D-Cubed -- Latest release of the AEM, version 15.0

FOR RELEASE Friday, February 6, 2004

D-Cubed announces the latest release of the Assembly Engineering Manager (AEM), a component that provides design engineers with a more realistic and productive assembly environment integrated at the core of their chosen CAD system. Developments for this release have focused on enhancing internal algorithms, further extending the leadership position of the early adopters, SolidWorks, UGS PLM Solutions and DIPRO, in the area of interactive motion simulation. Other developments include:

Support for symmetry
Symmetry relationships between parts are now satisfied during a simulation, where symmetry is defined about a given plane. Parts to which symmetry constraints have been applied can be interactively dragged and subjected to a variety of forces and engineering devices (e.g. gravity, springs, motors, etc.). The physical factors that influence the motion of a symmetric part will influence the motion of its symmetric partner and vice versa.

Performance improvements and memory usage optimisation
Faster contact solving: New algorithms have also been implemented to increase the speed at which contacts are computed between parts.

On-demand loading of part geometry: The AEM uses exact (non-faceted) part geometry, ensuring the accuracy of its solutions. However, processing the exact geometric information consumes time and memory. In this release, the AEM streamlines the information it processes by enquiring the geometry only for those parts that are approaching a contact situation, thus reducing memory requirements and improving performance.

About the AEM
The AEM, first released in 2001, more realistically models the behaviour of assemblies and mechanisms. It takes account of the mass properties of parts, the motion caused by a variety of engineering related forces and devices, and the interaction of parts as they collide and push each other around. The AEM is integrated at the core of a CAD system rather than as an external module. Its usage requires no specialist expertise or model preparation, making AEM based design productivity enhancements immediately accessible to any CAD end-user.

About D-Cubed Ltd.
Founded in 1989 in Cambridge, England, D-Cubed provides software components and technical consulting services to the CAD/CAM/CAE application development industry in all areas of geometric, solid and variational/parametric modelling. Most of the world’s leading CAD vendors have adopted one or more of D-Cubed’s widely respected component technologies for integration into their end-user applications. We have never developed, and do not intend to develop, our own end-user applications. This focus avoids any competitive conflicts of interest with our customers.

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