Best Practices: How to Choose the Right 3D Design Tool

By barb schmitz | Published: July 18, 2011

 

Most manufacturing companies are designing new products using 3D design tools. The benefits of designing in 3D—as opposed to 2D—have been well born out and include faster time to market, reduced physical prototyping, the ability to simulate/analyze products while still digital, and ultimately, higher quality products. The real value of investing in 3D CAD is the 3D model, which becomes the catalyst by which all downstream product-related functions are accomplished.

The 3D model is leveraged throughout the lifecycle of a product for product design and verification, drafting, tool design, CNC tool programming, rapid prototyping, inspection, assembly instructions, part catalogs, owners’ manuals, service documentation, and marketing collateral. As such the 3D model must accurately represent every part within a product and the relationships among them. So where do you start when determining which 3D design tool will best meet the needs of your product development process? Let’s break down a few things manufacturers should consider before choosing a 3D tool.

Ease of use. A good 3D design system should be easy and intuitive enough that users aren’t intimated to embark upon learning to design in it. It should also enable designers to design parts efficiently in as few a steps as possible—but without compromising product quality. A consistent user interface throughout all the system’s modules and add-on products can significantly shorten the overall learning curve. Finding a CAD system that offers a lot of training resources is also very helpful; built-in tutorials, computer-based training, and an online user community that offers forums for new users to ask questions of other users.

Cost considerations. 3D CAD software varies in cost as well as functionality. Often the functionality of a particular 3D design tool corresponds directly to the system’s overall cost. Determining your budget can help you to determine the functionality you will be able to afford. Also keep in mind total cost of ownership, which includes future costs, such as training for employees, upgrades in hardware that might be required, and upgrade charges when new updates are released. If you have users who won’t be using the software full-time and don’t need the full power of the software, look to see if the vendor offers software for casual users or usage, helping to lower your overall cost.

Product-specific requirements. The design of every product has unique requirements. One way to narrow down your choices is to evaluate each vendor’s strengths in the functionality that is essential to the design of your product. If your product is a stylistic consumer product with swooping, curvy surfaces, then finding a 3D CAD tool that offers functionality in creating freeform surfaces will be vital.  A company manufacturing large, complicated machinery should look for systems that can manage large assemblies efficiently and won’t bog down when dealing with complex designs with high part counts.

Import/export capabilities. Few manufacturers use the same CAD system as all of their customers, partners and suppliers in their expanded supply chain. As a result, the ability to effectively share CAD data with others as well as the ability to import files from other systems are both important factors to consider. Be sure your vendor supports international file formats such as STEP, IGES, and VDA. Evaluate the direct translators that are available for each CAD system as well as those offered by third-party vendors. The ability to efficiently and accurately exchange CAD files with customers or suppliers can save manufacturers significant time and cost.

Try it before you buy it.  Many 3D CAD software vendors will provide companuies and users with a free but full version of their software to try out for a certain amount of time (typically 30 days), you and your users can get a feel for the way the software works and whether it will easy for your design team to easily adapt it into your current processes. Once you’ve narrowed it down to a few vendors, get live demonstrations of CAD systems from each vendor, preferably using some of your actual product data.

Ask lots of questions. Find out what type of after-sales technical support will be available, either through the vendor or through resellers. Don’t be afraid to ask where the company is headed in terms of technology. Are they thought leaders in their industry? Do they understand your pain points? And, are they continuing to invest heavily in developing future products that will address the needs of their customers? If the answer to any of these questions is no, walk away.

Unifying ECAD and MCAD: Blurring the Lines Between Disciplines

By barb schmitz | Published: May 25, 2011

 

Nearly all products today—ranging from cars to industrial equipment to medical devices—contain some type of electronic device. The integration of electronic components in products complicates the design process because it requires the unification of what has traditionally been viewed as two diverse disciplines: electrical and mechanical engineering.

Electronics are being developed and produced faster than ever in order to stay ahead of the rising tide of demanding consumers who continuously push for smaller, more intelligent products. As the design of electronic devices becomes more complex, finding harmony between the process of electronic and mechanical design becomes more critical. In order to design complex electronics faster and better than ever, manufacturers must unify their design processes so the flow of design data across the electro-mechanical divide is smooth and efficient.

The challenge for product development teams is to manage and work with these increasingly interdependent processes—mechanical and electronic—while adhering to product timelines. All this increases the need for effective design collaboration between the electronic and mechanical aspects of a design, where the demand for smaller and more functional packaging requires the two disciplines to be completely in synch at all stages of design.

Board assemblies often now hold all of the external hardware (connectors, keypads, displays) while the product case assembly neatly exposes these to the user. As a result, packaging has evolved from being a simple container to a tightly integrated part of the product.  As a result, a product’s packaging must account for the physical aspects of the internal electronics, while the electronics assembly—the circuit board design—must allow for the physical style and functionality of the package design.

Integrating mechanical and electronic design is, therefore, crucial. Design tools that allow for the bi-directional flow of design data between the ECAD and MCAD environments are becoming a requirement for successful collaborative product development. In the ECAD environment, this translates to the ability to import and seamlessly integrate 3D component data from the MCAD system, then pass a full and accurate 3D representation of the board assembly back to the MCAD system.

By being able to provide comprehensive board data to the mechanical designers earlier in the product development process, design flow is enhanced and the need for a prototype board assembly during mechanical design stage is reduced. Manufacturers must assure that their ECAD system supports 3D modeling at the component level and the ability to export accurate 3D design data in order to enable the necessary interaction between the mechanical and electrical environments to enable collaborative MCAD-ECAD co-design.

Mechatronics: Integrating the silos of design

Taking that integration one step further is mechatronics design. By definition, mechatronics is multidisciplinary engineering system design that integrates the various disciplines—mechanical, electrical, computer, control, and systems design engineering. Integrating the design of a product’s mechanical, electronic, and electrical components during the earliest stages of design and throughout the design cycle is becoming crucial to manufacturers under increasing pressures to design and produce innovative products on time and within budget limits.

To streamline development using the mechatronics approach, design teams in each discipline must work in parallel and collaborate continuously on design, prototyping and deployment. Manufacturers must adapt concurrent design and systems engineering processes that enable real-time sharing of design data between electrical, mechanical and control systems engineering.

Many manufacturers are now using simulation software to detect and eliminate integration issues, enabling them to optimize full system performance virtually.  These tools simulate the interaction between mechanical and electrical subsystems throughout the design process.

Creo Customers: Sony Ericsson Consolidates on Creo for Product Design

By Geoff Hedges | Published: June 15, 2011

 

Sony Ericsson is standardizing its product design on Creo! We’re hoping this will be the first of many like announcements in the year ahead. Let me tell you something about Sony Ericsson’s design philosophy and structure, and why I think it made this trail-blazing choice.   

 

Sony Ericsson is a global provider of mobile multimedia devices, e.g., smartphones, PC cards, and accessories. The company products combine apps for mobile imaging, music, communications, entertainment, etc. As such, consumers look to Sony Ericsson as a source of communications and fun. Mobile providers look to Sony Ericsson as a source of compelling business opportunities.

Philosophy

Open Sony Ericsson’s web site, and you’ll see a very design-centered organization. According to sonyericsson.com, design “is integrated into every step of the process – intelligent features, user-friendly applications, innovative materials and, of course, an attractive visual appearance.” Good design should trigger all your senses, says the web site, with both a left-brained approach to usability and a right-brained approach to creating an “innovative, explorative … appeal to the emotions.” In short, the company believes designs inspire its customers.

Structure

Behind each Sony Ericsson device, there’s a global company with corporate functions in London; product development in China, Japan, Sweden, and Silicon Valley, California; manufacturing in China; and sales and marketing all over the world. The company works with leading global mobile operators to offer a broad choice of handsets and apps for customers.

You can see Sony Ericsson’s strategy and structure might lead to a lot of diversity. That’s mostly a good thing. But with CAD systems, not always. At the company’s UX Creative Design Centers, the Sony Ericsson worked with multiple CAD tools across its sites. For example, in China and Japan, designers worked with Pro/ENGINEER. In Sweden and the United States, Siemens UG NX was the house system. That’s why Sony Ericsson explored the idea of standardizing its global platforms for mechanical and electronic design. And after benchmarking, the team selected PTC and Creo for their mechanical design applications.

Streamlining design

PTC’s director of Electronics and High Tech, Mårten Gustafsson, says the consumer electronics industry specifically is highly competitive and complex, and its tough climate puts companies in a position where they need to “more effectively leverage, manage, and collaborate around product data.” The Sony Ericsson UX Creative Design Center is up for the challenge. Creo is now part of an enterprise where the future of mobile communication and entertainment takes shape – where industrial designers work alongside human interface designers, color and material designers and graphic designers. We look forward to our continued relationship with the company, and the broader use of Creo in product design.

Creo Sketch: Free Sketching Software for Concept Design

By Geoff Hedges | Published: August 3, 2011

The napkin sketch. We hear about it a lot when we talk about design innovation. Despite sophisticated design tools, many great ideas still start as scratchings on a diner or barroom napkin–the nearest tool available when inspiration came.

But napkins have their drawbacks. They tear, they fade, they don’t really help you draw curves.
Those drawbacks are especially obvious when you see what Creo Sketch can do:  It’s made for the moments when you’re more of a visionary than a technician. It costs less than most napkins,  it’s FREE to download and use, includes freehand drawing tools, and doesn’t require any special CAD expertise to use.


In this quick demo, Paul Sagar shows how to:

• Sketch a freehand object in pencil.
• Overlay  rough curves with smooth, adjustable curves.
• Use curves for masks, as he airbrushes color onto his object.
• Add highlights and strategic erasing.

One more better-than-napkin characteristic of Creo Sketch: You can load the sketch or artwork into your other Creo apps when your idea graduates to the next level. Use it for starting 2D drawings and 3D models.

Creo Sketch, our sketching software for concept design,  is available now, dowload your copy at www.ptc.com/go/sketch

Creo Customers: Sport Court Keeps Balls Bouncing

by Geoff Hedges

Next time you watch a game of tennis, soccer, futzbal, or even table tennis–look down. You might be witnessing a Creo engineering success story. Many playing courts, indoor and outdoor, now are constructed with Sport Court’s athletic surfaces, designed with Creo’s direct modeling tools.

The Sport Court surfaces are made of modular synthetic tiles in home, college, and professional athletic venues all over the world. While each tile looks fairly straightforward, there are dozens of characteristics the Sport Court development team might have designed into it, for example, traction, weather resistance, drainage, safety, speed, abrasion, grip, versatility, interlock, and responsiveness. It turns out, the engineering behind an athletic floor can be as skilled, elegant, and rugged as the people who use it.

And that leads us to another installment of The Product Design Show in which Vince and Alison explain how Creo keeps balls bouncing everywhere. Go to Creo's blog to read the full article.

Happy 6-Month Birthday LearningExchange!

Publicado por Bettina Giemsa en 17/08/2011 07:55:36 AM

Can you believe it? It has already been 6 months since PTC University launched LearningExchange – an online learning application featuring FREE tutorials on (almost) all PTC products. If you haven’t checked it out yet, make sure you do!  I also outlined my thoughts on it in an earlier post and was happy to see that much commenting and interaction on it.

Read the full article

Creo Customers: Mmm. Donuts. Industrial donuts

By Geoff Hedges | Published: August 2, 2011

Like so many things in life, the better food processing machinery works, the less most of us think about it. But if you’re somebody who eats, the lines that prep and package your food determine your day-to-day quality of life. A well-engineered system directly impacts your pocketbook, your health, and even your “footprint.” Here’s what I mean:

• Affordable groceries. A system that can quickly process high volumes of produce keeps food costs down.
• Safe food. A system engineered to stay clean prevents food-borne illness.
• Less waste. A system that’s adaptable can respond to trends and innovation, for example, demands for greener packaging.

That brings us to Creo customer, Fritsch Gmbh, specialists in machinery for baked goods. Fritsch  engineers and manufactures systems for producing pretzels, croissants, pastries, pizza, and toast. The company even makes an industrial donut machine.

Fritsch says food machinery is a fast-moving industry with a lot of spikes in demand. The company uses Creo’s direct modeling tools from PTC in part because temporary design help can catch on quickly, without compromising quality or deadlines.


This episode of the Product Design Show features Fritsch and the engineering behind the machinery. Allison and Vince talk about legislation, hygiene concerns, and market forces shaping food processing lines. Plus, they describe how engineers unlock productivity by relying on libraries of parts and assemblies to respond to industry demands. Now if only they’d tell me where to get some of those industrial donuts….

Clientes Creo: Stryker Medical sobrealimenta las camillas de rescate con Creo

Por Geoff Hedges

¿Has visto la última camilla para ambulancia? Es el tipo de tecnología que es mejor no experimentar pesonalmente. Dicho esto, si alguna vez llega el momento, permítanme asegurarles que las camillas de emergencia no son lo que solían ser. Las camillas de hoy son tecnología versátil y puntera.

De acuerdo con Stryker Medical, eso es porque la camilla ha sido recientemente diseñada para hacer que los pacientes y los servicios de emergencia  sean más seguros y más cómodos. Por ejemplo, la compañía líder en la industria camillas de energía, la Power XT-PRO , incluye ruedas de gran tamaño que tiene gran fuerza de laminación para moverse en terrenos irregulares; ascensores de alta velocidad hidráulicos y neumáticos respaldados que hacen que su transporte sea menos agotador.

Eso no es todo. Una camilla de ambulancia puede incluir características tales como apoyos de cabeza para andar por espacios estrechos, barras y rieles ajustables para dar cabida a los servicios de emergencia de diferentes alturas.

Hemos hablado con el ingeniero de diseño de Stryker, Kurosh Nahavandi, que usa Creo paramétric para modelar la nueva generación de camillas para la empresa. Él dice que desde los primeros de diseño, el modelado paramétrico es el ideal debido a la forma en que el software puede regenerar todo el modelo en respuesta a incluso el cambio más pequeño de marketing. Ir al blog de ​​Creo para leer el artículo.

PTC Recognized as 2011 Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management Partner of The Year

NEEDHAM, MA. - July 13, 2011 - PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC), The Product Development Company®, today announced it has won the 2011 Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year Award. The company was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. 

Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of more than 3,000 entrants worldwide. PTC was recognized for providing outstanding solutions and services in Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management. The Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year Award honors an exceptional partner who has excelled in offering breakthrough solutions that extend or integrate the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution. This award recognizes PTC for successfully providing technology and marketing offerings that enabled a business customer to easily prioritize investments, align resources and strategies, and effectively manage the completion of projects; and also using innovative thinking that helped solve a technical challenge or addressed the customer's business needs and empowered employees. 

"In recognition of its industry expertise, Microsoft has named PTC as the Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office Division Product Management Group at Microsoft. "Microsoft acknowledges PTC as a valued ISV partner that extends the Project 2010 platform enabling advanced Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) scenarios that provide customers with the ability to prioritize investments, align their resources and strategies, and manage products through their lifecycle." 

"PTC continues to develop technologies that leverage the Microsoft technology platform, including Windchill PPMLink^TM,  Windchill SocialLink^TM and Windchill Web Parts^TM," said Jane Wachutka, divisional vice president, Windchill product group, PTC.  "PTC is the only PLM software provider to receive this award, demonstrating the years of research, development and commitment from PTC to deliver PLM software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform.  We look forward to continuing our work with Microsoft as we deliver innovative product development solutions to manufacturing customers." 

"This award represents the significant value that PTC brings to manufacturing companies managing multiple complex programs," adds Dermot Brannock, general manager, Pcubed, PTC's Windchill PPMLink partner and a consultancy with over 20 years experience in the PPM space and a previous award winner. "We congratulate PTC and look forward to working with them to deliver project and portfolio management solutions to manufacturers." The Microsoft Partner Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year. 

Creo Customer: FESTO Ranks “Jaw-Dropping” in TED Talk

By Geoff Hedges | Published: July 25, 2011

If you’re not familiar with them, TED Talks are short speeches by “the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers.”  Topics include technology, entertainment, design, business and more.

Last week, TED featured a creation we talked about last April in the German edition this blog: FESTO’s SmartBird. As TED presenters, FESTO joins world thought leaders with its talk on biologically inspired robots. On the TED website, the SmartBird earned the ratings jaw-dropping, ingenious, and  fascinating.


And the knowledge gained in these ‘jaw-dropping’ projects flows right back into commercial product development, and drives new innovations and solutions that all of FESTO’s customers can benefit from.

And in product development, Creo is helping support innovation and drive efficiency, with FESTO using both Creo’s parametric and direct modeling tools to meet their needs.

Well deserved and well done, FESTO!

Connecting the Silos of Design: the use of Integrated CAM and Industrial Design Apps

By barb schmitz | Published: July 27, 2011

 

Excellence in product design has become a key differentiator for manufacturers who must increasingly wrestle for their share of the market pie. When your product shares the same basic functionality and purpose of that of your competition, the look and feel or “design” of it can make the difference between success and failure in today’s market.

As a result, the role of design has taken on a much higher priority and become a critical part of business success today. In order to design better products and get them to market faster, manufacturers are increasingly turning to fully integrated apps that connect the various disciplines involved in the design and manufacture of products.

Integration Removes Barriers Between Designers and Engineers

Since the advent of 3D design tools, industrial designers tasked with the look of a new product often found themselves at odds with engineers who’s primary concern was the functional aspects of a proposed design. Industrial designers often find that they must answer to the business side of manufacturing company, who clamor to “see” what the next generation of a product might look like; long before actual CAD work has been initiated.

As a result, designers prefer flexible visualization and conceptual design tools that enable them to quickly flush out a multitude of early concepts of new product designs without concern for the more pragmatic, mechanical aspects of design.

The problem is that this conceptual design stage often becomes an isolated silo within the overall design process, and data created with these conceptual tools is often not used downstream when the actual mechanical design begins.

Manufacturers must understand that designers need a different type of tool, one with a much greater emphasis on the speed required to quickly create multiple concepts, while also having an intuitive interface that requires minimum training. These tools must also be able to create high-quality visualizations long before any actual product geometry exists so the designer can share, discuss, and debate proposed ideas with engineers, cost estimators, manufacturing personnel, and sales and marketing personnel to fuel design collaboration and obtain buy-in on proposed designs.

Since designers and engineers often are tasked with different objectives and use different tools, communication gaps often exist. When engineers recreate conceptual models in their CAD systems, designs often change dramatically. This disconnect between the design/styling team and the rest of the product development team often leads to loss of design intent as designs progress through the design cycle.

Choosing a conceptual design app that is tightly integrated with the CAD system and offers bi-directional interoperability can greatly reduce the risk of this communication gap. It also eliminates the need for engineers to reinterpret or re-create designers’ conceptual models, safeguarding design intent and facilitating the re-use of design data, which shaves off significant design cycle time and reduces the chance of errors.

When conceptual design tools and MCAD tools have interoperability with each other, mechanical engineers can simply bring approved 3D concept models into their CAD software, safeguarding the original design intent and speeding the creation and refinement of the model into a true digital model or virtual prototype that can be ultimately designed, tested, and built.

Tearing down the Walls Between Design and Manufacture

Computer-aided manufacturing has benefitted from CAD integration. Integrating CAD and CAM enables product designers and manufacturing personnel to work collaboratively and removes the interoperability barrier that has traditionally divided the two.  Integrated CAD/CAM tools share the same underlying database so no data translation is required between systems, eliminating the chance of missing, corrupt or unsupported geometric entities, dimensions or notes.

With a fully integrated CAD/CAM environment, all machining calculations are defined, calculated and verified in the same CAD system. Geometries used for machining are fully associative so when changes are made to the CAD geometry, the integrated software automatically updates the corresponding CAM programming. All the data including CAD, toolpaths, fixtures, and tool library are stored in the CAD model, so there are fewer files to track or update when revision changes occur.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of integrated design apps is that is provides a common platform for designers, engineers and manufacturing personnel through which to collaboratively design and manufacture products through improved communication and lowered costs.

Creo Customers: NASA Bids Atlantis Farewell

by Geoff Hedges

You've seen the news. On Thursday, July 21, 2011, the Atlantis landed in Florida marking the end of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program. But if you think it's the end of America's active involvement in the "out there," you haven't been reading beyond the headlines.

With STS-135, that is, the final flight of the Atlantis, the U.S. has completed construction of the International Space Station. The ISS is a cooperative effort by 15 countries and though the U.S. has grounded its human space flights, it expects to continue sending  Americans to the station until at least 2020--they'll just get there via Russian rockets rather than U.S. shuttles.

Then there's the robots
A lot of what goes on at the space station is done with robots.  You can send an unmanned vehicle and one of the space station's big robotic arms can catch and dock your craft.  Smaller arms take on finer motor tasks, like trying to refuel satellites (that were never built for refuelling).

How do they model robotic arms and payloads in virtual space? I'm very proud to tell you they use PTC's Creo's direct modeling approach. The engineers at NASA typically import STEP files into Creo, simplify, and then exported the data as VRML files. It was important to NASA engineers to "maintain a high degree of dimensional accuracy in our models due to their use in procedure development and clearance monitoring--a necessity when doing operations such as capturing ... and docking to the ISS" says John Rollfe, robotics analyst. Go to Creo's blog to read the full article.

Creo Customers: Santa Cruz seeks suspension bliss

By Geoff Hedges | Published: July 26, 2011

 

Engineer friends–ready to geek out over bikes? In this episode of  The Product Design Show, Vince and Allison give you a brief history of two-wheel innovation, and then show off an experimental tricycle and a shopping cart with pedals. Definitely worth watching.


Among the clips, you’ll see a new line of Santa Cruz bikes too. According to some reviewers, this generation of mountain bikes “works toward suspension Nirvana.” Engineers innovated a smoother ride for these bikes with a system that can change its shock rate depending on riding conditions. Designed with Creo Parametric, the new technology equips the 2010 Santa Cruz Butcher and Nickel models.

The company has branded its new suspension, Actual Pivot Point (APP). It’s kind of an inside joke–previous suspensions were called “virtual” or “floating.” Get it?

Okay, well. Clever names aside, the bikes have produced a lot of buzz in the vélo community and get great reviews. The Butcher and the Nickel mountain bikes are two more examples of how companies unlock potential with Creo.  Keep watching this blog, we’ve got lots more customer designs on the way!

Creo 1.0: Creo Parametric sketching and editing demo’d

By Geoff Hedges | Published: July 25, 2011

With Creo 1.0, we’ve introduced productivity enhancements, for our parametric-based app, compared to Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5.0. In this demonstration, Jon Buchowski, Vice President of Creo Product Management at PTC,  shows key additions for Creo Parametric:

• Fast access to the sketching environment
• On-the-fly reference picking
• Dynamic preview
• Tapers and drafts you can add as you create geometry
• Unified editing capabilities

Creo Customers: Damián Castillo’s Scoop on Creo 1.0

by Geoff Hedges

Damián Castillo, CAD & Administration Manager at Hensley Industries, was one of the first to download and explore Creo 1.0. After attending Planet PTC Live event in Las Vegas, he was using Creo 1.0 the Monday afterwards. Hensley Industries is based in the US and manufactures ground engaging tools, buckets, and specialized attachments for excavation, reclamation, mining, trenching, or any other earth-moving industrial equipment.

‘Pro/ENGINEER was always powerful but very difficult to use, Creo Parametric offers the same power, but in a much easier to use way. I’m very impressed with the amount of work that went into the user experience and the powerful search function that will make it easier to learn and adopt.  Creo Parametric is using the same engine but on a completely new framework.  It's like using the same Ferrari engine on a new chassis, with new body work, seats, dashboard and functions.  It's a new car with the same powerful engine.  This new car is easier to use and has modern features on it.’ Go to Creo's blog to read the full article.

Creo 1.0: New FreeStyle capabilities demonstrated

By Geoff Hedges | Published: July 21, 2011

In a recent post, we showed you how Creo Sketch could replace the familiar napkin when you want to capture your earliest design ideas. If you’re a Creo Parametric user, the natural next step would be to turn that 2D idea into a 3D model. Unfortunately, while you’re still working on a concept design, you may not yet want to commit to a detailed parametric model.

No matter. Creo Parametric now includes FreeStyle, a set of capabilities that you use to quickly create fast flexible surface modeling either directly, or by simply working with your 2D sketch, and pushing and pulling your concept into a 3D form. The curved continuous surfaces you create can then be reused later for the detailed 3D design.



In this demo, Paul Sagar, PTC director of product management, shows you how to use FreeStyle design capabilities to:

• Bring in a 2D sketch with trace sketch
• Position and scale it
• Push and pull a primitive to match the 2D sketch
• Turn on symmetry
• Punch a hole
• Add/extrude new geometry
• Offset faces
• Add fillets
• Perform a reflection analysis
• Thicken the model walls
• Handle a last-minute change

Remember, FreeStyle is not a module or an add on. It’s part of every Creo Parametric App. That means if you’re using Creo Parametric already, you’ve got all the tools you need to start experimenting with these new capabilities.

Creo Customer: Innovative PCs and Laptops Come to Life

by Geoff Hedges

In this video, we hear from a 15-year veteran of Creo Parametric. He works for a Fortune Global 500 company, headquartered in China, that designs and manufactures PCs and laptops. His company is one of the world's largest makers of personal computers and makes the world's most innovative PCs. Find out how he uses Creo unlock value in his highly competitive, fast-paced industry. This customer asked not to name them but were more than happy to discuss how they use Creo. Go to Creo's blog to read the full article.

Media Advisory: PTC Delivers Creo™ Elements/Direct™ 18.0

NEEDHAM, MA. - July 18, 2011 - PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC), the Product Development Company®, today announced the availability of Creo^TM Elements/Direct^TM 18.0 - the latest release of its market leading direct modeling solution and a member of the Creo family of design software. 

Creo Elements/Direct is a complete design environment that offers the world's #1 direct 3D CAD modeler, along with 2D CAD, CAE and integrated product data management (PDM). Creo Elements/Direct provides speed, flexibility, and responsiveness-to-change for customers facing short design cycles, one-off product designs, or companies demanding a lightweight design process.

What's New in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0:

• More Intuitive Design Experience - improves ease of use and reduces the learning curve for those new to direct modeling through the new ribbon-based UI that is consistent across the Creo product family of applications.
• Optimized Design Workflows - improves the way designers work through new context-sensitive command controls in drafting and extended 3D modification commands in modeling.
• More Productive Design Data Management - broadens the reach of product data management and PLM support by enabling improved access and data sharing with a new Web Client and Web Services in Model Manager, and deeper process integration with Windchill.
• More Powerful Design Solution - broadens the designer's reach through interoperability with Creo 1.0. Engineers can take their Creo Elements/Direct designs and analyze and share them with Creo Simulation and Creo View MCAD, respectively.

Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 additionally enables users to take advantage of new Creo 1.0 applications for extended design needs such as simulation and visualization. This is part of PTC's strategy to give engineers and designers the greatest flexibility in choosing product design tools that fit their role in the product development process. Existing Creo Elements/Direct customers will continue to yield benefits to their business through updated and improved capabilities in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0.

Supporting Quotes:
"STIWA Holding GmbH uses Creo Elements/Direct because it gives us the flexibility to rapidly accommodate changes that happen late in the design cycle," said Thomas Mayer, responsible for mechanical CAD at STIWA Holding GmbH.  "The new user interface in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0, improvements to key features in direct modeling, and the interoperability with the Creo apps will help drive productivity across our design team resulting in shorter design cycles and faster time to market."

 "Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 demonstrates PTC's commitment to support our customers' freedom to choose the design approach that best fits their needs," said Justin Teague, DVP & General Manager, Design and Visualization Products Business Unit, PTC. "It delivers productivity enhancements that specifically address the needs of direct modeling users - lightweight, flexible, fast and connected through interoperability with the new Creo apps.  Ultimately, Creo Elements/Direct enables customers to achieve competitive advantage by optimizing their design cycles and bringing innovative products to market quickly."

Additional Resources:

• Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 Resource Center
• Creo Elements/Direct (datasheet)
• Introduction to Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 (video)
• Top 10 New Features in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 (video)
• Product images 

MKS Integrity®, a PTC Product, Certified for ISO 26262

NEEDHAM, Mass., July 20, 2011 - PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC), The Product Development Company^®, today announced that MKS Integrity®, a PTC product, is the first software system lifecycle management solution certified to help manufacturers comply with a key automotive industry safety standard governing areas such as steering and braking systems. 

Specifically, TÜV SÜD Automotive, a global leader in technical certification services, has certified Integrity, release 2009 SP6 (9.6) is fit for purpose to develop safety-related systems for use in ISO/DIS 26262 and IEC 61508 compliant development processes. This independent assessment of Integrity^TM change and configuration management capabilities enables automotive engineering organizations developing safety-related embedded systems to qualify the tool chain being used to produce these systems up to ASIL-D or SIL3, the most stringent levels of safety function as defined by the standards. 

"We have seen that Integrity helps automotive development organizations adhere to the requirements and recommendations of the safety standards, resulting in improved reliability, quality and safety," said Andreas Bärwald, Product Line Manager Functional Safety, TÜV SÜD Automotive GmbH. "These product capabilities combined with the reporting functionality can even increase the efficiency of functional safety assessments performed by our organization at vehicle manufacturers and suppliers." 

The use of Integrity as prescribed in the Integrity Safety Manual gives vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers the confidence to know they are in compliance with industry safety standards. Integrity allows companies to improve productivity by automating manual activities through workflow and dynamic reporting. Systemic errors can be reduced through tight integrations between Integrity and engineering authoring tools. In addition, by providing a single source of truth for software-intensive products through an unparalleled single data model that delivers full lifecycle traceability, organizations are able to continue accelerating product innovation in the midst of high rates of change and stringent compliance. 

"This certification will help our automotive customers to cost-effectively comply with functional safety standards such as ISO26262 that ensure safe software system development processes," said Christoph Braeuchle, Global Automotive Product Manager at PTC. "Our ground-breaking work coupled with the certification by TÜV SÜD Automotive gives our customers the confidence they need to reduce the risk of non-compliance and deliver high quality software-intensive products to the market with decreasing cycle times." 

Additional Resources

• MKS Integrity Acquisition Resource Center
• PTC's Automotive Industry Resource Center
• HKMC Selects PTC for Enterprise PLM (Press Release)

Creo Customers: RKS Reimagines the Water Bottle

By Geoff Hedges | Published: June 29, 2011

In a recent post, I talked about RKS and its innovative guitars. Guitars are cool in general, but RKS made them even cooler with its customizable electric axes. World-class musicians responded. Did you see those photos of Bauhaus and the Rolling Stones holding RKS guitars? RKS has made a philosophy of creating designs that make you feel good about yourself, and RKS guitars certainly fit that bill. But how would the company’s “psycho aesthetic concept design” apply to a less-flashy project? Say, a water bottle? RKS took the ‘gloves off’ when it came to the KOR hydration vessel.

The KOR takes the water bottle concept beyond throwaway plastic containers with screw tops, turning them into “sustainable personal hydration” products. The bottles open with one hand, have caps that won’t get lost, and use environmentally sensitive materials. Plus they look chic.




Behind RKS product designs is Creo Direct. That’s because a company that prides itself on creativity and innovation can’t skimp on the concept design phase of product development, they need to have tools that help them unlock their full creative potential.  Creo Direct offers a flexible approach to CAD that lets designers try out new ideas, share them, and respond to feedback quickly and easily.

The KOR has been a success, winning awards and spawning follow on projects for KOR and RKS. Still, some of you want to see it next to a celebrity, don’t you? For you, there’s this photo from Iron Man 2.

PTC Technology Partner, 3dconnexion Announces Their New Russian Website and Their 3D Design Challenge II

by Elena Krasnikova

 

PTC technology partner, 3dconnexion (member of the Gold Loyalty Program), announces new Russian web site 3dconnexion. To tie in with the new launch 3dconnexion opened the competition 3D Design Challenge II. Get ready to show off your design skills and compete for the grand prize of a $5,000 CAD workstation.

Creo Customer: WAGIC Unlocks Potential in the Do-It-Yourselfer

by Geoff Hedges

WAGIC, a Creo customer, makes the RE:SOLVE line of multi-tools. These hand-held innovations fit a toolbox of implements into a device you can store in your jeans. The tools go beyond all-things-to-all people pocket knives; the RE:SOLVE line has a multi-tool for painters, one for home decorators, and one for the outdoors enthusiast.

The “what a great idea company” (WAGIC, get it?) was started by two brothers with a family history of engineering. Based out of California’s Silicon Valley, WAGIC has been consulting, inventing, innovating, inspiring, and unlocking the potential of great ideas since 1985.

Designers at WAGIC use Creo's direct modeling approach and a 3D printer to quickly develop and prototype ideas. From an idea to a prototype to an initial order for 700,000 multi-tools in just 8 months, WAGIC certainly knew how to do it!

Go toCreo's blog to read the full article.