(((Kids! Grow fantastically complex machinery in your basement with no idea how it works!)))
Link: Matt Writes » Blog Archive » The Democratization of 3D.
"Maybe I’m just protecting my livelihood when saying this, but what happens when you take a tool that can do some pretty complicated things, and you make it very automatic, which enables you to do the work without much forethought, planning or insight. This must be what went through the minds of contract FEA analysts when CosmosExpress became available - allowing anyone with a SolidWorks license to do “analysis”. The Express tool is so dumbed down that literally anyone can get results out of it. Stress analysis, formerly the exclusive domain of specialists, has now been opened to all. The curtain of the Holy of Holies has been rent.
"Still, is it really analysis if you’re just going through the motions, not understanding what is going on? How much value is in the answer if you don’t even understand the question? I think the same question is valid when talking about “dumbing down” the controls to editing a CAD model. Sure, SpaceClaim enables machinists to edit models from any CAD package as if they were native SpaceClaim data, but should they?..."
