It’s been a few weeks since I was at the SolidWorks 2013 media event in Waltham, MA. There have since been several articles written about SolidWorks 2013, by Roopinder Tara, Brian McElyea, Anna Wood, Ricky Jordan, Matt Lombard, Randall Newton, and probably many more. I already gave a preview of my observations about SolidWorks 2013, […]
From aspirational engineering to design space exploration: engineering practices and tools for the 21st century
“This is why we test.” It was one of the comments to a YouTube video, showing a dramatic rear suspension failure while running a braking test on a Force Protection MRAP vehicle. Another comment pointed out that this was a first generation design, which had been greatly improved since the test. When I saw […]
Gian Paolo Bassi on SolidWorks 2013
As much as I’m interested in what new capabilities SolidWorks 2013 will bring, I’m much more interested in something else: Has Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corp invested the resources it will take to make it a really good release? For a number of years, there’s been quite a bit of FUD surrounding SolidWorks. It’s been well-known […]
The systems engineering imperative
I suspect that most real world systems engineering is done on a rather ad-hoc basis. Possibly because most people involved in the product development process don’t really appreciate what elements are required to do systems engineering. Jim Brown, of Tech-Clarity, has just published a nice “spotlight” paper, outlining ten points for streamlining product development with […]
Should you use JT or 3D PDF?
I always like a little controversy. Especially when it leads to more understanding. A few days ago, Dennis Keating, a Senior Account Executive with Siemens PLM, posted this note about JT over on LinkedIn: Try taking a look at Siemens and the international format for JT. It does not have any of the limitations of […]
Should you use JT or 3D PDF?
I always like a little controversy. Especially when it leads to more understanding. A few days ago, Dennis Keating, a Senior Account Executive with Siemens PLM, posted this note about JT over on LinkedIn: Try taking a look at Siemens and the international format for JT. It does not have any of the limitations of […]
Should you use JT or 3D PDF?
I always like a little controversy. Especially when it leads to more understanding. A few days ago, Dennis Keating, a Senior Account Executive with Siemens PLM, posted this note about JT over on LinkedIn: Try taking a look at Siemens and the international format for JT. It does not have any of the limitations of […]
Autodesk to integrate Inforbix into PLM 360
Inforbix is not a big company. It’s, by any measure, a small technology start-up. Autodesk acquires small companies all the time. So why does Inforbix matter? Start with Oleg Shilovitsky, Inforbix’s CEO. He is what many people call a “thought leader” in PLM. He writes the PLM Think Tank and Beyond PLM blogs, and expresses […]
Autodesk to integrate Inforbix into PLM 360
Inforbix is not a big company. It’s, by any measure, a small technology start-up. Autodesk acquires small companies all the time. So why does Inforbix matter? Start with Oleg Shilovitsky, Inforbix’s CEO. He is what many people call a “thought leader” in PLM. He writes the PLM Think Tank and Beyond PLM blogs, and expresses […]
Autodesk to integrate Inforbix into PLM 360
Inforbix is not a big company. It’s, by any measure, a small technology start-up. Autodesk acquires small companies all the time. So why does Inforbix matter? Start with Oleg Shilovitsky, Inforbix’s CEO. He is what many people call a “thought leader” in PLM. He writes the PLM Think Tank and Beyond PLM blogs, and expresses […]
Is he back? Jon Hirschtick to keynote at CIMdata PLM Road Map
One of the premier conferences in the engineering software industry is PLM Road Map, presented byCIMdata, Inc. Last week, I got a note from CIMdata that Jon Hirschtick would be one of the keynote presenters at PLM Road Map. This could make things interesting. Jon, as many folks in the industry know, was the founding […]
Why you need to understand Model-Based Engineering
NIST recently published a report from the Model-Based Enterprise/Technical Data Package summit they hosted last December. You can download a copy of the report at http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.1753. You might wonder, why should you care about this subject? I could explain it, but I think the report does a pretty good job. Take some time to read the […]
How to land a rover on Mars? Use MSC Adams.
Suppose you were going to spend a couple of billion dollars to send a mobile science laboratory to Mars. How would you land it on the surface? No matter what answer you might come up with, you’d need to do some serious dyamic simulation of the process. After all, you wouldn’t want to spend your […]
How to land a rover on Mars? Use MSC Adams.
Suppose you were going to spend a couple of billion dollars to send a mobile science laboratory to Mars. How would you land it on the surface? No matter what answer you might come up with, you’d need to do some serious dyamic simulation of the process. After all, you wouldn’t want to spend your […]
Design World Facebook cover photo contest
Design World has a nice Facebook page, but it could look a lot cooler with some nice CAD renderings. Lance Brown, our social media guru (and the guy who manages our Facebook presence) is holding a Facebook cover photo contest, just for that purpose. Submit your best CAD drawings & renders for a chance to […]
Optimizing Fluid System Design with Early CFD
Mentor Graphics couples its tools for component and system-level CFD CFD was once the exclusive realm of analysts with deep theoretical backgrounds and extensive experience. While those analysts still rule the realm, they’re no longer alone. The growth of early (often called “upfront” or “concurrent”) CFD tools has opened the field up to a new…
ACIS R23 is out, and here’s why you should care
The new R23 version of that ACIS geometric modeling kernel, from the Spatial division of Dassault Systemes, is now available. This will probably be of the most interest to you if you happen to be a CAD developer, and are using ACIS. But it’ll also (eventually) be of interest to you if you’re a user […]
How was the Mars rover Curiosity designed? With Siemens PLM software
Last Sunday night, I watched the live video feed from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as the rover Curiosity descended through the Martian atmosphere, and landed on the planet’s surface. NASA called the process of landing the Curiosity “7 minutes of terror.” The whole process was completely automated—and all that the people at JPL (or the […]
Open Source CAD: Another perspective
A few days ago, I opined that “If you’re looking for a really great open source CAD program, you’re going to be disappointed.” Charles Warner, an engineer who uses a number of open source CAD programs, took issue with me on this. And he did it thoughtfully. Here’s what he had to say: I suppose […]
Sensable Phantom and Freeform: Sculpting for engineers
In the June issue of Design World, I wrote about Organic Shape Modeling for Engineers. In that article, I said that Geomagic’s Sensable Phantom haptic devices, when used in conjunction with their Freeform and Freeform Plus modeling software, are arguably the “gold standard for organic shape modeling.” A couple of weeks ago, I was in […]
Open Source CAD? No. Free CAD? Yes.
If you’re looking for a really great open source CAD program, you’re going to be disappointed. Many people, individually and in groups, have tried to build quality open source CAD programs. And none have come close to succeeding. At least, at the level where they challenge the capabilities of commercial products. CAD software is complex […]
CFD mesh quality: understanding accuracy and convergence
An excellent article on CFD meshing by John Chawner, from blog.pointwise.com: “We know embarrassingly little about how the mesh affects the CFD solution,” said Prof. Carl Ollivier-Gooch of the University of British Columbia. That statement is counter to what we all know to be true in practice, that a good mesh helps the computational fluid […]
Hitting the reset button: Building the next generation of SolidWorks
Suppose you were a CAD developer, and you wanted to build a next-generation CAD system. How would you do it? I’ve thought about that question for quite a while. Nearly 30 years, in fact. I’ve watched a bunch of attempts at building next-generation CAD systems. I’ve been involved in a few too. I can tell […]
Free CAD Software for Engineers and Designers
Free CAD software shouldn’t have to break the bank. There are thousands of kinds of free CAD software available. Possibly tens of thousands. But there are far fewer free programs in the CAD realm—if only because CAD software is incredibly difficult to create. Here are three free CAD software programs that offer something really special.…
Getting Good Results with CAE
by Evan Yares, Senior Editor & Analyst, Software It’s more about domain knowledge than software ease of use A shift in CAE software started, quite a long time ago, when SolidWorks started including a basic version of Cosmos FEA with their eponymous CAD package. It was the beginning of the “red is bad, green is…