Editor’s Pick: Maple 12 Sets the Stage for Analytical Productivity

By Anthony J. Lockwood

All your 3D designs, CFD analyses, and even the music on your iPod are math in more than one form or the other. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in a design or calculation that you forget that all your numbers represent something real. Maple 12 from math-powerhouse Maplesoft links design and math, enabling you to obtain mathematical insights without losing track of what’s real.

With version 12, the Maple engineering, science,  and mathematics environment connects with such MCAD systems as Autodesk Inventor and SolidWorks directly, and it supports direct import of code from applications like MATLAB. This, of course, means that you can extend the range of analysis in your models by leveraging Maple’s mathematical capabilities in your comfortable design environment. It also means that you can integrate design calculations and legacy code into your engineering workflow with confidence.

So what’s the big deal? It’s how you do it:  “Clickable” math and engineering tools, as Maplesoft calls it. Clickable means no fooling around with a command line. Clickable means that common math tasks,  plotting, tagging designs with documentation or calculations, and so forth are reduced to the minimal number of clicks or menu picks to get the job done. Clickable means programming huge calculations quickly or creating technical documents fast. It means that you spend more time designing or engineering and minimal time fussing with setting up software to make it do something.

Maple 12 also offers a new collection of Dynamic Systems modeling tools for dynamic modeling, control design, and signal processing; SQL database connectivity; and enhancements to its differential equation and differential-algebraic equation solvers. It has new dual axis plots and polar plots as well as tools to make Maple scripts and procedures easier to write for those who develop custom code.

You can learn all about the new tools and improvements in Maple 12 from today’s Pick of the Week write-up. I encourage you to check out the link to the video (Quicktime) demos. Maplesoft does not make you sign up for them, which is something we should encourage. The videos are also good for understanding what Maple offers you. Just don’t be put off by some of the breathless titles. The videos are straightforward with minimal marketing hype.

The confidence to make a straightforward marketing video makes sense to me because, in the end, it all comes down to confidence. Maple gives you confidence in your math throughout your engineering workflow.

Thanks, Pal – Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large,  Desktop Engineering Magazine