STEP Tools Weekly Newsletter

[Martin Hardwick]

== STEP Tools Weekly Newsletter -- 11 May 1998

This weekly newsletter is a brief update of what is going on in STEP
and at STEP Tools, Inc.  If you want to know more, try the STEP Tools 
web site (http://www.steptools.com) or the contact for each article.

--------------------
Geometry Accuracy Demonstration at PDES, Inc. TAC Meeting

STEP Tools, Inc. will be showing the first results of an ongoing
project to measure the accuracy of geometry data exchange files. The
demonstration will be at the PDES, Inc. TAC meeting on Wednesday of
this week.

In the early days of STEP, data exchange geometry accuracy was a major
problem because CAD systems use different internal tolerances to
measure their models. Over the last three years the problem has been
much reduced because the CAD vendors have added code to their systems
to help them process data produced by other modelers. Some translation
centers are now reporting success rates of 98%.

Our demonstration is aimed at the remaining 2%.  We have teamed with
the University of Connecticut to analyze the mathematics of modelers
with respect to data exchange. For the first stage of our project,
UConn has built code that measures the accuracy of a model using
DTNURBS.  DTNURBS was chosen because its source code is published, so
its algorithms can be analyzed for instabilities. The search for
instabilities is very similar to the analysis that was necessary in
the early days of linear algebra to find out why matrix analysis
algorithms sometimes fail.

The UConn work was sponsored by Pratt & Whitney and PDES, Inc. with
additional support from Boeing and STEP Tools, Inc.  The Wednesday
demonstration finds gaps between curves and surfaces and highlights
those that are out of tolerance using the ST-Visualizer- a product
that STEP Tools, Inc. develops for visualizing STEP shapes and
assemblies.

--------------------
SBIR for PSL, EXPRESS-X and EXPRESS-2

John Valois has received unofficial notice that STEP Tools, Inc.
has been awarded an SBIR contract to investigate the Process
Specification Language (PSL) developed by NIST. In this contract
we will investigate how to implement PSL using EXPRESS-X, EXPRESS-2
and Part 49. This is the second SBIR to be awarded to STEP Tools, Inc.,
and our first contract to include EXPRESS-2 in its scope of work.

--------------------
EXPRESS-X for Bad Aibling

The latest version of EXPRESS-X Language Reference Manual has been
put onto our web site. The new version encapsulates the results of
the work of the committe at San Diego, RPI, Florence and Orlando. The
new language is not yet ready to be submitted for CD ballot but we
think it is ready for prototyping by STEP Software vendors. To get
a copy visit http://www.steptools.com

--------------------
Source code for SDAI Java Projects

There has been strong interest in the SDAI Java demonstrations
produced by the RPI students (see April 20 Newsletter), so we have
added some additional code and documentation to the web site.  The
documentation describes how the students were told to implement
their systems, and the source code is available if you want to build
similar systems.

    http://www.steptools.com/demos/edb98

--------------------
Translation Service Statistics

The following is a usage summary for our translation service this week.
For more information see http://www.steptools.com/translate

Period Covered: Sun May 3 - Sun May 10 
    Total usage: 53
    Sucessful usage: 49 (92%)
    Errors: 4 (7%)

--------------------
WELCOME NEW AND REPEAT CUSTOMERS IN APRIL 1998!

Georgia Inst. of Tech (ObjectStore, Advanced Support)
RAM Technology (ACIS Translator Evaluation, Windows)
Boeing Shared Services (ST-Developer and ST-Oracle Advanced Support)
ITESM Campus Monterrey (ST-Developer Renewal, UNIX)
Jacobus Tech (ST-Developer Renewal, Windows)
Ohio University (ST-Developer Renewal, UNIX)
Univ. Teknologi Malaysia (ST-Developer and ST-Oracle Renewals, UNIX)
Tecnomatix Machining Automation BV (ST-Developer Renewal, UNIX)
Newport News Shipbuilding (ST-Developer Renewal, UNIX)
ETH - Swiss Federal Institute of Tech (ST-Developer, Windows)
NIST  (ST-Developer Renewal, UNIX)
Secom Co. (ST-Developer and ST-Oracle Evaluations, Windows, thru OSI)


== ST-Announce Administrative Notes ==================================
To be removed from this mailing list, send mail to majordomo at steptools.com
with the line "unsubscribe st-announce" as the body of the message.  To be
added to this list, send mail with the body "subscribe st-announce"
-
Short news items can be submitted to st-announce-owner for inclusion in
the next STEP Tools newsletter.  Other questions or requests can be sent
to info at steptools.com.