March 2007

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor’s Pick of the Week—March 28, 2007Create Presentations with 3D Pizzazz Dryfork makes creating inspired presentations simple.Imagine presentation software that allows you to use your imagination,adding 3D objects, music, narration, animation, and video to slideswithout having to open other screens or additional applications duringyour bit. That’s what the engineers at Dryfork Media Corp. (Orem, UT) have done with their raison d’etre: Dryfork.The key to Dryfork is that it is 3D oriented from the beginning. By wayof comparison, think of drafting software and 3D MCAD. What you usuallythink when you hear presentation software is drafting. Dryfork is 3D MCAD.With Dryfork, not only can you use 3D objects in your presentation, youcan embed multimedia information that would otherwise take severalslides in traditional presentation software. With traditional software,you often have to stop, fire up a secondary application, return to theslide, and resume your presentation. With Dryfork, multimedia, evenmixed multimedia, is simply part of the slide.And even your bullet points and flow charts are in 3D. They can floatin a 3D world, pop out, recede, zoom, and do whatever you need in order to presentyou message. Slides can be as media rich and as intricate as you want. You caninclude information that moves at a timed pace, showing information inexactly the way you want your client to see. For example, say you are asoftware developer of specialized simulation applications. Dryfork letsyou build a 3D slide with some text and an animation of one of yoursimulations. Then, in a third window on the same slide you can havewindow that ticks off increasing dollar values with the text “moneysaved” below it. Company President William Nordgren calls Dryfork the “first true 3D environment software” for professionalpresentations, adding that the software was developed with themanagement, marketing, and engineering professional in mind.He may be spot on there because Dryfork shows that it knows 3D. I believe that all you engineers out there who are calledupon to create slide shows to showcase your work should give Dryforkserious consideration as your presentation software of choice.Downloadthe free Dryfork Player to try it yourself. It comes with a number ofsample presentations that’ll give you a good idea of the capabilitiesof the software. Alternately, tomorrow, Thursday March 29, 2007 at 9 a.m. MT, Dryforkwill present a free live 60-minute web demo of Dryfork presentationsoftware. I think they do these fairly regularly, but you shouldregister now if interested. The web demo is limited to the first 25 peoplewho join in. To register for tomorrow’s free meeting, click here.Pricing: Dryfork presentation software for creating and distribute 3Dpresentations costs $99 for a limited time (normally $399). Therequired player is a free download. A media pack containing more than250 high-quality 3D shapes and textures, pictures, and skies to add toyour presentations costs $150. Dryfork Studio, a combinationpackage containing Dryfork 3D presentation software and the Dryfork MediaPack of images, costs $159 for a limited time (normally $499).Minimum Hardware: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP processor, 256MBRAM, an NVIDIA 64MB OpenGL-compatible graphics card, 500MB of free harddisk space, and Microsoft Windows XP. This is close to the system thatI used to try out Dryfork; I have 512MB RAM. The company, however,recommends an Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor, 1GB RAM,and an NVIDIA GeForce 6 series or higher graphics card for bestperformance.To download the free demo, click here. For more information, go to the Dryfork home page.Anthony J. Lockwood is the Editorial Director of DE. To send him an e-mail, click here.

 Editor’s Pick of the Week—March 21, 2007 SpaceClaim Opens 3D MCADIndustry veterans launch mechanical design for all contributors.Mike Payne, a co-founder of PTC and SolidWorks, Daniel Dean also a PTCco-founder, Rich Moore former VP and GM of Americas of ComputervisionCorporation, and a roster of industry heavyweights are at it again.This time, they’ve launched SpaceClaim Corp. (Concord, MA) with amission to put “3D at the fingertips of everyone involved in productdesign.” And the other day, they announced their flagshipproduct, SpaceClaim Professional 2007. Envisioned as a complement tocomplex, industrial-strength MCAD environments, SpaceClaim Professional2007 will be generally available at the end of March. The idea underlying SpaceClaim Professional is that 3D mechanicaldesign is unavailable to many major contributors to product development- say, manufacturing engineers, analysts, and engineering management -because they do not have access to or mastery of the designers’ 3D CADsystem. SpaceClaim Professional 2007 deploys a range of technologies,such as intelligent tools and a non-threatening user interface, thatenable these engineers participate earlier in the product developmentprocess without thrashing about inefficiently with the professionaldesigner’s system. A nonparametric MCAD tool, SpaceClaim Professional 2007 provides whatthe company describes as a flexible modeling environment. Thisenvironment supports conceptual engineering, design creation, andmodification as well as real-time geometric inferencing. The latterhighlights design similarities, such as equal radius holes or coplanarsurfaces, and aids users during geometry creation and modification. Thesoftware’s integrated workspace for parts and assemblies lets you splitand merge components and to alter assembly structure as needed. The SpaceClaim user interface is based on a technology that the companycalls “SmartTools.” In essence, SmartTools gleans your modeling intentfrom your selected geometry and its context to determine the mostlikely operations you wish to perform. SmartTools then makes availablethose tools for your use. This eliminates the clutter of multipledrop-down menus or dialogue boxes as well as reduces the number ofclick needed to execute an action. The user interface also offers a technology called “Hints.” Hintsautomatically suggest design considerations, such as maintaining samesize holes or wall thickness, in the form of localized “snaps,” which,in turn, eliminates the need for entering specific dimensions beforeyou change geometry. Additionally, a Power Select capability lets yousearch a model for similar geometry, select as a group from theresulting list, and modify, move, or delete all at once. SpaceClaim Professional provides a constraint-free sketchingenvironment. Sketching entities include lines, arcs, and splines, andsketching tools include trim, offset, and project to sketch. Thesoftware also has pull, move, and sections functionalities, and itsupports familiar Microsoft Cut and Paste commands to move and copygeometry. Miscellaneous features include 3D mark-up capabilities, modelcompare functions, and the ability to output 3D mark-ups in PowerPointand XPS. SpaceClaim Professional can import and export most major file formats,including ACIS, Parasolid, IGES, STEP, DWG, DXF, and VDA. SpaceClaimProfessional uses an The complete SpaceClaim product line also includes a free Home Editionof SpaceClaim Professional 2007, a free SpaceClaim Viewer, a dataExchange product for translators beyond the industry standards, aproduct that supports CATIA V5 data exchange, and a library of standardparts. Next Wednesday, March 28, 2007, SpaceClaim Corp. will hold an onlinewebinar called “Increasing Engineering Efficiency by Extending theBenefits of 3D.” The featured guest will be Chad Jackson of the AberdeenGroup who will discuss how best-in-class manufacturers are extendingthe use of 3D modeling throughout the product development team toimprove engineering efficiencies. A demonstration of SpaceClaimProfessional 2007 will follow the main presentation. This event issponsored by Desktop Engineering magazine and SpaceClaim Corp. Anthony J. Lockwood, Editorial Director at DE, will serve as host. Forfurther details on this webinar or to register for it, click here. General availability of SpaceClaim Professional 2007 begins on March30. It costs $125 per month, per user, based on a 3-year term. A 1-yearterm is also available, and both terms include full support andupdates. For full details, go to the SpaceClaim website.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—March 14, 2007 3D Color Printer Fits in Office Z Corporation unveils ZPrinter 450 with particle containment and no liquids.Z Corporation (Burlington, MA) has announced the ZPrinter 450, itsnewest color 3D printer. The ZPrinter 450 is optimized for afront-office environment: It is quiet, uses safe build materials, andemploys “negative pressure” and a closed loop system to containairborne particles. Even when a model requires supports, the ZPrinter450 It produces no liquid waste to remove them, and the ZPrinter 450’spowder and binder cartridges cleanly load, keeping users away from thebuild materials. The ZPrinter 450, says Z Corporation, introduces first-evercapabilities for a color 3D printer, such as automated setup andself-monitoring of materials and print status. The ZPrinter 450 uses aloose powder for model support structures and automatically removesthat loose powder upon completion of the model without liquid baths.Additionally, the ZPrinter 450 has an integrated fine-powder removalchamber that reduces the footprint of the system. << Sample images created with the ZPrinter 450 from Z Corp. Click images to enlarge. >> The ZPrinter 450 produces color using a single tri-color printheadinstead of multiple printheads. You can control the ZPrinter 450 fromyour desktop or a display panel on the printer itself. Its ZPrintsoftware lets you monitor powder, binder, and ink levels from yourdesktops, and remotely read the machine’s LCD display. < < Sample images created with the ZPrinter 450 from Z Corp. Click images to enlarge. > > The ZPrinter 450, according to the company, produces models andprototypes at a cost of approximately $3 per cubic inch. Printersolution is 300 x 450 dpi. Z Corporation anticipates that the ZPrinter 450 will ship early in thesecond quarter of this year. Pricing will be $39,900. Click hereto download a WAV movie and some PDF brochures on the ZPrinter 450(registration is not required). To go to the Z Corporation website,click here.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—March 7, 2007 Integrate CAD and Thermal AnalysisSINDA/G thermal analysis linked with Patran FEA.Version 2.5 of the SINDA/G plug-in for Patran from Network Analysis, Inc. (NAI; Chandler,AZ) fully integrates the thermalanalysis features of SINDA/G with the FEA (finite element analysis) pre- and post-processingcapabilities of Patran from MSC.Software (Santa Ana, CA). The SINDA/G for Patran plug-in allows for the seamlessintegration of the two programs with all major functions of bothsoftware programs supported, according to NAI. Further, the transparentintegration lets you operate such thermal features as convection,surface-to-surface radiation, and heating, without having to know theformat of SINDA/G or thermal radiation codes. NAI describes SINDA/G for Patran as fully compatible with Patranand MSC.Nastran. It supports thermal radiation and orbitalheating industry standard programs, including Thermica, Nevada, andTRASYS. This is said to include a radiation super-element concept andtrue geometric primitives that are passed to thermal radiation codes.The thermal result generated by SINDA/G for Patran can be used byMSC.Nastran to calculate thermal stresses and distortions. SINDA/G for Patran allows the thermal features of SINDA/G — convectionequations, programming logic or entire subroutines — to be incorporatedin Patran-generated models. The SINDA/G for Patran plug-in includes aPatran-style graphical user interface. Version 2.5 of SINDA/G for Patran runs on Windows-compatible PCs and UNIXworkstations. The plug-in alone costs $4000. SINDA/G itself is also$4,000. For further details, click here. Click here to access a series of movies (streaming WebEx) showing SINDA/G for Patran in use.