STEP Tools News for Wednesday October 24

[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

--------------------------------- 
SDAI XML to be included in ST-XML

The SDAI XML is an extension of the SDAI that programmer use 
to transfer data between an SDAI library and a DOM library. DOM 
libraries can be found on most programming desk tops and they 
can be accessed from most programming languages, so putting STEP 
data into the DOM allows it to be manipulated in a very wide 
range of contexts including Visual Basic.

The SDAI XML includes the following functionality:

* An SDAI library for reading, writing and modifying STEP data. 
* A DOM library for reading, writing and modifying XML data. 
* Functionality to transfer data between the SDAI and the DOM 
  and to locate the SDAI equivalent of an XML element and 
  vice versa. 
* EXPRESS-X functionality for synthesizing higher level objects from 
  STEP data before mapping it into XML.

The new SDAI XML will be added in the next version of ST-XML. This 
product already includes libraries to read and write STEP and XML 
data and apply EXPRESS-X mappings to that data. As a result of the 
new functionality it will become possible for STEP experts to write 
systems that send data to DOM clients over the Internet so it can be 
used by a wide variety of enterprise programmers.


------------------------------------- 
STEP Manufacturing Meeting in Fukuoka

The STEP meeting in Fukuoka went well despite the unusual 
circumstances and travel restrictions.

The main item of note was that the team accepted a requirement for 
"in-process" features in STEP-NC and they agreed that the STEP Tools 
proposal was a good one, so either it or something better will be 
included in the document before it is registered as a Draft 
International Standard. For the details of the proposal, see 
http://www.steptools.com/library/stepnc/tech_resources/

Some progress was made on Turning features though there continues to 
be argument about whether STEP-NC should use AP-224 turning features 
or a similar but different set of features that correspond more 
exactly to current practice in industry.

Lastly, there was a debate about a new version of AP-213. The main 
concern is on what the role of this AP may be relative to AP-238. If 
it produces data for the same clients as AP-238 (i.e. CNC machines) 
then industry may become confused.


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

Period Covered: Sun Oct 14 03:25:03 2001 -- Sun Oct 21 03:25:03 2001 
Total usage: 48 
Successful usage: 46 (95%) 
Errors: 2 (4%)
Translator total errors success rate 
ACIS to STEP: 13 0 100% 
STEP to ACIS: 19 1 94% 
Parasolid to STEP: 7 0 100% 

======================================= 
All-Time stats 
------------------------------------ 
Summary: 
Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun Oct 21 03:25:50 2001 
Total usage: 14704 
Successful usage: 13340 (90%) 
Errors: 1364 (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 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. 


== 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.