January 2007

By DE Editors

Editor’s Pick of the Week—January, 31, 2007 Dimension Elite Delivers Strong Models, Fine Details New 3D printer from Dimension 3D Printing Group announced today.January 31, 2007 — The Dimension 3D Printing Group, a business unit ofStratasys, Inc. (Eden Prairie, MN), today announced immediateavailability of the Dimension Elite 3D Printer. The Elite becomes thefifth 3D printer within the Dimension line of desktop modeling systems,joining the Dimension 1200 Series (priced from $21,900) and 768 Series(priced from $18,900).According to Dimension, the Elite 3D Printer provides engineers anddesigners with stronger, functional models with fine feature detailsand “improved surface finish.” The Elite features an 8- x 8- x 12-inchbuild envelope. It uses a new, stronger ABS material called ABSplus.ABSplus is said to be on the average 40 percent stronger than standardABS material, making parts printed by the Elite suitable for testingthe form, fit, and function of inherently fragile, fine-featuredmodels. Network-ready, the Dimension is can be leveraged by “engineersand designers creating models that demand finer detail — such as thosedesigning electronic connectors, medical testers, and smallinstruments,” said Jon Cobb, vice president and general manager of 3Dprinting for Stratasys, in a press statement.The Dimension Elite costs $32,900. For more information, click here.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—January, 24, 2007 Maple 11 UnveiledVersion 11 offers a sneak peak at handwritten math recognition feature.Maplesoft (Waterloo, ONT) has announced Maple 11, the company’sflagship product for complex mathematical problems and technicaldocumentation creation. Maple 11, described as “a major release,“offers enhancements to its smart document interface, computationengine, and connectivity capabilities the sum of which provides you thenecessary technologies to reduce error and increase analyticalproductivity, says Maplesoft. Additionally, Maple 11 offers a new,sneak preview of a handwriting recognition feature lets you try out adeveloping technology for machine understanding of handwrittenmathematics. Maple 11 combines the company’s highly regarded mathematicalcomputation engine with a user-interface that, says Maplesoft,minimizes the learning curve common with other similar software becauseit is so intuitive. Buttressing this assertion, the company cites thesoftware’s smart document environment, which provides self-documentingcontext menus that automatically create a reusable record of yourcalculations as you execute them. This record provides a description ofthe steps that includes information about variables used in operations,not just the operation itself, and the text is modifiable and cancontain 2D math. Maple 11’s enhanced plotting capabilities include the ability to usenatural math notation in titles, legends, labels, and tick marks;support for international characters; and plot annotation capabilitiessuch as sketching, adding text and math, and drawing lines, shapes andarrows using new drawing canvas tools. New point-and-click task assistants include Backsolver, SpecialFunctions, and Scientific Constants. The Back-Solving assistantautomatically generates a back-solver for your equation, allowing youto solve for any variable in your formula instantly, given the valuesof the other parameters. The Special Functions assistant providesaccess to the properties of more than 200 special functions, includingthe Bessel, Hypergeometric, Mathieu, Heun, and Legendre families offunctions. The Scientific Constants assistant offers a database ofscientific constants, including more than 20,000 values of physicalconstants and properties of chemical elements. Other features of Maple 11 include the ability to turn documents intoan instant slide show; annotation capabilities; inter-document equationreferences that allow you to work on calculations with equations fromother documents; and. Maple 11 offers improvements to its differential equation anddifferential algebraic equation solvers, including new methods andenhanced support for large systems. Miscellaneous features in newspecialty packages for graph theory, physics, and differentialgeometry; better MATLAB connectivity; numeric integration andsummation; vector calculus; and the ability to turn documents into aninstant slide-show; annotation capabilities. Maple 11 also seesmulti-core processor support. To download a small PDF of the new features in Maple 11, click here. Maple 11 ships in March. Professional licenses are for $1895 (US),which includes the Maple Toolbox for MATLAB, MapleNet, and a one-yearsubscription to the Maplesoft Elite Maintenance Program. Purchases orupgrades between now and March will receive Maple 10, which will beupgraded to Maple 11 in March automatically. Academic, upgrade, andvolume discounts are available. For more information, click here.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—January, 17, 2007 Personal Edition of OneSpace CoCreate offers a free download trial of its 3D modeling system.   CoCreate Software, Inc. (Fort Collins, CO and Sindelfingen, Germany)has introduced CoCreate OneSpace Modeling Personal Edition, a freeversion of its dynamic modeling based 3D MCAD software, CoCreateOneSpace. OneSpace Modeling PE, which is available as a free downloaduntil the end of March, is said to offer all the power of CoCreate’senterprise OneSpace Modeling 3D MCAD system only limited for assembliesof up to 60 parts. This limited-time offer follows the company’s recent announcement ofthe impending 2007 release of its full product development platformCoCreate OneSpace Suite.

> > CoCreate OneSpace Modeling has a new rendering module that can produce photorealistic imagery. Click image to enlarge.

At the heart of OneSpace Modeling PE, and indeed its enterprisesibling, is the concept of dynamic modeling. Dynamic modeling is anapproach to 3D product development that differs from traditionalhistory-based design methodologies in two key ways. First, although youcreate you geometry and wield commands as you would in most MCADapplications, your modeling steps are not stored in a history tree.Second, you are not required to apply constraints on profiles or theresulting 3D models. What this all means to you is that your downstreamchanges are independent of the steps you used to get there.Consequently, rather than spending time interacting with a historytree, you can change any part of the geometry dynamically withoutregenerating your design constantly. The net effect of all of this,says CoCreate is a responsive, flexible, and faster design process.The 2007 CoCreate OneSpace Suite is a complete PLM (product lifecyclemanagement) comprising modules for 2D drafting, 3D modeling,collaboration, and document management. As a PLM platform, CoCreatedoes not impose a monolithic system on your organization. Rather, it isdesigned to leverage your existing IT investments as it creates aninterconnected, collaborative enterprise. All areas of the CoCreate OneSpace Suite 2007 have been enhanced. Forexample, OneSpace Modeling now offers the ability to modify, stretch,and position parts and assemblies simultaneously as well as the abilityto create a cross-section of a design and then create and modify 3Dwithin your sliced views. A new Cabling module for mechatronics designhas been added, as well as integrated rendering environment forreal-time texture map rendering and photorealistic imagery.  

< < CoCreate OneSpace Modeling enables you to: modify, stretch,and position parts and assemblies simultaneously. Click image toenlarge.

Other enhancements include a part comparison feature; more options toanalyze sheet metal and thin-walled, constant thickness components; andexpanded FE analysis capabilities. Clash Analysis reports, Adobe PDFpublishing, and expanded out-of-the-box integrations with enterprisesystems. For more details on CoCreate OneSpace Suite 2007, you can register for an on-demand  webcast by clicking here.The free download of OneSpace Modeling PE is available until March 31, 2007. To register for your free download, click here. To learn more about how the dynamic modeling based approach to 3D product development, click hereto register for an on-demand webcast. To watch a collaborative OneSpaceLive! design review or other demonstrations without needing toregister, click here.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—January, 10, 2007 Go from OK to Great Startup TOOLS maximizes the efficiency your Pro/E development environment.Startup TOOLS from TriStar (Phoenix, AZ) empowers you to build anefficient PTC Pro/Engineer-based product development environment that cango a long way toward taking your company to world-class productivity.An application suite, Startup TOOLS helps you achieve this by focusingon organizational productivity as well as individual user productivity.Startup TOOLS gives you the ability to deploy a product developmentenvironment across multiple geographic locations and languages, or on aproject-by-project basis. With it, you can enforce standards androll out new software with as few clicks as practicable. Startup TOOLSoperates transparently, so you can push a tuned product designenvironment or environments out to client computers.

> > An example of a graphics library in Startup TOOLS. Click image to enlarge.

Startup TOOLS offers tools for a centralized management of your workingenvironments, including system management, yet it is flexible enough toprovide for specific customizations, including multilingual support,for global branches and departments. It fosters a structure that enablesworking guidelines that minimize setup time and standardize drawingsettings, modeling formats, BOMs, and reports. You can even synchronizeobjects or set guidelines for start objects, naming conventions,filing, plot, parameters, templates, and company-specific concepts.The Startup TOOLS integrated Toolbox, for example, offers a set ofcustomizable auxiliary applications based on PTC’s WEBLink technology.Among the applications are a Model Configurator, a Multi DimensionEditor, and parameter manager. What this means is that you cancustomize graphical user interfaces, or you can modify the dimensionsand dimension symbols of a feature, part, assembly, or subpart of anassembly with a single keystroke. You can also standardize suchparameters as description, drawing number or designer of your parts,assemblies, and drawings. The Toolbox even provides a graphical libraryviewer.

< < A Model Configurator screen in Startup TOOLS. Click image to enlarge.

Click here to download the Startup TOOLS PDF-formatted product brochure. Clickhere to see an online video demonstration of Startup TOOLS. Click here togo to the Startup TOOLS page on the TriStar website.In addition to Startup TOOLS, TriStar offers a range of engineering workstations tuned for Pro/Engineer andother major MCAD and analysis solutions and a variety of best-in-class software. A PTC Certified TrainingPartner, TriStar also provides custom, in-house, and onsite training aswell as consulting services. For further details, click here.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—January, 3, 2007 Open Drawings, Parts Data to Entire Organization Avatech Product Browser gets others the knowledge they need without interfering with engineering.Avatech Solutions, Inc. (Owings Mills, MD), a nationwide designautomation and technology services company, haslaunched Avatech Product Browser, the latest product from the company’sSoftware Development Solutions Group.

< < Avatech Product Browser. Click images to enlarge.

Avatech Product Browser workswith Autodesk Productstream to provide easy, searchable access toproduct designs and maintenance drawings to departments downstream fromengineering. By opening up product development information captured inProductstream to more people in your manufacturing organization,Product Browser empowers those to respond faster to productdevelopment, design, and maintenance issues, which, in turn, can helplessen downtimes and avoid missed deadlines, according to the company.Avatech Product Browser uses a browser-like interface. Through itsgraphical navigation capabilities, users can search for parts visuallyor, by typing by part number, access associated drawings, models, anddocumentation, including spreadsheets and Microsoft Word documents.Further, users can drill down into an assembly to locate the componentsthey need. Additionally, Avatech Product Browser supports batch printingcapabilities, and it alerts users to pending revisions, and users canaccess only released models and drawings.Avatech Product Browser system requirements include a ProductstreamExplorer license, Autodesk DWF Viewer7.0, and either Windows XP orWindows 2000. It costs $1,250 for a five-user license, which includes aone-year maintenance and support contract. It is available today.Click here to download the Avatech Product Browser PDF brochure. Clickhere to go to the Product Browser page on the Avatech Solutions website.