Last month Ralph Grabowski reported on his trip to Autodesk's annual media summit in Paris.  Basically, Autodesk invites members of the press, wines and dines them, and spoonfeeds them whatever message they hope the press will disseminate for them.

 

Ralph described a "new" UI for Inventor that sounded eerily like Architectural Studio.  Those of us with good memories know what a HUGE hit that software offering was. 

 

If you blinked and missed that software package, it was touted as a conceptual design package for non-architects...basically allowed people who don't know anything to move blobs around a screen to create a building shape and then throw it to the architect to make it real.

 

Autodesk's major complaint is that they are not making enough money from CAD, so they need to create software that can grant them access into other parts of your plant. 

 

Those of us who use their CAD software would be really happy if Autodesk concentrated on supporting the CAD aspect of the software and stopped peering out of our cubicle wistfully looking to see how they can jump ship to the finance department, manufacturing floor, or the warehouse.

 

As a mechanical engineer, I do not need my sales guy moving around Visio-like blocks and thinking he is developing the next great product.  I can just

anticipate the headaches that will create.  Just because it works on paper does not mean it can be done in real life.  There is a reason you have to take 4-6 years worth of engineering classes before you can call yourself an engineer.

 

Meanwhile over at SolidWorks, Jeff Ray assures me that SW plans to keep their eye on the ball...better tools for engineers and designers.

 

Who do you want to invite into your cubicle? 

EPANET is public domain software developed by USEPA. EPANET can perform steady-state and extended period simulations for networks of junctions, pipes, pumps, valves, and storage structures, calculating flow of water, pressures, tank elevations, concentration of chemical species, water age, and source tracing.

 

I found about this software from a user who was having problems importing his AutoCAD files into EPANET.  Basically, you can save your file as a DXF and bring it in and go from there.  EPANET also allows you to save to dxf and go back to AutoCAD.

 

Now, make no mistake, this is a shareware open source software, so while it is FREE, it does not have a lot of bells and whistles.  It supports basic entities - lines, circles, and arcs.  Don't get all fancy with splines, polylines, and other odd shapes.

 

However, if you are in this line of work, it is a pretty cool tool and it even has an api to allow you to develop add-ins into AutoCAD or your software of choice.

 

 

A few years back, Buzz Kross was kind enough to invite me up to visit Autodesk's Portland office and meet with the Inventor staff.  I gave a presentation on what tools I like in Inventor and what I don't like.  I left them with a list of at least twenty improvements I would like to see in Inventor.

 

On the top of my list, make Inventor compliant to ASME ANSI 14.5Y Standards.  Calling a dimension style ANSI and actually holding it to ANSI standards are two different things.  Everytime I install a new release of Inventor, one of my first tasks is to audit the dimension style to make it compliant to ANSI standards (can you say SUPPRESS LEADING ZEROS?)

 

None of my suggestions were ever implemented and Inventor continues to go "off track".  There are a lot of Inventor features I like, but I really want Autodesk to focus on the primary use for the software - which is to design mechanical components and assemblies.

 

On the flip side, I am using SolidWorks pretty much exclusively now during my day job.  This is the software employers seem to prefer.  If you cruise the ads, there are a lot more requirements for SolidWorks than Inventor.  Maybe it's a price thing or maybe SolidWorks has done a better job of infiltrating the educational market and that has leached out into the professional world.

 

Over the past couple of years, I have had an on-going correspondence with John McEleney, SolidWorks' former CEO.  I like John a lot.  He is extremely down to earth, definitely a mechanical engineer at heart, the type of guy you could hang out with at a BBQ.  John has stepped down to concentrate on family and "passed" me over to the new CEO, Jeff Ray.  I told Jeff I was looking forward to meeting him at January's SolidWorks World. 

In a burst of hospitality he may regret, Jeff invited me to visit him at his offices in Concord, Mass.  His words - "Why wait until SWW?" may come back to haunt him.

 

So, the Sunday after Thanksgiving (at my absolute fattest), I'll be heading off to meet Jeff and his team.  I will have my list of features I would like to see in SolidWorks.  I have no idea if they will listen any better than Autodesk's team, but I remain optimistic.

 

I'm always a little surprised when I hear from a user who has been trolling my website and the CADzette archives, who has a question about an old issue.  A few months back, I got a question on an issue from Volume II - that's three years ago! 

 

Amazingly, issues even three years back have material that is relevant, routines that still work just fine, tips that are as fresh as the day they hit the datastream, and commentary that could just as easily have been written today.

 

So, I don't know why I am just as surprised when I get emails from people wondering when I am going to update my archives.

 

So, I recently spent a Sunday afternoon, updating the website, adding in the missing back issues, adding the newer lisp routines to download page, and the new tutorials to the appropriate pages.

 

 

 

Check out the archives here.