PTC Announces Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0

By DE Editors

PTC (Needham, MA) today announced the availability of Pro/EngineerWildfire 3.0, a major release of its MCAD/CAM/CAE software and anintegral component of PTC's Product Development System. Highlights ofthe new release targeted at improving engineering productivity can besummed up in a single word: "Fast." As in Fast Sketcher, Fast Assembly,Fast Drawings, Fast Sheet Metal, and Fast CAM. Process productivity isthe second major of Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0. Here, the watchword is"Smart."

Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0's Fast Sketcher reduces the number of menupicks required to use and exit the sketch environment. This is said toimprove performance with large sketches up to 80%. Fast Assembly meansthat assembly workflows have been optimized—up to five times fasterthan previous versions

Fast Drawings means that you have the ability to add shaded views totraditional 2D drawings to help clarify design concepts faster whileremoving ambiguity. Improvements in the drawing environment are claimedto yield an increase in productivity benefits up to 63%.

Fast Sheet Metal means that you now have the capability to interpretdesign intent, which, in turn, enables you to create sheet-metalfeatures up to 90% faster than before while also reducing the number offeatures by up to 90%. Hand-in-hand with this, Fast CAM representenhancements to the manufacturing user interface that speed thecreation of manufacturing geometry by up to three times.

Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0's Smart process productivity features includea new, customizable Process Wizard that empowers companies to captureexpert knowledge and leverage their best practices and recommendedapproaches for different processes. Wildfire's Smart Model ability letsyou embed manufacturing process information into your models, making iteasier to design for manufacturability while promoting best practices.

Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0 introduces Smart Sharing in the form ofportable workspaces that track all changed, new, and unchanged files,facilitating offline access to MCAD data and helping improvecollaboration with external parties.

Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0 offers Smart Interoperability with PTC'sWindchill and Pro/Intralink providing a streamlined process foraccessing information. For example, this means that you can automatethe reporting of bulk items. There's also a new status column in themodel tree to report the database status of an item.

Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0 now also supports for Windows XP 64-bitsystems. It will be available later this month. Active Pro/Engineercustomers will automatically receive this new release free of chargeunder their current maintenance coverage. For more information onPro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0, click here.

 Sources: Press materials received from and multiple meetings with the company.