CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

1 September 2004

Product News

Okino Computer Graphics Promotes Interoperability with Alias® .wire, IronCAD® .ics and Raindrop Geomagic® .wrp Formats via PTC® "gPlugs" WEB Site Downloads

With acknowledgement from Alias, IronCAD, Raindrop Geomagic and PTC, Okino Computer Graphics has posted its tutorial on how to download freely available "gPlug" modules from the PTC WEB site and install them into Okino software, notably PolyTrans, NuGraf and other special native plug-in systems like PolyTrans®-for-MAX® and PolyTrans®-for-Maya®. The immediate benefit, for licenses of Okino's "Granite/Pack v3" CAD license is the addition of free CAD importers for the Alias .wire, IronCAD .ics and Raindrop Geomagic .wrp file formats. The tutorial was also written to raise the awareness of the PTC "gPlugs" mechanism for use in freely exchanging CAD data between 3D programs incorporating the PTC Granite Interoperability Kernel version 3.

In the spirit of the "gPlugs" initiative, a Granite member company (such as Alias, IronCAD or Raindrop Geomagic) writes a "gPlug" CAD importer plug-in module and makes it freely available on the PTC WEB site. Other Granite member companies, such as Okino, can have their customers download these free gPlug modules and use them to augment their existing number of Granite CAD importers (ACIS, IGES, Pro/Engineer, Pro/DESKTOP, Parasolids, STEP and VDA) through some simple operations as described in the tutorial:

Okino customers, who already have the Granite/Pack add-on license (v2 or v3), need only add some ".rti" ASCII files to the Okino "vcplugin" directory and download the gPlug modules from the PTC WEB site, located at http://www.ptc.com/products/granite/gplugs.htm

PTC Granite is the interoperability platform based on the geometry, feature and data exchange capabilities at the core of Pro/ENGINEER, PTC's mechanical computer-aided design software. One of the key advantages of solutions built on Granite is the ability to interoperate associatively, providing updates to downstream applications based on any changes in an original solid model.

The tutorial can be viewed on the Okino WEB site here: http://www.okino.com/tutorials/gplugs_tutorial.htm

"Okino Computer Graphics has always been a company looking for new ways to expand its interoperability with other 3D software packages and to partner with the best in the industry," said Robert Lansdale, President & CEO of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. "With the integration of the PTC Granite technology into Okino software our customers have not only gained access to the top solids-based CAD importers available, but also immediate access to the freely available "gPlug" CAD importer modules from such industry leaders as Alias, IronCAD and Raindrop Geomagic. I wrote this tutorial first and foremost to make our industry more aware of these freely accessible "gPlug" modules, and second, to provide a simple step-by-step series of instructions on how to properly integrate them with Okino software and our "Granite gPlug" compliant importer plug-in system. These 3 gPlug developers wrote their plug-in modules at their own time and expense, and hence we should also be thankful for these companies making their CAD importer modules available for free via the PTC "gPlugs" WEB site."

"PTC has always been a champion for interoperability between different CAD systems. With Granite and its gPlug technology, PTC made native file interoperability and associativity a reality. We are very excited to see Okino becoming the first to fully take advantage of the gPlugs offered by the data authoring applications from our Granite licensees. This will provide all users of Okino's Granite based applications direct native access to model data created by industrial leading companies like Alias, IronCAD and Raindrp Geomagic, and the benefit of associativity in their design processes."

Carsten Hochmuth. Director, Partner Programs, PTC.

"Alias has a long standing reputation as a provider of leading industrial design software. As such, we created a gPlug module using PTC Granite so that our industry standard StudioTools .wire file format can be easily shared with CAD or visualization software packages. We are pleased to see Okino, a long time Maya development plug-ins partner, be one of the first companies to use the gPlug .wire module in their line of software packages. Our plug-in module, running inside Okino's PolyTrans software, allows files from StudioTools to be imported into our Maya products and converted to most other 3D file formats available today."

Paul Dyck, StudioTools Product Marketing Manager, Alias Systems.

"IronCAD is an industry leader in Innovative 3D Design Solutions. As such it is important to allow other companies to gain direct and easy access to our .ics geometric file format. With the integration of our IronCAD ".ics" gPlug module into Okino software, a much wider audience of 3D users can now gain access to our CAD files. It is quite common in this day and age that animation companies, for example, will receive native IronCAD files from their clients, and this Okino/IronCAD interface will allow for the clean repurposing our IronCAD datasets in many other 3D programs. We are pleased to see that Okino is again forging ahead in new areas of converter development and usage by allowing their customers free access to our .ics plug-in module."

Shaun Murphy, VP of Marketing, IronCAD LLC.

"Raindrop Geomagic is an industry leader in reverse engineering and computer-aided inspection software based on point cloud data. Our Geomagic software has an internal format called .wrp. It is not practical to write a .wrp converter for every 3D package. Through the PTC Granite program, Okino provides users with free access to our .wrp format via a .wrp "gPlug" plug-in module. This allows the .wrp files to be converted to almost every major 3D software package. We are pleased that Okino is working with us to promote inter-operability."

Ping Fu, President & CEO, Raindrop Geomagic, Inc.

 

Become a member of the CIMdata PLM Community to receive your daily PLM news and much more.

Tell us what you think of the CIMdata Newsletter. Send your feedback.

CIMdata is committed to your privacy. Your personal information will never be sold or shared outside of CIMdata without your express permission.

Subscribe