Dassault Systémes has acquired visualisation specialists RTT
The world of design technology slows for no man or editorial team in transit around the globe, so here we take a catchup look at Dassault Systémes’ (DS) purchase of visualisation software firm RTT.
If you’ve read the press release from deep within DS’s lair you’ll be aware that it’s another one of its riddle-wrapped-in-an-enigma-wrapped-in-a-conundrums, so we’ve scratched our heads and have tried to make sense of what we know.
Immediately noticeable is there’s a new name – 3DXCITE – which sounds a little like a… ahem… specialist adult establishment. Then there’s the DS commitment to PLM, “refocusing” 3DXCITE to draw “marketing assets” (visualisations) into the PLM world.
As the press release states, this will have “significant impacts across Dassault Systèmes’ customer base and vastly increase the value of the digital assets they create every day”.
There’s a heavy focus on the marketing industry with the entire launch. According to Monica Menghini, DS’ executive VP of corporate strategy, industry and marketing, the reasoning behind this is that: “No customer is in the business of just engineering or manufacturing.
“Consumers buy experiences and our customers must connect the dots, from design to sales, to deliver that experience.”
Effectively this drops into the bracket that DS has been fighting for on the consumer product sales side of things – the fashion industry moves, augmented reality technology and the point of sale visualisation bits’n’bobs it’s been working on – while still encompassing RTT’s large automotive user base that might also rely on CATIA.
The gaffer Al Dean had this to say on the move: “RTT, alongside its service provision business to some of the biggest names in the automotive industry (and elsewhere), has a set of tools that are increasingly connected to the PLM world. Its release of DeltGen for Teamcenter a couple of years ago indicated the direction that the company was taking.
“Imagine the ability to store not only all of your products’ metadata in a PLM system, all the geometry, all the variants, but also all of the variation of the aesthetic options. Then squirt out high-end visualisations, handle all of the baffling number of options and variants and have it render to be reused wherever.
“For some clients that’s something they want and are currently spending millions achieving. It’s not just auto specific either. Look at the SKUs that a company like Adidas has. They need to be able to visualise and repurpose those assets and do so quickly.
“That’s what Dassault is chasing for it’s high-end clients. And RTT will help.
“As for the marketing slant on the name change? Don’t really care to be honest. The idea that being able to visualise a product before you manufacture it or even complete the design is nothing new. Quite why DS is trying to reinvent it is a bit beyond me.”
It all seems to fit together nicely: regardless of whatever odd marketing babble DS continues to put out, a high-end visualisation solution is only going to make DS’ offerings more tempting as an entire ‘solution’.
Interested in acquisitions?
Read about Ansys’s acquisition of SpaceClaim here
