CADalyst articles from January 2005

CADalyst archives from January 2005

New year, new look: frequent fine-tuning keeps Cadalyst on target.(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... AS WE HEAD INTO OUR 21ST YEAR of covering all things CAD, we're kicking off the new year with a few changes. Though some may seem drastic--the cover, for example, is the first thing that greets you each month--they simply continue the course...

Intelligent building modeling makes inroads into real-world practice.(Event report: AEC Fabrication Conference)
January 1, 2005... Though intelligent building modeling software is gaining fans, legal barriers prevent many AEC firms from implementing it. The Fabrication Conference, cosponsored by ACADIA (Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture) and AIA...

CAD authority, association leader Joe Greco dies at age 41.(CAD Central)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
January 1, 2005... With great sadness we report that Cadalyst contributing editor Joe Greco died on December 7, 2004. He suffered cardiac arrest on December 2 while on vacation in Hawaii with his wife, photographer Heather Kadar, and Heather's parents. He was 41...

Create, manage, share ...(Event report: Autodesk University 2004)
January 1, 2005... Look around," said Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz to the few thousand attending her keynote address at Autodesk University in Las Vegas. "If God didn't make it, chances are it was made with AutoCAD." Her address led off the high-energy opening...

IT/CAD manager wins $2,000 in Cadalyst's "Where's Harry?" contest.(CAD Central)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Derek Whitfield knows that it pays to keep up with Hot Tip Harry. He was selected the winner of the $2,000 prize in Cadalyst's "Where's Harry?" contest, which ended December 10, 2004. Whitfield is IT manager at Martin & Martin Civil...

Adobe moves to add 3D support to its document publishing tools.(CAD Central)(Adobe Systems Inc.)
January 1, 2005... Adobe Systems has moved quickly to implement support for 3D models in its popular Acrobat PDF publishing tool. Such support is a key element in Adobe's ambitions to become the publishing option of choice for engineering files. The...

Microsoft, Dassault to cooperate on product development.(CAD Central)
January 1, 2005... Dassault Systemes' (www.3ds.com) PLM (product lifecycle management) products may become more appealing to small- and midsized companies after it announced a long-term global strategic alliance with Microsoft (www.micro soft.com). Dassault will...

Rocket science: design secrets of spaceshipone.
January 1, 2005... One hundred and one years ago, a couple of enterprising brothers made two attempts at flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, that changed aviation history forever--in fact, you could say it marked the beginning of aviation history. On the first...

Bargain buys: 7 CAD packages to stretch the budget.(Cadalyst labs review)(Product/Service Evaluation)(Cover Story)
January 1, 2005... OVERVIEW Feature rich and flexible, these moderately priced CAD applications can serve as either a primary design tool or as an economical alternative to adding another expensive CAD seat. These impressive design applications deliver a...

Vault 3 locks up drawing management: free tool provides basic file controls.(cadalyst labs review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2005... Writing a review of Autodesk Vault 3 is an interesting challenge. This is not your usual software, because Autodesk gives it away "free" with every copy of Autodesk Inventor (those who use AutoCAD for mechanical design also get a copy, if...

ALGOR InCAD designer/SolidWorks: flexible FEA program supports mixed elements to speed up analysis.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2005... ALGOR IS OLDER THAN MOST CAD companies, but at 25, it's just middle-aged in the CAE world. It released its first PC product way back in 1985, and the InCAD series debuted in 1999. Let's take a closer look at this product, now in its 16th...

Shade 7 standard: design, rendering and animation software.(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2005... MANY ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE company Curious Labs, but probably few know that e frontier acquired the company in November 2003, although it still operates as Curious Labs. The company recently introduced a family of products called Shade 7. It...

CAD Management 2005: productivity is this year's top priority for CAD managers.(CAD Manager)
January 1, 2005... ANOTHER NEW YEAR IS HERE. As is customary, I'd like to start the year out with my CAD management forecast for 2005. This year I base my conclusions on CAD manager survey data, interviews with industry veterans, discussions with CAD managers...

Software strategy: midrange modelers: inventor, solid edge, SolidWorks all provide capable 3D tools.(MCAD Modeling Methods)(Product/Service Evaluation)
January 1, 2005... THIS MONTH, WE LOOK at the strengths and weaknesses of three of today's most popular midrange MCAD applications: SolidWorks, Solid Edge and Inventor. I combined some of my own opinions (based on my experiences with these applications) with what...

Pinning down PLM: what's PLM? Depends on who you ask.(PLM Strategies)
January 1, 2005... WELCOME TO THE LAUNCH of Cadalyst's venture into the world of PLM--product lifecycle management. Each month, we'll explore the technology behind an acronym that over the past couple of years has proven its staying power above contenders such as...

Software strategy: BIM comparison: how does BIM software stack up with the 3D model concept?(AEC From the Ground Up)(building information modeling)
January 1, 2005... AS SOFTWARE VENDORS PUSH THE BIM (building information modeling) concept, many firms are wondering how the various options stack up against the others. This article attempts to codify the distinctions among the major 3D building modeling...

Software strategy: options for the enterprise: organizations increase efficiency by sharing resources and applications.(Spatial Technologies)
January 1, 2005... IN RECENT YEARS MANY LARGE companies, organizations and municipalities have switched from independent, stand-alone GIS systems to more integrated approaches that share resources and applications. The basic idea of an enterprise GIS is to...

Tips from our readers: figure areas, create views, fill walls and more.(Hot Tip Harry)
January 1, 2005... NO! YOU'RE NOT GIVING this to me, are you?" Harry handed me an envelope smudged with coffee and labeled Top Tips from 2004--SECRET! Shaking, I started to open it. "Don't open that!" Harry said. "Check these out first!" He stuffed a CD into my...