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Deelip Menezes launches IntelliCAD.net as a social forum -- IntelliCAD users gathering to aid each other. 

The forum section has these categories:

• General topics of discussion on IntelliCAD
• Wish List
• Bug Reports, Improvements, Suggestions, etc.
• I Need Help
• Customization (DRX plug-ins, SDS DLLs, LISP programs, scripts, etc.)

All that hype and now in the coldest, darkest days of August (the current weather here on the west coast of Canada -- where is The Goracle's global warming when you really need it?) Siemens PLM Systems is finally shipping Solid Edge with synchronous technology. (The other nine language groups need to wait until September.)

You can try out the software for free by ordering the DVD from Siemens here. Or maybe not:

You may qualify for a completely FREE 30 day Evaluation of the FULL Solid Edge product. The evaluation software will be hand-delivered by a highly qualified Siemens representative or Solid Edge certified channel partner who will ensure the software is loaded and operating correctly. 

So no trying out things on your own.

A rousing discussion of angry users over at Matt Writes and most other independent SolidWorks blogs on the subject of DS SolidWorks charging hundreds of dollars for skipping a year of subscription/maintenance services. For example, skip two years and the cost to resubscribe is, Matt Lombard calculates:

$1,700 + 2*(annual subscription)

Annual subscription fees are something that users feel just as helpless over as the end-user license agreements forced by software companies on end-users without mutual agreement.

In particular, read the train-wreck of a response from DS SolidWorks' vp of customer services:

It costs [Dassault Systemes] SolidWorks money to continue to provide subscription-level support to people who aren’t paying for it. 

Eh? DS SoidWorks is charging more for those people who aren't paying for support, because of the cost of supporting them. The logic makes my head hurt.

There must be a problem with DS SolidWorks customer tracking software if they find themselves supporting people who don't paid for it.

Of course, this has nothing to do with subscriptions (or lack thereof) but a means of increasing the all-important ASP [average selling price] to satisfy Wall Street.

CADKEY is a name that stretches as far back as AutoCAD and VersaCAD, yet got dropped when Kubotek bought out CADKEY the company, renaming the software "KeyCreator." But this week, it's b-a-c-k due to popular demand.

Kubotek has introduced back to the marketplace a wireframe version of the familiar CADKEY workhorse environment for customers to purchase at an attractive price of $695. [$495 until the end of the year.]

A CAD package with a long history needs a long name: CADKEY Wireframe Silver Edition.

The Beijing 2008 Olympics Stadium and the London 2010 Olympics Aquatic Complex were/are designed by the design firm Arup Sports of England using Dassault's Catia CAD software together with Digital Project from Gehry Technologies.

I had been invited to attend nVidia's annual shing-ding being held this week for developers, users, and the media, but I couldn't afford the trip. 

But that isn't stopped conference organizers and marketing companies from thinking I'm there -- when I'm really here. Such as this email from Mental Images...

Since you are attending NVISION 08, we thought you might be interested in the following NVISION 08 event news from mental images.

Spooky: they can visualize me being there; hence the company name, I s'pose.

But perhaps not so nice for nVidia. Protestors are complaining about the faulty nVidia GPUs plaguing 39 models of Dell and HP notebook computers. Details here. Oh, and then there's the poor financial results. More details here.

Kewl Stuff

I must say, however, that some of the gadgets being press-released my way sound pretty interesting. Here's a sampling from the press releases emailed to me Monday:

• Anark will demonstrate its easy-to-use, automated 3D CAD transformation and 3D visualization products and solutions. 

• Static photos and Web pages could soon be replaced with 3D rooms featuring user-created avatars that really look and move like you. (From Nurien).

• Cooliris transforms your browser into an infinite 3-D wall of content, and allows users to easily zoom in on items of interest and enter a breathtaking full-screen presentation.

• Pegasys has incorporated CUDA technology for filter processing into the new beta version of its flagship video encoding software. A beta version of the software shows up to 446% performance increase over the CPU-only version.

• Our technology uses military-grade algorithms to dramatically improve poor-quality video for consumers (through our website at http://www.fixmymovie.com). 

• If you’re in town for NVISION please be sure to check out our GeForce Stereoscopic 3D technology featuring new hardware, glasses, and software.

• Was talking to Jules about your flight--

Oops, that last one is from Nemetschek North America (aka VectorWorks), and relates to their Media Event coming up in September. In Baltimore. I'll be attending.

The Baltimore waterfront is pretty cool for tourists; my daughter loved it when I took her along several years ago to a Bentley event held there. Three malls within two blocks of the hotel -- what's there NOT to like for a teenage girl?

Ed Sperling interviews Margaret Lewis, who carries the long-winded titles of "Director of Commercial Solutions and Software Strategy at Advanced Micro Devices." Nevertheless, she makes some fascinating points regarding problems of running software with virtualization (running multiple OSes) and on multi-core CPUs.

Threading doesn't scale, but:

...if you were using virtualization you could go from running 20 virtual machines to 60 virtual machines, each with 60 different OSs [operating systems] and 60 different applications to running 100 virtual machines on a server. You could scale by putting more virtual machines on the server.

The entire interview is worth a read.

Autodesk appoints ceo Carl Bass as acting CFO [chief financial officer]. That's because they haven't found a replacement for the former cfo, who left the company earlier in the year.

Details here.

Autodesk calls it a “Efficiency Stimulus Program.” I call it a “Summer Schluss Verkauf” (German for that country’s retailers' traditional end-of-summer sale). 

You or your loved ones can save $400 on the purchase of many of Autodesk software packages – or $200 on AutoCAD LT – until October 17, which is just two weeks before the end of Autodesk’s Q3 fiscal quarter. 

With much of this software, you’ll be expected to also pay for a year’s maintenance subscription. So, this is like getting the sub for free. This year, anyhow.

Offer valid in the 50 states of the USA only. Limited to a max of 5 software packages. Purchasers must be at least 18 years old. Applies to software purchased on or after 18 August. Does not apply to upgrades, crossgrades, government purchases, etc.

Details here.

Renditioner is a rendering plug-in for SketchUp. Now there is a free version from IMSI/Design, albeit limited to images of 640x480. There’s also an Express version (1024x768) and the $200 full version (4096x4096 and multi-threaded). 

IMSI/Design’s Bob Mayer says, “Google set the standard with their free version of SketchUp. Following their example, we wanted to make the first easy one-click rendering solution available to everyone for free.” It's either that or the competition – fact is that there are lots of rendering plugins for SketchUp, and there is a need to distinguish oneself from the others.

Download from www.idx-renditioner.com. Mac version available soon.

The USPTO grants Geometric patent #7,397,473 for searching 3D models based on shapes. 3DSearchIT works like this:

1. Prior to the search, the software generates 3D grids of the 3D models, and then computes 2D projections. The 2D projections are combined into 2D hierarchical representations, and then stored.
2. During the search, the software determines the similarity between two 3D shapes by comparing key coefficients of corresponding 2D hierarchical representations. 

Want to write your own 3D search engine? You’ll need to be familiar with discrete Fourier transforms, the Harr wavelet transform, and principal component analysis. The patent lists other systems of 3D searching and their limitations:

Statistical shape-based methods sample a large number of sample measures; the drawback is that their discriminating power decreases rapidly with increases in the number of models in the repository.

Graph-based methods generate connected skeletal approximations; the drawback is that it is difficult to adapt this method to models with multiple bodies or with surfaces.

Transform-based methods generated approximations of 3D models; the drawback is that their approximations are too indiscriminating for large repositories of models.

3DSearchIT works with parametric surfaces, polygonal facets, mesh approximations, and point-cloud approximations, from which it derives surface data. Inventor Tathagata Chakraborty has this to say about his method:

It has been observed that a small set of 2D projections, of sufficiently high resolution, can capture many key characteristics of most 3D CAD models, thereby providing a robust as well as an efficient paradigm to compare their shapes.

3dsearchit.geometricglobal.com

Cyon Research and Merrill Lynch are conducting a survey of the CAD/PLM software being used. You can take part by clicking the link below:

 

www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB22826842QKV

No individual company or responses will be identified. 

Autodesk yesterday responded [PDF] to the ODA’s response, with two claims:

1. We got RasterDWG.
2. Van Der Weide’s errata is for the birds.

As I suggested earlier, the Open Design Alliance could have problems asserting that the ODA’s new English-is-not-my-first-language president didn’t really understand the deposition questions. During a deposition, there is plenty of time to clarify; unlike made-for-tv courtroom dramas, there is no “Well, Mr Smith, will your answer be ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”.

Autodesk’s lawyers notes that Mr Van Der Weide had the opportunity for clarification back then. They quote him: “Your questions were clear, and if it was not clear to me, I asked you for an explanation” [p. 5]. Oops. 

We Got RasterDWG

But then there is point 1: Autodesk’s ownership of RasterDWG. From paperwork I posted earlier, the trademark’s former owner was given valuable consideration for handing RasterDWG over to Autodesk. Confusingly enough, softelec gets to continue using the registered trademark. In the meantime, Autodesk is using it as proof that it ought to own OpenDWG, not the [formerly named] OpenDWG Alliance.

Hmm.. Seems to me this sets precedent for allowing a similar arrangement: Autodesk gets to own OpenDWG, and the [now named] Open Design Alliance gets to use it. Seems fair to me. And the arrangement would save the large lawyer bills from becoming even larger.

1998

As for Autodesk’s claim that the ODA did not exist in 1998, it now backing off, blustering that it’s the ODA who was “all over the map” [p. 6] regarding its launch date. 

Finally, Autodesk notes that former ODA president Evan Yares has given his statement, but have not yet questioned him in cross-examination. 

CAD vendors have been pitching subscriptions/maintenance as a way of (1) smoothing quarterly revenues; and (2) locking customers in. If you've paid a year in advance for a SolidWorks or an AutoCAD, you are unlikely to jump ship to a competitor during those 12 months.

Now that lots of CAD users are on subscription, I am waiting for CAD vendors to jack up prices -- as non-CAD companies, like Oracle, this year began. I am not privvy to any sub plans, so I don't know if this is happening already in the CAD world

Today I read about a twist on jacking up prices: you get to pay DS SolidWorks an even bigger "penalty" fee if you are "late" in renewing. That's right: you pay for not receiving subscription services. Feel the love.

Matt Lombard reports that DS SolidWorks now charges you an extra $850 if you dare ignore their renewal pleas for more than three months. I s'pose it's to cover the cost of mailing you all those reminders. To quote an old cartoon series, "There Otta' be a Law!"

Don't be surprised when in the future subscription fees to become much more expensive. As sure as night folows day, CAD vendors will not be able to resist charging you more; there is just too much unrealized profit in NOT hiking sub rates.

Expect CAD vendors to rely on excuses as lame as, "It's in line with industry practice" -- even as they claim to have uniquely different products.

Commenter Bruce Fisher suggests on the Matt Writes blog that SolidWorks [and other CAD vendors] should "mail rebate checks to users who lose data and time due to buggy releases." 

There isn't much coming out of the PR departments of CAD vendors regarding the olympics. I think some Bentley software might be been used in the design of the stadium and/or water cube. Dunno. Was Autodesk's Alias software used for broadcast graphics? Dunno. 

On the last day of a French marathon runner's run, Dassault sends out a press release telling us about their somewhat interactive Web site for tracking his run. 

Human encounters, emotions, moments of fatigue and doubt, breathtaking landscapes and dramatic weather, Internet users were able to follow the integrity of the V+R Challenge and Philippe Fuchs’ route in real time on the dedicated website. Thanks to TVnima, a Dassault Systèmes real-time 3D broadcasting technology, they were able witness the adventure’s events as they unfolded via multimedia journals animated by Philippe Fuchs’ 3D avatar.

Autodesk reports Q2 revenues of $620 million, up 18% over a year ago. The company expects FY09 revenues of $2.50-2.53 billion.

Cadalog now has a Mac version of their SU Podium v1.5 rendering plug-in for SketchUp. Windows users can "upgrade" to the Mac version for free. And a free eval version is available from http://www.suplugins.com

(It runs on Mac OS X for Intel and PowerPC computers.)

When Alibre releases Design 11 in September, there are "things that are going away" -- to quote its email blast:

• Team Design within Alibre Design -- "there are a number of web-based and other technologies available that could be used as a replacement for Team Design."
• Team Design Server -- same thing.
• Alibre Server Repositories -- replaced with new Alibre Vault product data management software.
• Local Alibre Design Repositories -- same thing.

Vault is free if you are on maintenance and currently access Repository.

Shapeways may have figured out how to make 3D printing easy for consumers. It works like this:

1. Log into www.shapeways.com, and then register.
2. Click Make, and then click Make your own.
3. A Java apps downloads, and then runs a constricted app that turns a poem or saying into a candle holder. The interface is straightforward: enter the message; choose a style; choose the material; place the order. (As you enter text, the 3D image updates in realtime, and a yellow warning alerts you to text that is structurally unstable.)
4. It is 3D printed, and then delivered within 10 days.

The cost is around $90.

Alternatively, you can upload 3D files in Collada or X3D format.

The company is located in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and was incubated by Royal Philips Electronics.

Researchers at MIT are demo'ing a six-dimensional graphics display. The first four dimensions are space and time (as always), the remaining two are lighting and shadows. The images change in response to:

1. Changes in the viewer's viewpoint (first three dimensions).
2. Changes in time (fourth dimension).
3. Changes in lighting and shadows external to the image (remaining dimensions).

David Chandler of the MIT News Office gives this example in MIT developing super-realistic image system:

In training someone how to carry out industrial inspections, an image of the device to be inspected would respond just like a real object when the inspector shines lights on it from different angles, for example.

The 6D display currently costs $30 per pixel.