Spatial and Tech Soft America Announce OpenHSF Initiative

Open Specification Designed to Meet the Needs of the Visualization Market


Boulder, Colorado, October 18, 2001—Spatial Corp., a market-leading provider
of world-class 3D software components, and Tech Soft America (TSA), the
leading provider of component graphics technology to the CAD/CAM/CAE
industry, today announced the OpenHSF Initiative and the first publication
of the HSF Specification. Intended to provide an open visualization file
format that meets the needs of the industry, the OpenHSF Initiative was
designed to deliver the preferred solution to the visual interoperability
problem.

“DaimlerChrysler Corporation supports the idea of an open visualization
initiative and applauds Spatial and TSA for their efforts. Their OpenHSF
Initiative could have far ranging effects across multiple industries,” said
Dr. Gopalan Mukundan, Research & Technology Process Manager, DaimlerChrysler
Corporation.

In response to the announcement Bruno Latchague, executive vice president of
research and development, Dassault Systèmes, said, “The OpenHSF initiative
is one that Dassault Systèmes supports without hesitation. The idea of
making the OpenHSF Specification available for all companies could
potentially create a business community where the visualization of data
ceases to be a hurdle to the product development lifecycle. This is a result
that will benefit the entire market and one we look forward to participating
in.”

“Spatial’s involvement with this initiative is a demonstration of our desire
to provide solutions that go beyond our current partners and positively
impact the entire market,” said Mike Payne, CEO, Spatial. “The HSF format
provides a robust solution that companies can implement quickly and will
keep pace with the evolution of the market’s needs.”

“We’re pleased that TSA was able to contribute our HSF format to this
industry-wide solution.  Achieving the goal of visual interoperability
requires the efforts and input of many and we’re glad to be partnering with
Spatial and all of the supporters of the OpenHSF initiative,” said Ron
Fritz, co-founder, Tech Soft America.

Stephen Wolfe with Computer Aided Design Report remarked, “Lack of a web
visualization standard has hindered the widespread use of 3D over the web,
particularly in engineeringapplications. For example, see the August 2001
CAD Report article ‘Lack of Standards Cripples Three-D CAD on the Web’.
Movements such as the OpenHSF Initiative may help the CAD/CAM and CAE
industry solve this problem.”

Advantages to utilizing the HSF Specification include, but are not limited
to:

·      Open Format:  HSF is an open format that may be read or written from
the specification document.
·      Engineering Attributes & Geometry:  The HSF format was specifically
developed by and for the needs of the engineering marketplace and will
continue to develop in this direction.
·      Streaming:  HSF is a stream-capable format with support for storing
levels-of-detail, initial camera position, etc – as well as the ability for
developers to apply custom logic for specific streaming prioritization.
·      Compression:  HSF files are highly compressed for efficient
transmission over networks using both custom geometric and general file-wide
compression techniques.
·      Custom Data Inclusion:  HSF gives developers the ability to easily
embed application–specific data directly within the file with full
connectivity between this information and the graphical model.
·      Share/Protect Data:  Developers can choose which information to
expose or protect. In addition, as a tessellated format, any changes to the
model cannot then be read into a solid or surface modeling application and
corrupt the original design.
·      Interoperability:  There is already broad range of support among
software vendors for the HSF format, inclusing several leading CAD and CAE
vendors.
·      Read/Write Toolkits:  HSF read/write toolkits are available to ease
the reading/writing of the format and to provide additional compression.
·      Immediate Publishing:  Immediate streaming of HSF files or in-memory
HSF data. There is no need to put HSF data through an additional processing
step before it is ready for efficient streaming.
·      User Community Input:  The OpenHSF application community can specify
common extension to handle data external to the graphical model such as
behaviors, BOM, parametric information, etc.
·      Cross-Platform:  All major Windows and UNIX platforms (including
Linux) are supported.
·      Free Players:  Free viewers are already available for the basic
viewing of HSF models.
·      Complimentary Components:  Additional HSF-compatible component
technologies are available from multiple sources to help developers build
sophisticated applications using HSF as their core format.

For more information about the OpenHSF Initiative or to view the first
release of the HSF specification, go to: http://www.openhsf.org

About Tech Soft America
Tech Soft America (TSA) provides premier customer driven development tools,
consulting and support services enabling their partners to rapidly deliver
world-class technical software. TSA develops the HOOPS 3D Application
Framework, HOOPS Stream Toolkit and HOOPS Net Server, all components
designed to dramatically simplify the design, development and maintenance of
high-performance, interactive 2D and 3D applications built for PCs, UNIX
workstations, Linux, Windows CE-based handheld devices and the Web.
HOOPS 3D technology has been incorporated into more than 125 commercial
software applications, from such leaders as SolidWorks, EDS/SDRC, CADKEY,
Fluent, Mechanical Dynamics, Tecoplan, SPSS, Minitab and Mechanical
Dynamics.
The company maintains corporate headquarters in Oakland, California and can
be reached at http://www.hoops3d.com.


About Spatial
Spatial Corp., a Dassault Systèmes S.A. (Nasdaq: DASTY, Euronext Paris #
13065, DSY.PA,) company is a market-leading provider of world-class 3D
software components. Spatial develops, markets, and supports best-of-breed
3D components and services, to address the exponential requirements of 3D in
Internet-based e-commerce and Business-to-Business (B2B) applications.
Spatial’s component products for 3D geometric modeling, visualization, and
interoperability have been adopted by some of the world’s most recognized
software developers, manufacturers, research institutes, and universities.
Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, Spatial has offices in the USA, Germany,
France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. For more information, please visit
Spatial’s Web site at www.spatial.com or contact Spatial by email at
info@spatial.com or by phone at 303-544-2900 or 800-767-5710.


ACIS and SAT are registered trademarks of Spatial Corp. All other products
are trademarks of their respective owners.

Spatial Press Contacts:
Spatial North American Press Contact:
Chad Sanderson
303.544.2932
chad.sanderson@spatial.com

Spatial European Press Contact:
Patrick Kieffer
+33.1.55.49.88.83
patrick.kieffer@spatial.com

Tech Soft America Press Contact:
Melle Amade-Vice
510.434.7630  ext. 214
melle@techsoftamerica.com