Fortune Cookies

Trying to figure out how the title ties into CAD :) Well, it doesn't unless you know my background.

Today, I was treated to lunch by my boss. Quite a nice gesture, and we had a good lunch at a chinese buffet (rough afternoon now!). One of the required items at any chinese buffet is the fortune cookie. Mine read "Your curiousity will lead you to great achievements.".

Got to thinking about it and it is so right! My curiousity about everything has given me a broad knowledge about a large variety of topics, including CAD. In fact, my success in the CAD world is in large part due to my curiousity. I like to know how things work. I used to tear apart mechanical items just to see what made them tick (my father was really upset about the rototiller and dirt bike). I treated CAD much the same. I had to know what was there and how it worked and I had to quiz the developers how things interacted under the hood. To me, it was fun. I craved it. I still do.

Here's to hoping that "great achievements" are just around the corner. Maybe my curiousity about the numbers on the backside of my fortune will yield a winning lottery ticket :)

Solid Edge ST2

Solid Edge ST2 is now shipping to customers and is available for download. A couple notable new features are Solid Edge Simulation and Synchronous Sheet Metal.

Solid Edge Simulation is a an embedded implementation of Siemens PLM's standalone FEA product FEMAP. Prior to ST2, Solid Edge shipped with a feature called FEMAP Express (now called "Simulation Express" in ST2) which was limited in load/constraint options and to single parts. In ST2, Simulation Express is still what's included with the product but Solid Edge Simulation can optionally be purchased as an add-on license through your normal sales channel. The good news is that Solid Edge ST2 does come with a temporary license for Solid Edge Simulation good through December, so install early so that you can try it out.

Now as I mentioned earlier, Solid Edge Simulation is an integrated implementation of FEMAP. What this means is that it has a lot of FEMAP's capabilities, but the UI is Solid Edge's which means it's easy to use.

Now for a list of capabilities over Simulation Express:

• Assemblies (Synchronous only)
• Complete environment with dedicated ribbon bar and vertical feature tree pane
• Additional Loads and Constraints
• Multiple "studies"
• Export to FEMAP ".MOD" files
• Multiple results options including the ability to probe nodes

Synchronous Sheet Metal is a new environment based on the Synchronous Technology concepts introduced in ST1. It allows modeling and modification of sheet metal models through direct action to the model while still retaining the intelligence that it is sheet metal. What this means is that sheet metal can be created quickly and edited even quicker. Imported models can also be transformed into a Synchronous sheet metal models as long as they are comprised of common thicknesses.

Obviously there are many other enhancements and new features with ST2, way too many to mention here. I encourage you to try it out when you receive it, especially Solid Edge Simulation before the trial license expires at the end of December.

Digital Prototyping - Is it New?

I thought I would throw out some thoughts out on a term that some individuals are throwing around like they just pioneered it. The term is "Digital Prototyping". Lets start of first by defining what it means. Essentially it means that whatever design checks you might have gone through with a physical model, you are now doing with a virtual model at least up front to reduce the number of physical models needed to prove a design.



So for instance, if you were designing a new car door handle:

• The old school method would be to get a physical prototype made of the actual material using temporary aluminum mold tooling costing 10's of thousands of dollars and waiting weeks to get it and then mount it into a special fixture with data aq and servos/pneumatics to simulate Bruno opening his car door. If it failed, start over, spend 10's of thousands of dollars again and wait weeks.


• The Virtual Prototyping method would be to load your 3D CAD model into one of the many FEA packages available and test it the same day the model was completed. If it fails, redesign it and test it again before tomorrow afternoon.

So now that we know what it is, lets talk about "Is it new?". The answer is "Most definitely not!". Digital Prototyping has been around for at least the past 20 years. What is new is the widespread availability of it to virtually everybody doing 3D design work in every industry. Most 3D CAD products now include FEA software embedded in them, and what isn't included can easily be found and afforded from the multitude of analysis vendors on the market. Dare I say the phrase "So easy a cave man can do it"... The stuff is so easy to use too. Anyone can start up an FEA app and run an analysis with a very basic understanding of Model, Constrain, Load, Mesh. You obviously need to know a fair bit more than that to have a meaningful understanding of what your trying to accomplish, but the point is, the softare is darned easy to use.

Now I won't go into the argument of whether Virtual Prototyping can replace physical testing in all cases or the argument of whether Joe Blow Designer should be doing analysis or if it should be reserved for a analyst specifically schooled in the work. I will say that it is definitely a benefit, and if your designing without it, then your probably throwing a lot of time and money away.

So again, it may not be a new concept, but it's widespread adoption and use is.

Long Time, No See!

It has been a really long time since I have posted (8 months!). What can I say, I've been busy! I'm sure you can relate. What have I been doing?

• Work of course.
• Getting ready for my oldest's graduation from High School (I'm feeling really old).
• BETA Testing :)
• Accepting a position on the PLM World Board of Directors.

Wait a second, what was that last one? Yes, I've taken on the role of representing You, the Solid Edge user, at PLM World. Now before you go off thinking "Wow! Grundey got himself a nice cushy board position making fat wads of cash.", let me burst your bubble and tell you; there is no compensation!

So why am I doing it? Well, there was a variety of reasons:

• Somebody needs to represent Solid Edge at PLM World
• Somebody thought I would be a good Solid Edge representative
• I was silly enought to say "Yes"

Now, here's the hard part. I need your help. That's right, I can't do it all my self. So what can you do?

Well, let me fill you in on a little secret first. PLM World is unlike some other CAD/PLM user groups in that it is ran by the users, for the users. It is not a marketing arm of Siemens PLM. That being said, obviously it needs a lot of users such as yourself to participate in the events as well as just attend them. I would like to ask all Solid Edge users to become involved in some way. Below is a list of ways you can become involved.

• Become a PLM World Citizen. Sign up is free, easy and non-commital (you will need your Sold To ID)
• Provide constructive feedback on the user events you have attended to help improve them.
• Attend the user events. There is the annual event as well as regional events closer to home, and the value of the training, tips, and networking far exceed the cost to attend.
• Make a presentation. If you think you don't have something to present that someone else would be interested in, your wrong, and if that's not enough of an incentive, the event admission is FREE for presnters!
• Take a leadership or membership role in a Special Interest Group or a Regional User Group.

For those who are already registered, I encourage you to attend the Solid Edge SIG Round Table meeting being held adjacent to and during the Industry Night even Sunday evening (May 31st) @ 6:30 PM for some socializing and informal discussion.

For those who have not registered yet, there is still time especially if you're close to Nashville :) And pay attention to the different events inside of the main event. If your just interested in Solid Edge, sign up for the Velocity Series Connection. It will save you some time and money.

Hope to "connect" with you soon!

Ken

Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology Delivered!

It is quite obvious from the activity on the Siemens PLM hosted Solid Edge newsgroup that users have downloaded or been shipped their copy of Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology (from now on referred to as "ST"). It is also obvious that existing users of history based modelers must "unlearn" what has been ingrained in them over the years when they start using ST.

What they must "unlearn" is this: There is no magic time machine that will let you go back in history and erase something you did in your past.

Sounds like science fiction doesn't it?

No doubt you've seen the movies where some character goes back in time, steps on some bug, and then returns to the present and finds out they have changed the entire history of human evolution. Then they spend the rest of the movie trying to fix what they unintendedly did. Sound familiar?

This is exactly what we have been doing for the past 20 years in history based modelers... going back in time before the feature we want to remove existed, and erasing it. We then go back to the present to see what our change to history has done (sometimes expected, but often unexpected and we spend the next few hours fixing what we unintendedly did).

ST brings us out of the science fiction and puts us back into reality. To delete a feature, you stay in the present and delete the faces that make up the feature, or you fill in over it. The remaining faces adjacent to the deleted feature fill in to heal the solid or the embedded faces disappear. But nothing unexpected!

Definitely more straight forward and understandable, but for those who have been using the magic time machine, it is a foreign concept. ST is here, it's time to return to reality!

July!

The first full week of July is here. I hope that those who reside in the States had a great holiday weekend. I enjoyed a nice 4th of July weekend with the family which included a trip to an amusement park, watching fireworks, and some grilling. Now it is back to work. For those who do not live in the States, I hope you decided to celibrate it with us anyways (aren't you always looking for an excuse?).

Now that a lot of the media buzz has ended concerning Synchronous Technology, things are kind of boring. Kind of looking forward to the buzzing to start again once it is released and people start writing article about it. I've been doing my testing, and am anxious to hear what others have to say about it.

That's it for now.

Ken

Video Screen Capture Software

They say a picture paints a thousand words. So to find out how many words video paints, do we multiply that by the frames per second multiplied by the number of seconds the video runs?

I think we will all agree that seeing a video of something done on the computer with a narrator is much more efficient than looking at static images with a few strings of text attached. I wanted to pass on some free tools that I have found that will allow you to capture your PC screen while your using it and create a playable movie from it.

The first tool is Window Media Encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx). Works OK, but settings are confusing and best screen capture quality still leaves shaded surfaces banded. Output is a WMV file. This tool has a lot of other capabilities besides just screen capture so if your into encoding other video sources such as from a camera, you might want to check this out.

The other tool is Jing from TechSmith (http://www.jingproject.com/). Exceptionally easy to use and excellent quality, but I have not yet really got into all the posting options. The file output appears to be a Flash file. They say it is a temporary project, so it may stop working someday, but it's ease of use and good quality make it an acceptable risk. Still trying to figure out how to efficiently view the output file stored on a fileshare though. I've been pulling them up in a web browser.

Hope this helps someone out. I'll post more on Jing when I get it all figured out.

Ken

Synchronous Technology

So, on April 22nd, Siemens PLM Software released a bomb on the CAD world about a new modeling paradigm. There looks to be a lot of promise to this new technology, and I have high hopes for it.

One problem I regularly see today with the sketch/feature/history based modelers is that concept modeling and production modeling are at odds.

What I mean by this is:

• An engineer while in the concept modeling phase is concerned about creating geometry to fill a needed form. They may make many variations of this model, some with minor differences and some with major differences. They do not care about building in design intent or making the model easy to modify, so they use what I term "hack and whack" modeling. What is left when they are done is a model with a feature tree that would put Frankenstein's monster to shame.
• After the concept phase comes the documentation phase. This is where ease of modification and design intent is a concern. This usually results in a model being remodeled which is of course rework and is never desired.

This problem appears to be solved with Synchronous Technology. The concept model can be "hacked and whacked" into the needed form (with more ease promised) and when it is ready to become a production model, the user can simply apply the needed parameters to preserve the design intent (no remodeling needed). I see this as a huge time saver.

Another issue I regularly see with sketch/feature/history based modelers is that part-time users (a couple days a month) still have difficulty using them for design work due to all the historic and associative relationships to planes, sketches, and other features that the user must be constantly concerned with. If modeling could be made easier and more intuitive as the Synchronous Technology claims to be without reliance on those historic and associative relationships, that would be a huge benefit.

There will apparently be a Solid Edge launch on May 21st. I'm sure the CAD media will be buzzing then.