SolidWorks World 2011: The design and the CAD with our feet on the ground

Almost a year ago Jeff Ray, now 'Executive Vice President of Dassault Systèmes (parent company of SolidWorks) geographical operations' and then director-general (CEO) of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks, we announced that SolidWorks would be 'a cloud', which would develop software allowing to design without having to install programs, because they would be running on remote servers. This year, Bertrand Sicot, director of SolidWorks from January 1, and 'fears' which aroused such assertion, stated emphatically that his company had no intention of ceasing to produce software that runs on the computer locally. The announcement was made at the general meeting of the third day of the meeting, which is that traditionally dedicated the company to talk about what's new. If last year was breaking this year has chosen to remain calm. Everything is still moving, but everything will come in due course, without haste and without causing shocks.

"Space the final frontier" was the phrase that the chapters of the new generation of Start Trek began. On Earth, and thanks to the GPS and almost total connectivity, it is virtually impossible to get lost. The future adventurer, the discoverer, should be out of our planet.

SolidWorks invited this year as 'keynote speakers' two major characters from the world of Astronautics. The first of these, Gene Kranz, in April of 1970 was the director of the mission Apollo 13, the third that she should bring men to the moon. One of these men, Jim Lovell, was the Commander of the ship. Met them in first person: two charismatic personalities that get a room with about 5,000 people remain silent and listening to how relate us the adventures that were needed to make a ship that breaks down to 300,000 km of our planet back heals and saves. The reason for the failure: a set of mistakes, none of them important enough to be detected in time (although it could have been) whose chaining blew one of the tanks of oxygen from the ship, which caused in turn a collection of failures in other systems and that stretched the inventiveness of engineers of the project to find alternatives that were dependent on the life of the three crew of the Apollo.

A design error (forget to change a component prepared to operate at 28 volts when deciding that a subsystem functions to 65) and a string of misfortunes were responsible for what could become a catastrophe. A team of engineers (designers), discipline, much inventiveness, a comprehensive training and intense and concentrated work achieved that finally what it wasn't. In the background, all a lesson in design.

Some of the current automated design tools would have probably failed to prevent the error. Probably, the complexity of current designs also that the few, we hope, errors that are hidden are even more difficult to detect.

When SolidWorks World attendees already had two days of workshops and multiple events, the announced us its new products coming, keeping intrigue until the last day. The underlying technologies seem to indicate that the integration between SolidWorks and the rest of Dassault Systèmes leads good pace, as 'V6' (the name of the current version of Catia) appears frequently in their descriptions. The core of what was presented: the design becomes more collaborative, even more social. Here is where the cloud reappears, not as the place where the work programmes, but as the great repository in which the data are stored designs. If people use Google Mail for your mail, DropBox to your files, and FaceBook to tell his life... can why not allow that the CAD models 'reside' in an indeterminate place?

A year ago there was talk of 'solidworks Data sharing'. Then 'SolidWorks Connect'. This year, and after an I rebautizo, has a more 'sexy' (I guess) and is called n!Fuze. The goal: no longer use the e-mail and FTP, methods honestly unsafe, to share files. You get integrated into SolidWorks a collaboration tool that allows 'open' designs that do not live on our hard drive. And that it allows you to save them, decide who can access them and to do what, also outside our hard drive. The beta version of n!Fuze is available in a few weeks. The demos that we see and use are promising.

The basic concepts of design's buildings are not so different from the mechanical design, said Gonzalo Fernández of Ibermática, whom we had opportunity to interview. There are a lot of assisted design on the market products for architects and builders, a good part of them 3D. SolidWorks raises a new one, with a new approach, to break through in a segment of the market dominated by others. The concept again revolves around collaboration: is designed to integrate from the person in charge of urban planning until the last of the subcontractors. The programme, which was pre-presentado in June of 2010, as 'dassault systèmes live buildings', and which is based on Enovia V6, now moves under the SolidWorks umbrella, which has much more experience of marketing and sales companies 'en masse'large and small. The product has matured since then. If we were to summarize it in a nutshell: conceptual design for the 'Google SketchUp' look simple, but supervitaminado.

Many people still using CAD in 2 dimensions. Dassault Systèmes has decided to make a product for them. It is very similar to the AutoCAD of some time ago. In other words, who writes, not seemed especially intuitive; but probably those who have used AutoCAD years are not at all in agreement. However, DraftSight has three advantages: does not need a computer with great benefits, there are updates for Windows and Mac… and is free (although you have to 'reactivate it' once a year). DraftSight is called and it can be downloaded from www.draftsight.com. It is not the first foray of Dassault or SolidWorks 2D, in principle to allow customers continue being able to use your dwg files, after their conversion to 3D worldwide. There were earlier DWGeditor and SolidWorks 2D editor.

Targeted product innovations star of next year are summarized in the following list

• New possibilities for the design of works of boilers from sheet developments to design constrained 'bearing in mind that' parts conform bending sheet metal.
• Parametric work and with equations simplified.
• The 'exploited' highly automated, with a highly facilitated labelling of parts, and 'magnetic guides' to place them.
• Tools for calculation of cost of the piece that is being designed (and, above all, allowing rapid analysis of the type 'and if I do this as well, will be more expensive or cheaper'). In principle, there will be some 'standard' costs in order to work from the first day. For who require accuracy, can change and be detailed after the event.
• Some other characteristics of parametric work that allow to avoid the spreadsheet.
• Tools for viewing and quick review of large groups.
• Tools for work and marking with mm and easily interchangeable inches.
• Tools to optimize joint with parts in motion.

The closing of the general session of the third day was with an invitation to next year: SolidWorks World 2012 will take place in San Diego, California, between 13 and 15 February.

The day to day of the event and all the interviews conducted during the same (Spanish distributors: CimWorks and Ibermática, sustainable DAC, with Asheen Phansey and innovation in the DAC, with Rick Chin) are available in

www.interempresas.NET/SWW11