Think3 ThinkID DesignXpressions v2005.2

think3, a leading supplier of industrial design and product development solutions, today announced the next-generation of its computer-aided-design system. The thinkiD DesignXpressions Series™, being previewed at MICAD, the leading European forum for product design, production and lifecycle management, introduces a completely different way to think about industrial design. thinkiD DesignXpressions delivers on the promise of "Target-Drive Design," a radically new approach to industrial design that frees designers from the technology constraints of traditional computer-based systems. DesignXpressions improves the design process and shaves 70-90 percent off product cycle time by automatically translating design into manufacturable products. The result is not only better industrial design but also a substantial cost savings and competitive advantage in a range of industries, from automotive to consumer products, where time-to-market is critical to success. "The prior generation of surface and solids modeling tools took a 'Lego' approach to design, involving basic sets of building blocks to assemble shapes that were difficult, if not impossible, to modify to correspond to the designer's vision and intent," said Joe Costello, president and CEO of think3. "thinkiD DesignXpressions is more analogous to sculpting tools that allow designers to flexibly shape the space around objects and fluidly create the objects they envision. This is what we mean by 'Target-Driven Design' and it opens up a whole new world of creativity. The result is more design options, better designs, and a lot more customer choice." Designers reach their design intent by assigning "targets," which can be specific points to be reached, or curves, or even the desired reflection of light on a reference shape. thinkiD DesignXpressions allows designers to focus exclusively on product shape and to express themselves in their own way, then translates their design intent automatically and completely into engineering models for analysis and manufacture. Resulting from the evolution of think3's Global Shape Modeling (GSM) technology introduced in 2001, the new offering is based on think3's pioneering efforts in developing a hybrid modeler that enables designers to create anything by mixing and matching surface and solids modeling to best reach their design goals. Since then, think3 has built upon the foundation of the GSM technology to support a fundamental shift in the way designers and others along the product design/development continuum can use computer-aided design (CAD) software to facilitate both design and production. With today's announcement of the next- generation thinkiD, think3 has begun to realize its goal of "Target-Driven Design.