Welcome to Engineering Paper, bringing you the latest design and simulation software news.
I’m going to keep things brief today, because we’re in the middle of Engineering.com’s third annual Design and Simulation Week. It’s a five-day series of webinars from industry insiders on the latest and greatest in engineering software.
There’s a webinar every day this week at 12:00pm Eastern. You can sign up to watch them all here, and they’ll all be available on demand as well.
If you enjoy this newsletter, you may enjoy watching me discuss the various forms of AI in engineering software in my presentation: Climbing the AI ladder in 2026.
If you want a peek at how SimScale and CoLab are using AI, then don’t miss Agentic Engineering Masterclass: Live Simulation and Design Review Workflows from SimScale’s Jon Wilde and Comsol’s Jeremy Andrews.
For Comsol’s take on how multiphysics is evolving, watch today’s webinar with David Kan: Multiphysics Simulation in the Age of AI: GPUs and Data-Driven Design.
In tomorrow’s presentation from Swoosh Technologies, Ted Blowe will Demystify AI’s Role in Simulation.
Finally, on Friday, InfinitForm’s Adam Smith and TJ Root will discuss what comes next in The End of Downstream DFM: A Vision for the Physical AI Era.
Once more, you can register for the full series here. I hope to see you there.
Now, some news.
PTC launches Creo 13 and Creo+ 13.3
PTC is in the middle of its own event this week, PTC Next Chicago. (PTC used to put on a big user conference in Boston called PTC LiveWorx, but that ended in 2023 and its namesake software, ThingWorx, was sold off last year.)
At Next, PTC announced what’s next for its CAD software Creo and the SaaS version Creo+. Namely: Creo 13 and Creo+ 13.3.
The headline feature of the new release is the Creo AI Assistant, which is a product support chatbot. Right on schedule.
Actually, product support is only one of three modes of the Creo AI Assistant, according to PTC. It’s called Advise, and it’s available to all Creo users.
Another mode, Assist, takes things further by using the context of your active model. For instance, you could ask the Creo Assistant to generate a bill of characteristics and put it in a CSV file. Assist is in beta and will be available as an extension.
The third mode, Automate, is in alpha, and will be yet another extension. PTC says Automate will “provide sophisticated design and geometry-level intelligence to understand CAD geometry and create, modify, or optimize designs.”
You can see more features of Creo 13 and Creo+ 13.3 on PTC’s site. Or, if you happen to be in Chicago for PTC Next, the new software is on display, and I don’t know why you’re even reading this.
Quick hits
- IronCAD has released the latest version of its CAD software, IronCAD 2027. As with Creo, its biggest updates are all around AI. IronCAD 2027 includes its own product support chatbot, something called AI Design Assistant (“Users simply describe what they need in natural language, and the AI generates complete, manufacturable 3D assemblies ready for refinement”—sounds a bit too good to be true), and AI Drawing Assistant (this one is much easier to believe).
- Maxon has announced that its Redshift integration with Autodesk Revit is now available. The integration was announced as a beta back in March alongside the release of an integration for Vectorworks. Additionally, Maxon has announced that a Redshift integration with Graphisoft Archicad is now available in beta.
- Back in May Autodesk launched Autodesk for Small Business, an initiative to help out its tinier customers. One small step was to lower the minimum purchase of Flex tokens, which was then set at 100 tokens for $300. Autodesk left us in suspense as to the new minimum, but they’ve now revealed it’s 33 tokens for $99.
One last link
Design World’s Paul Heney has released the latest episode of his video series Travel for Engineers: Navigation on a modern cruise ship.
Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.