Valencia, California - September 2, 1997—Solid Concepts Inc. announced today that they will be demonstrating SolidView 2.1 at the Autofact '97 Conference & Exposition being held November 4-6, 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. SolidView 2.1 includes several new enhancements designed to facilitate the communication of 3D mechanical designs and minimize the use of 2D drawings for communicating mechanical designs.
Collaborative engineering is becoming a key requirement for many manufacturers, according to Ray Bradford, Solid Concepts' vice president of software. "As more and more companies rely on outsourcing and partnering to address competitive issues, they see an increasing demand to be able to quickly and easily communicate design information," said Bradford. "Often, design information must be communicated across large distances and dissimilar modeling systems. In the past, 2D drawings were the primary communications media, as they can be generated and interpreted by almost all organizations. With SolidView, anyone with a typical Windows PC can exchange designs with anyone, even organizations using high-performance CAD systems such as Unigraphics or Catia."
According to Bradford, enhancements to the 2.1 version of SolidView will strengthen SolidView's position as the leading tool for the 3D communication of mechanical designs. Version 2.1 of SolidView includes the ability to import VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) data. Originally designed to facilitate the creation of virtual environments on the Internet, VRML output has been adopted by many CAD vendors as an easy and inexpensive way to view mechanical designs. With SolidView 2.1, engineers, managers, vendors, marketing representatives, QA inspectors—anyone who has access to a Windows PC—can now not only view the designs, they can measure and add annotations to communicate design issues.
Introduced in 1995, SolidView has quickly become the standard for the communication and high-performance visualization of 3D mechanical designs. Since SolidView uses industry standard STL (stereolithography) files, which are easily generated from all popular CAD systems, SolidView makes it possible to view 3D designs on a Windows PC, regardless of their source. SolidView's exclusive publishing feature enables users to send a free viewer along with their designs, making it possible to communicate designs with organizations that have not purchased SolidView. In addition to reading STL and VRML 1.0 files, SolidView also allows users to view 3D Face information in DXF format as well as OBJ files generated from various concept modeling systems. An IGES import option is also available to allow users to view and measure IGES surface data.
Other new features of SolidView 2.1 include a new measure section capability that makes it easier to measure interior design features, the ability to output cross sections in DXF format and an option to automatically create DX, DY and DZ dimensions. SolidView 2.1 runs on any 486 or Pentium PC with 8Mb or more RAM and Windows 3.1, Windows 95 or Windows NT. SolidView software for viewing, measuring and publishing 3D information is available in North America for $495. Optional IGES input is an additional $495. A free demonstration CD-ROM can be obtained by calling Solid Concepts toll-free at 1-888-SOLIDVU (1-888-765-4388).
SolidView® is a registered trademark of Solid Concepts Inc. Pentium® is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation Windows®, Windows NT® and Windows 95® are registered trademarks of Microsoft.