CAD interoperability and 3D file sharing continues to be a pain point for engineers, no matter how sophisticated their CAD tool. It makes sense then, that the vendor community has been quite active as of late trying to solve the problem, albeit, with a wide variety of approaches.
Cimmetry Systems Corp., one of the better-known visualization companies now owned by Agile Software Corp., this week pitched its solution to the 3D CAD file sharing problem, this one aimed at small and mid-size engineering companies. Cimmetry announced the immediate availability of AutoVue 3D Pro-SME, a version of its native viewing technology tuned to work with lower-priced, midrange 3D CAD packages such as SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD Mechanical and SolidEdge.
AutoVue 3D Pro-SME promises to facilitate collaboration amongst engineers with multiple CAD tools by providing a native viewing environment that lets them markup, print, stamp and share files created by the lower end 3D CAD tools as well as 2D CAD tools without having to own the authoring applications and without having to initiate cumbersome and costly file conversions. Companies who need to view higher-end 3D CAD packages such as Catia or Pro/Engineer can upgrade to AutoVue SolidModel Pro.
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Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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