Integrated environment enables innovative design

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 8, 2002

InnovationSuite 2002 is the latest version of the award-winning product from IronCAD.

InnovationSuite 2002 is the latest version of the award-winning product from IronCAD.

InnovationSuite 2002 includes improvements to each of its component products: TeamVault, a simple to deploy, flexible and cost effective web-based engineering data management (EDM) system; Inovate, a low cost, easy to use 3D desktop product for creating, modifying, and communicating 3D designs; and IronCAD an award-winning, full featured detail design production tool that uses a novel design approach to allow greater design flexibility.

InnovationSuite 2002 extends InnovationSuite's position as the leading design collaboration solution targeted to the small to medium sized company by offering additional new functionality in key areas.

A new 3D annotation capability allows important design specific information to graphically attach to the model for the benefit of other design team members and those involved in the downstream supply chain.

Support is included for newer versions of ACIS (7.0) and Parasolid (13.2), resulting in enhanced modelling capability and improved data transfer.

The package also features an improved capability to create more sculpted forms with the introduction of the lofted surface - another step towards full surfacing support.

New extensions to IronCAD's catalogue-based drag and drop design environment include a mouse over catalogue selection.

This feature speeds up the process of moving design elements from the 3D scene into the design object catalogues, dramatically improving the speed of the whole modelling process.

Once in a catalogue, further enhancements allow design objects to be drag and dropped between catalogues making it by far the fastest catalogue-based design system in the industry.

Numerous improvements have been made to the 2D drawing environment, such as dimensioning to theoretical intersections and the major and minor axes of ellipses.

A new SDK toolkit is included that permits the extraction of key model and facet data directly from the native model file, allowing third party or in-house corporate software developers to integrate additional vertical applications.

To further improve data compatibility with other systems, all existing translators (Catia, STEP, IGES, Pro/E (non Granite)) have been updated to the latest versions.

An optional, extra cost PTC Granite One based Pro/E translator is available that extends IronCAD's ability to read Pro/E files to include Pro/E 2001 assemblies, neutral and granite files.

InnovationSuite 2002 includes a new AutoCAD client and viewer technology aimed at the AutoCAD design community.

The AutoCAD client is the newest in a series of CAD specific clients that integrate the EDM capabilities of TeamVault directly into the AutoCAD application.

It is the perfect solution for every AutoCAD user who wants to manage, search and share design information with others in a collaborative environment InnovationSuite users now have maximum flexibility when ordering software with the addition of an external hardware device (dongle) option to the already available network licensing and named user.

It provides the user with the ability to trade software price against the share-ability or mobility of each license.

IronCAD drawing files can now be viewed using any PDF enabled viewer such as Adobe Acrobat.

This allows IronCAD drawing files to be shared with any person inside or outside the company that has a PDF viewer available to them.

Improvements have been made to the links between the IronCAD and Inovate CAD clients and TeamVault.

These improvements provide additional user feedback during upload process for both drawing files and assembly models.

In addition to the new features, users will enjoy the many quality improvements and changes to the user interface aimed at improving the overall usability of the software.

"We are very excited about the traction that InnovationSuite is getting in the marketplace.

Positive feedback has been received from resellers and customers alike", says Shaun Murphy, IronCAD's Vice President of Marketing.

He continues: "It has been so exciting to hear about deal after deal where InnovationSuite is favoured over other competitive offerings".

All the components of InnovationSuite are fully integrated, but can easily be used with other design tools.

An online demo is available at the IronCAD website.

(This was Engineeringtalk's Top Story on 7 May 2002).