I recently attended 3DEXPERIENCE World (3DXW for short) 2020 (formerly Solidworks World) in Nashville, TN. I think it was either my 19th or 20th trip to this CAD rodeo. It was an especially noteworthy event this year due to its rebranding and I was really curious to see how it would be presented by Dassault Systemes, on the one hand, and received by attendees/customers on the other.
The overall format of the conference and general sessions has evolved over the past few years, but that’s to be expected as everything in the design software world has evolved.
More than anything, I came to Nashville looking for what the 3DEXPERIENCE with regard to Solidworks was all about at a rebranded event that had been an exclusively Solidworks event for a long time, and one that never disappointed.
When asked about this year’s attendance at 3DXW, Solidworks declined to provide a number, but based on previous years, there were noticeably fewer attendees this year. Overall the attendees were at not quite as rabid (in a good way) as in years past, and relatively subdued, but nonetheless, cautiously optimistic about the future.
It seems as though by an increasing number of companies (including Dassault) have forsaken technologies, products and apps in favor of platforms that tend to further muddle the picture of exactly how they’re structured, what they do, what they cost, and unique benefits that couldn’t be provided by previous bits and pieces.
“Speed creates closeness. Flights twice as fast mean we can go twice as far—bringing more people, places, and cultures into our lives.”
-Boom Technology
Although travel by air has become more widespread over the past several decades, with few exceptions, aircraft design and speeds haven’t really changed all that much. Boom Technology hopes to reverse that trend with a supersonic transport plane that is currently being developed.
Once operational, the company’s flagship airliner, Overture, will become the fastest commercial airplane in history, flying Mach 2.2 from New York to London in 3.25 hours and from Tokyo to San Francisco in 5.5 hours. The company is shooting for introducing Overture in 2023.
Boom Supersonic Jet
The prototype for Overture—affectionately known as “Baby Boom”—XB-1 demonstrates the key technologies for safe, efficient travel at Mach 2.2. XB-1 combines over 3,700 parts, including custom composite structure, tricycle landing gear, flight control actuators, systems for pressurization and cooling, avionics, and a high-bandwidth telemetry system. The company is scheduled to flight test Baby Boom, a one-third-scale demonstrator sometime in 2019. (more…)
Sanjay Gangal interviewed Louis Feinstein, Global director of High-Tech sales at Dassault Systèmes at the 2019 SOLIDWORKS World Conference in Dallas, Texas.
SG: Tell us about Dassault Systèmes’ High-Tech area.
LF: We are a part of the industries organization and we’re now one of the four core industries of Dassault Systèmes. We create solutions and technologies that enable customers specifically in the High-Tech areas to build products quicker, faster, lighter, very easily. We spend a lot of time with mechatronics; we spend a lot of time with cross-technology such as mechanical, electrical, software. So, we’re bringing in different aspects of the next generation of products-going beyond mechanical CAD.
Design and manufacturing seem to get most of the attention where many product development processes are concerned, and for the most part, relatively little attention seems to be paid to the materials that will comprise these great new products. That’s about to change a little bit, though, with Dassault Systèmes collaborating with Granta Design to help product development teams make better decisions about the materials they use for the products they are developing.
Through this new partnership, Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform will integrate with Granta Design’s GRANTA MI system for materials information management, improving productivity, collaboration, and product quality.
The integration of GRANTA MI technology will provide approved information from a company’s materials database that will be directly available to its product innovation teams using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Designers, engineers, simulation analysts and other stakeholders will be able to quickly access accurate and consistent information on materials and their properties, and check that requirements on their structural behavior, cost, application, compliance or sustainability are fulfilled. This partnership also dovetails nicely into Dassault’s sustainability products, services, and initiatives
Materials Gateway For Abaqus/CAE With Granta Design – Dassault Systèmes
“Science-driven companies using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to explore materials now gain higher levels of confidence and flexibility in their innovation process,” said Leif Pedersen, CEO, BIOVIA, Dassault Systèmes. “The ability to search and assign the right material directly impacts the user experience, from the stiffness of a tennis racket or the cushioning of a car seat, to the right material for additive manufacturing, all while addressing increasing consumer awareness of the environmental impact of their product investment. Our customers need to understand the materials they are using, throughout the product innovation process.”
It seems that a lot of CAD companies have taken a greater interest in digital simulation the past several years. Case in point — the recent MSC Software acquisition by Hexagon. That high level of interest was again evidenced this week as Dassault Systèmes and Exa Corporation with its simulation software for product engineering, announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement for Dassault Systèmes to acquire Exa. Under the terms of the merger agreement, this represents a value for Exa of approximately $400 million. Exa’s fiscal year ended January 31, 2017 and its revenue was $72 million.
With the addition of Exa, Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform will provide customers with a mature, diverse portfolio of combined Lattice Boltzmann fluid simulation technologies, as well as Exa’s fully industrialized solutions and approximately 350 experienced simulation professionals. Because of its solving method, Exa’s solutions can solve fluids problems faster and more accurately than traditional methods for aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, and thermal management.
Since it began in 1986, Spatial has developed software components – modular software packages that perform a set of specific and related functions. This class of software is designed to work as a functional component of a larger application, such as CAD, CAM, CAE, Additive Manufacturing (AM), and Building Information Modeling (BIM). The goal of component software is to standardize the interfaces between software utility functions so that they can work together efficiently and cohesively.
In developing its software components, Spatial has always realized, too, that the best engineering software excels at optimizing imported data for data reuse. Spatial understands that design data reuse is much more than just data exchange.
Since its inception, I have been intrigued by Dassault’s elusive 3DEXPERIENCE, although it’s something I’ve always had difficulty getting my head wrapped around until relatively recently. A couple weeks ago at SOLIDWORKS World I spoke with David Mann, High-Tech Industry Sales Director at Dassault Systemes hoping to get a better understand what the 3DEXPERIENCE platform was all about.
After talking with Mr. Mann (in a video shown below), I now realize that the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a comprehensive engineering and business platform, each dependent on the other and not mutually exclusive.
David Mann, High-Tech Industry Sales Director, Dassault Systemes At SOLIDWORKS World 2017
Mann said that Dassault Systemes has evolved from 3D design and mockup to PLM to the 3DEXPERIENCE, which is helping customers understand the true behavior of the products they are developing. He said one of the next frontiers for Dassault Systemes is using virtual reality for designing more compelling products for better visualization instead of physical prototypes. As for IoT, he said, “IoT is a technology and business change. We want to be instrumental in designing IoT products and transform companies that will best serve the new economy as business models change from physical products to services.”
This week was one giant blur at SOLIDWORKS 2017 in Los Angeles that was witnessed not only by me, but also more than 5,000 attendees. The exhibit floor with over 120 partners opened at the beginning of the Superbowl with TVs and libations all around, so most people were in a good mood by the end of the game, especially if they were a New England Patriots fan.
The theme for this years SOLIDWORKS WORLD was, “The New; The Next; The Never Before,” which was a good idea but was not evident until the third day of the conference exactly what this meant. On the first day, the SOLIDWORKS message was choppy, not cohesive, clear, or coherent as it could/should have been; and some of the presenters didn’t make sense, as there was too much entertainment fluff and not nearly enough technical content that users come for, me included. Why drag AEC and the Dassault Systems 3D Experience platform into a SOLIDWORKS event? After all, this is SOLIDWORKS World, not Dassault Systemes Universe.
SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2017: Entrance to Exhibit Hall
However, things got much better as the conference commenced in earnest with classes and the exhibition floor in full swing.
Some of the biggest announcements from SOLIDWORKS World 2017 follow briefly below. In coming weeks we will cover each of these and others in much more detail based on discussions we had with SOLIDWORKS’ product managers.
When it comes to product manufacturing, consumers have zero tolerance for errors, and even less when it comes to vehicles. As we enter into a new generation of vehicle R&D with connected and autonomous cars, these expectations will only increase. What will this mean for automotive manufacturers and how will it change the traditional design and development processes?
Enter 3D modeling, simulation, and virtual reality (VR), things that Dassault Systemes knows something about.
Two announcements made recently by Groupe Renault and PSA Group demonstrate how Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform is helping car companies to use several 3D technologies to design, create, and visualize innovative transportation products, including autonomous vehicles, to meet the demand of their customers with what it calls its Target Zero Defect platform.
Dassault Systemes’ Target Zero Defect Collaborative Platform
The transportation and mobility industries are continually impacted by broad social and economic trends. Concern for the environment is currently the top influencer. The push for improved fuel efficiency has received unprecedented attention, with government agencies worldwide imposing increasingly strict regulations. Environmental friendliness has also become a purchasing concern of consumers, who also demand the same web connectivity and entertainment options they experience at home and on their mobile devices. And then there’s connected/autonomous/driverless vehicles.
Dassault Systèmes is responding to these business and technical challenges with its Transportation and Mobility Industry Solution Experiences. The “Target Zero Defect” Experience builds upon the 3DEXPERIENCE platform with a series of industry-tailored process modules that empower users with the tools needed to address many industry concerns. For customers in the transportation and mobility industry these modules can help initiate the product development process flow using company-established knowledge and best practices that ensure and sustain competitive advantage. Through the full cycle of development from conceptual engineering to component design, manufacturing, and final assembly, the Dassault Systèmes industry process modules are designed to allow users to target zero defects in product delivery.
Target Zero Defect Modules Span the Automotive Product Lifecycle
Last week, Dassault Systèmes announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire full ownership of 3DPLM Software Ltd. (3DPLM), its joint venture in India with Geometric Ltd.
3DPLM, formed in 2002 with Dassault, has a team of about 2,000 employees in India working on research and development and services related to Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform and brand applications. In 2002, Geometric was a joint venture with Dassault Systèmes, 3D PLM Software Solutions Ltd. with an equity participation of 58% and 42% respectively.
In other words, moving forward to last week, Dassault Systemes said it will acquire all of 3DPLM Software, an R&D company it owns jointly with Geometric, an Indian engineering services provider. The transaction means that the French PLM software group will be able to fully integrate 3DPLM into its operations, which center around its 3D Experience platform.
