Archives for "CAD"

Posted by Joe Lipple on 3rd February 2010
// Comments: 2

Dear SolidWorks, Welcome to the cloud.

Today at SolidWorks World, Jeff Ray, CEO of SolidWorks, announced Product Data Sharing (PDS) as the first of the company’s online services to be available on the Enovia v6 backbone. SolidWorks definitely took a cue from social networking and online communities like LinkedIn and Facebook. Now designers can open a SolidWorks add-in and select other designers in their network to collaborate and comment on designs. The files get pushed to the cloud and the collaborator can view the model with the SolidWorks add-in or a web browser (Internet Explorer).

The browser, using a plug-in, allows collaborators to perform some common operations–they can view, rotate, slice and even comment on the design. It’s unclear at this time how licensing will work, but I’m sure we’ll hear before the service launches later this year.

Product Data Sharing sounds like a great step in helping designers and others collaborate on drawings. I can see how it can cut down on design and collaboration times, especially for team members in different locations.

[Warning: shameless marketing plug ahead]

On behalf of Arena (a long-time SolidWorks partner), I’d like to welcome SolidWorks to the cloud. It’s a fine place, even though its name changes every few years (anyone remember On-Demand? SaaS? Single-instance-multi-tenant?), and I think PDS will be very happy there. I also think our customers will find a lot of utility using this complementary cloud-based tool in conjunction with Arena collaborative BOM and change management.

[End of shameless plug]

That’s it for me from SolidWorks World 2010. Be sure to check out pictures from the event on Flickr.

Posted by Joe Lipple on 2nd February 2010
// Comments: 0

Dispatch from SolidWorks World: James Cameron, engineering manager?

James Cameron

You may think of James Cameron as a hopeless romantic or a sci-fi nerd, but an engineering manager? At this morning’s keynote presentation at SolidWorks World, that’s just how he fancied himself.

When you think about it, he’s delivered some truly amazing products over the years. In addition to the movies, he’s also very involved in space exploration (working with NASA), deep sea expeditions (he’s going to the bottom of the 7-mile deep Mariana Trench in a submersible he helped design and test) and cutting-edge high-tech imaging products. An engineer at heart, he credits part of his success to his approach to managing engineers. He believes that, in order to be successful, you’ve got to sit down with the designers and take the time to understand the design of the product.

(Interesting. All too often, interactions with engineering involve expediting and yelling. “Design faster, Jeff!  Are you done yet?  Are you done yet?  How about now?”)

Finally, Cameron shared his approach to starting every project. He gathers his core team and reinforces these three tenets:

  • Hope is not a strategy
  • Luck is not a factor
  • Fear is not an option

Sounds like good advice, and he’s got the accolades to prove it.

Posted by Joe Lipple on 2nd February 2010
// Comments: 3

Dispatch from SolidWorks World: Solid Clouds?

At the main stage session on the first day of SolidWorks World 2010 we got a sneak preview of “CAD in the cloud.”

What? You can’t do that!!!  CAD will NEVER work on anything but desktop computers.  Right?

Apparently, Dassault’s vision is expanding from “professional designers” to all “professionals.” Interesting vision–and an interesting demo.  We got a real-time view of what it would look like to view a 3D model–in real time–with a browser.

SolidWorks, welcome to the cloud.

Looking forward to Day 2’s keynote speaker: that guy who sunk Titanic.

Until then…