STEP Tools News for Tuesday February 27

[Martin Hardwick]

This 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 at http://www.steptools.com


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Meeting in Funchal

The STEP meeting in Funchal, Portugal was the biggest and best in
recent memory, not just because there were more free events with more
alcohol than every before, but also because Maderia is a beautiful
sunny island of the coast of Africa, many new projects were started
(see below) and the meeting hosts did a splendid job.


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New Application Protocols for STEP-NC and Computational Fluid Dynamics

The STEP change management board gave tentative approval to two new
Application Protocols. Assuming the member countries agree, the new
protocol for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) will be known as
AP-237 and the new protocol for STEP-NC will be known as AP-238 and
have the title "Computerized Numerical Control (CNC)".

The CFD protocol will interoperate with AP-209 and compliment its
models for Structural Analysis with new models for Fluid Analysis. The
CNC protocol will integrate new models for milling, turning and Wire
EDM with the STEP models for geometry and manufacturing features.


----------------------------------------
STEP Manufacturing

The size of the STEP Manufacturing group continues to grow. At this
meeting it was decided to organize the group into a team with
responsibility for the following Application Protocols:

    AP-207 	Sheet Metal Design and Manufacturing

    AP-213 	NC Process Plans

    AP-219 	Dimensional Inspection

    AP-224 	Mechanical Product Definition for Process Planning using
	   	Machining Features

    AP-238  	Computerized Numerical Control

    PWI	Rapid Prototyping

Martin Hardwick will be the team leader and the Japanese delegation
has been asked to supply a deputy. The number for the new team is T24
within Wg3.

You can find out more about STEP-Manufacturing by visiting the team
archives at the following address on the STEP Tools web site. You are
also welcome to join the e-mail exploder shown at the address.

    http://www.steptools.com/forums/standards-dev.html


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Implementation Methods

David Loffredo of STEP Tools, Inc. is the new deputy leader of WG11
the working group responsible for the STEP Implementation Methods such
as Part 21, the SDAI and Part 28 (XML). He replaces David Price of IBM
who is moving on after many years of excellent service.

Highlights of the meeting for the Implementation Methods group
include:

* Final consensus was reached on the second edition of Part 21 to
  support modules.

* The final issues on the SDAI C binding have been resolved and 
  it will be sent to Geneva for publication as a full international
  standard.

* Good progress was made on resolving the EXPRESS-X ballot comments
  and a new version should be ready for the review at the next meeting
  in San Francisco.

* A good start was made on developing an XML Schema Implementation
  method under Part 28.

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

Summary: 
Period Covered: Sun Feb 18 03:25:02 2001 -- Sun Feb 25 03:25:02 2001 
Total usage: 113 
Successful usage: 110 (97%) 
Errors: 3 (2%)

Translator              total   errors  success rate
ACIS to STEP:		12      0       100% 
STEP to ACIS:		22      0       100% 
AP203 Checker:		47      0       100% 
CEB XML Writer:         1       0       100% 
OSEB XML Writer:        3       0       100% 
Parasolid to STEP:      2       0       100% 
STEP to Parasolid:      2       0       100% 
Visualization Service:  1       0       100%
======================================= 

All-Time stats
------------------------------------ 
Summary: 
Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun Feb 25 03:25:41 2001 
Total usage: 12177 
Successful usage: 10918 (89%) 
Errors: 1259 (10%)


----------------------------------------- 
Tools From STEP Tools, Inc.

The world's foremost firms use the STEP Tools product line to help 
them share engineering product information. Over one million people 
use product data applications built with ST-Developer, the company's 
flagship product.

Manufacturing Tools: 
*       ST-Repository -- a database for sub-contracting manufacturing 
        tasks over the Internet.

Programming Tools: 
*       ST-Developer -- programming tools for writing STEP applications, 
        translators and databases. 
*       ST-ACIS Library -- programming functions to convert STEP data 
        to and from ACIS models and SAT files. 
*       ST-Parasolid Library -- programming functions to convert STEP 
        data to and from Parasolid models.

Desktop Tools: 
*       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. 
*       ST-Viewer -- desktop tool to view, analyze and check the accuracy 
        of STEP data. 


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