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June 11, 2024 - Anark announces that Release 4.5.85 of our technical content collaboration platform for manufacturers is now available and includes new features, enhancements, and updates based on customer feedback and industry demand. Releases occur every 4-6 weeks and can be immediately applied to SaaS, on-prem and desktop installations. Anark's agile release process delivers continuous value improvement to their customers and additional information can be found in release documentation.
Anark Release 4.5.85
Anark Collaborate Enhancements
Low-Code Content Template API
Anark is pleased to announce that our new low-code templates for technical content presentation and interaction fully complete with Release 4.5.85! Low-code template capabilities have been in beta while we expanded and tested with the help of early adopters providing feedback. Now complete, the low-code template API for Anark Collaborate delivers a way to easily define and manage a wide array of forward-compatible technical content experiences.
Anark customers have a large amount of technical content based on existing web templates with an assortment of layouts and behavior defined over years. The low-code approach provides a simpler way to manage layout, presentation and behavior for both legacy and future content management and collaboration requirements. Based on over a decade of experience developing 3D PDF and custom web-based solutions with our customers, these new low-code templates bring tailor-fit content experiences to standard web browsers from laptops to mobile devices without the need for any special plug-ins or add-ons.
We are excited to offer the new low-code templates that go above and beyond our legacy template capabilities, shown in Figure 1 below. Legacy template can now be replaced with the low-code template approach. Anark understands that there are many ways technical data will be defined and presented that spans 3D Model Based Definition CAD models, 2D Drawings, documents, images, videos, animations, structured data and more within a technical data publication. Anark customers can now develop specific user interface experiences while ensuring forward compatibility. This is the next generation of content management and collaboration for manufacturers!
Figure 1 - Low-Code Template Capabilities up to Release 4.5.85
Low-code templates include interactive web-based documentation that allows you to quickly define your unique template configuration and to construct and configure widgets using a “building block” approach that is flexible and easy to adjust over time. Below in Figure 2 is an example of the documentation where Anark provides example widgets and how they can be used. For example, if a template needed "Measurement Tools", the appropriate widget could be included in the template, configured and enabled. This gives customers the flexibility to tailor content experiences to fit various internal and external stakeholder needs, or business rules. Perhaps one template for team members who can take measurements of product designs, and one template to prevent measurements (and reverse engineering) from ever happening. Combined with role-based access control, it's easier than ever to manage content experiences across various groups.
Figure 2 - Low-Code Template interactive web-based documentation
By providing a widget and building block approach, Anark customers fully control the style and complexity of the technical content they publish today and expand over time as their needs evolve. Other advantages include; guaranteed forward version compatibility, built-in template validation, search, advanced printing options, animations that can be useful for work instructions and more. And for those just getting started, we have a standard set of base templates that offer the most common functionality our customers enjoy.
Measurement of 3D CAD Models
Visualizing and verifying 3D CAD Measurement is essential for engineering design reviews and other types of collaboration. Measurement enhancements within Anark Collaborate now provide linear vertex to vertex, radial or object occurrence (product component placement) on technical content. Measurement mode can be added to any content experience via the low-code template API, or made accessible via a hotkey:
Figure 3 - Anark Collaborate 3D Measurement menu
Measurements are displayed as a hybrid 3D/2D presentation of markup information where the item being measured is highlighted along with the measurement value such as the linear measurement below:
Figure 4 - Linear measurement relative to the product coordinate system
Radial measurement can determine the center of the circle and diameter as below:
Figure 5 - Radial measurement relative to the product coordinate system
Additional measurement can also continue after capturing the diameter and location of the first radial to show the distance between multiple radial features:
Figure 6 - Linear measurement between 2 radial item center points
Object occurrence measurement will isolate the component within any complex product to show the exact positioning. When sharing product designs with suppliers and partners as they collaboration on form, fit and functionality, the power of having this information at the fingertips of everyone via standard web browsers is invaluable to avoid manufacturing issues. Anark Collaborate can show the positioning, highlight the item being measured graphically and within the BOM list:
Figure 7 - Object Occurrence measurement to the highlighted bearing housing
Work continues to improve measurement capabilities in upcoming releases and when combined with lo-code templates, provides a powerful web based, mobile first user experience for engineering, manufacturing and product service collaboration.
Role Based Access Control (RBAC) enhancements:
In Release 4.5.82 Anark unveiled the future of how we control access to information with Role Based Access Controls. This capability continues to be enhanced and expanded to assure that content is only available to the people or groups that should be allowed to view and collaborate with specific technical data. This is often based on roles or responsibilities inside a company, or within their supply chain. Anark Collaborate can sync and coordinate with existing Identity Management or other authoritative systems.
In this current release, the role based access control administrator user interface now includes details on the content items, classifiers, users, and groups that are associated with a role. This information has been stored and could be found via administrator API calls previously but, it now has an interface that enables auditability of role access and assignment more directly.
Anark Publish Enhancements
PLM Integrations Enhancements:
Several enhancements have been made to Anark Publish and specifically, the PLM integrations for Windchill and Teamcenter in Release 4.5.85 to improve time to value for complex PLM integration and data publishing. The theme of the below is more efficient handling of publishing issues where large products or datasets have a limited number of problems that can be resolved and a re-publishing process can then be executed to completion. This eliminates the all-or-nothing proposition of many technical data publication systems where a single item within a complex product can cause the entire publication to fail. Capabilities include:
Teamcenter Integration:
- Re-publishing capability for handling the addition or removal of components from initially selected objects. This allows users to modify an input package while re-publishing.
- Re-publishing capability to support BOM changes (addition/deletion of components) in structure. This capability is supported for both package publishing and single item revision publishing.
- Trigger republishing using the existing Teamcenter Rich Application Client (RAC) menu and Workflow handler.
- Create and share a summary report via email after republishing completes.
Windchill Integration:
- Re-publishing capability for addition and/or deletion of components for WTPart business object while hierarchical publishing.
- Re-publishing capability for addition and/or deletion of components for EPMDocument business object while hierarchical publishing.
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(Role Based Access Controls (RBAC), Lo-Code Template Introduction, Windchill 13 )
(Introduction to Measurement, PLM Integrations, Creo 10, NX 2306)
(Rich Text Collaboration, MBD CAD Adaptors, Windchill Packages)
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