Aaron wrote:
The original question was a query to the readers of this form about the significance of NNA's licensing of Siemens' Parasolid Engine.
Thanks to a private message (I haven't idea why it was private - it could have been shared with us all), I was directed to an interview with a NNA Product Engineer who answered some questions for Anthony Fausto-Robledo's Architosh blog.. link is http://www.architosh.com/features/2008/chatside/biplab_sarkar/080924__biplab_sarkar_1.html
In this article Sarkar refers to Siemens parametrics engine D-Cubed.
OK. So, Parasolid is a Geometry Engine. A robust one for doing MCAD design. Sounds to me like it would be just another geometry engine inside an aspiring BIM application unless the parametrics engine is attached to it.
What could D-Cubed do for A/E/C software. How is it likely to be a game changer?
So now we have all this modeling power under the hood. So how might its power be harnessed and integrated with an equally powerful documentation engine? Will VW's documentation capabilities be beefed up to take advantage of all that raw power under the hood?
How is NNA going to re-educate its sizeable user base to make the jump with them? Some of these questions need to be included in the road map in order that it actual be a road map.
Fascinating.
If you really want to know what the potential benefits of an engine with this kind of modeling power and robustness in an Architectural or AEC context, look no further than Gehry Technologies' Digital Project software.
http://www.gehrytechnologies.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=211
While the underlying technologies between the 2 engines (DP runs on top of a CATIA engine, which is hands down the most powerful parametric modeling CAD software on the planet), may differ in certain respects, the broad principles by which they work are similar [strong parametric links, element histories along with history/specificity trees, dynamic constraints, accessible scripting interfaces, and generally powerful geometric engines that can handle both surface geometries ( NURBS and planars) along with Solid geometries including Polygonal modeling (with Subdivisions and proxies)] enough so that this seems to be the trend that most developers of modeling kernels are tending towards. It's considerably tested and proven technology which has been refined continually over the lat 30 years in a wide range of fields from Aeronautical design, to Nautical and Automotive design and even product design. Gehry Tech., simply attempted to bring some of that power to Architectural design and CAD, but since DP is built on CATIA it remains largely inaccessible to most architects due to cost.
If Vectorworks developers, on the other hand, are able to integrate a similar type of kernel (and from the looks of those demo videos they had of the Siemens Parasolid engine's strengths is anything to go by, it is ) to the upcoming version of their program, then it will unquestionably give them a powerful product and a leg up in the BIM world. They probably wouldn't even have to worry as much about how to make it work with their existing engine, and still make the jump into converting VW into a full-blown BIM application since most of the BIM principle features and characteristics are implicit in engines and kernels of this nature that maintain element histories, parametric relationships and constraints while also facilitating the capacity to store information in the geometries and geometric elements themselves. And from this point everything else will follow - documentation, database consolidation, scheduling - since all of these rely on a superior information generation and organization system that the current VW is not but which would be readily available from the new engine.
VW already has a more versatile and robust modeler right now than either ArchiCAD or Revit; and this is still without the necessary features and implementations for it to be seriously considered as a BIM application. If they are able to cross that BIM threshold while enhancing and improving the modeling tools and features of core engine of their product (both of which the Siemens Parasolid kernel should help them achieve), and with their larger user base, I would posit that ArchiCAD's position as the dominant dual-platform BIM program will be very very tenuous at best, and probably perilous at worst.
I think the key fact in all this is that VW aren't re-writing their modeling engine, but rather will likely be licensing the Parasolid kernel to power their own technology such that the only work they have to do is to integrate it (if possible) into their existing workflow. There's no need to re-invent the wheel and there are a lot of existing modeling/3D engines and kernels available today which even GS could take advantage of (read: license), if they wanted to, while cutting off some of the overhead development costs of re-writing from scratch which they would then transfer to their clients through increased license fess; which is what I suppose is one of the reasons they are reluctant to do it. they already did it with Lightworks, after all.
