What is VX?

Revealing VX: Foreign garbage or incense?

Recently, the news about the acquisition of VX by domestic CAD companies, after the separation of Exeter and T3, has set off another wave, adding to the already calm CAD industry in China. Generally speaking, this is a good thing. Only when there are new changes will there be new development. Whether the acquisition is successful or not, it will be a new attempt and exploration for the development of CAD in China.

As a veteran, I have seen too many failures and painful lessons, so while waving flags and shouting for domestic CAD enterprises, I conducted a network search on a strange VX to see what this VX is. Because the information is searched through the internet, it is not guaranteed to be completely reliable, only for your entertainment:

First, is VX a well-known mainstream CAD software in the United States? According to the data, VX is a three-stream or multi-stream CAD software that has been changed hands by the United States, South Korea, Japan and other countries many times. Before it was acquired, it was controlled by a small Japanese company, because it is really difficult to classify its level compared with the familiar three-dimensional software such as CATIA, NX, PRO/E, SolidEdge, SolidWorks and Inventor. 1993 it was reported that Cadkey and Varimetrix(VX) merged, and Varimetrix became a division of Cadkey, but it seemed to be dropped later because there was no follow-up news. 1997, Samsung galaxy mentioned in its annual report that it owns 5 1% Varimetrix. In 2000, SNK invested in VX, and Samsung Electronics should have left with the money. From 2005 to 2007, Nanjing New Japan Machine Tool Company, China Branch of SNK of Japan, began to sell VX as an agent in China. To this end, it continues to advertise its products in many magazines in the industry. At that time, it seemed to have been promoted in Japanese-funded enterprises in China, but it didn't take long for the agent to die and the advertisement disappeared completely. There was little news about VX in the next three years, and it was only recently that domestic CAD companies bought it at the purchase price of "the highest amount in China CAD industry". Visible, on the one hand, sold VX finally sold a good price in China, on the other hand, domestic CAD enterprises seem to be relatively rich.

Secondly, can VX replace 3D CAD such as SW and Pro/e? To this end, I specially downloaded the partially localized trial version of VX on the Internet and tried it out. I feel that the software architecture, functions, operating habits and data compatibility are far from mainstream 3D CAD. First of all, the interface interaction is very old-fashioned, which belongs to the level of 3D CAD 10 years ago and does not conform to the popular windows operating style and thinking. Secondly, the speed of updating the three-dimensional model is not slow, but slow; Third, the conversion to two-dimensional engineering drawings is very weak, and the lost data is not a little bit or two, but a lot; Fourthly, we need to exchange data through intermediate files (IGES, DXF, STEP, STL, etc.). ) and cannot be directly exchanged; Finally, because the CAM module was not found in the trial version, its "efficient 5-axis machining technology" was not commented. This is just a rough experiment, and I don't rule out or find some subtle things.

I very much agree with the comments in Dr. Huang's blog post that there are great risks and challenges for domestic CAD companies to acquire foreign 3D CAD. On the one hand, foreign high-end and mid-end CAD software has a certain customer base, and it is not easy to cut into this market now; On the other hand, 3D CAD products need more marketing, service and technical support than 2D CAD products. Through all-round similarity with AutoCAD, it can gain a share in the 2D CAD market, but it is unlikely that 3D CAD will be similar to the existing products in the market in operation, and how to sell it remains to be seen. At the same time, the application of 3D CAD has developed from isolated CAD application to integration with 2D CAD, PDM and PLM, which will face many technical problems.

However, in any case, I sincerely hope and wish that the China CAD industry and domestic CAD enterprises will get better and better!