PTC announced that Creo would head to the cloud with its Creo+ software at its Liveworx event earlier this year, making Creo’s standalone SaaS offering an intriguing one, given its sister Cloud product Onshape remains a separate entity.
Executives from PTC announced the cloud-based software as a ‘major cloud breakthrough’ for its CAD solution, with new cloud-based tools to enhance design collaboration and to simplify CAD administration.
“With this latest development, our customers will be able to design faster, easier, and more collaboratively than ever before,” said PTC Creo GM Brian Thompson.
“We’ve combined the market-leading design capabilities of Creo with productivity benefits that can only be achieved through the power of the cloud. Now, Creo+ users can collaborate on the same designs simultaneously with internal and external partners, which helps accelerate the development process and reduce redesign.
“This release is a significant milestone for our customers, for PTC, and for the entire CAD industry.”
Now the dust of its big user event has settled, PTC has formally announced that Creo+ will also include the PTC Control Center application, powered by the PTC Atlas SaaS platform, which it says will enable ‘simple’ deployment and management of software licenses for cloud-based tools.
Administrators will be able to deploy and update the software across the organisation from a single desktop, minimising time spent installing, configuring, and updating the software.
Creo+ should enable users to be more efficient when assigning and deploying named licenses and adjusting licenses according to user requirements.
This should make it easier to manage the key component of the product – real-time collaboration. Teams can collaborate in real-time to review, explore, and edit product designs using a dedicated workspace with any number of people. Branching tools provide visibility to exploration activities, and when ready, these exploration branches can be merged back into the main design.
Creo+ is billed as ‘fully upwards compatible’ from on-premises versions of Creo and is built on the same core technology, so no data translation is needed – although going from Creo+ to old school Creo still has challenges.
In addition to the, PTC announced the simultaneous release of the more traditional flavour Creo 10. With this users can now design and simulate with composite materials for lighter products to maintain strength and durability.
Creo 10 also introduces Ansys-powered thermal stress as well as non-linear materials and contact simulation, which significantly broadens addressable simulation-driven design use cases.
