Ellipsis

More Hardware Spec Goodness

Who ever came up with the term "lo and behold"? Yes I spelled lo correctly, I looked it up through the power of the internet. But lo and behold, people are reading this little blog of ours, and it was good.

Yesterday I posted a blog about the specs on my Dell Precision M6400 and I received a few comments - yeah! One was talking about my machine catching fire, while the other brought up a very good point - Why do I need a "CAD" video card? Things that make you go... uhhh, dunno - because that's what they tell me to use...? Now I always knew that there was a difference between workstation class video cards and gaming cards beyond just the price difference, but to me its like saying there is a difference between an Audi A4 and my wife's Passat. Yes, there is a difference - but what exactly? Hey, the Passat is less expensive and gets me where I want to go - so what specifically am I getting with the additional 20K? A performance transmission that I'll never take advantage of?

I honestly see the point of the question. So yesterday I threw that question to the hardware geniuses downstairs to see what they had to say about Graphics cards. Here was the response: 

There are several key aspects to a specifying a good system for use with Inventor.  The general characteristics in priority order are:

1. 64 bit OS 
2. System RAM 
3. Hard Disk speed and size 
4. CPU power 
5. Graphics HW 
   

The first one is essential; any purchase of a new system to be used with Inventor should be made with a 64 bit OS; e.g. Windows 7 64 bit is the current Microsoft OS version and is highly recommended.  Then, the next priority is having a large amount of System RAM to use; e.g. the 12 GB specified is a good number but don’t hesitate to go for more System RAM at the expense of the other following items in the list. 

The 80 GB hard drive is on the small side given that hard disks are typically not that expensive these days.  I would suggest possibly getting a larger or another disk drive in addition.  It is amazing how much disk space can be consumed by not only Inventor but all the other applications and data you might decide to have available.  I suggest getting a 300 GB hard disk. 

The last two are the places where you might decide to save some money and spend it on the System RAM and Hard Disk instead.  Essentially, the CPU is typically not the limiting factor on the same level as the System RAM and Hard Disk.  Regarding Graphics HW, the Radeon HD 5850 with 1 GB of video RAM is a very good card.  There are essentially two reasons to use a much more expensive “workstation” card: 

1. You desire to have larger amounts of video RAM available than a “consumer” card might offer so your graphics performance can be enhanced by caching unchanging geometry data on the graphics HW using the video RAM.  This is determined by your workflows and size of assembly files you work with. 
2. You want the ability to update your graphics driver quickly if some problem specific to Inventor arises.  The graphics HW vendors will fix and update their “workstation” graphics HW drivers on a much more frequent basis for applications such as Inventor compared to “consumer” or “game” HW where the driving force is game use.  That said, Inventor uses standard DirectX functionality similar to that used by games so there is little if any “workstation” specific capabilities in DirectX that Inventor might rely on using.

So there you go. More cannon fodder. I was even a bit surprised by the response and even his suggested order of importance when it comes to hardware. Because I've used crappy video cards in the past and I have seen a difference. What I didn't take into account was the changes in software - OpenGL vs. DirectX. Looks like another blog post there...?

-Rob

Road Trip Anyone?

I posed a question last week on Twitter (www.twitter.com/robcohee) Do you use technology to solve design problems, or do you use technology to document your design after you’ve solve the problem by other means? I was surprised at the results. Many people said that CAD is a documentation tool for them and it helps them solve design challenges in some situations….? I think this helped me in thinking about Inventor and other CAD related tools out there and how I go about describing Inventor to designers.

It’s very topical because I’ve been asked a lot lately about my take on what is the difference between Inventor and SolidWorks, or Pro/E, etc. And I think it boils down to how you look at and use technology. If you use CAD as a 3D modeler then sure, I’ll contend that it’s hard to distinguish between Inventor, Works, or E. They all have the same buttons, located in different places (or different menus for you Pro users…) but all in all in one form or another I’m sure we can each model up each other’s designs with varying numbers of features, and oh yeah, clicks.

(Funny side note: I had to do a couple of demos where the company assigned a guy to count my clicks and another guy was timing me. Seriously. BTW, I won and we got the deal - but I never understood that way of evaluating software, you weren't buying me...)

And save your “I bet you can’t model up this part” stump the chump bit – trust me I’ve heard it, seen it, done it and rarely am I stumped. That isn’t the point of this discussion. I’m genuinely interested in learning if designers use the technology tools at their disposal to actually solve design challenges. This is where I think the biggest difference between Inventor and Works, E, etc. lies – in Inventor’s ability to solve a design challenge and create the geometry based upon the input given. So I want to see your designs that you could not have done without technology. The designs that made your product stronger, lighter, more environmentally responsible, unique, and helped you differentiate your product from your competition.

Jay Tedeschi (www.twitter.com/ProphetPVD) has a great analogy about blogging; he says it’s like talking in your car to yourself, not sure if anyone is really listening or not. SO, I want to find out who is listening and who is willing to give us a little show and tell. I want to come out to see what you are doing, bring my camera along and lets show off your mad skills that are helping your company survive this downturn, or that are distinguishing your product over your competition.

(Golf) Bags are packed. Who’s first?

-Rob

Motion Control...

It is not often that you find me singing the praises of a peripheral… but this is not just any peripheral. Most power users are already well aware of the value of the motion control devices sold by 3dConnexion. I myself have been using them and their predecessors since the original Spaceball way back in 1990. There is simply no keyboard or mouse based alternative to the smooth transitional movement between pans, zooms and rotations that can be achieved with these input devices. Well, there is a new addition to the 3DConnexion family and I have been lucky enough to have been using it now for the last couple of weeks. Behold the SpaceNavigator for Notebooks.

 

 

 

Here it is next to it’s bigger brother, the original SpaceNavigator. Now, I know quite a few of us road warriors who had faithfully lugged around the original ‘Navigator for quite some time simply because it was an example of almost perfect simplicity. It was heavy enough to resist moving around on the desk, and had only two buttons… again… simplicity. Well, its new sibling is absolutely beautiful, with the same functional characteristics and the same feel in a much smaller package. It is almost half an inch smaller in diameter and height, and somehow they managed to cut the weight in half. Now I know I just said that the additional weight of the original ‘Navigator was desirable, however carrying it around was not. The new model has a really nice “sticky” rubber base that gives it a feeling of being almost adhered to whatever surface you are working with it on.

 

 

 

I know, most of you gadget lovers think you want more buttons, but how often do you actually use them if you have them? I myself had the SpaceTraveler prior to the ‘Navigator, and while it had eight buttons around the circumference of the device, they were somewhat difficult to locate by touch, so myself and many others ended up programming them in pairs, which brought the button count down to 4. And if I stop and think about the ones I used more often than anything else, the count dropped to 2… one to perform a zoom fit, and the other to turn off rotations. Yep… turn off rotations. Why would I want to do that?

 

Well, if you think about it, a fair amount of time in any modeling product these days is spent sketching, and for most of us that means working in a 2d planar view normal to the sketch plane. Suppressing device rotations allows us to continue using the ‘Navigator for panning and zooming, but will prevent us from rotating out of the plane of the sketch view. When you’re done sketching, hit the button and you are back to normal 6 axis motion control.

Well, that’s it for today… I hope this was informative.  And for those of you already using one of these devices you got a good usability tip out of the column. Hope everyone has a great weekend and I will see you here again next week. Don’t forget to drop me some comments if you like what you read.

 

3D Connexion: hands on report

During AU, 3D connexion, announced new devices and lower prices.

I have been using the SpaceExplorer since AU and it is the best device i have used from the company ever. I travel with a SpaceTravel. Check out the new products and prices here.

"SpaceExplorer is the hands-down winner when it comes to mid-priced 3D navigation devices for design professionals. SpaceExplorer can be used by either hand comfortably and features an array of easy-to-reach function keys labeled and pre-programmed with commands from leading design applications."

New HP Laptop - nw9440

Read the Cadalyst review - ased on an Intel Core Duo Processor T2600 (2.16GHz), the nw9440 mobile workstation as tested included 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM, out of a possible 4GB when fully populated with memory. The system also incorporated an 80GB 7,200RPM hard drive and an NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500M graphics controller with 256MB of GDDR3 video memory. This was Cadalyst's the first opportunity to test a Quadro FX 1500M.

Intel Core 2 Duo: Woodcrest

MCAD Magazine has a good review of Intel's latest processor. Check it out here.

AMD to buy ATI

Read more here.

Update - Link fixed.

FAQ on x64

Microsoft has a good selection of resources on x64. I get frequent questions about x64 and, now, with Invetor 11 supporting 4gb of memory if run on Windows xp pro 64-bit eddition the questions keep rolling in.

check out the faq here.

Dell M90 announced

Laptop lust - follow up

HP has a nice laptop too. It is the HP nx9420. I often am asked about good laptops. the IBM/Lenovo t60p looks nice, and I should have one soon to report back how well Inventor runs on it, but I thought this HP looks good to.



Read more at HP's web site here.