digital tools and references
Capability: The Solid Edge 2D Drafting application includes tools
designed to smooth the transition for 2-D AutoCAD users moving to Solid
Edge. Tools include import wizards and files that match AutoCAD fonts
and color schemes.
Hardware: PC running Windows XP.
Developer: UGS, 5800 Granite Parkway, Suite 600, Plano, TX 75024;
(972) 987-3000; www.ugs.com.
Cost: Free.
Capturing Calcu- lation
Capability: Maple 11 combines a mathematical computation
engine and user interface to capture a user's technical knowledge in an
electronic form that integrates calculations, explanatory text and math,
graphics, images, and sound. These documents can be reused or shared across
the organization. They're useful for calculations, for developing design
sheets, or for producing simulation models. Companion products include
applications for automatic model generation and for design. The upgrade
features an improved computation engine that includes new mathematics,
user-level multithreaded computations, and a polynomial real-root finder.
The developer says that the software's document environment minimizes
the learning curve.
Hardware: PC running the Windows, Unix, Linux, or Macintosh OS X platform.
Developer: Maplesoft, 615 Kumpf Dr., Waterloo, Ontario, N2V 1K8
Canada; (519) 747-2373; fax (519) 747-5284.
Cost: $1,895.
Click here to obtain information on this product
Capability: RF Toolbox 2 allows engineers to design, model, analyze, and visualize the networks of radio frequency components commonly found in high-speed digital electronics. With it, engineers model the impedance differences and reflection effects compromising signal distortion that occur with high-speed semiconductor devices connected to backplanes and printed circuit boards. By combining this application's modeling capabilities with the developer's design and simulation applications, engineers can develop input-output circuitry for devices used throughout the aerospace, defense, communications, and automotive industries. The software eliminates the need to build transmission-line models manually from measured data in order to test input-output circuit designs. Instead, engineers can model transmission lines.
Hardware: PC running the Windows, Unix, Linux, or Macintosh platform.
Developers: MathWorks, 3 Apple Hill Dr., Natick, MA 01760-2098;
(508) 647-7000; fax (508) 647-7001; www.mathworks.com.
Cost: $1,000, to start.
Stylized Design
Capability: FreeDimension allows designers to stylize
their 3-D models without the software tools often needed to create curved
surfaces. It's based on the patent-pending technology that mimics
the pencil-and-paper method of design, especially curves. Version 1.0
of the software can read and write SketchUp 5 files and also outputs data
into commonly used formats.
Hardware: PC running Windows 2000 or XP.
Developer: Free Design Inc., 1700 Kylie Drive, Suite 120, Longmont, CO 80501; (303) 956-1158; www. freedesign-inc.com.
Cost: $495; $99 for a student license; $695 for a classroom, multi-user license.
The Best Solution
Capability: Optimization Lab—for use with the developer's
Comsol Script for command-line modeling—offers optimization codes
geared to finite element analysis and multiphysics problems. With this
tool, engineers can run large-scale optimization problems that range from
traditional engineering disciplines, such as structural mechanics and
chemical engineering, to emerging technologies, such as bioengineering
and MEMS. A solver routine automatically chooses the best solver type
for the user-specified optimization problem. Users provide a vector of
parameters and a set of arbitrary constraints along with a single quantity
to optimize. The function describing this quantity can be a simple algebraic
expression, any computable function of a group of parameters, or an FEA
model of physical phenomena.
Hardware: PC running Windows 98, NT 4.0, or XP; Macintosh OS X; Linux; or Solaris and Comsol Script, also from the developer.
Developer: Comsol, 8 New England Executive Park, Suite 310, Burlington, MA 01803; (781) 273-3322; fax (781) 273-6603; info@comsol.com; www.comsol.com.
Cost: $895, Optimization Lab; $995, Comsol Script.
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