Products: October 2006

   

DE Readers’ Choice

UGS Launches Solid Edge 19

SE 19 includes “hundreds of enhancements requested by our small and mid-size customers,” says spokesperson.

New relationship types between gears and motors as well as new explode and motion simulation capabilities are some of the enhancements in Solid Edge 19 that UGS Corp. (Plano, TX) highlights. (See Al Dean’s SE 19 review in the September 2006 issue of DE).

Solid Edge v19 offers full-motion simulation capabilities. Here, engineers can now define relationships between different motion drivers, such as gears, pulleys, hydraulics, and cylinders. Next, engineers can send their suppliers and customers motion studies of their design, showing how it is intended to function. Additionally, v19 offers dynamic documentation tools that let engineers capture, modify, and animate how parts are assembled and disassembled.

Solid Edge v19 “includes hundreds of enhancements requested by our small and mid-size customers,” said Adrian Scholes, director of Solid Edge marketing for UGS in a briefing with DE. Further, Mr. Scholes pointed out various features and capabilities that enable designers, manufacturers, and global partners to create, share, and manage design information.

   

Solid Edge 19

Collaboration enhancements include the JT standard file format, which enables the sharing of 3D part and assembly design across multiple CAD platforms, and PMI (Product Manufacturing Information) functionality. The latter enables v19 to produce 3D-annotated designs compliant with such standards as ASME Y14.41.

Also, with the introduction of v19, Solid Edge is available in a 64-bit edition to speed the creation of massive assemblies and associated drawings.

For full details including online AVIs, go to the Solid Edge pages on the UGS website by clicking here.

Solid Edge Version 19 received the most votes in our July 2006 issue. Vote for your favorite from this issue on the last page of the Products section. 

Model Gas and Oil Reservoirs

Tecplot, Inc. (Bellevue, WA) has released Tecplot RS (Reservoir Simulation) 2007, an integrated plotting tool for oil and gas reservoir modeling.  It offers support for VIP reservoir simulation software from Landmark Graphics (Houston, TX)

Tecplot RS allows data from multiple sources to be loaded and displayed in plots ranging from x,y graphs to complex 3D renderings. It manages data from multiple reservoir simulation applications, as well as observed data such as production rates and formation tests.

Among new options are viewing cell data in 3D grid plots, such as arbitrary vertical slices, which let you create such slices by clicking on two locations to connect injectors and producers. 3D grid views include IJK slice, y,x,z slice, IJK blanking, and well-blanking.

New features include the ability to translate and rotate grid, and convert to UTM coordinates to align with the real map view. A new comparison tool lets you calculate and display the difference between two solutions for the same grid.

An annual network license is $4,000. Special consultant and educational pricing is available upon request.

For more, click here.

Mercury Announces PowerStream 6600

The PowerStream 6600 multicomputer from Mercury Computer Systems Inc. (Chelmsford, MA) comes with 716 PowerPC GFLOPS of compute performance in a conduction-cooled enclosure, which, the company says, enables sensor computing on the move. Mercury adds that the PowerStream 6600’s performance and rugged mechanical design enables manned and unmanned vehicles to support C4ISR (command, control, communication, computers, information, surveillance and reconnaissance) multimode missions, such as radar and image, and SIGINT processing.

   

PowerStream 6600

The PowerStream 6600 has the capacity to enable advanced radar applications including multi-mode search, multi-target tracking, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, and space-time adaptive processing (STAP), says the company.

The 16-slot PowerStream 6600 is a complete computing solution with DA, high-speed I/O, PowerPC compute clusters, and FPGA processing integrated with open-standard software. The latter includes Linux and VxWorks, VPX-REDI (VITA 46 and 48), PMC-X/XMC, Ethernet, and RapidIO interconnect fabric.

For details, click here.

Simulate Fluorescence

Lambda Research (Littleton, MA) announced a new fluorescence modeling capability in its TracePro Expert software for modeling and analyzing the propagation of light in optomechanical systems.

With this new functionality, TracePro Expert users can simulate fluorescence and address the design challenges inherent in fluorescence-based optical systems across such disciplines as biosensing, in-vitro and in-vivo medical diagnostics, spectroscopy, microarrays, flow cytometry, and microscopy.

   

TracePro Expert

TracePro Expert enables users to import fluorophore data in solution or biological tissue and to analyze fluorescence effects at any point in the optomechanical system. A library of commercially available fluorophores, light sources, and optical components facilitates feasibility testing of off-the-shelf components.

TracePro Expert is compatible with major MCAD and lens design software. For full details, click here.

  RhinoART 1.0 Joins Family of Rhino Boosters

CAM software developer MecSoft Corp. (Irvine, CA) announced RhinoART 1.0, its third plug-in for Rhinoceros 3.0 from McNeel and Associates (Seattle, WA).

   

RhinoART

RhinoART joins RhinoCAM, a general-purpose machining program for machinists, and RhinoCAM Pro for mold, die and tooling, woodworking, rapid-prototyping, and general machining applications. RhinoART, however, augments Rhino’s NURBS and mesh modeling features with capabilities that, says MecSoft, gives Rhino users a completely new way to create artistic models that suitable for such detailed applications as jewelry design, sign-making, or logos. In essence, RhinoART gives you the ability to transform a 2D image into sculptured, native Rhino 3D geometry quickly. From there, you can use this geometry as is or you can manipulate it using Rhino’s modeling tools to create complex designs.

RhinoART offers such geometry generation features as the ability to create 3D reliefs from image files as well as the ability to limit the creation of reliefs using colors and/or curves. It can take drawing 2D Curve geometry from image files and create puffed-up volumes using closed curves or even sweep volumes using various profiles.

To sign up for downloadable trial, access tutorials, and browse an image gallery, click here.