Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

2 April 2004

 

Mac 3D: Apple Scores Major Victory with New Mac OS X Support for Industry Leading Parasolid® Geometric Modeling Kernel

New Parasolid Support Driven by Increasing Demand for State-of-the-art 3D Applications on Apple's Mac OS X Platform

Announced at the COFES (Congress on the Future of Engineering Software) 2004 Event, in Scottsdale, Arizona, today UGS PLM Solutions, the product lifecycle management (PLM) subsidiary of EDS, announced it has ported Parasolid® -- the world's leading 3D geometric modeling component software (3d kernel technology) -- to Apple's industry-leading 64-bit Mac OSX platform.

Parasolid Comes to the Mac - New Demand for Engineering Software on Mac OS X

"We are pleased to offer Parasolid support for the ever increasing customer demand for 3D applications on Mac OS X," said Bruce Feldt, vice-president of PLM Open products, UGS PLM Solutions. "Open innovation is a strategic imperative for today's manufacturer and open solutions like Parasolid help enable this innovation. It is estimated that over 40 percent of the world's 3D CAD data is based on Parasolid's open data format and now Mac users and Mac-based application software developers will be able to link into this vast community."

Parasolid provides the geometric modeling foundation for many of the world's leading computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering analysis (CAD/CAM/CAE) applications. UGS PLM Solutions develops Parasolid, uses it throughout its product development applications and licenses it to independent software vendors (ISVs) and end-user organizations on a "level playing field" policy that ensures all licensees have equal access to Parasolid updates and enhancements.

More than one million end-users employ Parasolid-based modeling applications across the product lifecycle and Parasolid is increasingly preferred as the modeling foundation for innovative design and manufacturing applications in markets leveraging the Mac platform.

Apple Seeing Tremendous Growth in Science and High Performance (HPC) Computing Markets

While the Apple Macintosh has traditionally been the platform of choice for creative professionals like graphics designers, video editors and publishing professionals who require a creative and flexible computing environment, Apple is experiencing tremendous success with the new Power Mac G5 and G5 Xserve computers in the science and technology markets. Installations like the new Virginia Tech G5-based supercomputer cluster -- the third fastest supercomputer in the world (built out of 1,100 Power Mac G5 computers) has garnered Apple unprecedented attention by high performance computing users worldwide.

By making Parasolid available in this environment, UGS PLM Solutions enhances its product offering and opens up new markets and opportunities in non-traditional industries. In addition, Apple benefits from the expanded catalogue of 3D Parasolid-based applications available to the global manufacturing community on Mac OS X.

"The stability, high performance and ease of use of Mac OS X and the groundbreaking Power Mac G5 are a perfect solution for creating 3D engineering applications," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "Parasolid will further broaden the appeal of the Mac for the manufacturing industry by allowing Mac developers to create robust 3D applications that can benefit from the super fast Power Mac G5."

Support for Mac OS X will be available with Parasolid V16.0, scheduled to begin shipping at the end of this month.

For more information visit: www.eds.com

Architosh Analysis: Over the past several months we have been aware of several notable engineering and CAD/CAM developers initiating multiple efforts to embrace Apple's Mac OS X platform in some form or another. Apple's worldwide developer relations group, of which Architosh maintains some relations, has been seeing increasing interest in the OS X platform due to end-user demand in the industry for Apple's Power Mac G5 and its Unix-based operating system. As Architosh has stated in the recent past, there is an increasing interest in all things Mac OS X and all things G5-- indexed by an increasing percentage of email to Architosh by Windows and Unix-based CAD/CAM users.

It should also be said that this year's COFES 2004 event -- an event sponsored by such companies as HP, Microsoft, UGS PLM Solutions, Oce, and Fortune Magazine, -- is being attended by Apple staff this year for the first time. Tom Reyburn, Senior Partnership Manager of Worldwide Developer Relations is a key participant. You can read the full list of participants here. We are hoping that next year Apple can play a larger role and host a technology suite at this important "who's who" engineering and CAD software conference.

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