In the world of 3D design, being a really strong surface modeler using existing CAD programs is one of those elusive, yet coveted skill sets that not many have mastered. T-Splines has built up a niche following, selling plug-in programs for popular CAD tools to help designers, architects, and even engineers, perform elegant surface modeling without having command of what has traditionally been pretty complex software.
Apparently, T-Splines has done such a good job making surface modeling functionality more accessible that 3D CAD giant Autodesk has taken notice. Autodesk issued a short press release last week confirming that it had acquired "certain technology-related assets" from T-Splines Inc., without disclosing any specific terms of the transaction.
T-Splines employs technology to simplify surface modeling, and is currently available as plug-ins for Rhino and SolidWorks.
"The technology acquisition will strengthen our digital prototyping portfolio with more flexible free-form modeling, and will help achieve even closer integration between industrial design and engineering workflows," said Buzz Kross, Autodesk's senior vice president, Manufacturing Industry, in the press release.
The announcement was intriguing, but pretty scant on details so we reached out to Autodesk to follow up. Carl White, Autodesk's director digital design product management, says designers and engineers are definitely pushing to do more aesthetic shapes in their design work, but have been hamstrung by doing so with existing CAD tools due to their complexity. Increased consumer demand for electronics products like cell phones and televisions is heating up the call for surface modeling work, and engineering groups need help, White claims, in being able to do this rapid concept modeling in a 3D world, not just in a 2D sketch world, in order to be most efficient.
"You have to be a really good modeler to do surfaces," White told us. "With this technology, we have the ability to lessen the burden of building different surface models."
You're probably right about the use of surface modeling on the D8 GTO, Chuck, but that particular design challenge was really all about simulation and keeping the weight down on the car even when adding additional safety features in the door frame and without degrading any of the performance and muscle the car was known for.
There is a boatload of capabilities being folded into CAD--as Alex notes, from CFD and FEA simulation functionality to upfront design type capabilities like sketching to tools like this one that enable far more realism. In some ways, I agree with your analogy to how Microsoft built out its Office stack, but with CAD tools, it's almost more like vendors are creating an integrated platform in which buyers can pick and choose (and pay for) the functionality that they need. Some base level functionality gets baked into the core product, but a lot of this extra stuff is sold as different editions of the CAD program tuned with functionality for specific roles and priced accordingly. Sort like what the ERP vendors did. Long-winded answer to you're not always paying for extra bells and whistles that you don't need, although I'm sure some CAD users just looking for the basics would argue with that point.
It will be interesting to see how engineers receive this. Even on our website, it's not hard to find comments from engineers who make distinctions between "aesthetic design" and engineering. What would the applications be for design engineers?
I agree, Alex. That's happening in a lot of areas of software. Automation vendors talk about how much functionality is not getting deployed in plants even though it's in the basic package the plant purchased. Ditto with ERP.
There's an incredible amount of functonality being folded into CAD/PLM programs. Yesterday, Beth wrote about CFD and FEA; today's it's surface modeling. I wonder if there's an analogy to Microsoft, where more features than users want or can use are being put into the average program. Which also means some users are paying more than they want or need to.
Nice piece, Beth. Sounds like this is a straight-ahead a technology buy -- as opposed to buying market share and customers. Is this a common way to build out technology in the world of 3D and CAD?
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