Where do you start with a subject as big as CAD? Well, whether
you are a seasoned user or someone out to buy his or her first
CAD package, there are a number of sources of information on the
web that offer impartial advice and lots of industry news. Two
newsletters that reach my inbox on a regular basis are 3DCADTips
(www.3dcadtips.com) and upFront.eZine (www.upfrontezine.com).
3DCADTips is essentially a portal providing tips and tutorials
on CAD technology and applications. It is particularly helpful
for those of you contemplating the switch from 2D to 3D, with lots
of advice available from experienced users. This site also covers
the related subject areas of CAM, CAE, FEA and CNC.
UpFront.eZine is an online magazine with free subscription newsletter
offering lots of useful tips for AutoCAD, IntelliCAD, Visio, MicroStation
and VersaCAD users. Among the site's resources are 20 tutorials
on how to customise AutoCAD, plus a range of e-books on all these
applications that can be purchased from the site. There are some
useful links to other portals and e-zines as well as regularly
updated weblogs such as WorldCADaccess.
According to a survey of visitors to Solid Modelling 2005, the
process of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is not widely understood
(perhaps they didn't have the advantage of Nick Ballard's excellent
article on the subject, published in DPA September 2004 page 25
- see www.dpaonthenet.net and follow the links to the archive).
PLM expert, Incat has decided to do something about it by publishing
a new guide to the subject, which can be ordered from www.incat.com/plmguide.
Nick Sale, from Incat's UK office, says that while there has been
a lot of noise generated about the possibilities of PLM, the nuts
and bolts of developing partnerships among customers and supply
chains - the foundation of a PLM implementation - really hasn't
had much of an airing.
You might think that PLM is for the big boys - the Boeings and
Fords of this world - but that is not the case. Nick says that
anyone in manufacturing should focus on it as a means of getting
high quality products to market more quickly. That seems to have
filtered down to leading providers of PLM, such as IBM (www.ibm.com)
and Dassault Systemes (www.3ds.com), who have recently partnered
in order to market their respective PLM expertise to the SME (small
to medium sized enterprise) sector. The aim is to convince SMEs
of the benefits of the process and move them as quickly as possible
from CAD to full PLM implementation.
PLM is all about collaboration between designers up and down the
supply chain. MatrixOne (www.matrixone.com) has released a new
product that enables designers and suppliers to share information
from one central application, regardless of the design tools that
they are using. MatrixOne Designer Central supports all the leading
mechanical design applications, including Pro/engineer, Unigraphics
NX, Catia 4 and 5, SolidEdge, SolidWorks, Inventor, AutoCAD and
MicroStation, as well as electronic design applications such as
Zuken, Mentor, Cadence, Xilinx and Altera.
As for the CAD products I was hoping to mention, space is now
very limited! I was going to wax lyrical about Autodesk's new version
of Inventor, but as that is covered on page XX in this issue, I
shall move swiftly on. If cost is a major issue (when is it not),
or you are on a tight budget, then have a look at these.
Alibre Design (www.alibre.com); DesignCAD (www.imsisoft.com),
and TurboCAD. Incidentally,
TurboCAD is available from a number of sources at various prices,
but you can get the very latest version 11 (full professional or
reduced-feature DeLuxe) from Adept Scientific.