Release of ST-Developer v8.0

Mon May 22 16:48:00 EDT 2000

The regular newsletter was interrupted while we finished Release 8.0
of ST-Developer. Many thanks are due to David Loffredo and his team -
Jochen Fritz, Alex Lipatov, Jeffrey Young, Ford Oxaal and Blair Downie
for this magnificent release!

The Newsletter will resume its normal schedule next week.

----------
Highlights

The highlights of ST-Developer v8 are described below.  For more
information on the release, check out the following URLs:

    http://www.steptools.com/news/
    http://www.steptools.com/products/stdev

    * ST-Viewer
    * ST-Viewer OLE/COM Automation Library 
    * AP-214 Conformance Checking Tool
    * Improved General Conformance Checking  
    * Unified EXPRESS Compiler 
    * Part 21 Enhancements and Complex Instance Handling 
    * SDAI and ROSE Library Updates (50% faster!)
    * More Preinstalled EXPRESS Schemas 
    * Updated Control Panel and License Key tool

---------
ST-Viewer

ST-Developer for Windows is now bundled with a free copy of ST-Viewer
to help view, analyze and debug STEP product data.  ST-Viewer displays
product identification, assembly structure and 3D geometry. You can
annotate models and send them to other users or cut and paste
visualizations of solids and wire frame models into other tools.

ST-Viewer works with a very large range of CAD, CAM, CAE and PDM
systems. The STEP interfaces of these systems are built and maintained
by their vendors and monitored for conformance to the standard by
national industry groups and the International Standards
Organization. A list of systems that have been tested with the
ST-Viewer can be found at the STEP Tools web site

------------------------------------
ST-Viewer OLE/COM Automation Library

Windows programs built with ST-Developer can now call ST-Viewer to
display, highlight, or pick pieces of geometry and product assembly
structure.

Automation lets you control an application's objects from outside the
application. The application exposes a COM interface with methods and
properties. These methods and properties are accessible to your
client, and the ST-Viewer becomes an automation server allowing your
program to receive and send messages to change the state of the
viewer, for example, to highlight the geometry for a product or change
the color of a face.

The automation client can be written in many languages, including
Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual J++. The ST-Viewer OLE
Automation Reference Manual describes how to work with this interface
in detail. The ST-Developer demos directory contains driver program
examples that control ST-Viewer and receives its events.  The examples
are written in Visual C++ and Visual Basic. These programs are
distributed as Microsoft Visual Studio projects and include full
source code.

--------------------------------
AP-214 Conformance Checking Tool

The new AP-214 Conformance Checker joins the AP-203 checker as fast
alternatives to the EXPRESS interpreter-based checker. The AP-214
checker has custom code to efficiently check AP-214 files against all
applicable local rules (WHERE clauses) and global rules (RULEs)
defined by AP-214. The AP-214 checker also verifies the presence of
required attribute values.

------------------------
Unified EXPRESS Compiler

The new compiler can produce the following outputs: 

* C++ class code including much better code for aggregates. 
* HTML and other formatted text from the EXPRESS definitions. 
* Compiled data structure definitions, that application
  programs use to read and write STEP Part 21 files. 
* EXPRESS parse data and data-dictionary information for the
  SDAI EXPRESS interpreter and AP conformance checking tool. 

There have been many improvements to the C++ class generation and
working set control files. The EXPRESS interpreter in the General
Conformance checking tool is much more robust.

In addition to "long-form" AP schemas, the new compiler can handle
"short-form" schemas and can search a repository of pre-compiled
schemas for the definitions. This allows the entire library of STEP
Integrated Resources to be pre-compiled and used whenever a STEP
short-form schema is compiled. These improvements also make
compilation of PLIB and MARISTEP schemas much more robust.

Error checking has also been improved, particularly for assignment
compatibility and operator/operand compatibility. The compiler can
now predict possible results from an expression at runtime and point
out violations. EXPRESS errors are always flagged, but warnings can
be limited using options. There have also been some improvements in
the checking of TYPEOF, ROLESOF, and USEDIN opertions, especially
intersections with aggregates of strings. 

--------------------------------------------------
Part 21 Enhancements and Complex Instance Handling

ST-Developer programming libraries and tools now automatically build
data-dictionary entries for Part 21 complex instances (also known as
external mapping or AND/OR instances). This means SDAI C programs and
late-bound ROSE programs no longer need to worry about working set files.
Class-based programs might still use working set files to generate C++
classes for situations where an instance could potentially be best-fit
to more than one C++ class. In addition, the Part 21 file reader now
recognizes extended schema names, such as are often used with AP-214,
and handles .ifc as a Part 21 file extension. 

-----------------------------
SDAI and ROSE Library Updates

Application developers will notice many improvements to the
programming libraries. SDAI applications should be up to 50% faster
when using the new libraries. Programs should also compile more
smoothly with new compilers like Microsoft Visual C++ v6, and ANSI C++
compilers. Programs now automatically recognize complex AND/OR objects
and handle extended schema names in Part 21 files.

ST-Developer Version 8 includes a number of improvements in the SDAI C
binding. In addition to a few bug fixes, the SDAI library now provides
a more convenient, forgiving interface for manipulating SELECT types,
and a few extension functions for handling Part 21 headers and entity
ID's.

The ROSE library has gained many new features over the last few
releases.  The library now supports unset/null values for all data
types, including reals and integers. The ANSI C++ language changes are
now supported and many functions have been updated to use const input
parameters. 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.

The new library has improved support for multiple data section Part 21
files.  Each design section is either a header, system, or data
section. 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 primary schema with some extension
schemas, such as an AP-203 file with extensions in the extra data
sections.

The design cursors have been updated as well. The cursors now traverse
over individual data sections, sections of a particular type (either
header, data, or system), sections that use a particular AP schema, as
well as entire designs.  They also support additional selection
criteria for objects, such as all objects of a particular type, either
with or without all subtypes.

There have been several internal engineering changes in the ROSE
library.  These changes increase traversal performance and reduce
memory usage, but should otherwise be transparent to most
applications. The memory and time 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.

---------------------------------
More Preinstalled EXPRESS Schemas

We have pre-installed even more Application Protocol schemas for easy
use. Of course, you can always use ST-Developer with your own schemas,
but we have also included hyperlinked versions of the schemas for easy
reference (generated with the EXPRESS to HTML tool), recommended
practices documents, short name files, and working set files where
available.

     Part 201-- Explicit Draughting. 
     Part 202-- Associative Explicit Draughting. 
     Part 203-- Configuration Controlled Design. 
     Part 209 DIS-- Composite and Metallic Structural Analysis and
          Related Design 
     Part 210 DIS-- Electronic Assembly Interconnect and Packaging Design 
     Part 214 DIS-- Automotive Design 
     Part 224-- Feature-Based Process Planning. 
     Part 227-- Plant Spatial Configuration. 
     STEP PDM Schema v1.1-- 
     CIS/2 Structural Frame Schema-- 

-------------------
Translation Service

Summary:
Period Covered: Sun May 14 03:25:02 2000 -- Sun May 21 03:25:02 2000
Total usage: 75
Successful usage: 68 (90%)
Errors: 7 (9%)

Translator	total	errors	success rate

ACIS to STEP:		11	0	100%
STEP to ACIS:		29	4	86%
AP203 Checker:		4	0	100%
Parasolid to STEP:	6	0	100%
STEP to Parasolid:	14	3	78%
STEP to XML:		1	0	100%
Visualization tools:	5	0	100%
Visualization Service:	3	0	100%

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

------------------------------------
Summary:
Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun May 21 03:25:35 2000
Total usage: 9113
Successful usage: 7990 (87%)
Errors: 1123 (12%)

Translator		total	errors	success rate

ACIS to STEP:		2074	52	97%
STEP to ACIS:		2975	233	92%
STEP to XML:		87	18	79%
AP203 Checker:		619	48	92%
EXPRESS Checker:		11	1	90%
Parasolid to STEP:	308	117	62%
STEP to Parasolid:	376	114	69%
STEP to XML:		311	24	92%
Visualization tools:	429	115	73%
Visualization Service:	66	9	86%
XML to STEP:		77	21	72%

Tools From STEP Tools, Inc.

The STEP Tools product line is used by the world's foremost firms to
leverage STEP technology to facilitate the sharing of engineering
product information. Over one million end users utilize product data
applications built with ST-Developer, the company's flagship product.
In response to its international popularity, the ST-Repository is a
Server application developed to manage the growing number of STEP
product databases inside mid-sized to large corporations who have
ISO 10303 standardization.

Database Tools:
ST-Repository - Integrated database for design and manufacturing

Options:
· Web site manager with translation and visualization services.
· EXPRESS-X query language.
· XML Data Update.

Programming Tools:
ST-Developer - Programming tools for writing STEP applications and
translators.

Options:
· ST-ACIS Library - STEP programming functions for ACIS models and SAT
  files.
· ST-Parasolid Library - STEP programming functions for Parasolid models
  and XLT files.

Translation Tools:
ST-Viewer - desktop tool to view STEP data.

Options:
· ST-ACIS Translator - desktop tool for translating STEP data to ACIS and
vice versa.
· ST-Parasolid Translator - desktop tool for translating STEP data to
Parasolid and vice versa.

---------
Resellers

Resellers for STEP Tools products are available in the following
geographic areas.  Please contact us if you would like further
information.

--France
	Espri Concept, Sophia Antipolis Cedex
--Germany
	EuroSTEP GmbH, Bad Aibling
--Sweden
	EuroSTEP AB, Stockholm
--United Kingdom
	CADDETC, Leeds
	EuroSTEP UK, Denbigh
--China
	C-STEP, Beijing
--Japan
	Open Systems, Inc., Tokyo
--Korea
	Mani Information Systems, Inc.
--Taiwan
	Exartech International Corp., Taipei
	Axxon Technology, Taipei
	INTEXS International,Virgina Beach Va.

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