IronCAD, LLC Announces INOVATE Innovative Design and Collaboration Solution

InnovationSuite Component Simplifies Design Chain Use of 3D Information

ATLANTA, GA., October 4, 2001,IronCAD, LLC, the innovative design solutions company, today announced INOVATE, a low cost, easy to use 3D desktop product for creating, modifying, communicating and interrogating 3D designs. INOVATE is a key component of InnovationSuite (see related announcement today), a fully integrated design and information management environment that encourages creativity, productivity and teamwork.

INOVATE was created to enable all contributors in the New Product Introduction (NPI) process to understand and provide input into a design or concept, resulting in better final products brought to market more quickly and at lower cost. INOVATE improves productivity for all users in an enterprise by combining award-winning technology for simplicity in 3D creation and manipulation, complete design creation flexibility, and easy information sharing between INOVATE and every major design, administrative and graphical product available today. Using INOVATE, a company’s existing models and other files throughout the design chain can be imported, interrogated, modified and communicated to others as models, photo-realistic images or real world animations.

INOVATE’s key capabilities include:

• Efficient, catalog-based drag-and-drop design environment. 3D features (IntelliShapes), parts, assemblies, custom tools, profiles, colors, textures and animations are applied to a design or saved by dragging and dropping with a mouse.
• Consistent, intuitive user interaction technology. The same tools and techniques are used for all modeling, rendering and animation activities, improving productivity for both new and experienced users.
• Photo-realistic image creation with ray tracing, shadows, texture/bump/decal mapping and anti-aliasing, plus special effects and unlimited lights.
• SmartMotions for sophisticated key-frame animation, including graphical editing of 3D animation paths and exporting of fully rendered GIF and AVI files.
• OLE automation support for creating compelling reports and presentations with MicrosoftÒ Office, Lotus® SmartSuite and other common desktop applications.
• The ability to import, modify and use solid data (in SAT, IGES, STEP, Pro/E, CATIA and Parasolid formats) as if it were created natively.
• Extensive support of standards to enable sharing and exchanging data throughout the design process. Some of the many input/output formats include AVI, BMP, DXF, DWG, STL, VRML, PCX, Visual Basic and WMF
• SmartRender, which automatically manipulates rendering style from photo-realistic to wireframe, to maximize realism and interactive performance.

According to Shaun Murphy, VP of Marketing at IronCAD, LLC, “INOVATE is different because it is as easy to use as it is powerful. Modeling, rendering and animating are all done the same easy way—making it the ideal design collaboration and communication tool from concept to production. With its amazingly low price, now everyone can be involved in the innovation process.”

Beta user Maureen Olstad, Senior Project Manager at Skyline Exhibits, comments on INOVATE’s benefits throughout the development process: “INOVATE enables us to conceptualize in 3D directly with our customers, then transmit those concepts seamlessly through the design phase all the way to manufacturing.”

INOVATE is part of InnovationSuite, a fully integrated design and information management solution that was created to enable small-to-medium sized manufacturers and engineering teams to develop products more quickly, at higher quality standards and lower cost. It was developed to be the most cost effective, flexible and easiest to learn and use solution on the market.

Inovate and other InnovationSuite components will begin shipping to customers October 31, 2001 . 

About IronCAD, LLC

Based in Atlanta, GA, IronCAD, LLC is a leading provider of innovative design solutions that deliver the highest levels of customer satisfaction and productivity. Its flagship product family, InnovationSuite, is a fully integrated design and information management environment that encourages creativity, productivity and teamwork with award winning 3D design and collaboration solutions managed through a Web-based Engineering Data Management (EDM) system. Components of InnovationSuite are used by customers throughout the world, including Alcoa, Eastman Kodak, Eaton Corporation, FMC, Greenheck, Intel, Proctor and Gamble, Raytheon, Visteon and Westinghouse.  For additional information, please contact IronCAD, LLC at 1-800-339-7304 or www.ironcad.com.