Position Papers

Ideate, Inc. today announced that Autodesk has promoted the firm to Autodesk Platinum Tier Value Added Reseller. Ideate is now part of a small number of Autodesk Value Added Resellers worldwide that have achieved Platinum Tier status. “Autodesk Platinum Tier to acknowledges the instrumental role these companies play in delivering excellent design solutions, products and services,” said Steve Blum, senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Services at Autodesk. “Whether through the services they deliver, or their notable customer satisfaction scores, these partners constantly show that they can provide exemplary services and capabilities to their customers.” Platinum partners provide their customers with best-in-class full solutions from pre- and post-sales support, consulting, training, implementation, and customization. Ideate, Inc. works closely with Autodesk to help customers design, simulate and analyze their ideas, increase operational efficiencies and maximize their return on investment in Autodesk software solutions. As a Platinum partner, Autodesk solutions source Ideate Inc. helps

Cornell University's College of Engineering and ANSYS are training future engineers worldwide to become proficient in engineering simulation solutions. Through the SimCafe wiki, which was developed in part with National Science Foundation support, students at Cornell and elsewhere are preparing themselves for success by learning to use – for free – the same tools utilized by thousands of engineers in virtually every industry. ANSYS donated the simulation software for the development of the site. SimCafe has helped integrate simulation into 12 mechanical and aerospace engineering courses at Cornell. Outside of the university, SimCafe has attracted more than 130,000 visitors from more than 150 countries including users from over 170 educational institutions. "The effective integration of industry-standard simulation tools with traditional engineering education makes learning more practical and engaging," said Rajesh Bhaskaran, director of engineering simulation at Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. "It also gives students unprecedented opportunities to learn in a self-paced, hands-on

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, today announced that it has acquired France-based Acute3D, provider of Smart3DCapture software for reality modeling. Through reality modeling, observations of existing conditions are processed into representations for contextual alignment within design modeling and construction modeling environments. Rapid technology advancements in scanning and photography – and especially the burgeoning application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for these purposes – are making the capture of such observations broadly and continuously affordable in sustaining infrastructure. Acute3D software automates the generation of high-resolution, fully-3D representations from digital photographs taken with any camera, whether highly specialized or embedded in a smartphone. Scalable from site to city, and with precision limited only by the quantity and quality of photography, Acute3D technology can assure that existing conditions are contemporaneously considered throughout the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations of any infrastructure asset. Now that photo sequences from UAVs are likely to become the most feasible source for surveying, construction monitoring, and inspection

Many of us with careers in the PLM economy fail to step back often enough to fully appreciate just how extraordinary this wide and deep technology market is and has always been dating back to its origins. To some market observers, PLM is considered just another enterprise-IT pillar that sits alongside—if not below in their thinking—the ERP, CRM, and SCM markets. They might be surprised to learn that investments in PLM-related software and services as reported by CIMdata in 2014 are $35B globally, which begins to rival ERP spending. But beyond that most basic size ranking, the PLM market differs in far more structural ways that can’t fully be valued by dollars spent, as in other markets that have historically captured the attention of CxOs or the favor of industry media. The most substantial difference is that the benefits of PLM as a business strategy cannot be realized by a single technology

Wacom, a leading manufacturer of pressure-sensitive pen input devices for professional creators of digital content, played a key role during the development and testing phases of Dassault Systemes' newly launched 3D design application, SOLIDWORKS Industrial Design. As part of Dassault Systemes' 3DEXPERIENCE platform, SOLIDWORKS Industrial Design improves the overall design process by offering a flexible and intuitive design environment. This new cloud based application allows engineers and designers to tackle industrial design challenges in a collaborative manner before seamlessly and efficiently transitioning to the detail mechanical design phase of a project. SOLIDWORKS Industrial Design R&D, product management and sales teams employed Wacom's Cintiq Companion and new Cintiq 27QHD during the application's various stages of development all the way through final testing before launch. The Cintiq's natural, pen-on-screen and multi-touch workflow aligns elegantly with the software, providing a user experience that expertly emulates the feel of traditional media. In addition, the Cintiq's

Mentor Graphics Corporation announced the embedded systems industry's broadest portfolio for industrial automation. In partnership with key industry vendors, Mentor Graphics now offers a solution differentiated from other marketplace products by its unique multi-platform approach and robust security architecture. Mentor Graphics® new Mentor® Embedded multi-platform solution enables embedded product developers to create more feature-rich, power-efficient, safe and secure systems. It encompasses a breadth of runtime platform options, customized development tools, system partitioning, power management, safety certification and system characterization tools, plus market-leading multicore support, making this the broadest solution in the industry. The Mentor Embedded industrial automation solution includes: The Nucleus® real-time operating system (RTOS) with advanced power management and optional IEC 61508 safety certification and Wurldtech Achilles communications certification The Mentor Embedded Linux® platform with integrated industrial protocols, SELinux mandatory access control support, and Sourcery™ CodeBench Professional toolsuite Type-1 hypervisor technology for partitioning and separation Advanced Sourcery Analyzer tool for advanced debug and system

The agreement between the ICT distributor and Solair is aimed at establishing mutual cooperation to make the IoT more accessible and to expand the sales network 2015 started for Solair with an important new agreement and the first of its kind with a distributor. A few days ago a partnership agreement was signed between Solair, a software company focusing on the IoT, and Allnet.Italia, one of leading distributors on the Italian ICT market. The partnership between the two companies from Bologna was established to work together to provide affordable, scalable solutions for the IoT market that are quick and easy to implement. The IoT was the focus of the last edition of #CES, and promises to be the main topic of the next edition of #Cebit: it is the main feature at all the most important international IT events. Recent estimates speak of more than 50 billion things that will be connected

PLM Mechanic has announced the release of their SolidWorks EPDM Export Tool to prepare Solidworks Enterprise PDM (EPDM) Vault data for a targeted system. SolidWorks EPDM customers will find it beneficial as it prepares an Excel workbook with an export of their Vault. This information can then be imported into other systems for reporting, customer service or preparation for integration to systems such as Agile PLM or ERP solutions. The SolidWorks EPDM Export Tool is an easy-to-use application that produces a Microsoft Excel file and can run on any host in the network that has database connectivity and the .Net framework installed. It offers a fast, easy and repeatable process to extract information. This low cost alternative to in-house development is capable of extracting full history including variable information for each of the file’s configurations, Bill of Materials (BOM) for the active configuration of each of the assembly’s versions, document data

OPEN MIND Technologies AG has released hyperMILL® ShopViewer, a proprietary visualisation solution for the workshop. It provides machine operators with a complete overview of the upcoming NC program right through to simulation and ensures that only safe, checked NC programs run on the machine. Although the digital process chain from design through NC programming already exists in many companies, there is often a break in the chain when it comes to the production environment. The actual programs are forwarded to the controller via the network, but the associated information is not normally transferred. The machine operator can usually only take advantage of static aids like drawings, tool reports, screenshots, PDFs etc. It is a different picture with a viewing system. Here, the system provides the specialist operating the machine with all of the information related to manufacturing data, as well as geometry and component structure. hyperMILL® ShopViewer makes it possible to

Kenesto Corp today announced Kenesto Drive.  Kenesto Drive is Kenesto’s latest innovation for mainstream engineering companies designed to serve as an excellent alternative to the commonly used network drive.  Kenesto Drive’s cloud-based solution enables small and medium sized companies to more simply, yet much more effectively store, share, lock-for-edit, and automatically version all their project files directly from users’ desktops, desktop applications and desktop file explorers.  This includes support for engineering and design data, including 2D & 3D computer aided design files, images, presentations, specifications, and other related documents. Using the Kenesto Drive, mainstream engineering companies have for the first time an infrastructure-free alternative to the use of in-house shared network drives.  Kenesto Drive looks, feels, and works in exactly the same way as an in-house network drive, with the added benefits of: Automatic file versioning Extremely simple and effective file locking (vaulting) Automated back-up Personal file ownership with sharing Multi-CAD assembly support Intelligent off-line file access Document