CAD Insider

AU 2007 Day 0, Off to Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, NV - This time of year means more to AutoCAD users than just what to do with all the left over turkey. It's time to pack up and head to Las Vegas for Autodesk University, the biggest CAD user meeting in the world.

The numbers are not in yet, but over 10,000 are expected to attend. Autodesk itself is sending almost a thousand of its own troops. The flight from SFO, being near to company headquarters, has about 25 Autodeskers on it. For the old pros, there is a "been there, done that" weariness about AU. But for the users, there is an unmistakable buzz. For many, it is their biggest event all year. The week they can get out of the office. In Las Vegas, no less.

AU07 - most efficient registration ever! 5 minutes to log in and get a badge.

Unlike previous AUs, most of the press will be left sitting this one out. Autodesk has separated its "press events" from Autodesk University. AU used to be where AU would announce its latest products and updates but as product cycles are less likely to follow the calendar regularity of a user event, a large press attendance does not seem so critical. That seems to be the official story, though at the last minute Autodesk manufacturing division got into the act and a select few press members got invited anyway.

For me, attending the biggest user meeting in the world is a must. Being among so many CAD users is like once again feeling the earth under my feet, a reminder of why my company (TenLinks, Inc.) does what it does and a reminder of who it does it for.

Autodesk Needs to Lead in Technology, Too

If you look at financial metrics, Autodesk is a clear market leader. It is closing in on $2 billion annual sales. But what of technological leadership?

At a recent press event, Autodesk was asked about haptics - -a technology that would allow the ability to "feel" a design, arguably a technology on the frontier of CAD research. The question seemed to reflect an genuine expectation, asked by a member of the press who sees a lot of new technology of an Autodesk VP, who might be expected to know of it. We'd all seen a lot of gee-whiz graphics by that point, including "real-time" ray tracing. Call me jaded, but lately, the changes in visualization seemed to be incremental, each version eking out a tiny bit more realism than we had before. But a real engineer will pick up a product, feel it, truly interact with it. Haptics might be a way to get that interaction.

Autodesk knew nothing of haptics. Ditto, virtual reality. The press member stopped short of asking about nanotechnology, another ground breaker.

A minor point or an indication of a larger problem? If a market leader cannot explore leading edge technologies, who will? Autodesk has long been flush with cash, why not use it to advance the state of the art by applying it to R&D?

Autodesk may argue that its acquisition of small technology-intensive companies is sufficient to keep it on the leading edge. But I doubt if many small companies can invest in pure research, the research-for-research's-sake from which there are many flops but also huge discoveries. Some companies are famous for their research, such as IBM, GE or 3M, from which we got Big Blue (the chess-playing super computer), Lexan, or yellow sticky notes. That kind of trial and error takes a lot of money.

It seems like universities are still doing pure research. I had attended the recent CAD Conference last June, in which much pure research was given a spotlight. For example, a couple of presentation were given on shape-based search engines. But none of the major CAD companies were in attendance. What a lost opportunity, it seemed, as all that CAD research being done for free, so to speak. If I was a CAD vendor VP, I'd make sure to monitor such proceedings. Just cherry picking the best and brightest would be worth the price of admission but latching onto an idea that has been hatched and nurtured in a CAD lab that can make lives easier for all your users would be a jackpot.

The Greening of Autodesk

Autodesk's CEO Carl Bass flew in to address the press and analysts assembled for the manufacturing division's press event in Paris But he wasn't just here to talk about Inventor, though it may be Autodesk's biggest success since AutoCAD, or the manufacturing division's stellar sales ($99 million last quarter). His was a bigger mission. Carl was there to save the planet.

I should have known Autodesk was turning green. The evening before, I had cruised down the Seine where even the beauty of Paris at night could not dissuade Buzz Kross, head of Autodesk's manufacturing division, from a discussion of the greater good, all the way from conserving paper by printing on both sides at his office to determining the carbon footprint of a part made in Inventor.

As it turns out, Autodesk now has a Sustainability Czar, and judging by speed at which a Corvette-driving senior VP has turned green, this person has a lot of clout. I couldn't find a lot of details (Carl was whisked away after his talk faster than a rock star after a concert) but judging from Carl's zeal on the subject, I'd guess the Sustainability Czar was Carl's idea.

A CEO with a conscience are always welcome as far as I'm concerned, and should serve as a model for others.

Some highlights of Carl's discussion.

• Paper or plastic? That oft asked question at the grocery store presupposes that there are only 2 choices. What about bringing your own reuseable bag?
• A PBS program (which Autodesk sponsored) showed a how many farmers in Minnesota now run wind mills on their land. Calling themselves wind farmers, they treat the wind as a cash crop. Though not cheap (one wind turbine costs $2 million), once functional, each wind mill can generate enough power for 3,500 homes. State assistance and a complicated financing scheme (companies buy the machine, and pay the farmers to maintain the machines for 10 years, and then transfer the ownership of the machines to the farmers all in return for government tax credits) have allowed even some down-and-out farmers to make money from wind. According to the program, this shows promise of reviving many small towns that have been depopulated by urbanization and mass farming. Not only that, the maker of the windmills (Suzlon) has decided to manufacture in Minnesota, creating 300 much need jobs.

Pretty Makes for Competitive Advantage

Industrial machines were known for heft and brawn -- not good looks. But that seems to be changing. The HTC 2500 iX, a floor grinder/polisher (designed with Autodesk software) is probably the dream machine of that job description. Shown recently at the Autodesk Press Event, it emphasizes the emergence of aesthetics in all products, not just those for the consumer.

The HTC 2500 iX may be the prettiest floor grinder/polisher, evidence of the importance of aesthetics even in industrial equipment.

And why not? Isn't every product in a competitive market? All thing being equal, why wouldn't a buyer give a nod to the machine that not only does the job but looks good, too?

It may be harder to justify the CD/DVD player, however.

The HTC machine was very much in evidence throughout the 2 day event, being used to show how various Autodesk softwares could be used from concept design to analysis. HTC used Alias to to create the "Batmobile's" good looks.

Buying Alias allows Autodesk to say that its software is used by 100% of all the major automotive companies.

Autodesk Gets FEA, Part 2

The PlassoTech Acquisition

Amy Bunzel, Autodesk's Director of Inventor Product Management, was kind enough to answer my questions about Autodesk's acquisition of Plassotech.

Why PlassoTech, I asked? Autodesk liked PlassoTech's ease of use. The solver is fast.

PlassoTech had most of its customers in Japan largely due to the work of 3Ga, a Japanese reseller. PlassoTech is an American company, headquartered near Los Angeles, California. Both PlassoTech founders, Dr. Yuri Kizimovich (CTO and Chairman of the Board) and Dr. Tomi Mossessian (CEO and President) will be retained by Autodesk. Their new roles and titles were not available at the time of this writing.

PlassoTech had less than 10 employees.

(click for larger picture)

Autodesk will be incorporating PlassoTech technology into the Inventor products. It will discontinue selling standalone products or add-ons as separate items. PlassoTech used to sell 3G.author, 3G.access and 3G.central, billed as associative with many of Inventor's rivals, including Solid Edge, Pro/ENGINEER and SolidWorks. But Amy assures me Autodesk "will honor existing relationships."

Will there be fallout among Autodesk's current FEA 3rd party developers, such as ANSYS and ALGOR, now that Autodesk has brought FEA in house? Amy says there should not be any fallout. As mentioned in her comments to the original post on this subject, she expects FEA partners, notably ANSYS, to stick around. Many of the FEA partners offer different capability than PlassoTech offered. For example, ANSYS would still offer Inventor customers non-linear and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), just two examples of high-end analysis PlassoTech did not touch.

(click for larger picture)

Autodesk Inventor did have some FEA capability, though it was limited to part analysis and licensed from ANSYS. Now, presumably, Inventor can offer the whole slew of PlassoTech capability including structural, thermal and dynamic analyses. Beyond that, it is not clear if Autodesk will be offering Inventor bundles with varying degrees of analysis --at various prices -- such as SolidWorks has done with COSMOS.

Amy would not reveal how much PlassoTech made in revenue or how much Autodesk paid for it. And it sounds like Autodesk, a public corporation, does not have to reveal that information as the amount paid is deemed to be insignificant.

I wondered what insignificant meant to Autodesk, a company on the verge of breaking $2 billion in revenue. A quick look at news of acquisitions by Autodesk over the last few years showed that the lowest amount it has disclosed was the $15M it paid for Colorfront, a Hungarian company, in 2005, back when Autodesk was only (!) a $1B company.

Autodesk Finally Gets FEA

Autodesk today announced that it had acquired PlassoTech, a California company that is in the business of creating FEA software. (see Autodesk press release)

Autodesk had revealed last Friday that it had secured a $250 million line of credit. I guess we now know why.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

I had long suspected Autodesk would be acquiring CAE technology. All other major MCAD vendors have had FEA technology in house, most for many years. I had speculated on these pages that it would have been ANSYS, however. But since ANSYS has revenue of over $330 millions and is highly profitable, it probably was too expensive of an acquisition.

PlassoTech could have been a good deal. But since it is not as well known as some other FEA vendors, Autodesk will now have to educate potential customers about the PlassoTech technology and convince them that it is at least as capable as technology in better known and trusted products.

PlassoTech first seemed to surface in 1992 with an equity investment Kubota, the Japanese tractor company. It may have acquired some traction (no pun intended) in Japan, enough at least to support one user meeting in Tokyo that attracted "several hundred" users. The first product offering I could find for a worldwide market was in late 2003, when it it introduced 3G Design Simulation/Optimization Suite 2004.

Inventor customers should benefit from having a tighter and more seamless integration to analysis. Autodesk will benefit by offering a higher end Inventor product line that offers varying analysis capability, much like what SolidWorks did after it acquired COSMOS.

PlassoTech seems to have been favoring Autodesk Inventor compatability, judging from press releases it had posted, but also provided standalone FEA and integrated with other MCAD programs such as Pro/ENGINEER, Solid Edge, SolidWorks and CATIA -- products that Autodesk would consider competitive to Inventor.

Certainly, this is not good news for Autodesk 3rd party developers whose FEA products worked with Inventor. They may now be cut off from Autodesk. This includes some big names such as ANSYS and Algor. (full list of Inventor-compatible products on Autodesk site)

See Also:
www.plassotech.com

Team Autodesk Finishes the MS150

FOREST GROVE, Oregon, August 5, 2007 - Team Autodesk finished the MS150 event with a 73 mile loop through the wonderfully wooded areas north of Forest Grove, Oregon.

There had been talk of doing both available loops (for a total of 90+ miles) but luckily, every one came to their senses by today's 8AM start time and we only did the one 73 mile loop.

Skies were overcast and even showed threat of rain, which luckily did not come. It was quite a contrast to yesterday, when we finished under the hot sun.

Team captain Grant Rochelle amassed the following statistics for the two days of riding:

• As a team of 11, we rode 1,525 miles, the equivalent of Portland to Fargo North Dakota
• Many of our team rode the maximum 176 miles over two days
• Total climbing elevation for two days was 11,807 feet

Thanks to all who have already contributed. Team Autodesk has raised $9,550* total, just a hair short of our $10,000 goal. (Help us reach our goal )

Route and elevation map for the MS150 Day 2 73 mile loop courtesy of Brian Roepke.

Scenes from the Sunday ride:

Riders mill about Al's Gun Shop, scene of rest stop 1. No Starbucks on today's mostly forested 73 mile route.

How green is the valley? It's no wonder the pine tree adorns automobile license plates.

Got your back. Roopinder rides for sufferers of MS, Larry Krebs, Chili Wu and Liz Bucalow.

*total reflects online and offline contributions

Autodesk Cycling Team Closes In On Charity Goal

FOREST GROVE, Oregon, August 4, 2007 - What if you were a world class athlete one day--and a cripple the next? Maureen Manley was racing in the women's version of the Tour de France (betchya didn't know there was one) when suddenly the world went dark. She had lost her sight because of MS. But thanks to advances in medicine, she regained her sight and has overcome the debilitating effects of the disease.

Maureen was on hand to remind us why we were riding the MS150, a two day charity ride held annually near Portland. I am a riding as a guest of Autodesk.

We had just finished our first day, a 104 mile ordeal. Though the weather was perfect and the scenery beautiful, a ride this long is still a suffer-fest. Our team had mechanical difficulties that left one rider stranded. Another rider sickened to the point of vomitting -- but kept going. A succession of steep hills hit us at the 80th mile. Still, the team persevevered. We all knew that no matter how much we were suffering, the people with MS were suffering more.

Please Help

You may not want to ride a hundred miles but you can still make a donation. Doing so will put wings on the feet of our riders, for this and future events. The success of this event will ensure that it is repeated and, hopefully, be copied by other CAD companies.*

The Autodesk team currently stands as the 2nd biggest fund raiser for the MS150, having raised $8,110 at the time of this writing. We are near our goal of $10,000. You can make this happen. You can make donations even after the MS150 rides are over (until September 7th).

Click here to contribute.

Route and elevation map for the MS150 104 mile loop courtesy of Brian.

Team Autodesk Rolls Along

Scenes from our first day.

(click for larger picture) Back, left to right, Brad Goettemoeller, Ed and Katherine Martin, Brian Roepke, Par Svensson, Eamon O’Gorman, Loren Jahraus, Garin Gardiner. Front, Columbine Quillen, Grant Rochelle (captain) and me, Roopinder Tara

You gotta believe. Par Svensson shows his dedication (I hope they are not real).

Oregon skies have clouds - something we Californians don't see in summer.

The finish line -- a welcome sight after 104 miles!

Speed demons. First Autodeskers across the line are Par, Brad, Loren and Grant.

Maureen Manley, once a member of the US cyling team and victim of MS, addresses the post ride crowd.

*Currently, SolidWorks and PTC also have cycling teams, both participating in the PMC -- a 2 day ride in Massachusetts to support cancer research.

Autodesk Drops a Bombshell --Inventor LT Available and It's Free!

In a move that is bound to send shockwaves through the entire MCAD community, Autodesk announced a "lite" version of its popular Inventor program, called "Inventor LT Technology Preview" (see press release). Though the product is expected to sell for $999, it is currently available as a free download on the Autodesk Lab site. The software is limited to work only until May 1, 2008, however, but that should give you time to make a few parts. Autodesk promises that when that time rolls around, users of Inventor LT will be given "special purchase incentives."

What's the Catch?

If you're like me, you're wondering if this is too good to be true. After all, Autodesk Inventor sells for around $5,000. Well, Inventor LT cannot do assemblies, only parts. Not all CAD formats are supported. For example, it does not directly read or write SolidWorks file formats. It can read but not write UGS and Pro/E formats (with free add-ins). It will read/write neutral file formats (STEP, IGES, etc.). It cannot do the fancier stuff like sheet metal, FEA and cable/wire harness. It doesn't have Vault. And like it does with AutoCAD LT, Autodesk has chosen to deny Inventor LT 3rd party add-ins and customization via API.

That's a short list. A full list of difference betwee full and paid versions is here.

Model Parts to Your Heart's Delight

What's more important is what it can do. Most importantly, Inventor LT claims to have the full 3D part modeling of its big brother. That should mean that you can model absolutely anything with Inventor LT that you could model in Inventor. Parts created with Inventor are fully interchangeable with Inventor LT. Plus, you can save native DWG files.

I expect a stampede for the free version. I would download Inventor LT immediately before Autodesk comes to its senses. Get it here: http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/inventor_lt/ . You have to fill out a short form but be warned -- it is quite a hefty file (934MB).

AutoCAD 2008 Does Not Suck

Software quality standards are on the decline but one product stands out...

The last couple of weeks has given me increased empathy for CAD users. Setting up the Innovate3D service, I've had reason to test out a few CAD programs, viewers, publishing programs, etc. Almost every software has given me some grief. Not only have they proven hard to use but all have suffered from one problem. The problems range from difficulty of use, glitches and lack of support to crashes and loss of data. The one notable exception was AutoCAD 2008. It took everything I threw at it and performed flawlessly. Solid, dependable AutoCAD.

Amazingly, AutoCAD 2008 is still in a pre-release state. I would have expected some glitches, but there were none. In contrast, all other software tested were shipping versions.

My problems started with CAD viewers. All I wanted was one CAD viewer that would let me look at several different MCAD formats. Simple, right? I don't think I'm the only one with that need. I downloaded one well-known viewer for a 30 day trial. It worked okay but showed a rather obnoxious "for trial only" in big bold letters on prints.

Another well known viewer product loaded a tremendous number of CAD viewers each with its own monstrously big file. But when I tried to view a SolidWorks part, it would try to download the needed viewer repeatedly without success. After watching the program thrash around for half an hour, I gave up. Life is short. I tried to uninstall it but it would not go peacefully. I had to uninstall each of its CAD viewers individually. I uninstalled about a dozen -- but a couple of big viewers are still stuck to my system like barnacles.

I needed to look at Pro/E *.prt files so I downloaded eDrawings from the PTC site as it promised I could use it for Pro/E files. But after installing, I realized it only lets you look at Pro/E drawings that have been saved in a special eDrawings format. All the Pro/E users out there raise your hand if you routinely save to eDrawings format. I thought so. So I would have to go to each sender of Pro/E files and ask them to resubmit the part in a different format? I don't think so.

Again to Autodesk's credit, you can download a free viewer to look at Inventor files, juts like you can download their free viewer for the DWG files. Aah, relief.

I had tried an AutoCAD "clone." Sure, it reads and creates DWG files. It's way cheaper than AutoCAD. On paper, it looks like the clone would be the way to go. But it crashed. And crashed. And crashed again. In less than one half day, it had crashed 4 times. I was getting so used to it crashing I was saving the file after every operation.

Several programs were picky about what version they could read, often not ready to read the latest CAD format. But worse of all were the freezes and the crashes. Crashes were not confined to the AutoCAD clone. I was getting more crashes than a demolition derby. Even one venerable and respected MCAD product was experiencing crashes. I started to think there was something wrong with my computer...

Then, in desperation I downloaded the pre-release version of AutoCAD 2008. I had heard it was a bear of a program (the download was almost 800MB!) and I really didn't want to download yet another big, heavy CAD program on my laptop. It took a long time to load and it's registration process stripped me every personal detail like the names of every ancestor living and dead (just kidding). But all sins were forgotten as it read every DWG and politely fielded every old command I could remember from the last millennium when I last used AutoCAD. Heck, it would even throw in some delights from the modern era -- like the heads up display.

So if you are wondering how Autodesk rolls up one impressive quarter after another peddling software that costs way more than other, far less expensive software, I have a clue. AutoCAD gets the job done. You can count on it.

Welcome back, AutoCAD.