CONCENTRA DELIVERS NEW VERSION OF ITS GENERATIVE MODELING TECHNOLOGY; The ICAD System Release 5.0 Cuts Engineering Cycle Time and Improves Product Time-To-Market.BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 1995 -- Concentra Corporation (Nasdaq:CTRA CTRA Canadian Therapeutic Recreation Association CTRA College Terrace Residents' Association CTRA Canadian Telecommunications Resellers Alliance CTRA Committee To Restore America ) a leading supplier of sales and engineering automation software, today announced the availability of a new version of its design process automation technology, The ICAD ICAD International Community for Auditory Display ICAD Individual Chemical Agent Detector ICAD Institute of Community and Area Development ICAD Individual Channel Analysis and Design ICAD Integrated Computer Aided Design ICAD Iowa City Area Development Group, Inc. System Release 5.0. The new release of The ICAD System includes enhancements that address four primary areas of engineering automation -- application development, geometric modeling, application deployment and tools integration -- to streamline new product design and greatly reduce cycle time. The ICAD System is a multi-platform, object-oriented engineering application development environment that works in conjunction with leading CAD/CAM CAD/CAM in full computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing. Integration of design and manufacturing into a system under direct control of digital computers. packages. The ICAD System release 5.0 runs on UNIX-based workstations from Hewlett Packard, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. , and incorporates Generative Modeling technology. Generative Models enable engineers in a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace, industrial equipment and consumer products, to build applications that capture knowledge and automate routine operations to allow for rapid development and deployment of engineering designs. "Getting superior quality products to market faster is paramount for every engineering organization, and The ICAD System's reusable generative models allow our customers to generate new product designs in minutes, not months," said Robert Phillips, vice president, engineering, Concentra Corporation. "The new functionality in Release 5.0 coupled with tight CAD/CAM integration make The ICAD System the next-generation engineering environment." The ICAD System Captures Engineering Knowledge The ICAD System is a series of integrated engineering Integrated Engineering is a multi-disciplinary, design project based engineering degree program. Integrated Engnineering is a program created to meet the demand for engineers who are able to deal with a wide range of problems, often involving knowledge from several modules that provides customers with a unified environment to capture geometric aspects and knowledge and to automate repetitive design processes. The ICAD System is in use today by leading companies such as Boeing, General Motors, United Technologies, Hughes Space and Communications, and General Electric. The ICAD System integrates with CAD/CAM systems from EDS (Electronic Data Systems, Plano, TX, www.eds.com) Founded in 1962 by H. Ross Perot (independent candidate for the President of the U.S. in 1992), EDS is the largest outsourcing and data processing services organization in the country. Unigraphics, IBM/Dassault Systemes, Parametric Technology Corp. and Computervision Corp. The ICAD Design Language (IDL (1) (Interface Definition Language) A language used to describe the interface to a routine or function. For example, objects in the CORBA distributed object environment are defined by an IDL, which describes the services performed by the object and how the data ), the foundation of The ICAD System, is an object-oriented engineering application development language that enables users to design engineering methods and procedures that encompass both geometric and non-geometric objects. IDL is non-procedural, declarative language that makes it easy for engineers to express product and process information without concern for order of execution. It also incorporates features for defining product structures, part interdependencies, manufacturing methodologies and 2D and 3D wireframe An umbrella term for a general outline of some structure. For example, the rough design of Web pages may be called wireframes. See wireframe modeling. geometry. Other main components of The ICAD System are the Solids Designer, to create feature-based, parametric solid models of mechanical parts and assemblies with complex geometry; Surface Designer, to specify rules to automatically create complex 3D surfaces; Drawing Tools, to automatically generate dimensional drawings directly from geometric objects in the Generative Model; The ICAD Browser, a graphical user interface graphical user interface (GUI) Computer display format that allows the user to select commands, call up files, start programs, and do other routine tasks by using a mouse to point to pictorial symbols (icons) or lists of menu choices on the screen as opposed to having to (GUI (Graphical User Interface) A graphics-based user interface that incorporates movable windows, icons and a mouse. The ability to resize application windows and change style and size of fonts are the significant advantages of a GUI vs. a character-based interface. ) to develop, test, debug To correct a problem in hardware or software. Debugging software means locating the errors in the source code (the program logic). Debugging hardware means finding errors in the circuit design (logical circuits) or in the physical interconnections of the circuits. and apply generative models; Network Services Facility (NSF NSF - National Science Foundation ), provides a simple mechanism to link external C and FORTRAN routines with IDL through a remote procedure call (RPC (Remote Procedure Call) A programming interface that allows one program to use the services of another program in a remote machine. The calling program sends a message and data to the remote program, which is executed, and results are passed back to the calling ) interface; Production User Interface (PUI PUI Posting Under the Influence (usenet newsgroups) PUI Primarily Undergraduate Institution(s) PUI PARC User Interface (Ted Nelson) PUI Pokemon USA Inc. ) Toolkit, to create a customized, menu-driven user interfaces for specific production applications; and CAD Integration Tools, to enable ICAD Generative Models to integrate with popular CAD/CAM packages. Powerful New Functionality in The ICAD System Release 5.0 The new features in The ICAD System release 5.0 are based on direct feedback from Concentra customers, and address key engineering areas including: Application Development Generative model development time can now be shortened through improved dependency tracking, type checking, and code documentation and development tools. EMACS 19 has been enhanced to provide templates for simplified code development, minimizing the need to reference the documentation. The ICAD System Release 5.0 includes on-line help incorporating the complete documentation set. Geometric Modeling The ICAD Solids Designer introduces a number of enhancements that provide the application developer with tolerant modeling capabilities. Hollowing, offset, and tapered solid features complement the existing system capabilities. In addition, significant reliability improvements have been made to the ICAD Surface Designer. Deployment Options A number of enhancements to the Production UI Toolkit provide improved ability to control the layout and functionality of menus, yielding improved usability to end-users. Release 5.0 includes a new version of the Kernel Interface, an API for building custom client/server interfaces. These new features allow greater flexibility for moving applications into production. Integration Tools The new Network Services Facility (NSF) links C and FORTRAN programs to generative models allowing developers to build distributed applications. This platform-independent functionality complements the Foreign Function abilities available on some ICAD System platforms. Availability The ICAD System Release 5.0 has been available to existing Concentra customers since the second quarter of 1995. The product is now generally available from Concentra Corporation. About Concentra Concentra is a leading provider of strategic tools for companies responding to the demands of time-based competition. From offices across the US, Europe and Asia, the Massachusetts-headquartered company uses generative technology to provide complete solutions for automating sales, engineering and manufacturing processes. Concentra's customers include world class companies in the aerospace, automotive, industrial components and construction industries. Generative Modeling and The ICAD System are trademarks of Concentra Corporation. All other products mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies. CONTACT: Concentra Corp., Cambridge Janet Page, 617-229-4600 |
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