Clarity on PLM

What I learned this week … was sparked by a conversation with a friend from the industry over a drink last night. We were discussing the cloud, PLM, multitouch, and IT in general. To be fair, there were other topics of conversation, but he is one of the people that I really respect for his insight into technology. We were discussing my thoughts on PLM in the Cloud, when it finally struck me. Are we going to ruin the design process for experienced engineers by hampering their real-time interaction with the system? Are we heading in the right direction for tomorrow’s engineers?

What Am I Talking About?

Work with me for a minute, this conversation was after only one beer so I think it makes a lot of sense. We were talking about what kids today will expect in the user interface of the future. We were talking about how our kids talk on their headsets and use their game controllers so naturally, doing things we don’t even understand. They are pushing combinations and series of buttons in rapid succession to make things happen in their game – in their virtual world. Then it struck me – why am I so excited about multi-touch and user interfaces that help replicate the real world? Isn’t the whole point of using a computer to go beyond what you can do manually? To super-enable your abilities?

OK, back to CAD and PLM.  Multitouch, 3D manipulation, and motion interfaces are cool. We all saw Iron Man, and we have seen demonstrations of multi-touch CAD. Now I am asking “so what?” OK, I love multitouch (and I want an iPad). But I have a tablet PC with a touch-sensitive screen, and how often do I pull my hands off of the keyboard to touch the screen (hint, no fingerprints on it)? I don’t even like to take my fingers off of the keyboard to grab the mouse, so I have learned a lot of shortcut keys and typeahead tricks. Why? I don’t want to replicate getting a blank piece of paper out of my desk, writing a report on it, making copies, manually distribute it to colleagues for review, and then file it in a file cabinet. The real world is much less efficient than my virtual computer world, so why replicate it in my user interface? OK, we all know the answer. It reduces the learning curve, and it makes interaction more intuitive. But for the experienced user I am going to call that assumption into question (translate as you will).

For the experience user – particularly for the people that grew up using Xbox controllers to manipulate their virtual world in ways they can’t dream of interacting in the real world – we need to do better. Don’t make them touch the screen, take advantage of the fact that they have ten fingers that can all act independently. Give them a motion-sensitive Wii/Xbox-type of controller that they can do ten things at a time with. Track their eye motion. Read their brain waves. The point is to most effectively translate and extend the ideas in the designer’s mind to the system. For the first-time user, multi-touch makes sense. For marketing presentations, the same. For a  day-to-day, interactive interface between an engineer’s fast-moving brain and their high-powered computing equipment it has to be fast and efficient for the experienced user – and that doesn’t necessarily mean natural or intuitive. Particularly when the definition of “intuitive” changes as more of the Xbox generation is sitting in front of the CAD system.

What Does This Have to do with The Cloud?

OK, if you are still with me I appreciate it. I know this has gotten long, and I haven’t even touched on the cloud yet. I will make this brief. I pointed out two types of concerns in my post on PLM and the cloud. One set of concerns was corporate, the other was performance for the user. Let’s relate the concepts above to the real-time performance of an engineer. A lot of the buzz around CAD in the cloud has discussed the challenge of rendering graphics rapidly and getting them back to the engineer. That is a big concern, and I have seen in posts like Josh Ming’s post on SolidSmack about SolidWorks on the cloud that progress is being made.

But what about input performance?  If the goal is to make the human-machine interface as efficient as possible and not distract the engineer from innovating, there can’t be a lag between action and reaction. Part of that lag time is computing/rendering responses. The other is capturing what they are doing. This is where I get concerned about lag times in the cloud. Maybe I need to look back at my son’s Xbox experience and just get over it? But I still have a lingering concern about maintaining real-time user-machine interfaces through the Cloud. I know a lot can be done client-side on the PC or workstation, but I still have to wonder if we are heading the right direction for the real design jocks. Maybe it is too much to ask engineers to learn that level of interaction with their systems, but won’t the Xbox-controller-wielding generation expect that, and won’t it be intuitive to them? If X-A-B-Y-LR-LR-X means pass the football in their game, why couldn’t they learn that means create a thumbnail of my 3D model and check it into the PLM system? Then, I am confident that powerful computing infrastructure (in the cloud or elsewhere) can execute on that.

Implications for Manufacturers

I realize that I may not have given you much that is actionable today, so I will leave you with a thought or two to ponder. All of the new UI ideas are cool, and there are huge benefits for companies to move applications to the cloud. But try before you buy. In your environment. With your infrastructure. And your people. And keep the capabilities of bright, highly talented, gaming savvy, trained, dedicated engineers in mind as you evaluate future user interfaces. Multitouch will have great uses in engineering software, and cloud computing has great promise. But let’s be careful what we ask for so we don’t hamper our future innovators. And for goodness sake, let’s make sure we don’t make them put their hands on the screen unless it is really helping them do something more natural (like sketching) that they can’t do better with an Xbox controller.

So those are my (somewhat random) thoughts, I hope you found them interesting. Do you agree? I didn’t, if you did let us know about it.

What I learned this week … came from a Youtube video by direct modeling (3D CAD) company SpaceClaim. The video is cool from the music to the product, but after their hilarious April Fool’s joke – how serious is this really? Let’s put aside that question – and the question of how ready this technology may be – until I have a chance to talk with them a bit. In the meantime, what I want to discuss is “why we would care if multitouch came to CAD?”

My Initial Thoughts
What the video shows (OK, please just go watch it, it is worth the two-plus minutes it takes and I could never do it justice) is the use of multitouch capabilities in a CAD modeling environment. It is glitzy and fun, but I think packs some real promise. Why would multitouch be appealing? Other than the fact that it looks cool (and hopefully comes with the techno-music built in) – where would we find business value in such an interface? I have written about multitouch in 3D before and its potential to increase engineering efficiency and increase collaboration at some point, but never really considered it as a real modeling interface (other than when watching a movie) in the near term.

So is There Business Value?

I am sure SpaceClaim has their views on this, and I look forward to hearing them. To me, there are two potential avenues to value that spring to mind:

• More natural interface – people work with their hands. Hands are amazing tools that we start to use when we are very young. Our brains are geared for hand-eye coordination. Many of the computer interfaces developed for modeling are electronic analogies for physical manipulations. After all, where did “cut and paste” came from? Particularly in direct modeling, terms like “push” and “pull” are used, which are much more the words we would have used as we grew up modeling in Playdough, clay, sand, or whatever was available to us. Perhaps we can be more creative when we are closer to our naturally learned modeling techniques? Of course, with the power of technology to extend what our hands can do with rapid calculations and visualization capabilities, we should be much more creative than with a physical material (with all of its inherent constraints). For example, I am much better at “cut and paste” online than with my unaided hands because of capabilities like “snap to grid” and a general lack of dexterity.
• More accessible user interface (maybe) – I was just at Six Flags New Jersey with my son yesterday, and they had a multitouch desktop with photographs on it. It’s tucked away in a little lab behind a bunch of rides, but they have a cool hands-on lab. Kids were walking up to this desktop, sliding the pictures around, and with very little instruction resizing and re-ordering them. Why? It fits into their (physical) paradigm of the world. As much as my kids can learn to manipulate an Xbox controller with levers and buttones to simulate a football game, isn’t it easier to pick up a Wii controller with a motion-oriented interface? So perhaps these capabilities will (eventually) open up 3D modeling to a much broader audience? For example, wouldn’t it be great for a non-engineer to be able to show the CAD expert the change they want instead of describe it and watch the engineer interpret the words and try to model it?

Note: I have posted on the Wii contoller as a user interface as well, which combine physical motion with buttons. My guess is that we are not looking at an either-or between these different interfaces, but multiple interfaces (and hybrid interfaces).

Implications for Manufacturers?

The implications for manufacturers are twofold:

• Keep an eye on this technology - let’s find out how real (and how ready) this is. This is something that is worth keeping an eye on. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see this as the primary interface any time soon. There are a lot of complex interactions that are likely hard to make gestures for. Likewise, making them intuitive may not be entirely …well… intuitive. This will take some time for the value to be recognized.
• Keep en eye on this company - let’s face it, these guys are creative and out to change the game. Is this the most compelling next step for 3D modeling software? I am not convinced yet. But, a company with the ability to spot an opportunity like this and start walking down the path is a company worth learning from. And I have to note that the video says it will be available “this Fall,”  and that it appears from the video and the credits that this might go beyond modeling to analysis and simulation. Interesting…

So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it interesting. Let me know what you think. And let’s all wait to hear what SpaceClaim has in mind in regards to making this deliverable product.