European CAD vendor goes global

Bologna, Italy--An engineering software company with a long tradition in continental European manufacturing has stepped out onto the world stage. Cad.Lab, Inc., until recently headquartered in Bologna, Italy, established a worldwide headquarters in Santa Clara, California, USA. The company says the move is to better position its mechanical CAD products for the North American and Asian markets.

Currently, Cad.Lab software accounts for 15% of all CAD installations in Italy. The company also has key customers in France and Germany. All in all, Cad.Lab tallies over 11,000 seats at 2,700 European customer sites. However, the company has not made inroads in the lucrative North American and Asian markets, which in 1997 represented 38% and 23% of CAD/CAM sales respectively. Antillo Rimoli, Cad.Lab's vice president of industrial strategy, says the firm remains committed to the European market.

In support of this new global strategy, Cad.Lab introduced Eureka Gold 97, an MCAD system combining high-end mechanical design functionality with ease-of-use. Eureka Gold 97 is based on Cad.Lab's own geometry kernel, which drives integrated 3-D solids modeling and surfacing capability. The kernal is architected for native Windows 95/NT, the fastest growing operating environment for design engineers.

Cad.Lab's Interoperable Surfacing Technology (IST) provides surface modeling features within a solid modeling framework. Feature based modeling combined with booleans, provides a choice of construction techniques suitable for different phases of the product life cycle. Solid models can be constructed using methods such as extrude, revolve, sweep, and loft. Surface geometry can also be gathered (imploded) to create solids. Features such as holes, cutout, slots, shells, rounds, chamfers, and drafts can be added to the solid model.

The company's Bologna and Santa Clara development centers will focus on building design functionality on the geometry kernel. Other engineering functions will be provided through software partners. FEA capability is provided through COSMOS from Structural Research and Analysis Corp., mold analysis through Moldflow, and machining through from CNC Software Inc.