Altair Engineering’s Hyperworks Technology Conference (HTC) 2010 showcases its unique product and service offerings, as well as its diverse user base that represents the automotive, aerospace, defense, consumer electronics, and, medical device industries.

While Day 1 was devoted to keynotes and general sessions by Altair executives and major customers, Days 2 and 3 were quite a bit different, but just as compelling.

Day 2 opened with two interesting keynotes. The first one was given by Dave Trop of The Boeing Co. who discussed the increasingly important role that simulation has achieved and the productivity and safety enhancements that it provides. This increasing role was especially evident in the design and manufacture of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner where composite materials are key structural members, requiring vast amounts of simulation and analysis.

The second kenoter on Day 2 was John Baker from the NASA Engineering & Safety Center. He discussed NASA’s use of Altair’s HyperWorks and RADIOSS technologies for the upcoming Constellation progam that will supersede the Space Shuttle program that is winding down.

The remainder of the day was devoted to presentation tracks — Modeling & Visualization, Optimization, High-Performance Computing (HPC), and Simulation.

I tried to attend as many as possible throughout the day, and the two that I found most intriguing were about cloud computing and a greatly accelerated crash simulation program.

At this point, Altair’s cloud computing effort is regarded as a pilot project by the company, but it is moving ahead with it with the hope of scaling it up in the near future. Many questions, however, remain to be answered, but Altair is approaching this year’s buzzword technology — cloud computing — in a logical and business-like way that will make it more than just a buzzword if all goes according to plan.

Altair’s CAD2CRASH24 was a breakthrough project that succeeded in compressing the time required to mesh, assemble and simulate a full-vehicle crash finite-element model – directly from OEM (from Ford Motor Co.) native CAD data from about three weeks to less than 24 hours.

The feat was a successful attempt to dramatically compress the usual time frame for conducting and presenting a full frontal vehicle crash. This results were made possible with Altair’s software tools, advanced hardware (64 cores), and optimized internal Altair processes.

Day 3 of the conference was devoted to process-specific workshops — Crash/Auto, Optimization, University Programs, and Multi-Body Dynamics, and others. The workshops were conducted primarily by Altair employees, partners, and university professors. The workshop sessions were well attended and covered many topics key to the simulation and analysis communities.

Well over 400 attendees enjoyed three days of Altair product, technology, and direction presentations; educational sessions, and networking opportunities. Without exception, every attendee I talked with was pleased with what the company was providing today and impressed with what will be provided going forward.

Look for extended coverage of the HTC 2010, product information, and interviews with Altair Engineering executives in MCADCafe.com Weekly in the very near future.

I thought that one of the most significant things to come out of the PTC/USER conference was not strictly product related so much as a shift in corporate philosophy and mindset.

PTC emphasized what is calling Social Product Development that combines web 2.0 social computing with traditional product development. While the company said that it didn’t believe that social networking by itself was not all that good for product development, its collaborative principles were. Thus, the birth of Social Product Development.

Of course, this was not all PTC’s doing. The company has enlisted Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 as the connection between Web 2.0 and social networking technologies, as well as PTC’s Windchill ProductPoint on top of Pro/E, ProductView, and Mathcad for addressing a new way to collaborate in the engineering and design environment.

PTC drove home the importance of this initiative throughout the conference, so it appears, at least for now, that Social Product Development is not just a marketing gimmick, but a major tenet of doing business moving forward.

PTC, of course, is not the only technical software vendor using SharePoint, but this a big step in the right direction for the company as it looks to the future.

We’re down here in Orlando for a few days covering the 20th Annual PTC/USER event.

This is the venue where PTC announces and rolls out new products, and that’s exactly the reason we’re here.

Over the course of the next several days and weeks, I’ll fill you in on what I’m seeing and hearing.

This has been a trying year for the MCAD industry (to say the least), and PTC has had its share of ups and downs, making this year’s event particularly interesting for PTC.

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