Latest News
December 1, 2006
By DE Editors
Acrobat 8 Ships
Interactive, online hosted conferencing system open for free trial.
Adobe Systems is now shipping the Adobe Acrobat 8 family and, in a related statement, Adobe announced the immediate availability of a free
trial of the Adobe Acrobat Connect, a hosted service, web conferencing, and collaboration solution offering “always-on” personal meeting rooms.
The Acrobat family consists of Acrobat 8 Professional, Acrobat 8 Standard, Acrobat 8 Elements, Acrobat 3D Version 8, Acrobat Connect, and Acrobat Connect Professional. According to Adobe, Acrobat 8 has been enhanced with new tools for communicating and collaborating across operating systems, applications, and firewalls.
Users of Adobe Reader 8 can participate in shared reviews as well as comment on and digitally sign materials. By hitting the Start Meeting button, Acrobat 8 users can collaborate in real-time through the Adobe Acrobat Connect hosted service.
Acrobat Connect uses your browser and Adobe Flash Player to access an interactive online conferencing system where teams can communicate and collaborate in “personal meeting rooms.” Acrobat Connect scales from two to 2,500 participants and is customizable. Among its features are application and desktop sharing, audio controls, video conferencing, meeting recordings, PowerPoint presentations, polling, and whiteboarding.
Acrobat 8 Professional for Windows and Mac OS X are expected to cost $449; upgrades are $159. Acrobat 8 Standard is $299. Version 8 of the free Adobe Reader is expected in early December.
Acrobat Connect is available through the end of 2006 as a free trial. The commercial release of Acrobat Connect is expected in January 2007. Subscription prices are $39 per month or $395 per year per personal meeting room.
Info
Adobe Systems, Inc.
San Jose, CA
At press time, ALGOR, Inc. was to have begun shipping version 20 of its ALGOR CAE, design, analysis, and simulation system and had scheduled a preview of ALGOR V20 at the Aerospace Design Expo 2006 in Anaheim, California, in November.
Among the additions and improvements in ALGOR V20 are an integrated CAD/FEA modeling environment, support for design studies and optimization, and a sparse solver for fluid flow, heat transfer, and linear dynamic analyses. Miscellaneous features include a wizard for applying bolt loads, texture display, and multipoint constraints. Expanded capabilities for Mechanical Event Simulation (MES) include new hyperelastic and viscoelastic material models and a reinforced (rebar) concrete element.
All ALGOR software features are available in FEMPRO, the company’s single user interface for finite element modeling, results evaluation, and presentation. FEMPRO provides direct CAD/CAE data exchange and full associativity with most CAD solid modelers, simplifying the engineer’s choice when selecting tools for analysis.
ALGOR V20 is said to provide full compatibility with industry-standard NASTRAN input and output files so that one can use NASTRAN and/or Femap. Thus, NASTRAN and Femap users can leverage such ALGOR capabilities as structured and unstructured hex-dominant solid meshing and complementary analysis tools such as CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and MES for nonlinear, multibody dynamics with large-scale motion, large deformation and large strain with body-to-body contact. This allows engineers to see motion and its results, such as impact, buckling, and permanent deformation.
ALGOR software is available in a variety of core packages and analysis extension packages that meet most analysis needs. For a complete breakdown of features, and core and analysis extension packages, visit algor.com.
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ALGOR
Pittsburgh, PA
PCI is working with UltraSpectral to develop its SpectralObjeXT image analysis software. SpectralObjeXT brings object-oriented processing capabilities to multispectral and hyperspectral analysts by integrating Spectral Geographic Information System (SGIS) technology with PCI Geomatics’ Geomatica X platform.
The software is intended for advanced users who require analysis and data organization for spectral, polarimetric, and active remote sensing data.
SpectralObjeXT will use Oracle 10g Spatial in conjunction with PCI’s GeoRaster ETL — an extract, transform, and loading tool that is used to populate an Oracle database.
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PCI Geomatics
Richmond Hill, ONT
UltraSpectral, Inc.
Albuquerque, NM
3D Printing Curriculum Developed, Teacher Incentives Created for “Extreme Redesign” Contest
Dimension will award Dell notebooks to teachers of first-place students and most entries.
The Dimension 3D Printing Group, a business unit of Stratasys, Inc., announced teacher incentives for encouraging students to participate in its third annual “Extreme Redesign: The Ultimate 3D Printing Challenge,” a global design and 3D printing contest for high school and college students that awards scholarships to student winners.
Following on the success of last year’s Extreme Redesign contest, which received more than 500 student entries from around the world, Dimension will award teachers of first-place student winners in this year’s contest a Dell notebook computer for use in the classroom. In addition, the teacher with the most student entries will also receive a Dell notebook computer for encouraging student participation in the contest. To qualify, the instructor’s name and e-mail address should be included on the contest application form, by clicking here.
To enter, students need to identify an existing product, piece of art, or architecture and redesign it, making the original design better by adding new functionality or aesthetic qualities. Once the design is complete, students send a .stl file of their Extreme Redesign via Dimension’s website along with a completed submission form, including a 200-word description of the value and benefit of the Extreme Redesign part. Dimension will then send entrants a 3D print of their redesign they can hold in their hands and evaluate. From there, entrants have the opportunity to make any necessary design improvements and develop a second iteration for final submission.
Final submissions must be postmarked by Dec. 31, 2006. A panel of independent judges from various industries will judge final entries on the basis of creativity, usefulness, part integrity, and aesthetics. Winners will be selected in February 2007 and will receive $2,500 or $1,000 scholarships. First place winners will be featured in a live “webinar” that will be broadcast in early March. Also, the winning designs will be featured at the International Technology Education Association’s (ITEA) annual conference in San Antonio, Texas, March 15-17, 2007. Complete contest rules, submission information, and photos and descriptions of last year’s winning Extreme Redesigns are available at dimensionprinting.com.
Dimension is also offering a specially designed 3D printing curriculum aimed at giving educators additional tools to integrate real-world 3D printing technology into their existing engineering and design programs.
Developed in coordination with leading educators and industry experts, the Dimension 3D Printing Learning Modules are included free of charge to educators with each new Dimension 3D Printer, including the recently introduced Dimension 1200 Series or Dimension 768 Series.
“Many of our education customers have expressed an interest in ways they can utilize their 3D printers as a learning tool in the classroom,” said Jon Cobb, vice president and general manager of 3D printing for Stratasys.
The learning modules consist of a series of lessons, including Theory of Shapes, Dimensioning and Tolerancing, Fasteners, Casting, and Gears and Cams. Each module provides hands-on activities to teach students basic engineering and design principles while using 3D printing, a technology that is rapidly becoming an integral part of many companies’ design toolsets.
Contributors to the development of the Dimension 3D Printing Learning Modules included Steve Bailes, engineering educator at Owensboro Technical College in Owensboro, KY, and Terry Wohlers, recognized 3D printing industry expert and publisher of the Wohlers Report, an annual review and analysis of the rapid prototyping market.
For more information, visit dimensionprinting.com.
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Dimension 3D Printing Group
Eden Prairie, MN
Pinion Software, a provider of technical rights management (TRM) solutions, has joined the PTC Partner Advantage Program. Through this partnership, Pinion will extend its security capabilities to Pro/Engineer.
Pinion Software solutions add an enhanced level of data protection that it calls “Rich Read and Shred” data security technology to the design collaboration, outsourced contract manufacturing, and similar technical processes where high-value MCAD data and engineering information is shared via the Internet with partners, vendors, or contractors.
For Pro/Engineer users, this means that they will now be able to assign time-based access to files, impose an automatic shred date to self-destruct files, and prevent recipients from using Cut, Copy, Paste, and Print functions or screen grabber tools. Pinion’s Autoshred capability and its suite of File Security features enable continuous control over how recipients both inside and outside of the corporate firewall use data.
Pinion’s TRM technologies already support such formats as Autodesk DWF, Microsoft Office, PDF, and SolidWorks. A version also secures Mfg.Quote RFPs, and a version is available for workgroups.
For complete details, click here.
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Pinion Software, Inc.
Austin, TX
PTC
Needham, MA
Delft Spline Systems says that its DeskProto software for SRP (subtractive rapid prototyping) allows you to create prototypes on a desktop milling machine. DeskProto includes such features as automatic feedrate reduction at high chiploads, collision check, full rotation axis support, and a two-sided milling wizard.
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Delft Spline Systems
Utrecht, The Netherlands
At the IntelliCAD World Meeting, Italian software developer progeSOFT announced an update to its version of IntelliCAD. progeCAD 2006 Professional now features support for opening DWG files created in Autodesk Architectural Desktop and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop.
This new functionality will allow design teams to continue working even if the original drawing was created with an AutoCAD-based vertical product.
Designers can snap to objects located in viewports while in Paper Space mode. This allows the user to draw objects in Paper Space a specified distance from a feature of an object within the model space of the drawing.
Visit progesoft.com for more information.
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ProgeSOFT
Como, Italy
Geomagic, a developer of 3D digital shape sampling technologies used in reverse engineering applications, has launched the Geomagic Knowledge Base, a user resource for sharing knowledge on Geomagic software and its applications.
An extension of the company’s support section at forum.geomagic.com, Geomagic Knowledge Base is designed as a 24/7 interactive forum that enables up-to-the-minute information exchange on best-practice uses of Geomagic software. The beta release features regular postings of customer technical issues by Geomagic support staff, which will be augmented by content from partners and customers later this year.
For more information, visit the Geomagic website.
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Geomagic, Inc.
Research Triangle Park, NC
PTC has announced the pending acquisition of German technical illustration software developer ITEDO Software GmbH and ITEDO Software LLC for approximately $17 million in cash. ITEDO is best known for its IsoDraw family of products for creating and maintaining technical illustrations. ITEDO is said to have a customer base of more than 2,400 customers in a variety of discrete manufacturing industries, including automotive, aerospace, and industrial equipment.
ITEDO’s IsoDraw and sister applications IsoView and IsoCompose are described as special-purpose solutions that are optimized for the creation of isometric technical illustrations, which, in turn, are suitable for manufacturing, marketing, customer service, and support documentation. Illustrations can be created from scratch or from legacy illustrations, but more importantly from PTC’s strategic point of view, IsoDraw applications can create illustrations from 3D and 2D design data, even those developed in non-PTC MCAD solutions.
This is why PTC asserts that the ITEDO applications will be an important part of PTC’s Arbortext enterprise-wide technical publishing product line. ITEDO software will enable Pro/E users to use their models as the foundation of their technical illustrations, eliminating the manual step of redrawing files from scratch. Further, the Pro/E data will be able to update illustrations automatically as changes are made upstream. The full integration of ITEDO into the PTC family will mean that companies can create documentation earlier in the product development process and later re-use the data for new projects.
PTC says users will be able to continue to deploy all ITEDO products as stand-alone applications.
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PTC
Needham, MA
ITEDO GmbH
Germany
Sun Microsystems, Inc. recently introduced Project Blackbox, a modular datacenter targeting companies seeking rapid deployment of lights-out infrastructure. Project Blackbox packages compute, storage, and network infrastructure, along with high-efficiency power and cooling, in standard modular shipping containers. The Project Blackbox prototype, viewed by the company as the future of virtualized data centers, is designed to be deployed anytime and anywhere.
The Solaris 10 Operating System is at the core of Sun’s virtualized infrastructure. Sun says that a single Blackbox when coupled with Sun server and storage technologies can hold 250 Sun Fire servers, provide two petabytes of storage, or provide seven terabytes of memory.
The form factor and underlying technologies offer a range of potential new uses, including quick Web 2.0 build-outs, advanced military applications, bringing instant-on computing facilities to developing nations, oil exploration, seismic modeling, and leveraging alternative energy sources.
Project Blackbox is currently in the late prototype phase. Availability is slated for mid-2007. More information on Project Blackbox is available by clicking here.
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Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Menlo Park, CA
NextComputing Puts FX 5500 in Portable Workstation
NextComputing is now using NVIDIA’s Quadro FX 5500 graphics board from PNY Technologies in its NextDimension FlexTop computer, a high-performance mobile workstation. According to NextComputing, its ability to accommodate the FX 5500 graphics board in a portable workstation is an industry first.
The FX 5500 is an ultra-high-end graphics card suitable for MCAD, DCC, and visualization applications. It features 33.6GB/sec. memory bandwidth and a 256-bit memory interface with support for 1024MB ultra-fast GDDR2 memory, two dual-link DVI connectors, and resolutions up to 3840 X 2400.
The FlexTop’s two PCI Express slots make it possible for a high-performance graphics board to be portable. Coupling the GPU performance of the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 graphics board with the CPU performance of the Dual Core AMD Opteron processors provides maximum computational and graphics performance, says the company.
The NextDimension series, says NextComputing, addresses the need for open standards technology in a small portable footprint, together with processing power and graphics capabilities equal to that of a desktop graphics workstation.
For more details, click here.
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NextComputing
Nashua, NH
PNY Technology
Parsippany, NJ
Engineering students work to improve vehicle efficiencies.
MotoTron Corporation recently brought 43 engineering students to its company headquarters to demonstrate how the company’s products can help combat vehicle emissions. The students were given instructions in advanced vehicle technologies, and it is hoped that the students will leverage the knowledge they gained to achieve success when they take on the Challenge X competition.
Challenge X is a three-year competition sponsored by General Motors, the United States Department of Energy, and a number of automotive industry sponsors. The Challenge X program gives engineering schools an opportunity to participate in hands-on research and development of the latest automotive propulsion, fuels, materials, and emissions control technologies.
“Here are 43 of the best students in North America who want to make a difference in solving energy problems,” MotoTron Business Development Director Rich Swortzel said in a press statement. “We taught a boot camp on how you take the world of computer controls and machinery and use it to solve unique problems.”
“These students are all about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and we plan to be a part of the solution to global warming.”
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Mototron Corp.
Oshkosh, WI
Challenge X
Imaginestics teams with Axonai to match suppliers with manufacturer quotes.
Imaginestics LLC, a developer of 3D shape-recognition and 3D search engine technologies, announced recently that its 3D-Seek shape search engine will be deployed by Axonai, an online sourcing marketplace for buyers and sellers. Axonai will deploy the 3D-Seek engine to help buyers better connect with suppliers.
“With over 200 categories, identification of the correct supplier for a given request for quotes (RFQ) can be often challenging,” said Nainesh Rathod, president and CEO of Imaginestics in a press statement. “Most RFQ portals, or companies that help the manufacturing industry identify suppliers, match the RFQs based on the buyers’ and sellers’ respective product categorization. However, in 50 to 60 percent of the cases, the buyer has selected a category that is different from the suppliers, therefore compromising the supplier’s ability to bid for an RFQ.”
Rathod maintains that to address this situation many RFQ portals use a manual process of researching and matching of a buyer’s RFQ to a supplier’s capabilities. Using 3D-Seek technology allows searching with graphics embedded with the RFQ. This, in turn, will enable suppliers on Axonai to identify or recognize similar parts that have been created with different processes upon submittal of the drawing with the RFQ. Rathod also asserts that 3D-Seek technology will automatically match the shape provided in the drawing with the capabilities of suppliers.
Video tours of 3D-Seek are available on the Imaginestics website.
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Imaginestics LLC
Purdue Research Park, IN
Axonai, Inc.
West Lafayette, IN
Autodesk says that version 9 of its 3ds Max animation, modeling, and rendering solution for design visualization marks the first full release of 3ds Max with both 32- and 64-bit Windows executables. In addition, more memory can be addressed to create more realistic renderings.
With the addition of mental ray 3.5 rendering, users can render improved realistic scenes, and design shaders allow the creation of effects such as blurred reflections, frosted glass, and glossy car paint. The ability to create bump mapping on glossiness only and to simulate round corners and soft edges makes objects appear even more true to life, says Autodesk.
Mental ray 3.5 adds a simplified user interface. It also has a unified indirect lighting model that provides consistent results when switching between different 3ds Max radiosity modes. Autodesk cites core performance enhancements such as greater viewport interactivity when working with dense meshes, and the ability to switch between high- and low-res bitmap proxies.
3ds Max 9 allows for layered animation. Its new Pro Booleans tool enables modeling with Boolean operations, allowing a user to model inorganic shapes. There are also improvements of interest to game developers and Xref object enhancements.
The Autodesk FBX 3D authoring and interchange format enables you to exchange assets between 3D applications. FBX Enhancements include improvements to mesh compatibility and pixel accuracy when transferring assets and data between 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya software.
Support for all shader types is now available via MaxScript, including HLSL and Cg shaders, enabling the user to work with CgFX files alongside .fx files in the viewport. Shader display has also been optimized for improved performance.
For more information and to download a demonstration unit, visit Autodesk.
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Autodesk
San Rafael, CA
Extends PLM-embedded analysis capability and improves turnaround time.
The Fluent subsidiary of ANSYS, Inc., has announced the December release of Version 2 of FLUENT for CATIA V5. Version 2 is said to extend the range of fluid flow simulations that can be accomplished within the CATIA V5 PLM (product lifecycle management) environment. Fluent also says that Version 2 will provide enhanced automation for rapid, performance-based evaluation of design alternatives. Version 2 of FLUENT for CATIA V5 provides V5 PLM users with fully generative bidirectional associativity between 3D modeling and analysis, according to Fluent. The company also says that enhancements in the new release provide additional automation, efficiency, and alignment with the V5 analysis process. Model building options now include Dassault Systemes’ hexahedral meshing tools and the ability to convert to polyhedral meshes within the FLUENT solver. All meshing options can be used alone or they can be combined within the same model. The latter is said to improve the efficiency of the overall simulation as well as yield faster turnaround for many important design analyses.
The Version 2 release of FLUENT for CATIA V5 is also said to offer an expanded set of capabilities for handling complex flow scenarios. According to the company, users can now consider analyses with fluid flows that involve time variation, rotating equipment, compressibility, mixed convection, and thermal modes commonly encountered in such applications as high-speed aerodynamics, pumps, fans, blowers, full HVAC systems, electronics cooling, engine system components, and thermal transients.
Fluent is part of the CAA V5 Software Community Program. The CAA program is designed to enable partners to leverage the V5 open architecture to extend CATIA integrated simulation capabilities.
Version 2 of FLUENT for CATIA V5 also now supports full 64-bit memory addressing under Microsoft Windows XP 64, enabling simulation of larger models.
Fluent, Inc.
Lebanon, NH
ANSYS, Inc.
Canonsburg, PA
Dassault Systemes
Paris, France
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DE’s editors contribute news and new product announcements to Digital Engineering.
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