Armed with new solutions and hundreds of newcapabilities, Dassault Systemes rolled out the latest release of its V6 PLM platform, emphasizingcollaboration and rich design capabilities all while taking aim at a broadercommunity of users within the product development spectrum.

The new V6R2011x release ushers in advantages inthree domains of the V6 architecture: Rich applications, online platform anduniversal services. Collectively, V6R2011x'srich applications include 479 new functions and eight new solutions to supportcustomers' collaborative creation processes for all targeted industries usingCATIA, DELMIA and SIMULIA brands, a company official said. For example, thereare several new solutions aimed at automotive industry customers: CATIAImagine & Shape, for one, is a virtual clay modeler based on subdivisionsurface technology that meets the standards required in automotive body shapedesign. Additionally, the new CATIA Live Rendering solution refines therendering of a design as it is being manipulated until the desired level ofphoto-realistic visualization is achieved.

Other examples of new rich applications includethe V6R2011x release of 3DVIA Composer, which offers enhancements that improvethe ability to create high-quality 2-D vector graphics for technical productdocumentation. For example, the solution's new layered rendering feature letslayers be custom defined and prioritized in vector graphic output, allowing forthe clear definition of hidden assembly components in technical illustrations.On the DELMIA front, the new Manufactured Product Planning module lets usersmodify a product's engineering definition in order to create an"as-manufactured" definition for use by downstream manufacturing planning anddetailing stakeholders. By tapping the V6 immersive environment,manufacturing planners can then create all relevant manufacturing stages of theproduct that have not been defined by product engineering, includingmanufactured assemblies and parts resulting from fabrication processes,according to Dassault Systemes' officials.

The V6R2011x ENOVIA online platform, the hub of the V6 architecture,delivers seven new products and 359 cross-industry and industry-specificfunctions. The upgrade is built on the V6 cloud-ready online platform and officialssay, sustains Dassault Systemes' commitment to open solutions with its enhancedsupport of standards such as STEP or 3DXML for data or SOA for architecture.

New additions to the platform include ENOVIA VPMDesigner Workspace (DWS, which facilitates concurrent engineering by allowingdesigners to pursue complex design activities while controlling when changesare propagated between team members to avoid unnecessary interruptions. WithENVOIA V6R2011x, designers can also create a single hybrid product structurecomposed of CATIA V6, CATIA V5 and SolidWorks models-a new capability thatfosters real-time design reviews and analysis regardless of the nativeauthoring tool, officials said.

Other new tools include ENOVIA VPM KnowledgeStandardization (KWT), which allows design domain experts to institutionalizehow conceptual part features are defined and guarantees that rules are followedto avoid mistakes and rework; ENOVIA Materials Compliance Experience (MCX) forvisibility of material compliance data; and ENOVIA Component Central (CPC),reintroduced in V6R2011x and built on a new V6 server architecture, used todefine classification taxonomies and manage component libraries to encouragereuse, lower costs and improve bill-of-material throughput.

Finally, another standout of the V6R2011xrelease is the first incorporation of EXALEAD Cloudview 360, an open search basedplatform Dassault Systemes acquired earlier this year. Cloudview'smulti-constraint search, which answers queries in multiple dimensions, willbring a new layer of search capabilities to ENVOIA, officials said.