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Dispatch from SolidWorks World: Solid Clouds?

Posted by  Joe Lipple on  Feb 2, 2010 in CAD & PDM, Cloud Computing, Engineering

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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…

  • Tony Lockwood

    Riding the cloud is the wave of the future. People and companies are tiring of endless downtime producing upgrades, owning expensive software, and running enormously expensive data centers. The intellectual property and core competencies that one has are the key asset. The internal infrastructure to access, manipulate, and store your IP are not. Clouds can reduce these nonproductive costs dramatically. So, my question is, why not CAD?

  • http://YourWebsite Tony Lockwood

    Riding the cloud is the wave of the future. People and companies are tiring of endless downtime producing upgrades, owning expensive software, and running enormously expensive data centers. The intellectual property and core competencies that one has are the key asset. The internal infrastructure to access, manipulate, and store your IP are not. Clouds can reduce these nonproductive costs dramatically. So, my question is, why not CAD?

  • http://plmtwine.com Oleg Shilovitsky

    I agree with Tony. I think, cloud, proved in many applications started from web/mails and end up with financial apps like ADP. So, what is wrong with CAD on cloud?

    Some of my thoughts about that on my blog:
    http://plmtwine.com/category/cloud-application/

    Best, Oleg

  • http://plmtwine.com Oleg Shilovitsky

    I agree with Tony. I think, cloud, proved in many applications started from web/mails and end up with financial apps like ADP. So, what is wrong with CAD on cloud?

    Some of my thoughts about that on my blog:
    http://plmtwine.com/category/cloud-application/

    Best, Oleg

  • http://www.arenasolutions.com Joe Lipple

    I agree with both of you. It’s pretty clear that the main concern with true “CAD in the cloud” is performance. Until we get Star Trek-level communication devices, drafting, drawing and modeling in the cloud will just be too slow. However, other related parts of the design process can — and should — be done in the cloud. Key examples are the processor-intensive processes like FEA (finite element analysis) and rendering. Pushing your model up to the cloud and letting a grid of off-site computers handle the load makes a lot of sense.

  • http://www.arenasolutions.com Joe Lipple

    I agree with both of you. It’s pretty clear that the main concern with true “CAD in the cloud” is performance. Until we get Star Trek-level communication devices, drafting, drawing and modeling in the cloud will just be too slow. However, other related parts of the design process can — and should — be done in the cloud. Key examples are the processor-intensive processes like FEA (finite element analysis) and rendering. Pushing your model up to the cloud and letting a grid of off-site computers handle the load makes a lot of sense.