By DE Editors

UGS Announces Linux Support for Teamcenter/NX

UGS (Plano, TX) unveiled product plans for Linux on x64 technology at the 2005 PLM World Conference. Chuck Grindstaff, executive VP, made the announcement during his keynote product strategy presentation.

“Linux on x64 is attractive for many of our customers,” said Grindstaff. “Linux offers an excellent migration path for our Unix customers looking to move to the price-performance benefits and multiple offerings available in x64-based workstations. The x64 platform also permits 64-bit applications to address large amounts of memory, facilitating the development of large, complex models. In addition, since the x64 is backward-compatible with the x86 architecture, customers can run the latest 64-bit applications along with any existing 32-bit applications on the same machine.”

UGS is expected to begin shipping completed products this fall, with additional products following in 2006.  Initial support will be for Novell’s SUSET Linux Desktop and Enterprise Server 9.

In other news, the company’s D-Cubed subsidiary recently released four updates of its component software products. The new releases of 3D Dimensional Constraint Manager (3D DCM) version 31.0, Assembly Engineering Manager (AEM) version 17.0, Collision Detection Manager (CDM) version 33.0, and Hidden Line Manager (HLM) version 33.0 contain new enhancements to improve function and performance.

Detailed descriptions of the enhancements are available online by at UGS.com/products/ open/d-cubed/latest_releases.shtml.

Moldflow Design Link 5.1 Update Supports Latest CAD Systems

Moldflow (Wayland, MA) has upgraded Design Link, its software that directly imports solid geometry from MCAD systems into Moldflow’s design analysis solutions, to version 5.1. Native CAD data from CATIA V5, Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks, and Parasolid-based systems can be seamlessly imported into Moldflow Plastics Advisers and Moldflow Plastics Insight software.

New versions of MDL provide users with updated interfaces to native CAD formats, saving valuable time. Enhancements to MDL 5.1 include support for part models created in Parasolid version 16.1, SolidWorks 2005, Pro/Engineer Wildfire 2.0, CATIA V5 R14 (SP3), and support for MPI 5.1, MPI 5.0 Revision 1, MPI 5.0, MPA 7.1 Revision 1, and MPA 7.1.

In a separate statement, Moldflow and Junot Systems (Houston, TX) announced a cooperative agreement adding SAP integration capability to Moldflow Shotscope and Celltrack software using Junot’s SAP-certified NLINK product suite.

Shotscope is Moldflow’s process monitoring system for the plastics injection-molding industry and Celltrack is its production management system for tracking and reporting production and machine efficiencies. Once the integration of these products is complete, customers using SAP will be able to link to Moldflow products, enabling broad visibility across their manufacturing floor.

Windchill 8 Enables Complete Digital Product Definition

PTC (Needham, MA) announced last month the availability of Windchill 8.0, a major release of its data management and collaboration software, and Pro/Intralink 8.0, the company’s Pro/Engineer data management package. Windchill 8.0 delivers significant enhancements that simplify product development, even as manufacturing companies find their processes becoming more complex. It helps make the integral PTC Product Development System simpler, more powerful, and more scalable than ever.

Read more about these announcements at deskeng.com. Search on “Windchill 8.”

Theorem Launches JT to CATIA V4 Translator

The new Theorem Solutions (Staffordshire, England) CADverter, the JT to CATIA V4 adapter, builds on the company’s announcement of a JT to CATIA V5 translator during the COE Annual Conference in Phoenix this past March.

JT format is widely used in UGS visualization applications that are deployed in mixed CAD environments. These, in part, have fostered the popular misconception that JT is only suitable for viewing applications and does not hold a true geometric representation. In fact, JT can hold both a tessellated and an accurate BREP form of the model. This means that the latest translators from Theorem have no difficulty in producing accurate CATIA V4 and CATIA V5 models and assemblies from detail retained in JT files.

Engineers Can Now Program DSPs With National Instruments

National Instruments (Austin, TX) has announced the new NI LabVIEW DSP Module, which includes tools for designing, implementing, and analyzing DSP-based algorithms and systems. The new LabVIEW DSP Module extends the LabVIEW graphical development environment to embedded signal processing applications and offers engineering students an easy-to-use, hands-on approach to learning key signal processing techniques.

The LabVIEW DSP Module extends LabVIEW core capabilities to directly program Texas Instruments TMS320C6711 and C6713 DSK evaluation boards and NI SPEEDY-33 boards with signal processing functions and programming constructs, such as spectral analysis and filtering, without requiring a separate DSP compiler. Because LabVIEW features an intuitive graphical environment, engineering professors can integrate the new software into their signal processing, communications, control, and filter design courses to help students quickly and easily build everything from communications systems to complex motor control applications. By using LabVIEW to develop these applications, students can focus on the concepts and results rather than tedious implementation details and avoid programming in low-level, text-based languages.

SW 2006 Streamlines Design, Adds Power

In June, SolidWorks Corporation (Concord, MA) released SolidWorks 2006, the newest version of its 3D mechanical design software. It features a host of new and unique capabilities, including more than 200 customer-requested enhancements. These innovations include fundamentally new approaches that allow design engineers to analyze and validate designs as they work.

According to SolidWorks, version 2006 represents an exponential increase in performance and includes new user productivity tools; new features for consumer product, sheet metal, and machine designers; new mainstream design validation capabilities; innovations that significantly ease the migration from 2D to 3D design, such as 3D Drawing View and Design Checker, as well as enhancements to the DWG Series (Editor, Gateway, Viewer); and enhancements in SolidWorks Office Premium that empower design engineers across the entire spectrum of their activities.

SolidWorks focused performance enhancements in two areas: overall system architecture and common operations, with big gains in large assembly and drawing processing. SolidWorks has optimized its lightweight file structure to allow for fast processing at all times in a wide range of commands such as mating, components insertion, interference detection, and section view. Users can now continue to work in drawings without waiting for drawing views or system graphics to be recalculated, saving valuable design time. The most common commands in SolidWorks are now interactive and instantaneous, regardless of how big the assembly might become.

Additionally, SolidWorks 2006 will support the recently released Windows XP Professional x64 Edition operating system with a soon-to-be-released service pack. A native 64-bit version of SolidWorks 2006 is expected to ship later this year, promising further performance gains. New productivity features include the 3D Drawing View, which for the first time enables an engineer working in a 2D environment to visualize assemblies in 3D. Users can pan, rotate, and zoom without leaving the drawing environment.

Other features include a new Display States to provide flexibility in defining an assembly’s on-screen appearance in terms of color, texture, and transparency. Allowing, for example, a model to have shaded components and wire frame components displayed together; a Spell Checker to ensure the accuracy of annotations in any drawing, model, or BOM; a new feature called Smart Components that automatically inserts parts with corresponding mounting features into designs; and enhancements to its DWGeditor so users familiar with AutoCAD can edit legacy DWG files in their native format and cut and paste from a SolidWorks drawing into the DWGeditor. Also, each seat of SolidWorks now comes with three licenses of the DWGeditor for 2D users.

In conjunction with this release, the company has also begun shipping COSMOS 2006, the latest version of its analysis software. COSMOS 2006 adds more than 100 new features that put design validation in easy-to-use packages so that powerful design analysis functions are simplified to mouse clicks, templates, and help wizards.

COSMOS 2006’s new features are aimed at engineers and designers who could benefit from analysis, but don’t have the time to learn either the science behind it or new applications. New interactive wizards, such as Analysis Advisor, help front-line engineers choose the appropriate analysis for their tasks, respond if an analysis fails, and interpret results accurately. The COSMOS 2006 suite, included in the SolidWorks Office Premium, consists of COSMOSWorks FEA software; COSMOSMotion motion simulation software; and COSMOSFloWorks fluid dynamics analysis software. COSMOS’ integration with SolidWorks enables users to analyze their designs without exporting data or leaving the SolidWorks interface.

For more about SolidWorks 2006, including video demonstrations, visit solidworks. com. For a first glance at COSMOS 2006, see this month’s Elements of Analysis.

Dassault Systemes and i2 Form Strategic Partnership

Dassault Systemes (Paris, France), developer of PLM solutions, and i2 Technologies, Inc. (Dallas, TX), provider of demand-driven supply chain solutions, have announced their intent to form a strategic partnership to develop sourcing solutions based on Dassault’s V5 platform for CATIA, ENOVIA, and DELMIA applications.

The intent of the partnership is to integrate sourcing throughout the product lifecycle, thus eliminating barriers between the engineering and sourcing communities and providing both sides with the opportunity to more effectively drive innovation and create value.

The joint offering will provide cross-functional visibility and collaboration, bringing sourcing considerations to the engineer’s desktop, and engineering criteria and 3D digital mockup to the sourcing specialist. The solutions will provide benefits like the ability to design for supply; enhanced re-use management; optimized component and subsystem lifecycle management; and converging engineering and sourcing processes.