STEP Tools News for Wednesday September 5th

[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


---------------------- 
White Paper on STEP-NC

A white paper on STEP-NC has been written describing the lessons 
learned in the demonstration held at General Dynamics Land Systems in 
early August. The paper is available on request.

The main lesson learned is how STEP-NC makes machining easier, safer 
and more flexible for the operator. Just like a motor car putting more 
electronics "under the hood" makes a machine tool easier and safer to 
operate. We put a STEP-NC interpreter, GibbsCAM and an MDSI controller 
under the hood and came up with a system that can be controlled using 
just three buttons:

   RUN - Read and fully execute all the STEP-NC working steps in 
   the AP-238 file and post the result to the MDSI controller for 
   immediate execution.

   VERIFY - Read and execute the STEP-NC working step data, populate 
   the Virtual Gibbs software and use that software to check for 
   collisions or other manufacturing problems.

   DOCUMENT - Read and execute the STEP-NC commands but this time use 
   the Virtual Gibbs software to create a spreadsheet describing the 
   part before and after each operation


---------------------------- 
ST-Developer v9 Ready to Go!

The code of V9 has been frozen and the documentation has been sent to 
the printers. The first copies will be shipped to users next week. If 
you have been waiting to renew your maintenance then now is a good time!

For details on the release see the Newsletter from July 24th at
http://www.steptools.com/mail-archive/st-announce/maillist.html


------------------------------------ 
Containment Early Binding for XML v2

We have learnt a lot about how to process STEP XML data in our STEP-NC 
and shipbuilding projects. These lessons are now being captured in 
Version 2 of the CEB which will be one of the inputs to Edition 2 of 
Part 28.

The new Containment Early Binding has been optimized for processing 
using the Document Object Model (DOM). The DOM processes XML data by 
accessing attributes in that data using Xpath expressions. A DOM based 
application is easier to implement when these Xpath expressions are 
easier to define and maintain.

Xpath expressions are regular if the nesting of STEP XML data is 
predictable. In its projects STEP Tools has found that this is the 
case if the STEP XML data follows the rules developed to describe 
complex data for SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).

http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/

An elaboration of the SOAP rules is required to handle the AND/OR 
inheritance allowed in STEP but most of this elaboration can be 
handled by adopting naming rules to distinguish between the required 
attributes of a nested element and those introduced by AND/OR 
inheritance.

A white paper outlining the new CEB is also available on request. 
The ST-XML extension to ST-Developer lets you use XML in your STEP 
applications. More information is on our home page.


--------------------------- 
Summary: 

Period Covered: Sun Aug 26 03:25:02 2001 -- Sun Sep 2 03:25:02 2001 
Total usage: 84 
Successful usage: 80 (95%) 
Errors: 4 (4%)

Translator total errors success rate 
ACIS to STEP: 18 0 100% 
STEP to ACIS: 15 2 86% 
AP203 Checker: 1 0 100% 
CEB XML Writer: 5 0 100% 
Parasolid to STEP: 10 0 100% 
STEP to Parasolid: 3 2 33%

======================================= 
All-Time stats 
------------------------------------ 
Summary: 

Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun Sep 2 03:25:48 2001 
Total usage: 14339 
Successful usage: 12988 (90%) 
Errors: 1351 (9%)


--------------------------- 
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.

Data Management Tools: 
* ST-Repository -- STEP database with WSDL/SOAP services for sharing 
STEP-CAD, STEP-PDM and STEP-NC information with the supply chain.

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. 
* ST-XML -- programming functions to convert STEP data to STEP XML and 
business object data.

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 dimension STEP data. 





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