Conventional CAD is no longer a hub of 3D computing

CAD stands for Computer-Aided Design and it indicates various kinds of software which helps design. In this blog I will just call "3D CAD", "CAD", which helps 3D shape modeling.

In manufacturing industries, conventional CAD for mechanical design has been a central hub of the engineering process for years. This market has been very big and many software vendors have competed with each other aggressively, so, those kinds of software have evolved to be highly sophisticated. I think such conventional CAD will keep its current position in the market for the time being.

However, the conventional market already stopped growing, I think. Instead, other markets such as the medical industry or the hobby industry are growing rapidly. These new markets seem more attractive to me.

It is important that a typical data structure of the new markets is polygonal mesh, which is far different from B-rep structure, which is typical in conventional CAD. I think conventional CAD cannot be the center in the new markets because of the difference in the data structures.

What I want to say in this entry is something like this: Conventional CAD has been the central hub in the mechanical industry but they aren't in the new markets. Now, 3D technologies are applied to not only mechanical design but also new fields such as the medical industry, the hobby industry and so on. We should see CAD and its surrounding world in perspective to envision what kind of CAD will be useful in the new markets.

The conventional world
Let me review the conventional 3D computing world beforehand. Conventional CAD has evolved for years for mechanical design and their main users are such as the aviation industry, the car industry and the appliance industry. In these industries, CAD is surrounded by many kinds of software as follows:

• CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing): They import CAD data and generate NC codes such as cutter locations.
• CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering): For example, elastic mechanics analyzer, a kind of CAE, converts CAD data to solid mesh and analyze them by FEM.
• CAT (Computer-Aided Testing): They import both CAD data (= virtual model) and scanned data (= real model), and detect defects by comparing them.

Note that CAD plays the essential role in this engineering world because all of the applications are related with CAD directly. This means that those applications deeply depend on the CAD data format, the structure of which is optimized for mechanical design and is pretty complex.

I know the complexity of CAD format causes some problems in the data conversion process between CAD and the surrounding software. The structure of CAD data is suitable for mechanical design, but for data exchange. This is a built-in problem, which won't be resolved perfectly forever.

Our industry, however, has accepted and tolerated the complexity because CAD is the only 'entrance' to this 3D computing world. The only way to put a 3D model into the computing world is to use such conventional 3D CAD and we don't have good alternatives. This is why CAD have been dominant in the world and we are obliged to accept the CAD format.

In fact, I think there is yet another reason why CAD became dominant. The car industry, for example, organizes hierarchical structures, so called "keiretsu". The main users of CAD are car manufacturers, such as Toyota and Honda, who are on the top of the hierarchy. On the other hand, the main users of the surrounding software, especially CAM, are subcontractors in the hierarchy, and they have been forced to tolerate such complexity of CAD data. I mean, the power balance of 3D software is a copy of the power balance of the users' industries.

New devices and industries
But now, there are other entrances into the 3D world, such as 3D scanner and CT scan. Furthermore, the ability to manufacture real products from virtual CAD data is no longer the privilege of the manufacturing industries because of 3D printers. I believe these devices will change the 3D CAD/CAM world, and I guess the new markets won't construct such hierarchical structure like the car industry's.

It is fun for me to imagine following futures. (I know some of them are already implemented, though.)

• Doctors will be able to design artificial joints or legs with CAD software based on the CT-scanned data. 
• We will be able to scan the shape of our feet and order pairs of custom made shoes so we won't suffer from shoe sore. 
• We will be able to download the 3D data of our favorite game characters from the Internet and print them with 3D printers.

Conventional CAD will be useless in this market because the data structure of those devices are completely different from conventional CAD's. I believe there must be plenty of room to invent new software in these markets.

Alan Kay, who is often referred to as the father of the personal computer, said "The best way to predict the future is to invent it.". Let's invent our future by ourselves!