Ellipsis

Visualization Autodesk Inventor vs. SolidWorks

Oh Yeah! Chicazah...Beau bomp bomp! Ferris Bueller is one of the greatest movies of all time. You may disagree with me on the rest of this post, but Ferris is a classic. 

Topic number three in our Autodesk Inventor vs. Dassault SolidWorks comparison - Visualization. Deelip is doing a head to head comparison with 3D CAD packages and I tried to make the point that he wasn't exactly showing off Inventor in his first video. So I polished his model up a bit, rather than re-hashing what he wrote about it, read it here: Visual Styles in Inventor The comments really speak well of the work that we did with Inventor 2011, but I'm not going to rah, rah it too much more than I already have. 

I'd rather take this post to talk about what makes visualization inside of Inventor different from not only SolidWroks, but many other MCAD applications. I'll be frank here man, before Inventor 2011 the visualization tools inside of Inventor in my opinion were just... eh. Nothing to write home about. Again, just my opinion - many people like it, but after seeing Showcase I knew we could do better.

To make improvements on the visualization side of things we started with a now unified material library. One material library that is used with AutoCAD, Max, Maya, Revit, and Showcase - all the applications that could re-purpose your Digital Prototype for something else. And with the unified material library, the next user down the road won't have to re-apply materials to parts that were already applied from Inventor - super simple, genius. 

Those materials are hot too! I can add the texture of a weld bead to a fillet weld if I so choose. But, those hot materials don't show well if you can't get light to them in the model. We added explicit control to lights, reflections, and even ambient shadows. All of which can be adjusted in real time so you can see the impact of changes without having to wait for a renderer. 

Explicit control wasn't enough. We took it a step further with HDR backgrounds and image based lighting schemes. This allows users to create photo-realistic scenes of their products and see the effect of direct sunlight, florescent lights, or light coming through a window.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part (not really, it's all about the build up) It's all in REAL TIME! Inside the modeling application, not a separate environment, add-on, hokey pokey plug-in that looks like it's designed for graphic artists instead of engineers. Ambient shadows, surface textures, reflections, ground shadows - all without a render! I'm not sure I'm getting this across so watch the video:

Oh, I forgot to mention the multiple visual styles too. Wire frame with ambient shadows? Dude...

Beautiful. Have a great weekend.
-Rob

These Suites are Sweet

You said it a couple of times in your head didn't you, just to see how fast you could say it. These Suites are sweet... These Suites are sweet. Ha! Gotcha. So what has my incredibly short attention span today - The Autodesk Design Suite and the Autodesk Factory Design Suite.

Here's the back story to what's going on here. I just received my new HP EliteBook 8540w. Last week I was loading all the standard software that I use on a regular basis on it, Office, Adobe Premier, Camtasia, Snag-it, and as I was getting ready to grab the volumes of DVD's I was going to need to load up all my Autodesk stuff, it came to me... Our new Suites. Load those bad boys up and save me a little time, right?

So then I got to thinking. Holy crap I just loaded a boatload of software. Let me break it down - The Autodesk Design Suite Advanced Includes:

 

• AutoCAD®
• Autodesk® Alias® Sketch
• Autodesk® Showcase®
  
• Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design
  
• Autodesk® Alias® Design

I know what you are thinking; "man that's like $12,000+ worth of software". Why yes, you are correct - if you buy them individually and who does that anymore these days, honestly. Bundle these bad boys together for $5,995. If my math serves me correctly that's half off!! 1/2, 50%, .50 -  how ever you want to spin it - half.

Remember that SNL skit where the bank would break your $20 bill? We don't care if you want a 10, and two 5's, or four 5's, or a 10 a 5 and five 1's... Hilarious clip that I can't seem to find on YouTube.

Next thought - "Why would I need all those products?" Because everything that these products can do you are doing in one form or another. Using DWG? Um yes of course you are. Want to sketch right on top of your DWG's - why hey we do that manually today. What about associating real curves to those sketches and evolving those sketches to surfaces? Make both high resolution still and animated images for design reviews or marketing collateral? You do all of these things today anyway, and if you don't somebody in your company is using your engineering data to do it. 

Next, my personal favorite is the Autodesk Factory Design Suite Premium. In this little box of goodies you get: 

• AutoCAD® Architecture
• Autodesk® Inventor® Professional
• Autodesk® Factory Design Utilities
• Autodesk® Vault
• Autodesk® Navisworks® Manage

I know you don't want me to but I will. Why all of these products, Rob? Well, I'm glad you asked. Using DWG? Um, yes. Want to layout factory floors in 3D, perform a virtual walk-through, collision detection, use point cloud data, model both new products and access hundreds of standard library components that snap together like magnets, this is the longest run on sentence ever but you get my point about this suite being wicked sweet now right!!

Ran out of breath even typing that, sorry. So what started out to be an insanely easy way for me to install almost everything that I need to fully experience Digital Prototyping at its finest, turned out to be an enlightening "wow, this could really save our customers a lot of money" exercise. 

Now where did I put that Wacom...
-Rob

It's in the Cloud Man

In my last post I questioned whether or not FEA was "above your pay grade". The response was interesting, and oddly enough Deelip Menezes posted a blog about analysis that stoke the fire a bit http://www.deelip.com/?p=2673. Well, poured gasoline on it really...[grin] I love how he gets people all fired up. Here's the excerpt that I think got everyone talking:

"When I say that today’s simulation solutions do not solve users problems I am referring to the fact that these solutions merely report the problem and quantify it, but leave the fixing to be done by the user. For example, take a FEA analysis on a part. A user sets up loads, defines boundary conditions, assigns material properties, etc. and then tells the simulation software to do its thing. The thing that the simulation software actually does is it that it tells the user whether the part will fail or not, where and how it will fail and gives him a host of other data which the user is left to study and decide what to do next. The software does not automatically tweak the geometry of the model for the user and reanalyze for failure and continue to do so till a fail safe design has been reached."

Here's my take for what it's worth. Technology will never (nor should it) take the engineering out of the engineer or designing out of the designer. What it can do is make the engineering process faster and more accurate before you cut the first physical part. Could you physically manufacture as many different configurations of a design as quickly as you can run through all the variations in an optimization analysis? Of course not. So is it worth the time to setup the range of possibilities so that the technology will return to you a list of results and provide input as to the optimum design given the parameters? Yes. Especially when you can run through an incredible amount of variation by tapping into the power of cloud based computing.

That's where the Inventor Optimization Technology Preview from Autodesk LABS comes into play. Parametric optimization that's easy to setup, push to the cloud and pick the lightest configuration that still meets your goals for strength and safety factor. While its up in the cloud doing its thing, you can keep on with other work, making drawings, other parts, surfing the web, Facebooking - you know the important stuff. When it's done, you get a nice email telling you that the analysis is complete. Load up the results and it will tell you which one is the optimized configuration. Couldn't possibly be easier than that. 

Check out the video and let me know what you think.

Happy Friday.
-Rob

Is Simulation Above Your Pay Grade?

Last week I knocked out another live USTREAM show. This one was all about utilizing the simulation tools inside of Autodesk Inventor Professional. So (of course) I killed it - Dynamic Simulation to FEA, to Parametric Optimization. My goal was to demonstrate how Inventor is so much more than a 3D modeling tool. We always talk about Digital Prototyping, but what does it mean to have/do/be a Digital Prototype? What a better example, right?

Then a voice from the grandstands that I've been thinking about all weekend. "FEA is above my pay grade." I know the guy that said it, and I think he was joking - but it made me think. If a power user sees FEA as something that somebody else does or is concerned about, am I talking about what our engineering tools can do for our users in the right way? It's a good question, how can Dynamic Simulation and FEA help our users make better products? What's holding back power users from using the tools? How does a posi-track on a '48 Plymouth work? I don't know, it just does... (movie?)

But seriously, I brought this up about six months ago on a blog - Do you use CAD as a documentation tool or as a design and engineering tool? What I mean is that are you simply modeling a design that has already been worked out, or just moving something from 2D to 3D? Alternatively, as you design are you concerned about the strength, weight, or safety factor and genuinely take that into account while you are modeling? Full of questions today aren't I... Yes, this was the stuff floating around in my head all weekend.

So here was the situation - I had an assembly that somebody had modeled up and I wanted to put this thing in motion. While in motion I wanted to find the peak stresses that were applied to it, then export those into FEA. Within FEA, I wanted to run several different sizes to make sure I'm getting the lightest, and strongest, configuration of the part that I'm applying the force to. This is a process that I see can repeat itself over and over - if I'm updating an existing design or even creating new. Check out the episode:

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

Not so hard is it? So I ask you - Is simulation above your pay grade?

-Rob

Center Point Rectangle Tool

This is what I love about our users. Build a solid platform in which you can allow your users to customize, tweak, and make awesome additions to. That's just what my man Brian Hall did with his Center Point Rectangle (CPR for short) add-in for Autodesk Inventor.

Check out the demo.

So how do you get a hold of this gem? Per his comment on http://www.mcadforums.com -  C# source code will be provided with this add-in as a Visual Studio 2010 Solution when the

July/August issue of "The Creative Inventor" online magazine has been issued. To subscribe
to "The Creative Inventor" online magazine, please go to http://www.teknigroup.com/ and
click on the magazine icon button in the lower left corner.

This magazine is really getting a lot of attention lately and is becoming a really nice resource for Autodesk Inventor users, plus it's free - check it out.

Nice work Brian!
-Rob

Autodesk Factory Design Suite

A more organized person would have blogged about being on vacation for the last 10 days prior to going on vacation. As I'm sure you know by now...that's not me. It was a great time, I did my best to lower the overall volume of wine in Napa and Sonoma. But alas, they continue to make more. And I shall continue my quest, order yours soon.

Whilst I was away we launched our latest product suite. The Autodesk Factory Design Suite. The first time I saw this (yes, I get to see stuff before you - job perk...) I about jumped out of my chair. Back in another life I used to design work cells. It was a brief stint, but long enough to know that 2D factory layouts sucked. I never had the information that needed to fully inform potential customers, installers, and sales guys as to what exactly I was putting into this cell. I wanted to be able to do something like this:

 

So... with my mad Autodesk Inventor skills I thought "Why don't I just do these in 3D?" Genius! I'll make iParts for safety fence, I'll use AutoCAD DWG layouts as a floor template of sorts....but wait - Inventor doesn't really understand what a "floor" is and why should it. Ok, no problem I'll use iMates, model up more library components - a conveyor here, a robot there, a couple of racking units and all set.

Then I thought "Man, wouldn't it be nice if somebody made it so that Inventor knew what a floor was, had a library of components to choose from that knows how to interact with one another, and could read in existing 2D DWG layouts that I could snap to..." And again ehh, ehmm, ehmm, I was ahead of my time [grin].

Enough of how visionary I am and more on how flippin sweet the Autodesk Factory Design Suite is. We've put together an amazing set of tools into this suite.

• Autodesk Inventor
• Autodesk AutoCAD Architecture
• Autodesk Navisworks Simulate
• Autodesk Vault
• and the Autodesk Factory Design Utilities 

Check out my latest commercial here. I blew my zero dollar budget again by hiring a few high priced free actors, and the camera work is money.

Learn more about the Autodesk Factory Design Suite by visiting the Factory Design Suite page.

-Rob 

Here Comes the Sun

Doo unt dew dew... This week Jay Tedeschi, Dan Brown, Seth Hindman, and myself are headed down to San Jose, CA for an extremely unique opportunity to do our part in shaping the future of solar energy. 

The Rocky Mountain Institute and partners Delta/DelSolar, the DOE, Rio Tinto, National Postcode Lottery, and Fred and Alice Stanback are hosting a design charrette June 22-24 in San Jose, Calif., to rethink and re-design the installation processes for large-scale commercial/utility rooftop and ground-mounted PV systems. 

Autodesk has been invited to help facilitate the break out design sessions and capture the design in real time, while decisions are being made. The intention is to allow the participants to visualize the designs, sparking new ideas for manufacturing, installation, tracking, and mounting design alternatives. I personally can't think of a better, and more important application of our Digital Prototyping technology. I'll be reporting from the event all week as will Jay. So be sure to follow us on twitter @robcohee and @ProphetPVD.

Read more about the event from RMI's blog here: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/06/17/getting-solar-power-sidelines-and-game

Hope the weather is nice in San Jose. Portland is getting pretty dreary.

-Rob

USTREAM Test was a Success!

That was a riot! Despite the (expected) technical difficulties I had at the outset, I recovered nicely and the show was a hit with the folks that logged in. Thanks those of you that logged in, very much appreciated and as always you had fantastic questions that made the whole show that much better.

I want to keep doing these and hopefully with your help, we'll grow the live audience and expand on the topics through your requests. The nice thing about the event was that I was able to record it and share with y'all. Just a heads up I was having some technical difficulty at the outset so feel free to fast forward to about the 4:30 mark. Let me know what you think.

Some great tips in the show for general knowledge, sheet metal, frame generator, and drawing tips. Thanks for checking it out and thanks in advance for your feedback. Check out what the other side of the camera looked like....every port on my machine was full!

Have a great weekend everyone! 

-Rob

iLogic Post Comments

Hey guys. Getting some great comments on the iLogic post from last week. I'd like to address them, but require a little more functionality than I can do in a comment so here it goes:

Thanks for your great tip!
Can I get Inventor to add "mass" & save date" information always on save to custom field, so that i can insert that field on drawing?

Posted by: Samu Wihlman | 06/09/2010 at 10:14 AM

Samu,

1. Create custom iproperties (Mass, Date, Last Saved Time) in your part or part template document and insert the code shown below into a rule named “Update Mass and Date”

iProperties.Value("Custom", "Mass") = Round(iProperties.Mass,3) & " lbs"

iProperties.Value("Custom", "Date") = DateString

iProperties.Value("Custom", "Last Saved Time") = TimeString

 2. Use the iLogic Event Trigger to fire this rule on the “Before Save Document” event

3. You can now map your drawing iproperties as you like to the properties in the part file (download example part here) Download Mass and Date to Custom iProperties on Save

Notes:

• Mass rounding (as I have done with the Round function) and the inclusion of a units prefix on the value are optional
• There are various and sundry ways to format the date and time but I thought the KISS approach was appropriate in this case.
• This rule can be stored as an external if you prefer and fired using the same trigger (the rule will show up in the External rules list when assigning to the Before Save event.
• This is so easy even Rob Cohee can do it.

Sounds like a Geico commercial...

-Rob

LIVE Streaming Video - Inventor Tips & Tricks

Oh the toys I get to play with... A while back I started messing with USTREAM. It took a while for the software to catch up with the technology, but finally I'm able to broadcast LIVE my own show. This isn't a GoToMeeting (which is cool in its own right) - this is like my own broadcasting company, instant access to millions (hundreds) of my fans around the world! Ha, right - like I have fans... 

But seriously, if you have 30 min this Friday June 18th at 10:00 am PST to log into my first ever LIVE streaming show, were going to run through some tips and tricks and general knowledge discussion regarding 3D design. 

Now, here's how this is different - live video, Twitter, and Facebook feeds. Live chat as well and I'll be streaming to you in HD. I'm at a loss for words (rare for me btw), as to how flippin cool this is and the potential this may have for reaching you guys and addressing many of the questions I'm getting on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and of course the Manufacturing Community.

Hopefully this thing takes off and I'll bring in a customer or two, developers, product manager - whomever you'd like to hear from if I get enough feedback and requests from y'all.

So as you can tell, I'm pretty stoked about this. If you have any request for topics to cover in this first broadcast, add them to the comments and I'll do what I can to address them during Friday's broadcast.

Click here http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rob-live-and-unscripted and select the RSVP so I know all 10 of you that are going to show up [grin]

-Rob