AutoVue 19.2 Pumps Up Viz for Electronic and Mechanical Designers

By Jonathan Gourlay

AutoVue 19.2, the latest version of this MCAD visualization solution from Cimmetry (Montreal; cimmetry.com), enhances many aspects of electronic design automation (EDA) with new features, enhanced usability, and optimized performance. It extends product manufacturing information (PMI) and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) support, enabling manufacturers to efficiently and securely convey information on the design of a product’s components directly to the shop floor.

With this latest version of AutoVue, Cimmetry extends the product’s ability to read files natively to more than 450 file formats. It also gives customers the option of choosing a desktop edition for individual users and a server-based version, called Web Edition, for organizations looking to extend its use over a network. Both editions use the same graphical user interface (GUI).

The offering includes two new EDA-centric product offerings: AutoVue EDA Professional and AutoVue Electro-Mechanical Professional. The former is an interactive program that provides native viewing of manufacturing documents, PCB layouts, and schematics, enabling design rule verification, cross-probing, markup and annotation, and real-time collaboration across extended teams. It also helps standardize the design review process, allowing PCB designers and contract manufacturers to cut iterations and get to market faster. AutoVue Electro-Mechanical Professional features native document viewing, markup, cross-probing, and electromechanical digital mockup capabilities for hundreds of supported document types. This is Cimmetry’s most complete product offering delivering support for EDA, 3D, 2D, and Office document types. It is said to bridge the gap between MCAD and EDA, enhancing collaboration and reduce design cycle times.

New EDA Formats found in AutoVue 19.2 include Mentor 8.10; CadStar 8.0; ODB++ V6.5; Altium Designer 6.0, 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5; PADs2005 SP2 and SP3; DxDesigner 2005; Protel DXP/2004 binary and ASCII Schematics; Protel DXP Proj. Files; Cadence Allegro 15.5, 15.5.1, and 15.7; and Mentor Expedition 2005.

AutoVue 19.2 facilitates EDA document review and navigation through physical layers, allowing users to quickly and easily find vital information contained within large EDA files. Users can easily turn on and off physical layers and entity types associated with each layer and bring layers to the top with a simple click of the mouse.

AutoVue’s ability to cross-probe between a board layout, its related schematic, and 3D PCB, has been enhanced. Users can now find all occurrences of a particular component or net and easily navigate between them. Version 19.2 also offers an automatic mode that determines the appropriate view (layout, schematic, 3D model) for the cross probe target. And by hovering your mouse over a specific element of a schematic or PCB layout, AutoVue’s new EDA tooltips display entity properties so you can get instant access to important information without having to repeatedly drill down into an entity’s details.

AutoVue 19.2 also delivers updated and new support for a variety of popular MCAD formats, including AutoCAD 2008; Inventor 2008; SmartSketch versions 4.0 and 5.0; SolidEdge V19; SolidDesigner 2006 (V14.00); Parasolid V17.1 and 18.0; CATIA V5R17 and R17 SP3/SP4; Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0; SolidWorks 2007; Inventor 11; DWF version 6.01, 6.11, and 6.2; ME 10 2006; AutoCAD 2007 SP1; Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 2007; and MicroStation V8 XM.

Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) and Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) support has been extended for AutoVue 19.2. Manufacturers now have more options for displaying and interacting with PMI and GD&T annotations. The enhancements are designed to help relaying information in an effective and reliable manner directly to the manufacturing department.

AutoVue Web Edition provides server-based viewing, markup, and real-time collaboration, delivering instant and secure access to hundreds of document types wherever they reside, without leaving a document footprint on the client’s machine. AutoVue 19.2 also enables real-time collaboration on documents stored on local drives, maintaining security to ensure secure access to data located on company servers as well as local drives. Finally, the new version delivers enhanced markup control, allowing users to select only the notations they wish to see. Users can communicate change requests, comments, observations, and instructions in an effective and timely manner.

For additional information on AutoVue 19.2, click here. For a downloadable demo of the program, click here.