PLM in two dimensions?

The world’s largest vendor of CAD software, with 5 million registered users, has just announced a major upgrade to its main suite of draughting software, as well as greatly increased commitment to product lifecycle management (PLM). AutoCAD 2004 is the latest version of what remains a much-used package and while it can produce 3D isometric models, it remains essentially a 2D drawing package. When MCS asked Scott Borduin, Autodesk’s chief technology officer, how long the company would continue to offer 2D tools, he declared that he did not ever see 2D CAD draughting disappearing. “There is a substantial 30% of our manufacturing customers who don’t ever expect to do 3D design,” he said. Nonetheless, he considered the package would be increasingly used as part of PLM systems, which he regarded as, “Just another branch of information management [which] requires getting the right data to the right people at the right time.” To assist in this process, the company now offers the latest version of Autodesk Express Viewer as a free 2.5 Mb download, to act as a container for drawings, bills of materials (BoMs) and 3D model assemblies. The company reports 80,000 downloads since its launch in December 2002 and believes it is now on about 500,000 computers. Interestingly, John Sanders, vice president, Platform Technology Group, declared that despite all the advances in web and other electronic methods of collaboration, “FedEX and DHL make more money from physically shipping AutoCAD drawings around than Autodesk makes selling AutoCAD.” Meanwhile, the most common electronic method of data exchange is email, which will be assisted in the new release by DWF/DWG file password protection, digital signatures and a considerable reduction in file sizes. The same file in Release 14, which occupied 6.5Mb, is now said to occupy 5.2 Mb in 2000/2001 and 2002 versions, but only 2.9 Mb in 2004. File opening on a network is said to be 33% faster, and file saving, 66% faster. Another enhancement to assist speed, that will be particularly appreciated by users, is the introduction of a proper multi-line text box editor, which also allows pasting of Word text without loss of format. A facility has been added to automatically alert other members of a design team of changes, and users can automatically be notified of drawing standards violations. Other features include tool palettes that can be customised for storing frequently used blocks and hatches, and a new tab in the Design Centre that contains direct links to millions of symbols in libraries and manufacturers’ content on autodesk.com. It is now possible to apply gradient fills to create presentation drawings directly in AutoCAD and also to directly print shaded and rendered isometric views using new Shaded Viewport options in the Page Setup and Plot Dialogue boxes. For those who must have full solid modelling from the beginning, Autodesk continues to develop its Inventor range, currently at Release 7.