Pro/E Wildfire 5.0 and direct editing

Pro/Engineer 5.0 highlights + Direct Edit sneak peak from DEVELOP3D on Vimeo.

News just out from PTC, authors of the much lauded Pro Engineer Wildfire CAD program of the pending release of version 5.0 due out sometime in Q4.

Not big news perhaps, but PTC bought Co Create one of the leading, direct modelling or explicit modelling as its sometimes known CAD developers. PTC have been working hard it seems to meld the freedom and ease of use of Co-create and the power of parametric modelling.

The average CAD jockey has been awaiting this technology convergence for more than a decade and we first saw it in a truly usable format with SolidEdge V20 from Siemens PLM with their acclaimed Synchronous Technology or ST for short. It was obvious I suppose that PTC where going to follow this trend as has Autodesk with their pending Inventor Fusion product line up and the same with Catia V6 from Dassault Systems.

Interestingly PTC look like they have gone a step further in integration of the two technologies, whereby both systems work with one interface, without the need to switch from one method to the other with the loss of parametric data, though it's perhaps too early to really tell if this is the case until one can get a hold on a trial version when it's available on general release.

Another interesting move by PTC is the dropping the Lightworks engine in favour of Mental Images rendering engine. Certainly it could be argued that PTC needed to catch up with Solidworks in this area, as do Seimens but Lightworks have also upped their game in recent times too, no doubt brought about by increasing competition from the likes of Bunkspeed Hypershot and Photoworks.

I have to say I’ve always been impressed with Pro Engineer for its scalability and engineering prowess with a whole host of add-on’s that can take you all the way from designing a simple two part clamshell all the way up to a complete Ferrari Formula one car. Indeed whilst looking at purchasing SolidEdge, I also considered Solidworks and Pro Engineer and have to say it was a close run thing between PTC and Siemens offerings. Have I made a mistake? Well I believe that Siemens will rise to the challenges from their competitors and deliver products to match. Time will tell.