INDUSTRY

ICEM Ltd., the leading surface modeling, surface analysis and design visualization software developer, has announced its product development ‘roadmap’ for 2005 and beyond. Release of the details coincided with the joint announcement today by Dassault Systèmes and ICEM of a strategic software development partnership agreement between the two companies. Under the terms of this agreement, ICEM becomes a Gold Software Partner in Dassault Systèmes’ Component Application Architecture Version 5 (CAA V5) software partner program. Designed to cater for the needs both of the Dassault Systèmes CATIA V5 software user community and users of other vendors’ collaborative product development (CAD/CAM) and product lifecycle management (PLM) software, ICEM’s product roadmap embraces the company’s existing software products as well as the new CAA V5-based architecture. Three product streams. ICEM’s industry-leading surface modeling, surface analysis and design visualization software suite, ICEM Surf, will continue to be developed, with annual major releases as previously. This will continue to answer the modeling and Class A surface development needs of customers using collaborative product development systems today from vendors such as Dassault Systèmes, UGS, PTC and Autodesk. The next release, ICEM Surf Version 4.5, is scheduled for the summer of this year and will introduce new surface modeling facilities and geometric functions. Meanwhile, ICEM Style will continue to provide integrated concept sketching, product styling, modeling and real-time visualization facilities. The next version of ICEM Style is also scheduled for release in the summer of this year. The new CAA V5-based surface modeling products are scheduled for customer release in Q3, 2005. These will become the standard offering for Dassault Systèmes V5 PLM software users who need a best-in-class surface modeling, surface analysis and design visualization solution as an integral part of an end-to-end PLM solution. These customers will be able to use native CAA V5 data throughout the development process for vehicle bodies and interiors and other manufactured products. ICEM states that, with their support for parametric modeling, associativity and PIM data flows, the new CAA V5-based ICEM products can also be regarded as the evolutionary route for surface modeling within any company implementing a PLM environment, irrespective of its chosen engineering CAD/CAM system.