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Am I the only one to find it crazy that basically all of engineering is using the same proprietary constraint solver that only one company knows how to build?

Am I the only one to find it crazy that basically all of engineering is using the same proprietary constraint solver that only one company knows how to build? Sounds like a big Achilles heel to civilization in some ways.. :D I mean, even with search engines, there is more competition..

samwillis 5y ago
It isn’t just the constraint solver, almost all of above use either Parasolid from Siemens PLM or ACIS from Dassault Systèmes for their geometric kernal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasolid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasolid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACIS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACIS Even Autodesk use a fork of an old version of ACIS they own: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShapeManager https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShapeManager
Chris_Newton 5y ago
Disclosure: I also used to work at D-Cubed, on the 2D constraint solver, but I haven’t for a long time and I’m speaking only for myself here. Am I the only one to find it crazy that basically all of engineering is using the same proprietary constraint solver that only one company knows how to build? Perhaps, but it’s a surprisingly complicated problem and at the same time a highly specialised one. Having the big players in the CAD world, who all need to solve much the same problem here, essentially funding a small group of specialists enough to work on it might just be economic incentives doing their job. I have no insider knowledge about this, but given that D-Cubed was first bought by UGS (a customer, and a direct competitor of many of its other customers) prior to becoming part of Siemens, I expect the lawyers all had provisions in place to deal with any dependency concerns.
- ramboldio 5y ago
  Yes, I can see why this is great for the big CAD vendors. Not so great for CAD vendors which still need to get big.. It probably also becomes clear now why Russian systems use a different product.. :D

samwillis 5y ago

It isn’t just the constraint solver, almost all of above use either Parasolid from Siemens PLM or ACIS from Dassault Systèmes for their geometric kernal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasolid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasolid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACIS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACIS Even Autodesk use a fork of an old version of ACIS they own: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShapeManager https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShapeManager

Chris_Newton 5y ago

Disclosure: I also used to work at D-Cubed, on the 2D constraint solver, but I haven’t for a long time and I’m speaking only for myself here. Am I the only one to find it crazy that basically all of engineering is using the same proprietary constraint solver that only one company knows how to build? Perhaps, but it’s a surprisingly complicated problem and at the same time a highly specialised one. Having the big players in the CAD world, who all need to solve much the same problem here, essentially funding a small group of specialists enough to work on it might just be economic incentives doing their job. I have no insider knowledge about this, but given that D-Cubed was first bought by UGS (a customer, and a direct competitor of many of its other customers) prior to becoming part of Siemens, I expect the lawyers all had provisions in place to deal with any dependency concerns.

ramboldio 5y ago
Yes, I can see why this is great for the big CAD vendors. Not so great for CAD vendors which still need to get big.. It probably also becomes clear now why Russian systems use a different product.. :D