What if your CAD were in a Database?

Instead of files. The title of this post is a question for a reason. I don’t know much about databases, even though my blog and my email are both run on a database. I really just want a place to raise the question and to get some community discussion about the topic, so that maybe we can all learn something.

Of course the reason for the question in the first place is that the file structure for Catia V6 is database based. I can see file management being a big benefit of putting all of your CAD data into a db, but what else? Why would developers want to do this in the first place? Maybe from the development point of view it makes things easier? Is there less Microsoft intervention in the files? Less data corruption? Is there any reason for end users wanting to do it? Is there any reason to not want to do it?

I mentioned that my blog runs on a database. Basically all the content in a WordPress blog is accumulated in a mysql db. I can go fiddle with it directly using a cloud-based db editor called phpMyAdmin. The database has all of the html content of the posts, the comments, the subscribers emails, the passwords, the polls, the traffic statistics, the IP addresses of visitors, you name it. If it shows up on the blog, it is in the database. The database is of course on a Bluehost server –  the company I pay to host my domain for me. They are located in Utah, but I had to look that up, it has never mattered to me.

This is true for most people who run blogs, although it is possible with some additional expense to host your own domain (after checking into this, it’s about $250/mo for the set up you need to host your own server in your facility through a standard cable ISP).

In a blog, the images are the heavy data. Some videos too. The images (and all the videos) for my blog are stored as individual files in a folder on the server. I can access these directly as files with a normal image extension. This turns out to be exactly how PDM (SW Enterprise PDM 2010) stores files. The PDM database holds links to the external files, and may scramble the names of the files to avoid tampering.

Enovia V6, however, stores not just the metadata but also the heavy CAD data in the db as well. So if your CAD files are in a database, you are definitely using PDM. Now I’m a big believer in PDM. But let’s follow this through a little. If all of your CAD files are in a database, and the front end to that database is essentially a PDM product, the first thing we can assume is that PDMWorks (SW PDM Workgroup) is indeed going away. We don’t have any real solid actionable information about all of this, we just know that some things might happen.

What would the database be, would it be a single project or your entire vault of CAD data? If it is just a project is there a way to interconnect databases so you can search across all projects? If it is the entire vault, would there not be some drawback to a database that is itself hundreds of gigs of data?

In a blog, if I want to transfer data from one blog to another, I can export a file from the db, and import it on the other end. I suppose that would be how you could share a single part between projects.  How would you structure libraries?

Sure this is a different way of doing things. I wouldn’t call it new, just different. What is the benefit (other than the fact that it’s different)? I’m not one of those people who are so blinded by the sparkle of change that I automatically accept things. I need to know why it’s better, and different isn’t the same as better in my dictionary.

The one thing it seems to mean is that CAD and PDM are from here on out inseparably locked together. You couldn’t buy your CAD from SolidWorks and your PDM from Siemens. In fact, would you be able to get other CAD data into your PDM? Probably. Legacy PDM function would still need to exist, but it wouldn’t be automatic, or intrinsic in the structure, it would be a function that would have to be intentionally added at some development expense, but I don’t think there is any reason why it couldn’t be added.

So what if you just wanted CAD without PDM, the way I think probably about half of users operate anyway? I mean aside from the fact that it isn’t a best practice, you should be able to work however you want. Why would someone buy CAD when that purchase would lock you into a PDM solution? Is there a good reason other than forced march marketing to join CAD and PDM inseparably at the forehead?

The real answers to these questions are not going to show up for years, probably. But we are in an age when companies just say “customers asked for this”, and they make changes to product lines that don’t seem to reflect any connection to the experience of a lot of users. I guess if one customer asks for something, they can justify whatever change they like. Apparently Bernard Charles hears the voices of SolidWorks customers clammoring for PLM. Folks like me think getting distracted from CAD is a bad thing. I guess the big CAD companies think it is something they must do. It seems they are going to extend themselves into another market, and stop serving the market that made them so big.

Where are you to turn if you just want to spend your money on tools for geometry creation?