The gulf between hype and actual use when it comes to today’s technologies is very much in evidence in the latest Business Advantage survey of hundreds of CAD users and their managers. Technologies such as 3D printing, cloud-based CAD and virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are over-hyped and under-bought.
CAD insiders may feel as if they know what is going on in their world, but there’s nothing like a survey to be sure—especially when perception is affected by what is getting a lot of attention from the media. We can find out quantitatively what is happening and what may be around the corner.
Business Advantage’s full survey, CAD Trends 2016, is available here, but a few surprises and tidbits are listed below.
3D Printing
While only a quarter of the respondents use 3D printing, it is showing the most growth over each of the last three years.
What's holding up 3D printing? Practically everyone (79 percent) has heard of it but few (28 percent) are using.
Cloud-based CAD
Over half of respondents are aware of cloud-based CAD, but usage is one out of nine.
However, awareness of cloud-based CAD is relatively high, thanks mostly to media attention on Onshape (see Battle of MCAD). This may have resulted in growing usage over the last three years. Managers may not be aware, however: When asked to list importance of current trends, cloud-based CAD ranked next to last in their opinion.
Other categories that have shown significant growth in the last three years include 3D printing, mobile access to CAD, PLM, concurrent engineering, advanced real-time rendering, open-source CAD and pay-as-you-go CAD.
BIM
"Absolute importance" of BIM has been slipping for three years in a row.
Surprisingly, BIM has suffered, having dropped in its importance for three years running. However, Business Advantage still plots its overall trend to go up over the next two years.
Despite its fall, BIM is still placed on an overall upward path.
Mobile-based CAD
Awareness of a technology does not always lead to usage, however. Actual usage can be sobering in light of the perceived popularity trends. Why mobile CAD usage dropped last year, when by all indication mobile device use is growing worldwide, is puzzling.
Before mobile CAD and cloud-based CAD proponents panic, each is expected to grow the most in the next five years, as is indicated by the bulge between the current and expected usage lines in above chart.
Tried and True
Still mission-critical. Most important technologies are 3D modeling, PDM, simulation and PLM, with little fluctuation over the years.
The mainstays of CAD, such as 3D modeling, PDM, simulation and PLM, are still judged to have the “most absolute importance.”
3D modeling is getting saturated. Almost everybody is now on it, so there is little room to grow—except in AEC and Asia, where relatively more users are still in 2D.
Autodesk still reigns. Of the top ten software packages in use, five are Autodesk products— AutoCAD, Inventor, AutoCAD LT, AutoCAD Mechanical and Revit, respectively.
Future Growth
Growth potential is very high for pay-as-you-go CAD, cloud-based CAD, AR/VR, mobile access to CAD and advanced rendering.
It should be no surprise that pay-as-you-go CAD has the highest potential growth expected over the next five years, since large CAD vendors such as Autodesk are committing to subscription models. Cloud-based CAD, AR/VR and mobile access to CAD are also good bets.
Hardware
The only hardware to show growth in past three years and projected growth next year is solid state drives (SSDs).
What Are You Reading?
People nowadays are primarily getting information on the Internet and CAD users and managers are no different. User data implies that they prefer this to being told what to do. The least-referenced source of information in a company is the IT department, cited by only 12 of the respondents as where they would go for information. Heading the list is of information sources is Google, which only appears to be getting more popular.
Who Are These Guys?
Business Advantage, which conducted the survey, is headquartered in the UK but operates worldwide. The U.S. led all countries in terms of respondents.