Watching the new types of creators is super interesting!
I am fluent and trained many groups on high end tools, like NX. Sadly, I made a ton showing people how to do higher order things with the base toolset. (Almost nothing one cannot build to high fidelity these days)
I feel there is a lot of false value out there in those tools too. We would all benefit from the base toolset being extended and deepened some so broader adoption is on an incentive path, not so discouraged for license cost reasons as it is today.
And I get why. The hit in revenue would be profound and the skills needed to really use those tools remains a barrier, meaning there is no realistic volume strategy.
Still...
In my current role, I get the opportunity to use a lot of new tools. Have almost no dependence on the traditional CAD/PLM stacks!
I can use that stuff, and will at times because it makes the most sense.
But, in the additive sense, one can create with Python, or OpenCAD, Blender (!?!) Etc.
Voxels are becoming a thing, as are various mesh tools that are nor chained back to mega geo kernels...
I suspect as these people mature into the manufacturing and design scene, we will see another wave of changes on par with what NURBS and solid models did compared to wireframe.
And that clash? (With the traditional geometry stacks)
Might be epic!
In a good way.
One particularly interesting aspect, or potential I should say, is the non NURBS ways can be employed both in concurrent and parallel fashion!
Something like Parasolid can be employed in concurrent fashion, and that depends on model history being present or not and how it is shaped. We see that today when users of the high end tools really put the features to use.
However, there are limits and a a largely sequential compute path requirement on any given branch.
When one sets that aside to favor other ways of representing models, parallelism enters the game and the possibilities are very well aligned with additive.
One last ramble, because I live this stuff: Hybrid systems may well be able to incorporate both,,making the big tools bigger and that may be one outcome from that clash I mentioned above.
However it all goes, and I may well have it all wrong, we are headed into new and very interesting times.
Couldn't agree more with your points, and I agree that this clash is going to happen.. and that will be a great thing if it does!
If you are interested in connecting - I would be happy to trade observations over a video meeting and coffee/beer. d@physna.com
Disclaimer: I don't know if we are allowed to post this on HN, off the official posts, but I'm also hiring. We do 3D search, are growing rapidly, and have some excellent investors: Sequoia, Google Ventures, Tiger, etc.
Looks like a pretty cool project you got going there. I wish you luck, and success! I always thought that was a high-value space, but many of the tools are just thick. Expensive kind of painful.
I'm not looking at new opps right now, (have a startup of my own ramping up) but we may find a chat worth it. I'll try and connect with you in the near future. :D
I am fluent and trained many groups on high end tools, like NX. Sadly, I made a ton showing people how to do higher order things with the base toolset. (Almost nothing one cannot build to high fidelity these days)
I feel there is a lot of false value out there in those tools too. We would all benefit from the base toolset being extended and deepened some so broader adoption is on an incentive path, not so discouraged for license cost reasons as it is today.
And I get why. The hit in revenue would be profound and the skills needed to really use those tools remains a barrier, meaning there is no realistic volume strategy.
Still...
In my current role, I get the opportunity to use a lot of new tools. Have almost no dependence on the traditional CAD/PLM stacks!
I can use that stuff, and will at times because it makes the most sense.
But, in the additive sense, one can create with Python, or OpenCAD, Blender (!?!) Etc.
Voxels are becoming a thing, as are various mesh tools that are nor chained back to mega geo kernels...
I suspect as these people mature into the manufacturing and design scene, we will see another wave of changes on par with what NURBS and solid models did compared to wireframe.
And that clash? (With the traditional geometry stacks)
Might be epic!
In a good way.
One particularly interesting aspect, or potential I should say, is the non NURBS ways can be employed both in concurrent and parallel fashion!
Something like Parasolid can be employed in concurrent fashion, and that depends on model history being present or not and how it is shaped. We see that today when users of the high end tools really put the features to use.
However, there are limits and a a largely sequential compute path requirement on any given branch.
When one sets that aside to favor other ways of representing models, parallelism enters the game and the possibilities are very well aligned with additive.
One last ramble, because I live this stuff: Hybrid systems may well be able to incorporate both,,making the big tools bigger and that may be one outcome from that clash I mentioned above.
However it all goes, and I may well have it all wrong, we are headed into new and very interesting times.