Parametric Technology ships Release 17.0 of its Pro/ENGINEER software solutions; PTC's newest release makes customers more competitive by extending product development process change

Business Wire, July 16, 1996

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 16, 1996-- Parametric Technology Corporation (NASDAQ: PMTC) announced today that Release 17.0 of its Pro/ENGINEER product development software solutions is now shipping to customers. Featuring five new modules, three new packages, and more than 350 customer-driven enhancements, Release 17.0 provides the most comprehensive and tightly integrated product development environment available today.

By significantly enhancing the integration among Pro/ENGINEER Industrial Design, Mechanical Design and Functional Simulation Solutions, the new release enables customers to even more effectively re-engineer their product development processes to achieve competitive advantage and improve business performance. Release 17.0 also provides meaningful improvements to manufacturing and assembly management capabilities; data exchange over the World Wide Web; and solutions for automotive body engineers.

"The valuable enhancements and additions to Pro/ENGINEER Solutions reinforce PTC's commitment to taking our customers to the next level of success," said Jim Baum, vice president of technical marketing for Parametric Technology. "Release 17.0 further enables customers to facilitate process change and attain market leadership by encompassing all aspects of the product development cycle."

Integration of Acquired Technologies

PTC has tightly integrated its acquired technologies into the Pro/ENGINEER environment. Through a direct data interface, Release 17.0 gives mechanical engineers instant access to industrial design styling, photo-realistic rendering and design optimization.

The company's Industrial Design Solution, Pro/DESIGNER, now reads Pro/ENGINEER part and assembly files directly. Similarly, Pro/DESIGNER surfaces read into Pro/ENGINEER have automatic update capabilities when the original style surface is modified. This improved integration benefits industrial and mechanical designers by eliminating time-consuming interface requirements.

PTC's Functional Simulation Solutions have also been more tightly linked with mechanical design applications. In Pro/MECHANICA MOTION, engineers can work in the "integrated mode," which enables simulation definition, interference checking and optimization directly within Pro/ENGINEER. Closer integration of Pro/MECHANICA STRUCTURE allows the user to apply loads and constraints directly to Pro/ENGINEER models then display the results of the study within the Pro/ENGINEER environment, saving time and simplifying the design optimization process.

3D Data Exchange Over The Web

Introduced with Release 17.0, Pro/INTERFACE for VRML facilitates the export of Pro/ENGINEER parts and assemblies to Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML 1.0), the emerging industry-standard, platform-independent file format for 3D graphics on the World Wide Web. This new module enables PTC customers to create on-line VRML catalogs of parts and assemblies.

Large Assembly Management

Two other new products further support Pro/ENGINEER's large assembly management capabilities. Pro/FLY-THROUGH, a stand-alone large assembly navigator, allows interactive viewing and manipulation of extremely large assemblies. The user can "browse" through a large assembly and automatically retrieve components into Pro/ENGINEER for modification and optimization. The combination of Pro/ENGINEER, Pro/INTERFACE for VRML and Pro/FLY-THROUGH permits real-time navigation of assemblies that would otherwise require more powerful hardware.

Pro/PROCESS for ASSEMBLIES provides tools for developing and documenting complete assembly process plans prior to manufacturing. Each step in the assembly fabrication process can be fully defined in the Pro/ENGINEER environment, enabling optimization of the actual product assembly process. Assembly manufacturing plans can be documented to include manufacturing Bills of Materials (BOMs), time and cost estimates, and exploded views that show how to assemble components. This new PTC product enables assembly design and process development to occur simultaneously, reducing time-to-market and development costs.

In addition to new products, Release 17.0 introduces many enhancements designed to simplify the management of large assemblies. Assembly models can now be viewed as a mix of shaded, hidden line and wireframe displays, providing a more flexible and visual design environment. In addition, assemblies can be more easily exploded using an intuitive "click and drag" interface which also reduces the time required to create these views. Large assemblies can now be displayed in a familiar tree format to aid the designer with selection and component information. Finally, Bills of Materials, automatic ballooning and exploded assemblies are now fully supported with assembly Simplified Representations.

Manufacturing

Release 17.0 also includes two new manufacturing modules, Pro/CMM and Pro/VERIFY. Pro/CMM allows coordinate measuring machine programmers to create inspection programs from Pro/ENGINEER design models. Pro/VERIFY is a powerful analysis tool that enables users to compare data gathered by an automated inspection machine, such as a laser scanner, to the Pro/ENGINEER solid model. These tools are used by NC programmers and manufacturing engineers, respectively, to improve processes and ensure high-quality products.