A brief thank you to the toolmaker...
This is a simple running "thank-you" to the folks at PTC
for creating the most thoughtfully architected product development tools on
the planet...
Of course we were
nervous anticipating the release of PTC's newest tool "Wildfire": why wouldn't
we be?
Looking back on it, the submenu-studded journey from previous PTC tools
Pro/2000i through 2001 was like time-traveling through the Great Age of
Steam!
While the awesome
power of Pro/E was never in doubt: exercising this powerful tool was not for
mere mortals with normal hair-free backs! Our
firm licenses many advanced modules in my Pro/E license: advanced surfacing,
ISDX, advanced assembly, mechanism and behavioral extensions and many more.
These we consider to be essential tools as a machinist might consider an
extraordinary precise set of calipers. These modules were not easy
to drive in earlier releases and the thought of retraining was, well akin to
the prospect of root canal on al 36! The bottom line was: If the
Wildfire release wasn't architected well, especially as regards to usability:
We could find ourselves in full-time jobs just figuring out how to wield these
weapons.
Unlike many of our
colleagues who work in significantly larger corporate settings: our CAD
decisions are untethered from large program issues, departmental upgrades and
the like, so...
when the first Sneak
Peek of Wildfire became available...we leapt.
42nately for us: the
opportunity couldn't have come at a better moment.
First a little
background:
Control Alt Design
thrives because it is quintessentially not Big Design. It is a full-service
design and engineering boutique, in a convenient, ready-to-use size.
Our
principal advantage is that the vision of the company is what is actually
delivered to our clients.
Things are simply
not thrown over walls, and tadpole designers do not create deliverables.
What our clients
need is our experience, judgment and vision.
What they don't
pay for are meetings, process or vision statements.
We almost called
the firm: "It's the product, stupid" but thought a simple nod to giving our
customers a "reboot" was more apropos...
There are other reasons for our name, but that is for another time!
Today, a very
different marketplace has forced vital firms to adopt a very different MO.
Communication
opportunities across oceans are at best tenuous and precise language is not
always an option.
Ambiguity of
design intent is the ever-present enemy.
When you can't
pop-in and chit-chat with your toolmaker: you have to have some mighty
strong Mojo.
We are, in many
ways: our client's last stop before China, so we have to fill their tank.
Today, it is the cultural issues which abound as obstacles, and while Asia
graduates mighty fine engineers: the fact remains that different cultures
see things differently.
We, therefore
exist to create opportunities for our culture.
The famous gestalt
designer at Braun, Dieter Rams once said: "Many people can tell you how to
design something, very, very few can tell you what to design."
We feel that we are of the latter flavor.
Instead of rolling
the dice and throwing a napkin sketch over the ocean: we have found that
spending a little time with us and getting bulletproof data is cheap
insurance of design integrity.
That's where I
have found Wildfire to be the sine-qua-none in the CAD realm...
Back to the story: I
needed to put together a large quantity of renderings for a client and the
accuracy requirements precluded simple shortcutting with Photoshop, simply
illustrating concepts.
What to do?
Because this was just a
prerelease version of the software: we couldn't really count on it for
production geometry, but we certainly could use it to create accurate "dolls"
of the proposed products that I could use as the basis for renderings. This
was like I was getting paid to learn Wildfire!
What we ultimately found
during our first "Wild" experience is that there was precious little to
learn: I simply relaxed and "felt the force"! We are feeling great
these days...
The greatest hurdle with
the totally re-architected product we found was understanding that THIS Pro/E
knew what we wanted to do, and all we really had to learn was to exhale and
just think about the immediate design-problem-at-hand.
Many aspects of the program now simply exist as those Windows-bits of
unconscious thought, never having to exist on-screen. Things like multiple
entity selection. Just hold down the control key and select away...beats tax
reform!
Admittedly, the product
looks as if it visited a plastic surgeon: the iconographic interface and
built-in sliding, multipurpose browser window could be regarded as superficial
as a Congressperson in season...but on closer inspection one finds that this
is no mere skin job. Things fit together seamlessly. The logic is
bulletproof. The designer's tools are arrayed as if a Master's hands gave
them Divine purpose. It gets better...
When first working on a
model, it seems that the model itself is telling the system how to interact
with me.
I can drag extrusions,
whether protrusions or cuts; I can dynamically resize radii...Patterns, well
patterns simply are a meal for the soul!
We then opened PTC's big
box of chocolates: STYLE (or ISDX).
Not to puff too hard, but for the work that
we specialize in: simple solid modeling is not a sufficiently broad brush.
Our customer base includes consumer
electronics and medical equipment firms, and as such surface modeling is
almost always required to add a degree of "je ne sais quois" to a design.
(Yes, that's French and it means something
like "I don't know why I like it but I do".)
When asked, a customer or end-user often
cannot explain why they like one design over another; but we have found over
the years that it always comes down to the "esthetics of complexity".
This term belies a deeper truth: things that
look simple, usually are geometrically complex and things that look complex
are often recursive compilations of geometric primitives.
One cannot fillet one's way into the promised land! To enclose technological
complexity while preserving its esthetic essence requires mathematical fabrics
of a higher-order. An industrial design of any merit must somehow embody the
spirit of the technology it houses, else wise it will be inappropriate, gross
or underwhelming. Three things are required: tech literacy, artistic vision
and fluency with one's tools. This is why good design will always be more
difficult and less efficient than bad design. Because we are a small boutique
that provides engineering and design: this has naturally broadened mindset to
embrace both technology and art. And that is why the good designer's toolbox
should be very, very deep!
Formerly, I used Pro/Engineer for all the
tasks related to engineering and Alias, or CDRS for the styling-side of
things.
The process would typically involve a first stab at bulk modeling internals in
Pro, then switching to the surfacing package, importing some representation of
the solids, creating lofts, sweeps, patches and the like and exporting the
surfaces back to Pro. Because of the different mathematical representations
within each package: this process usually involved the burning of a goat and
magic beads.
I refer to this period of my life as "getting
my grey on", as one can seriously heat one's noodle with the interoperability
issues when using multiple software tools to round-out a project.
Translation of geometry between different
systems was difficult and fraught with problems and inaccuracies.
With the latest release of STYLE in Wildfire,
it's like we all have returned to paradise.
We
now create all the internal devils, and when
we need to put a beautiful face on a design: we simply click on the Style
icon and a rich set of surface tools appear before me.
No changing chairs, no translations, no
support calls.
Creating and editing curves is both simple
and logical. The bonus is that we now create and edit these curves while
leveraging the solid geometry we already have.
Once the defining curves are exactly as we
intend: surface creation is a simple button-click.
Connecting surfaces to each other to include
G1 or G2 constraints is just as easy, and tweaking the whole schmear can
happen at anytime, from the moment a surface has been born to long after all
the surfaces in the product have been solidified and modified in other ways.
And yes, creating solids from these surfaces couldn't be any more
straightforward.
We have also told our customers of the benefits of
sharing works-in-progress with the seamless "cad-nectivity" found in Wildfire.
I know of no other cad tool that has promoted a good night's sleep in a
client.
