CADalyst articles from February 2005

CADalyst archives from February 2005

Cadalyst.com online.
February 1, 2005... Cadalyst.com is the home for product-specific tutorial columns, including favorites like Hot Tip Harry, Lynn Allen's Circles and Lines, Bill Fane's Learning Curve and Steve Johnson's Bug Watch. Check out our updated Web site at...

To BIM or not to BIM?(Event report: technology for construction)(business information management)
February 1, 2005... That was the question set to a panel of vendors and end users at the first-ever Technology for Construction Executive Forum (January 17-21, Las Vegas). As you'd expect, the representatives from Autodesk, Bentley and Graphisoft were bullish on...

UGS strengthens manufacturing lineup with Tecnomatix acquisition.(CAD Central)
February 1, 2005... CAD/PLM vendor UGS (www.ugs.com) acquired Tecnomatix Technologies to expand its manufacturing offerings and enable it to offer an end-to-end PLM solution. Tecnomatix develops the eMPower line of software for MPM (manufacturing process...

U3D format debuts in Acrobat 7.(CAD Central)
February 1, 2005... As soon as Adobe's new Acrobat Professional and Reader shipped, Right Hemisphere revealed that its Deep View technology is behind those programs' ability to display embedded 3D files that are in U3D format. That's quite the coup for Right...

Outer limits: design for the deep sea and beyond.(Tech Trends)(Schilling Robotics )
February 1, 2005... As the United States continues to deplete its land resources for oil, the search for this precious commodity has moved from shallow-water offshore platforms in places such as the Gulf of Mexico to deeper waters and more remote locations in...

LCDs: are they ready to replace CRTs?(Cadalyst labs review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 1, 2005... THESE DAYS AN OVERWHELMING NUMBER of flat-panel LCD monitors are available, with each vendor offering multiple models. Though costs have dropped somewhat, they are not yet so low that these sophisticated displays are flying off vendors'...

ArchiCAD 9: 3D for architects: building modeler delivers drawings with easy to use modeling tools.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 1, 2005... ArchiCAD 9 arrived with what at first I thought were minor improvements. But they add up to quite a lot, especially for 3D work, visualization, and working on a laptop with a cramped screen (figure 1). The latter situation may occur often now...

Xi 4000+ MTower 64-SLI: dual PCI Express workstation.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 1, 2005... WE RECENTLY NEEDED to test two new PCI Express graphics cards, the Quadro FX 4400 from NVIDIA and the ATI FireGL V7100, so @Xi Computer sent us a prototype of its Xi 4000+ MTower 64-SLI system to use. The Xi 4000+ MTower 64-SLI is a dual PCI...

ATI fireGL v7100: PCI Express graphics card.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 1, 2005... THE ATI FIREGL V7100 is the most powerful offering in ATI's Visualization series of PCI Express graphics cards, but its performance places it in the midrange of workstation graphics cards. Announced in June 2004, V7100 cards just recently...

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4400: high-end PCI Express graphics card.(Product/Service Evaluation)
February 1, 2005... THE NVIDIA QUADRO FX 4400, a new high-end PCI Express graphics board for workstations, is ideal for CAD and digital content creation applications. The FX 4400 was announced in August 2004 and the card is just now reaching reviewers and should...

Get approved: use ROI methods to bolster your budget.(CAD Manager)
February 1, 2005... SOONER OR LATER every CAD manager has to submit a budget. One of the most common complaints I hear from CAD managers is that when they do, they have a hard time getting it approved by management. Like it or not, you must be able to set...

PTC's answer for PLM: Windchill offers a roadmap to product lifecycle management success.(product lifecycle management strategies)
February 1, 2005... LAST MONTH IN OUR inaugural product lifecycle management column, we looked at the origin of PLM and explored a number of developer perspectives on PLM. This month we narrow our focus to examine PTC (www.ptc.com) and its expansive PLM efforts....

Software strategy: CAD options for AEC: low-cost software targets residential design.(AEC From The Ground Up)(Buyers Guide)
February 1, 2005... LAST MONTH'S COLUMN (http://aec.cadalyst.com/105 aec.htm) discussed the major BIM (building information modeling) software packages in the AEC arena. This month we focus on a range of other CAD products for AEC design. Many of these products...

Software strategy: online maps: programs serve up geospatial data through Web browsers.(Spatial Technologies)
February 1, 2005... THE EMERGENCE OF WEB GIS has greatly changed the way we access mapping information. The Web is becoming a portal for GIS functionality and data distribution, primarily because it's the most cost-effective way to reach a broad audience and give...

Reincarnation.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(AEC Science and Technology conference and exhibition)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Now that the old A/E/C SYSTEMS trade show has been entirely absorbed into Technology for Construction, a new AEC-oriented event has popped up on the calendar. Scheduled for June 20-23 in Orlando, Florida, the AEC Science and Technology...

Ten years and counting.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(International Alliance for Interoperability)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... It was in fact at an A/E/C SYSTEMS show that the IAI (International Alliance for Interoperability) was launched 10 years ago, with the lofty goal of developing an open architecture to facilitate data exchange throughout a building's lifecycle....

Adoption rate.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(Autodesk's Revit)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Autodesk announced that adoption of Revit, its building information modeler, quadrupled among commercial customers in the past year. But, actual numbers were not released.

Have you received, or do you expect to receive, a pay raise for 2005?(Quick poll)
February 1, 2005... QUICK POLL Have you received, or do you expect to receive, a pay raise for 2005? Yes, more than 10% (38) 9% Yes, between 5-10% (31) 7% Yes, between 3-5% (129) 31% Yes, less than 3% (88) 21% No ...

Intellectual property gets you only so far.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Alibre has patented its methods for 3D mechanical design over a distributed network such as the Internet. Its patent covers three components--the client user interface, application servers and database servers--that allow designers to share and...

On the other hand.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(Intergraph continues to cash in on its Clipper patents)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Speaking of patents, Intergraph continues to cash in on its Clipper patents, the last vestige of its computer workstation business. It settled with HP for a lump payment of $141 million. That brings Intergraph's tally from patent enforcements...

IntelliFIX.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(IntelliCAD Technology Consortium)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... To its credit, after numerous bug reports, the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium promptly issued a point-version patch for the recently released IntelliCAD 5.0 and also listed the 18 critical bugs that it fixed.

Give a little, get a little.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(negotiations and mediations)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Analysis software developer MSC.Software settled its squabble with shareholder ValueAct Capital by expanding its board of directors to include a ValueAct representative. Former SDRC chair William Weyand also joins the board. In return, ValueAct...

Too-hot design.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(Digital Practice )(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... A portion of the Disney Concert Hall, a showpiece for Gehry Associates' Digital Practice CATIA-based architectural software, has been blinding motorists with reflected glare, prompting plans to sandblast the offending stainless steel sheets....

PTC profits perk up.(CADfidential: behind the scenes)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Stronger sales of Pro/ENGINEER, particularly the entry-level version for small- and midsize businesses, helped boost PTC revenue for its first quarter to $169.2 million, up 8% from the same quarter last year.

Numbers game: don't cut corners when building support for your proposals.(Editor's Window)(Editorial)
February 1, 2005... WE ALL PLAY THE NUMBERS GAME, whether it's called ROI calculation or projecting quarterly expenses or tracking time spent on various projects or whatever else your boss wants you to calculate this week. It's a basic business tenet: quantify,...