Imera Systems TeamLinks Awarded Top Honor by the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA)
TeamLinks receives Technology Innovation Award 2006

Imera Systems, Inc., the leading provider of secure visual collaboration, support, and remote access solutions, recently announced that its premier product TeamLinks has been awarded the prestigious Recognized Innovator award by the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) at the annual SSPA Leadership Conference. TeamLinks received recognition in Technology Innovation for software that "changes the way companies provide support with patented technology that solves an old problem in a new way."

Imera TeamLinks uses patent-pending technology to seamlessly connect partners, vendors, manufacturers, and customers in a highly secure environment that provides presence awareness and one-click connectivity. Support, design, and development teams use TeamLinks' powerful features to accelerate issue resolution, increase time-to-market, and lower operations costs.

The award comes as Imera gains momentum as a leader in collaboration and support solutions. Imera's expanding customer base includes NetLogic Microsystems, Optimal, Marvell, and a number of network equipment, software, and IT services companies. These companies use TeamLinks to provide one-click support, to remote-drive design tools, to securely access remote applications and perform system management, and to instantly collaborate using TeamLinks' unique combination of presence-awareness for ad hoc meetings, highly granular security control over users, and superior performance for graphic-intensive views.

"I am pleased that The SSPA has recognized TeamLinks for its innovative features such as the ability to drag-and-drop backend support resources into an ongoing customer support session for faster issue resolution," says Jaushin Lee, President and CEO. "TeamLinks meets the challenges of organizations that need visual access to sensitive data, and provides a secure alternative to traditional VPN."

About The SSPA
The SSPA is the largest and most influential industry trade group for technology service and support professionals. Its nearly 200 member companies represent tech support, field service and customer relations organizations around the globe. For more information, visit www.thesspa.com.

About Imera Systems
Located in Silicon Valley, California, Imera Systems provides was founded with the vision that today's business paradigm of outsourcing and distributed development, design, and support teams need something better than scheduled meetings over the Internet with partners, suppliers, and customers. Imera solutions are specifically designed to provide an intuitive highly responsive, presence-aware and secure environment for support, collaboration, and remote access. For more information, visit www.imera.com.

Contact Information:
Robert de Monts
VP, Marketing and Business Development
408 416-3133

Dassault Systèmes Promotes Eco Design
'Light Objects,' competition for sustainable development

Dassault Systèmes announced the winners of its eco design contest, "Light Objects," launched to encourage manufacturers to design environmentally friendly products. DS realized virtual prototypes of the winning entries using CATIA V5.

Participants had to promote the notion of lightness in every way, from material selection, energy usage, security and ergonomics to final recycling. The winning contestant conceived a product named "Pulse" whose sole function consists of streamlining energy use. Daniel Sutherland, the UK creator explains, "Millions of pounds are lost every year by leaving a product on standby. Pulse is designed to identify products in our homes that are not being used and should be switched off to save energy." Through usage, Pulse teaches consumers to manage and optimize their energy at home.

The first runner-up, Andres Roppa from Uruguay, designed a biodegradable toothbrush. Manufactured from corn or potato starch, the product has a closed lifecycle and disintegrates upon over-usage. Waste is minimal as all graphics and instructions are embossed on the brush itself. The second runner-up conceived a parasol, which charges its batteries with solar energy during the day, and uses this energy at night to light a built-in lamp. Ana Maia, based in the UK, created the parasol to be used at an outdoor café or a restaurant with exterior tables, but it can be expanded to the garden or camping contexts.

All of these creations can be made reality by DS' CATIA, ENOVIA and PLM solutions, which are used to conceive everyday objects that help reduce the environmental impacts on our day-to-day living. Philippe Forestier, Executive Vice President Alliances, Marketing & Communications explains, "Because 80 percent of the product's environmental impacts are determined during the design phase, the ability to anticipate stands essential. Using 100 percent digital prototypes, designers can test options and identify solutions that optimize the product's environmental, technical and cost criteria early on in the creation phase, getting it right the first time." The international competition, launched in July 2006 by DS and Core77, a Web community for designers, attracted 700 participants. DS awarded the winner and runners-up a total of USD $9,000, plus professional realizations using its 3D modeling software. To see the "Light Objects" competition results, and learn more about Dassault Systèmes and eco design, visit: www.3ds.com/changerdere.

Dassault Systèmes Launches CATIA PLM Express
25 years of product design excellence - for companies of all sizes

Dassault Systèmes announced CATIA PLM Express, a scalable solution which provides CATIA design excellence at an affordable price, for companies of all sizes. CATIA PLM Express includes flexible solutions tailored to meet existing and future customers' day to day business needs, based on Dassault Systèmes' 25 years of cross industry experience.

"With CATIA PLM Express, we are taking our first steps with PLM. This solution brings us all of the functionality and benefits of CATIA, perfectly adapted to our specific business needs and the company's organization. We are under constant pressure from our customers to innovate and compete in terms of price. With our local partner CSP, we have started discovered a scalable and flexible approach PLM, which allows us to streamline and grow our business profitably by anticipating our customers needs," explains Mr Zanon, founder of Zanon Macchine Agricole. Zanon Macchine Agricole is a leading Italian manufacturer of farming and agricultural equipment with 40 years of experience in creating quality products.

"Online, customers can rapidly and easily define the solution which matches their business needs and request a quotation. Customers speed implementation, reduce time to deployment and improve return on investment - critical for SMBs irrespective of industry," explains Jacques Leveille-Nizerolle, CEO, CATIA, Dassault Systèmes. With CATIA PLM Express, new and existing customers have a single entry point which evolves with their needs and job requirements.

CATIA Team PLM is the core configuration of CATIA PLM Express, giving customers the CATIA modeller for product design, knowledge capture and re-use in a collaborative environment. It also delivers core collaborative PDM functionality via ENOVIA SmarTeam, providing optimized CATIA design management and collaboration, and a solid foundation primed for PLM solution scaling. Once a solution has been defined at: http://www.3ds.com/my-catia-plm-express, customers receive a quote and are contacted rapidly by a local sales partner. Existing customers can seamlessly move to this new offering from their existing CATIA seats.

Dassault Systèmes Integrates NVIDIA Technology into CATIA
Real-time project visualization in 3D, for all company departments

Dassault Systèmes announced the integration of NVIDIA CgFX technology into CATIA V5. This allows designers using CATIA access to advanced visualization capabilities in 3D, creating a seamless engineering and design environment, to increase productivity and reduce product development costs.

"In increasingly diverse and international workplaces, cutting edge collaborative and virtual environments are critical to a company's success. Employees need realistic images or movies of projects in real-time, to work effectively and drive innovation. Our customers need to be able to collect and visualize information from multiple sources, to make effective business decisions. Real-time 3D visualization allows our customers to act at any stage of a project and review products virtually. Before this required a physical prototype," outlines Philippe Laufer, project coordination leader for CATIA Research & Development.

It is critical that design departments can easily share project status throughout an organization in real-time. This speeds decision-making processes and ensures consistency throughout a design project. Everybody within an organization needs access to the information they need when and as required, in 3D. Advanced visualization techniques mean that different organizations within a company can easily master the complexity of virtual products. The integration of Cg shaders into CATIA allows realistic interactive reviews. People have a "look & feel" experience from the earliest design stages.

"CgFX in Catia V5 delivers advanced interactive rendering by using the workstation's graphics processing unit (GPU)," explains Jeff Brown, general manager of NVIDIA Professional Solution Group. "With Cg integration, Dassault Systèmes delivers interactive rendering into the PLM environment. This is very significant because it allows engineers, designers, and visualizations specialists to integrate their custom Cg shaders into initial design studies and through the product lifecycle process."

NVIDIA CgFX technology is integrated with Dassault Systèmes' CATIA Real Time Rendering 2, across DS' complete PLM portfolio: CATIA, ENOVIA VPLM, DELMIA. This is available as part of Dassault Systèmes' Version 5 Release 17.

ICAM Technologies - Advanced NC Manufacturing Solutions

ICAM showcases fully integrated CATIA V5 / CAM-POST / DELMIA NC manufacturing solutions at the Presented at the COE 2006 Automotive and Aerospace Workshops at booth ##10 and ##35, respectively.

ICAM will also introduce CAM-POST V17® and Control Emulator. Don't miss this opportunity to attend live demonstrations of these new product releases from ICAM's senior applications engineers.

ICAM Releases CAM-POST V17

CAM-POST V17, ICAM's advanced NC manufacturing solution, offers enhanced tool path planning features that allow NC programmers to optimize their post-processors easily and automatically. Furthermore, implementing Virtual Machine® as an added option to CAM-POST V17, provides graphical machine tool simulation during post-processing for collision detection and avoidance. Further information may be obtained directly at the workshops.

ICAM Introduces Control Emulator for DELMIA MCD-Based Machine Tool Simulation

Control Emulator (CE) allows NC users to simulate and test NC programs from ISO machine code within the CATIA / DELMIA V5 environment. CE provides a new and powerful way to validate NC programs and allows for specific modifications based on simulation results.

Click on image for CE / DEMIA video demo

Obtain a Special 20% Discount on CE!

Available only until December 15, 2006, ICAM will offer a special 20% discount on CE license purchases exclusively to ICAM booth visitors that have attended a DELMIA / Control Emulator product demonstration.

ICAM / CAM-POST Benefit Highlights

• 35 years of industry leadership in NC post-processing
• CATIA V5 user community comprised of the foremost aerospace / automotive companies
• Unrivaled CATIA V5 NC machining expertise
• Dassault Systèmes OSD Partnership
• Extensive team of highly skilled Application Engineers
• Committed R&D Department
• Network of Leading CNC Machine Tool & NC Control Partner
• CAM-POST V17
• Supports advanced machine tool features such as tool-tip programming, coordinate frame transformations and feedrate optimization
• Supports CATIA V5 as well as all major CAD / CAM / PLM Systems and CNC equipment
• Provision of over 200 default CAM-POST NC control models and machine types
• CAM-POST provides advanced built-in optimization features to enhance manufacturing efficiency and productivity

Advanced Options

• NURBS interpolation and arc fitting of point-to-point data
• Sub-programs for optimal organization
• High-Speed Machining Emulation, Circular Interpolation, Canned-Cycles and Multi-axis support
• Integrated machine tool simulation option, Virtual Machine, for collision, over-travel detection and avoidance and gouging verification

Supplying manufacturing technology to the aerospace and automotive industries' leading organizations in the manufacturing industry such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Daimler Chrysler and Ford have successfully adopted CAM-POST products and services to meet their NC manufacturing needs. Moreover, with the provision of over 200 default CAM-POST NC control models and machine types, advanced multi-axis NC post-processing is simplified; thereby, allowing NC users to concentrate on their manufacturing programs.

About ICAM Technologies Corporation
For over 35 years ICAM Technologies Corporation has been specializing in the development and implementation of advanced NC post-processing and integrated machine tool simulation solutions for manufacturers in major industries around the world. ICAM customers benefit from dramatic improvements to CNC machine optimization, NC programmer productivity and manufacturing process efficiency.

We look forward to seeing you at the show. In the meantime, should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call Phil Masella at 1.800.827.ICAM or visit our Web site at www.icam.com.

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CADSEEK Solving the CAD Search Problem

• All manufacturing, engineering and architectural firms face a daunting challenge in managing engineering information. CAD files, the core component of engineering data, are typically dispersed across an organization.
• Different versions of parts are often co-mingled and finding a desired file can be a time-consuming process with obvious consequences on an employee's productivity.
• The sheer volume of data produced in larger companies magnifies the problem. Difficulty in finding CAD files across a large organization where hundreds of thousands or millions of CAD files are being used is a theme found repeatedly in industry literature.
• Traditional text-based search technologies have limited value because file names are often part numbers or cryptic references to the assembly in which the part belongs.
• Resulting problems caused by this inefficiency are significant.
  • There can be an obvious loss of productivity due to employees looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
  • Cost and parts redundancies are often created by the inability to locate an already-existing part.
  • Larger companies universally recognize that they have significant parts redundancy, creating unnecessary expense.

Until now, they've simply lacked the tools needed to locate the relevant data in a systematic way.

CADSEEK™ Is The Solution

• CADSEEK - a shape-based search engine - can solve these problems by using 3D part geometry as the basis for the search, rather than a text-based description or one using other limited parameters. The CADSEEK software compares the geometry of the search file against existing CAD files to find and report parts that have the most similar geometries.
• CADSEEK's geometric search technology is based on a software algorithm that encodes 3D CAD files in a way that allows for the comparison and scoring for file similarity. Since the algorithm captures the totality of shapes including surfacing information and associated detail, CADSEEK's shape coding is extremely accurate, producing unparalleled search precision.
• This exclusive geometric search technology provides for linear scalability and works regardless of changes in orientation.
• Due to this patent-pending coding algorithm, the technology works on assemblies of components with the same ease and efficiency as it does for a single component.
• CADSEEK includes two fully-functional, easy to integrate software modules:
  1. Search Engine (Figure 1) - Exclusive geometric-based shape search mechanism for finding and comparing parts or assemblies for similarity.
     
     Figure 1.
  2. Visual Navigator (Figure 2) - The total CAD database visualization module.
     
     Figure 2.

The CADSEEK software is simple to comprehend and use. Its straightforward design gives users confidence in their ability to use the software after a very short demonstration. There are four ways to begin using CADSEEK:

1. Through a simple drop-down menu, click/load a file known to be similar to the target.
2. Enter all or a portion of a part name or number.
3. Use a CAD program to quickly sketch a part (a skeleton design). The CADSEEK system then compares the geometry of the skeleton design to that of CAD files in the company's databases.
4. Use Visual Navigator (Figure 2) to scan (zoom over) the database and pick a CAD file from any of the family or clusters of spheres.

The operator can loosen the search tolerance by pressing a single button to find larger and larger numbers of matches, expanding the number of matches until the reported items are no longer near the target's cluster. In addition, there is seamless integration with CAD packages by simply clicking on the link below the target thumbnail (i.e. "Load to Pro/E" in Figure 1).

The Visual Navigator uses the exclusive CADSEEK algorithm to provide a complete visualization of CAD database files. These files are clustered by part/assembly similarity and displayed as spheres, which vary in size depending on the number of files that make up the cluster. They can also be grouped in any manner such as by material, corporate division, project, supplier and so on. In Figure 2, there are four groups represented by the four different colors. By clicking on a particular dataset, you can turn a group on or off in the display. Users can "fly" through the sphere's 3D space for a view of the totality of the company's CAD files. They can also select a specific sphere (highlighted sphere in Figure 2) and get detailed information about the cluster, including a representation of the "average" part, the number of parts, along with other details (left frame). Parts can also be selected from the Visual Navigator to reset the CADSEEK search engine for a new target.

CADSEEK™ Benefits
Use of CADSEEK fits perfectly with Lean Enterprise programs designed to eliminate waste in organizations, ultimately improving quality, productivity and profitability. CADSEEK provides major time and cost saving benefits including:

• Elimination of Existing Redundancies - CADSEEK can be used to identify redundant parts. Companies are seeking methods to reduce part redundancies, a process that the industry refers to as assembly checking or assembly policing. These concepts are key to strategic sourcing (i.e. limiting the number of vendors to gain negotiating power, volume discounts, standardized quality, simpler maintenance, and lower logistical costs). Such efforts arose from the realization that companies often purchase interchangeable parts from multiple vendors at different price points. CADSEEK's Visual Navigator can be used to reveal areas where there are high concentrations of similar parts and the CADSEEK search engine can allow quick location of parts in greater detail.
• Elimination of New Redundancies - Engineering managers are concerned that a new part they are assigning for design might be highly similar to an existing part. If the design engineer was aware that a highly similar part existed, he/she might be able to incorporate that part "as is," or with only a slight modification, into the new design. Doing so would avoid the cost of designing and testing the new part, as well as the ongoing expenses related to tooling, capacity, warranty and inventory carrying costs.
• Standardization of Custom Parts - Related to the item above, CADSEEK becomes a tool for helping corporations create a company-wide "standard" part list. This will allow custom parts manufactured by the company to be standardized across the organization so that a proprietary item like a manifold can be found and adopted into new designs, instead of sourcing parts from vendors, contract manufacturers, or designing a new custom part. CADSEEK provides a method for a department to market their custom parts across the company, and thereby offering those parts as the company standard. Parts could even be marketed outside the organization if desired.
• Availability of Cost Data - Prior to initiating a design, an engineer may need a "ballpark" production cost in order to determine financial feasibility of a finished part before investing weeks or months producing detailed CAD drawings. However, even internal manufacturing departments are highly resistant to providing "ballpark quotes" without first seeing detailed D or 3D CAD drawings. CADSEEK provides an engineer a quick method to finding and determining like manufacturing costs.
• Problem Solving and Efficiency - By being able to find and examine similar parts quickly, a designer can gain insight for their new part by seeing how engineers previously overcame design complexities. In most cases a design engineer will be able to modify the old CAD file faster than they can create the new design from scratch.

The CADSEEK™ Difference - Voxel vs. Surface-based Technology

• The Voxel approach was the starting point for research by the founder of CADSEEK in the early 1 990s. Based on work started then, Dr. Abir Qamhiyah presented and published papers for both the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) on the Voxel approach for geometric search. This approach, while interesting, was deemed too limited in scale and accuracy by Dr. Qamhiyah to be worthy of commercialization.
• The Voxel methodology was adapted for part searches, using the volume of the part as the method for comparison. The Voxel model is thinned and mapped into a graph. Graph matching is then applied to create clusters and determine similarity. Thinning is a necessary process to allow part comparisons within available computing power and time frames.
• CADSEEK uses an efficient surface-based approach and not the Voxel approach.

Fundamentals underlying the Voxel approach and CAD software are very different, whereas the principles underlying CADSEEK and CAD software are very similar, which provides many advantages, including: accuracy, scalability, orientation independence and assembly file capability.

1. Accuracy - Voxel thinning results in highly simplistic representations of the original CAD file. This results in highly dissimilar parts being reported as potential matches. With CADSEEK, even the smallest of features are captured in the CADSEEK model and used in comparison, allowing for a much higher degree of accuracy.
2. Scalability - Comparison methods of part files differ somewhat between competitors - one uses a graph-matching approach while another uses a feature-vector approach. Both create exponential scaling problems (comparisons become more difficult as the complexity of the part increases, or the number of parts in the database increases). This scaling issue would then be multiplied by the hundreds, thousands or millions of parts in the CAD file database being searched. CADSEEK uses a single numerical vector to represent an object. Therefore, while competitors scale exponentially, CADSEEK scales in a linear fashion.
3. Orientation - Other solutions have issues regarding the orientation (direction) of the part. If the orientation of the part in the new file is drawn differently than the orientation of a similar part in the database, the competing software will have significant problems identifying a match. CADSEEK's coding methodology completely eliminates orientation as a criterion on which the match is based.
4. Assemblies - In many cases, even relatively simple items are a collection of a number of component parts. In the same way, a master CAD file, (an assembly file), can be composed of a number of individual CAD files. CADSEEK is the only product that can perform matching on complex assembly files

About iSEEK Corporation
Nearly 15 years of research in geometric reasoning and in CAD search technology mark the career of iSEEK co-founder Dr. Abir Qamhiyah. She became President and CEO of iSEEK when it was established in 004. She was joined by Dr. Don Flugrad with whom she has collaborated on numerous teaching, research and engineering patents. Dr. Flugrad serves as Senior Vice President and COO of iSEEK.

Together they've worked on developing and refining a fast, efficient and accurate shape-based search technology for CAD databases. The resulting product, CADSEEK, employs algorithms which capture the geometric shapes of objects. Patents are pending for CADSEEK search technology.

The company is located in Ames, Iowa in the Iowa State University Research Park.

More information about Dr. Qamhiyah and Dr. Flugrad is available in the media kit biographies. www.iseekcorp.com