DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

Yesterday I met Autodesk’s Ken Bado (executive vice president of sales and services) and the first thing we talked about was the potential acquisition of CFD specialist developer, Flomerics. Bado wanted to set the record straight and said that Autodesk was no longer interested in buying the company.

There had been huge speculation of a deal after Flomerics issued a statement to shareholders announcing that the board was in discussions with Autodesk over a possible offer for the company. The move followed aggressive share purchases by silicon design tool specialist, Mentor Graphics.

In an added twist to the plot Mentor has just become the subject of a potential hostile take over from its biggest competitor, Cadence. In a highly fluid situation, Autodesk’s shock decision to pull out of negotiations further muddies the waters, as to what fate Flomerics will have.

While a deal now looks unlikely, autodesk has shown its hand and has interests to add high-end CFD to its mechanical pot. The news probably has SolidWorks execs in Boston breathing a sigh of relief too, as had Autodesk got hold of it, Floworks would have vanished.

www.flomerics.com

The launch edition of DEVELOP3D is now available for FREE download. Simply click here and if you’ve already regsitered away you go. We’ve kept it above 10MB coz we didn’t want to ruin the look of the mag with all that nasty image compression. Anyway, let us know what you think.

www.develop3d.com/downloads

Blade Workstations are exactly like standard workstations - insofar as they run desktop CAD/CAM/CAE applications, perform complex calculations and offer powerful 3D graphics - but instead of sitting under an engineer’s desk they are locked away in a secure data centre and accessed remotely by a thin client.

To understand what a Blade Workstation is, it’s best to think of it as a workstation with very long monitor, mouse and keyboard cables. All the calculations are carried out on the Blade and with the help of HP’s advanced Remote Graphics Software (RGS) it transmits display data over TCP/IP to a thin client which sits on the end user’s desk. The thin client simply displays this display data frame by frame in real time and feeds back mouse and keyboard input to the blade.

According to HP, on most networks, even on some high-speed Internet connections, latency is not a problem and when it’s lerss than 50ms it generally gives a similar experience as if you had a workstation sat underneath your desk.

HP’s Blade Workstations are rack mounted and will happily co-exist in the same rack as HP’s Blade Servers. In fact they are virtually identical to Blade Servers, the key difference being that they include a professional 3D graphics card. This gives them the ability to work with complex 3D models and manipulate them on screen. All of the 3D graphics processing is done on the Blade so the thin client only needs a modest 2D card.

HP has just released a new MCAD-focused Blade Workstation, which is certified to run a number of applications including, Catia, Siemens NX, PTC Pro/Engineer, Autodesk AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, and SolidWorks. It carries a Nvidia Quadro FX 1600M as its flagship graphics card, which is equivalent to a mid-range offering in most standard workstations.

So there’s the technology backgrounder, but what are the real world benefits of HP’s Blade Workstation solution?

Data management: One of the biggest advantages of HP’s Blade Workstation solution is that confidential data never leaves the data centre, which not only makes it more secure, but easier to manage. The thin client only ever receives pixel data transmitted from the Blade, so intelligent vector-based CAD/CAM/CAE geometry can’t be stolen or lost, or the wrong revision used. N.B. This is why the client only needs a 512MB solid state hard drive.

While this can be a huge benefit for single engineering departments it becomes even more relevant for multi-site enterprises, or those outsourcing design or manufacture. With a low latency connection it is possible to run Blade Workstations from the other side of the world, with all your data stored and managed in a central PDM system. This also lends itself well to collaborative design review as you don’t have to transfer large amounts of CAD data in advance. With the Blade you can access your data instantly.

Blade workstations also reduce desk-side hardware maintenance as each client box just needs to be configured with a standard OS disk image, independent of individual applications.

User flexibility: When a user logs on at a client they are hardwired to a Blade. Up to four blades can be accessed by a single client giving the user huge amounts of power at their disposal for complex analysis or rendering operations. With a multi-monitor set up each Blade can be assigned a screen, but rather than having to flick a switch the user simply moves the mouse onto the relevant screen to take control of the relevant blade.

Sessions can be maintained on the blade so users can move between clients simply my logging on at a different location. This can even be done at home on a standard laptop running HP’s RGS software. For example, a user could start an analysis job at the end of the working day, log on in the evening to interpret the results and tweak the design, then start a new simulation and then have the results ready for their arrival at work in the morning.

Environmental control: Powerful CAD/CAD/CAE workstations produce a lot of noise and heat and, if you put these under every engineer’s desk, managing this can be a major headache. Putting everything in a central location makes it easier to control but the downside is you have to invest in a dedicated data centre with its own power and air conditioning system, which is not cheap.

Conclusion

HP’s Blade Workstations are a high end solution, targeted at the enterprise rather than the SME. There’s a considerable investment required to get the infrastructure in place, but it’s clear that the benefits can be considerable.

It’s taken quite a while for HP to deliver an MCAD-specific system and part of this is down to securing essential certification from all the major CAD vendors. One also wonders if there have been technical issues as despite boosting the graphics performance with the introduction of Nvidia’s Quadro FX 1600M, this is not the high-end card that you would expect to find in an enterprise class MCAD workstation.

From streamlined collaboration to ultimate flexibility for users, HP’s Blade Workstation offers something new and exciting to the workstation sector. And for defence companies, or indeed any organization with sensitive design data, it’s certainly a compelling solution.

www.hp.com/go/bladeworkstations

So, after many a late night in the past week, the launch edition of DEVELOP3D (the magazine) finally went to press on Friday. It’s been a rollercoaster ride of tears and laughter but we’ve thoroughly enjoyed putting it together and are extremely pleased with the results! Thanks to everyone who made this possible. You know who you are.

There’s just enough time left to ensure you get hold of a copy of the first edition, so if you haven’t done so yet, click on the link to the right and register your details. And don’t forget it’s free to all those who qualify.

We’re hopeful that DEVELOP3D will turn some heads, and not just because of the unashamed use of pink throughout. It’s got a bold new look for a bold new magazine for product development technology and we really hope you like it. We’re also relying on you, the reader, for feedback, good and bad, so we can drive things forward for future editions.

Now i’m off to remind myself that there is actually an existence outside of the world of magazine editing and production. I think I might even treat myself to a pint - well maybe a half. I don’t want to overdo it now.

FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS

Bentley Systems and McNeel and Associates both recently announced new modelling tools which are primarily designed for architects. This wouldn’t normally be of interest to DEVELOP3D, but there’s increasing trend of cross pollination between the product development and architectural sectors.

While major architectural firms are looking to product development technology to help generate complex models, generative parametric systems which are used for architectural form generation and dynamic conceptual modelling, are also being sought out by product designers.

With generative technology, the user scripts a framework or description of a complex shape, and the computer then generates it. Using variables and sliders, it’s also possible to drive the underlying framework to create the form.

Bentley Systems has led the field with Generative Components, which is built on top of MicroStation. However, the company has just released a Discovery Subscription that allows access to the current shipping version at a very low cost of $250.

Meanwhile Robert McNeel and Associates has also launched Grasshopper, a highly innovative visual-programming system for generating parametric, dynamic geometry which runs in its popular Rhino modelling too. Grasshopper is free to Rhino users.

Bentley recently lost its Chief Scientist and father of Generative Components to Autodesk, so expect another Generative product at some point in the future.

http://grasshopper.rhino3d.com. www.generativecomponents.com

It seems that Autodesk is looking to acquire Flomerics and its range of CFD-based simulation technologies. According to a statement released by Flomerics, this comes after Mentor Graphics tried to acquire the company early this quarter.

According to the statement:

Autodesk, Inc. (‘Autodesk’) and the Board of Directors of Flomerics Group PLC (‘Flomerics’ or the ‘Company’) are pleased to confirm that Autodesk is in continuing discussions with Flomerics and its advisers in respect of a possible offer for the Company.

These discussions are progressing and further announcements will be made in due course. At this stage, however, there can be no certainty that an offer from Autodesk will be forthcoming, nor as to the terms on which any offer might be made.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how these things work, but this is interesting for many reasons. If you take the MCAD market as a whole, there are a couple of missing gaps in several vendor’s offerings and they relate to simulation. Namely, PTC and Autodesk don’t have a decent Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer analysis offering.

In the world of CAD integrated CFD, PTC has always had a very strong relationship with Blue Ridge Numerics. Meanwhile Flomerics had been the outsider, until it acquired Nika last year. Nika develop the CFD code that’s the underlying base technology for SolidWorks’ FloWorks as well as its other EFD products.

What’s intriguing is that Flomerics has a very wide range of interests. From the EFD tools for CAD integrated CFD, through more specialist electronics-related simulation with the FloTherm products and into the AEC market with the HVAC-biased product, FloVent. Now, who in the CAD world covers mechanical and architectural design? Yup. Autodesk.

It appears to be early days, but this move makes a hell of a lot of sense. What will happen to FloWorks? Will SolidWorks have to go elsewhere for that technology? Would PTC buy out Blue Ridge as a result? who knows? its all speculation. But purely in terms of Product Development Technology, this is interesting. If Autodesk can bring CFD in house (it already has FEA from the PlassoTech aquisition), it is acquiring Moldflow, the company looks be building a very interesting technology base for its Digital Prototyping concept that might finally see it delivered.

I got a release through from UK SolidWorks VAR, New Technology CADCAM about it adding SimpoeWorks to its product portfolio. I recently talked, following the Autodesk/Moldflow acquisition, about how there were limited options for those looking to perform injection moulding simulation, citing the only other code I was aware of being Vero’s VISI-Flow. It seems I was wrong and SimpoeWorks is “fully featured general purpose plastic injection simulation software for plastic injection analysis.” It’s a SolidWorks Gold Partner Product offering “complete filling, packing, cooling and part warpage simulation”