NAPA Maintains Competitive Edge in Shipbuilding Software with HOOPS Platform
HOOPS Toolkits Enables Better Collaboration Among Multiple Stakeholders, Allows NAPA to Create Lightweight, Web-Based Product for Less Frequent Users
BEND, Ore., April 14, 2021 (Newswire.com) - Tech Soft 3D, the leading provider of engineering software development toolkits, today announces that NAPA, a global leader in intelligent solutions for ship design and operations, has implemented HOOPS toolkits to revamp the user experience and graphics environment for their industry-leading shipbuilding products, NAPA Naval Architecture and NAPA Steel. The power of the HOOPS Platform also facilitates better collaboration among multiple stakeholders involved in ship design, including the classification societies that certify ships, and also enabled NAPA to create a new lightweight, web-based product for less frequent users called NAPA Viewer.
NAPA continues to innovate its product line, which includes NAPA Naval Architecture for hull form design and ship stability, and NAPA Steel for all aspects of a ship's structural design. Nearly 95% of newly constructed ships each year are built by NAPA customers, so it's essential to make sure the software is keeping pace with technological advancements and meeting the needs of the market.
Powerful Software Components Help Transform Product Line
Incorporating industry-leading technology components from Tech Soft 3D - including HOOPS Visualize for 3D rendering, HOOPS Exchange for data translation, and HOOPS Publish for sharing 3D data in different formats - offered NAPA an ideal way to build superior capabilities and a better user experience into its products.
"We are using HOOPS Visualize for 3D graphics rendering, and the performance is fantastic," said Tapio Hulkkonen, Product Manager of NAPA Structural Design solutions. "HOOPS Visualize integrates with our own geometry kernel so that any time there are any changes to the geometry, those changes can instantly be visualized. As soon as you manipulate any curves or surfaces on the ship, you can see what it will look like right away."
Meanwhile, HOOPS Exchange makes it easier for all of the different design disciplines involved in creating a ship to communicate with one another - helping to catch potential errors early in the design process. There are different departments that handle structure design, outfitting design, machinery design, and they need to be able to share design information that has been created in different CAD systems. That's precisely what HOOPS Exchange allows them to do, and sharing that information allows them to make sure all the different components fit together properly in the final design.
Further enhancing effective communication and collaboration, HOOPS Publish allows NAPA's customers to share rich, detailed design information amongst the various project stakeholders - even those without CAD systems, such as the design management group, the ship owner, or the ship classification society. HOOPS Publish makes it easy to get CAD models and 3D data to those people. The design team can push out data as a 3D PDF, or export it as an HTML file that the recipients can open and view in any web browser, without any extra software.
"A ship can't obtain insurance until it has a classification certificate, so our customers are eager to streamline that process," said Hulkkonen. "Thanks to HOOPS components, our software is positioned to allow them to take advantage of this new trend around 3D model-based approval."
NAPA is also moving forward with a new product called NAPA Viewer, which has been developed using HOOPS Communicator, a powerful toolkit for advanced 3D web visualization.
"NAPA Viewer is a way for us to provide a more lightweight product, compared to our traditional software package that needs to be installed," said Jan Mattsson, Director Development for NAPA Design solutions. "It's perfect for less frequent users with more limited use cases where the power of the full NAPA package is not required. NAPA Viewer allows us to serve a wider audience in the shipyards. "
Mattsson added, "Overall, we're very happy with our partnership with Tech Soft 3D. We started with HOOPS Visualize a decade ago, and then we've added more and more of Tech Soft 3D's toolkits as time has gone on. That's testimony to our happiness with the relationship and the value that Tech Soft 3D has consistently been able to provide."
About HOOPS Platforms
The HOOPS Platforms combine market-leading 3D technologies for CAD data exchange, visualization and data publishing, along with tight connections to popular modeling kernels. With a single licensing fee, these offerings are the most cost-effective way to leverage the full spectrum of HOOPS functionality for both existing applications and future development projects. Developers interested in evaluating HOOPS Platform can sign up for a free 60-day evaluation.
About Tech Soft 3D
Tech Soft 3D is the leading global provider of development tools that help software teams deliver successful applications. Established in 1996 and headquartered in Bend, Oregon, Tech Soft 3D also has offices in California, France, England and Japan. The company's toolkit products power nearly 500 unique applications running on hundreds of millions of computers worldwide. For more information, visit www.techsoft3d.com.
HOOPS is a registered trademark of Tech Soft 3D. All other products or company references are the property of their respective holders.
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