PTC has announced details of the next release of Pro/Engineer - Wildfire 3.0. While the last two releases have seen the system transition from the original interface to the new, updated and reworked system, 3.0 looks to concentrate on both finishing off this job and providing updates in two major areas of 'productivity' product and process. meaning stuff which makes the designers job easier and stuff which makes the whole NPI process more efficient.
According to the press release, highlights include and improved Sketcher, a reworked Assembly building user interface and support for 64 bit systems (useful for large assembly retreival). There's also work done on the draughting tools (inc. shaded views), updates to the sheet metal design technology which enables the creation of sheetmetal features up to 90% faster, while also reducing the number of features by up to 90% (although I can't see how that's going to manifest itself) - there's also some CAM related work.
The other area of Process productivity sees the Smart Process Wizard introduced, which allows knowledge capture (although detials are hazy just now). The Smart Model allows you to embed manufacturing process information into the 3D model. and for those working in a managed environemnt, there's been work done on the interoperability between Pro/E and Windchill & Pro/Intralink, including automated reporting of bulk items, item check out on the fly only when changes are made, and the addition of a status column in the model tree to report the database status of an item provide a streamlined process for accessing information.
More details when we get 'em..
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