PLM 360 | Create Links to New Workspace Operations

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Here’s a quick tip to help the folks with the smoothness of their PLM 360 operations.

I have coded a few databases in my time, and tend towards the automated progression of steps, where the parent generates new child forms. For example, when filling out a new client in the ‘client’ field, if the name entered does not exist, the ‘Add New Client’ form appears with the name added already, and all you have to do is fill in the remaining information. When saved, the database updates and completes the link. PLM 360 does not have this workflow built in…at least not yet.

imageYou should not have to leave a parent and create a child, and then attach the two; absolutely not.

I know this has been mentioned to the PLM 360 team, and I suspect we will see this sort of functionality sorted out very soon. However, until that time comes, I’ll offer you a workaround to help smooth things out.

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PLM 360 | Looking at Document Change Orders

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As many of you know, I’ve been continuing to rework PLM 360 for a wide range of workflows including simulation. This has not been an easy undertaking. In the process I’ve run straight into my dislike of overly complicated processes, and thought I’d be safe to bypass some workspace lifecycles in favor of some simplified workflows.

However when I finally got moving on client requirements and documentation, I realized that I had made a substantial error.

PLM 360 LifecyclesIf there is one thing that my career in four industries has taught me, it’s that detailed documentation of client requests and requirements is a serious matter, and I have lost money when these concerns became lax. I just lost sight of that while trying to ‘Not Be Overly Granular’.

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Autodesk Simulation Mechanical | What’s New for 2013

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While at the media Summit in San Francisco, I large amount of my focus was on simulation technology. Mike Smell, Technical Consultant for Simulation at Autodesk, delivered a presentation on the 2013 enhancements in Autodesk Simulation Mechanical, and what has transpired in the development that fits within the company’s ‘Fast, Accurate, and Flexible’ focus.

Autodesk Simulation Mechanical 2013

Here are the details:

Performance

The Simulation Mechanical workflow has been completely overhauled in 2013.

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Project Simulus | Autodesk Unreal New Simulation Environment

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Autodesk has been closely guarding a new simulation product for a while now, and only permitting the slightest glimpses to be released. In December of last year following Autodesk University, I offered one of those glimpses, and then had to clam up until now. Now, Autodesk announced that Project Simulus has been released to the Autodesk Labs group for testing.

Autodesk Project Simulus

Simulus is a new simulation environment, and is basically composed of the following:

  • Autodesk Fusion container
  • Autodesk Simulation Mechanical solver
  • Autodesk’s really bad ass ‘Functional Container Environment’ UI. That’s what I’ve named it, and I’ll shorten it to FunC-E. (pronounced ‘funky’). Let’s see if it catches on before the company flames me for it.
  • Simulation Job Manager and cloud computing

If you liked Fusion and you Simulation Mechanical, then you don’t need much more encouragement, just go get it.

For the remainder of users out there, I’ll offer a few more details

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PLM 360 | Scripting Efficiency Tip

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While developing the multi-discipline management profile in Autodesk PLM 360, I have been meticulously been trying to make every mistake possible. Here’s something that might help you as you move into customization.

First there is nothing wrong with the out of the box PLM 360. However if you desire to manage a little differently, then you’ll probably run into scripting. I’s not difficult to pick up, and there are numerous examples to copy and work with.

Building a Bridge

imageThis tip relates to how the PLM 360 database passes information. Each workspace is a collection of various types of data. Unfortunately there is no current method of querying data stored in separate workspace types using scripts. That means that if you are scripting in an Items and BOMs workspace, you cannot query data from the Project workspace. Therefore different workspaces can contain fields with the exact same Field ID, such as ‘CONTROL_ID’ field I have in four different workspaces.

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Autodesk Vault | ADMS Server installation tip – Prechecks

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Have you ever got fed up with continually typing in the Serial Number and Product Code as a result of  failed installation prechecks while installing the Autodesk Vault ADMS Server? I have, fortunately there is a really simple work around I came across while participating in the Beta this year. …Read the rest of this article…

ForceEffect Motion | Autodesk Announces The Next Cool Tool

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Autodesk ForceEffect MotionWhile I was in San Francisco for the Autodesk Media Summit 2012, Scott Reese chatted with me about some off the hook new technologies that are being developed, and later the Simulation team introduced us to ForceEffect Motion, the next really cool ForceEffect calculation tool for the iPad.

Luke Mihelcic, Autodesk Simulation Marketing Specialist, took the time to discuss the tool further, and filled me in on how it works in its current revision.

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Autodesk Simulation CFD 2013 Improvements

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The team at the Autodesk Media Summit 2012 worked quite hard to show how Autodesk has poured their energies into the Simulation platforms. Autodesk Simulation CFD seems to have received the lion’s share to the attention this time around.

Luke Mihelcic, Autodesk Simulation CFD product marketing manager, describes how this year’s enhancements make Simulation CFD fast, accurate, flexible

Fast

Autodesk Simulation CFDThe most notable was speed. CFD team reports that they are seeing increased solving rates since Blueridge Numerics was acquired by Autodesk about a year ago. 34X faster with their HPC accelerant solver. Solutions that took weeks, now take hours.

Additional performance increases include:

  • 2X faster Hyper-threaded meshing
  • 26X faster Radiation clustering results

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