How would you kill SolidWorks?
Let’s say that you want to be the next Jon Hirschtick. You want to kill SolidWorks in the way that J wanted to kill AutoCAD or Pro/E. How would you go about it? What would you put into a CAD program that you think would blow SolidWorks away. How would you do it? What technology would you employ? What business model?
I would make it quietly manufacturing centric. Â You’re free to create as much funky geometry as pleases you, but there’s a bar graph that stays green while you can turn, mill or cast it, but as you design yourself into a rotationally molded dead-end, you get red warnings and eventually the feature manager freezes.
Why do we still see documentation examples from Solidworks internal staff using rotationally molded parts? I have no idea.
Why is Mastercam’s design interface so ghastly ? i can’t help you there either? Sounds like an opportunity though.
This is not about forcing a manufacturing discipline. It’s more about embracing the unavoidability of making your part. TolAnalyst makes some progress here, but after 15 years of SWorks, it still puts modeling on a pedestal, and manufacturing as an adjunct, the same way mechanical engineers shudder when there’s an industrial designer in the room talking about ‘design’ in that tone of voice….
A few years back, with the introduction of Instant 3D, they pandered to the design centric lobby. Prolonging the distinction, or encouraging any schism between pure design and manufacturability is pompous, plain and simple.
Low cost 3D parametric design software has democratized the design process, sweeping away meaningless tiers between drafter, designer and engineer. Now, it halts at the entrance to the machine shop floor.Â
Unless you’ve already embraced a CamWorks, DelCam like add-in, you’re faced with converting to a dumb solid / surface for your machine shop.
Without really knowing I somehow feel this disconnect might be resolved by the interesting ‘B-rep’ discussion earlier in this thread, but I’m not qualified to have an opinion there.
Neil, do whatever search you want and post your results.
Anything I have posted anywhere is public record, and is OK. I can’t get into trouble because I have always taken NDA very seriouly.
I think you might be thinking about something I posted on the old forum from early 2006 (I remember Jon Stewart hosting the Oscars about the time of my conversation with ‘that guy’).
But the end result of that conversation was another “tweak the BREP” product.
I think that they missed an opportunity, but I do wish them the best with what they settled on. The final result just wasn’t the game changer that it could have been.
________________________
I should say that the BREP allows a lot of fantastic things – smart mates and mate references come to the top of my mind.
To Matt’s original topic, everyone needs to brainstorm how to keep the stuff that the BREP provides alive (mate references, etc) while killing the crushing modeling limitations we experience due to the BREP.
Someone IS going to do it.
And the intial code exists.
@Ed Eaton
Didnt you have a buddy developing something at one time? A start up??
I cant remember but I think you said a name of a person or the company at one time…was that here or on the forums or comp.cad.solidworks?…must be a while ago now… I guess I could do a search
Still we dont want to get you into trouble do we 😉
Matt,
As you know, learning that the BREP existed has opened the door to finding solutions on most modelling issues. Anyone monitoring this conversation needs to research this!
I also immediately realized the limitations of the BREP and saw that it needed to die.
I can offer that info freely because that is my independant observation.
I can also freely note that patents for a new paradigm exist because they are public records. I don’t know the patent numbers, and searching-for-then-providing them would disclose who I have been talking to, which might violate explicit or implied confidentiality.
I can say that I have more contacts than just SolidWorks.
After that, I am shaky on what I can or can’t reveal due to explicit NDA, or because it was a private conversation that was assumed to be private (yes, alcohol was involved in some, but not all of them – the most recent was over lunch).
I am rigorous on keeping confidential information confidential regardless of who I talk to. When in doubt, I don’t say a peep.
What I can do is reiterate that the BREP needs to die, and whoever kills it owns the next phase of the industry.
You just need to imagine what that would do for you.
There are, unfortunately, a lot of powerful folks that can’t make that intellectual jump, and they will be unemployed in ten years if someone else does it first.
Bug of the week. I am concerned that SolidWorks is not going to fix geometry bugs. They do not seem to fix any of the bugs that bug me. Perhaps we should have a thread displaying Solidworks bugs. I think that I can induce most Solidworks features to produce faulty geometry. Fortunately there is more than one way to define a geometry.
I would love to see bugs posted, even better with a work around is posted. It would be just plain amazing if the bug was actually fixed in a sp.
@Ed Eaton
Ed, do you have some links to info about brep replacement options? I would like to learn more about that. Thanks for the comment.
Replace the BREP.
Most modeling problems we see today are a result of the BREP.
Every ‘improvement’ we see today in SWX – and all other solid modellers + surface modellers – regard gradual improvements on the 20+year-old interface with the BREP, and it is why all our software options are converging.
Improving the interaction with the BREP is how one software gets better than the next (history-or-no, direct-editing-or-no, hybrid-or-no, multi-body-or-no, etc… etc…).
Whatever startup has the talent to ditch the BREP and replace it with a new paradigm runs the table for the next 20 years (actually 15 – the first patents in that direction are already aging)
Solidworks seems to have risen above the needs of users. They fail to notice that a community of enthusiastic users provides the best form of support and promotion. Technical questions are answered and friendships developed. It is fun to help other people.
I have two friends who use both Solidworks and Catia. They report that Catia has a much more difficult user interface. Catia provides the same frequency of difficult bug encounters. They choose to use Solidworks for most parts. The lofts required for aerodynamic shapes are not accurate using Solidworks. The Catia transition between versions was awful, years of bugs and trouble. Of course SWV6 will go smoothly.
I think that Solidworks needs some extra strength corporate ex-lax to get past the cloud idea and flush it. End of Rant.
I would put solidworks into the cloud and then create yet another version of second life, but for 3d parts! WOOT! OMG OMG OMG That would be so killer! It would destroy everything!
Then I’ll be able to FACEBOOK and TWITTER and MYSPACE and walk around a virtual mall and look at all the pretty little things I have designed. AND THEY WILL ALL BE COLOURED PINK!
Yes. I’m a 12 yr old girl and I’m the brains behind Catia and Solidworks.
p.s where’s the sarcasm crayon?
Run the company like Steve Jobs rather than Bill Gates. Speaking of which, a mac-compatible alternative to solidworks IS going to happen sooner or later, and the company that puts it out will most likely going to steal a big chunk of the market since DS seems intent to be a follower rather than a leader in the switch.
The ONLY reason I ever start up a windows box is to run SW, and I’ll be more than happy to ditch MS and DS at the first opportunity.
Steve Jobs? They already do business like Steve Jobs. SolidWorks only works on overpriced OGL graphics cards, you can’t go back versions, you can only buy stuff at fixed prices, often hostile toward customers… How much more like Jobs do they need to get?
oh I see. I was getting carried away with some accumulated toxicity there… 😉
I’ll brighten my outlook and have another go at it shortly.
@Neil
I’m not really getting what I was hoping for. I was hoping for some new ideas.
For example, here is what I would do:
– the software would be able to be used out of the box as a simple modeler, but also has progressively more advanced options to allow more advanced users to get more out of the software. Or they could revert to beginner’s mode with fewer options and more automation.
– would include a simple 2D only drawing package
– simplify sketching so that there is no such thing as discrete sketches, and no such thing as 2D sketching. The sketch environment would work like Solid Edge with the Blue Dot thing that flattens out all of the history issues within sketching. Everything would be 3D sketching.
– curves would be essentially sketches.
– I would build into the software a way to allow skeletons to drive both parts and assemblies, and when you try to use a face or an edge for something, it refers back to the skeleton entities.
– all modeling would be history-based with an option to use direct edit type functionality (like Instant3D but something you’d understand and use).
– allow sections of the feature tree to be frozen
– things like copying would work much better
– stuff like plane normals would be visible and controllable by users
– some sort of direct edit functionality like SolidThinking uses would be implemented on top of the history modeling. I’d have to hire some smart people to make this work right. I don’t know why people don’t make a bigger deal about this. I think SolidThinking’s method is brilliant.
– I would give users the option between automatic features and control.
– I would assume that the customer pays me money because I help make him successful, not because he likes getting yanked around and bullied.
– To the extent possible, I would make the software all-version compatible.
– in development, the priorities would be software stability, geometric accuracy, speed of operation, software predictability, model stability, user control, workflow efficiency. Fixing bugs that are anything more than academic eye-rollers would take priority over anything new.
– I would create documentation that is at least sufficient. If someone wanted to go above the sufficient level, they might make money on training, but it would have to not suck. You wouldn’t get away with charging hundreds of dollars for basic classes, or holding training materials hostage.
– respect the people who make you great – customers. The best way to respect them is to give them the means to understand your product. Educated users are more successful, and successful users stick with your product.
– I would assign public liasons for technical matters that show up in blogs, forums, etc. Tech support would be handled through the web by corporate. The company would gain a reputation for handling tech issues quickly and accurately.
– rather than resellers, I’d have several technical teams (of say 2-5 specialists) that act as technical evangelists, and meet face to face with people.
– If there are any weaknesses or trade offs in the software, make sure users know that there are sometimes consequences for doing X.
– I would try to engage all users right from the beginning in some sort of participation in web-based user groups/forums/blogs, what ever. Make it a way to deliver great information, make them participate to some extent and stay connected. Make it easy and make it so good they want to participate.
– I would not let the company get so impersonal that it forgets that it is run by humans for humans
Matt do you have enough ideas yet?
I notice I havent provided many ‘in the CAD’ ideas for killing SW but other people have listed some good ones.
I dont want to keep crushing SW egos with a list of the company weaknesses and failings. It has to be said though that these are much the same as they have been for years and they have been made aware of and done little or nothing about.
There is an important clue there..
Yup heres another –
If you are going to have something like SWlabs to showcase bright ideas and to giveaway promising experiments to try you ought to assign someone to answer basic questions about them. If some prove popular keep on updating them.
If no one is at home you may as well hang out a sign that says ‘ we dont care about software development here and we dont care that you are interested either’.
What does that do for the company image? what does that say about how the coders original ideas and pursuits are valued and nurtured by the company?
Rather than copy and include other apps irrelevant to CAD to be hip and cool how about creating a valuable resource of helpful CAD utilities – some by coders and some by community contributors.
Focus on whats useful and engage with users rather than push stuff at them.
BTW I visited SW labs today and found the homepage had a minor update.
Unfortunately after about 15 secs it all rolls up to the left and disappears. Go figure…
– Open-source, backwards-compatible file format
– interoperability with open-source programs (Open office, firefox), or at least the ability to choose external programs
– Removal of the Part/Assembly distinction. Would simplify a lot of niggles with multi-body parts, weldments, BOM’s, etc.
– Integration between drawing and documentation (i.e. combine 3DVIA Composer with Drawings).
– Levels of interface complexity – simple controls for simple geometry – toggle intermediate or advanced mode controls for more options.
– Really, really, well thought out and consistent UI
– Super-lightweight on system resources, yet responsive – stripped down version for mobile devices
– multi-threaded for the entire program
– transparent interaction between developers and end customers. Including support and enhancement requests
– flexible licensing, ability to purchase online
I do not want to kill Solidworks. Rather I want to save Solidworks. The management of Solidworks wants to kill Solidworks and piss off all of the users at the same time. They can take their n!SolidFail and shove it.
I want a reliable, accurate, secure and powerful tool for engineering design.
Yesterday I enjoyed a Solidworks geometry bug. A loft from a circle to an oval improvised an ellipse for a segment. The error was faithfully reproduced by mastercam in a mold part. I filed for two hours to fair the bug. Geometry remains unsolved by Solidworks. I can induce a failure in almost any feature or function in Solidworks. There are hundreds of distinct bugs and problems that they do not care about. These bugs survive for many releases. Only a few have been fixed.
1. Easy manipulation/generation of perspective line views with true contour line weight control (like for patent drawings), including line-based shading and ability to create section, detail, and projected views in perspective
2. More robust surfacing tools (where directional items like Trims don’t magically and tragically flip around and permanently break)
3. Forward/backward compatibility, with at least some solution for backward-compatible file recognition (even if some features must be “dumb” to do so)
4. Ability to use less expensive, more mainstream graphics cards (such as the powerful cards used in gaming arenas)
5. Conics (of course)
Same package like SolidWorks in less cost….SolidWorks Light! with Open file format Support.
and another-
Adoption of new technology for engineering effectiveness rather than following fashion or incorporating stuff already done better elsewhere like social networking and avatar presenters.
CAD is a tool for technically minded and purposed people. Its probably a bit of a dry subject except to those who are involved in using it. It doesnt have to make headlines for glamour several times a quarter to affirm continuing corporate virility. It does however just need to work as intended. Its primarily about enabling geometry and many bits of geometry combined.
Rather than picking up swings in consumer IT technology with questionable benefits to engineering companies or those that for practical reasons are unsuitable, CAD vendors need to adopt clever bits here and there that do things fundamentally better. For example there are some benefits to be had from GPU computing and also from more use of multicore CPU.
CAD coders need to be organised so that they can collaborate, innovate and achieve with a leanness and dedication similar to Open Source.
A large corporate eventually creates by consensus, over produced and misplaced ‘products’ that people actually dont have much need for.
The awards people inevitably get for these tend to leave observers nonplussed.
Employees can become too comfortable with their salary and become under achieving and dead headed in the govt department like regime.
The upshot is that companies become too large to be effective and loose sight of their primary and joint mission. Executives become preoccupied with growth, profits and corporate war gaming, marketing dreams of a second Nuremberg Ring and cultivates sympathetic press, coders code generations of mouse gestures for their own amusement, resellers plan their next holiday abroad…
To kill SW you really only need to stay focused on your own purpose and stand back and let them destroy themselves.
and another –
The UI and Help need to be pitched at being informative and assume the user is well educated. A UI that adheres to a minimalist style at all costs and leaves you trying all the buttons in the hope of discovering one that appears to give you what you want is just not good enough for a technical program developed for professionals. Help notes need to offer a decent explanation of the functions and offer some detail of the wheres and why fores.
Asserting things are intuitive or discoverable is not a valid defense for slothful and token documentation.
Further weaknesses –
A more robust appraisal of new features before incorporation, not relying on only pet users for opinions. Naked feedback can be disheartening for coders but these things need to be well sorted and sometimes the job definition for coders misses the mark. A miss is as good as a mess.
Follow up new features in the 2nd release after introduction (allow one release for users to appraise and then code some refinements for the next). Moving on to something else too soon with an eye to having some more bling to show off in the market with just produces a whole scattering of ‘almost’ features you cant quite use for real world jobs.
In the case of SW there are numerous things that need polish that will never be revisited. If you want to develop good customer relations and a very useful program you need to act on the feedback provided. If you have a whole filing cabinet of 5000 suggestions you will never get to you may as well be honest about it and stop accepting them.
FreeCAD is already here if looking for Open Source variant of 3DCADS. It is not anywhere near ready to use for real designing but the movement has been pretty fast. What I do like about it is the interoperability between different OSs and what can be used with it. There is much going on on that project.
Auto-complete…ability for the CAD software to complete your design based on the current work, your past work and your design intent.
That may sound like Star-trek CAD but that’s what I really want in a CAD software today. Think about it. SolidWorks and almost all CAD tools are kinda dumb in the sense they do not learn how you design or how you have designed until now.
Now that would really blow away SolidWorks or any other CAD tool in market today.
BTW, I don’t care if it is on a Cloud or a Contrail 🙂
@Kevin Quigley
I’d say any viable open source MCAD program would have to be commercially sponsored — and I doubt there’s a viable business model there. OTOH, a successfully one would be a great thing, because there’s a chance its file format could become standard.
I say the biggest MCAD need is better interoperability between programs (same goes for PCB design, and probably a lot of other areas). Just look at SolidWorks; it hasn’t killed either AutoCAD or Pro/E/Creo.
BTW, there is an open source kernel (OpenCascade) and some open source CAD efforts based on it, but last time I checked, there weren’t anywhere close to ready for real work. IIRC, Rhino’s kernel isn’t open source; the file format is open, and the library to read it is free but I don’t remember if it’s open source or not.
The ability to read and write SolidWorks files. From any version and with the possibility to save as a previous version.
Even if not all features are mapped in a feature three, doing some direct editing and feature recognition and voilà !
Add a better file management system than Windows Explorer, one that supports several designers on a network but is not as fiddly as a PDM database…
I don’t agree. OS’s area different breed – the potential installed user base runs into the hundreds of millions. The CAD market is not that big. CAD software geometry and interface technology is littered with IP issues. The only open source geometry kernel I’m aware of is the McNeel one. It’s a nice ideal but to be frank if I were a programmer or maths guy, what is in it for me? Gotta make a living to pay off all the education!
Open source CAD software – no fighting between CAD companies as to who has the best kernel or who can model better geometry or making the customers captive by lack of interoperability – fight over the value added services (maybe UI becomes a differentiator but not the modeling) you provide customers – this is happening in the Linux world with RedHat etc. This way bugs get fixed by the community, no service packs, no waiting for the CAD vendor to determine on what to fix etc. If VARs wants to earn their money, add value otherwise go out of business. Customer gets to pick and choose who they want to deal with. Interoperability is not an issue because the underlying modeling engine is the same.
I think there are enough people in this world that can support an open source CAD platform – current developers who work for CAD companies, mathematicians who know geometry in and out, educational institutions etc. Hey, it is happening everywhere else – OS, browsers etc. – why not CAD?
I don’t think it is as simple as that anymore in either case. The bottom line is that a CAD company is a business with a bottom line. You get to a certain stage in starting and building up a company that it is time for you to sell it or let others take the helm. Change of ownership runs with the territory.
As for the pricing, well when SolidWorks started that was the sales pitch – 80/20 – 80% of the functionality, 20% of the cost (of Pro/E). It worked then because Pro/E was £20k and £4k was still enough of a margin to make a good return. These days we already have Alibre and others offering the 80/20 so I don’t think price alone will be the killer.
The final factor is that CAD users just plain know more now than they did in the 90s. They know what to look for in the CAD system, and have certain expectations on performance and functionality, so you just do not have the option anymore of a start up with a limited set of functions at a cut down cost.
No, for me, the only way I would switch would be a system that offered:
1. More complex geometry modelling power with a simpler interface for geometry creation and editing.
2. More flexible licensing (like, being able to use modules by the hour, or to use extra seats by the hour to meet demand on a project by project basis).
3. Uniform pricing worldwide – core app and modules – I am fed up reading all you guys in the USA moaning about prices – try it here 🙂
4. Ability to tailor packages to my precise needs (example, I’d like circuitworks, but don’t need routing or FEA).
5. better integration with different file formats like point clouds and mesh data.
6. Ability to generate product documentation (think 3D VIA Composer type) within the core system.
7. Ability to plug into graphics systems like Indesign and Quark Xpress for direct “in picture box” model view editing.
That will do for now.
I haven’t got a problem paying for software, but I have a problem paying over the odds for it, and I have a problem paying for things I don’t need or use. Maybe it is time CAD companies start to sell their products they way they try to market them – fully configurable by the end user. Be great to have a DriveWorks type product configurator for SolidWorks and Add ons – enter what you want, pay the money, download the app. Done. Surely in 2011 this is possible?
The same capability for less money, or more capability for the same money.
I’ll say it before Deelips does:
Open file format.
ok I’ll kick off with a few ideas..though they arent *in* the CAD program
Top of the list is never to structure the company ownership so that the development can being obstructed and interfered with by its parent, or resources and profits diverted elsewhere, or major changes be made on the whim of some big wheeling executives or past CEO who think they know what they are doing today.
The company needs to provide customer support options that deliver what people need rather than impose what amounts to a toilet pan tax to keep resellers on welfare
The company needs to be run by a practical engineer and the emphasis should be to provide a technical service to engineers and designers.
A CAD company ought to derive success from the quality and competence of the programs which customers will recognise and reward through their ongoing patronage. All service packs should be free as a commitment to honour the quality and to extend goodwill to customers.
The company needs to promote its own products as a matter of pride and dignity rather than use users to push marketing propaganda. Loyalty is earned not manufactured.
Healthy companies dont need to control and manipulate everything. They welcome feedback and critical appraisal because it helps them do better…