STEP Tools Translator for Shipbuilding

Troy, New York, June 3, 1999 - A STEP translator built using STEP Tools software is included in the Vivid ship building software. Newport News Shipbuilding licensed the ACIS translation libraries from STEP Tools, Inc. in 1996. During 1997 and 1998, they used these libraries to build translators for the STEP shipbuilding standards. These standards include AP-216 for Ship hull forms and AP-218 for Ship steel structures. Newport News is a major contractor for the US Navy. It is the sole supplier of nuclear powered aircraft carriers and the joint supplier of nuclear powered submarines.

The ACIS translation library is a set of function calls for translating STEP geometry to ACIS geometry and vice versa. The product has been on the market since 1995 and is included in the STEP translators of CADKEY 98, Hitachi Zosen Grade/Cube II, Visionary Design Systems IRONCAD and numerous private systems. Blair Downie, Vice President for Product Development at STEP Tools, Inc., stated that the "inclusion of a STEP Tools translator in Vivid shows that STEP technology can be applied to a wide range of application domains including shipping".