Comments on: Design Software for Atomically Precise Nanotechnologies

By: Atomic layer deposition for atomically-precise crystal fabrication

Atomic layer deposition for atomically-precise crystal fabrication — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:56:06 +0000

[...] the iterative, solid-anchored (“solid-phase”) chemical synthesis processes used to make atomically precise macromolecular structures: Both processes work by cycling chemical reaction conditions to add a single something, then [...]

By: A High-Performance Polymer for Nanosytems Engineering

A High-Performance Polymer for Nanosytems Engineering — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:57:07 +0000

[...] Design Software for Atomically Precise Nanotechnologies [...]

By: Eric Drexler

Eric Drexler — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:01:18 +0000

@ Guy Giesbrecht — As I said in a private email, thanks for the comment and information. I look forward to following up on this.

@ Will Ware — Yes, I strongly endorse the vision of an open-source system that serves as a platform for extension and collaboration. Among other things, this means providing useful tools for visualization and manipulation, easy-to-use interfaces for plugins, etc., while imposing a minimum of constraints.

By: Will Ware

Will Ware — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:44:29 +0000

It’s common to mentally equate “CAD software” with a Solidworks-style graphical user interface. That model might hit a wall regarding the complexity of designable structures. The field of software engineering has spent decades dealing with the problem of unbounded complexity. Nobody can yet afford to build physical objects of unbounded complexity, but bits are cheap enough to do this, and have been for a while.

Software engineering tools will continue to evolve but they already handle systems too complex to be fully grokked by any single engineer. Programming languages use various paradigms to support multiple layers of abstraction. Bug databases and testing protocols help with reliability. Version control systems help to isolate and diagnose problems and maintain a detailed workflow history for a large team.

CAD software shouldn’t (imho) be envisioned in terms of a single GUI. People will add features for group collaboration, or grayed-out solids to hide the details in subcomponents, but eventually we’ll need CAD software that looks more like a full programming environment. Individual GUI tools could be used within that environment but they wouldn’t constrain it to a single workflow paradigm.

By: Guy Giesbrecht

Guy Giesbrecht — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:08:09 +0000

One of the big problems I witnessed when I was following Tom Moore in his experiments with NanoEngineer1 was the egregious dependencies on various third party software engines. If the whole thing had been designed in java or any other single language/platform it would’ve been a simple matter to compile new open source versions. But the cumbersome dependencies and licensing/versioning issues made it all but impossible for someone to write new plugins or applications. A simple method like that used by graphics and audio editing software to install plugins through a plugin directory and minimal interface extension is a must. Hierarchical modular design methods should also be followed closely. After all, that’s also going to be needed in the actual nanomachine design so it should be a protocol in the software design too.

Abstract issues like spatial placement, scaling and recursion are already handled in many other modeling systems and methods for dealing with these issues are actually fairly standardized algorithms. As for scheduling issues, I’d like to point out the very fine work being done at BioSpice: http://biospice.sourceforge.net/ which draws its inspiration from the SPICE integrated circuit design simulator.

By: Eric Drexler

Eric Drexler — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:12:31 +0000

Yes, design and fabrication are closely linked, since fabrication constraints are basic to design, and the best way to specify automated fabrication procedures is as part of the design workflow. CAD tends to evolve into CADAM, computer aided design and manufacturing. Repetition can be distributed over both space and time. In systems-level design concepts for high-throughput molecular manufacturing schemes (the kind that would be at the far end of a long chain of intermediate technologies), the typical approach to making large numbers of identical components uses large arrays of processing lines, each containing a series of specialized machines. E-drexler.com offers a video and discussions of architectures and scaling relationships for this sort of manufacturing process. This sort of system would be very efficient and very nonbiological.

By: The Chad

The Chad — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:56:29 +0000

because you would be working with vastly different scales in the same software (or designed item), the design software really needs to combine programming with CAD. It’s one thing to design a small molecule to be built, but quiet another to build a computer or algae or CNT’s.
The design software needs to create a kind of DNA for whatever is being built, with repeating processes being told when to stop, then new processes modifying that finished component.