3D/PLM and iPad: Future or Baloney?

January 29, 2011

I just discovered one interesting fact. Exactly, a year ago, on Jan 28th, I published my first blog post about iPad – Who can generate 3D/PLM content for iPad? A year passed since that time. In addition, earlier this week I wrote about SolidWorks n!Fuze. n!Fuze is a new collaborative cloud application from Dassault SolidWorks Corp. An update from SolidWorks World 3rd day- SolidWorks is planning to make n!Fuze iPad application available later this year.

iPad Apps Gold Rush

The number of mobile and specifically iPad apps is growing. Below I put few links on videos presenting some of the most notable applications I had a chance to see for the last months. Autodesk and Dassault made iPad apps part of their portfolios. Siemens PLM relies on the partner to provide iPad app. PTC announced the mobile version of PTC Arbotext. Aras also worked with partner Porchys to provide a mobile version of Aras Innovator. However, I haven’t seen iPad apps on their list. In addition, I wanted to specially noted CADFaster collaborative app for iPad. I’m sure this list of iPad apps is not exhaustive. Send me links to 3D/PLM iPad apps as well as other iPad apps that relevant in the context of engineering and manufacturing.

AutoCAD WS

DS 3DVia Mobile

Autodesk Inventor Publisher

SolidWorks n!Fuze

SolidWorks n!Fuze iPad app first look from Solidsmack on Vimeo.

Arbotext Service Information Solution

TeamCenter on iPad

CADFaster

Mobile Becomes a New Laptop

A decade ago, laptops provided a first step in the mobility. Today laptops are displacing desktops not only on engineering desks, but also for kids and everyday home computer. I bought my last desktop 4 years ago. Today, laptops become too heavy to hold and carry. iPad is a proper size, and most of the people prefer iPad-size-like-device or even smaller iPhone or Android device. According to numbers of iPass Mobile Workforce Report 2010, 27.4% of people think iPad can replace laptop for general business use. The same report predicts rise of mobilocracy with corporates globally.

What is my conclusion? iPad and “new tablets” are creating a new device niche. New iPad apps provide us capabilities and user experience we have never seen before. It will take few more years until iPad gold rush will be transformed into valuable business apps, but I definitely can see some of them becomes a reality in Engineering and Manufacturing world. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Marketplaces and Engineering Software

October 14, 2010

Few days ago I had a chance to speak with Hardi Meybaum of GrabCAD. We spent almost two hours speaking about what GrabCAD is up to. It made me think about what role future marketplaces will play in engineering software. In my view, engineering in general and engineering software was considered as a closed society. In many companies, designers and engineers worked behind the wall, doing their job and throwing result to manufacturing people. However, I think the situation is going to change very soon. There are few influential factors that, in my view, are going to introduce some changes in this space.

Globalization

The development of transportation, communication and the internet changed a landscape of how products can be designed and manufactured. It becomes global. It started as an offshore operation. However, today, I can see it as more diversified activities towards optimization of how manufacturing design, build and support products.

Social Networks and Marketplaces
The usage of social networks becomes broader, and it allows to people to establish connections find job and service offering in different ways. Taking into account globalization the trend of distributed engineering work can become stronger in coming years. I want to bring an example of Amazon Mechanical Turk.

The Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcingInternetmarketplacethat enables computer programmers (known as Requesters), who have to have a United Statesaddress, to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks which computers are unable to do. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services. The Requesters are able to pose tasks known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), such as choosing the best among several photographs of a store-front, writing product descriptions, or identifying performers on music CDs. Workers (called Providers in Mechanical Turk’s Terms of Service) can then browse among existing tasks and complete them for a monetary payment set by the Requester. To place HITs, the requesting programs use an open Application Programming Interface, or the more limited Mturk Requester site.

You can think about future possible marketplaces connecting designers, engineers and manufacturers.

Community and Online Libraries
In the beginning, CAD libraries and Part Catalogs was almost the only place offered online engineering content. These days I can see companies are trying to create content libraries. There are many examples – 3DVIA and 3D Content Central of Dassault, 3D Warehouse of Google, Autodesk Seek, TraceParts and others. Future development of social networks and content providers create an interesting opportunity for catalogs and online libraries to grow towards communities offering different services.

What is my conclusion? I think GrabCAD gives us some example about how to introduce a new eco-system for engineers. Together with few other examples, I can see a definite trend towards re-organizing engineering work into market place or network of engineering services. It will allow to get out of the local design places and propose their services on a global scale. There are many un-answered questions, such as IP protection, handling of proprietary information, security, licensing, models re-use and other. However, I see it as an interesting experiment.

Best, Oleg

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3D Shape Search in CAD and PLM

October 4, 2010

Last week I had a chance to speak with Andy Sherlock of ShapeSpace. My momentary interest was caught by a blog post – Clean up for PLM published on ShapeSpace blog. ShapeSpace is a small outfit trying out the water of 3D geometrical search for CAD and PLM. I found a problem of shape-based search quite interesting. Visualization of search can make search more useful. So, I decided to put some thoughts towards what happens in this space.

Search Googels?
Google made efforts in the direction of going beyond text over the past year. The following product Google Googelsavailable on Android devices brings a new experience in how you can find things visually.

ShapeSpace Part Browser
One of the core capabilities of ShapeSpace Part Browser is the ability to navigate and filter product shapes. In my view, it becomes useful for managing your part libraries. You can take a look on the following examples. Navigate on this link to see more videos.

Sconce Bingo!
Another solution I found in the same category is Bingo! from Sconce. I followed this company for some time and found they provided some very interesting examples of how to imply 3D search practices into product development. In the following video, you can see tight integration with Pro-E and Windchill. You can also get a brief about this solution from CIMData by navigating on this link.

Siemens Geolus
I had to mention Geolus Component from Siemens PLM. The technology was acquired by Siemens PLM (then UGS) in 2006. You can see a historical article by Cadalyst: Geolus Search – The Google of 3D. You can find few examples of Geolus navigating your browser on the following link.

You can try to experiment with Geolus by accessing sample application via this link (registration required). You will see a pretty old web page with application with Siemens PLM Copyright (2008).

Why Search Stinks?
I think, visual is inspiring. However, visual and picture-based search are still not providing a level of reliability that can put it in a mainstream. Google Googels has limited capabilities that are very dependent on what type of picture you are trying to search. It works well on architecture, but fails on more casual examples. The same is in 3D… The precision of query definitions becomes a key driver of success.

(photo from Search Patterns book by Peter Morville)

What is my conclusion? Over the last 10 years Google converted “text based search” into a mainstream. Nevertheless, there is no one size search for every problem. 3D search is addressing an interesting problem of using geometry and shape to assist users in finding information. The result can be impressive. The query definition is still disappointing, in my view. I’d be interested to listen more about your Shape Search experience.

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Bottom Up Option

August 20, 2010

The following publication in VEKTORRUM got me to review again a book “3D Manufacturing Innovation” by Dr. Hiroshi Toriya. I had a chance to read this book last year and it contains some very impressive examples every PLM software company need to learn. The book is pricey. As alternative, navigate your browser on Google Book link and you will have about 30% of this book for free. This book and Randal’s post – “3D Manufacturing Innovation- Explains the Japanese Quest for an Alternative to PLM” made me think about PLM strategies that were developed over the last decade and their potential improvements.

3D Master Top-Down
This is a dominant concept used today for Product Lifecycle Management. It supported by mindshare PLM leaders (Dassault, PTC, and Siemens PLM). Their strategies as well as portfolios are aligned straight from the CAD / 3D products, and they built infrastructure to manage and proliferate in 3D information downstream. Dassault is the dominant in their vision of 3D for all, PTC and Siemens PLM, in my view, provide more balanced between CAD/3D and Process orientation. As a consequence of competition with major ERP vendors, PLM mindshare companies are shifting towards better modeling of downstream data, engineering and manufacturing options as well as industry businesses.

Process is King
This model supported by PLM companies that have roots in ERP domain. 3D is definitely not the strongest side of their portfolio. So, building their product with “a process in mind” makes a lot of sense to them. These companies can be leverage a very strong enterprise architecture and infrastructure. By doing so, they can provide a support for development and manufacturing process. The advantage and disadvantage of this approach is a very weak connection to design and 3D data. Therefore, we had a chance to see investments of ERP companies in acquisition of 3D viewing technologies.

Bottom Up Approach
Both approaches – “3D Master” and “Process is King” are very focused on top down methodologies. This is, in my view, a significant weak point. What if we need to move from top down approach to bottom up? Dr. Hiroshi Toria mentioned in his something that can be considered as an alternative bottom up when 3D data will be accumulated by company in a central database and access by everybody. Here is a quote from his book:

What is my conclusion? PLM is one of the strategies that introduced by software companies to improve design and manufacturers. It was adopted by manufacturing companies. However, it faces a significant criticism. There are two main criticisms – (1) need to make a reform in a company in one day and (2) complex implementation following this decision. I can see multiple alternatives on the table. One of them is a top down approach and decline in a massive 3D CAD top down dominance in PLM implementation. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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3D CAD Future: How To Liberate Data?

April 26, 2010

Last week I had a chance to listen to Mike Payne during the COFES 2010 event in Scottsdale, AZ. Mike’s 18 minutes talk was entitled “Future of Mechanical CAD (Where does PLM fits In?). Mike provided a very interesting retrospective view on the history of mechanical CAD from initial 2D and all 3D evolution and revolutions. I personally liked his take on why 2D is still alive – “because it just works”. Whatever you’ll do in 3D will depend on the software you use. Whatever you are making in 2D can stay forever.

Mike’s view on the future mechanical CAD target was as following:
1. All in 3D

2. Discoverable (the learning curve is really fast)

3. Models unaffected by changes of software release

4. Intelligence built-in CAD tools

5. Data can be re-used between all apps

6. Interchange of best-of-breed tools

7. Based on Geometry and Topology

8. Inexpensive

9. Support for long term storage (i.e. PDF, STEP)

Mike Payne and Brad Holtz

For me the most interesting points presented by Mike were points 3, 4, 5, from the summary above. My short name to this change – “Liberate data from CAD tools”. In my view, they can present the biggest disruption in the 3D CAD industry since the introduction of the feature-based parametric modeling. Here is my take on this and why I think this change is so disruptive.

Dependencies on CAD vendor
In today’s world, companies are required to follow CAD vendors. Everything, they are creating in 3D is heavily dependent on the specific CAD application. It comes accumulated dependencies on the format of data, 3D features as well as a very long learning curve of CAD users in the companies. However, it creates huge benefits for vendors in the way of a maintenance revenue stream. It doesn’t mean you cannot shift between tools, however it presents a significant associated cost of change.

Competition On Tools
When/If dependencies on tools will be removed, the new form of competition can be presented. Vendors will be enforced to compete on a tool proper. The cost of change or switch between CAD systems will be no longer a factor in this competition. So, we can expect CAD market to become similar to the telecom market where a switch between previous and next mobile phone is zero for the end user.

Long Term Data Retention
Since intelligence will be introduced in CAD, forward data compliance will help to resolve the problem of long data storage. This is a very important topic for many industries, especially regulated ones. Some of them are required to keep data for 50-60 years. Today 2D is the ultimate way to do so (because it just work). Future may be different.

What is my summary today? The future Mike observed, sounds very disruptive for today’s CAD vendors. It can present a significant shift in business models and competitive landscape. In my view, it can generate the biggest change in CAD vendor’s landscape. What about PLM role? The presentation wasn’t specifically about PLM, but provided some hunches about what can happen to PLM too. Next time, I will think about how PLM fits in the Mike’s future of CAD.

Best, Oleg

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PLM, 3D Virtual and Apple Patents

April 6, 2010

I’d like to put a short note this morning. It comes from my review of Patently Apple blog. The very interesting patent granted to Apple in the area of 3D virtual stores. The interesting is how Apple defines a presence in this virtual shop:

Apple’s patent FIG. 9 shown above, illustrates an embodiment of an interface to an online store. The example shown is an implementation of region 112 of FIG. 1 as rendered in a browser. Alice, a character represented as an example in the patent, “is visiting the Acme website at noon. Accordingly, a sun (904) is included in region 112. If Alice were to return later in the day, a moon or star icon might be shown instead of sun 904. Other indicators, such as different color schemes during the fall season or winter holidays can also be included.”

I think, such patent can be an alarm in front of CAD and PLM affiliated companies thinking about 3D virtual experience. The competition in 3D space can get to the point when the interests of design software manufacturers will clash with companies thinking about 3D user experience everywhere.

Just my thoughts… What do you think about that?
Best, Oleg

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PLM: Backward Evolution Into Lifelike 3D

February 11, 2010

Recent presentation on SolidWorks World 2010 about evolution of PLM drove me to think about what is the future of 3D and PLM in longer term. For those who haven’t had chance to see these materials, please take a look on the slide below. What we can see is the strategic move from the world of PLM to the world of (3D) Lifelike Experience


Does it mean PLM vendors is moving back to their 3D roots? Does it mean for PLM to be less involved into overall product lifecycle and processes? Maybe this move will allow better balancing between operational efficiency of ERP to manage corporate resources and combine it with the ability of PLM to manage a comprehensive set of product data?

Historically, PLM grew up from the ability to manage 2D and 3D geometry data. In the beginning, it was about CAD files. Ability to manage product data was the obvious strength of PLM in comparison to material-purchasing world of ERP. Unfortunately, PLM clashed with ERP on their interest to manage engineering product data and interest to drive processes in the organization. PLM made significant efforts to take over management of organizational processes around product design, planning, manufacturing and support. Nevertheless, “money talks” and PLM is still considered as a “step-child’ when you present this solution to CIO in comparison to ERP. In my view, by moving focus into Lifelike experience and Virtual 3D, PLM can become dominant in the overall product creation (from the requirement to material behavior) and leave ERP with operational responsibilities.

Does it mean PLM gave up? I don’t think so. In my view, move towards Lifelike experience, shows transformation from the process-focus into the end-to-end product-focus. PLM will be able to manage a complete set of product information. This is a very interesting move that can change enterprise system landscape. PLM (or 3D Lifelike Experience?) will be more focused on product engineering including all aspects of product requirement, design, manufacturing and user experience. ERP systems will be more focused on the processes and resources.

What is my conclusion? Move from PLM to advanced 3D can remove long term clash between ERP and PLM in the process management domain. ERP will expand into process management focus and PLM will be taking their position in the product engineering management with big emphasizing of 3D, Realistic Design and Manufacturing. Sounds like a rational decision to me.

Just my thoughts… What do you think about that?
Best, Oleg

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Who Can Generate 3D/PLM Content For Apple iPad?

January 28, 2010

 

 

Well, it happened. Apple stretched up iPhone in size, removed camera and phone features. So, we have iPad now. What does it mean for people that live design and manufacturing word? Below are some of my thoughts about that. Since, I haven’t had chance to keep it in my hands yet, I cannot say for sure. But it looks cool. Technical characteristics seem reasonable for device you don’t know exactly how to use. When all my work is on cloud/server/laptop, I don’t know what will be justification to have up to 64GB flash.

Let think about what is the possible implication for 3D/PLM world. This device is not for design. Absence of a camera creates some limitation for the application like 3DVIA Mobile and all other applications that want to merge physical and virtual life. This device is probably too expensive to be used on the shop-floor and manufacturing. Potentially, I can see iPad can be used instead of slim laptops, for reviews and by mobile users.

So, do you think iPad life in PLM will be limited? No, I don’t think so. The opportunity will come when we will start generating content that can be easy consumed by iPad. Today, most of the content in design and manufacturing is tuned for desktop computers – CAD and other design systems are desktop oriented, data management and process oriented systems are, for the best case web oriented. What should be done to make this change and make a content to be consumable on iPad?

Think Content
Let’s start thinking about content around us. Design, Simulations, Bill of Materials, Project reviews, Change requests. How to get this content on such a cool device like iPad? Content will be the major driver for people to start using it.

Think Cloud
Today most of the information is somehow located in our desktop applications. Even when we have the data management system (EDM, PDM…), these systems bring information to your desktop and this is becoming a place where we can consume it. We need to re-think it and move to the cloud (public, private… It doesn’t matter- just go away from desktop). In this case, we will start thinking about how to consume it on different devices according to our needs.

Think Mobile
The main benefit to be in the office is to speak with people – not to be connected to the network. You need to be able to connect to network anywhere and get content you are looking for.

So, what is my conclusion? There is a long way to go, but I think PLM needs to think about content. It will allow long life for IP, we generate with multiple devices. Devices will come and die, but content will be forever with companies that create it.

Just my thoughts.
Best, Oleg

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PLM Prompt: 3D Publishing, CAD and Online Google Graphic…

December 31, 2009

The idea of 3D publishing isn’t new. For the last few years we had chance to see multiple examples of how CAD and PLM companies focused on this space by creating and acquiring products that can publish complicated 3D models in the way humans outside of engineering will be able to adopt it. PTC Arbotext, 3DVIA Composer, Autodesk Inventor Publisher- these are only few examples of these products.

The following Google SketchUp blog drove my attention with information about how possible to use SketchUp 7 Layout to create Web ready images. Take a look on video.

I think CAD/PLM vendors need to watch this space. With connection to Google 3D Warehouse, it can be targeted towards some Adobe 3D PDF features or even higher end CAD/PLM  . I’m expecting to see some news in this space in coming 2010.

How do you like it? What do you think?

Happy New Year!
Best, Oleg

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3D Marketplace or Potential Content Wars

November 26, 2009

Some thoughts around future 3D Marketplace. Few days ago, I had chance to post of future of 3D Warehouse. Thanks for Architecture+ blog picking up this topic in “Looking on 3D Marketplace” blog. Even if 3D content online is only in the early beginning, it is very interesting to think about possible evolving of 3D content in the future potential 3D marketplace. I can see few potential routes for 3D content online.

1. Supply Chain. This is the most traditional route that, in my view, already happens in portals providing online catalog parts. Decentralization, outsource design and product development will make such services even more important in the future.

2. Advanced customization. Relatively new trend in my view. Ability to provide advanced customization for products. Especially, this is interesting for products sold online. Ability to generate a precise models of product for visualization can be a very interesting approach for future online market.

3. Consumers oriented content services. I can imagine this scenario as demand of customers to get more realistic product presentation and experience product features online.

Thinking about great potential of 3D content online, I also want to alert on possible conflicts or even content wars. For the last 20-30 years, 3D formats remained a hot topic and didn’t converge to standards that shared between CAD manufacturers. How it can influence future content marketplace? Reading about Microsoft’s effort to de-index content from Google’s search here, you can only imagine the level of potential conflicts between all possible 3D Content providers.

These are just my thoughts. What do you think? I’m looking forward to your comments.

Best, Oleg

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