GOVERNMENT

UGS, a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced Femap Version 9, the latest release of the company's Windows desktop software solution for advanced finite element analysis (FEA). Enhancements include a flexible, streamlined Windows user interface based on the latest Microsoft technology; significant increases in finite element modeling performance; continued and strengthened integration with the world's leading structural and thermal solvers; and advances in integration to NX Nastran software. "Femap Version 9 is significant because of its many customer requested enhancements as well its improved ease of use," said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice president of products, UGS. "It is proof of our dedication to satisfying our customers' needs and it further validates our commitment to provide the world's leading CAE capabilities even to customers who use CAD systems other than UGS NX, such as CATIA, Pro/Engineer, AutoDesk, SolidWorks and Solid Edge." "Our goal is to turn every customer into a reference customer," said George Laird, founder and president, Predictive Engineering. "Our experience in working with UGS to test the latest version of Femap was extremely positive. We are a small company providing advanced support, training and consulting and the new release of Femap will help us win new business. Femap is invaluable to us as it doesn't have a particular solver preference and it isn't aligned with a particular CAD program. It supports them all! As we work with an increasingly diversified set of clients, that's extremely important." "Femap provides a CAD-neutral solution that scales well within any organization, regardless of business size or product complexity," said Grindstaff. "We believe our open, customer-centric approach to product development translates directly into competitive advantages for our customers." Femap Version 9 -- Major Enhancements New and powerful graphical user interface -- Femap has provided both power and simplicity in finite element modeling for more than 20 years and continues that focus today with the availability of an optional new graphical user interface that provides streamlined, direct access to all the Femap functionality. The greatest productivity enhancement in Femap Version 9 is the way the user interacts with the program and FEA model. The new interface makes it possible to more quickly navigate and access commands and functionality, and streamlines the finite element modeling, analysis and post-processing routines. Current Femap users can continue to work with the "classic" Femap user interface or can take advantage of the many new user interface features such as: - customizable, floating dockable toolbars, along with 17 standard toolbars - multiple Femap models in the same work session as well as multiple views per model - ability to "cut and paste" from one model to another - the Model Information Tree, which provides direct access to higher level entities - an Entity Editor that enables direct review and editing of Femap model data as well as the ability to copy and paste data into other Windows applications with complete retention of the formatting - a Data Table that provides a convenient grid-based tabular representation of Femap model data - A Toolbar Entity Selector that allows Femap entities to be selected from the top level of the user interface Finite element modeling performance -- Enhanced modeling performance through updates to finite element meshing algorithms including automatic grouping and removal of "sliver surfaces" that often lead to tedious manual clean-up of imported CAD geometry. Integration with widely used digital simulation tools -- Femap Version 9 continues to support tight integration with the latest versions of the world's leading structural and thermal solvers such as NX Nastran, MSC.Nastran, ANSYS, ABAQUS, LS-DYNA, TMG, Sinda-G, TRASYS and many others. Nastran analysis efficiency -- Femap Version 9 supports the direct reading of results from the Nastran XDB file as well as the recently announced NX Nastran Version 3. - Nastran XDB file -- the interface displays information about the model being read and shows what output is available in the file. Users have the ability to select the specific output type they want to read,choosing to limit the output read to specific Nastran cases or time steps as well as limiting the output to a predefined group of nodes or elements. This allows a user to work with large output files without performance degradation. - NX Nastran Version 3 -- this recent version of NX Nastran includes an optional advanced nonlinear (Solution 601) module based on the world- class ADINA non-linear structural analysis solver technology. With this option, users of Femap and NX Nastran will be able to perform more advanced nonlinear simulations such as contact, large displacement, time-dependent loading and nonlinear material properties while continuing to use standard Nastran input and output file formats and Nastran simulation work processes. - Integrated desktop versions of NX Nastran Version 3 are available with Femap Version 9. Nastran, the world's most widely used finite-element analysis (FEA) software, was previously primarily available only from MSC.Software Corporation as MSC.Nastran. Based on the MSC.Nastran source code, NX Nastran now enables companies to accurately predict functional performance and evaluate multiple product design alternatives more efficiently. In the process, companies can gain quicker design insights and make smarter engineering decisions earlier in the design process -- leading to the creation of high performance, high quality and more innovative products while reducing total product costs. Femap Version 9 will ship to customers in Q1 2005.