3D JT Data Format Receives High Interest Level

UGS Corp., announced JT2Go PLM World Edition software garnered "overwhelming" interest from the nearly 1600 attendees of the 2005 PLM World Conference, the annual user conference for all UGS customers. JT2Go - PLM World Edition provides additional functionality over the standard JT2Go solution utilizing the JT Document publishing capability to author a variety of Microsoft documents with embedded JT2Go viewers.

JT2Go, UGS' no-charge solution for viewing 3D JT data, is in use today by thousands of users around the world to share 3D product data throughout the extended enterprise and with all members of the product lifecycle process, including business partners and suppliers. JT Documents extends the value of JT viewing to the broad community of standard Microsoft application users, providing added clarity and context for PLM processes such as requests for quotes or design presentations. With the special edition of JT2Go distributed at PLM World, attendees can extend the value of JT to stakeholders and contributors, such as executives or managers, who might not typically use 3D viewing tools.

"JT was the talk of the conference and UGS wants to provide a special 'thank you' to all customers who were able to attend," said Bruce Feldt, vice president of Open Tools, UGS. "There was standing room only during the JT2Go breakout session and due to the overwhelming response PLM World officials had to schedule another session to accommodate the overflow."

JT is the de-facto PLM industry standard 3D visualization format with more than 4 million production users of JT-enabled UGS and non-UGS applications. The robust functionality and lightweight qualities of JT technology make it possible to view and share product data worldwide, in real-time and throughout all phases of the product lifecycle. Due to JT's flexibility users can view extremely large 3D models while collaborating over the Internet, yet JT is the only visualization format that can also contain precise surface data for accurate interrogation.

JT is prevalent in all industries and is supported by the rapidly growing JT Open Program. JT Open is a community of leading manufacturers, software vendors, and other advocates spanning the PLM value chain who, through an open distribution of the JT technology under a level playing field business model, are able to influence the direction and growth of JT for visualization, collaboration and data-sharing.

In the wake of the seemingly endless stream of big and small so-called open 3D data formats, the JT format has enjoyed surprisingly wide acceptance. Although that's not to say that JT doesn't have its detractors, but that's the topic for another column.

For those not be familiar with it, JT Open is becoming what appears to be an increasingly influential community of software vendors, users, universities, and other parties spanning the PLM chain. These various entities, through an "open distribution" of technology and business model on a relatively level playing field, are able to share 3D data through the medium of the JT file format for visualization, collaboration, and data sharing.

The JT format from UGS, claims to be the world's most widely used format for sharing lightweight 3D product images and manufacturing information, and is used by several million users and has been adopted by just about all CAD applications.

Any individual or organization interested in JT can join JT Open. This includes software vendors who want to develop JT-enabled applications for sale to other member companies, as well as companies that want to make JT a standard part of their business processes. JT is becoming a mature, lightweight data format that already enjoys relatively widespread use in the automobile and aerospace industries, but seems equally suitable for just about all mechanical design/engineering/manufacturing CAD applications.

Software product developers have created translators from many MCAD systems to JT. While not perfect, when properly implemented, it is almost always the only format common to the major applications that might be used in an enterprise. JT data can be very lightweight, holding little more than facet data or it can be richer and hold associations to the original CAD information, assemblies, product structure, geometry, attributes, and meta data. It also supports multiple tessellations and level-of-detail generation.

The whole JT movement got a big boost earlier this year with the announcement of an alliance to ensure interoperability between Autodesk's Design Web Format (DWF) and UGS' JT file formats and associated viewers. This alliance found two competitors mutually joining each other's open viewer initiatives - UGS' JT Open Program and Autodesk's DWF Developer Program. This announcement, however, said little about the degree to which each company will integrate and interact with the other's data format and viewer. Even today, it's still not clear whether the two companies are simply adding import/export functions, or are going further and actually integrating each others viewer formats.

It also remains to be seen how a competing technology, 3DXML, and its proponents, Dassault Systemes and Microsoft, respond. It will be interesting to see how these heavyweights duke it out over open, lightweight data formats.

The Week's Top 5

At MCADCafé we track many things, including the stories that have attracted the most interest from our subscribers. Below are the five news items that were the most viewed during last week.

SolidWorks 2006 Sets New Standard For 3D Mechanical Design Ease, Power, And Performance
SolidWorks Corp. unveiled SolidWorks 2006 that features a host of new and unique capabilities to help designers and engineers bring better products more quickly to market, and to more easily transition from 2D to 3D design. The software includes more than 200 customer-requested enhancements. Included in SolidWorks 2006 are several improvements that simplify, accelerate, and integrate design engineering work, including increased performance, new user productivity tools, new features for consumer product, new mainstream design validation capabilities, and features that ease migration from 2D to 3D design.

COSMOS 2006 Software Spotlights Technological Innovations And Simplified Analysis For Every Engineer's Desktop
The newest release of COSMOS design validation software, COSMOS 2006, provides design analysis functions that are simplified to mouse clicks, templates, and help wizards. COSMOS 2006 software's combination of new functionality and ease-of-use enables companies to improve their processes with time- and cost-saving analysis from a design's inception right up to production. New interactive wizards, such as Analysis Advisor, help front-line engineers choose the appropriate analysis for their tasks, respond if an analysis fails, and interpret results accurately. COSMOS 2006 software packages frequently needed analysis inputs such as forces and constraints into templates called Analysis Libraries that minimize repetitive work.

Dassault Systemes: For Informational Purposes Only: Comparison Of 2004 Financial Statements Under French GAAP And U.S. GAAP
Dassault Systemes is providing, for informational purposes only, a comparison of financial statements prepared in accordance with French GAAP and U.S. GAAP for the year ended December 31, 2004. The Company released its annual financial results, prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP in a press release issued on February 9, 2005. In summary, 2004 revenue was EUR 797 million under both French and U.S. GAAP. French GAAP 2004 EPS was EUR 1.24 per diluted share, or EUR 0.11 lower than U.S. GAAP EPS of EUR 1.35, with the variance primarily accounted for by the different rules regarding goodwill amortization.

European Union: Still Challenging For American High-tech Companies To Expand
With the European Constitution being rejected by France, a primary architect of the European Union, the legal and administrative aspects of the Union become more complex, requiring more attention. Despite the rejection by France, American high-tech companies - even those in a start-up phase - European expansion is a "must." With approximately 460 million people and the highest GDP worldwide, the European market is, and will remain for years, the biggest market for high-tech products and services, in the developed world. However, for a successful business implementation and revenue generation in Europe, corporations need to understand business practices in the main states of the European Union, through their network of partners and through their management know-how in Europe.

CoCreate's OneSpace Designer Makes the Most of Engineering Designs
CoCreate Software announced the release of 13.20 for OneSpace Designer 2005. This version includes the previously announced XVL Converter (Lattice3D's XVL publishing technology) module for CoCreate's 3D CAD product (OneSpace Designer Modeling) and introduces a new version of integration with the mySAP Product Lifecycle Management (mySAP PLM) solution. The new release of OneSpace Designer adds support for OneSpace Designer Drafting to integrate with mySAP PLM.

Jeffrey Rowe is the editor and publisher of MCADCafé and MCAD Weekly Review. He can be reached here or 408.850.9230.

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