The Hidden Infrastructure Behind Engineering Software: Tech Soft 3D, HOOPS AI and the Future of 3D

Fino: Welcome to the AI Across the Product Life Cycle, a special edition with my friend Jonathan Girroir of Tech Soft 3D. How are you doing today, Jonathan? Jonathan Girroir: Hey, Michael, I'm doing great. Thanks.

It's great to be here. Fino: we've actually crossed each other numerous times this year already in trade shows and so forth. It's been great meeting you ⁓ in ⁓ Tech Soft 3D has been quietly powering engineering software for decades. For those that only know the logo, what is the company about today?

Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, we are primarily a software development toolkit provider for the 3D engineering industry. So we have SDKs that provide data translation and visualization, simulation and analysis that power probably almost all of the independent software vendors out there in one way or another. We we touch so many in our industry across the whole product lifecycle. So from ⁓ design to simulation to CAD, CAM, 3D printing, and then also in the building construction space.

And we also have a small part of our company where we actually use those toolkits and we build end user products for visualization in the enterprise. Fino: Well, you were ta you're talking about the hoops, the the pretty much the industry standard for visualization, right? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, yeah. People know we're the hoops guys versus being Tech Soft 3D is the hoops is even more recognizable brand.

So that's our our set of SDKs, but we also have the Spinfire brand. That's our n engineering ⁓ visualization tools for the enterprise, data translation and and ⁓ AR and VR end user tools as well. Fino: Yeah. Awesome.

⁓ yeah, and it also it's been a a bit of a transition for you guys, right? Because you had a very one of the very famous people in the CAD world for a long time, Mr. Fritz, ⁓ who ⁓ stepped away. And ⁓ but you guys have done a great job picking it up and and and keeping the ball rolling.

In fact, you told me business is booming, so that's awesome. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, you know, when when you talk about the history of Tech Soft 3D, we've been around for almost thirty years. We celebrate thirty years in November of this this year. And in fact, we we spun out of Autodesk.

So so though Ron is is known as in the industry, ⁓ originally Carl Bass, who ⁓ became an executive at at Autodesk was also an original hoops hoops guy as as well. Fino: ⁓ it is. Yeah, he was famous for saying PLM that was useless, right? ⁓ Live to regret that one, I think.

Yeah. ⁓ so what trends are you seeing from from your ⁓ from your seat as a visualization guy in terms of trends across CAD C P LM manufacturing that are reshaping expectations of the customers? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. Not saying everything he said was correct, but but it is a recognizable name.

Yeah, a number of different things. And so ⁓ wanna move to the cloud. A lot of people are like, what? Like that happened a decade ago.

But in our industry, we kind of move slowly, especially some of the bigger players. And so that's still very topical. Is how do we move legacy applications to to the cloud and become cloud enabled? Even simulation analysis becoming ⁓ cloud enabled, Cam being cloud enabled, ⁓ CMM being cloud enabled, things that really were resistant to that initially.

So we're seeing we're seeing that. ⁓ and then the the build of of hybrid architectures too. So cloud and desktop. So what workflows belong in the cloud, what still need to be on the desktop, and kind of what's the best choice for different workflows.

So that's one. ⁓ we see a lot of data. So so really at our core here at Tech Soft, we're we're a data access and translation ⁓ company. We have visualization on top of that.

We have simulation ⁓ with that as well. But It really starts with data and the way in which people are interacting with data, sharing data, and moving data through workflows ⁓ is becoming less file-based and more API-based. So as things move to the cloud, access to that data becomes not just file-based, but really just holistically looking at how do I access this through a set of APIs. So we really are seeing ⁓ a evolution, a revolution in that space.

And then of course AI, right? We're going to talk about that. quite a bit today. But with all that data, how do we how do we use that to make intelligent workflows and and learn from ⁓ connecting that to business information and and extract value from that using some of the newer machine learning tools.

Fino: It's i ironic you mentioned that because it seems that ⁓ in my talks with ⁓ some of the startups and customers, it there also is even a way back to on prem again because of the concerns on sovereignty and so forth. So we all had the this big pendulum towards the cloud and it's sort of starting to swing back a little bit, which is a bit interesting. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, and everything in between. So COVID definitely opened up a lot of workflows just because we had to be remote.

And so that kind of was the last that's what we needed to kind of move stuff ⁓ to the cloud. On premise still absolutely needed to be supported and and private cloud and government cloud, it there's there's a lot of different solutions on how to own your your data and and still maintain it, yet create this connected environment. Fino: Mm. ⁓ well speaking of workflows, so it feels like engineering software is becoming less about individual individual applications, more about connected workflows.

Would you agree with that statement? Jonathan Girroir: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's about moving data from application to application.

It's about it's about like ecosystems and making sure you play within that ecosystem. And and big vendors are trying to lock you in and build massive ecosystems where they have all of the tools that you need. ⁓ but then everyone else is trying to figure out how do I tap into that? How do I make it as seamless as possible?

And so yeah, over the years, just standard file. ⁓ formats that become richer that allow you to have these integrations and these translations. Like that's that's definitely something that we're seeing. ⁓ but then direct integrations through APIs, that that is also really, really important because you don't want to lose your data, you want to lose your work.

And there's a lot of value and and connected workflows for the whole product life cycle. Yeah, absolutely. Fino: And ⁓ what capabilities do ISVs need today that were not even priorities, say five years ago, other than AI, agent tick AI, right? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. ⁓ multicad enablement is really what it comes down to. And so like not being able just to exchange a step file, but be able to read like let's let's get the Creo file or the NX file with all the PMI and the feature data and the feature tree and and all the metadata and and material information and kinematics.

So just that that real rich data access is is important. And then being able to use it, right? So not just be able to bring the file in, but then Fino: All right. Jonathan Girroir: make informed decisions on top of that.

⁓ and then probably like unique IDs too, so that like if you're bringing your data through a series of steps, you can kind of track changes. And as you implement something and change it, you're able to implement that change as well. Like if you're doing a draft out ⁓ draft angle analysis, but then you change some of your geometry, all of your preparatory work can get reapplied. So so those are really important as well.

Fino: And the is that Go ahead. I and I suppose, especially in your case, it's also work horizontally in the organization, but it's ⁓ vertically up and down the supply chain. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. ⁓ absolut absolutely.

Yeah. Fino: So so what are they customers asking for the biggest improvements? What what are the what's the customer demand like? What are they asking TechSoup 3D?

Jonathan Girroir: You know More data. I really is there's a still a lot of vendors out there trying to keep their own little corner of the ecosystem. So I know in in recent months we've added support for ⁓ DGN file formats, making sure that you can just natively bring that data in, be able to visualize it and work with it seamlessly with without having to convert it to a a neutral format. speed.

I mean that it is data. Fino: Hmm. Jonathan Girroir: Our data's getting bigger every day, the way we acquire it, the way we model it, the way we visualize it. And computers are getting better, of course, but speed is always important.

So that's the speed of load, speed of translation, speed of visualization, speed of interaction, speed of processing. So being able to continue to accelerate that, ⁓ be able to parallelize the processing. So now if everything's on the cloud, how do I actually make use of these parallel environments? and and renewed parallel environments or on or on your desktop as well or being able to accelerate on the graphics card.

So so I guess like rich data is something we continue to focus on. And then we just continue to focus on speed and and to some extent vi visual fidelity. So photorealistic rendering, ray tracing is still something we see with with some of the newer tools like nano banana, like we're able to push data there and get pretty, pretty good high, high-end rendering. Fino: ⁓ that's cool.

Jonathan Girroir: From it, but ⁓ PBR, it's it's ⁓ physically based rendering is a slightly new standard for fast graphics for like high fidelity. So being able to support that. ⁓ and then like there's some new paradigms of file interoperability that we're looking at that are quite promising, like USD, universal screen description that. Fino: Yeah, I was about to ask about open US T.

Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, like that's really exciting because you you know that came from Pixar, but now it's being adopted by Autodesk and Apple and Adobe and Trimble, and there's just a ton of momentum and what makes it so like everybody. Yeah. What Fino: And Siemens PTC. and and you saw this ⁓ the TwinThread acquisition by ⁓ Aveva was particularly interesting about a month ago because that's what Andy Wake had bet his entire company on was OpenUSD ⁓ Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, a lot of people are doing that and it seems to be paying off.

And we are as well. So we're heavily, heavily vested in that and and a member of OpenUSD and trying to support that format and inform it. What makes it really exciting is ⁓ it's like streamable, it's composable, it's extendable, it's very flexible. ⁓ and and because there's industry momentum around it, ⁓ we're able to extend it.

So they're like they're creating their own B rep representation, but you can You can plug parasolid data in there if you want to because it's it's very extensible. Fino: So let's move on to the recent announcements so you can tell us all the the wonderful stuff you guys have been doing and I know we've you've gone to my trade shows and been able to talk about it. So can you talk about some of the more important ⁓ initiatives that you've done recently, walk through what was announced and why did you announce it now?

Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, I mean the big thing this year, 2026, we released officially Hoops AI, which is a framework for taking CAD data, 3D data, and being able to encode it ⁓ and be able to take it into machine learning algorithms. So it's a framework for doing that. We have ⁓ some encoders that allow you to quickly get it into different frameworks for machine learning. We're also able to connect it to business information.

So some of our more recent releases allow you to connect it to costing information and create informed business decisions around that. So we're we're all in to AI and ⁓ particularly what's what's really important about this is it's based on the 3D geometry. So it's not like a a 2D representation that we're we're feeding into an algorithm, but we're actually looking at your topology and your your 3D geometry. So we're the the only ⁓ company that's that's currently doing that and providing this as a toolkit ⁓ that then ⁓ can be built on top of.

So trying to help all of our customers who are using our translation tools to be able to now take all their data, encode it, and then start to use it in these these ⁓ new paradigms. Fino: Well, this one's sort of off script, but I wonder what what's your opinion on the ⁓ the these text to cad ⁓ startups that are popping up like mushrooms, right? I think I read about a new one every other week. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah.

Let's go. Let's go. I you know that's that's the holy grail and and a lot of people are trying to get to that. we'll see.

And I think it what what it comes down to is really good good data, a good you know, what what's made a lot of these predictive tools outside of our industry ⁓ work is because they have a large body of work that allows them to make these predictions and so building on top of that, you you need good you need good data and you need a fair amount of it. And so I'm curious to see the the few that I've used are just kind of like, ⁓ like let's Let's see, and it's gonna it's gonna take some time.

⁓ what we're really interested in is accelerating existing workflows and making making large libraries ⁓ accessible, large libraries of 3D data accessible and navigable. So for instance, if I have this widget that I might have I'm a aerospace manufacturer, I might have designed it five times already. I have it in my library, but how do I find it? And how do I connect it to business information?

So it already has, you know, ⁓ let's say the FAA. Fino: Hm. Jonathan Girroir: approval and it's gone through a number of steps and it has this analysis data and we knew how we know how to how to build it, how to manufacture it, all the testing information. So if I'm able to take this part and find it and not have to re-engineer it or find similar parts and be able to use those, that's that's incredibly valuable right now.

And that's that's where we're trying to work in is is part search and and feature recognition. ⁓ Text to CAD, we'd love love to support that as well through our translation tools being able to provide that to you. but right now it we're just trying to bite off just smaller chunks that of of foundational ⁓ approaches. Fino: it's interesting where you phrase that because it sounds similar to what a lot of the innovation that I'm seeing on the manufacturing side of the fence where they're taking the IOT, the SCADA the PLCs and recontextualizing.

So that's what you're saying. You're taking the 3D data and recontextualizing it in the PLM engineering context, basically, right? Whereas US OpenUSD apples do that, but also contextualize in the manufacturing context, which is what makes it unique. ⁓ but I've Jonathan Girroir: Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Fino: I don't think those are the only announcements you've made, the AI ones. Weren't there some announcements around spin sp ⁓ spin spin spin spin fire? Yeah.

Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. Spin fire. Yeah. So we so yeah, we we released a mobile viewer recently.

⁓ we so like I mentioned we supported DGN. ⁓ cellular volumes for simulation is huge. And we we talk about CAD and CAM, but simulation analysis is a bigger industry, ⁓ dollar for dollar. And so making sure that we're able to visualize cellular volumes, so it's it's ⁓ Fino: Yeah.

Jonathan Girroir: a way of which you can be looking at simulation results or or pre-processing data. So making sure that in our graphics engines, we're supporting that. ⁓ We're starting to talk about a data hub. So that's really exciting.

So that's kind of future looking later this year. So ⁓ kind of a think of think of allowing your opening up your data throughout the engineering enterprise through a set of APIs and and through a set of of plugins and tools that sit on top of that. So so there are like a number of things happening. Happening here at at Tech Soft.

⁓ USD, we've been announcing the support for that. ⁓ and then and then also later this year, there's another format for quality assurance and and coordinate measuring. That's QIF. Quality, I forget what it stands for, but yeah, and that that's kind of like a very structured, powerful way of of bringing all of your MBD data in and then.

Fino: Right. Interface format or something. Jonathan Girroir: also including inspection results from a CMM machine or how to do inspection as well. Fino: So So so what kinds of like specific customer problems ⁓ were you trying to address by some of these announcements?

So there were particular things where people said, You know, ⁓ th I really have this problem and darn it if if Tech Soft 3D could give me something Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, I mean we we went in a bunch of directions there. so when we think about ⁓ do we invest at Tech Soft, so the main thing is making sure that we're current ⁓ and unlocking data throughout the enterprise for our customers. So we have about 700 different independent software vendors that are using our tools. And they need to be able to access Katiya, SolidWorks, Creo, NX data, you know, 30 different file formats.

within their application. So we're we're multicad enabling them and and a fair amount of our energy just goes into making sure that we we maintain those translators. So that's that's a big thing. ⁓ top of that, ⁓ we do look at, you know, where are our customers going when it comes to ⁓ features and how how do we support them in in doing that.

So new formats like USD and QIF and DGN. ⁓ and then on top of that, like where is innovation happening at Tech Soft? So that's that's hoops AI. ⁓ And and that, know, that's you know, there's there's little things like ⁓ I forget like configurations in in in Crio, for instance, or multi-threading ⁓ KTA file translation.

So there's always these these little things that we're trying to improve. But right now, a lot of our RD just going into to hoops ai, ⁓ as well as our data hub. So I guess those are the two major initiatives here at Tech Soft is is making sure that we're we're ready for that. Final migration to the cloud, the opening up of data through APIs for MCPs ⁓ is is really interesting to us.

And and then also ⁓ yeah, just hoops AI and and being able to encode your CAD data. Fino: So what ⁓ which of the announcements you mentioned had the mo biggest reaction from your partners? Yeah, that's I was a Jonathan Girroir: Hoops AI. I mean just when we when we look like this is a small industry.

Now how many independent software vendors are building 3D engineering applications? I mean, you you know that better than than we do. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's a small, it's a small industry, right? And so we have about 700 different companies using one or more pieces of our technology. ⁓ Fino: ⁓ a hundred and twenty three about Well that's just design intelligence. Another two hundred if you go there.

Jonathan Girroir: And so when when when I host a webinar, like I'm excited to get a hundred people there. Like that's a good day for me because you know how many, how many software developers are doing that? But when we released Hoopsai, we saw we had to we had to upgrade our our Zoom webinar account. ⁓ and so the response was great.

We lead with that. ⁓ and it opens doors. We're finding a lot of a lot of companies are like Fino: Wow. That's awesome.

Jonathan Girroir: They like the idea of AI, they're trying to figure out everyone's trying figure out how do we how do we make appease our board, our investors, or you know, how do we stay competitive. They don't quite know how, they don't might not have the internal experience with machine learning. ⁓ but it it intrigues them. And what we actually find is they might not be ready to implement machine learning algorithms, but they still need data translation, or they still need graphics.

And so even though Fino: Yeah. Jonathan Girroir: it's interesting to them, we actually ⁓ find that we start we start at the very base level is like, all right, let's get you some some high quality data access. And then we can start talking about about other ⁓ more complicated workflows and other toolkits on top of that. Fino: And and some of these new capabilities are they completely complementary to the current offering or some of them are or are you also sunsetting things along the Jonathan Girroir: we have an ecosystem.

So I think we like to talk about a we have about 10 different SDKs that that we ⁓ make ourselves. And then we also partner with companies like Siemens and MachineWorks for their modeling kernels. So Siemens has Parasolid, MachineWorks has their Polygonica mesh mesh modeling toolkit. ⁓ so that ecosystem, everything kind of works with bridges and and connected APIs, ⁓ embeddings with within them.

⁓ Do we sense we do we sunset things occasionally? ⁓ trying to think what's what's been sunset in the past. ⁓ maybe like a ray, we had a ray tracer that we're not we're not actively pushing right now. but we're we we haven't even sunset that.

I'm trying to no, I we've consolidated so so we we try to simplify our product offering actually. So we we had ⁓ we had a 3D PDF. Creation and kind of a file writing set of tools that's just been incorporated into Hoops Exchange now. That's our file access.

So it's read write. So you can read CAD data in and publish a 3D PDF. So we what tends to happen is we are in we we build relationships with companies and they ship their products on top of our SDKs, and the life of those products are measured in decades. And so it's very hard for us to sunset technology.

You know, may maybe like the the biggest sunset news is like we we're not supporting Visual Studio twenty fifteen, for instance. Like I mean that's really what it comes down to or or if if ⁓ if Apple's kind of if they sunset let's OpenGL for instance, then then we try to respond to that. So Microsoft so the big vendors, when they sunset a technology, we have to pivot. And those those are the really the the big things that and Fino: Yeah, of course.

Right. Yeah. Jonathan Girroir: same time like we still have to support. ⁓ even if they've sunset, we still have to support.

So so which had to be this real stable foundation ⁓ with a long term partnership. And and literally we have we have customers that work with us for decades, which is great to see. Fino: Yeah, the guys have vertical. That's awesome.

⁓ well let's step into the like the heart of the the debate, which we s we've already been touching around but about AI. So everybody's obviously talking about it, but what are your customers, what are tech soft customers really asking for today? What is their their main ask for when they come to you and say we need AI? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah.

there's they're still trying to define that. Like everyone seems to be building an agent for automating the UI within their application. ⁓ but where we're finding some real value is connecting business information. So that could be procurement, costing, manufacturing, ⁓ quoting, connecting that to the original CAD data and ⁓ focusing on geometry search and feature recognition.

Are kind of like the big areas that we continue to see themes in this space. Fino: And where do you think that AI is creating genuine new value inside traditional engineering workflows? Where you think is the real the wedge that it's creating in there? Jonathan Girroir: Where is it creating value?

⁓ automating rote tasks. I mean, that's that's absolutely true. ⁓ and then pr providing insight into connecting the dots. ⁓ so for instance, like just not not knowing what you have available to you and and being able to organize it in a meaningful way.

So these these parts catalogs, being able to bring some some sense to to them and and organization to them as well. Fino: And where do you think that we're overhyping it? Jonathan Girroir: Everywhere. I mean Yeah.

Fino: Well, specifically in in engineering and industry, what do you what things do you think we've been talking about and you're just like, Yeah, right right, whatever. Jonathan Girroir: I I mean I'm still text a CAD. I'm s I'm I think w like with every anything we'll get there, but I think like that's a long ways off, honestly. Or like yeah, like I these it's hard to build a company.

Fino: Ha ha ha. I thought you were gonna say pens. I thought you were gonna say pens, right? Everybody's ragging on pens nowadays.

You know, the physically informed neural networks are sort of out of out of out of fashion now. ⁓ well what what does how does and and you've t already touched on this, but I wanted you to be able to re re ⁓ you know, ⁓ put the nail on the board on how high quality engineering data, particularly 3D data, become a real advantage for for AI? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, the more data the better. And it's more than just triangles. It's more than just B rep. It's more than just topology.

But when you're able to look at the PMI and the relationships within assemblies and the metadata, so so this is all encoded into our systems these days and our in our data and our files. And so making sure that you have access to that ⁓ is is is really, really important. Fino: Contextualization of of the thing. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah.

And then then back to the workflows, like being able to to actually track the data back to, you know, how is how is it and why was it built that way. Fino: Of course. ⁓ well design intent, right? Jonathan Girroir: Yes.

Yeah. Fino: ⁓ yeah, that's a really huge field at the moment in terms of startups ⁓ coming up with ⁓ interpreting and and interpreting design intent is is absolutely huge. ⁓ in terms of visualization co ⁓ collaboration, which is really one of the core values that you guys provide, ⁓ engineering teams today they include suppliers, manufacturers, service, ⁓ procurement, you know, even end customers. How how has that changed the requirements for visualization in particular?

Probably it's forced you to have really simple user interfaces 'cause you're gonna have a lot of people that aren't technical, right? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. And so we we talk about ⁓ engineering data throughout the enterprise. So not just on the designers, the engineers desk, but throughout the enterprise.

And we're trying to unlock that in a number of different ways. So so we do that two ways. So our Spinfire set of products, those are end user products, ⁓ allow you to have lightweight viewers on mobile desktop web ⁓ throughout your enterprise at a kind of a lower cost, but having rich data access. ⁓ so we we do that.

That's super attractive to to people. And then at the same time, which is interesting, we compete with ⁓ our customers on the toolkit side of things. They're they're doing that in in unique ways as well. And that's that's really important.

⁓ so having having it lightweight, having it streamable, having it on a mobile device or or in a in a web portal is is really, really important. People want that, ⁓ because it helps make informed decisions. And so that is absolutely Fino: Yeah, I was actually about to ask that question on how important are lightweight data formats, so very Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, the flavor of the format changes, right? So you can you can stream stream geometry. There are there are lightweight formats out there. There's lightweight representations.

That's that's why USD is interesting, kind of bringing it back to that is it can sit on a server and you can just request, let's say, the visualization data without all of the the heavy metadata and you can request that ⁓ on demand. And so so yeah, we do see a lot of opportunity ⁓ there as well. Fino: So what roles do these web technologies for 3D now play compared to the way we used to just use desktop tools? Jonathan Girroir: Collaboration review.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. These connected environments. So teams, distributed teams, right?

So that so we're we're global workforces. And so making sure that you just don't have it on the sh the shop floor or or in in the floor of engineering, but you have to be able to to have a a connected system that spans continents as well and be able to collaborate in real time or be able to check in and provide feedback and ⁓ that's that's super important as well. Fino: So and software vendors are increasing excuse me. I went out of water.

⁓ well. software vendors are increasingly wanting ⁓ best of breed components rather than building everything themselves. Are you seeing that accelerate the the fact that they're they're actually building with ⁓ you know with external tools, or do you think that we still have this cons you know, ⁓ one stop shop kind of attitude? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, I the build versus buy, I think is is the the the term there.

⁓ we actually have a ebook coming out pretty soon. Maybe we can share that. Yeah, we're we're we've done some research with tech clarity around that. There's a lot of reasons to drive sorry, the the competition.

but there's a lot of reasons to build versus buy. ⁓ you should not build data translation. I'm just letting you know that you should not build a solid modeling kernel. Fino: ⁓ cool.

Hi Jim. ⁓ No, it's like competition, he's a printerbine. Jonathan Girroir: but you should you should build a a UI. You should build a web portal.

And in some ways, like graphics are kind of a commodity now. And we're kind of seeing that. Sometimes they use people will use our graphics, sometimes they'll build their o their own graphics. The benefit of using components is they're integrated.

And so like our graphics are very, very focused on engineering data and navigating it. So there's some real benefits there. ⁓ Fino: Mm-hmm. Jonathan Girroir: But then buying an off-the-shelf product like our Spinfire viewers, there's it's quickly, you can deploy it quickly, they're secure, you don't have to maintain them.

But when you buy something, they're not configurable. They might not fit your workflow completely. You might have a very specific workflow and intellectual property to you to way in which you do dis design manuf and manufacturing, which would require you to build. So it's so it's like this either or ⁓ But some of those found foundational components like data translation, solid modeling, graphics to some extent, simulation as well, simulation engines and accelerating simulation, like a lot of that stuff you'd want to get a component for or just buy off the shelf.

Like I'm not gonna go build ANSIS. Fino: And No. Well actually there are people that are trying to, but Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

I guess so. There's always there's always a exception to the case, isn't there? Yeah. Fino: So how do you balance openness with protecting intellectual property?

Which is an interesting question, right? Because that's you know, the the I think one of the pivotal moments in the CAD industry was when Chuck ⁓ Greinstaff and Tony Afuso said, if we sell our kernel to everybody else, it's just gonna make us work harder to make better software. Because the differentiating factor will not be the kernel, it'll be the software around. So how do you guys balance that?

Because you guys are also have an open toolkit and yet You wanna make sure that the the best stuff is ⁓ you know, people are coming back to TechSoup for it. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, you know, we we're very open because we we open up file formats to everybody. So that's like the first thing is we're in an openness enabler where you can read any CAD data for the most part and be able to access it within your application. So that's like that's a big deal.

⁓ we don't open source it. That's our intellectual property. So, you know, those binaries are are specific to Tech Soft, but we are trying to facilitate openness because of that and provide same thing is we will provide it to everybody. So we provide it same technology to Siemens as we do to SO, as we do to Autodesk, as we do to the startup, to to NTOP.

⁓ and so that's that's really important. We're not affiliated with any of those companies, which which could, you know, if if you buy a component from them, ⁓ they may revoke your privilege if you become too competitive. We are the Switzerland of of CAG ⁓ component technology, which is a great place to be, ⁓ and have everybody benefit from that. There are some things, like we open source our our ⁓ our UI for web webcad viewing our our viewer there.

So we we find that that's that's ⁓ really important and we're we're always asking ourselves like this is a big question is like should we just start giving away some CAD translation for free? ⁓ and just so so that's like it's an active topic. of of tech software trying to figure out you know where can we continue to support the industry not all CAD translation but kind of what areas and and supporting open standards so open standards like IFC for building and construction open standard there STEP for yeah for all of its kind of ⁓ you know it has multiple flavors yep yeah US USD JT which is like pseudo open Fino: Step for Cad.

When you measure QIF or the the quality stuff? Jonathan Girroir: So we s we support JT and and partner with with Siemens, who also kind of has this level playing field approach to to components as well. Fino: Thank you, CM and PLM components. ⁓ our friends ⁓ Evan and Evan and company.

⁓ so what advice would you give to startups when they're in that ⁓ build versus buy kind of thing? ⁓ I mean your ⁓ your answer's obviously gonna be, well, you know, when it comes to visualization, you come to us and you don't bother but Jonathan Girroir: It it depends. like I said, visualization, you you may be able to distinguish yourself there. Like I know we ha like point cloud visualization, for instance, you might be like really good at that.

⁓ just do what you're good at and then leave everything else foundational up to a component provider. So particularly data translation, solid modeling, mesh modeling, ⁓ visualization to some extent, honestly. What I would recommend if you're a startup, you you have to create an MVP as fast as possible, right? You need to show a vision.

And so go use don't go build a graphics engine. Go use one off the shelf. And if you want to distinguish yourself in a unique way later, that's fine. But like you need to create a product.

It's and today, with ⁓ the way in which you can use a copilot or or other AI coding tools, like it's not. You don't pitch a PowerPoint deck anymore, you pitch an application. And so you build you build something and you want to show it. And these SDKs allow you to do that incredibly quickly.

And most of them have a certain evaluation phase or a startup program that allows you to use the technology and get funding. And then we can talk about how do we how do we enter into a commercial agreement to use that technology. Fino: L well let me let me just tack onto that question. So how ⁓ how does it work in terms of your your particular work with startups?

How do you guys enable startups to add this ⁓ the visualization stuff of Tech Soft into their software without it becoming a an additional burn on the limited amount of capital they have? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah. ⁓ we give a free evaluation and then we also couple you with a content expert, ⁓ an engineer, so engineer to engineer support to implement that as well and and make you as successful as possible. Fino: ⁓ cool.

Very cool. Because I know you do have quite a few ⁓ startups on the list that are ⁓ customers, which is great. ⁓ so looking ahead, I know ⁓ it's kind of ridiculous. Th these questions are always three to five years and we can't even look ahead six months anymore.

But ⁓ well, ⁓ actually I'll change the original question on scan. Do you do you think we're gonna see an open AI moment? I just had a call. Jonathan Girroir: We do?

⁓ yeah. Fino: With two French startups about an hour and a half ago, ⁓ Oplid and Cognix. And they were like really bullish. They think we're gonna have an engineering open AI moment, certainly before twenty thirty, maybe even before twenty twenty eight.

⁓ what what do you think about that? Do you think ⁓ how close we are to ⁓ before and an after in engineering? Because we certainly aren't there that yet, right? We're still in the old world for the Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, I our industry just moves slowly.

It just it just does. I I would love to see that, but even some of these what you call startup unicorns, it's it's been a five to seven year just grind for them. ⁓ Fino: Talking about like the N Tops or the ⁓ well or Colab or guys like that. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So so our industry moves slowly. ⁓ I don't I don't see a massive paradigm shift.

So like for instance, ⁓ convergent modeling, which is tessellation plus topology or hybrid modeling, that was a big thing ten years ago. And like we're just starting to see workflows adopt that. Like it's it's a good technology, and then ⁓ What N top, what's what's their their modeling kernel? They're ⁓ implicit.

I mean, there's very unique good uses for all of these, but is it going to flip our industry upside down? And I just don't I just don't think so. ⁓ it's Fino: Implicit, implicit. ⁓ I I I wish I was gonna be in Washington DC next week to see ⁓ C D FAM because I don't know if you read about it and those the other people listening hope somebody hopefully will go to Washington next week and then tell us about it.

But ⁓ they're gonna do a demo of with six startups and one demo, NTOP, Estari Digital, Ciskit, C Infinity, and I'm trying to remember the other two, and it's gonna be apparently it's gonna be pretty close to an open AI moment in terms of Infinite design spaces and you know being able to do ⁓ requirement space design ⁓ straight through, including all the security with it w air gaps, it's gonna be I think it's gonna be kind of crazy. I just it's a long flight to America just f for me from Paris anyway.

Yeah. Of course. Jonathan Girroir: Well yeah. Well let's go.

Prove me wrong. But ⁓ I I do feel like things are happening faster than ever and and the the rate of innovation and and ⁓ in our industry is feeling that and that's gonna continue it's gonna continue to accelerate. So that's absolutely true. Fino: Okay, well so th so if we d if you were to imagine looking three to five years ahead, what changes do you think would be the most surprising looking back to software engineering?

Engineering, software engineering, sorry. Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, you know, ⁓ engineering software. ⁓ I mean, one thing that is what's the next paradigm shift looking towards that? So, you know, AI, we're we're riding that wave.

We're still kind of, I feel, in its infancy there. So that's that's gonna run its course, absolutely. ⁓ what I'm interested in the in the future, maybe even five more than five years, ⁓ is is quantum computing and how that's gonna impact our our industry, particularly Fino: Good question. Jonathan Girroir: know there's certain workflows that can be accelerated, particularly around simulation, right?

And so that's a data heavy space and and easily parallelizable. And so what we barely have the compute po we don't have the compute power yet at all, but you know that's gonna be changing multiple industries. And I think I think ours as well. And so kind of what does that look like and and and how do we support that and what workflows can we migrate there?

Fino: I do have several startups including BQP and Quantchent that are looking very carefully. Quonshent just closed a massive ⁓ funding round ⁓ not even two months ago. ⁓ I'll I'll probably I'll be seeing them in Helsinki. I'll be going to the slush conference in November.

So I'll be able to see some of my Finnish friends up there. ⁓ if you were starting an engineering company today, where would you focus? Jonathan Girroir: Mm. Yeah.

I think that's where I would where I would focus. I think so. Yeah. Fino: Quantum.

You just go there. And which technologies do you think are still underestimated today? What are we what opportunities are we missing? What rocks should we be looking under?

Jonathan Girroir: ⁓ the glue between systems. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, that's still there's still opportunity there. Fino: The digital thread?

⁓ so we're almost at the end of the questions. ⁓ I wanted to ask, ⁓ what's next for over the next twelve to eighteen months? What can we expect from you guys? Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, a doubling down of of different tools that sit on top of ⁓ hoopsai.

So ⁓ being able to connect that to business intelligence is is gonna be real important really important. And then the release of our data hub ⁓ technology that allows you to deploy quickly at at ⁓ enterprise scale through APIs, not not file based, but but API based data access. Fino: ⁓ yeah, that's gonna be cool. And if nobody ever somebody that's ⁓ that's ⁓ listening has never evaluated you got your products before, where should they start?

Jonathan Girroir: TechSoft3D.com and navigate to any of our like evaluate now pages and and we can set you up. download the product, get the learning material, get connected with our team. Like I said, we have a global team that's able to support you engineer to engineer, and and that's something we really enjoy is being able to understand your problems and and help you build solutions for those.

Fino: Awesome. Well, I've had a a great time today. I appreciate the the all the answers. Do you do you have any ⁓ closing comments before we go to the audience?

Jonathan Girroir: Super fun. No, I things are happening faster than ever. That's really absolutely the case. and you know, it sounds like you've got quite a big travel schedule.

I I am really enjoying connecting with people either either virtually or or in person. And I feel like in this very disconnected AI world, ⁓ the it's the personal connection that I'm I'm really enjoying a lot more. ⁓ so looking forward to seeing you and and other and your listeners ⁓ wherever we may be later later this year. Fino: Are you gonna be at ITMS in Chicago?

⁓ I haven't decided I haven't decided on that one yet, but I do have slush on the agenda. ⁓ I wanna do another threaded. I haven't figured out when or where yet. That's that's a pr work in progress.

⁓ but we'll find well cer maybe maybe Chicago, then that'll be fun. Have a a beef sandwich and ⁓ some beers, yeah. ⁓ Jonathan Girroir: Yep, absolutely. Yep.

Pizza, deep dish pizza. Yeah, sounds good. Fino: Before we go, actually my friend Brian Carroll, who's a regular guest on my other podcast, is asking, What is your opinion ⁓ about the profile that's forming referred to as product memory? I you probably see some of the debates on that for the Oleg and stuff.

Jonathan Girroir: Yeah, that's not something I'm I'm not too familiar with that, so I I can't can't comment on that unfortunately. Fino: Sorry, Brian. It's okay. well, it's been fantastic.

And ⁓ I'm I'm looking forward to ⁓ to talking the next time ⁓ when you guys ⁓ have some big stuff to announce. And ⁓ thank you to the audience for listening. ⁓ please feel free to contact Jonathan and and go to the website and ⁓ we'll I'm not sure how many more of these are gonna do before the big summer break. So we might be seeing you in September.

⁓ in any case, thank you, Jonathan. Say hi to h the whole team. Jonathan Girroir: Great. Thanks, Michael.

Fino: And ⁓ and and we'll st we'll talk to you pretty soon. Have a great summer. Jonathan Girroir: Good. Thanks guys.