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Industry News, Reports, and Items of Interest
UGS Corp. and Adobe Systems have joined forces to enable manufacturing organizations to tap into the industry's reservoir of JT-based 3D digital product models and publish them as Adobe PDF files. The collaboration will make it possible for anyone using the free Adobe Reader 7.0 program to view and use 3D data when it’s presented in the JT file format.
This relationship builds on existing support for Universal 3D (U3D) in Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional and PDF. It has been estimated that at least one half billion copies of Adobe Reader are currently in use.
Combining the manufacturing industry's widely adopted and lightweight 3D format for representing digital product models and Adobe PDF will make millions of 3D product models easy to import into Adobe PDF documents. It also means anyone with the free Adobe Reader will be able to read, view, and use the digital data.
Adobe PDF is used by organizations worldwide for secure, reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents with embedded 3D objects. JT is a widely adopted open 3D data format for enabling product visualization, data sharing, and collaboration. Virtually all major CAD applications can export JT files.
The Adobe-UGS relationship enables an open technology exchange between the two companies involving Adobe PDF and JT. It gives UGS the ability to enable its customers to directly export content-rich PDF files through its entire suite of PLM software solutions and allows users of future versions of Adobe Acrobat the ability to import JT-based interactive 3D product models into Adobe PDF documents.
Adobe Systems, Inc.
San Jose, CA • adobe.com
UGS Corp.
Plano, TX • ugs.com
Kubotek USA, developer of KeyCreator, has joined the SolidWorks Solution Partner program to better support its focus on providing solutions that ease MCAD interoperability, allowing designers and engineers to easily share product data and models. (Click here for a write-up on the new KeyCreator Version 5.)
KeyCreator's geometric architecture is optimized to work with various MCAD models, integrating them into a single MCAD environment. It reads files from other MCAD tools and provides the geometric editing capabilities designers need to repair and modify those models for more efficient use in a SolidWorks design environment.
KeyCreator works on imported models as if they were native files. Users do not need to maintain several MCAD products to reuse legacy data, thereby saving time and money. The software’s direct editing capabilities allow engineers and designers to edit features on imported models, manipulating the actual geometry—not the model construction steps—and dynamically discover features and edit them.
Kubotek USA
Marlborough, MA • kubotekusa.com
SolidWorks Corp.
Concord, MA • solidworks.com
Raindrop Geomagic announced its line of software for digital shape sampling and processing (DSSP) will support Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The new generation of hardware will accelerate Geomagic’s geometry engine, which provides intelligent memory mapping and disk caching for the processing of large datasets—200 million points and more—typically generated by high-density scanners.
Future Geomagic software will take advantage of the Windows 64-bit architecture, which provides greater memory support and the ability to process more data per cycle.
"Geomagic products have been built on 64-bit architectures from the beginning," says Peter Scott, Geomagic's vice president of engineering. "While we continue to innovate and push the limits of ]Windows] XP and 32-bit system architectures, Geomagic is tuning its core technology for Intel 64-bit systems and Microsoft’s Vista operating system."
According to Scott, support for 64-bit Windows is part of Geomagic's strategy to continually increase the performance of applications that have a direct bearing on the user’s productivity, product quality, and the customer's bottom line.
Raindrop Geomagic
Research Triangle Park, NC • geomagic.com
Platform Computing says that its LSF MCAE Edition is the first grid computing solution created specifically for CAE simulation departments in industrial manufacturing organizations. Based on the company's LSF workload management software used by Fortune 100 automotive and aerospace manufacturers, Platform's LSF MCAE Edition runs commodity computing systems, leverages Linux, and integrates with widely deployed CAE solutions. Platform Computing says that LSF MCAE Edition also enables your engineering team to deliver more accurate designs faster by leveraging all your existing resources, while reducing the time between simulation iterations.
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Stratasys has launched RedEye RPM, a new online rapid prototype and part building service. The service produces functional parts from a variety of production-grade plastics to produce parts that are durable enough for functional testing. An accurate building process ensures that part tolerance rivals any competitive process.
RedEyeRPM.com is an online extension of Stratasys' existing BuildFDM service (buildfdm.com), which builds prototypes and parts using the FDM process for customers in North America. RedEye enhances this existing service by allowing automated, instant quoting and ordering around the clock, seven days a week.
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Electronics Workbench, a National Instruments company, has released Multism 9 and Electronics Workbench Series 9 DesignSuite. The DesignSuite, which includes Multisim 9, Ultiboard, and Ultiroute 9, is an integrated solution that takes your electronics projects from concept through capture and simulation to final layout and production. Key new functionality in V9 includes seamless integration with NI's LabVIEW graphical development environment and SignalExpress interactive measurement software.
Multisim's LabVIEW and SignalExpress integration closes the disconnect between design and test tools. Using Multisim 9, you can access enhanced simulation capabilities by using real-world data acquired by LabVIEW as the source that drives virtual circuits during testing. By integrating simulation data and real-world measurements, you can reduce errors, shorten design time, and create more robust designs. You can also use LabVIEW to graphically create fully customized virtual instruments to use in Multisim in addition to its 20 supplied instruments.
Multisim 9 simulation results can now be imported into LabVIEW or SignalExpress in native file format. With this capability, you can efficiently share and compare real-world and simulated data. You can use these results as benchmarks during project testing and debug phases and, because of native file formats, you do not have to convert files.
New features within Series 9 DesignSuite include the ability to use mathematical expressions within analyses while running simulations and new circuit wizards that automatically generate circuitry to match user-defined parameters for op amps and MOSFET amplifiers. New functionality in Ultiroute 9 autorouter enables prioritizing routing order by net (or routing a single net).
You can get a freeware edition of Series 9 DesignSuite or request a CD by registering on the Electronics Workbench website.
Electronics Workbench
Toronto, ONT • electronicsworkbench.com
OntoSpace, a complexity assessment and management tool for analyzing complex systems, their structure, and behavioral patterns, is the flagship product of Ontonix LLC, a technology company that also provides uncertainty and complexity management services. The company believes that OntoSpace is the first commercial application for practical complexity management.
OntoSpace gives you the ability to unveil the non-intuitive behavior of systems. It extends Monte Carlo techniques beyond simple computations of performance scatter or probabilities of failure into the area of robustness and complexity analysis. It provides rational measures of both robustness and complexity, and it shows how these fundamental attributes of any system are intimately linked.
OntoSpace aims to make system complexity a component of your design and decision-making processes which, in turn, enables you to manage it. The software works with data originating from computer models, sensors, or historical records. It generates cognitive maps that link together rules and illustrate the possible states in which a system might find itself functioning.
With OntoSpace, you can obtain a set of system modes that represent the possible behavioral patterns the system can exhibit over its entire operational range. It can quantify the complexity of the system in each mode and quantify the complexity of the entire system, thus enabling you to understand your system's structure and topology.
OntoSpace can identify pathologies in the system, and identify and analyze outliers. It can identify each mode’s hubs—i.e., critical
elements such as a keystone species in an ecosystem—which, if lost, may cause system collapse. OntoSpace can also be used to perform what-if studies and assess overall system vulnerability and risk.
OntoSpace is application-independent, said to be easy to use, and does not require vast mathematical training or knowledge of statistics. For complete details, download the OntoSpace product brochure, white paper, and training program curricula from the Ontonix website.
Ontonix LLC
New York, NY • ontonix.com
ZEMAX Development Corp. (ZDC) has announced its web-based Knowledge Base, a collection of tutorials, how-to pieces, and articles about optical design based on frequently asked questions (FAQ).
"Most company websites are really just re-hashes of sales materials," said Dr. Mark Nicholson, vice president of ZDC. "We wanted to give existing users, as well as potential users, a powerful resource to help them use ZEMAX as effectively as possible."
Currently the Knowledge Base offers more than 40 articles on classical lens design, creating complex 3D geometries, stray light, laser beam propagation, and the like. The company expects to grow the Knowledge Base. For more information, click here.
ZEMAX Development Corp.
Bellevue, WA • zemax.com
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