This is probably a good time for a brief, updated review.

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In my last entry I said I’d post some examples of recent developments in the CAD arena. So without further delay, here are some items which caught my attention.

Dassault CATIA V6

What’s notable about the forthcoming release of CATIA is the continued aggressive push towards a virtual interface along the lines of Microsoft Earth. From MCAD Online (Link): Continue reading →

I previously offered (reLink) that there were three issues of particular relevance to the future evolution of “next generation” 3D CAD applications:

My last entry, in which I discussed the emergence of “direct modeling” 3D CAD, was still very much about data portability. While I’d previously confessed to “largely ignoring the trend toward ‘direct modeling’ “, the truth is that in researching next generation solutions I found I couldn’t ignore the trend. And this is because the direct modeling segment of the 3D CAD market is solving the kinds of data portability issues which is frustrating so many users.

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First let me confess to not having paid sufficient attention to the “direct modeling” wave that’s flooding the CAD market. While the technique isn’t new, it’s made substantial gains in recent years… both in the release of some interesting new modeling applications (e.g. SpaceClaim) and noteworthy upgrades (e.g. Siemens NX5), as well as in significant investments (e.g. PTC acquiring CoCreate in Dec 2007).
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In my previous post I touched on the data portability issues which plague CAD applications, particularly those which employ parametric, feature-based history trees (a dynamic, rearrangeable record of the creation process). However, whether it’s within a corporation’s own firewall or between businesses and their vendors online, CAD applications must become increasingly “cooperative” if their developers expect them to survive.
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