the vision. You would also expect that from a tech support and implementation perspective, that the support infrastructure would be cleanly integrated. Meaning, the front line support should be able to answer some of the basics, the support system would be able to pull up your account and at least check status, transfer/escalate you to the experts-- but not simply pawn you off to the other guy (that often is a person from the acquired company). My point, is that from the customers perspective, it should be seamless. As a user, what would impress me is better support than I had before, makes me feel that you actually thought about it. Some companies have done a good job of this and others are just going through the motions.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are small companies that are lean and mean. They don't offer everything, but what they do offer is second to none. They solve your problem, listen to feedback and are very responsive when you run into problems. Would you prefer to have a great relationship with a few vendors and get top notch support OR would you rather call 1-800-HELP and get nothing but lame excuses and be transferred around in an endless loop?

Just because a company claims to be the one stop shop, often the bigger they become, the more difficult it is to execute on the mission. The integration tends to be slower and not as seamless. Makes perfect sense, the more you bite off, the more risk in not delivering. It is happening today in one of the bigger CAE companies right now. They are buying fantastic technology, attempting to integrate it, but not sure the market understands it all. The market is forced to "bear with things" while things are worked out from the top.

Integration, aside, tech support is the first to suffer and often the last thing fixed. If I am a long time customer, who do I call? How disruptive is "your restructuring" having on my day to day? I expect someone to help, is it clear who that person is? My experience is that it is not only not clear, it is a total cluster.

It's fair to point out that being the Goliath of an industry does actually work and some do it fairly well. I've never been to Walmart, but from what I hear they are a fairly well oiled machine. Seems to be working for them and millions of Americans.

What is the point of this post? Don't be fooled by the hype. Dig in and see if it is what its claimed to be. How will it work for "you"? Don't buy from what you see in ppt alone. Make sure you buy from the person across the table. Make sure he is genuine, you get a good feel. Ask the sales guy to call support on the spot to see what the process looks like? Not the only test, but if one of their own sales guys has a hard time getting through, just imagine what you will face.

I'd love to hear the flip side argument..

Engineers want a formula for Social Media....

Social media has been quite the buzz lately covering the entire spectrum. Some engineers have grasped the idea, others are probably more the skeptical engineering type. There are alot of guys that want a better explanation to exactly what social media is and what it does for them. There are some guys that want a better explanation to exactly what social media is and what it can do for them. I get the feeling that some guys want a formula that can show what social media can do for them? I'm not sure it's that easy.

I saw a post from COFES where an engineer jokingly stated that "...yeah, I'm not going to design a plane on facebook". Pretty funny statement, brings a bit of reality to the topic. I have had conversation with guys about Twitter and other tools out there. Response is mixed, either they feel they "don't get it" or feel its "not for me". The reasons are all over the map-- don't care, no time, not interested. What I find interesting is that these same guys don't have any issues frequenting certain forums of interest. I'm not sure Twitter is much different, it all depends on how you use it.

I do appreciate the skepticism, but I'm not a fan of narrow mindedness. Just because its different, just because you aren't into it or understand it, doesn't mean it has no value.

Simply put, social media, in my eyes is about communication, interaction, collaboration, knowledge gathering and knowledge sharing. Hmm, parallels engineering pretty closely from a top level? I'm the first to admit that there is a lot of fluff that all gets categorized as social media. But I think there is tremendous value being "plugged in, connected and informed".

Not too long ago, PTC announced what they coined Social Product Development. Instantly, eyes began to roll as it looked life another acronym was in the works. BUT, I immediately got what they meant. They are right! Is My Space and Facebook going to take over product development? No. But the idea of collaborating via the web, staying in tuned with other sites across the globe is a requirement in today's world. Tomorrow's engineers don't know life any other way. They will change the way we collaborate and view communication from a product development standpoint.

There are products popping up all over the place that allow engineers to communicate their design ideas across all of the aspects of product design. Check out vuuch. A tool that enables the design discussions within a cad environment. All of these tools will rise and fall over the near future. The strong will survive.

We will see the future of social media and product development begin to incorporate PLM/PDM info, text messages via iphones, instant messaging systems, video messaging, 3D mark-up, including FEA/CFD simulation and physical prototyping as well as 3D printing. Seem far fetched? Hang tight, folks, its coming.

A lot can be said for traveling by train...

Some people are taking stabs on Obama's claims of rail travel being green. I didn't perform a massive survey, but common sense tells me that railroad travel can certainly help the environment. My travel schedule and mode of travel has changed drastically this year. Over the last four years, I traveled ~375k+ miles in the air. Things have changed a bit this year and I have chosen to take more local trips by train.

Here are some of the positives...

* Gives me a solid five hours of mostly uninterrupted time to focus on work.
* Requires significant less "early arrival" time than air travel.
* In my case, the train takes me from city center to city center
* Flexible booking and cancellation policies

There are a few negatives of train travel, but the flexibility of canceling and re-booking is amazing. I fell ill last week and literally waited until a few hours before the scheduled trip, I logged into my account and canceled a re-booked for another date. Try doing this on any airline, its a nightmare, not to mention fairly costly.

My biggest wish for rail travel would be reliable high speed internet service. I have been debating about snagging a 3G card for such trips, but can't seem to justify the $60/month. I hope the rail companies take a serious look at trying to accomodate business travelers and provide internet (even if it were a paid service). I'd gladly pay $10/day for reliable access. Personally, I'd be interested in paying an annual flat rate. I know I'm not alone.

There is a ton of infrastructure work that needs to be done for the rail system. But, my experience has been fairly solid. It doesn't compare to the service available in Europe, but wouldn't require that much to be competitive. Let it be clear when I say not much - it would cost tons and require tremendous amount of work, but I think there are tons of people willing to pay for the service.

What is your rail experience like?

Is MCAD ready for the mac community?

Seems to be the buzz the last few weeks. Shaan Hurley has been posting about Autodesk's uofficial or official dabble into supporting the OSX operating system. Not to mention the announcement at AU this year that Alias would be available on the mac. It seems like a natural progression that Alias folks would drive macs.

Look at the boys at DEVELOP3D, they have an entire site dedicated to the mac community. I have to admit really cool stuff to read about. No surprise to me that RHINO is leading the charge as only they can. Check out McNeel's interview on the site above. Really cool stuff.

But, the question remains, are we ready?

My gut is that the number of early adopters and mac zealots will make it difficult, especially in today's economy, to fund the development efforts required to port MCAD to OSX? But let's look at the big picture. How many engineers are mac users? Some.

Bigger question, how many engineers are mac users "at work"? Hardly any. My point is that you will have a variety of engineers that would love to take home with them and maybe drive MCAD on their home machines. But do we really think that bean counters are willing to fork out money for mac hardware? Not that mac hardware is drastically more money than Dell Precision, but it is definitely more.

Also, how many companies will be willing to have the infrastructure (IT support) required to support dual OS machines in a network environment. I am sure I am opening myself up for the macheads out there to quickly jump on their soapboxes and begin to campaign. Save it. I am happy to be proven wrong, but from where I am sitting, the market just isn't ready for it.

I'll spare you my rant on how Linux really missed the boat on the mass engineering community. If one of the Linux distros had even a fraction of the cash of Apple, they could easily become an easy choice for many engineering managers out there. One can only dream..

Is Spaceclaim acquiring Twitter?

Fantastic April Fool's video from Blake and the boys. Well done!

Spaceclaim Secures $7M in Funding- Score one for the good guys!

Finally-- some good news about somebody spending some freaking $$$ on a good thing.

Genuinely excited for these dudes. I could easily be classed as a fanboy of Spaceclaim as I have written about it enough. But, it's more than that. It's all about a group of folks that have some really cool technology and believe that there is a better way. They are rockin' the market up a bit finding their way. I am hoping with some more cash, they will rock even harder. Their product is a score for anyone that has found bumps in the road with geometry when it comes to simulation, among other things.

It's a tough world out there in the 3D CAD space, but all things are not created equal. There are some folks that just need to grab, pull, move. There some of us that need to merge, delete, align. Simple as that.

I consider myself fortunate to have a good relationship with quite a few of the folks there. Check out Kevin Leblanc putting it in his own words.. Good stuff boys, good luck!!

Inventor 2010 & CFdesign rocks

Everyone in the world blogged and posted about this a few weeks ago. I have been burning at both ends and neglecting the old blog. But figured it was worth a quick me too post. Check out the video below, it highlights some of the coolness.

Exciting to see our friends at Autodesk, jumping full bore into the simulation world. They are doing what thet do- taking tactful, well thought out implementation of the technology. Some might say a bit slow, some might say just fast enough. They have a dedicated audience of fanatical customers that can truly use some of the FEA capabilities coming from the Plassotech acquisition and expand out into the Mechanical Event Simulation stuff in Algor.

Personally, we have seen a huge interest from the Inventor community in flow and thermal simulation. The future for the Autodesk community looks bright, lots of cool stuff. Looking forward to the day when I am running flow simulations in CFdesign while sculpting my Inventor models with some of the Alias technology and morphing and pulling with Fusion. This day is not too far in the future

In Today's Economy, Upfront CFD is a Must...

Bold title, huh? I received an email from PTC this week that included a link to an article entitled, Five Things You Should Know About 3D CAD Software. May be worth your time to read, maybe not.

But what caught my attention was the first sentence, "If you’re a design engineer working in a “typical” manufacturing company, you may be spending 60% to 80% of your time updating and optimizing old designs, or making changes for ECOs, instead of creating new designs."

They are some bold statistics. There are a ton of companies that are putting themselves at risk updating and attempting to optimize old designs utilizing physical testing or good old intuition. Whether it is a brand new design or an improvement to an existing design, the main question is -- how are design changes determined? Another question, why is a change required- did it fail in the field? If so, do you know why? How convinced are you that the failure will not happen in the future. Did you simply over-design it this time so that it will certainly not fail again? How much time are you wasting "re-designing"? For every minute you are spending "fixing things", you are allowing your competitors to gain momentum. The old-guard way of over-designing is a death sentence in a rough economy. Companies literally cannot not afford to spend a ton of time and money physically testing everything. But yet, you cannot just wing it and hope for the best. If you are reading this and are finding that you are asking one or more of the questions above, now is the time to act.


Design decisions need proof of concept. Above is a model of the natural convection in and around an avionics assembly. The thermal management of this assembly was optimized over the course of a few days where a number of "what-if" scenarios were investigated before one physical prototype was created. Once the optimal digital design was identified, a physical model was built and tested for verification. Companies that are not conducting some level of digital design studies are putting themselves at risk. The technology is available, you need to see how it can help your bottom line.

The last thing I would say to someone is simply, go purchase some software, it will solve all of your problems. Investing in Upfront CFD or CAE tools is a true investment. You are investing in a technology that has to save you money and time but most importantly provides an opportunity for innovation. There are a few vendors that specialize in creating tools that are tested and proven to solve your problem.

CFdesign is focused on solving flow and thermal design challenges. We created and own the Upfront CFD market. I'm convinced that if you are finding yourself in a tough design environment that involves flow and/or thermal design challenges, we can help. Give one of the folks on our team a call, we have pretty much seen it all and can give you a straight forward solution to your problem.

A Modern Alternative for Electronics Cooling Analysts

Who is responsible for the thermal management of your electronics components? The answer to this question varies. Some companies rely on their mechanical engineers, others have dedicated thermal engineers. The tools used by these two groups tend to be quite different.

Some of the mechanical engineers have access to MCAD tools. It is a natural progression for these guys to leverage their existing geometric models and use an upfront tool for flow and thermal simulation. It allows for a nice compact environment where you can do parametric digital design studies right on the desktop. We, at CFdesign, have been helping companies solve their flow and thermal challenges for over 16 years in this space.

But there are a fair number of mechanical engineers and the majority of thermal engineers that do not drive MCAD tools everyday and rely on the mechanical designers for that part of the process. This group tends to gravitate to analyst type tools simply because up until recently, that was the only option. There is an unfortunate disconnect between the design guys and the thermal folks. There needs to be a bridge between the two extremes.

We have been seeing a fair amount of "gopher popping". A silly term for engineers popping their heads up and looking around to see what's out there. Times are tough and money is tight. They have been spending a tremendous amount of money on these analyst type tools. Many of these tools have gone through major acquisitions lately and they aren't getting any cheaper.

A simple solution would be to engage with your mechanical group and leverage the models that already exist. But the simple fact is that you still want a fast intuitive modeler to put together some basic layouts, have the ability to read in ECAD data and often times chop away the excess of the MCAD model so that you can strip out only what you need.

There is a better way. Take a serious look at our friends at Spaceclaim. Above is a bit of an old skool demo I did about a year ago.. They have a super cool, intuitive modeler, reads in all the major MCAD data, has a slick ECAD reader and on top of that is completely integrated with CFdesign. Works exactly like it does with all of the MCAD tools. Open your model in CFdesign, run a simulation, make a change in Spaceclaim, copy all of your settings and compare your what-if scenario in CFdesign.

I need to update a demo to show the ECAD module, its pretty fierce. Ping me or my buddy Jeff, both be happy to show you the Spaceclaim/CFdesign combo.

Bye-bye itunes and XM; hello Slacker & Amazon ?

I've ranted enough about itunes. Time for an alternative. Clear example of poor user experience. Some people may love it. Personally, I hate it. My main gripes...

1. I store my library on an external drive, the same external drive everytime and itunes never remembers. So each time I plug into my network, it fails to recognize the drive. Drives me crazy.
   
2. For various reasons (no comments, Charlie), I reinstall my OS fairly often. itunes only allows 5 computers per account, so I am constantly in a deauthorize/authorize war.
3. I have more duplicates of songs than you can imagine. I am sure it is operator error, but give me a break.
4. For an Apple product, the ui sucks. Try multi-selecting and then trying to right click to create a playlist on the fly? Just lame all around.

So, now, what's my alternative? Good question. I am not totally sure. But, I am narrowing in on a few alternatives. Evaluating Banshee and Rhythmbox. Ideally, would love the manager to be web based???

Saying goodbye to satellite radio (XM) is hitting me a bit harder. I have been a huge fan of satellite radio for a few years. Recently been dedicated to XM but at one point I had both Siruis and XM. The merger was music to my ears. I listen to XM online, in the car and via DirectTV. But recently received an email that I had to commit to a year contract in order to continue listening online or pay an additional fee. Fair enough, I tried upgrading online to pay the monthly fee, no dice. After an hour on the phone and countless solicitations to commit to a 3 year contract, I am done. Really bummed. Here is where satellite failed me.

1. There is close to ZERO online support.
   
2. The online player hasn't been upgraded in years, its clunky and old.
3. Lack of effort supporting portable devices. They missed the boat altogether with this one. They partnered with Napster but there was no easy way to seamlessly have my music wherever, whenever.
4. No iphone app. Biggest mistake they made and believe it was one of the final straws that they are a dinosaur and not able to quickly capitalize on a perfect oppty. I don't want yet another device to listen to my music.

I've been listening to Pandora, Last.fm and recently, Slacker. I like Pandora but the selection is limited and repeats are common. Last is ok, but the interface is too busy, I can't seem to want to use it. A friend suggested slacker. So far so good- upgrading to the Pro account for a few $ a month is worth the no commercials and unlimited skips. I like their automatic link to amazon for purchase.

I am not a slacker power user, but I do have one gripe. I am able to create a playlist by song, and it begins to play my songs but then includes "similar" songs. I want ONLY my songs???

They are also pushing their own portable player, would rather use my own mp3 or ipod player. Their iphone application is awesome! So, how about allowing me to listen "offline" for a fee for flights etc.

So, who is using Amazon? What do you think? What are you using to manage your music? How about Rhapsody, Napster, what else?

Life with a Netbook & Ubuntu- a few months in..

I love my netbook. I have a Dell Mini 9, 1GB RAM, 16GB SSD, ubuntu Linux OS. I jumped on it as soon as they were announced and was on a 2 month back order. Very un-Dell-like, but worth the wait. As with everything, it is always good to wait until something matures, but in this case I was eager. Below is a screenshot of my desktop with twhirl opened so you can get a sense for the size.


I know some folks are in the market for a netbook and figured I'd give a list of some advice/experiences.

• I have the 16GB SSD drive, it was the biggest that they offered at the time. You can get way bigger now. I wanted to try life living in the clouds and so far so good. Majority of my files are in the clouds, only thing installed locally are applications. But, I'd go bigger if I had the choice today.
• I went with Linux as something I just wanted to do. ZERO regrets. I am very interested in Linux but was worried how I would interact with the world, ubuntu is truly amazing. It is a completely new way of thinking about Linux. I use it as much for work - office, online interaction.
  
• It came installed with ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) with the netbook remix interface. I have since upgraded to 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) without much issue and have skipped the remix interface.
• Fantastic support can be found here and here.
  
• Know what to expect. A netbook is just that. A computer primarily intended to be used as for web browsing, light office application work.
  
• Watching tv, movies. Works like a charm if downloaded, 70% of the time it works streaming, but sometimes delays etc. Boxee is not working, hulu most of the time.
• Expect to pay $400-500. The $200 being advertised, you will quickly find are very low end machines. Pay the extra cash, its worth it. Extra cash comes with large storage, more memory, integrated camera and bluetooth.
  
• I am getting used to blogging now, but it wasnt ideal initially. I was lost without SnagIt (linux issue, not netbook). Also the tiny keyboard takes some getting used to. I still fat finger it alot.
• Really think about how you will access work, other files. I have settled on box.net, but still not perfect. There are a whole list out there.
• Google docs is a fantastic tool. I couldn't use it all the time, but its awesome. Great tool for netbook users. Collaboration is nice. Downside is if another collaborator doesn't have a google account. They claim otherwise, but that's been my experience. Also, no "review" tools.
  
• BIGGEST disappointment is the lack of 3G integration with the mini9, no excuses at all. It should be a requirement if you have a netbook. Live and learn for me.
• Most netbooks do not come with a CD/DVD drive, I purchased an external one and it was a total waste of money. I used it once to watch a movie.
• I have the Timbuk2 bag, really nice but it fits exactly the netbook and power cord, no room for a pen even.
• Battery life is pretty solid-- I get ~4hr with the larger Dell battery.
• I also bought speakers and a mouse. I would skip both next time. The creative speakers are nice, but they are now attached to my desktop. The mouse is still in the packaging.
  
• Web browsing takes some getting used to as the screen size is tiny. It is working ok for me, but I'd also take a look at the soon to be released mini10.

Here is a shot of the CFdesign home page in Firefox. Should give you an idea of the aspect ratio. I have both the netbook and the iphone. I couldn't imagine life without either. I know there is a trend that smaller is better and everything is going toward the handheld. I agree up to a point, but if I had to choose one, I'd go with the netbook, no question.

An Upfront CAE "Computing Engine" for the Common Man

The beauty of the hardware vendors making strides in technology is a great thing for all. It simply drives the market to a point where really powerful computing power is available to the common man, not just the elite early adopters.

It was only a few years ago that the idea of parallel computing was really only available to a select few. Parallel computing, of course, is the ability to leverage multiple machines connected together via a VERY high speed network connection for the purposes of doing some sort of computation FAST. Really fast.

Those of us in the Upfront CFD world or anyone in the CAE world for that matter, can always benefit from a bit more horsepower. Whether it is to help solve a really large model that can't be solved on a standard workstation due to its size OR to reduce the amount of time a monster model takes to solve OR to speed up the process of your multiple what-if scenarios. In other words, all in an effort to SAVE TIME.

With Microsoft jumping into this world with Server 2008 HPC Edition, it now makes it possible for mainstream engineering companies to enter the world of High Performance Computing (HPC). This is clearly not a dig on Linux computing farms. I am a huge Linux fan, writing this post directly from my Linux netbook.

So why is Microsoft a game changer? Simple answer- they are familiar to people. But there is more to the story- the hardware needed is becoming mainstream. So it is really a combination of the two. Any engineer or IT professional can now setup a "cluster" or a "computing engine" and take advantage of the power in numbers.

So, here are two scenarios that you can consider when looking at hardware for your computing engine.

You can look at purchasing 2, 3 maybe 4 workstations or (equivalent servers) from Dell or HP or whoever. You will need to ensure that they have an infiniband connection to hook the two together. Fancy word for saying that each machine has a card and special cable for the processors to communicate to each other. Don't bother trying to connect via Ethernet, you'll use Ethernet to put them on your network so that you can communicate to them from a remote machine (laptop, workstation etc). Connecting 2 machines would require a cable, more than 2, you will need a "switch". The more you want the more it will cost, BUT the quicker the solve, the bigger the return.

Here are a few pics of my multiple machine computing engine.

Here is the front- obviously.


Here is a look at the back. Pointing to the two infiniband connections (not ethernet) "hooking" the machines together to form the cluster. This whole configuration is in the $10k price range. This specific configuration are Dell Precisions with dual dual core processors and 8GB RAM each. The setup is fairly straightforward and is worth the effort for the cost.

But, if you have a bit deeper pockets, not super deep - but deeper. You could go with the "cluster in a box". This is literally, unpack it and plug it in. Really nice. The "infiniband" type connections are all built into the box. In this configuration, each computer is referred to as a "blade".


Here is a shot of the back of the box. Each one of the "slots" with a green light is the individual blade(computer). This box has 5 blades in all. The beauty is that this works as 2 clusters - one with 3 and one with 2 computers each. Essentially, the same speed/config as above.

Extremely exciting times right now for Design Engineers that are currently in or thinking about getting into the Upfront CAE space. There is massive potential for doing way more than we have ever been able to do before.

Personally, I am anxious to see where the MCAD world, MCAE space in general, finds itself leveraging various forms of cloud computing in the near future.

How to Virtually Attend SolidWorks World 2009 via Twitter

Unfortunately, I will be missing SolidWorks World 2009 this year. Not to worry, fortunately, many of the SW fanatics and even some employees will be delivering the blow by blow commentary via Twitter.

For those not familiar with Twitter, dig in and try and catch up. For those that are familiar, check out the little beauty below that I snagged from Gabi Jack's site (yea, thankfully, she is tweeting from #SWW09).

Leave it to the crew at SolidWorks and their legion of dedicated users to yet again, be thinking out of the box and leading the charge. Surely not the only vendor leveraging twitter, but there is a fairly large presence of SW folks tweeting. Check out this SolidSmack list..

Trends of Computing Power in the Upfront CAE Industry

Since the beginning of time, Upfront CAE engineers have always been pushing the limits of computing power. The CAE industry has always been leading the charge in maximizing computer resources in attempt to solve larger and more sophisticated problems. Even in the early days when solving a simple 2D stress analysis, the computing power required was much greater than what was available to the average user.

The battle is on two fronts: "get more with less" and "get more with more".

GET MORE WITH LESS

There are some of us in the world that are using workstation class laptops, such as the Dell M6300. This is a powerhouse machine that is capable of handling fairly large CAD models and can run fairly large CFD models. The benefits of a workstation laptop are pretty obvious: ability to have all engineering AND office applications all on one machine, with the ability to take your work on the road or simply having the ability to work at home/remote etc.


So what are the negatives???

• Machines and power supplies are a bit bulky and HEAVY- not the most ideal for traveling
• Battery life is SUB-par even for basic office applications; near useless for CAD or CFD work
• Durability is questionable- I have had about 7 of these machines and everyone has had hardware failures in less than 2 years
• The "all-in-one" machine becomes unusable when a simulation is running.
• There is a risk to having your number cruncher mobile. If the machine drops or is damaged, you risk losing valuable information that sometimes takes hours to days to compute.

Progressive companies that understand the need for speed, budget accordingly and provide engineers access to a second machine. Sometimes this secondary machine is shared. Some companies have grand-visions of having a computing "server". I like to call this the "machine in the corner". The idea is that users can work locally on their laptop or mortal desktop and have the big ole' "machine in the corner" to crunch the numbers. Many organizations pull this off, but many have come up short. Why is this?

The fact is until recently, the "machine in the corner" was expensive and could do more than the laptops or smaller desktops but were always plagued with out-dated memory, limited access when outside the company firewall and unreliable means of interacting with the "machine in the corner" efficiently. So, what inevitably happened was that machine was often monopolized by one or two guys and the machine would just crank away for hours. Or WORSE, the investment is made and the only thing happening in the corner is dust collecting.

GET MORE WITH MORE

This methodology is what I refer to as maximizing the investment. Just when we were seeing a slow down in the "machine in the corner" way of life, it is having a bit of a resurgence.

Let's take a look at why...

• People are "connected" more now than ever before
• It is a common way of life in companies to provide access from "outside"
• Computing power is increasing everyday
• CAE vendors are automating sophisticated analyses; making things easy today that were not even possible only a few years ago
• FEA and CFD are becoming mainstream; therefore the demand is increasing everyday
• Engineers want to solve larger and more sophisticated models
• CAE is becoming part of the design process, so the need to run multiple cases as part of a design study is becoming mainstream
• Hardware prices are now within everyone's reach
• Hardware performance is increasing everyday
  

But as the "machine in the corner" is becoming popular, so are the "MACHINES in the corner" OR the "cluster in the corner". But, don't panic, it is not your father's compute farm that I am talking about. Parallel computing, distributed computing or High Performance Computing has been around for quite some time and is heavily used by the elite companies in the world that have 16, 32, infinite number of Linux computers at their disposal to run models for their superstar analysts. These clusters are very sophisticated, require a dedicated team of analysts and IT professionals to maintain and utilize its immense power.


What I am talking about are simple, 2, 4, maybe 6 basic nice windows machines that are networked together using Windows Server 2008 and an Infiniband network connection that can run multiple models in a fraction of the time it would take on one machine. For organizations that are seeing the value of leveraging FEA and CFD simulation as part of the design process and have a need to do multiple "what-if" scenarios or have always felt limited in what could be run due to hardware limitations, can easily justify the cost of a few machines to speed up the process and deliver results that used to take all night. These models can now be run in a few hours.

So, let's say it takes on average 6 hours per simulation and even on your most efficient week you were able to run 2 models/night. You were getting ~10 simulations done a week or 10 what-if scenarios a week. Imagine if you had 2 dedicated machines making up your "cluster in the corner" and you were able to run 45 simulations a week. Or think of it a different way, what took you a week, you can now get done in a little bit more than a day. That payback on efficiency can easily justify the cost of the additional hardware and the software licensing required to access the increase in speed.

This idea of a plug and play cluster will be a game changer for those companies that have felt as if their hands were tied. This is the next generation way of thinking about Upfront CAE. Keep your eyes peeled for the trends from the various vendors.

It is no secret that CFdesign is very focused on High Performance Computing (HPC) and providing a means to solve larger models and more what if scenarios FAST. This doesn't mean that the doing "more with less" crowd will be left in the dark. The needs of the Upfront market are vast, and the technology out there is constantly changing. All of the chip maunfacturers are promising performance boosts in the near future. Quite frankly, the R&D that happens in the area of performance benefits everyone. Getting just a bit more from what we already have is just as important as anything.

My "Getting Things Done" System

Finally, after all these years, I think I have a system. I have never been more buried in email than in the last few months. I used to LOVE email, obsessed with it, checked it constantly- drove my wife nuts. Now, I am quickly beginning to hate email. My obsession(s) have simply grown to texting, instant messaging & tweeting. I can't have my info fast enough. And I surely don't want to miss anything.

To support a greener lifestyle and reduce clutter, I try to work in a paperless. environment. I have been looking for an electronic way to capture and store, "my stuff". I have a ton of it and you never know when you might need it. Believe it or not, I find that I need alot of it often.

So, one of the best self-help books I ever read was given to me by my good friend, Jeff. Getting Things Done is hardcore, I am not as good as others, but I have learned to keep my inbox to a minimum. GTD says zero each day, my goal is less than 20. There is quite a bit more to GTD but this was a huge takeaway for me.


Anything I want to store as part of an ongoing "project" goes in Evernote. I have developed a very simple system for organizing. I use the notebooks in Evernote for projects or sub-projects. I name them by @projectname ( I wish they had subnotebooks). The way to organize data in Evernote is via "tags". I didn't get it initially and I am not sure I am 100% sold, but I am running with it. So, I place multiple tags on each posting in a notebook, usually with a #subject, *contactname, keyword. Seems insane, but it remembers all my tags, so many of the @, #, * are very similar. I simply pick them from a list. So, lets say I have a call scheduled with *jim. I can sort by "*jim", all the topics are then listed by #subject and I have all my notes, clippings, attachments (with Evernote Premium) and things that are high priority I tag with a #1. Seems complicated, but it is working really well. Any files stored other places, no problem, hyperlinks handle that.

Now, all "other" email, not pressing,"FYI stuff" I delete and use Xobni to search, sort, find attachments etc. It is the coolest "find" of last year. I saw a post thought the name was cool, INBOX backwards and it is a SCORE! Go grab it, trust me.

Working in the CAE world on multiple computers and being a globetrotter I deal with massive file sets (CAD, CFdesign, images etc), bigger picture stuff then stuff I'd store into Evernote. I used to carry around a 100GB external drive and though I was bad ass, found that this did nothing but get filled with data. So, I still have that (3 actually) but for the important documents I use 2 systems. The first is Live Mesh. Very cool way to flag a folder on one machine, upload the content to the web and include a folder on another machine. So, I have the data in 3 locations, seems like overkill, but it allows me to work seamlessly on local drives (external drives) are shady when dealing with CAD and Simulation files. Live Mesh is free and allows 5GB, not too bad. Live Mesh used to be all I used when I had a Windows Mobile phone. As there was a mobile version as well.

BUT I just jumped on the iPhone bandwagon and Live Mesh is no dice for iPhone. I also use my beloved Ubuntu Netbook, doesn't play nice with Mesh. So, I use my trusted box.net as well to share mostly Office docs back and forth among all my devices. It has an awesome iPhone client and Open Office works like a charm on my netbook.

Last but not least is Jing Pro. I used to be a fancy SnagIt/PPT guy, still am for some things, but my new way of communicating is to use Jing to grab a quick screen capture and pop it up to my free screencast.com account and shoot you the link. It is like receiving an audio/video voice mail, text or email Nothing more powerful to clicking a link, I am talking to you and showing you exactly what my question is, no heavy file transfer etc-- just a simple link. Jump in for free with Jing, upgrade to Jing Pro as needed.

When I read all of this back, it even looks overwhelming to me. BUT, I feel like my efficiency has gone WAY up, everything is nice and orderly. No major effort keeping everything in synch, all the tools seem to just do it for me.

I am not sure that David Allen had this in mind when he developed GTD, but this is how I make it work for me.

What's your system like?

The Push & Pull of Direct Modeling

The CAD industry can be a tight, competitive industry. Yet, we are still seeing some serious innovative technology coming out of the various players. Every year there seems to be the "new thing". The buzz over the last 12-18 months has been history-based vs. direct modeling.

A good majority of mechanical engineers are familiar with history based solid modeling MCAD systems. Everyone knows the major players - SolidWorks, Inventor, Pro/Engineer, NX, Solid Edge, CATIA etc.. There are numerous advantages to a history based system. I won't bother pitching it as I think most will agree with some of the advantages.

But let's talk about some of the disadvantages. Probably the biggest disadvantage is when it comes to collaboration. This is a very broad category that involves collaborating with other CAD designers, the CAM guys, the CAE folks as well as other CAD systems. Many of the CAD systems can fail quickly if you attempt to break a parent/child relationship. In essence, if you are trying to edit a feature that depends on another, which may depend on yet another. If you are not exactly clear how this model was built or how it all ties together, it can be very frustrating to try and edit a simple feature. It is somewhat the nature of these systems, but a good majority of the issues come back to POOR cad modeling practices. One can easily argue that the system allows the poor practices, therefore, its the systems fault. I'm not sure we will all ever agree on this one.

So, what is the solution? Many, me included, think that Direct Modeling can be the answer. Almost every vendor out there has some form of direct modeling initiative. Siemens has probably been the most aggressive in marketing their Synchronous Technology. So, imagine that you can have a powerful CAD tool like NX or Solid Edge and you can simply then just grab, pull, and drag the geometry around. From a simulation guy's perspective, this is an amazing capability. So, let's say I have a valve assembly and I run a quick CFD simulation to measure pressure drop and attempt to identify the inefficient flow locations. I can then simply grab and shape the internal flow pattern and "morph-it" as if it were clay to "smooth" out the flow patterns? This quite bluntly will change the way engineers design if implemented properly.


Recently, Autodesk announced their version - Inventor Fusion. Their technology will be embedded inside Inventor (to be released soon). Autodesk may be at an advantage as they are still (others as well) converting companies from 2D to 3D. So, feasibly, you will have a sector of engineers that are not familiar with history based systems and will see the best of both worlds. Not only will they have parametric capabilities, but they will also have the power of interacting with their models in a unique way. But most importantly, this will seem natural to them as they won't know any different. It will be very interesting to see if this methodology takes off.


Gotta mention our friends at SpaceClaim. They may not have invented the push/pull concept, but they certainly are taking it and running with it. They are one of the easiest/coolest modelers out there, especially for those of us in the simulation world. Not only can I model the way I expect and want, but I can also bring in geometry from essentially anywhere and edit, delete, push/pull features at will. I have praised SpaceClaim many times here. But its only fair to say that these direct modelers have some really powerful grab and pull capabilities. BUT -- they must allow some for of parametrization, some sort of dimensioning, some way to tie my model together.

WHOA, sounds like I am suggesting the dreaded parametric, history-based modeling? Or am I suggesting some sort of hybrid modeler. Call it what you want, fight it out in your strategy meetings. But here is what I (the market) wants for simulation, at least..

I want a very powerful (capable of complex shapes), SUPER modern and fun to use, ability to edit other CAD systems, ability to create constraints/dimensions/parameters (ideally with the option to drive from a table/excel) that can create multiple "configurations" on the fly and have unique simulation tools (gap/interference detection/repair, small feature removal, part simplification (dumb down part by part).

Is that too much to ask? The CAD system/modeling system that can dial this in will have a leg up on everyone else.