STEP Tools Weekly Newsletter for Monday January 4, 1999

Martin Hardwick hardwick at steptools.com
Mon Jan 4 16:58:00 EST 1999 

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).

--------------------
More Happy New Year 1999

Last week we listed goals for our products in 1999. Here are some
goals for our work in the International Standards Organization.

1. Get the NWI approved for the EXPRESS-X mapping language and have a
   CD version of the reference manual ready for balloting by the end
   of the year.
2. Deliver a first version for Part 21 of the ISO 14649 STEP-NC standard
   and thereby show how product and process data can be integrated into
   one database.
3. Continue working in on the SDAI Java standard and thereby show how
   World Wide Applications can access STEP databases without needing
   to know anything about EXPRESS or Part 21.


--------------------
Updated Reasons for choosing STEP Tools and ST-Developer

Some updated reasons for choosing STEP Tools and ST-Developer are
given at the end of this newsletter.


--------------------
ISO Meeting in San Francisco

ISO Technical Committee 184, Subcommittee 4 will meet in San Francisco
at the end of this month. This is the home organization for STEP and
several other standards for industrial data. There will be meetings on
EXPRESS-X, the SDAI Java, the new modular approach to the STEP
architecture and on using UML to document information requirements of
an Application Protocol.

    https://www.uspro.org


--------------------
First Classes in 1999

We have delayed some of our classes in 1999 until February because it
is a great time to go skiing in the Northeast.  There are several ski
resorts with night skiing in our area so for those who are interested
we will organize a trip to the slopes on a convenient evening during
the classes.

   Feb 2-3    Object Oriented Information Modeling with EXPRESS
   Feb 8      Introduction to STEP
   Feb 9-11   Application Programming with STEP


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

Summary:
Period Covered: Sun Dec 27 03:25:02 1998 -- Sun Jan  3 03:25:02 1999
Total usage: 39
Successful usage: 30 (76%)
Errors: 9 (23%)


Translator	total	errors	success rate

acis-ap203	7	0	100%
ap203-acis	21	8	61%
ap203-stl	1	1	0%
ap203-xml	1	0	100%
ap203check	1	0	100%
expfront2	1	0	100%
gifviz		4	0	100%
steptoimage	3	0	100%

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

------------------------------------
Summary:
Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun Jan  3 03:25:11 1999
Total usage: 2528
Successful usage: 2198 (86%)
Errors: 330 (13%)


Translator	total	errors	success rate

acis-ap203	530	17	96%
ap203-acis	933	110	88%
ap203-stl	52	18	65%
ap203-vrml	288	78	72%
ap203-xml	62	12	80%
ap203check	71	11	84%
expfront	124	17	86%
expfront2	24	0	100%
express2html	202	0	100%
expxfront	11	1	90%
gifviz		45	21	53%
iges-ap202	10	0	100%
sp203-xml	13	2	84%
steptoimage	163	43	73%


--------------------
Some Reasons for Choosing ST-Developer

- PROVEN. The ST-Developer product has been around for eight years.
  Over 300 customers on five continents have used ST-Developer to
  create STEP interfaces for more than 500,000 users of CAD, CAM,
  and CAE systems like Unigraphics, Bentley, IRONCAD, CADKEY, SGI
  Alias/Wavefront, Hitachi Zosen, Bridgeport Controls, Tecnomatix
  and Boeing DCAC/MRM.

- TECHNOLOGY. ST-Developer comes with libraries for manipulating Part
  21 files using SDAI C and C++ application programs. Programs can use
  data-dictionary calls for flexibility or classes for efficiency.
  Compilers and interpreters can check data models for all kinds of
  errors. EXPRESS-G diagrams can be generated from EXPRESS for easy
  visualization of any schema. Adaptors are available for interfacing
  ST-Developer to SQL databases, object databases and solid modeling
  kernels.

- CHOICES. ST-Developer lets you work on more platforms and
  programming environments than any other package. You can work in C
  or C++ (with over 30 different compiler configurations). And choose
  between Windows NT, Windows 95 and Linux for Intel, and UNIX
  versions for AIX, HPUX, OSF/1, Silicon Graphics, SPARC Solaris, and
  Sun OS.

- SUPPORT. Integrated product and process databases are complex, but
  ST-Developer comes with documentation and tutorials to get you
  moving quickly. Our technical support staff members are experienced
  software developers that work hard to answer questions and provide
  solutions to any problems that might arise.

- VALUE. No royalties or run-time licenses are required to distribute
  the programs that you build. Multiple license and academic discounts
  are also available for ST-Developer.


--------------------
Some Reasons for Choosing STEP Tools

- FOCUS. Our mission is to create standards based software tools for
  worldwide manufacturing. The focus of our tools is on enhancing your
  productivity. Competing business areas do not distract our efforts.

- EXPERIENCE. We have actively participated in the ISO standards
  development activities for over 8 years and is a member of the US
  Product Data Association, PDES Inc. and STEPnet.

- PEOPLE. Our staff combines more than 86 years of experience in
  integrated product and process databases with 3 Ph.D's and 5 Masters
  in Computer Science.

- INVESTMENT. We have received multiple awards from government and
  industry in the USA, Europe and the Far East. We began when a
  requirement for systems to exchange data was identified in the
  General Electric lead DARPA Initiative in Concurrent Engineering
  (DICE).  We continue to be a major participant in the IBM lead
  National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols project
  (NIIIP).

- SUCCESS STORIES.  We were the first to specialize in the development
  of software tools for the STEP standard, the first to bring a
  commercial tool EXPRESS programming to the market, and the first to
  show that solid model data can be transferred between CAD systems
  using a neutral data exchange standard.

- VISION. Our mission requires us to create integrated product and
  process databases containing all the information necessary to
  manufacture a product. The Personal Computer "revolution" and the
  Internet Retail "revolution" took more than twenty years from
  original technology to wide deployment. Changing manufacturing from
  drawings to digital data may take as long. We are helping large and
  small industries make the change according to the timetables that
  best suit their businesses.

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