UGS Corp., a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced that Tech Soft America (TSA), a leading provider of graphics components to the CAD/CAM/CAE software industry and an established reseller of UGS' Parasolid 3D modeling software, has become the latest member of the rapidly expanding JT Open Program. In addition, TSA will integrate its HOOPS 3D Application Framework (HOOPS/3dAF) software with the JT data format. UGS made the announcement in conjunction with today's opening of the Daratech Summit 2006 event in Cambridge, Mass., where UGS Chairman, CEO and President Tony Affuso delivered a keynote address. The JT data format is the widely adopted 3D data format used throughout the global manufacturing industry to enable product visualization, collaboration and data sharing. The JT Open Program is a global community of leading manufacturers, PLM suppliers and academic institutions with the common goal of promoting JT's ongoing development and its proliferation as the common language for PLM. The decision by TSA to join the JT Open program is a strong endorsement of UGS' strategy leadership in providing an open, inclusive program for industry cooperation that leverages JT to achieve greater collaboration efficiency. "The addition of TSA to the JT Open Program and the integration of its HOOPS/3dAF software with the JT data format continues the strong industry support for JT, and further expands JT's accessibility to an ever-widening worldwide community," said Dave Shirk, executive vice president, Global Marketing, UGS. "As we continue to foster open relationships with quality solution providers like TSA, we further enhance our customers' ability to collaborate and innovate by establishing a common language for PLM." HOOPS integration to accelerate adoption of JT as common language for PLM The integration of HOOPS/3dAF with JT will enable JT Open Program members, using HOOPS/3dAF as their core graphics engine, to seamlessly read and write JT files into their HOOPS/3dAF-based applications. In addition, HOOPS/3dAF customers now have a powerful set of toolkits to help them build applications that leverage the JT format. The companies expect the first level of integration to be available in Q3 2006. HOOPS/3dAF is a set of extensible, high-level components that dramatically simplify the design, development and maintenance of high-performance, interactive 2D/3D applications for Windows, UNIX, LINUX, MAC OS X and Windows CE devices. HOOPS components provide the base infrastructure for building custom, high performance applications, allowing independent software vendors (ISVs) to focus their development efforts on their true value-add. "We remain committed to helping our HOOPS/3dAF developers produce winning applications quickly," said Ron Fritz, managing partner for TSA. "Clearly, JT is a popular format in the global manufacturing community with increasing demand from engineering software developers. This partnership will enable JT Open members to very quickly build applications ranging all the way from lightweight web viewers to heavyweight CAD/CAM/CAE applications using this combined solution. In addition, it will enable our customers who are JT Open members to seamlessly add support for the JT format."