Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013

Bricsys Strategy for Mechanical Design: Bricsys’ answers to the different MCAD challenges with 3D direct modeling in BricsCAD.

The World’s Oldest CAD Operator uses BricsCAD.

2012 International Conference summarized by the CAD analyst community.

Artisan for BricsCAD, creating realistic images from BricsCAD models.

The BricsCAD re-brandingand miscellaneous updates.

Our goal is to make this a quarterly newsletter to provide you with interesting news about the CAD market in general as well as the BricsCAD platform and the solutions from our Third Party development partners.

The Bricsys Team

Welcome to the Bricsys Newsletter

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The road to BIM: Bricsys is committed to explore the limits of what can be done for BIM within the familiar dwg environment.

© 2013 by Bricsys

Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013Bricsys Newsletter AEC CORNER

Over the last several years Bricsys evolved from an alternative CAD provider to a leader in bringing about the next generation dwg environment unifying 2D drawing and 3D direct modeling. While there still are many challenges ahead on the road to deliver top-notch solutions for the mechanical market, we are now ready for our next challenge in the AEC space.

Several of us at Bricsys have been involved with BIM in the past, developing TriForma for MicroStation in the 90s and Architecturals for the dwg space in the 00s. When analyzing the many BIM solutions currently on the market we believe that with our experience and technologies we can add substantial value to the AEC market in general and for dwg users in particular.

In a BIM all AEC disciplines add their specific info to the model in order to:

deliver a digital representation of the complete building as conceived, including all the technical disciplines needed for making the building operational when physically constructed (design phase)

hand-over this digital information to the contractors for construction of the building, add information about modifications along the construction process and make the BIM “As Build” (construction phase)

use the “As Build” BIM to operate the building during its life cycle and keep it updated with modifications along that lifecycle (facilities management phase).

The road to BIM

What is BIM? Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. A BIM is a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle; defined as existing from earliest conception to demolition.

By Erik de Keyser

Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013Bricsys Newsletter AEC CORNER

In the design phase the BIM concept starts with the conceptual design of the architect, and gradually, as the design matures, more technical engineering disciplines become involved. Bit by bit other disciplines take over the responsibility about particular aspects of the building (e.g. structural engineer for the structural analysis) and become the author/owner of their information. In a BIM the different players have to share (limited to view) their work with the other players, so that together they can avoid collisions and deliver the virtual digital model before construction starts. This is how BIM delivers major cost savings!

For each engineering discipline there is a wide range of BIM software from several vendors and based on different file formats. To manage the different models there is a set of neutral standard file formats such as IFC and AECxml. When converted to such a standard BIM format, the models can be compared, matched, and synchronized in order to identify collision problems and solve them before construction.

To manage all this, the building team needs some kind of model repository accessible to all participants. The repository environment needs to provide the required access and workflow functions so that modifications applied to any of the models ultimately leads to synchronized common results. This process requires cooperation between major contractors as well as involvement of smaller sub-contractor with limited IT knowledge, and as such can best be provided by a cloud-based solution with zero installation hurdles and a seamless user experience.

Looking at today’s AEC market, it is clear that BIM is here to stay. At Bricsys we are actively working on two elements of the overall solution:

the basic BIM technology with our BricsCAD BIM Module which will be made available for an extended beta over the coming weeks

the collaborative platform for the management of BIM models, for which we will use the cloud-based Chapoo Premium service

Just as we have done for CAD software over the last decade, Bricsys is committed to explore and push the limits of what can be done for BIM within the familiar dwg environment. More details to follow in future newsletters, stay tuned.

Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013Bricsys Newsletter MCAD CORNER

Automotive, aerospace, machinery, shipbuilding, rail transport, electronics, healthcare, white goods – all these industries are heavy users of Mechanical Computer-Aided Design (MCAD) software. MCAD is one of the most sophisticated kinds of software with a 40-year history of outstanding scientific research and excellent software engineering. However, all mainstream as well as specialized MCAD products (CATIA, Creo, NX, Inventor, Solid Edge, SolidWorks) share one common drawback – they use proprietary file formats and do not work natively with standard .dwg files.

MCAD challengesWorldwide, there hardly exist engineering companies that do not use .dwg files to store and exchange 2D and 3D CAD data. Twelve million users of dwg-based CAD applications rely on the familiar environment implementing the well-known concepts of the model and paper spaces, viewports, database entities, block references, grip editing, and command line input. The environment is easily extended and customized with hundreds of 3rd party products, helping users to speed up their design and make their drawings compatible with different national standards.

Users and companies can choose from different implementations of the dwg environment – software products such as AutoCAD, DraftSight, IntelliCAD, and many others. However, none of these software packages is suitable for

Bricsys Strategy for Mechanical Design

designing complex mechanical products – such as vehicles and their components – because they lack many of the important functions commonly found in today’s 3D MCAD software.

Another challenge of existing MCAD products is rooted in the fact that they implement the “history-based parametric modeling” approach to 3D design. For engineers used to design in 2D for many years it is very difficult to adopt this method, whose main drawback

is the impossibility of direct manipulation of geometry. Indeed, users of history-based systems operate parameters, which are used to generate the geometry. This is a totally different approach from the one used in the 2D drawing environment, where users can directly manipulate geometric entities (lines, arcs, polylines, splines) and their sub-entities by simply dragging them and directly changing their shapes.

By Dmitry Ushakov

Bricsys NewsletterBricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013MCAD CORNERBricsys Newsletter

Complicated design methodology is not the only drawback of history-based MCAD solutions. An additional problem arises from the need to work with and modify multi-CAD and legacy CAD data – imported from other CAD systems or from neutral CAD formats. Indeed, design history can’t be fully translated from one CAD format to another because each CAD system uses its unique set of 3D modeling functions – with different parameters and semantics.

To address the problems of complicated design methodology of history-based systems and their inability to work with multi-CAD data, MCAD vendors recently added “direct modeling” software products to their portfolios. This however led to the next challenge: how to express design intent in a history-free model? Design intent of a CAD model can be thought of as a set of rules that defines admissible modifications of its geometry.

In history-based systems it is expressed by the design history, which is of course absent in direct modeling solutions. So traditional history-based systems can’t be replaced with direct modeling ones, the latter can only supplement the former.

As a result, most leading MCAD vendors end up offering their customer three different kinds of software: a parametric MCAD solution to design in 3D, a direct modeler to work with multi-CAD data, and a 2D drafting software to work with .dwg files natively. Engineering companies are therefore in the unenviable position to have to buy licenses, install and support software, and train their employees for three different CAD products. And whereas the extra costs this involves can maybe be borne by large companies, this is definitely not the case for Small and Medium Sized (SME) companies running on tight budgets.

  “An additional problem arises from the need to work with and modify multi-CAD and legacy CAD data – imported from other CAD systems or from neutral CAD formats.”

Bricsys NewsletterBricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013MCAD CORNER

Bricsys’ answersIs there a way to stop this unhealthy growth of CAD-related IT expenses for engineering companies, to maybe even bring them down several notches? Is there a unified software solution for 2D drawing and 3D design based on the familiar dwg environment? Is there a design methodology that combines the advantages of both history-based parametric modeling and direct modeling, and overcomes their drawbacks?

At Bricsys, we do believe there is!

2002 BricsCAD, a full-scale dwg environment fully compatible with AutoCAD through the command set and other end-user features. BricsCAD is also a powerful platform for third party developers, who can easily port their applications using a broad suite of standard APIs.

2011 3D direct modeling in BricsCAD. Our approach is called variational direct modeling and uses 3D geometric and dimensional constraints to express design intent of any 3D model whether designed natively in BricsCAD or imported from any other CAD format. Automatic recognition of design intent makes it easier for first-time users to enter the 3D world compared to other CAD solutions.

2012Assembly modeling in BricsCAD. No longer is it needed to use expensive MCAD software to assemble a complex product from 3D components, including a library of 30,000 standard parts. With 3D geometric and dimensional constraints users can position 3D components in any way they desire, and the remaining degrees of freedom can be used to analyze direct and inverse kinematics of any mechanism their imagination created.

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Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013Bricsys Newsletter BRICSCADBRICSCAD

eBooks for BricsCAD

Ralph Grabowski’s eBooks for BricsCAD have been updated for V13 and can now be downloaded or purchased from the Bricsys eStore.

BricsCAD re-branding

Reactions to the new BricsCAD look & feel, introduced with V13 of the platform, have been largely positive. For some of the reasoning behind the re-branding, check out the blog entry.

Lisp Benchmarks: BricsCAD up to 6x faster than AutoCAD®

Performance tests show BricsCAD to be 4 to 6 times faster than other dwg-based CAD platforms! For more details go to the Bricsys blog.

BricsCAD V13 PlatformsAll editions now available in all languages on both Windows and Linux!

The March 15th point release of BricsCAD (V13.1.22) now includes seamless access to the Chapoo cloud-based collaboration service. Read more...

Notwithstanding the worldwide economic crisis, business came in at record levels for both the fourth quarter and the full year 2012! Continuing the trend of the last several years, year-over-year revenue again showed double-digit growth.

2012 – A Vintage Year for Bricsys

Bricsys and Chapoo in Technical Partnership

Join us in welcoming new Bricsys Sales Points in Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay and South Africa. S3T in Quito, Trazar in Panama City and DigiCAD in Asuncion have joined the BricsCAD family in Latin America. Johannesburg-based Addosoft will be driving the BricsCAD business in South Africa.

Welcome new Sales Points

Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013Bricsys Newsletter SOLuTIONS

Artisan for BricsCADRealistic Rendering Made Simple

Artisan for BricsCAD provides an easy-to-use tool for creating realistic images from your BricsCAD models.

Artisan is integrated within BricsCAD, so when you make changes to the model your render can be updated instantly. You can position Artisan Lighting Blocks in your model which represent real-world light fixtures and see the lights illuminated in Artisan. In addition the Artisan SnapShot functionality lets you capture your scene settings and then easily reapply them to different versions of a model.

Ability to change models and see renders immediately

Easy-to-use with drag & drop materials

Customisable –use your own textures & backgrounds

Create your own lights

Available in 10 languages, more coming soon

Access a thriving User Community & Forum

Free downloadable materials available

Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013Bricsys Newsletter NEWS

NewsThe announcement of BricsCAD V13 last October and the Bricsys 2012 International Conference held in Amsterdam Oct 2/3 received quite a bit of attention from the CAD analyst community:

“I have seen BricsCAD improve leaps and bounds over the past few years. In fact, with direct modeling, assembly modeling, 2D/3D constraints and kinematics calling it an AutoCAD clone would be improper. Being an AutoCAD clone has become just one of its features.“

Deelip Menezes - CAD software blogger

“Bricsys decided to focus the branding efforts around the company’s main offering, the CAD software BricsCAD and Chapoo (the former Vondle). The new logo, the new look and feel rolled out earlier in the week throughout the company’s social media and web presence, reflect the contemporary and forward looking nature of the company.”

Rakesh Rao - CAD/GIS Developer

“Bricsys is another mouse that’s roaring. They hold the distinction of being the only small CAD vendor to hold an annual developer conference. (The ITC and ODA no longer do this.) If you read my live coverage on the WorldCAD Access blog then you’ll know that the company is offering Inventor for $825. Well, not all of the capabilities of Inventor, but Bricscad V13 Platinum certainly adds Inventor-like functions to an AutoCAD-like CAD program -- something Autodesk cannot offer.”

Ralph Grabowski - Editor at upFront.eZine Publishing

“No doubt under Erik’s leadership, Bricsys has emerged as the predominant non-AutoCAD DWG-based CAD package from among a host of contenders. So close is its likeness to AutoCAD that a developer was reported to have given an entire presentation with BricsCAD thinking he was using AutoCAD. This, at a fraction of the cost of AutoCAD.”

Roopinder Tara - Editor/publisher for CAD, CAM, CAE online media

Check out the cover of the October 2012 edition of isicad. Entering the mCAD world indeed, and fast on the heels of AutoCAD … and we’re doing it all within the .dwg environment!

Isicad - CAD/PLM made in Russia

Bricsys Newsletter Q1 - 2013Bricsys Newsletter HIgHLIgHT

World’s oldest CAD operator

Born in 1929 at Hikurangi, New Zealand, as the oldest of four sons to a coal mining father, Noel went to Whangerei Boys High. As a member of the school battalion during World War II, he was a signaller and learned Morse code and how to operate Army radios. After the war, at the age of 16, Noel started out as an apprentice fitter & turner at Binns Engineering Company on the Auckland waterfront. Later on he became a Marine Engineer and spent 10 years at sea,

working on oil tankers for Shell Oil out of Singapore and on cargo liners that ran between New Zealand and Europe for a NZ Shipping Company. In 1962 Noel put an end to his maritime career and joined R&W Hellaby Freezing Works in Otahuhu. There he worked his way up from Shift Engineer to Engineering Manager before finally starting his own business, Cunningham Engineering, in 1987.

Jason Bourhill, owner of partner CAD Concepts in Auckland, New Zealand, recently caught up with Noel Cunningham. At 83 years of age Noel is still going strong, doing contract draughting for a variety of clients, focusing mainly on mechanical process type work. Noel’s well appointed office sits behind his home in a converted garage, there he uses BricsCAD.