The CAD Insider

Thinkbox Sequoia May be Fastest Processor of Big Point Clouds

by Ralph Grabowski, Sr Editor, TenLinks 

reprinted from WorldCAD Access

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (SIGGRAPH) -- I had a preview of Thinkbox's point cloud processing software last year at SIGGRAPH; this year it is announced, and next year it ships. Thinkbox wants to be the biggest, fastest processor of point cloud data for the CAD industry, and they spent a whole year talking to people who work with such data, before starting to program. Which means the software has some pretty nice functions

The Sequoia engine is based on their particle physics code that generates artificial water, clouds, sand, and other effects for movies and games. Nevertheless, they claim that Sequoia is capable of the following:

• Processes up to 180 million points; the demo I saw used 174 million
• Asynchronous processing, so that the first million points are displayed while the other 173 million are still being loaded in the background
• Fully multi-threaded to smoothly pan-zoom-rotate, even while points are loading
• Display only sufficient points to fill the current view
• Through multi-document support, loads other point cloud files in additional, independent windows
• Takes dead-easy snapshots to create a list of saved viewpoints
• Uses the snapshots as key frames to generate animations effortlessly
• Caches all previous states for super fast displaying, including in other windows

The points can be meshed; colors are captured, if recorded; 360-degree photos can be applied as textures. ThinkBox is working on mesh editing so that 3D printing is more reliable (like thickening walls, closing holes).

While they had a computer the size of large suitcase powering the demo, they claim the software runs on portable devices, like Microsoft's Surface Pro tablet. The number of points that can be handled is greatly reduced, of course, like down to 50 million, and processing is slower.

For more information

www.thinkboxsoftware.com/news/2014/8/11/thinkbox-software-reveals-sequoia-at-siggraph-2014.html

Pufferfish Spherical Display

by Ralph Grabowski, Sr Editor, TenLinks 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (SIGGRAPH) - Pufferfish is an interactive 3D viewer that looks like a fortune teller's crystal ball. It consists of a sphere about 1.5 feet in diameter that sits on a mammoth computer case. Its surface is touch sensitive; projectors inside the sphere project 3D images; infra-red sensors (made by Viecon) are mounted high on walls and sense motion; and you wear Viecon's 3D glasses with small white balls that the sensors track.

You put on the polarizing glasses to see the model in 3D; nothing new there. As you touch the surface, however, you manipulate the 3D model (rotating and zooming it). As you walk around the sphere, the model rotates with you. A larger version is available as an inflatable ball. The multi-user version dispenses with the touch interface; users wear the goggles and walk around the sphere. The system needed two computers (or was it three?) to generate the imagery and control the cameras.

www.pufferfishdisplays.co.uk/products

Lenovo P900 - Beautiful on the Inside

VANCOUVER, British Columbia  - Lenovo was letting the press peek under the covers off their top of the line P900 workstation at SIGGRAPH. Recently introduced as part of the new ThinkStation P Series (see press release), it won't be ready to ship until October.

But I already want one.

Engineers, those lucky enough to get a P900, will appreciate the engineering that has gone into the internals workings. While Lenovo offers multiple drive bays, up to 3  high-end NVIDIA graphics cards, support for 3 monitors, Intel Xeon processors and DDR4 memory, even 8 USB 3.0 ports...and a host of other advantages over ordinary PCs, what really sets the P900 apart from other workstations is its innovative air flow management. Whereas ordinary computers may rely on one fan to suck air from the front, with the heat dissipation off the hot zones a hit of miss affair, the P9000 has a "big ass" fan on one side and 2 smaller fans on the other, an effective push-pull arrangement. In between, there is a carefully designed plenum with channels airflow from and over hot spots.

 

Robert Herman, whose business card declares him a "distinguished designer," is so proud of the plenum that he chose to commemorate the opening launch party with an ice sculpture of its shape and a "P900" punch that cooled itself as it flowed through it. I expect the working model will have no such feature.

Rob Herman of Lenovo demonstrates the cooling effect of the ThinkStation P900 baffle

"Won't that fan be noisy?" I say pointing to what has just been referred to as a "big ass" fan. A large fan will actually run quieter, says Rob without so much as a I-thought-you-were-an-engineer look lets me know that a larger fan can draw the same amount of air at a lower speed. That means less noise.

Also proudly shown was the extent Lenovo has gone tool-less. Red markings and indents over components show where to press and and obliging drives, fans, boards, power supplies -- even the motherboard -- pop right out. 

For more information, see Lenovo's product page: https://www.thinkworkstations.com/

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From Their Cold, Dead Hands: How to Pry Users from their CAE Programs

From Their Cold, Dead Hands: How to Pry Users from their CAE Programs

LAKE OSWEGO, OR - Autodesk’s NEi Nastran acquisition gives the company instant credibility in the CAE (computer aided engineering) community. No longer can CAE users dismiss Autodesk as that pretentious CAD company that did little more than assemble a rag-tag collection of little-known analysis applications.

Nastran is serious CAE. It's what the big boys use. It puts planes in the sky and cars on race tracks. I'm not sure I would have boarded the Boeing 737 on which I am writing this had I know Algor¹ was used in its analysis.

Nastran NEi used for Cessna. From NEi website.

But now the acquisition of NEi Nastran changes the game. Your PhD friends will not laugh at you for using Autodesk software. You can just tell them "It's Nastran, dammit!"

CAE applications garner loyalty beyond that of CAD users, owing to the fact that CAE applications take much longer to learn, are harder to use, require higher educational qualifications, and cost a lot more money. These factors combine to create an atmosphere of exclusivity and clubby camaraderie. No serious CAE user is going to switch CAE programs without a fight just to save a few bucks.

Autodesk admits it will not be able to pry current CAE, except from "cold dead hands," but also shows no panic at the prospect. Autodesk can afford to be patient, and wait, because CAE is not their core business. They can sell their CAE products all around the entrenched CAE users and to CAD users. But the lower price, when coupled a deep and protracted commitment to the market, can't help but over time erode the hold of CAE companies of even their most stalwart supporters.

Commitment is really is the key; that low initial cost of the software is secondary. Autodesk has not yet shown it can support CAE users in the manner to which they hard core analysts are accustomed. Will users be able to pick up the phone and get a reseller who has a PhD in mechanics and so can tell users when to use Von Mises failure theory -- from years of experience? Both ANSYS and MSC provide this level of support.

Should you have been paying attention in your Mechanics of Material classes, you may not need support for basic questions, but how many would you build the next Boeing aircraft without an advanced level of backup?

Can Autodesk fly his plane? David Weinberg, founder of NEi Nastran, and Lt Colonel, Aircraft Commander at USAFR. From LinkedIn.

CAE companies instilled and maintained a culture that worships theory, academics with advanced degrees, deep knowledge, years of experience, cultivation of engineering judgment ... qualities that narrow the field of prospective support personnel. CAD companies, on the other hand, set the opposite tone: ease of use, democratization, ... everything that CAE is not.

As the products of CAD companies and CAE companies converge (see ANSYS Acquires SpaceClaim...), note that eventual success depends not only on product portfolios or the pricing (no matter how low they go), but on something that is much harder to establish: credibility, built on trust.

Market leaders establish trust after providing years of excellent service and great products. And so if indeed an analyst can nail that new composite tailfin panel analysis, if he or she really can do it in less time, or can run it from an iPad, if I can be cool and still hold my head up among my peers, or we can be sure the application has already kept planes in the air... yeah, then, maybe we will try it.

See Also

Autodesk Nastran - Autodesk product page

---

Footnote

1. Algor was a midrange analysis program purchased by Autodesk in 2009. Although a general purpose solver, it never achieved the status of Nastran or ANSYS. It is currently called Autodesk Simulation.

Autodesk Flow Design the Easiest CFD Program Ever

At an Autodesk press event for another purpose (see Autodesk Buys..NEi Nastran...), it was Flow Design that stole the show.

CFD has never been so easy. Watch airflow separation increase with speed over the back of a Porche in this YouTube video of Project Falcon, now available as Audodesk Flow Design.

Announced last January with little fanfare (Flow was mentioned in an Autodesk blog post in January, and then picked up the same day in TenLinks Daily), there never an official press release, no phone calls or webinars for the media. Even Autodesk's own product site does not do it justice. Just another Autodesk Labs product done good.

The existence of a bona fide CFD (computer fluid dynamics) program for wind-tunnel simulation -- push-button easy and available at a rock-bottom price -- dropped like a bomb in the room of industry analysts and journalists. Our existence depends on knowing everything, but, well, we got caught flat-footed. A possible game changer, and we missed it!

How Much?

The fact that it is available for a steal, $210 a year, was by itself a shocker. One industry analyst remarked that a low price reflects badly on the product. After all, a competitor’s product sells for $80,000. At 0.25% of the price, no one was going to take Flow seriously.

History

Based on CFD technology from the Blue Ridge Numerics acquisition, Autodesk’s easy flow simulation was first shown at Autodesk Labs under the name of Project Falcon, back in September, 2012. Today, Autodesk demonstrates the technology in its Gallery on San Francisco's Market Street. There you stand in front of a Xbox Kinect scanner, push a button, and in a few seconds, it shows you your 2D profile with colored streamlines moving over it -- for what that's worth.

A little more useful demo was when they had a bicycle where you could hone your aero tuck. (See this YouTube video.) Most of a bike rider’s energy on level ground is spent overcoming air resistance.

One Trick Pony

But I digress. Did I remember to say it takes only seconds to solve problems? 

More importantly, it takes no time to set up. Flow takes shapes from a variety of objects, photographs, drawings, scans. If you are used to constructing a mesh of volume elements painstakingly, you now have a lot more time on your hands; with the speed and simplicity of Flow, you might consider a hobby -- or retirement, because you might be out of a job.

Oops: I got a bit carried away. Flow is not a full-fledged CFD code. It handles only wind tunnels. And it makes a lot of assumptions. While air speed can be adjusted, an arbitrary speed is assigned initially.

But supersonic flow? Careful boundary layer planning? I don't think so. Coupled heat transfer? Combustion? Nope. I guess some of you CFD eggheads can keep your jobs.

Get Ready to Justify Your CFD Program

But if you just got your boss to sign a purchase order for a new multiuser license for Fluent, Exa, COMSOL, and the like for who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars or Euros, you better have some pretty good answers as to just how is your favorite software so much better as he shows you what he can do on with Flow on his laptop. 

Not Just for Planes and Autos

 
How would a new structure affect wind patterns in London's financial district? Even architects can now use CFD to find out.

The simulation group at Autodesk is keen on making Flow Design available not just to traditional users (mainly in aerospace and automotive) but also to other industries that Autodesk serves. Architects, not typically CFD users, and certainly not mandated to use high-end simulation software in school or in practice, would now be able to easily run air flow studies, such as the effect of wind around a new high rise.

See Also

Project Falcon Graduates from Autodesk Labs to Autodesk Flow Design - announcement that Flow was now a commercial Autodesk product, Scott Sheppard, It's Alive in the Lab, Jan 15, 2014

Flow Design - Autodesk product site

 

Autodesk Buys Instant CAE Credibility with NEi Nastran Acquisition

LAKE OSWEGO, OR -  Autodesk made it quite clear this week they are serious about simulation. At a small press event, they revealed Nastran-based products. See news release. One is a standalone FEA (finite element analysis} solver, called Autodesk Nastran. The other is in-CAD, which will work inside Inventor and in SOLIDWORKS. 

How Not to Handle a Leak

The products are a result of Autodesk's acquisition of NEi Software. It would have been news delivered with a thunderclap -- if it had not already leaked months in mid-May. It seems NEi customers and resellers mentioned "certain assets" of NEi being acquired by Autodesk. Further reports mentioned Autodesk obtaining NEi Nastran code but nothing else. Since the news was out, Autodesk did post about they would be incorporating NEi code but said nothing about other NEi assets. The fate of NEi Software, the company, was unclear.

Oh, Yeah. We Bought NEi

And so it was on an uncharacteristically hot day (90 degrees in Portland!) Autodesk assembled a half-dozen simulation-savvy but befuddled analysts and journalists to its Lake Oswego offices for the official announcement. Autodesk had indeed purchased the entire company.

The acquisition cost was not revealed. NEi employees (numbering in "double digits") are now Autodesk employees. NEi will continue to operate in their Westminster, California offices -- not far from archrival MSC Software. NEi Software founder CEO David Weinberg was not seen at the media event, although I was told he is still with the group, and was very active during the four months it took to create in-CAD for Inventor.

We Told You We Were Serious

More importantly, Autodesk enters the big leagues of CAE, such is the cachet of Nastran. With the acquisition of NEi comes customers of high-end FEA software, something Autodesk may had trouble acquiring on its own. NEi uses a hybrid direct/reseller sales network, which Autodesk will take over.

(Nastran is one of the classic FEA solvers, in use by every major aerospace firm, big auto, big enterprise -- and those who wish they were. Originally developed as a NASA project, it was picked up by a number of private companies and made commercial. MSC Software is currently the leading incarnation of Nastran with MSC.Nastran, both in terms of market share and robustness. NEi may be in the top five.)

Why NEi?

Though a general purpose solver, NEi has tried to build a reputation for composite material analysis for aerospace (ridiculously more complicated to analyze than homogenous isotropic materials, such as metals) and non-linear analysis (a specialized area in which materials get weird like with viscoelastic materials such as rubber and certain plastics, or even ordinary materials when taken to extremes in temperature or load.)

Autodesk assured the skeptics among us that it will continue to support and develop in-CAD for SOLIDWORKS, which was previously named NEiWorks. Autodesk Nastran products will sell for "around $10K."

See Also

Autodesk in the Big Leagues with Nastran - Monica Schnitger, Aug 12, 2014

Autodesk Releases Official Statement about NEi Nastran Purchase - John Evans, Design & Motion, Aug 13, 2014

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