Caught a curious article, “3-D Design Software Helps New Aircraft Take Wing“, over on the Los Angeles Times website. First off, “3-D” sounds like a mix of 3D CAD and 3D visual systems; there’s mention of 3-D glasses, a “3-D program to create the machine tools” and a virtual 3D simulation to lay out the factory similar to what UGS has advertised in their PLMware (which I’ve discussed here).

Second, and more interesting, is that there’s no direct mention of Dassault’s computer program (which certainly appears to be their PLMware) facilitating this rapid development of their new aircraft. What is emphasized is the process itself – bringing together a variety of tools to speed development. It’s that last part that reminded me of this interface experiment. And that has me wondering what it really means when the article says that the “Dassault engineering team continues to modernize the 3-D software”.