May 14 2008 1:17PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

Make way for the Tesla. The long-awaited Roadster, a sleek Ferrari-like electric vehicle, finally hit the market as Tesla opened its first retail store this month in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The car, which has a sticker price of over $100,000, does 0 to 60 mph in just under four seconds, goes 225 miles on a charge and can be fully recharged in 3 ½ hours. The next store is set to open in a couple of months near Tesla headquarters in Silicon Valley, in the city of San Carlos. More stores are planned for Chicago, New York and other cities next year.

Tesla began taking orders last year for the Tesla and the first ones began rolling off the production line in March. Tesla offic...Read More

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May 8 2008 8:17AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

Maplesoft is touting improved connectivity to CAD tools and new analysis functions among the highlights of the Version 12 release of its flagship mathematical calculation tool. Maple 12 now allows engineers to connect directly to popular CAD systems like SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor  and deploy mathematical capabilities to extend the range of analysis on CAD models. With the new release, engineers can also tag designs electronically with rich technical documentation and calculations, which integrates the mathematical analysis directly into the engineering workflow.

On the analysis front, a new Dynamic Systems package offers a large selection of analytic and graphing tools for linear time-invariant syst...Read More

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May 2 2008 9:32AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Who would have guessed that PLM software could have any kind of connection to Danica Patrick’s historic win of the IndyCar Series race in Japan. Patrick, part of Andretti Green Racing, won her first IndyCar Series race—the Indy Japan 300--at Twin Ring Motegi in Motegi, Japan late last month, becoming the first woman to do so. So here’s the connection: AGR cars are developed with the help of Siemens PLM Software  and the company is a sponsor of Patrick. Patrick’s victory came in her 50th career IndyCar Series start in which she drove the #7 Motorola car among the top-eight cars for the entire 200-lap event.

 

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Apr 23 2008 7:52PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

What company isn’t thinking more seriously about sustainable design these days? With that in mind, Autodesk is experimenting with a new tool that can help manufacturers make more responsible materials decisions.

As part of its digital prototyping story, Autodesk has released the Sustainable Materials Assistant, a software add-in that works with Autodesk Inventor 2009. The tool helps manufacturers incorporate environmental design considerations early into their product design initiatives with the goal being to help reduce their product’s environmental impact while still meeting performance requirements.

With new property fields provided in the Sustainable Materials Assis...Read More

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Apr 17 2008 2:55PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Ansys Inc. has released Version 4.0 of its FLUENT for CATIA V5, an upgrade to its computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool that offers new capabilities for engineers working in Dassault Systemes' popular 3-D CAD environment.

FLUENT for CATIA V5 offers performance improvements along with new physics models that extend the analysis capabilities to different types of products. For example, a new species transport model allows the modeling of mixtures of fluids with different properties, making the tool well suited to handle analysis of equipment like paint mixers, fire risk detection systems, airplane cabin ventilation and water treatment systems. A new cavitation modeling feature will allow for performance optimization of fuel injectors used in car and moto...Read More

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Apr 11 2008 7:30AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Looking for a high-end monitor to do justice to your high-end CAD and simulation models? NEC Display Solutions has added a 30-inch, wide-format professional display to its lineup, specifically taking aim at CAD and CAE, among other high-end applications.

The MultiSync LCD3090WXi offers 2,560 X 1,600 pixel resolution along with a calibration function that allows the adjustment of luminance, white point and gamma curve without the need for an external sensor or PC. The new model also has a contrast ratio of up to 1000:1 and a response time of 6 ms. A special bonus for CAD/CAE users: The display features “overdrive technology,” which allows it to offer gray switching times of 6ms, with a contrast ratio of up to 1000:1 at a maximum brightness of 350 cd/m2. In NEC translation, this litany of technical specs means the uni...Read More

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Apr 4 2008 11:46AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Looking for more agility to navigate the virtual 3-D world of Second Life? 3Dconnexion just announced that its 3D mouse product line will be supported by the Second Life Grid, the platform behind the popular 3-D world, starting mid-month.

Traditional mice control motion on a two-dimensional plane, while 3DConnexion’s 3D mice are tuned for a 3-D environment, thus are more intuitive for controlling actions like flying, panning and rotating without relying on any keyboard commands. Advanced navigational capabilities offered by 3Dconnexion’s 3-D mice include more fluid control over avatars, easy access to camera views, quick-switch between flycam mode and avatar motion and control of 3-D objects in build mode.

The 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator, SpaceTraveler, SpaceExplorer and SpacePilot mice range in price from $99 to $399.

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Apr 2 2008 12:12PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Looking to apply more structure to engineering simulation? ANSYS Inc. has a new product it claims can help do just that.

The new ANSYS Engineering Knowledge Manager (EKM) is positioned as a solution for bring data management and process management to simulation efforts. Sort of like a Product Data Management (PDM) tool, but tuned specifically to the requirements of simulation analysis.

According to officials, ANSYS EKM offers collaboration and communications functions, ensuring engineers transfer the right simulation information to the right people when it’s needed. The software has support for archiving and managing simulation data, historic tracking of files, advanced search and retrieval functions, report generation, simulation comparison tools along with workfl...Read More

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Mar 25 2008 11:37AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (3) |

Here’s one of those weird Kevin Bacon connection things. What in the world can the movie “21”, set to open this week, have in common with CAD world? The flick is about a group of MIT students who take on the Vegas casinos in the early 1990s and beat the odds, winning millions.

The upcoming movie, which starts Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne, among others, is based on the non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich, entitled “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.”  The MIT team employed advanced counting techniques, which the casinos didn’t like, but were considered legal.

Anyway, the CAD twist to all of this is that one of the original MIT blackjack team members was no other than Jon Hirschtick, the founder of ...Read More

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Mar 19 2008 6:30PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

More partnership news from the CAE/CAD front: Analysis vendor Algor Inc.  and CAD provider SpaceClaim are teaming up to create a 3-D design solution for CAE users.

As part of Algor V2.1 and SpaceClaim Professional 2007+, the pair are providing a fully integrated solution to give engineers a design-to-analysis environment—the goal being to help reduce the amount of time that it takes to iterate through multiple CAE scenarios. The combined solution delivers benefits, officials say, in preparing models for analysis and building intelligence by being able to edit geometry for design optimization and multiple iterations.

Algor officials said the pairing makes sense because SpaceClaim works with all native CAD files as does Algor products. The distribution agreement calls for Alg...Read More

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Mar 10 2008 3:12PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Robert McNeel & Associates, makers of the Rhinoceros freeform modeling tool, and SpaceClaim, which markets 3D CAD software, announced what they call a “roundtrip integration” between their products.

The move is designed to improve the product stylist workflow by giving product stylists seamless data exchange capabilities between their surfacing and design applications. SpaceClaim accomplished this by adding 3DM to SpaceClaim LTX, officials say, which allows users to open Rhino files directly in the SpaceClaim software for creating solid geometry. The 3D solid design can then be sent back to the Rhino file format for precise surface creation by the stylish.
...Read More

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Mar 4 2008 12:41PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Here’s a piece of news that should resonate for engineers looking at better ways to collaborate and share components: SolidWorks Corp. released the 2008 version of its 3D ContentCentral software service stocked with new features that let engineers download and share content globally.

3D ContentCentral, which is free to registered engineers and designers who use it, lets users share 3D models and 2D drawings with other design teams, regardless of their CAD system. Key enhancements in the 2008 release include:

-- Support for more content types, including parts/assemblies for almost all CAD tools, 2D blocks and SolidWorks software macros;

-- New community features such as content search, user ratings and tools for requesting content from the community;...Read More

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Feb 29 2008 8:01AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Invention Machine, a provider of innovation software, has come out with a connector module to sync up with PTC's Windchill PLM platform.

The new Connector to PTC Windchill module provides direct access to engineering content housed within Windchill for users working with Invention Machine's Goldfire Innovator software. Goldfire which integrates a problem analysis workbench with a patented semantic knowledgebase, helps engineers and scientists put structure around the innovation process. The software can be employed to help with such steps as organizing ideas, researching prior patents, exploring potential new markets and competition as well as evaluating risk so the mo...Read More

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Feb 24 2008 5:36PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Users of  PTC’s Pro/ENGINEER CAD tool looking for advanced thermal analysis and simulation capabilities will have a broader array of options thanks to a partnership between PTC and Blue Ridge Numerics.

Following PTC’ recent announcement of its latest CAD release, Wildfire 4.0, Blue Ridge Numerics announced a version of its CFdesign tool specifically tuned for the upgrade. This new edition of CFdesign for Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0, which provides a parametric CAD-driven flow and thermal analysis environment, also supports CoCreate OneSpace 3D, a CAD tool acquired by PTC last year.

Blue Ridge Numerics says it jumped on supporting Wildfire 4.0 because of the widespread adoption of CFdesign within the Pr...Read More

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Feb 14 2008 12:52PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Ready for the next-generation of smartphones? NVIDIA, in tandem with long-time partner Microsoft, introduced the NVIDIA APX 2500, an applications processor they say will deliver video power for a new era of Windows Mobile-enabled smartphones.

Among the new features of the APX 2500:

•    The industry’s first HD (720p) playback and capture capability for handheld devices;
•    An ultra-low power (ULP) GeForce core that is fully compliant with OpenGL ES 2.0 and Microsoft Direct3D Mobile, providing a low-power 3D solution for acceleration of 3D user interfaces;
•    NVIDIA nPower technology, which minimizes power consumption in active mode, enabling over 10 hours o...Read More

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