MECH WORLD

Editors and analysts in the tech industry are infamously hard to impress, as most of us have spent years–some of us decades–covering the latest wiz-bang software and gaga gadgetry. Though I still stand behind that statement, I will say there were several moments during my recent visit to Las Vegas for Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Forum that left me rather awestruck. Hard to summarize two information-packed days, but I’ll at least share a few of my “wow” moments. William Teller, the founding editor of Fast Company, was the first speaker. He spoke on the topic of competitiveness today, maintaining that “average is no longer an option anymore” in today’s hyper-competitive markets and that “originality is the new acid test” for competitiveness today. He also warned the audience to not let their experience and knowledge of their respective products prevent them from being innovative. “The more you know about something, the harder it is to ask those new questions you need to ask in ...

Another announcement made at this year’s PTC Live Global event was the release of PTC Creo Elements/Direct 19.0, direct modeling software that now includes productivity enhancements in modeling, drafting, collaboration and data management. As mentioned in the Creo 3.0 blog, the company also unveiled new technology it’s calling Unite technology that better supports multi-CAD environments. Collaboration seems to remain a tricky task for distributed design teams juggling format in multiple CAD file formats. The Unite technology will enable users to open native CAD files created in other popular CAD formats, and then save, edit and share that data with others. The response from users attending the event was unanimously favorable. “The new import capabilities in PTC Creo Elements/Direct 19.0, formerly known as CoCreate, will allow us to collaborate more effectively with companies using different CAD tools,” said Nobuaki Sugimoto, mechanical designer, Icom, Inc. PTC Creo Elements/Di...

It appears the folks at GrabCAD have been quite busy. The Cambridge-based startup is making two significant announcements today: the integration of its Workbench cloud-based file management platform with PTC Creo CAD software and the release of Workbench Summer 2014. Since PTC Live Global was just held this week in Boston, we’ll start with that one. The integration of Workbench with Creo means that users will now have a host of new capabilities that are available only to PTC Creo users. These new capabilities include: ● The ability to view native models ● The ability to view Creo drawings and other proprietary Creo documents ● The ability to interact with assembly information, such as family table instances In addition, the processing power for all of the above actions will be provided by the GrabCAD cloud platform, freeing up the user’s desktop for other tasks. GrabCAD and PTC will roll out these new capabilities over the next several months to both new and existing PTC Creo and...