1 February, 2000
Ansys, Inc. and ITI Deliver CADfix for ANSYS Software
Providing Significantly Improved Model Transfer from CATIA to ANSYS
ANSYS SOUTHPOINTE, Pa., Feb. 1 -- ANSYS, Inc. today announced the release of CADfix for ANSYS, the first software product developed under the ITI/ANSYS partnership. CADfix for ANSYS software specializes in geometry import, export, and repair, improving interoperability by automatically repairing computer-aided design (CAD) models from a wide range of leading CAD vendors, and preparing them for ANSYS design analysis.The primary focus of this initial release was to streamline the data flow from CATIA Modeling System by Dassault Systemes, into ANSYS software. Now, CATIA users can take advantage of the most advanced and complete set of engineering capabilities available today, the ANSYS product family.
ANSYS, Inc. continuously strives to provide customers with the best solutions available for preparing their CAD data for simulation. ANSYS, Inc., a leading global provider of engineering simulation solutions, offers a variety of software tools depending on customers' needs. However, a common requirement for the proper deployment of analysis products is the accurate and robust representation of CAD geometry data.
"CADfix for ANSYS addresses the frustrating and time consuming task of preparing CAD geometry to support finite element analysis. ANSYS, Inc. deserves praise as a leader in adopting the idea of automatic geometry repair in the receiving application based on its numerical accuracy requirements. I expect that this approach to geometric data sharing will have ramifications across the entire CAD/CAM/CAE application space," stated Marc Halpern, Ph.D., P.E., D.H. Brown Associates, Inc.
While the initial focus is CATIA IGES files, CADfix for ANSYS also imports IGES files from many other CAD products. CADfix for ANSYS is the first pre-analysis tool to control the import of geometry into an analysis system, which improves, enhances, and expedites the engineering analysis process.
"In order to respond to the ongoing interoperability issues in the marketplace, ANSYS, Inc. focuses on where the problems exist and why," said Eric Underwood, product manager for ANSYS, Inc. "Most CAD models built today cannot be used `as-is' by downstream applications such as engineering simulations. CADfix for ANSYS attempts to repair most of these problems in an automated process; however, if these problems cannot be fixed, then the specific problem areas are displayed in a manner that guides the customer through a manual repair process," he added.
"Barriers to interoperability between disparate software tools are a major time-to-market impediment for engineering and manufacturing firms," said Bruce Jenkins, vice president, Daratech, Inc. "Organizations working to compress their product delivery cycles should give careful consideration to CADfix for ANSYS, which can significantly reduce the time and labor involved in preparing CAD models for analysis and optimization."
"CADfix for ANSYS performs well in preparing and importing CATIA IGES files for ANSYS. The looping mechanism (between ANSYS and CADfix), which has ANSYS reporting specific problems to CADfix for repair, works well and enables the geometry to be suitably prepared for ANSYS. This product offers a much improved geometry translation path for those attempting to import geometry from CAD systems that don't have an alternative to IGES," stated David J. Power, applications engineer, Mallett Technology Inc.