Editor's Pick of the Week, 13 in a Series

By Jonathan Gourlay

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

Spending days repairing a file for CAE meshing or healing a design for use in a different MCAD system is so ingrained in so many multi-CAD/CAM/CAE engineering environments that it amazes me. You do not have to burn money on a data-translation process that — admittedly — was the only way to do an important job years ago. Such processes are as obsolete today as a hand crank on a BMW. This is why I recommend that you check out the latest update of the TransMagic suite interoperability tools.

TransMagic R7 supports the major CAD formats as well as the latest versions of CATIA, Inventor, NX, and Pro/E — all good. But what’s really cool is that TransMagic R7 is offered with a new option that provides access to CATIA V5, Pro/E, and UGS PMI (product manufacturing information), including GD&T (geometric dimensioning and tolerancing). This ability alone will make communicating your design intent simpler, easier, and less prone to costly misunderstandings from the ever-popular “I do not get what this is supposed to be.”

And that’s the point of a good data-translation solution. It makes the challenging job of translating files not as hard on design and analysis time and the corporate checkbook as so many organizations, large and small, assume data exchange has to be. Speaking of large and small, the TransMagic suite of solutions is scalable to company size and tailorable to corporate needs.

Some wag once commented in an article or something I read that, “data translation isn’t a problem until it is a problem.” I have to disagree. Data translation is a huge, albeit quiet, problem that too many engineering organizations just accept as an everyday expense like electricity. Do not accept it. Any time lost repairing files before you or somebody else can do their job is a problem.

TransMagic is on a mission to make engineering data exchange more efficient and less costly. You can learn more about how TransMagic R7 can change your data exchange habits via today’s Pick of the Week write-up, where you’ll also find a bunch of links to further information, including one link where you can sign up for a trial version and see for yourself how data translation can be made to work for you rather than make more work for you.

Jonathan Gourlay
Features Editor, Desktop Engineering magazine