PTC is in the leading author of 3D Design systems and has two complementary product lines, the most suitable of which depends on your product development processes.
Pro/ENGINEER is the original and still the best 3D Design Parametric Modeler available. Similarly CoCreate Modeler is the original and leading 3D Design Explicit/Direct Modeling system available and both approaches are summarized below.
Parametric approach
With the parametric approach to 3D Design, designers use parameters, dimensions, features, and relationships to capture intended product behaviour. Designers essentially create a “recipe” of embedded engineering constraints and relationships that automates and optimizes the design and product development processes. This 3D Design methodology makes the parametric approach very powerful and rich, although it does require some thought about the embedded engineering constraints and relationships within a 3D model.
This is particularly suitable for a 3D Design process that is methodical, constraint driven and proprietary e.g. for Family of Parts type of design, driven Design Equations or to include design automation.
Explicit approach
With the explicit approach, designers quickly and easily create 3D designs, which they then modify through direct, on-the-fly interactions with the model geometry. The explicit 3D Design approach is flexible and easy to use, so it’s ideal for companies that create one-off or highly customized products –products that simply don’t require all the extra effort of up-front planning and the embedding of information within models. It also enables a very flexible and lightweight 3D model.
This is particularly suitable for a 3D Design process that is requires more flexibility as a result of unpredictable customer changes as well as the capability of modeling products containing very large numbers of parts and sub assemblies.
