CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
13 September 2004
Product News
New Version of Mathcad Delivers Powerful Enhancements for Managing Organizations' Engineering Methods And Values
Mathsoft announced a new version of its Mathcad calculation software that includes many improvements to help organizations more efficiently create, manage and exploit their engineering information.
Mathcad® 12 includes an open data model, scalability, new flexibility to document engineering-critical values, greatly expanded units and dimensions handling, and new 2D plotting capabilities. Mathcad's first-ever XML architecture delivers an open engineering data model enabling powerful publishing, collaboration, integration and search capabilities, especially when deployed as an enterprise standard.
"We're happy that Mathsoft has chosen .NET architecture for Mathcad 12. This is good for the future of our company, since I think it has many benefits in the form of safe, reliable, and easily extensible code," said Bob Wilson, owner of Wilson Engineering Services. "We'll also benefit from improvements to 2D plotting capabilities and the ability to add metadata."
The improvements in Mathcad 12 stem directly from Mathsoft's organized feedback and surveying of its vast commercial and government end-user base, one of the largest in the engineering world. This customer roster encompasses 90 percent of the Fortune 1000, more than 500 government agencies, and more than 2,000 colleges and universities. Mathcad is the choice of more than 1.7 million engineers in more than 50 countries.
New capabilities in detail
Mathcad 12 adopts XML as its native file format, based on schemes to represent manageable engineering information. Users can automatically save Mathcad files as XML documents, making them easier to search and share with other users and systems, including document management applications, computer-aided design (CAD) programs, and product data management (PDM) solutions.
With XML, Mathcad 12 simplifies the conversion of Mathcad files into XHTML and XSL-FO formats, enabling easier publishing as Web, PDF and other formatted documents. This flexibility provides myriad new ways for engineering organizations to maximize the value of their intellectual property, such as the ability to produce indexed, searchable PDF files. XML also enables results to be saved in worksheets and then viewed and used without having to reopen Mathcad-a key distinction for auditing purposes and regulatory compliance.
Customers who upgrade to Mathcad 12 will have a new ability to define default units. For example, engineers can select inches instead of feet as the U.S. default length unit. This flexibility lets engineers work intuitively without being forced to execute extra conversions to accommodate the software. Users can also find 18 new built-in units to add to the hundreds of engineering and scientific units Mathcad already tracks.
Mathcad 12 includes new 2D plotting options, including a new secondary y axis, which allows data on two different scales to be plotted on the same set of axes. It also provides the ability to change color on markers, and an improved interface to change color on grids. In addition, Mathcad 12 includes the ability to position legends; change font face, size and color for plot titles and labels; and more flexibly zoom and trace.
Mathcad 12 for the first time is implemented with a Microsoft .NET architecture for stability and scalability. Mathsoft has reinforced this new architecture with two years of reviewing and revising code to achieve stability and better memory management.
Mathcad 12 also includes:
• new documentation organized around the tasks users most often perform, making users more productive;
• a new Data Import Wizard for bringing multiple data types from other applications and sources into Mathcad;
• new Web controls that make it simple to insert sliders and dropdown boxes and other features into worksheets; and
• the ability for any Mathcad user to create worksheets for the Mathcad Application Server.
Pricing, availability
Mathcad 12 will be available in Q3 2004 at a list price of $1,199 per user, with an upgrade price of $299 to $399, depending on current version used. Mathcad is available on a volume basis at accelerated discounts, as well as at special prices for government and academic institutions. Maintenance plans, which include enhanced account support services and upgrade assurance, are available for volume license customers. On-site training options are also available to help customers get the most from their Mathcad software. To purchase online or obtain contact information, please visit http://www.mathsoft.com
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