Well two big events happened while I was in the air back and forth to Seattle in the past few days. Last Friday morning it was the earthquake in Illinois (so no, I didn’t feel it) and today it was the launch of Synchronous Technology at Hanover Fair. When will we get wifi back in planes so I can write on this stuff when it actually happens instead of almost 7 hours later!
Anyway, I have been in the CAD/CAM/CAE/PDM/PLM market for over ten years (so yes, I am a relative newcomer), but I have to say this is a really cool development that promises to once again broaden the uses of digital models and the audience of those that can meaningfully contribute to design. I honestly can’t remember being this interested in anything having to do with the guts of CAD since I first figured out how to replay history and actually get it to work (sometime around I-deas Master Series 3).
That being said, it is one of those technologies that you have to understand a bit about what is limiting about the ways that previous technologies worked to get what is better about it. On the other hand if you know a lot about previous technologies, it is tempting to say that Synchronous Technology is nothing new. While it is fair to say that it does build on previous work, its not at all valid to lump it in with the number of incremental improvements that all CAD systems go through from release to release – this technology will enable a change in the way that models are built and reused and it does it in a way that preserves all of what was good about the way its been done for years. In other words you don’t have to pick – you can have the best of all worlds.
So I would suggest as a first step take a look at the video…it explains it alot better than I can in a quick blog post:
If that doesn’t help you get to the real interesting parts of what we are doing, leave a comment, drop me an email or twitter me (I track my username – aakelley) and I will do my best to talk through it with you or find you someone who can.
Lastly, here’s a quick summary of what everyone else thinks so far:
Matt @ designstuff (check your comment queue Matt…I think there is one importnat part of what we announced that you are missing that does make it different from what spaceclaim and works do today)
1 response so far ↓
1 CAD/CAM Outsourcing // Apr 23, 2008 at 2:45 am
Interesting video.This synchronized way of designing can really help resolve some of the recurring problems engineers usually face.
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