"We are extremely pleased to announce the addition of Brent to the Advisory Board. He brings with him a considerable pedigree including his current role at Capital West Partners.” said Christopher Boothroyd, CEO of Aftercad Software. “Brent’s strategic approach will be to help build and capitalize the company. This will enable us to engage the market with our disruptive technologies, pushing our GaaS offering over the top for deployment in a number of critical areas of the game market.".

Brent is head of the Technology Practice for Capital West Partners, a mid-market, transaction focused investment bank in Vancouver. He started at Capital West in early 2008 after 12 years in venture capital investing in early stage technology companies across Canada and in the US. Prior to that, he was General Manager and co-founder of an Internet start-up. He has an MBA from the University of British Columbia and an Honours B.Sc. from the University of Western Ontario. Brent is a long time columnist and commentator on the BC technology landscape and is currently a contributor to BC Business magazine. He sits on the Boards of the BC Technology Industry Association, VIATec and is a former member of DigiBC’s Board.

"Aftercad’s disruptive GaaS technology is going to really spice things up in the new game streaming market. Their unique dual rendering approach has many more advantages to it than the current nascent efforts out there. It brings to the table better methods to socialize, advertise and monetize” said Brent. “Its becoming pretty clear that in gaming, the web will continue to increase in importance. Not only as a superior distribution medium but the ability to be the marketing first point of contact for all styles and genres of games. The Immersion technology’s ability to instantly engage all members of the gaming community from casual free-to-play gamers all the way to hard core AAA title enthusiasts is extremely compelling. Indeed, just as music and then movies went up on the web, gaming is next and clearly, these guys have a role to play in that."

“The Zoomthere mobile technology has been in development now for a while and with the exponential rise in mobile content consumption and the meteoric explosion of location based mobile applications, the timing is terrific for our clients” said Chris Boothroyd, CEO of Aftercad.

“Zoomthere adds value to mobile maps by allowing the realtime display of advanced visual property and community directory information right there in your hand. By enabling anyone with property or area based assets to display everything directly in Google Maps for the mobile browser, now we can ‘fill in the details between the streets’. Using our advanced patent pending display technologies, we can show all of the floors of a mall right there in your mobile browser and allow you to navigate through them in real time with the touch of your finger or even a thumb – no app install required.”

Aftercad has recently expanded its 3D web publishing efforts to include the new Zoomthere Mobile SaaS offering to get more detailed information of the physical environment into peoples hands via their mobile devices. The new Zoomthere service takes advantage of newer more powerful webkit based mobile browsers to deliver the property map data directly to the mobile user without having to install anything first. The Zoomthere Beta is being rolled out initially to a select number of commercial, residential and retail property managers and marketers.

“We’ve all been trained that to get any sort of meaningful use out of our mobile devices that we have to go install an app from a platform vetted list of developers. This runs completely counter to the open software-in-the-browser revolution we are seeing on the desktop. With iPhone Safari and other webkit based mobile browsers, that is simply no longer true and most of the app functionality can be delivered simply with a link. To wit, there are over 4500 webapps listed on the Apple website no-one even really knows about.” said Boothroyd. “This means that companies looking to publish rich visual information can write once and deploy to any modern mobile device via the web which is much, much more cost effective and removes all barriers to access. Point your iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Nokia device at www.zoomthere.com and see for yourself.”

About Aftercad

Aftercad is a leading provider of innovative products and solutions that enable the viewing and publishing of complex 3D over the web. Aftercad’s Immersion technology allows organizations to publish, share, annotate and manage 3D data for Digital Prototyping, Manufacturing, Building Information Modeling and Gaming.

For more information, visit http://www.aftercad.com/

© 2010 Aftercad Software Inc. All rights reserved. Aftercad and the Aftercad logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Aftercad Software Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Aftercad Contact Information
Contact Mike Lebow
Aftercad Software Inc.
310-3495 Cambie St
Vancouver, BC
Canada
V5Z 4R3
Phone: +1 604 696 1886
E-mail: askus@aftercad.com

“We want our online 3D multiplayer games to be playable by as many kids as possible. After reviewing various technology options, we found Aftercad Immersion to be the best fit for streaming our highly immersive games to browsers on even lower-end machines,” said Rodger Raderman, Co-CEO of Nukotoys. “In addition, due to a rich informational environment that allows us to utilize both server and client optimally, Immersion gives us UI flexibility that is absent in other solutions.”

Aftercad has recently expanded its 3D web publishing efforts to include the new Immersion 3D application porting service for Game and 3D application developers looking to migrate their titles and apps to the cloud. As cloud computing begins to weaken the console makers’ grip on gaming, developers are looking to cash in on the new cloud gaming methods being touted by services like Onlive, Otoy, Gaikai and others. Aftercad Immersion delivers the technology to maximize this new cloud delivery method while giving developers the the ability to leverage the full power of HTML5 on the clients’ computer or mobile device.

“Other methods out there rely on just the video stream and an sometimes even a plugin to bring the remote game play to the user in time to react and send those commands back again. This method is called ‘Soft PC-Over-IP’ will always be lag sensitive and function as a closed loop. Immersion does a much better job by opening up the loop, allowing game developers to utilize the power at both ends of the wire thus greatly reducing the dependence on bandwidth alone.” said Chris Boothroyd, CEO of Aftercad. “We are pleased with Nukotoys’ selection of our Immersion technology, it is yet another validation of the superiority of our patent pending approach and we are looking for more game developers to join us in the cloud.”

About Nukotoys

Nukotoys is a San Francisco-based start-up focused on fusing the traditionally distinct worlds of video games and toys. Utilizing technology that creates a real-time link between 3D multiplayer games and toys, Nukotoys is creating fun, enriching games that merge kids’ most imaginative online and offline adventures.

Nukotoys Contact Information
Amy Morris
917 887 2725
amyshapiromorris@gmail.com

About Aftercad

Aftercad is a leading provider of innovative products and solutions that enable the viewing and publishing of complex 3D over the web. Aftercad’s Immersion technology allows organizations to publish, share, annotate and manage 3D data for Digital Prototyping, Manufacturing, Building Information Modeling and Gaming.

For more information, visit http://www.aftercad.com/

© 2010 Aftercad Software Inc. All rights reserved. Aftercad and the Aftercad logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Aftercad Software Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Aftercad Contact Information
Contact Mike Lebow
Aftercad Software Inc.
310-3495 Cambie St
Vancouver, BC
Canada
V5Z 4R3
Phone: +1 604 696 1886
E-mail: askus@aftercad.com

"When we filed the patent for our 3D web publishing technology, we knew video streaming and the H.264 standard was going to play a major role in getting 3D content to the web". said Christopher Boothroyd, CEO of Aftercad Software “We started with getting the AJAX and Flash methods right first so that we would have a rich informational environment to bring the 3D model proxies and 3D video stream into. Now that we have caught up with this last piece of our patent pending method, we believe our total solution provides a far superior real time environment for interactive 3D on the web".

Aftercad has recently expanded its 3D web publishing efforts to include a new Immersion 3D application porting service for CAD and GIS software developers looking to migrate their applications to the cloud and Game developers looking to cash in on the new online gaming methods being touted by Onlive, Otoy and others. As HTML5 compliant browsers continue to pick up momentum, replacing older video plugin technologies like Flash and Quicktime, the H.264 standard has become the defacto standard for video streaming on the web.

"Our patent claims are perfectly aligned with H.264. We prepared our patent claims to perfectly fit the claims of the MPEG pool claims so there would be no gaps between where our IP ends and MPEG begins. This benefits us, our investors and our clients by knowing that we have an impenetrable IP position from which to help usher in this new era of online 3D design, collaboration and gaming."

"Caustic Graphics’ implementation of OpenRL will change 3D graphics in what is has to offer, and will take our 3D rendering to new levels of realism and quality, all from within the browser&quot said Christopher Boothroyd, CEO of Aftercad Software "Combined with our disruptive 3D delivery technology for the Web, Caustic’s OpenRL API is disruptive by massively reducing the cost of creating cinema quality graphics content and the combination of the two technologies will change the way 3D is viewed on the web for good".

Similar to OpenGL for rasterization, the OpenRL specification is a framework for writing ray tracing applications that execute across heterogeneous compute platforms. Today there is no open standard, cross-platform API for ray tracing. Consequently developers must program their ray tracing applications “to the metal” or accept “vendor lock-in” by using a proprietary closed standard that is limited to a specific subset of hardware. Caustic’s implementation of OpenRL runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, and will identify and take advantage of CPUs, GPUs, and custom hardware devices all simultaneously.

By incorporating OpenRL into its 3D server side rendering applications, Aftercad will continue to be the undisputed leader in pluginless 3D Web publishing and in a position of envy from one or two CAD incumbents. "Once again Aftercad has raised the bar for 3D technologies and our thought leadership in the field of Web display remains strong. We recognized the potent combination of our technologies last year and will be the first to bring this to zero-wait-state 3D publishing. Now you can have your 3D with simply the click of a link and have your raytracing at the same time."

About Caustic Graphics

Caustic Graphics, creators of OpenRL, is reinventing raytracing and changing how interactive cinema-quality 3D graphics are produced, used, and enjoyed. Caustic’s patent-pending technology raises the quality bar for real ray-traced images without cutting corners for performance, fits well with today’s standard 3D graphics hardware, applications and content, and offers a price/performance level that’s cost-effective for broad adoption. The company is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, please visit

Caustic Graphics Contact Information
Contact Alex Kelley
Caustic Graphics Inc.
78 1st Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, California
94105, USA
Phone: +1 415 969 9900
Email: marketing@caustic.com

Over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging about my observations on how the Cloud is going to steamroll the CAD and GIS verticals and making beer-bet predictions to keep it interesting.

Just got back from the 2010 Game Developers Conference in fabulous San Francisco where we successfully launched and demoed our Project Immersion technology (I’ll write more about that next week).  Here is my entry on what SaaS for CAD really does for everyone and of course why Aftercad makes the difference.  In my previous post I talked about what I consider to be the first wave of CAD in the Cloud value – PC-Over-IP.  I think that is going to be a great first step for CAD design teams and a much clearer ROI for some team configurations.  I’ll outline here some of the great ROI and opportunities CAD & SaaS offer together.

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Ok before we get to far lets agree on some definitions about what SaaS is about and isn’t.

(1) SaaS is about the Web Browser

SaaS was created for the web browser as a way to create an open, proprietary technology free environment where applications and useful tools could be created and delivered to anyone everywhere  – and no trickery or app installs behind the scenes is going to cut it.  Web 2.0 was born when we shrugged off the proprietary shackles and the HTML/AJAX/FLEX environment turned out to be as rich if not richer for application delivery.  I know some purists don’t consider Flash/Flex true Web 2.0 or SaaS but for the sake of progress, that one technology gets in under the wire.  If this makes other vendors bristle then all I can say is that you shouldn’t have been such visionless sticks-in-the-mud during the 90’s and now you have to suck it.   Every 3 or 4 months some vendor tries to hijack SaaS or slip some propriety garbage in and call it SaaS (you know who you are) but it either works in just a web browser or call it what it is, a proprietary application download,  fraught will all of the lovely support issues that brings – and hey,  Mac guys carry knives these days.  Google Maps doesn’t ask you to download some crap to install on your computer,  neither does Salesforce,  Hotmail,  Gmail,  Google Docs,  Expedia,  Travelocity,  Flickr,  your online bank service or any of the other SaaS offerings we use everyday.  When HTML5 comes, it will be like the cleansing flood to rid the web of all proprietary technologies.

(2) SaaS is about Collaboration

Because the Web Browser is ubiquitous,  SaaS is super convenient and it means you can access and share your online goodies from anywhere, anytime when you choose to do so.  We started using Google Docs at Aftercad two years ago,   mandated by my pudgy iron fist.  I’ll say this – we’ll never go back to Office!  Trust me, the first time you get to work on a doc or spreadsheet as a team without email attachment Armageddon or just plain old grab a document you desperately need on the road – you will see the light and be healed my friends.  By choosing the browser as the client side interface, that also means everyone gets to participate in the CAD project regardless of operating system, skill level, age, geography, politics or ridiculous subscription package.  It also means people have a level playing field for sharing ideas, content and opinions. Here lies the real gem that unfortunately keeps getting stepped over for more tawdry gains – collaboration.  The  trick is that SaaS is delivered from a server side environment and when you have a common point of central delivery, you also have the ability to share tasks and work by using common files.  Collaboration is a great time saver and makes document communication much,  much more efficient.

(3) SaaS is about Integration

Without doubt, one of the greatest things enabled by Web 2.0 and SaaS is the concept of the mashup.  Way back when, if a company wanted to integrate their data with a vendor package to produce content for the web it was practically a board level decision every time requiring IT budget, project planning and large jars of Tums. Now that integration has been liberated by the forces of light and XML,  we can easily merge, mashup and present all kinds of data views to the web client often dynamically and even interactively! Expect CAD to go the same way.  If you look at the thousands and thousands of Google Map mashups out there or the plethora of Salesforce Apps available, vendors are beginning to understand “its not all about you, its about the data”.  Expect AEC & BIM data to act as a visual scaffold for all kinds of operations, insurance and planning SaaS applications. Expect Product and Part data to go down the path of  “smart products” where users can see full 3D CAD info merged with usage, maintenance and disposal data right in the browser.  By delivering your solution as SaaS, you are enabling further knock on savings to your client,  often for things they haven’t even thought of yet.

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Some SaaS party spoilers we hear about in the blogosphere;

(a) Where’s my Data!

Unfortunately,  just as in life,  is CAD.  Its much easier to be ignorant than enlightened therefore I summon a neglected quote from Mr T.  for those who would rally at the gates asking the obvious -  “Where is your brain foo!”  I’m sorry to disappoint conspiracy theorists that the cloud is a place where the Democrats and Eric Schmidt stay up late at night reading your gmail and sending your hard begot CAD drawings to China to offset the debt.  Give your tin foil hat a twist and get over yourself,  your stuff isn’t that important and if the terrorists really wanted it they already have it.  Like most things in our free society, you have all the choice of where your CAD data is accessed and stored by the cloud.  Really the answer to this is “Where do you want to store it” and it boils down to pretty much three options depending on your security needs and budget: In the cloud,  in your server or somewhere you rent in the middle.  Before you ask “what if they lose my data” – backing up and archiving things is YOUR responsibility and always will be.

(b) What if it goes down and I can’t access my CAD Files?

Shrug, crack a beer or go outside and remind yourself what trees look like. These days its pretty rare and really ask yourself a series of objective questions; how many times  has my computer been put down by a brown/black out,  how often does my workstation itself go on the fritz or the the always-happens-at-the-worst-possible-time “sorry your CAD app is incompatible with this file version – please help Carl placate his shareholders and improve his tan by renewing your subscription”  Anything can happen but if you keep a backup of critical project files with you, you can always tweak it old school.  The bottom line is that yes it will happen, for a while and make you mental but really in the great sea of things that make us mental there are more usual suspects worthy of wagging at.

(c) Someone is gonna hack in and steal my stuff!

See (a) above.  To try and mask my knee-jerk sarcasm for CAD guys who worry about this kind of thing,  jawing at me about my newfangled ways of computering things while all the time rolling up a bunch of content sensitive CAD plots into a tube and handing them off to the courier without even making eye contact, I would say this – These days it would be easier and safer for CAD thieves to break into your office, put two caps in your ass and steal whatever they want than leave a trail of digital evidence for the coppers to follow.  Its simple.  If you have it with you, it can get ripped off.  If its online, someone at least has to sit down and get nasty with it and leave a long trail of incriminating evidence.  Oh that and get over yourself, you’re not that interesting and junkies never hacked into Google or Amazon for crack money.

Now the good stuff, the ROI of SaaS for CAD

(1) Collaboration

I already see collaboration has been called the new “c” word by a few folks in the CAD blogosphere.  That is unfortunate as it illustrates the darker, surlier side of CAD that itself hearkens back to the days of old where if the nice client in the suit/tie came in to ask questions about the project and were subjected to stand-offish-ness, they knew they really were working with a top notch CAD firm with people skills.  Well, unless you’re like one of the folks in Plato’s allegory of a cave and have actually been living under a rock, those days are gone and the same abused clients have had and will continue to have their pick of firms to work with.  Unless your collaboration and shudder,  yes, communication skills are top notch – I have a new CAD tool for you!  Its called a spatula and as long as you keep the patty evenly heated thus keeping the heat transfer delta constant, avoiding a raw middle and a burnt outside, you career path is as expansive as all of the fast food restaurants that dot the urban landscape.  Bottom line, if you can’t provide convenient (read web) collaboration to your clients,  someone else will and then you wont have to worry about any of this.

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Here’s the truth – Collaboration is a gift for the CAD vertical.  In a world of outsourcing and increasing offshore competition:

• Its a chance to solicit clients like never before

• Its a chance to engage clients like never before

• Its a chance to get them to participate in an inclusive manner

• Its a chance to immerse them in your skills & expertise

• Its a chance to share your vision-for-their-project in ways they never could have imagined.

…and the A#1 ROI point for Collaboration – Its a chance to spot errors waaay sooner and save your clients millions!

Really the old adage is true – another pair of eyes will often spot what you’ve missed.  This is now the entire focus of things like digital prototyping and BIM where you get to break/edit/fix the problem virtually, which is much cheaper. The fact that collaboration has come to CAD is a great thing and literally will define the competitive landscape for the solicitation and operation of  projects and contracts.  For those who would malign collaboration I would suggest that from your clients point of view, they would have rather you focused your derision on three better “c” word candidates for CAD:  cost, change orders and culpability.

(2) One Version of the Truth

Ok, hands up – whose seen it? You know when the Architect, Engineer and Construction guys are all on the job site  with the plans all rolled out trying to explain to the Developer who’s fault it is and why they need another 2 weeks and a cartoon bag of money to fix the problem. Yes, we’ve all seen the Three Stooges in action and especially if you are one of the Stooges or even worse the Developer who has to go to the bank and ask for more money (thats more like Dracula) – it sucks!   This is why the AIA is instituting Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and BIM – and the GSA has dropped the hammer on at least requiring BIM before bids on all new Federal projects.  If these terms are unfamiliar to you, use the full-hand-eye-poke-blocker next time and go look it up.  SaaS by its very nature keeps one centralized named version of anything and as long as folks can read, you have One Version of the Truth for everyone to refer to, 24×7.  In the good ole days (and today sadly), there were so many rolls of paper laying around, really it was anybody’s guess to as which one had the latest change orders.  This problem stems way back to the Egyptians and you can see on their friezes that is was very popular to have everybody pointing at everybody else for who’s fault it was, thus the Pharaoh never new who exactly needed to be executed when the first pyramid was built upside down.

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(3) Show Me the Money

SaaS is going to save CAD clients a ton of money because you will get the best fit to the ROI curve possible.  It will be possible to subscribe a team to a CAD SaaS offering, transfer it to others or shut it down when you dont need it anymore.  When you empower the individual with a use anywhere tool that can also be used in concert with others – it all sure beats that crummy per computer license restriction and cost.  I’ve read a bunch of editorial about how SaaS really is for the vendors, to help stop piracy, eliminate support and maintenance headaches and rollout new feature sets uniformly.  Ok, at what point does any of that not directly benefit the end user in the here and now on planet earth?  How about this, clients don’t have to pay for beefy boxes that are desklocked past 5pm.  Clients don’t have to burden IT with more costly support and maintenance for finicky CAD types.  Clients can access and collaborate their goodies to clients anytime anywhere…hows that shrinkwrap box / shelf trophy looking now?

(4) The Aftercad Approach:  Shameless Self Plug and Helping CAD Vendors

The Aftercad approach is to chop the Vendor CAD application into the CAD Engine and the CAD User Interface. The CAD Engine stays on the server, the CAD User Interface is recreated natively in the browser and sends commands to the CAD engine exactly like the Windows or Mac UI would. This approach maintains Vendor build control over their product as we only need to access it via API calls, thus Vendor development path stays in check with regular desktop application development.

Our solution has many advantages over a PC-Over-IP approach in that latency becomes much less of an issue and because there is a rich data flow between the browser and the server,  it is much quicker, easier and ultimately cheaper to integrate with other client browser offerings from other vendors.

These are critical factors clients consider when opting to use SaaS as part of the ROI is the ability to freely integrate and mashup multiple tools, creating the single tuned solution interface the client needs rather than the traditional approach of multiple siloed desktop applications.

Next time i’ll talk about how Resellers, VARs and Managed Services folks can get in on the sweet CAD SaaS action and what this means for SaaS to your company.

Demoed at GDC 2010 in San Francisco, the Aftercad Immersion Project is being received as possibly a more practical and acceptable approach to the goal of what has been coined "Zero-Wait-State Gaming". "If you are going to stick it out on the web then you’ve gotta keep it to open web standards so that the little guy can get in and people can consume the content how they want to. This is the new social media paradigm for 3D and we feel our approach is the future." said Christopher Boothroyd, CEO of Aftercad Software.

"Sometimes to really open up an opportunity, you need to come at it from a completely different angle. The Cloud Gaming and Cloud 3D markets in general are about to undergo a major transition from being under the purview of a group of technicians and enthusiasts to wide spread participation by everyone. This is an opportunity that will radically change communications and social media with richer interactive content. To be a part of this is exciting to say the least. Our approach is based on our 3D CAD background and the leveraging of our patent pending Live Web technologies. This gives us an edge by opening up the entire process." Efforts like Onlive and OTOY utilize what is technically called PC-Over-IP, that is the remote display of something running on a server in the cloud, the capture of user’s keyboard, mouse and peripheral inputs and sending that back to the server as quickly as possible in order to keep latency down and the experience tight. "This works well and I sincerely think these guys are going to replace the console but it is one closed loop system replacing another closed loop system".

Aftercad’s approach is accomplished by the combination of server and client side rendering with client side AJAX UI coding. There is no client side application to install, it ’simply works immediately’ in the web browser with no user environmental interruptions. In addition to this zero-wait-state content delivery, the Aftercad approach utilizes Software-as-a-Service methods to create a fully interactive client side UI that works in perfect unison with the server side rendering to create a low latency, high response environment where there are no restrictions on the complexity and fidelity of the 3D content being delivered. “Of high importance in this effort is to keep the deployment of this new medium inline with current and future web programming efforts so developers don’t have to learn new scripting languages and spend more capital on integrating yet more plugins, which people typically wont install anyway.” Aftercad’s new approach works entirely within the current web architecture without the introduction of the plugins necessary for Onlive, OTOY or PC-Over-IP in general.

"Think about this as points on a graph, first we had mainframe/thin client architecture, then the PC and consoles took over and Gaming was born, now the pendulum has swung all the way back to running the complex 3D apps server side with a thin client side app. The next point on the graph is to open that loop up with a much richer information flow between the server and the browser as the client app." This has many advantages over a PC-Over-IP approach in that latency becomes much less of an issue and because there is a rich data flow between the browser and the server, it will be much quicker, easier and ultimately cheaper to integrate with other web browser offerings from other vendors. "There is no reason Games and 3D Apps shouldn’t be part of the Software-as-a-Service revolution as well, a sentiment we share with Google." As HTML5 begins to take shape, Aftercad’s new zero-wait-state method will also leverage WebGL and other browser innovations to deliver the best possible optimized 3D web content experience, using both server and client side rendering.

CAD in the Cloud Part I:  The First Wave – PC over IP

As we bravely enter 2010 and technology continues to run amok in other verticals, the CAD community is starting to get a little jumpy around the topic of SaaS and Cloud Computing and how that’s going to change everyone’s revenue models.  I’ve heard the entire gamut of responses so far including: the-ostrich-head-in-the-sand, the hand wringers, the just-bury-me-with-my-roll-of-plans guys, the opportunists, the Autodesk conspiratorial theorists, the blasé shrugs and dire end-of-the-CAD-world predictions.  I think someone even said there was a relevant entry in the Mayan calendar or Nostradamus Quatrains or something -

“The Sky will darken and there will be great turmoil and gnashing of teeth as the CAD vertical is forced to grow up and embrace the rest of the human race. Cats will play with dogs, Engineers will collaborate with Architects, people will actually use computers to record change orders . Suddenly and terribly everyone will realize its not so bad afterall…“

I am of course poking fun at my CAD contemporaries who despite my assurances wish we could just go back to the good ole days with the tilty desk and vellum.  For the most part we know how this is going to change things and generally I think a rationality is beginning to set in that this for the first time is going to bring peace to the land and be good for the cause.  We have the opportunity to move CAD and GIS into the modern world and position it alongside of other modern SaaS and Cloud based systems like CRM, ERP and other run-the-planet kinds of things.  Indeed making CAD and GIS a server side entity with the ability to integrate with open technologies like XML, Ajax, REST, Flex and others will help increase the number of  “Smart Technology” based efforts being touted by folks like IBM, Google and others – which is a good thing.

Breaking the Ice, Lets start the CAD cloud at the Office.

One of the first technologies I see coming to break the ice is PC-over-IP.  I use this a general term for what is best described as the next step beyond Webex or Citrix.  PC-over-IP basically involves hosting an app on the server, encoding the screen output to a highly compressed stream of images or video and serving that to a client side app that unpacks it and displays it to the user.  Typically the same app is also involved in the capture and delivery of user responses  (mouse, keyboard, usb devices) to the server side app and the cycle begins anew.   This can be done with software alone, software and hardware or entirely with hardware based solutions.  This approach when conditions are right yields a great solution where the user can on any device anywhere can run a high powered CAD application with full 3D acceleration and rendering as if it where right there on the local box.  There are pros and cons as with any new technology but when one considers the convenience of leaving large CAD models, safely and securely on the server and being able to deliver all of the high powered features to a user remotely,  its a very seductive argument.  Cons for this approach are typically latency issues in that if the distance between the user and the server exceed a threshold over a certain amount, latency sets in and the lag between clicking on something and seeing the result on the screen can be prohibitive.

Software PC-Over-IP Solutions

In the software solution category are the boisterous Onlive.com folks who are going to challenge the console makers in the Gaming vertical and frankly will give them a run for their money.  Onlive boasts an impressive roster of investors and game publishers who promise thousands of game titles right there on the web without the need for a fancy PC or xbox.  The other entrant is the mysterious OTOY, who it was discovered through some gritty CAD journalism work by Ralph Grabowski, were the ones behind the SaaS magic at SolidWorks World.  Both of these companies use proprietary compression technology to keep the latency down and utilize a client side application to quarterback  the incoming remote screen view and the outgoing user mouse/keyboard events.

Hardware PC-Over-IP Solutions

In the hardware PC-Over-IP solution category there has been a sudden breakthrough in the approach by a Canadian company called Teradici who have just techno-leap frogged the incumbent Citrix HDX 3D solution. The Teradici solution utilizes a card in the server to hardware compress the screen imagery and deliver it to either a software decoder in VMware View 4 or a hardware “puck” that the remote user plugs a keyboard and mouse into to operate.  A good comparison of the Teradici and Citrix offerings is here.  Big guns AMD also have a pretty slick solution based on the Teradici chip and I can’t help but feel this really answers one of the fundamental CAD in the Cloud reservations “Where’s my data!”

One of the main voiced concerns of the CAD in the cloud revolves around where the CAD data is stored, who keeps it secure and what happens when someone can’t get at it. By using PC-over-IP, companies can host their own corner of the CAD cloud on premises or with Managed Services outfits and reach out to the remote or mobile users knowing exactly where the data lives and who is in charge of it.

How does this fit with SaaS?

PC-over-IP is an important first step and realistically its applications will be best utilized by targeted content providers (like Onlive and AAA Game publishers) and serious CAD content folks like manufacturers or designers who are building very large assembly products that require centralization, 3D processing grunt and collaboration.  SaaS however by the very nature of its makeup is about the Web. In order to enable publishing, collaboration and integration, SaaS will continue its march across software distribution models with one all powerful promise: you’re not stuck with a siloed solution, you can integrate it with anything.  Salesforce is a great example of what you can do to mix and match the core offering provided by Marc Benioff and crew and your own Web content: side by side or completely mashed up. Google Maps is another good example of the flexibility of SaaS with any number of the thousands of professional and enthusiast map mashups displaying all kinds of data easily. To some degree PC-Over-IP is like a fence post and SaaS is like the fence.

We should also expect PC-Over-IP content to start appearing on SaaS driven webpages as one of the great features of both approaches is to embed streaming content for multicasting, like UStream for CAD.  This will be a big theme this year as more ISV’s utilize multicasting to Sales demo and educate the masses on product offerings and this is one of the ways it will be delivered.

next entry I’ll go into a bit more about our 2nd Generation 3D Collaboration technologies, how it picks up from where PC-Over-IP leaves off and some more CAD in the Cloud head scratching.

Looking at the bigger picture here, SaaS is coming to CAD this year whether the curmudgeons like it or not.  Autodesk snapped up Visual Tao, who did an exceptional job with their Flash based CAD viewer/editor/markup.  Jeff Ray at Solidworks also just tossed down the SaaS gauntlet at SWW so in popular parlance – “Its On!”  When we made our decision to hand Renderjam off we looked at what was coming down the path and realized that the CAD vertical as a whole would be better served by letting our visualization and web technologies be expressed as a multitude of SaaS offerings from different vendors with different feature focuses than we could possibly cover ourselves.  The licensing revenue isn’t bad either.

Going forward we will be offering all of our technologies for license in the Live Web platform, which is essentially what the Renderjam service sat on.  We are busy preparing the Live Web site for all those who are interested and this allows us to do what we do best which is to keep developing killer disruptive technologies to drive the complacent mad.

"We will be suspending the Renderjam 3D Collaboration service. We have reached an agreement with the Open Design Alliance whose members will be opening brand new CAD and 3D SaaS offerings incorporating our technology." said Christopher Boothroyd, CEO of Aftercad Software "While we realize this is an inconvenience, this is about choice and everyone’s needs will be much better served by multiple vendors and SaaS offerings tuned for specific solutions. We would like to thank all of you for your feed back and time during the Beta and launch of Renderjam."

Aftercad has notified Renderjam.com users to download critical files by Feb 28th. All subscribing users will be compensated in full for this month’s subscription fee. Renderjam.com will be retooled to host the Aftercad Live Web site, the cutting edge in next generation 3D cloud computing technology. "Aftercad will continue to focus on the development and licensing of its award winning Live Web platform. This is the kind of opportunity we have been hoping for and its great that we share the same vision of this with the Open Design Alliance"