PTC Lifts the Project Lightning Curtain,Introducing Creo29 Oct, 2010By: Nancy Spurling Johnson

Promising to redefine the CAD market, a new suite of role-specific product-development apps support any mode of modeling and can incorporate data from anyCAD system. New versions of Pro/E, CoCreate, and ProductView are rebranded forimmediate availability.

All the buzz and speculation that grew from PTC's announcement last spring of the mysterious Project Lightning ended

yesterday when the company introduced an entirely new suite of mechanical CAD and related software applications

called Creo. Does Creo live up to the hype that preceded the announcement? Yes, in many ways, it does. In fact, PTC is

banking on Creo so much that it is ditching the brand names — just the names, not the technologies — of Pro/ENGINEER,

CoCreate, and ProductView, all of which come into the Creo fold immediately.

PTC's announcement earlier this year promised to redefine the CAD market, changing it for the next 20 years. The company

carried out this theme at a global web presentation dubbed Project Lightning: Unveiled that started off with four convicts —

labeled Teamwork, Efficiency, Creativity, and Value — being escorted to a jail cell to illustrate the company's assertion that

these pursuits have been "locked away by the tradeoffs of traditional CAD." The webcast introduced Creo and its ground-

breaking new approach to product design and development, then concluded by playing "I'm Free" by The Who. A recorded

version of the Project Lightning: Unveiled web presentation is now available online.

All About Creo

What makes Creo so different? It's not a product, said CEO Jim Heppelmann, but a suite of simple applications, or apps,

that are purpose-built for specific roles, or users, in the product-development process. The apps concept itself is unique but

not surprising. It's the technology surrounding the apps that takes the Creo concept beyond the norm.

As PTC puts it, "Creo will deliver four breakthrough technologies that address the lingering challenges of usability,

interoperability, technology lock-in and assembly management. " They include:

AnyRole Apps offer customers the right tool, for the right user at the right time, from industrial designers andengineers to project managers and marketers. Brian Shepherd, executive vice-president, product development,called them the Goldilocks of products — that is, "just right" apps.

AnyMode Modeling is built on PTC's CoCreate and Pro/ENGINEER technologies to enable users to design and usedata in any modeling mode — 2D, 3D direct, or 3D parametric — without losing intelligence or design intent. Modelscan begin as a 2D sketch using simple drawing and dragging, then users can move the design to 3D and it willmaintain the model's geometry and intelligence. "This level of fluency is unprecedented," said Michael Campbell,divisional vice-president, Creo product development.

Changes that one user makes to a design via the direct modeling approach will appear highlighted when the model

is opened in the parametric modeling environment, and that user can accept or reject the proposed changes.

Switching between design mode poses no risk of data loss, PTC reported.

A demonstration of specific new modeling capabilities is available in the Project Lightning: Unveiled web

presentation.

AnyData Adoption allows users to incorporate data from any CAD system and it becomes native Creo data, PTCexplained. Then you can visualize, edit, and analyze the design, create toolpaths, or perform any number of otherproduct development tasks.

AnyBOM Assembly gives teams the option to link Creo and PLM (product lifecycle management) — or not. Users cancreate and validate serial number-specific product configurations by bringing any bill of materials into any Creo app.

Creo architecture: At the top, it is a suite of role-specific applications, or apps, for the different people involved in the

product-development process. The apps are built on a common data model that support work in a multi-CAD

environment. A configuration kernel supports a new approach to assembly modeling that bridges the gap between

assemblies at the enterprise level and systems like Windchill PLM, and in the design tool environment.

New Branding for Familiar Products

Rob Gremley, PTC executive vice-president of marketing, took the stage at the web presentation to clarify how PTC plans to

transition the current product line to the Creo suite of applications. "Creo is created from the elements of Pro/ENGINEER,

CoCreate, and ProductView with a lot of other code mixed in," Gremley said. "That term, elements, is critical because it's the

tie that binds these products to the future of Creo. That tie is so critical and so meaningful to our customers, that today we're

also announcing the rebranding, the renaming, of these products — Pro/ENGINEER, CoCreate, and ProductView — as Creo

products."

Pro/ENGINEER will be renamed Creo Elements/ProCoCreate will be renamed Creo Elements/DirectProductView will be renamed Creo Elements/View

The new names, Gremley explained, communicate the future of the familiar products while maintaining their ties to the past.

"These products are here and alive and well, they're maintained, they're supported, they're valued." Read more about

the rebranding of existing PTC products on the PTC web site.

PTC announced it will rebrand Pro/ENGINEER, CoCreate, and ProductView as elements of the Creo suite.

Open System

Creo is designed as a "very open system," Shepherd said, and PTC partners will deliver even more apps to extend its reach.

Following the PTC announcement, Luxion announced that Keyshot, its real-time ray tracing and global illumination program,

will integrate with Creo. Henrik Wann Jensen, chief scientist and co-founder of Luxion, said, "With a few clicks, users can

take their part or assembly file in their desired representation and transfer it to KeyShot.

VISTAGY demonstrated its FiberSIM composites engineering software running in a Creo environment. The Creo version of

FiberSIM adopts PTC's new user interface and ribbon menu. VISTAGY will continue to support PTC's existing installed base,

while providing clear upgrade paths, the company reported.

Availability

Creo Elements products are available now. Creo 1.0 is expected to be available mid-year 2011, followed by Creo 2.0 next

fall.

The Creo product roadmap shows the timing of new app releases to come.

What's in a Name

About the new name, Heppelmann explained that creo is the Latin root of the word create. It's a full word in Spanish, Latin,

and other languages as well, where depending on the context of its use, means, "I think, I create, I believe."

More information about Creo is available on the Creo product page on PTC.com and in the Creo blog.