Briefings: March 2006

The Open Prosthetics Project, a privately funded nonprofit enterprise that offers free exchange of hardware designs for prosthetics, has adopted the Alibre Design parametric modeler from Alibre, Inc.,  as its CAD standard.

By creating an online collaboration between prosthetic users and designers, the project aims to make new technology available for anyone to use and customize. On the project’s website, medical product designers can post new ideas for prosthetic devices as CAD files, which are then available to the public free of charge. Prosthetic users or other designers can download the CAD data, customize or improve upon the prosthesis, and repost the modifications to the website.

Founded by members of the industrial design firm Tackle Design, the Open Prosthetics Project moved to Alibre Design because it offers a fully functional CAD modeler for free download. Alibre Design Xpress users have full capability to design parts and create associative 2D drawings, enabling them to make alterations or additions to a device. For a price, users can opt to add features for more advanced modeling or larger assemblies.

For more details, visit the Open Prosthetics Project For information on Alibre Design Xpress or other Alibre products, visit the Alibre website.

Open Prosthetics Project
Durham, NC

Alibre, Inc.
Richardson, TX

Tackle Design
Durham, NC

PTC announced a strategic partnership with IBM that will pair PTC’s product lifecycle management (PLM) software with IBM’s software and infrastructure products. The new agreement will primarily focus on China’s evolving PLM market, but will also encompass a targeted strategy in growth industries such as electronics, consumer packaged goods, and life sciences in Europe and the U.S.

PTC and IBM will offer an end-to-end enterprise PLM solution that integrates with other applications such as ERP, SCM, and CRM. They say that customer business challenges, including managing data from multiple CAD systems, environmental compliance, IP protection, geographically dispersed design collaboration as well as global product development can all be satisfied by this collaboration.

The agreement also combines PTC and IBM sales and marketing efforts and deepens PTC’s relationship with IBM, which began in October 2004 when IBM provided the infrastructure for PTC’s PLM On Demand package.

Concurrent with the announcement of the partnership, PTC also released financial results for the first quarter of 2006. The company reported revenue of $192.5 million, up 14 percent from $169.2 million for the same period last year. For more information on PTC, go to the company's website.

PTC
Needham, MA

Planit Holdings, which is made up of companies involved in the CAD/CAM software development industry, has acquired CAM software company Pathtrace, continuing with a strategy of CAM consolidation.

Planit Holdings says it is hoping the addition of Pathtrace to the group will provide a major development in the engineering arena. The group’s leading brands already include alphacam, cabinet vision, cabnetware and radan.

"This is a further reinforcement of our commitment to this market sector," says Planit Chief Operating Officer Bryan Pryce. "Pathtrace’s principal product line, EdgeCAM is a well respected and highly capable off-line programming system, which complements our existing strengths in the engineering sector. But just as importantly, with offices in the UK, US, China and Japan and a global distribution network, Pathtrace provides important additional routes to market for all our group’s CAM products.  In addition, Pathtrace are Autodesk’s global preferred CAM partner and a certified SolidWorks CAM partner."

For details, visit Planit Holdings website.

Planit Holdings
Ashford-Kent, UK

Pathtrace
Berkshire, UK

Stratasys announced it will be the exclusive North American distributor of Arcam rapid manufacturing and prototyping systems. Arcam’s electron-beam melting (EBM) process transforms titanium powder into solid metal parts for functional prototyping or end use. Also called CAD-to-Metal, the process is used primarily in the aerospace, automotive, and medical implant industries.

"This agreement launches Stratasys into metal-powder systems and closes the gap so that it can now go head-to-head with almost anyone in the world of additive fabrication technology," said Terry Wohlers, president of independent consulting firm Wohlers Associates.

According to Stratasys, the EBM process is five times more efficient than most laser-based metal-fabrication processes. Stratasys also offers prototyping and manufacturing services and patented fused deposition modeling that creates functional models directly from any 3D CAD program using ABS plastic, polycarbonate, PPSF, or other materials. It also distributes PolyJet rapid prototyping systems.

For more information, visit the Stratasys website.

Arcam
Gothenburg, Sweden

Stratasys
Eden Praire, MN