Insights from Mathcad

With the launch of Mathcad Prime 1.0 coming soon, Mike Baldani, Director of PTC’s Direct Response Marketing, gives you the inside scoop on the future release of this product.

Engineers use Mathcad to perform, document, and share calculation and design work.

Adept Scientific has been working with Mathcad since 1985. When PTC acquired Mathcad from Mathsoft, there was some uncertainty about its future, both for suppliers and users who rely on the software’s calculation and documenting capabilities to present and streamline their designs. However, with the recent release of Mathcad 15.0, the launch of Mathcad Prime 1.0 later this year, and more incremental releases planned later. Here are some results of a question and answer session.

Q: What’s the future vision for Mathcad?

A: The vision for Mathcad is to become a standard for engineering calculations. To achieve this, PTC is developing Mathcad with three objectives in mind:

• Ensure it is an easy to use and powerful productivity tool.

• Ensure that it supports easy sharing of knowledge between individuals and teams.

• Integrate it as part of PTC’s Product Development System (PDS), which supports best practices that improve your processes.

Q: What is the reason behind the re-engineering of Mathcad?

A: The product needed a user interface (UI) overhaul to meet the expectations of a new generation of users who have much higher standards for ease of use and software design. To meet the next set of challenges (better integration into PDS and development of the calculation server), the company needed a more modular design. Mathcad Prime 1.0 separates the calculation engine from the UI and provides a better architecture to build on.

Q: What are some of the new features in Mathcad Prime 1.0?

A: The biggest new feature is ease of use. We have also invested in the calculation engine by improving unit support. We are adding dynamic unit checking to make unit handling more flexible while maintaining the rigor. PTC will release Mathcad Prime 1.0 by the end of 2010. The company will offer trial copies as soon as they are available.

Mathcad helps you design and document engineering claculations simultaneously with comprehensive applied math functionality and unit-aware calculations.