Toronto, Ontario – November 12th, 2008 -- Okino Computer Graphics, a leading provider of high quality 3D data translation solutions to the enterprise Fortune 1000 market, announced that its third major generation of precise solids-based CATIA v4+v5 R19 and ACIS SAT CAD importers are now shipping. Based on components from Dassault Systèmes (the developers of the CATIA 3D modeling software) and Spatial Corp, the importers provide the most accurate, rock stable and the highest quality import conversions possible since they share the same runtime code as used by the CATIA v5 modeling software and the Spatial ACIS modeling engine.
The CATIA stand-alone program (made by Dassault Systèmes and distributed by IBM) is an integrated suite of Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Engineering (CAE), and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) applications for digital product definition and simulation. It allows manufacturers to simulate all the industrial design processes, from the pre-project phase, through detailed design, analysis, simulation, assembly and maintenance. CATIA is primarily used by the automotive and aerospace industries for automobile and aircraft product and tooling design (it is well known for being used by Boeing to design their massive airplanes, or NASA to help design the Space Shuttle). There are roughly 20,000 companies worldwide using CATIA with roughly 30,000 seats sold per year.
Spatial's ACIS is the prominent 3D modeling engine used by hundreds of software developers in more than 14 industries worldwide, including CAD/CAM/CAE, AEC, animation, and shipbuilding. ACIS provides some of the world's most recognized software developers and manufacturers with the underlying 3D modeling functionality necessary for creating innovative, high-performance applications. Okino's new importers use the ACIS kernel as a key component to handle the BREP solids from the CATIA and ACIS SAT files. "SAT" is the native file format supported by the ACIS modeling engine and is supported natively by many third party CAD modeling programs.
When combined with Okino's CAD data optimization routines (for hierarchy & part count simplification), very complex assemblies can be imported, optimized, reduced, composed, then loaded into 3D packages and 3D file formats such as 3ds Max, Maya, Lightwave, Softimage|XSI, Cinema-4D, AutoCAD, Adobe Director, Quest-3D, Rhino, Visual Components 3DCreate, Collada, DWF-3D, FBX, HOOPS HSF, JT, NGRAIN 3KO, OpenFlight/Creator, PLY, Sketch Up, STL, U3D, X3D/VRML2, XAML-3D and many others.
"This is one of our most important and crucial set of CAD importers for our PLM and large enterprise users, such as Boeing, GM, Ford and other key customers," said Robert Lansdale, President & CEO of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc., "My focus since initiating Okino software in 1988 has always been to provide the highest quality CAD data repurposing and conversion solutions, and to allow all disparate departments of large enterprise companies (such as engineering, design, marketing and support) to easily exchange product data without the need to rebuild their CAD datasets. With a huge number of existing CATIA and ACIS seats, our third generation of CATIA v4+v5 and SAT importers allow such users to easily repurpose their native CAD files to a dizzying number of downstream software applications and file formats supported by our PolyTrans and NuGraf packages. Downstream uses include product documentation and manual creation, animation and rendering software, visual communication and review of data, and for accessing simpler and easier to manipulate versions of the original CAD datasets. Our third major release is based on the ACIS R19 modeling engine and the newest Dassault Systèmes CATIA v5 runtime libraries. As such, these importers provide top notch, completely robust, and dependable performance. They have also been extensively field tested prior to this open release."
Major Benefits of the CATIA and ACIS CAD Importers to Users of Okino's Software
- Supports CATIA v5 parts (.catpart), assembly (.cadproduct) and mesh visualization (.cgr) files, as well as the import of the assembly structure information.
- Supports CATIA v4 .model and .dlv (mainframe), .exp (export) and .session files. The .model files are generally used for one part files while .dlv and .exp files are used for multipart creation.
- Supports ACIS SAT (text) and SAB (binary) files up to ACIS R19 (the current release from Spatial).
- Many options to control the import of the data. Import by body, face, bodies + faces or bodies + shells + faces. This allows rendering materials to be applied at the finest granularity (faces) or the coarsest (bodies).
- Extensive tessellation controls (see WEB page references below for explanations).
- Model healing (for CATIA v4) and erroneous surface repairs (for CATIA v4 & v5).
- Selective layer import for CATIA v4 and v5 files.
- Importing via the CATIA and SAT "solids-based" file formats ensure that adjacent NURBS patches are "stitched" together via topology information (BREP data) and thus creates "crack free" tessellation when the NURBS or parametric solids are converted to a polygonal mesh.
- Imports CATIA and ACIS SAT CAD file formats directly into the user interfaces of 3ds Max, Maya, XSI, Adobe Director, Cinema-4D, Visual Components, Quest-3D (and other third party programs) via native PolyTrans plug-in systems. These are by far the most refined, developed and best methods to directly import solids-based CAD files into these programs.
- The CAD importers include a vital built-in Okino hierarchy/part optimization tool to reduce the complexity of the imported CAD files before re-exporting to other 3D animation packages and downstream file formats. This processing is particularly important when importing large CAD assemblies into 3ds Max, Maya, XSI and Lightwave.
Applicable WEB pages
The following are pertinent pages on the Okino WEB site relating to this press release:
http://www.okino.com/conv/imp_catia5.htm = Okino CATIA v5 importer module overview
http://www.okino.com/conv/imp_catia4.htm = Okino CATIA v4 importer module overview
http://www.okino.com/conv/imp_sat.htm = Okino ACIS SAT importer module overview
http://www.okino.com/conv/conv.htm = PolyTrans home page
http://www.okino.com/nrs/nrs.htm = NuGraf home page
http://www.okino.com/conv/filefrmt.htm = Supported file formats
http://www.okino.com/conv/users.htm = List of notable users
http://www.okino.com/testimon.htm = Customer testimonials and product reviews
http://www.okino.com/press/releases.htm = Recent Okino press releases
Available Through VARs
Existing Okino users of the CATIA import modules (who are under a valid maintenance contract) have already been informed of this new version. For new purchases, the CATIA v4, CATIA v5 and ACIS SAT importer modules are individually available from Okino Computer Graphics and through a number of Value Added Resellers (VARs) in the design, CAD and multimedia markets. Fully functional demonstration versions (with minor limitations) of the software are available through Okino’s Internet WEB site at http://www.okino.com.
Product Pricing
Pricing for the CAD modules can be read online at http://www.okino.com/conv/order/order.htm. To locate an authorized VAR or for customer inquiries, please email sales@okino.com or contact Okino Computer Graphics at (905) 672-9328 or toll free at (888) 3D-OKINO (1-888-336-5466).
About Okino Computer Graphics
With development starting January 28th 1988, Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. (Toronto, Canada) is an industry leader + pioneer in the development and deployment of 3D data re-purposing software that allows professional 3D software users to intelligently and accurately convert/view/render/modify 3D data and assets between most major CAD, DCC and VisSim software packages. Okino software is used the world over by all major Fortune 1000 companies, 20 of the top 21 defense contractors, the top 15 automotive manufacturers, and tens of thousands of production studios, 3D content creation, game development, CAD, engineering and product design companies (as broken out in the Okino customer user list at www.okino.com/conv/users.htm). For more information about Okino, please visit www.okino.com.
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Attention editors. This document, as well as screen snapshots and related documents for the press can be obtained electronically by visiting http://www.okino.com/press/magpics.htm
PolyTrans and NuGraf are registered trademarks of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. Okino is a trademark of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. CATIA is a registered trademark of Dassault Systèmes. ACIS and SAT are registered trademarks of Spatial Corp. 3ds Max, Maya and AutoCAD are egistered trademarks of Autodesk Inc. Lightwave is a registered trademark of Newtek Inc. Softimage|XSI is a registered trademark of Softimage Corp. CINEMA 4D is a registered trademark of MAXON Computer. Adobe, Director and Shockwave-3D are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.