STEP Tools Weekly Newsletter for December 7th

[David Loffredo]

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.

--------------------
Guest Editor this Week

Martin Hardwick is on the road this week, so this edition of the
weekly newsletter will be written by Dave Loffredo.  This is a good
time for it, because it gives me a chance to bring you up to date on
the upcoming ST-Developer v7 release.

Last week Martin discussed the new features in our SDAI C binding
implementation; this week I will talk about ROSE C++ -- our other main
programming library.

--------------------
ROSE C++ in ST-Developer Version 7

The upcoming ST-Developer v7 ROSE library contains some nice new
features as well as many refinements and performance boosts that
will be appreciated by both serious and novice STEP programmers.

We have simplified use of multiple data section Part 21 files.
Sections are now handled as a separate object, that can be populated
and traversed like a normal design.  Designs with more than one data
section are written using the extended Part 21 format.  Multiple data
sections can be used to produce files based on an integrated set of
schemas, such as a combined AP-203/AP-202 file, or a single schema
with extensions, such as an AP-203 file with a separate data section
containing extensions.

Another key feature - reference forwarding - has been opened up for
use by applications.  The reference forwarding API can "redirect"
references to a particular object, which can be extremely useful when
merging data sets and eliminating duplicate objects.

Other new features include:

  - Support for null/unset values for reals and integers.
  - Additional selection criteria for object traversals.
  - ANSI C++ updates.

There are also several new functions designed to simplify the
packaging of applications for distribution.  These functions allow
applications to control how the search paths for schemas and data
files are set.

As reported in earlier newsletters, we also made internal changes to
increase traversal performance and reduce memory usage.  The savings
could be significant.  The base memory, aside from attributes, used
for each persistent object has been reduced by over 40% and traversals
no longer require as many type comparisons.

All of these changes add up to some very nice improvements for
application developers.  We are currently in the process of packaging,
testing, and documenting the ST-Developer v7 software and plan to ship
before the end of the year.


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

Summary:
Period Covered: Sun Nov 29 03:25:03 1998 -- Sun Dec  6 03:25:03 1998
Total usage: 85
Successful usage: 73 (85%)
Errors: 12 (14%)


Translator	total	errors	success rate

acis-ap203	10	0	100%
ap203-acis	55	11	80%
ap203-vrml	2	0	100%
ap203-xml	2	0	100%
ap203check	5	1	80%
expfront2	1	0	100%
express2html	9	0	100%
steptoimage	1	0	100%

=======================================
All-Time stats

Summary:
Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun Dec  6 03:25:11 1998
Total usage: 2223
Successful usage: 1930 (86%)
Errors: 293 (13%)

Translator	total	errors	success rate

acis-ap203	475	15	96%
ap203-acis	813	95	88%
ap203-stl	51	17	66%
ap203-vrml	274	78	71%
ap203-xml	43	6	86%
ap203check	39	7	82%
expfront	124	17	86%
expfront2	6	0	100%
express2html	196	0	100%
expxfront	11	1	90%
gifviz	30	17	43%
iges-ap202	10	0	100%
sp203-xml	13	2	84%
steptoimage	138	38	72%


== 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.