TECHNOLOGY : PDA Begins Shipping New Generation of Software for Engineering Analysis

PDA Engineering, a Costa Mesa maker of software for engineers, has begun shipping a new generation of engineering-analysis software.

The company had worked four years and spent more than $30 million developing Patran 3 software, which enables an engineer to make three-dimensional simulations of objects such as aircraft parts and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the design.

The product runs on Sun Microsystems workstations in the initial shipments, though other versions of the software will be available later. The software is designed to be standardized so it can run on any type of workstation, regardless of the manufacturer.

Built around a series of easy-to-read menus, help indexes and software links that make it compatible with other programs, the software is aimed at making engineering analysis simpler to understand and use.

Louis A. Delmonico, president of PDA, said last fall that the software could help change the way engineers think and work together. For instance, he said the compatibility allows different departments such as design, analysis, testing and manufacturing to use the programs they are familiar with to make changes to a single computer model.