March/April | 2019 http://www.design-engineering.com15
DES_MarApril_DesignFusion.indd 1 2019-03-29 1:50 PMCADReport
zoned with 3dExperience.World. CAD
editor Roopinder Tara interviewed a
Dassault vice president who anticipates
30,000 attendees at next year’s event, up
from this year’s 6,000.
The change in name tells us that Das-
sault is fed-up. Corporate executives had
patiently painted pictures of the bright
new futures in which all aspects of CAD
are unified into a single whole, where
everything happens in an instant, look-
ing dreamy and swooshy. Approving
designs wirelessly while riding in a taxi
speeding through the canyons of New
York City. What’s not to like?
This year, however, the tone changed
from the brightly-patient to something
more like exasperatedly plaintive. Key-
note speaker after speaker explained to
the wary audience that Dassault has spent
many years developing its wondrous
software; the many thousands of employ-
ees who have worked so hard on the many
software programs ready to be deployed.
“We always promised you to broaden
and deepen our portfolio solutions; we
always told you we would integrate every-
thing that we do, whether it is desktopor the cloud,” Solidworks CEO Gian Paolo
Bassi pleaded to the crowd. “We also
promised to give you choice, to help you
at your own pace, to give you flexibility.
I hope you recognize that we made good
on all those commitments.”
When Mr. Bassi and Dassault Syste-
mes CEO Bernard Charles paused their
speeches to wait for applause, at times
there was none. At one point, one of them
muttered “Thank you, thank you” to the
muted ballroom. Mr Bassi admitted, “You
are a tough crowd.”
Then he tried flattering his audience:
“You have very, very high-end require-
ments. Your designs are becoming ever
more sophisticated. You want the confi-
dence of multi-physics simulation. You
expect zero defects at the design stage.
You want all your business processes
beautifully integrated. You want excel-
lence in each step and you want full
digital continuity. You want to ignite the
Industrial Renaissance.”
I think Solidworks users might be
more interested in better ways to con-
struct complex fillets than getting around
to igniting the next Industrial Renais-sance. As attendee Dwight Livingston
wrote afterwards on the Solidworks
Forum, “Gian Paolo Bassi loves my pas-
sion. I am pretty sure he says that every
convention. But my passion is Solidworks,
not 3dExperience.”Confusion Over 3dexperience.
Works
3dExperience is a trade mark that Das-
sault uses to describe its collection of
software. Mr. Bassi unveiled a version of
it specific to Solidworks that he called
“The first big message of Solidworks
World.” It is named 3dExperience.Works
and consists of the following programs:- Envoia for planning
- Solidworks for designing
- Simulia for simulation
- Delmia for manufacturing
How they work together wasn’t
explained. Mr. Charles followed him with
the second big announcement of the
conference: “Because this noble mission
is so significant to make this a better
world to live in, we need to expand the
possibilities that we offer to you.” HeDES_MARCHAPRIL2019_LAZ.indd 15 2019-04-10 1:56 PM