Ashlar-Vellum’s Organic Workflow™ is not so much a feature of our software, but an entire paradigm or philosophy upon which our entire work environment is based. It’s because we consider the designer’s environment as a whole that Ashlar-Vellum software is so much more productive for many product designers, particularly, non-linear thinkers who tend to think outside the box.

Ashlar-Vellum’s Organic Workflow proves that the vendor genuinely understands its customers, which are concept designers, product development process and challenges. This is evident in its holistic, transparent, comprehensive, and, above all, flexible solution.

Frost & Sullivan, Best Practices Research Product Differentiation Excellence Award

In fact, one of the most important tenants of this concept is that a designer can enter the project at any point in the product development cycle and actively contribute.

Organic Workflow by it’s very nature:

  • Starts anywhere and goes anywhere.
  • Moves freely in any direction.
  • Sustains change while maintaining integrity.
  • Fosters illumination from within the ordinary.

To support an Organic Workflow, product design software must have these five features:

  • A Non-linear Workflow:
    This fosters flexibility, spontaneity and free-play within the software’s work environment.
  • Parametric History on Demand:
    Both a blessing and a curse, if a designer is free to use parametric history when needed, yet ignore it when it’s not, it greatly increases the creative process.
  • Transparent Tools:
    Product design software should disappear into the background, becoming an automatic extension of the designer as he or she concentrates on their project without thinking about how to run their software.
  • Holistic Tool Palette:
    This integrates engineering and design tools including wireframes, solids and surfaces into one interface without having to switch from one mode to another. Freely sketch, develop the model, create photo-renderings and precision engineering drawings all from the same program.
  • Continuous Cross-team Communication:
    Because product design is an organic process, different deliverables are required by different people all along the way. Any type of data must be able to be passed along to the team at any point in the process.

Ashlar-Vellum Cobalt™ uniquely supports these five requirements. On the following page you’ll see specifically where the other major players fall short in light of each one of these five features.

Competitive Comparison Chart

Competitive
Product		 Non-linear
Workflow		 Parametric
History
on Demand		 Transparent
Tools		 Holistic
Tool Palette		 Continuous
Cross-team
Communications
Ashlar-Vellum
Cobalt		 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dassault
SolidWorks		 No
  • Requires a linear workflow
  • Different modes for everything
 No
  • History required at all times to make edits
 No
  • Excruciatingly modal tools palettes
 No
  • Everything is in different modules
 Almost
  • However, it is very difficult to pass useable 2D data to 2D production processes
Autodesk
Inventor		 No
  • Different modes for everything
 No
  • All history required to make edits
 No
  • Excruciatingly modal tools palettes
 No
  • Everything is in different modules or programs
 Yes
Autodesk
Alias		 No
  • No “true” solids
  • Impossible to verify volumes, center of gravity, etc.
 No
  • No constraints / equations
 Yes No
  • No “true” solids
 No
  • No “true” solids
  • No control of stereo-lithography exports across adjacent surfaces in a “solid”—this leads to the inability to print the 3D design
  • Limited direct data exchange
Alibre
with Moment
of Inspiration
(MoI)		 No
  • No associativity
  • Not “true” solids
  • Many commands only work on one type of object and/or don’t have equivalent commands for the various types of objects
  • Difficult to verify dimensions
  • Impossible to verify volumes, center of gravity, etc.
  • Above functions are in other programs, which breaks the workflow, and it is impossible to flow data with history back and forth across these programs
 No
  • History only one level deep
  • Only on some objects
  • No constraints / equations
 Some
  • Very modal tools palettes
 No
  • No rendering
  • No animation
  • No drafting
  • Above functions are in other programs, which breaks the workflow
 No
  • Not “true” solids
  • No drafting
  • No rendering
  • No control of stereo-lithography exports across adjacent surfaces in a “solid”—this leads to the inability to print the 3D design
  • Limited direct data exchange
SpaceClaim No
  • No associativity
  • No independent surfacing
 No Yes No
  • No surfacing
  • Drafting is modal
  • No rendering
  • No animation
 No
  • No rendering
KeyCreator No
  • No associativity
 No Yes No
  • No rendering
  • No animation
 No
  • No rendering
Altair’s
SolidThinking		 No
  • No associativity
  • Not “true” solids
  • Impossible to verify volumes, center of gravity, etc.
 No
  • No constraints / equations
 Yes No
  • No “true” solids
 No
  • No “true” solids
  • No control of stereo-lithography exports across adjacent surfaces in a “solid”—this leads to the inability to print the 3D design
  • Limited direct data exchange