Have you had a chance to try out the newest release of our 3D CAD software platform—Creo 4.0? With hundreds of enhancements, along with notable capabilities in additive manufacturing (3D printing), smart connected design, and model based definition (MBD); it might be tough to decide where to start.

Even our Creo product managers differ on which new capability is most important. So we asked each of them to tell us about the most exciting advances in their area of expertise. Probably nobody was as enthusiastic as Arnaud Van de Veerdonk, who specializes in overseeing our assembly management features.

 “Overall Creo 4.0 is the biggest release we’ve ever done,” he says. “It holds several key assembly enhancements ranging from smaller enhancements around reference backup management to the addition of appearance states, and having motors work like features in a mechanism.”

Asked to pick just three features, van de Veerdonk chose the following:

Arnaud van de Veerdonk, Creo Product Manager

Regeneration status and reporting

The 3-level traffic light status indicators are replaced with a Regeneration Status icon. Now when regeneration is required, the Regeneration Status icon appears. This simplifies regeneration and status reporting, and the regeneration of an active component. Additionally, outdated mass property handling now appears in the dedicated Notification Center. You can see how it works in the following video:

More informative notifications

Van de Veerdonk says, “We’ve enhanced the Notification center at multiple levels. Adding more detailed control with customizable severity, active notification pop ups, and filtering. Not only are the outdated mass property messages now handled by the Notification Center, it also supports out-of-date notifications for simplified representations and other new types.”

Check out all these updates:

• The severity rating in notifications is customizable.
• There are active notifications pop ups.
• You can start the Notification Center from a selected node in the Model Tree.
• In simplified representations, there is an out-of-date notification about the need to retrieve or regenerate.
• There is automatic locate-in-tree functionality.
• New notifications types are available.
• Filtering for notification types is available.

Or watch the video to see what’s new in notifications:

Intelligent mirroring

Finally, Creo 4.0 simplifies and enhances mirroring components, and especially sub-assemblies—helping you optimize component re-use. You can also use the Advanced dialog for more in-depth information and control on specific components and their handling.

From the Mirror Subassembly Components dialog box, you can view analysis results, adjust mirror action and position, and change the naming for the component.

See how it works in the video:

Ready to build better assemblies with Creo 4.0?

Are you ready to get more from your product design time? This post contains just a few of the ways Creo 4.0 helps you design smarter. Visit the Creo 4.0 page to find out more about this exciting new release today.