The CAD Insider: August 2007

Autodesk Finally Gets FEA

Autodesk today announced that it had acquired PlassoTech, a California company that is in the business of creating FEA software. (see Autodesk press release)

Plassotech_2

Autodesk had revealed last Friday that it had secured a $250 million line of credit. I guess we now know why.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

I had long suspected Autodesk would be acquiring CAE technology. All other major MCAD vendors have had FEA technology in house, most for many years. I had speculated on these pages that it would have been ANSYS, however. But since ANSYS has revenue of over $330 millions and is highly profitable, it probably was too expensive of an acquisition.

PlassoTech could have been a good deal. But since it is not as well known as some other FEA vendors, Autodesk will now have to educate potential customers about the PlassoTech technology and convince them that it is at least as capable as technology in better known and trusted products.

PlassoTech first seemed to surface in 1992 with an equity investment Kubota, the Japanese tractor company. It may have acquired some traction (no pun intended) in Japan, enough at least to support one user meeting in Tokyo that attracted "several hundred" users. The first product offering I could find for a worldwide market was in late 2003, when it it introduced 3G Design Simulation/Optimization Suite 2004.

Inventor customers should benefit from having a tighter and more seamless integration to analysis. Autodesk will benefit by offering a higher end Inventor product line that offers varying analysis capability, much like what SolidWorks did after it acquired COSMOS.

PlassoTech seems to have been favoring Autodesk Inventor compatability, judging from press releases it had posted, but also provided standalone FEA and integrated with other MCAD programs such as Pro/ENGINEER, Solid Edge, SolidWorks and CATIA -- products that Autodesk would consider competitive to Inventor.

Certainly, this is not good news for Autodesk 3rd party developers whose FEA products worked with Inventor. They may now be cut off from Autodesk. This includes some big names such as ANSYS and Algor. (full list of Inventor-compatible products on Autodesk site)

Team Autodesk Finishes the MS150

FOREST GROVE, Oregon, August 5, 2007 - Team Autodesk finished the MS150 event with a 73 mile loop through the wonderfully wooded areas north of Forest Grove, Oregon.

There had been talk of doing both available loops (for a total of 90+ miles) but luckily, every one came to their senses by today's 8AM start time and we only did the one 73 mile loop.

Skies were overcast and even showed threat of rain, which luckily did not come. It was quite a contrast to yesterday, when we finished under the hot sun.

Team captain Grant Rochelle amassed the following statistics for the two days of riding:

As a team of 11, we rode 1,525 miles, the equivalent of Portland to Fargo North Dakota
Many of our team rode the maximum 176 miles over two days
Total climbing elevation for two days was 11,807 feet

Thanks to all who have already contributed. Team Autodesk has raised $9,550* total, just a hair short of our $10,000 goal. (Help us reach our goal )

Route and elevation map for the MS150 Day 2 73 mile loop courtesy of Brian Roepke.

Scenes from the Sunday ride:

Riders mill about Al's Gun Shop, scene of rest stop 1. No Starbucks on today's mostly forested 73 mile route.

How green is the valley? It's no wonder the pine tree adorns automobile license plates.

Got your back. Roopinder rides for sufferers of MS, Larry Krebs, Chili Wu and Liz Bucalow.

*total reflects online and offline contributions

Posted at 02:23 PM in Autodesk | Permalink | Comments (1)

Autodesk Cycling Team Closes In On Charity Goal

FOREST GROVE, Oregon, August 4, 2007 - What if you were a world class athlete one day--and a cripple the next? Maureen Manley was racing in the women's version of the Tour de France (betchya didn't know there was one) when suddenly the world went dark. She had lost her sight because of MS. But thanks to advances in medicine, she regained her sight and has overcome the debilitating effects of the disease.

Maureen was on hand to remind us why we were riding the MS150, a two day charity ride held annually near Portland. I am a riding as a guest of Autodesk.

We had just finished our first day, a 104 mile ordeal. Though the weather was perfect and the scenery beautiful, a ride this long is still a suffer-fest. Our team had mechanical difficulties that left one rider stranded. Another rider sickened to the point of vomitting -- but kept going. A succession of steep hills hit us at the 80th mile. Still, the team persevevered. We all knew that no matter how much we were suffering, the people with MS were suffering more.

Please Help

You may not want to ride a hundred miles but you can still make a donation. Doing so will put wings on the feet of our riders, for this and future events. The success of this event will ensure that it is repeated and, hopefully, be copied by other CAD companies.*

The Autodesk team currently stands as the 2nd biggest fund raiser for the MS150, having raised $8,110 at the time of this writing. We are near our goal of $10,000. You can make this happen. You can make donations even after the MS150 rides are over (until September 7th).

Click here to contribute.

Route and elevation map for the MS150 104 mile loop courtesy of Brian.

Team Autodesk Rolls Along

Scenes from our first day.

(click for larger picture) Back, left to right, Brad Goettemoeller, Ed and Katherine Martin, Brian Roepke, Par Svensson, Eamon O’Gorman, Loren Jahraus, Garin Gardiner. Front, Columbine Quillen, Grant Rochelle (captain) and me, Roopinder Tara