SOURCE :
http://tinyurl.com/p8bgzoe
The computer aided design (CAD) software market has been in
somewhat of a technology slump in recent years, with the early
innovations of the 1990s tailing off to leave a series of unresolved
problems in their wake. Companies using CAD technologies have long been
troubled with the same old problems, which they have been by and large
putting up with. But this wasn’t good enough for PTC; the company saw
these problems as an opportunity to showcase its innovative product
development capabilities. That is why, on 28 October 2010, PTC unveiled
its new Creo product family of CAD software, which was first introduced
as Project Lightning back in June at the PTC/USER World Event. Karen
McCandless talks to Michael Campbell, divisional vice president of
design and visualisation products at PTC, to find out more.
What led you to launch this new family of products?
The
CAD market is pretty large, it’s worth about US$3-4 billion, but it’s
largely flat. That might lead some to think that the market is mature
and there is nothing left to be done. But we at PTC took a closer look
and realised that users are facing some fundamental problems that have
not yet been resolved. This includes problems around usability (in the
past users have just accepted that CAD is hard to use) and also around
interoperability and moving data between different CAD systems. We were
also seeing challenges to do with more sophisticated assembly management
activities. In today’s world, customers are trying to tailor their
products more and more; everyone wants a personalised product, whether
it’s for a customer or a market. We developed the Creo family of design
apps to really address these problems and make things easier for the
user.
What do you think is the most important feature in Creo?
I
think that would have to be AnyRole Apps. The idea behind this
technology is that instead of providing a big, monolithic product that
does all kinds of things, we wanted to provide more specific, tailored
applications – this means smaller design applications that are optimised
for specific tasks. People find CAD hard to use because the programs
are packed with all kinds of functionality; all kinds of different tools
are bundled together, which can be really overwhelming for many users.
As an analogy, its like if you were going to plant a tree in your back
garden. The right tool for the job would probably be a shovel, but CAD
vendors would turn up with an excavator. It has all kinds of power and
sophistication but it’s too much for the job. So the idea is to give all
the different people involved in product development, whether it be the
project manager, the mechanical engineers or someone in marketing, the
rights apps to access the data and get their job done. This is something
that is really unique to our solution.
What else makes Creo stand out in the market?
One
of the other things Creo can deliver is more flexibility in terms of
user approach to CAD. There are different paradigms in CAD programs:
there is a 2D approach, a 3D direct modelling approach and advanced 3D
parametric. Creo supports all of those approaches and makes sure they
all work well together. The thing that is new, innovative and a
differentiator is the ability to use these different paradigms and have
them all work well together.
FOLLOW BLOG TO CHECK OUT ALL UPDATES
LEARN CREO FASTER AND CHEAPER
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO ...
