As a magazine that primarily deals with software developers, the last year has seen pretty much all the main protagonists come out with some statement or demonstration of how their products could work on the cloud. Companies, such as Autodesk, are actively trialling CAD solutions which run over the web from a central server, as well as rendering, simulation and document view and mark-up applications. Dassault Systems, SolidWorks (a DS company) and Siemens PLM (now renamed Siemens Industry Software) are all due to launch commercial cloud applications later this year. So, in design, the Cloud hype is soon to become a reality.

However, perhaps all is not well in the world of cloud-based computing, with some suggesting that customers are not ready for this and the technology is not proven for reliability. Having watched the ‘Tweets’ coming from SolidWorks World attendees, one could watch an arc of euphoria as future cloud technology was demonstrated, followed by a generic feeling of hangover as customers appeared to question if they really wanted to work over a web connection. These customers, it seems, are joined with the developer of Pro/Engineer, PTC. I recently was contacted by Brian Shepherd, Executive Vice President, Product Development who wanted to go on record as to how PTC saw all this talk of cloudy futures for CAD.

PTC already has a cloud application, its Windchill PLM solution is and has been available as an online service through partners such as IBM for a number of years. However, the firm is concerned at the level of hype around running CAD on the cloud.

Shepherd explained, “We are agnostic around the cloud. We don’t feel the need to, or think we should be championing CAD on the cloud to our customers. With our conversations with customers, they have not identified a problem that cloud delivery of CAD would address. To be clear, we are not anti-cloud. Areas such as grid computing around CAE is interesting, and can make some sense but there just hasn’t been the demand for CAD on the cloud.”

“Today we don’t sense that kind of overwhelming desire or drive for this.  We are not listening to analysts, or to cloud providers and trying not to get distracted by hype. We are just trying to address the real problems. Customers are not saying they have problems with deployment or scaleable infrastructure. Our focus for the future of CAD is around ‘Project Lightning’ which addresses usability, interoperability and assembly management.” (Project Lightning is PTC’s vision and strategy to define the next 20 years of CAD and can be read about here )

So, while PTC can see PLM as a cloud service and potentially for CAE analysis, when it comes to modelling over the cloud, Shepherd appeared at a loss as to what the benefit would be.

He continued, “Will CAD be faster on the cloud than it is on the desktop? Maybe for CAE that could be true but for CAD that might not be true, which is a surely a step backwards In fact, cloud computing in CAD sounds like a solution in search of a problem today.”

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This, I love, in all the right ways. I’ve always been of the opinion that perhaps the one missing piece in the 3D design toolkit is a set of decent materials selection tools that integrate with the workhorse design systems we use every day. After, aside from form, perhaps one of the biggest contributing factors in the performance of the part or a product, is materials and ensuring that you’re using the correct material for the job at hand. Often, it’s a known factor, but in these days of drive for cost efficiency or indeed, green design or the simple drive to do less for more, a change in materials can help push that forward.

So, it’s with great pleasure I read today’s news out of the Simulia Customer Conference over in Providence, that Granta Design (based in Cambridge - that’s UK, not Mass), has release the GRANTA MI:Materials Gateway which provides “integration of materials information technology with computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE).” Alongside the Simulia event, it’ll also be shown at the forthcoming PTC/User Event in Florida in June.

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Bit late with this, but I’ve just been working on the full review of CFdesign for the next issue of DEVELOP3D, but I thought now would be as good of a time as any to put together a few thoughts on the latest release of CFdesign and get them out there.

The Blue Ridge Numerics guys have always gone great guns for CAD integrated Computational Fluid Dynamics and simulation but they’ve excelled themselves with this release. What’s new? the answer is not a massive amount. The question should be, what can you do more efficiently? And the answer to that is a LOT.

What the 2010 release is all about is two things. Firstly, giving you the tools to conduct multiple design studies within a single file and a single dataset. That’s not particularly unique, but it’s new to CFdesign (you could accomplish similar using workarounds in previous releases). The tools now available mean you can set-up multiple studies, reuse settings, meshes, model set-ups, then use that as the basis for multiple studies, whether you’re changing geometry, playing with part positions, whether you’re playing with multiple heat or fluid settings. It really doesn’t matter. The system let’s you contain and interact with everything relating to a project in a single place. THat’s going to save you a lot of time hunting around for information you ‘just had’.

The second part is the ability to work with that mass of data, conduct comparisons, to create output from it, whether’s the usual vector plots or more standard (and usually more useful) charts. The new Design Center gives you tools to load up multiple results sets, display and synchronise common datasets and use the results to make design decisions – which is what it’s all about.

Other updates include new tools for handling data shifting between CFdesign and your workhourse CAD system (it works with the majority of major systems… and some smaller ones), tools to quickly create volume models for exterior flow problems (using push/pull modelling tools) to name but a few.

We’ll have the full run down in a little while but in the mean time, and as ever, CFdesign’s Product Manager, Derrek Cooper’s been hot on the case and given us a video tour of what’s new. Check it below.

And if that’s not enough, with a review in October, with Greg’s look at how Blue Ridge are taking advantage of hardware advances for increasing simulation efficiency (which HAS to be read) in the September issue, I don’t know what is.