Check it Out: SpaceClaim White Paper

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

If you don't know Bruce Jenkins, you should. Bruce is the principal analyst for Ora Research, and he's good. If you see that he's on a panel or doing a presentation at a conference, attend it. Bruce gets engineering and manufacturing technology – not just the specs. He grasps the causal relationship of a technology throughout the design to manufacturing process. Lot of people do that. Bruce's gift is that he can explain a technology's effects on the entire process so that any engineer can understand how it exerts change on that process today and into the future. Such is the case with today's Check It Out white paper on 3D direct modeling entitled 3D Engineering: How 3D Direct Modeling Empowers Conceptual Engineering and Enables Simulation-Driven Product Development.

SpaceClaim's 3D direct modeling is the subject of a lot of ink, but much of it focuses on individual attributes of the technology for fostering collaboration, its interoperability with parametric modelers, how neat it is to pull on a model to made a shape, and so forth. All that's good, mind you. But in this paper, Bruce teases out from early adopters insights into how 3D direct modeling has enabled them to change how they think about and do product design.

I need to say this: This paper is not an exhortation to dump your parametric modeler. Not at all. Rather, it is about how 3D direct modeling complements and makes detailed design more innovative and productive by enabling more engineers to exert their discipline from the concept stages on up. It's about how all those non-CAD experts who have input and influence on detailed design  --  CAE analysts, industrial designers, system architects, and even corporate types – are using SpaceClaim as a 3D engineering tool to change the design and analysis cycles in real companies large and small.

And that's what is really interesting about this paper. You have real people at companies talking about how 3D direct modeling has helped them to dig into design ideas that give them better designs with fewer complications along the way and less last minute hitches. Yes, they mention that it has saved them time, effort, and money. But what they are really talking about is product design as it should be done, and Bruce brings all of this out of real people so that you can readily understand the role that 3D direct modeling can play in your organization.

One of the problems we in the content generation biz have is that we sometimes lose track of the real-world implications of the products we cover because we like the bells and whistles. Such has often been the case with SpaceClaim and 3D direct modeling. Bruce Jenkins has done a terrific job in creating a platform so that your peers out there in the real world can tell you what 3D direct modeling is all about. You can check out the white paper for yourself from the link over there. It's worth the read.

Thanks, pal. -- Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering