CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
30 June 2004
Product News
IronCAD Embraces Emerging OpenHSF Visualization Standard
IronCAD ( http://www.ironcad.com ) announced the latest version of its IronCAD design package, v7.0, includes support for the OpenHSF file format. In addition to IronCAD users being able to publish IronCAD models as HSF files through an "Export Part" option, each IronCAD part/assembly file will now have HSF data directly embedded. This innovative use of the HSF format will enable any HSF-enabled application to read, view and navigate native IronCAD model and assembly files
IronCAD will publish the location of the HSF data in their file format to http://www.openhsf.org Thus, in addition to these files being readable by the free IronCAD viewer, any application developer may extend their products to read and view native IronCAD files. Informative Graphics Corp (IGC) is the first commercial application developer to implement native IronCAD view by extending their Modelpress product. The free HOOPS Stream Control and HOOPS Part Viewers from Tech Soft America will also be extended to support IronCAD files in an upcoming release
"At IronCAD we're uniquely focused on making 3D easier for our customers and a large part of this commitment is to help them share and reuse their 3D IronCAD data. As such, we embrace the use of standards to support the efforts of our customers. We believe the OpenHSF effort offers a rich, lightweight format for data sharing visualization information and our customers will be pleased that their IronCAD files can now be so readily shared by any of the many HSF-enabled applications on the market today," said Shaun Murphy, Vice President for Sales and Marketing for IronCAD
Ron Fritz, Executive Director of the OpenHSF Initiative added, "This is precisely why we embarked on the formation of the OpenHSF Initiative; to enable application developers and end-users to easily share their lightweight visualization data. We applaud IronCAD's commitment to openness and are pleased that the HSF format and the OpenHSF approach made this possible for their user base."
Gary Heath, CEO and President of IGC commented, "We are pleased to offer our free Modelpress Reader for IronCAD ICS and HSF formats. As one of the original supporters of the OpenHSF Initiative we anticipated a day when vendors such as IronCAD will embrace the HSF format so our viewing applications can enable more downstream users to collaborate, share and gain business value from 3D design data. This is an important step for the OpenHSF Initiative and for Informative Graphics, and we look forward to other vendors following IronCAD's lead."
The OpenHSF Initiative supplies an open, interoperable solution for engineering visualization. It is an industry-wide effort to establish HSF as a free, common, open and robust format for sharing visualization data between users of disparate engineering applications. Members include IronCAD, Informative Graphics, Dassault Systemes, PTC, SolidWorks, MSC.Software, ANSYS, Fluent, CoCreate, Alias, CFDRC, Kubotek USA and dozens of other software vendors. End user members include companies such as Boeing, Ford Motor Company, Intel, Bombardier, Daimler Chrysler and Tenneco Automotive. To find out more about the HSF format, the OpenHSF Initiative and view sample streaming files, visit http://www.openhsf.org
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