Autodesk Wants to Change the Way We Design

SAN FRANCISCO (Autodesk Press Event) - We're doing it all wrong! Even users of the latest greatest 3D design tools are working harder than we need to. So says Andrew Anagnost, Autodesk's wild-eyed visionary, who is expounding the wonders of "functional design" at today's press event in San Francisco.

"What's wrong with 3D modeling?" he asks. I don't take the bait. "Russian programmers," he offers. Hmm, I wasn't ready for that.

We have been, more or less, victimized by Russian programmers, the brains behind Pro/ENGINEER, the product that singe handedly transformed 3D design in the 80's and whose parametric design software has inspired the current crop popular MCAD software. I think he means Russian programmers have taken the wonderfully creative process of design and mired it into a world of constraints. Autodesk's Inventor aims to distance itself from the rest by introducing this concept of "functional design."

Is it more than a marketing buzzword? Stay tuned, we'll find out...

Comments

[Kent Elrod]

It is a bit of an urban legend concerning the NASA pens and the Russian pencils. A private company developed the anti-gravity pen and sold them to NASA and the Russians. Prior to that the Russians used grease pencils.

[John Burrill]

I know it's a marketing gimmick, but suggesting that Russians don't know how to make things work, requires I bring up the story NASA's pen that would write in microgravity at tremendous cost in deveopment and design time and the cosmonauts using pencils. If Autodesk doesn't have a few Russian PHD's in their ranks, it's to the detriment of their software.

[Geoff Briggs]

Isn't ProE from PTC and isn't it PTC expats that created Revit, now the darling of Autodesk? I wonder how many of these evil Russians work at the factory.

[Evan Yares]

The main development team for DWGdirect (from the Open Design Alliance) consists of Russian programmers. Impressively talented ones too.

I know of several other companies (both US and international) with very innovative products that employ many Russian programmers. (I can't say the names of the companies, because of confidentiality agreements.)

One Russian company I can mention mention is Ledas -- because they've done a tremendous amount of foundation-level work to enable the possibility of functional design.

Functional design is more than a marketing buzzword. Unfortunately, I suspect that the term's going to become overused, misused, and marginalized.

While Autodesk may be on its way to functional design with Inventor, they've barely started -- and they're definitely *not* leading the pack.