Spotlight: Dmitry Ushakov of Ledas' Driving Dimensions

LEDAS Ltd., a Russian software development company, recently released a new version of Driving Dimensions plugin for Google SketchUp. We asked Dmitry Ushakov, Director of Product Management at LEDAS for an in-depth interview with “The Daily CatchUp” on their latest offering.

TDC: There is a new version of Driving Dimensions for SketchUp released last week, remind us what it does?

Dmitry: Our plug-in adds parametric functionality to Google SketchUp, making it similar to MCAD software packages. Moreover we have implemented it in a way that can be used even by beginners. You know that Google SketchUp users can add linear and radial dimensions to their models, and these dimensions are updated (recomputed) each time you make changes to your geometry. So your dimensions are driven by geometry. We provide the opposite possibility: let your dimensions drive your geometry. When you set a desired value for a driving dimension, your model is automatically updated to satisfy it. In addition, we did not limit ourselves by linear/radial dimensions and introduced angular dimensions. So with our plug-in you can change any length, distance, radius or angle in your model with just one click!

TDC: Your concept is simple, but most Google SketchUp users used to apply Scale or Tape measure tools for changing dimensions in their models, what is your added value except UI?

Dmitry: Indeed you can use some built-in SketchUp tools to set the desired length dimension for any edge. However, using these tools you can set not more than one dimension at a time. If you set other dimensions previously, they may be changed in an undesired way. In contrast, all driving dimensions set to your model are stored and applied simultaneously. Even if you change your model by moving or resizing some of its entities, you can use the Update Geometry command (available with the Driving Dimensions toolbar) to apply automatically all driving dimensions you set previously to your model. Finally, as I said before, the Driving Dimensions plug-in allows you to control not only the length, but also arbitrary distances, radii and angles in your model.

TDC: So you can satisfy several dimensions simultaneously. How does it work?

Dmitry: Simultaneous resolving of driving dimensions and geometric constraints are used in the MCAD industry for many years. The computational engine that resolves simultaneous constraints is called a ‘constraint solver’. The pioneer company here was UK-based D-Cubed Ltd. (now a part of Siemens). We started the development of our LGS constraint solver in 2001 and released the first commercial version in 2004. Now we have several customers who incorporated LGS into their CAD applications to support parametric design with constraints. Simultaneous resolving of hundreds and thousands constraints is not so trivial since basically you need to solve a large system of nonlinear equations and make it in less than one second since end users do not like to wait. We developed several knowhow techniques mainly related to the decomposition of a large initial system of constraints into smaller parts that help us to reach interactive behavior on industrial scenarios.

TDC: OK, you are professional MCAD guys, but Google SketchUp is not an MCAD package. Do you think your experience is requested by Google SketchUp users?

Dmitry: When we started the development of Driving Dimensions plug-in for SketchUp we believed that its functionality will be requested, but we did not predict such great popularity: in less than 8 months after we release a first public beta more than 10,000 SketchUp users from 120+ countries worldwide downloaded a free version of our plug-in from the DrivingDimensions.com website. We have a forum at this site where our users share their vision with us. the SketchUcation Community Forums are also very helpful for this. We received a lot of ideas concerning the future development and we have to think what should be done first, since we are a comparatively small software development company and cannot invest significant resources into this project. But these are pleasant thoughts.

TDC: And what’s new in the version you released recently?

Dmitry: The main user request was to port our plug-in to the Mac. And I am very happy to announce that version 1.1 released in June can run not only on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, but also on Mac OS X (Intel 10.4+). We have also updated the Windows version: now users can apply driving dimensions between grouped elements (if they belong to the same component).
We have also improved the UI: a new button on our toolbar opens “About Driving Dimensions” dialog with links to online help located on our website, and the procedure of argument selection for driving dimensions has been corrected. Being always concentrated on quality issues we have improved the stability of our plug-in by fixing several bugs.

TDC: Why is your plug-in free? How do you earn money?

Dmitry: We have two versions of the Driving Dimensions plug-in: Free and Pro. The Free version is not intended for commercial use and is limited in the maximum driving dimensions entities that can be added to one Google SketchUp model. The Pro version is available from the share-it! online store for only $45 per single user license. Driving Dimensions is not the only plugin – it is rather a line of software products. Recently we released a first public beta of Driving Dimensions for Rhinoceros, a popular NURBS modeling package, and our plan is to introduce driving dimensions into many CAD systems that lack parametric functionality. Our motto is “parametric design for all at adequate price!”. You are welcome to visit our site at http://drivingdimensions.com, where you can find more information about the Driving Dimensions family of plugins, watch video tutorials, download sample models to play with, and ask questions on our user forums.

TDC: Thank you for this interview Dmitry and we wish you and your development team the best of luck with your future endeavors.

Dmitry: Thank you.

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