CAD Forum

I saw this table the other day. Most of them make sense or are so small they don't really matter (e.g. AI)

However, we had a debate about what "Collaborative Design" really meant. What do you think it means or what do you think it should mean?



BTW, the full article is here:

https://www.cadalyst.com/cad/cad-trends ... ises-46648

I think it's a way for MBA's to write articles that they know nothing about. Personally, but that's just me. The rest of us do it because that's our job. Collaborative design just means you are sharing ideas about the CAD model. That can mean a lot of things. From "I think it should be blue" "No, Red!" to more than one person working on the parts in an assembly at the same time.

Very rarely does one person get to work on an entire project by him/her self. I think probably 90+% already do some form of collaboration, but that's a huge range of possibilities. If you mean "digitally structured collaboration" or "Collaboration as defined by a salesman or marketing person", then the numbers are probably even lower than what's in that chart.

Something like Onshape probably has the most capability in this area, and more traditional stuff like Rhino has the least. It's like paperless drawings in my opinion. It means different things to different people, and the reality is that it's not as compelling an idea as some people want to think.

I do collaboration, but it's often in the form of screenshots, and marked up images with non-CAD users. I wish I could get customers to be more willing to work with 3D formats for view/markup, but that's an uphill battle. I don't get to work with other CAD users much, but (as an outside contractor) that has taken the form of email or FTP most of the time.

Collaborative design me thinks has always been around.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:51 am I think it's a way for MBA's to write articles that they know nothing about.

Can't spell "dumbass" without MBA.

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:01 am Collaborative design me thinks has always been around.

I always love when people repackage something that people have been doing for...forever and try to sell it as something new.

"Collaborative Design" is something almost every "Designer" does. It is the exception rather than the rule that someone works on any project with no collaboration with anyone else.

"Collaborative Design" in this case is really nothing more than things like "Allow multiple people to work on the same part at the same time", "Create real time updates visible to all"...etc etc.

matt wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:51 am I think it's a way for MBA's to write articles that they know nothing about.

Yep.

MJuric wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 11:05 am

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:01 am Collaborative design me thinks has always been around.

I always love when people repackage something that people have been doing for...forever and try to sell it as something new.

There's a >long< list of these. The art is disguising the truth in trademarked packaging so the same old can be resold to those who are already doing it. I've found what I call "Product first" businesses tend to lead this charge as they need to create a demand for the new product whether customers need it or not. The inverse would be the "Need First" as I call it where innovation is in response to a need or void, so the focus of marketing is getting the word out with transparency.