THIS SECOND INSTALLMENT OF Cadalyst’s MCAD software strategy series continues to focus on midrange solid modeling products. As noted in the first installment (January 2005), virtually all products available today provide competent core tools for solid and surface creation, assembly modeling, drafting and sheet-metal design.

Rather than a point-by-point review of capabilities, our goal is to look at where each product excels from the perspective of the machine, product and mold design industries. Unlike the three we looked at in January (SolidWorks, Solid Edge and Inventor), the lineup here is developed by privately owned companies, so it’s harder to get a handle on such nontechnical factors as the financial stability of the developer.

All of the products here have been around long enough to be able to provide customer references. None of the vendors has an extensive third-party developer corps, so you won’t find too many integrated add-ons. Instead, look for such vendors to support standard exchange formats or to develop their own integrated add-ons. Vendors are also often the main resource for training materials and support, though such materials may be available only to customers who purchase maintenance contracts.

IronCAD the product originated in 1998, but the technology it was based on appeared a few years earlier in the Trispectives product from 3D/EYE, which was acquired by IronCAD developer Visionary Design Systems. Visionary Design Systems was sidetracked by a competing vision to be a Web company. It changed its name to Alventive, developed collaboration products, and in 2001 spun off IronCAD to focus on development of its CAD product.

TriSpectives created quite a stir in its day, selling for $500 and offering a host of innovative features that have since made their way into other CAD modelers: integrated rendering and animation tools, the intuitive Triball navigation aid, SmartSnaps, and IntelliShapes, which changed depending how they were positioned.

Today, IronCAD, now at v7, retains its easy-to-use reputation. A well-populated Shapes Catalog contains solids that can be dragged and dropped to build complex shapes. Users can also create solids by extruding from a sketch.

IronCAD incorporates both the ACIS and Parasolid modeling kernels, so users can switch back and forth, even within the same part. This provides valuable flexibility for organizations that must supply models in a prescribed format. IronCAD also comes with translators for IGES, STEP, Pro/ENGINEER Granite and CATIA. It also supports DWG and DXF import and export.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Another difference between IronCAD and others in this class is that it has no separate assembly mode. A single file supports both parts and assemblies. IronCAD also offers direct feature modeling, wherein users can bypass the feature tree and edit any feature directly. This capability is particularly handy with imported models that lack a feature tree.

IronCAD comes with surfacing, rendering, and sheet-metal tools. The company also offers Inovate, a scaled-down version of IronCAD designed to aid collaboration. IronCAD does have a developer network with about 30 partners offering products for analysis, surface modeling, CAM, sheet-metal design and more. IronCAD offers a user forum and phone and online technical support to customers who purchase an annual support contract. Online tutorials are available in PDF format. The IronCAD Web site offers a 60-day trial version for download.

* Think3 thinkdesign

www.thinkdesign.com

Founded in 1997 and now at v9, thinkdesign uses a proprietary modeling kernel, which think3 says helps it respond faster to user demands. Thinkdesign is aimed at midsized manufacturing firms, mainly in machine design. Last year think3 introduced a separate product, thinkID (formerly known as thinkshape), for industrial design. Both products are complemented by the thinkteam product data management product.

ThinkID uses the company’s GSM (global shape modeling) technology, which enables users to make changes without consulting the history tree. New zone modeling functionality lets you then define a GSM change as a feature that is part of the history tree. The product supports both surface and solid modeling and supplies a full complement of 2D tools. It includes sheet-metal and mold design capabilities.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Think3 has more than 5,000 customers and reported $40 million in revenue for 2004.

Think3 is one of the few developers to use an annual subscription fee model exclusively. The annual fee covers upgrades, support and training resources. Thinkdesign is $1,995 per year, thinkID is $4,500 and thinkteam is $1,295 per year. The Customer Care offerings covered by the annual fee include 24/7 phone and e-mail support, a customizable training portal and on-demand Web seminars.

SpringCharts EMR version 7.0 adds new features and functionality designed to improve usability, workflow and the quality of charting. They include: File Cabinet Document Manager, which allows the caregiver to access, view and modify common electronic documents and images in their native programs from within the patient chart; TemplateWare, a customizable template-creation system built upon a comprehensive knowledge base of information tailored to each medical specialty; dynamic importation of patient appointment data from NDCMedisoft and NDCLytec; spreadsheet-formatted flow sheets; expanded vitals and graphing capabilities; prescription printing on state-specific forms; medical reference drop-down menus; an integrated, searchable help system; and a remote hosting configuration. Spring Medical Systems Inc., Spring, Texas

Offering true color software development system, CBM Library contains linked routines for sensor steering, interfaces, sensor signal evaluation, algorithms for calibration and spectral calculation, and complete use-specific tools. It can be supplemented by evaluation boards and directly integrated into customer’s own test software. With library, customer can concentrate on application, without spending time on development and verification of sensor and color software.

Jena - MAZeT GmbH, the leading system manufacturer for industrial electronics, presents for the first time its software library for spectral analysis and control engineering assignments.

With the CBM library MAZeT offers a modular development system, including a software library for spectral analysis and control engineering assignments. The library contains linked routines for sensor steering, interfaces, sensor signal evaluation, algorithms for calibration and spectral calculation, and complete use-specific tools. The library will be delivered by MAZeT, optionally supplemented by the evaluation boards, and can be directly integrated into the customer’s own test software and the series software. To that end, based on a verified algorithm, the routines will be ported as the core of the software with the sensor and color algorithms for various target systems, according to the chosen hardware. The test system and the series applications are therefore as identical as possible. The advantage for the customer is clear: The customer can concentrate on his application, without spending time on the development and verification of the sensor and color software, and can get his products to market faster.

The software library is available for the True Color Sensors and subsequent operations as well as applications boards. It makes enables greater accuracy in spectral analysis. In this way, based on the JENCOLOR standard boards, an average accuracy of Delta u’v’ <0.003 for light sources and Delta E <3 for reflecting bodies and materials can be achieved. Calibration guarantees the sensors’ synchronization. Because of the stable interference filter, the sensors change neither function nor parameters over their lifetime within a specific temperature range. It is unnecessary to re-calibrate during operation or their lifetime.

About MAZeT

MAZeT GmbH is a leading European development and production service provider. The company, founded in 1992 with headquarters in Jena, develops, manufactures and delivers customer-specific electronic modular units, software and ASICs, and markets its own products under the name JENCOLOR(TM) worldwide. Due to its broad technological offerings and application know-how, MAZeT GmbH is a dependable and proven service partner for made-to-measure, customer-specific solutions in the areas of industrial electronics and optical sensors. The company’s development competence and the components produced by it for special uses can be found in the whole area of industrial measurement technology, control engineering, automation and medical areas, among others.

Leveraging Tele Atlas places2protect, federal, state, and local governments as well as commercial enterprises can integrate accurate location information into their mission-critical, map-based applications. Product delivers location-based and property information on emergency medical services and critical access facilities and institutions to facilitate emergency response and disaster preparedness. Information is positioned on map using Address Points database.

SAN DIEGO, June 18 /– Tele Atlas (FSE: TA6, EUNV: TA), a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location based solutions, announced the availability of Tele Atlas places2protect, a premium product providing highly accurate location-based and property information on emergency medical services and critical access facilities and institutions, including hospitals, schools, daycare centers and government offices. Leveraging Tele Atlas places2protect, federal, state and local governments and commercial enterprises such as insurance and utility companies can integrate accurate location information into their mission- critical, map-based applications.

Tele Atlas places2protect provides relevant information for government officials, emergency planners and private companies developing emergency management applications or managing utility or pipeline assets. The product helps provide instant location and feature data for planning and preparedness and delivers up-to-date institution and location information. With Tele Atlas places2protect, detailed location information is accurately positioned on the map using Tele Atlas’ proprietary Address Points database, which is designed to pinpoint street addresses to a specific physical building, site or parcel.

The availability of Tele Atlas places2protect further strengthens Tele Atlas’ leadership position in the emergency services sector. Today, over 90 percent of E911 calls in the United States are routed with Tele Atlas data, systems which handle over 200 million calls for assistance annually*; 41 of the 50 states manage their critical infrastructure services using Tele Atlas data; and the vast majority of public safety agencies use commercial data relying on Tele Atlas.

Tele Atlas places2protect is available for partner application developers and device manufacturers in a range of public sector and enterprise markets. The launch of the product follows an announcement earlier this year regarding an agreement to incorporate MCH GeoPoints’ institutional data within Tele Atlas’ digital maps and points of interest (POI) products. Tele Atlas places2protect key features include:

– Complete and accurate location data for 21 different types of institutions in all 50 states;

– Extensive attribution needed to identify places at risk; and

– Information based on proven data collection methods and updating and quality assurance standards and practices.

“Whether guiding emergency response teams or driving economic planning, accurate location-based information is at the heart of public safety applications,” said John Cassidy, vice president, government and GIS markets, Tele Atlas. “We are committed to delivering highly accurate digital maps to our enterprise and public service partners, and continually adding information that helps them develop vital navigation solutions.”

The Pennsylvania Geospatial Technologies Office (GTO) is one state office currently leveraging Tele Atlas digital maps to help ensure public safety. In 2006, the GTO made a strategic decision to purchase MCH GeoPoint’s places2protect Homeland Security datasets to support homeland security, public safety and mutual aid in Pennsylvania. Combined with the Commonwealth’s Tele Atlas ONE digital map enterprise license, government agencies and first responders are able to display statewide base maps that include critically important location data.

“The GTO provides this important resource to all Commonwealth government and first responder agencies for their daily use and for emergency response purposes to help create a statewide Common Operating View (COV),” said Jim Knudson, deputy CIO, GTO. “Our public safety business requirements called for these features and many of them didn’t exist in state agencies or we didn’t have statewide coverage. By utilizing Tele Atlas map data and the location- based information for critical access facilities, the COV filled an important public safety and emergency response data need for the Commonwealth.”

Tele Atlas/places2protect will be demonstrated at the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, June 18-22, in the Tele Atlas booth (#1307).

About Tele Atlas

Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that power some of the world’s most essential navigation and location-based services (LBS). The information is the foundation for a wide range of personal and in-car navigation systems and mobile and Internet map applications that help users find the people, places, products, and services they need, wherever they are. The company also works with business partners who trust its digital map data to deliver critical applications for emergency, business, fleet, and infrastructure services. Through a combination of its own products and partnerships, Tele Atlas offers

Medical division delivery services provide delivery of blood work and other medical specimens promptly and securely. All drivers are trained in medical issues including temperature, timing, and public safety. Fleets of properly maintained vehicles are equipped to handle temperature-sensitive packages and fragile medical samples, and are outfitted with theft-resistant devices. State-of-the-art scanners and barcoding protect patient confidentiality and expedite tracking. Scheduled pick up or on demand (STAT) pick up is available within an hour of a telephone call, as well as same-day and overnight delivery. Routing software is used, which improves quality and minimizes cost.

Interested in submitting your product announcement to MLO? The Product Focus section features a specific type of new products, services, and/or technology each month. The specific category is scheduled on MLO’s 2007 editorial calendar, which is now online at www.mlo-online.com under the “Advertise” tab.

* Submissions are accepted via e-mail at productfocus@nelsonpub.com

* Deadline for submission is 60 days prior to issue date.

* Please limit copy to 100 words (MLO reserves the right to edit). A color photograph (5×7, at least 300 dpi, JPG or TIF) must accompany all products.

* Placement is not guaranteed; MLO reserves the right to publish products submitted for Product Focus in another product section if space is not available.

San Diego based CPU Medical Management Systems Inc. has reacquired its managed care information system product, MED/MC, from Florida-based cHDL.

The Deal: Advanced Medical Optics Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire IntraLase Corporation for $25 per share, or about $808 million, in cash. The boards of both companies have approved the transaction. The companies expect the transaction to close in the second quarter of 2007, subject to IntraLase shareholder approval, regulatory clearance, and other customary closing conditions.

Discussion: IntraLase designs and develops laser equipment and related software and devices used for eye surgery. The company’s surgical lasers provide safe and precise comeal incisions required by LASIK surgery procedures. The company’s software maps the patient’s eye while a disposable device is used to interface between the eye and laser, replacing the hand-held blades traditionally used to make a comeal incision.

Advanced Medical Optics produces contact lense care and eye surgery products. Products in the contact lens line include branded disinfecting solutions and enzymatic cleaners. The company’s surgical products include laser systems, intraoccular lenses, and specialty products for cataract and refractive surgery.

Featuring e-prescribing, CCHIT Certified(SM) e-MDs Solution Series v6.1 provides for secure and direct submission of new prescriptions, and can receive refill requests from pharmacies electronically. Patient portal allows timely communication between practices and their patients, speeding up workflow. Software features multiparty faxing through sophisticated fax server, and enhanced workflow automation that offers improved health summary, templating, and advanced case management.

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e-MDs Solution Series(TM) 6.1 Adds Valuable Features

AUSTIN, Texas, March 1 /- e-MDs, a leading provider of electronic health record and practice management software, announced today that it has completed its latest release of the award winning e-MDs Solution Series(TM). The CCHIT Certified(SM) Solution Series 6.1 delivers new highly requested features while enhancing many of the functionalities that make it the standard for affordable and integrated EHR and practice management software solutions.

“e-MDs Solution Series 6.1 continues our tradition of providing an integrated, easy-to-use solution, while adding exciting new features like e-prescribing, a patient portal PHR, more tools to help with quality compliance, improved enterprise faxing, and even more automation of office workflow and tasking to assist physicians in providing better care and simplifying their practices,” said Dr. David Winn, CEO of e-MDs.
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e-MDs Solution Series 6.1 includes the following new features and enhancements:

e-Prescribing through SureScripts[R]: Provides secure, fast and direct

submission of new prescriptions and the ability to receive refill

requests from pharmacies electronically, saving valuable staff time on

the phone or fax machine.

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practices and their patients, speeding up workflow and freeing up staff

and patients from repeated phone calls.

Easier Multi-Party Faxing: A more sophisticated fax server featuring a

more robust faxing interface that eases faxing to multiple parties.

Enhanced Workflow Automation: Improved health summary, better templating,

advanced case management, automated tasking and even more reporting

options help physicians’ practices become more productive.

About e-MDs

e-MDs is a leading developer of healthcare software solutions headquartered in Austin, Texas. e-MDs Solution Series(TM) is the standard for affordable and integrated EHR and PRACTICE MANAGEMENT software solutions, including clinical, financial, and document management modules designed to automate medical practice processes and chart management. Designed by physicians to improve care, reduce errors and simplify business so that time spent with patients is time billed and coded properly. With e-MDs, medical practices can visit, code and bill with a single application. For more information on e-MDs and the Solution Series, visit http://www.e-mds.com/ .

How far can strategic planning extend? How far can competitive advantage stretch? The correct answer is: pretty far. Healthcare organizations (HCOs) that have embraced information technology generally have done so across the board, with motivation that exceeds the noble–albeit typical–goals of providing quality patient care and maintaining financial health.

DeKalb Medical Center in DeKalb County, Ga., part of metropolitan Atlanta, is such a healthcare system. Senior management there wants the organization to be perceived locally and by employees as the kind of employer that qualified personnel work at, stay at and support with loyalty and performance. IT helps it succeed.

DeKalb Medical Center maintains what some HCOs would call a liberal policy when it comes to personal Internet use by employees. Every workstation in the enterprise, including PCs in public areas such as waiting rooms, connects to the Internet. DeKalb Medical Center considers it an employee benefit that employees are allowed to use enterprise PCs and access the Internet for personal interest, and wants to sustain that benefit as part of its retention and recruitment strategy. In return, the organization asks employees for moderation, judgment and propriety–and gets it.

The Internet as a Risk
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When Information Security Administrator Sharon Finney arrived at DeKalb Medical Center in August 2003, the HCO was knee-deep in finalizing compliance with HIPAA regulations and taking steps to identify where, when and by whom patient health information might be transmitted. The Internet was instantly identified as a formidable risk.

“We allow employees to access the Internet for personal use, as long as they are diligent and judicious,” says Finney. “We leave it to management of various departments to regulate. With that kind of policy, the organization needs the ability to monitor utilization, enforce policy, and report to and work with departmental managers if problems appear.” Early on, its capabilities in that arena were limited.

Initially, DeKalb Medical Center didn’t know what was moving across its Internet circuit. It didn’t know if protected health information was being transmitted; it didn’t know if files were being shared appropriately; it didn’t know if employees were buying shoes via home shopping networks.

Although the healthcare organization has more than 60 IT staff, the technical services personnel who support infrastructure and networking–and would have been responsible for in-house development of monitoring capability-numbered only seven, so the organization looked outward for help.

“We needed to buy a tool to help us monitor, filter, assess and, if necessary, control Internet usage,” says Finney. DeKalb Medical Center managers evaluated at least four products for the job and finally selected Vericept Healthcare Compliance and Vericept Filter for HIPAA compliance from Colorado-based Vericept. Finney says these were the only tools at the time they found that had all the necessary rules already embedded and would function, right out of the box, in a way the HCO wanted, but would also allow for subsequent customization.

Cost was another factor that helped ink the deal for Vericept. Because the technology was a new one for the organization, it wanted vendor support throughout implementation, and found Vericept included that support in what DeKalb Medical Center considered a competitive price. “They were very willing to work with us from a budgetary perspective,” says Finney.

Look and Learn

How does an organization that values diversity and wants to continue providing Internet access for employees nevertheless monitor, manage and control, and also prevent overuse or abuse?

The healthcare organization began by using its out-of-the-box solution for two months to monitor and learn. Finney says that while the organization didn’t see the inappropriate transmittal of any identifiable patient health information, what it did see enlightened management.

“Initially, we saw a considerable amount of pop-up adware and even spyware on desktops, causing an extreme (excessive) amount of Internet traffic. We also learned that employees were listening to the radio via Internet, which chewed up our bandwidth.” Equally important, she says, a number of employees weren’t Internet-saw, T and would enter substantial personal information on unsecured Web sites. They were unaware of how unprotected their data was, and they entered personal data via their keyboards as if they were sitting in a bank talking with a bank officer.

DeKalb Medical Center management initiated departmental meetings, and up to three times each month, Finney made security presentations at those meetings, describing the new system, monitoring capabilities, and appropriate types and levels of personal usage within the organization. She also described how individuals could safeguard their own data in personal Internet use.

The organization’s master plan was to use the Vericept products’ default settings with no modifications for 60 days while managers monitored and analyzed, and then to be able to customize the software for the HCO’s individual use.

The VA Medical Center in Houston, TX, is one of the largest facilities in the VA system. It provides healthcare to more than 50,000 veterans in the Houston metropolitan area, in addition to referred veterans from around the country.

Historically, the VA Medical Center used only permanent storage media like WORM (write once, read many) to store information such as patient files in an unalterable format. Using this system for all data storage created an inefficient use of physical storage space at the Houston facility, particularly considering that the hardware needed to support the optical disks is large and space consuming.

Storage Costs Soaring

Furthermore, the optical platters within the jukebox (hardware that houses the platters) had to be manually removed and replaced at the rate of about four cartridges per day. Because of the hard and soft costs associated with removing and replacing the WORM platters, the Houston VA found their storage costs soaring.

Since some of their data had to remain in optical form, the VA began searching for a data storage solution that would still support optical media while at the same time supporting a less expensive medium, such as tape.

The solution was found in OTG Software’s DiskXtender. It intelligently manages data storage on tape, optical, and CD media within one product code, distinguishing it from other software. With this system, the Houston VA is able to ensure that all data is available to any authorized user at any network desktop.

In addition to storing medical documents, records, film, and other information, the facility is currently adopting the system as a storage solution in the accounting, operations, and inventory departments.

Quickly Writes Data

Houston intends to push the VA in Washington, DC to place OTG’s data storage management on an approved list for archiving solutions in all of the VA Medical Centers in the country. This solution has enabled a system that can quickly write data and automatically migrate it to storage media, allowing the VA staff to focus on more critical patient-related issues. Physical storage space has also been saved with the new tape system occupying about the same space for 13 TB as the older optical 1.2 GB jukebox.