Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Not BMW Oracle Racing


Here is what happens if you cut the design corners a little too tight when designing a racing boat. "There was a lot wind at the time, and it was raining," said the crew's skipper John Bertrand, his hair still wet as he described the mishap later. "The seas were very difficult for this type of boat. I had my head down at the time, and there was a loud crack, almost like a cannon going off. The sailboat's rig started to fold the boat across the center like a sheet of cardboard. It was a sickening sound to hear the boat breaking up."

BMW Oracle Racing


Today's keynote was Thiha Win, one of the designers of BMW Oracle Racing's America's Cup boat. Great study fo cutting edge technology done with ProENGINEER and Windchill amongst other tools. Lots of FEA, CFD and laser analysis of wind pressure too. The stress on the lines supporting the rigid "wing" sail ran as high as 30 tons! Thiha mentioned once a pin gave way, and was shot into the mast embedding itself there. Yikes. See more here: http://bmworacleracing.com/en/yacht/index.html

Local wildlife


Not much of a conversationalist, although he did mention something about car insurance. Be fun to see how my Golden Retrievers would react to these speedy little buggers...

No more PTC/User World Events!


Because next year it will be "Planet PTC Live". PTC is taking over the financial & logistics portions of holding the annual event. PTC/User will still do all the portal, technical committees and exploder etc. The organization (as well as the board personally) were liable for any failure to meet revenue expectations at the events. One bad year could send the organization into bankruptcy. PTC/User will still select the expert presentations as they always have. I think this is a good thing as it opens up possibilities that PTC/User did not have the resources to explore. It also exposes PTC/User more directly in these events around the rest of the world. Stay tuned on this one!

Monday, June 7, 2010

The PTC Booth


Seems even larger than last year. Great chance to ask the experts, and the price is right.

Down on the floor.


If you get a chance check out the large 3D screen Virtalis brought. Flat out fun put-on-the-goggles 3D simulator.

Vincent Brings It!


Vincent Philstrom covered the ProE Assembly PUP this afternoon. He did a really nice job. You can only get so close with an iPhone camera, so this is as good as it gets, sorry. Lots of nice assembly enhancements in WF 5.0.


  • Some very nice repeat & copy-paste of components (and a RMB repeat command, sweet).

  • Some really powerful restructure tools

  • Docked accessory window, basically a nicer version of the component window from past revs.

  • Explode view dashboard interface with a very nice animation capability to the explode/unexplode.

  • Disruption free assembly on missing components. The assembly version of no mandatory resolve mode.

  • Some nice automated reference mapping on the unrelated replace tool.