Posts Tagged ‘MCAD’
Thursday, November 23rd, 2017
It’s almost the end of November, so with just over a month left of this year, it’s not too early to start thinking about what we’ll be covering in 2018. The calendar below reflects what we regard as some of the most important topics today in design and manufacturing, as well as feedback from our readers and other supporters requesting content.
The main theme for each month will be covered in an extended article or series of articles so that the topic can be covered more comprehensively.
We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees. All of the events we attend will include daily written coverage and Tweets throughout event days, as well as video and audio interviews, and podcasts.
If you have any thoughts of topics you would like to see covered in 2018, feel free to contact me at jeff@ibsystems.com or 719.221.1867.
We look forward to an exciting 2018 and providing you with the MCAD content you want most for improving your design, engineering, and manufacturing processes.
Keep MCADCafe.com your source for all things MCAD because 2018 is going to be a great year!
2018 MCADCafe Editorial Calendar of Monthly Topics
January 2018 – Blockchain in Manufacturing
February 2018 — Cloud Computing with MCAD Applications
Show Coverage — SolidWorks World 2018
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Tags: 3D printing, AR, CAD, CAE, CAM, cloud-based, hardware, IIoT, IoT, MCAD, MCADCafe, open source, PDM, PLM, Reverse engineering, SaaS, software, VR
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Thursday, December 1st, 2016
By acquiring one of ECAD’s giants, Mentor Graphics, Siemens continues to round out its design capabilities far beyond its MCAD roots as part of its Vision 2020 quest. Siemens says the acquisition is an extension of “shaping the Digital Industrial Enterprise by expanding its portfolio for industrial software.”
Under terms of the agreement, Siemens will acquire Mentor for $37.25 per share in cash, which represents a value of $4.5 billion. The offer price represents a 21% premium to Mentor’s closing price on November 11, 2016, the last trading day prior to the announcement.
Major Mentor shareholder Elliott Management has committed to support the transaction. In many ways, I don’t think Mentor had much of a chance of fending off the acquisition, as its profits were minuscule (and had been for some time), and got strong-armed by Elliott who owns a good chunk (~8%) of Mentor. By the way, Elliott blessed the offer.
Elliott Management, run by billionaire Paul Singer, said when it raised its stake it saw numerous opportunities to boost Mentor’s “deeply undervalued” shares and had started talks with the company’s management and board. According to the company, the acquisition is a “great outcome” for Mentor shareholders as the company will benefit from Siemens’s increased scale and greater resources.
The acquisition extends Siemens’ Digital Enterprise Software portfolio with Mentor’s electronics IC and systems design, simulation, and manufacturing software – capabilities essential for smart connected products, such as autonomous vehicles.
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Tags: CD-adapco, ECAD, MCAD, Mentor Graphics, Siemens AG, synergy
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Thursday, November 24th, 2016
It’s almost the end of November, so with just over a month left of this year, it’s not too early to start thinking about what we’ll be covering in 2017. The calendar below reflects what we perceive as some of the most important topics today, as well as feedback from our readers and other supporters.
The main theme for each month will be covered in an extended article or series of articles so that the topic can be covered in a more comprehensive way. We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees.
We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees. All of the events we attend will include daily written coverage and Tweets throughout event days, as well as video and audio interviews.
If you have any thoughts of topics you would like to see covered in 2015, feel free to contact me at jeff@ibsystems.com or 719.221.1867.
We look forward to an exciting 2017and providing you with the MCAD content you want most for improving your design, engineering, and manufacturing processes.
Keep MCADCafe.com your source for all things MCAD because 2017 is going to be a great year!
2017 MCADCafe Editorial Calendar of Monthly Topics
January 2017 – CAM Trends
February 2017 — Cloud Computing with MCAD Applications
Show Coverage — SolidWorks World 2017
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Tags: 2017, 3D printing, CAD, CAE, CAM, cloud-based, Education, hardware, IoT, MBD, MBE, MCAD, MCADCafe, PDM, PLM, software
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Thursday, February 11th, 2016
It’s already mid February, and with two months well on their way to being history this year, it’s not too late to tell our readers about what we’ll be covering for the remainder of 2016. The MCADCafe editorial calendar below reflects what we perceive as some of the most important topics today, as well as feedback from our readers and other supporters with what they feel is important and relevant.
The main theme for each month will be covered in an extended article or series of articles so that the topic can be covered more comprehensively.
We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees. All of the events we attend will include daily written coverage and Tweets throughout event days, as well as video and audio interviews.
If there is anything we missed or if you have any thoughts of topics or events you would like to see covered in 2016, feel free to contact me directly at jeff@ibsystems.com or 719.221.1867. I’m always open to suggestions and new ideas!
We look forward to an exciting 2016 and providing you with the MCAD content you want most for improving your design, engineering, and manufacturing processes and top and bottom lines.
Keep MCADCafe.com your source for all things MCAD because 2016 promises to be a great year!
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Tags: 2016, CAD, CAE, CAM, cloud-based, Education, hardware, IoT, MCAD, MCADCafe, PLM, SMBs, software
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Thursday, November 12th, 2015
When I ask people in the MCAD community to name four or five mechanical CAD products, I get the same answers about 90% of the time. Just based on conversation, I’ve come to regard these four to five products loosely as “first tier,” based solely on mention, not capabilities. This is more of a marketing thing than a functional thing.
When I ask the same people to name another four or five products, the answers vary all over the place. I’ll call this “second tier, “ or mid range, again based on frequency of mention, not capabilities. That’s unfortunate, because a number of products in this tier (or range) have a number of interesting and often unique features and capabilities that can often provide a better user experience. Although I could name several in the so-called second (or mid-range) tier, a product I’ve followed for a long time is IronCAD.
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Tags: 3D/Eye, direct editing, Intellishapes, IronCAD, MCAD, NDES, parametric design, TriBall, TriSpectives
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Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy holiday season and a prosperous new year. We’d also like to thank all of our readers and supporters for continuing to make MCADCafe a vital part of the design, engineering, and manufacturing community.
With 2014 coming to a close, we’re unveiling what we’ll be covering in 2015. The calendar below reflects what we think are some of the most important topics for the MCAD community, based on our perceptions, as well as feedback from our readers and other supporters.
The main theme for each month will be covered in an extended article or series of articles so that the topic can be covered in a more comprehensive way. We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD and related events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees.
If you have any thoughts on topics you would like to see covered in 2015, feel free to contact me at jeff@ibsystems.com or 719.221.1867. We encourage and welcome all input and feedback.
We look forward to an exciting 2015 and providing you with the MCAD content you want for improving your design, engineering, and manufacturing processes.
Keep MCADCafe.com your source for all things MCAD. It’s going to be a great year!
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Tags: 2015, CAD, CAE, CAM, Education, MCAD
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Tuesday, October 28th, 2014
It’s almost November, so with just two months left of this year, it’s not too early to start thinking about what we’ll be covering in 2015. The calendar below reflects what we perceive as some of the most important topics today, as well as feedback from our readers and other supporters.
The main theme for each month will be covered in an extended article or series of articles so that the topic can be covered in a more comprehensive way. We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees.
If you have any thoughts of topics you would like to see covered in 2015, feel free to contact me at jeff@ibsystems.com or 719.221.1867.
We look forward to an exciting 2015 and providing you with the MCAD content you want most for improving your design, engineering, and manufacturing processes.
Keep MCADCafe.com your source for all things MCAD. It’s going to be a great year!
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Tags: 2015, CAE, CAM, MCAD, MCADCafe, PDM, PLM, SMBs
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Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
Since I handle two publications for IBSystems, MCADCafe and ShareCG, I attend a number of conferences and trade shows during the year for each publication. The markets for these events couldn’t be more different with regard to content, markets, audience, technologies, end products, and so on. The more I think about it, though, are they really that different?
Obviously, both entertainment and manufacturing employ a number of the same technologies, such as digital design methods, 3D scanning, 3D printing, project management, etc. – just with different end results – one physical, and one virtual.
This commonality really hit home in the past couple of months after attending two gigantic conferences and exhibitions – SIGGRAPH for ShareCG and IMTS for MCADCafe.
IMTS 2014 Overview
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Tags: cg, IMTS, Local Motors, MCAD, Rally Fighter
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Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
Trimble, a company historically focused on applications requiring position or location, including surveying, asset management, and mapping is acquiring SketchUp from Google, a widely used drawing package for creating simple 3D models. It’s so popular, in fact, that Google says SketchUp had 30,000,000 activations in the last year alone. While SketchUp is targeted more toward architectural design and model buildings for Google Earth, I’ve used it for years as the name implies – for sketching. Mostly for diagrams and concepts, but sketches, nonetheless.
However, there is the SketchUp 3D Warehouse that contains a lot of user-created collections of 3D objects, such as office furniture, people, and buildings.
Google acquired SketchUp from @Last Software in 2006. At the time, SketchUp users feared the worst, but Google did a good job continually improving it and supporting the 3D Warehouse.
Can the same be said for Trimble with regard to a continuing commitment? That, of course, remains to be seen, but see it become a bigger part of Trimble’s positioning technologies, especially for construction and mapping purposes.
For my part, I use SketchUp in a limited way for MCAD-related purposes that it wasn’t really intended for and will probably continue to do so.
Tags: @Last Software, 3D, Google, MCAD, modeling, SketchUp, Trimble
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Thursday, December 8th, 2011
For the past several years there’s been a lot of chatter throughout the MCAD industry about the significance, or rather, insignificance of one of the main software components – geometric modeling kernels. In other words, do they really matter anymore? I contend that they definitely do still matter.
While it is true that few users really care about the origin of the modeling kernel in their CAD tool, software component kernels are good for the following reasons:
- They are developed, supported, and maintained by an expert source that focuses on improving specific aspects of the kernels/components.
- They allow relatively small software organizations to develop applications relatively economically and lets them focus on what they do best on the application side.
- They are updated and released on a regular schedule so software developer customers can time their application releases accordingly and regularly, knowing that improvements have been made to the kernel.
Of course, a counter argument could be made regarding software components, but most of software component software development and end user customers I have spoken with over the years have generally been pleased with the arrangement and results.
At the beginning of December, we saw a news item stating that some technical institutions in Russia were collaborating and investing ~$22 million over three years to build a “national” 3D solid modeling kernel. According to the news release, “Parasolid is indicated ‘as a functional prototype’ for the project.” What this means for the CAD industry as a whole remains to be seen, and I’m not convinced that a “national” 3D solid modeling kernel is necessarily a good thing, but the effort illustrates that component software is still viable today and into the future.
3D software components are the legacy of several component vendors, with components that include ACIS, CGM, Parasolid, eDrawings, and many others. These components and their developers will continue business for a long time to come. As they were in the past, software components will remain significant and relevant into the future for the MCAD industry.
Tags: ACIS, CAD, CGM, Dassault, Dassault Systemes, Geometric, MCAD, Parasolid, Spatial
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