Translating Between CAD Systems

Kyle Herring is the Marketing Manger, Anark Corp.

Industry leaders in the CAD world will gather in May for the 2008 3D Collaboration & Interoperability Conference with an agenda that sounds vaguely similar to political nominating committees.  In both politics and engineering software, there are those who are hungry for change.  As difficult as overcoming partisanship in Washington may be for the next President, finding solutions to the interoperability problems that continue to hinder the world of 3D may prove to be even tougher.

David Prawel of Longview Advisors Inc., the organizers of the annual event, puts it this way:  “3D software has grown into an indispensable tool in all corners of industry — design, simulation, gaming, web communication, and manufacturing — and continues to evolve and bring us new improvements.  The one issue that holds the technology from its full potential is interoperability.”

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Go with the [Data] Flow - The Secret to Digital Prototyping

One hundred twenty-five conceptual designers. A handful of engineers. Thousands of decision-makers. Seventy-two hours to take their input from idea to physical prototype in a trade show exhibit booth. Was this a trade-show stunt or factory of the future?

Inventor Ben Kaufman pulled off this collaborative feat at the MacWorld trade show in 2007. Outrageous or visionary, the exercise suggests the challenge of managing input and development concurrently-albeit under extreme circumstances.

For Kaufman, data flow was crucial to meeting his deadline. For more sophisticated manufacturing operations, seamless data flow is vital to understanding the aesthetics and performance of design ideas. Read the story »

ALGOR Announces DesignCheck

PITTSBURGH, PA - ALGOR, Inc. announced the availability of ALGOR DesignCheck – a first-pass, fully integrated simulation tool – for users of Pro/ENGINEER®. Expanding upon the existing technology partnership between ALGOR and PTC, ALGOR DesignCheck is free, time-limited finite element analysis (FEA) software that allows engineers and designers to perform linear static stress analysis of single-part CAD models. With ALGOR DesignCheck, Pro/ENGINEER® users can virtually test the behavior of product designs, speed up time to market and make better, safer products at a lower cost. Read the story »