Press Release: The Open Design Alliance (ODA) today announced the availability of a new enhancement request system

Phoenix, AZ, October 26, 2009 – The Open Design Alliance (ODA) today announced the availability of a new enhancement request system designed to improve communication between ODA Sustaining and Founding Members and ODA development.

As a member-driven organization, the ODA has consistently delivered technology that stems directly from the focus set by members through long-term development relationships and close communication. The newly implemented enhancement request system further strengthens the role of members within the organization by enabling them to enter and vote on new requests for ODA platform components, enhancements, and features. Members will also be able to collaborate on requests with each other and with ODA development.

ODA Chief Technical Officer Neil Peterson stated, “The ODA has experienced tremendous growth in recent years. As the size of our organization and the sophistication of our platform increases, we need to adopt infrastructure tools which are better suited to handling the increased communication load. The new enhancement request system will play a key role in future growth by providing an organized framework for expressing and prioritizing new ideas and development goals. It’s a strong addition to the membership infrastructure of the ODA.”

More information about the ODA and its members is available at http://www.opendesign.com/.

Mathcad Download from CADDIT, Joins PTC

Sydney, 10 September 2009 - Parametric Technology Corporation (Nasdaq: PMTC) Asia Pacific Channel has formally enlisted CADDIT for service and support of their engineering software portfolio. This takes place as new staff join the CADDIT central office in Liverpool, Australia. PTC Mathcad can now also be downloaded directly from CADDIT in Australia, with a bonus pack of seven industry add-on modules.

Mathcad offers a unique "What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG)" calculation whiteboard for visually solving complex engineering, scientific, medical and mathematical problems in algebra, trigonometry or calculus. Resulting 2D and 3D graphs may be arranged as the user needs along with original formulas, text, notations and graphics. Mathcad is better suited than average software such as Excel for documenting important technical or mathematical concepts. Mathcad is used by a large number of Fortune 1000 companies including Boeing, General Electric, IBM and Kellogg.

CADDIT.net offers an easy-to-use website for quickly comparing and buying CAD design and engineering software in Australia. Special pricing for Mathcad student/academic version as well as business and enterprise license discounts are now offered directly on CADDIT as well. “We are very fortunate to have recently acquired new staff who truly understand this software, and we will shortly be hosting a series of live webinars demonstrating how Mathcad can be a very inexpensive way for industry to solve common problems” states the company director regarding their new support of this powerful scientific and visualization software tool.

Selected preview sections for the upcoming scientific webinar series can be seen on the CADDIT forum.

CADDIT is currently offering Mathcad with a bonus pack of seven add-on modules: the full electrical, civil and mechanical engineering libraries, Wavelets and data analysis extension packs together with the Mathcad image and signal processing extensions. A 25% discount on single pc nodelock commercial licenses is available from the CADDIT.net website (for Australia only).

Download Mathcad for a free full-function demo from CADDIT.net in Australia HERE (Australia only).

Preview of Alibre Design 12 Release, New Features

Only days remain before the public release of Alibre Design 12 as of time of this article. Alibre 12 definitely continues the standing tradition of delivering powerful, easy-to-use features at low cost. Here is a list of some of them, grouped by their work space:

New commands and tools in Alibre Design:

Alibre Design will offer a 3D-text feature tool allowing text to be added as a parametric part feature. Individual features will support colour change for better identification, and the user will also be permitted to set the default 3D new part colour. Edit commands will include multiple clipboard paste in "rubber stamp" mode. Toolbars will be more customizable, and additional box select modes will speed up editing. Editable 3D section veiws, colour schemes and light sources are also supported now.

The Alibre Sketcher will display missing constraints as degree of freedom callouts (with configurable colourisation). It will also offer optional real-time dimensioning and placement while geometry is drawn, rather than requiring this be completed as an additional design step. This option saves users considerable time in constraint specification. Alibre Sketch will also offer quick bi-directional conversion between model sketch figures and reference geometry. Constraint and snap options for drawing have been added, as well as a new axis mirror option. 2D drawing space will support a new freeform table creation for relevant model data fields.

Alibre version 12 files will offer a convenient thumbnail view from both Windows Explorer and Alibre Vault PDM, which makes file selection easier.

Assembly:
The assembly space move and rotate commands have been merged into a single dialogue for faster model placement by the user. Assembly part arrays / patterns now offer placement preview. View performance for large assemblies has been greatly improved.

Alibre Sheet Metal Design:

Contour and lofted flange support is added. Now sheet metal designs can include tapered corners or profile flange with variable radius along its length. These "lofted flanges" are nicely flattened in Alibre (along with the rest of the part) for the initial pattern stamp or cut-out.

For more information about Alibre 12 improvements, feel free to contact CADDIT in Australia HERE. There is also a downloadable PDF version of this list available HERE.