
Attention engineers! There’s an easier way to conduct Tolerance Analysis for your CAD designs.
Transforming CAD designs into real and tangible parts is not only rewarding on a personal level but also professionally fulfilling. It combines creativity, problem-solving, and hands-on experience, all culminating in the sense of accomplishment that comes from creating something real from an abstract concept.
However, as you already know, physical parts deviate from the idealized representation (the design model) due to many different challenges and manufacturing constraints. Tolerance analysis involves assessing the impact of variations in dimensions, geometries, and other parameters on the final product’s performance and functionality. By utilizing Tolerance Analysis, designers ensure proper fit and alignment of the product components.
Improve Quality & Design Innovation
If the goal is to improve quality and design innovation, enable your engineers to perform comprehensive tolerance stack-up analysis. Traditionally this process is a massive pain i.e. repetitive trial-and-error tasks and tedious testing. This part of the design process can be frustrating and often slows down design teams. However, it doesn’t have to be this way!
The PTC Creo EZ Tolerance Analysis Extension is a dynamic computer-aided engineering (CAE) tool powered by leading Sigmetrix technology. This extension helps designers by creating a faster, more intuitive workflow to assess the impact of dimensional specifications on your product designs before prototypes or production.
The software provides algorithms to help engineers identify the optimal tolerance values that meet the design objectives while considering various constraints. This aids in making informed decisions and reducing the time spent on manual analysis and evaluations.
By considering these variations even earlier in the design process, engineers can make more informed decisions to ensure that the final product will perform as intended. Cheers to reinforcing Closed Loop Manufacturing!
The Positive Business Outcomes of Using EZ Tolerance Analysis
Below is a high-level overview of the positive business outcomes this PTC solution proves to provide for manufacturing companies:
- Speed time to market
- Mitigate risk
- Improve productivity
- Reduce costs by reducing rework and scrap
How EZ Tolerance Analysis Makes Your Workflow Less Stressful
Intuitive User Interface
Achieve your goals efficiently with minimal frustration. The EZ Tolerance Analysis extension’s user-friendly UI enables you to maintain a flow and continue work without disruptions as it is integrated into the familiar Creo environment. This mitigates any steep learning curve and helps with productivity to get new users up and running quickly and confidently. If you need help getting set up with the technology, give us a shout. We can help maximize your workforce capabilities and your technology investment.
Complexity Management
The EZ Tolerance Analysis software provides tools and features to manage complex designs efficiently. It offers intuitive interfaces and workflows that simplify processes regarding defining tolerance features. The extension extracts relevant information directly from your CAD models, reducing manual effort and potential errors. Visual dashboards: say goodbye to tedious spreadsheets.
Problem Identification and Resolution
No more flying blind, EZ Tolerance Analysis provides visualizations and statistical outputs that enable engineers to identify potential issues and bottlenecks in the assembly or system. After pinpointing problematic areas, engineers can devise effective solutions – such as adjusting tolerances, redesigning components, or modifying manufacturing processes.
Quick Iterative Design Refinement
Perform your “what-if” scenarios quickly and accurately. Using Sigmetrix technology, get immediate feedback on the effects of tolerance adjustments and trade-off analysis. Engineers can quickly refine and optimize tolerances based on the analysis results, reducing the time required for iterations.
Improved Collaboration
The software facilitates collaboration among multidisciplinary teams involved in the design and manufacturing process. Easily share tolerance analysis data, models, and reports via HTML reports to ensure everyone comprehensively understands design intent and can make informed decisions. Visual and data-backed reports can be shared with the shop floor, suppliers, or other stakeholders, facilitating effective communication and collaboration. Providing clear documentation helps to minimize misunderstandings and costly mistakes, saving time and effort in the design and manufacturing process.
Standards and Specifications Compliance
Ensure compliance with built-in libraries of industry standards and specifications. Engineers can access these libraries to ensure that defined tolerances comply with the relevant standards. Ensure compliance with ASME and ISO standards for your designs and create products that align precisely with customer requirements while operating within acceptable tolerances. This feature helps streamline the process of defining tolerance features by providing pre-defined templates and guidelines that match industry requirements.
Overall, EZ Tolerance Analysis empowers engineers to make data-driven decisions, reduce uncertainty, and enhance the efficiency and quality of the design and manufacturing process. It aids in achieving design objectives, meeting customer requirements, and delivering reliable and cost-effective products.
Back-Up Your cad Designs with Stack-Up Analysis
The technology performs comprehensive tolerance stack-up analysis by applying two methods for increased accuracy and precision- worst-case analysis and statistical analysis.
Worst-Case Analysis: Worst-case analysis, commonly employed for critical components, examines the scenario where each component in the stack-up attains its maximum acceptable measurement.
Statistical Analysis: On the other hand, statistical analysis utilizes statistical distribution models to represent the variation of each component. These distributions are then combined to predict the overall distribution of the assembly measurement.

Related Technologies To Use With Tolerance Analysis
Combine Tolerance Analysis with Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) to ensure your designs comply with ASME and ISO standards. Or take your designs even further to contain all the data needed to define the product with model-based definition (MBD). With MBD, your model becomes the source authority across the enterprise. The outcome is shorter product development cycles, reduced costs, and enhanced product quality.
PTC continues its investments in enhancing simulation-driven design and generative design with the new Creo 10. Some new features include Rotational Symmetry, Mass Point Constraints, and Remote Loads. Additionally, Creo Simulation Live now includes Contact Simulation options and improved options for fluid and structural results. Creo Flow Analysis and Creo Simulation now have better animation and multibody support.
For more Simulation and Analysis, we also recommend PTC’s Creo Simulation Advanced powered by Ansys technology. The brand-new Creo Ansys Simulation Advanced analyzes nonlinear contact and materials, with combined thermal and structural analysis. For more information about the latest release of Creo 10 check out the blog here.

Creo Parametric is a powerful computer-aided design (CAD) software that has been helping engineers and designers bring their ideas to life for over 30 years. With the release of Creo 10, users can expect a number of new features and improvements in productivity, designs, and more!

What’s New in Creo 10
Discover Creo 10’s newest improvements and enhancements.
User Interface Enhancements
PTC has made a big splash with the release of Creo 10, including an enhanced user interface.
Split & Trim Tool
Use this tool to quickly and easily split or trim a model, making it painless to work with and modify your model. Additionally, the ability to propagate appearances and references during Boolean operations makes it easier to maintain consistency throughout a project.
Stretch Tool in Warp
Utilize the Stretch Tool to select defined references to stretch models, making it easier to create complex shapes and designs. Users now have the ability to select Datum Planes, Points, Axis, Coordinate Systems, Surfaces, Curves, Facets, and more.
Freestyle and Style Tools
Both tools are enhanced with Rotational Symmetry and Smooth Normal Connection, making it easier to create organic shapes and designs. These tools are perfect for designers who want to create complex, freeform shapes that are difficult to create with traditional CAD tools.
The Model Tree
Creo’s Model Tree tool has been improved, making it easier to restructure and reorder assemblies to reduce confusion and improve the management of complex projects.
New Pattern Parameters
Finally, the pattern capability in Creo 10 enables users to drive pattern member count for nested patterns. Create complex patterns quickly and easily, saving you time and improving overall productivity.
Optimize Your Design
Take your design process to the next level with Creo 10’s newest additions.
Composites
Designing composite materials has never been easier with the new features in Creo. The software now offers a broad set of functionalities for defining ply layup, ply sections, transitions, and ply order. This allows you to create a resulting solid geometry and inner mold line (IML) quilt that meets your exact specifications.
In addition, Creo’s new Splicing and Darting operations, makes it easier to create complex composite designs. Once a design is complete, you can automatically generate a complete plybook documentation of the final layup sequence.
With new composite design features in Creo 10, you can easily create high-quality composite materials that meet your needs and specifications. Whether you’re designing for aerospace, automotive, or any other industry, Creo’s composite design tools can help you create the perfect product.
Electrification
Creo 10 presents new features that streamline and enhance the process of designing for electrification.
Split/Merge Harness Tool for Cabling
One of the most significant additions is the Split/Merge Harness Tool for Cabling. This tool allows users to split a harness into two separate pieces and later merge them back together. This feature is particularly useful when working on complex designs that require multiple harnesses.
Simultaneous Harness Design
Another key feature of Creo 10 is the ability for multiple users to work on the same harness design simultaneously. This collaborative design approach saves time and ensures that everyone is on the same page. The application-centric tree is another useful addition, which provides three different views, including Cables, Bundles, and Connectivity, to make it easier to navigate.
New ECAD Capabilities
Creo 10 includes new ECAD capabilities, such as paste masks and hole parameters. These features make it easier to create accurate designs that meet the specific needs of each project with greater precision and accuracy.
Ergonomics
Creo 10 optimizes and simplifies the design process for ergonomics.
The Visual Field
Perform Reflection Analysis to analyze the reflective properties of objects in the environment and how they impact the user’s visual experience. The reflective object orientation can be controlled by adding a rotation value around one or two axes, giving you greater control over the design process.
Creo Manikin
Another key feature of Creo 10 is the Manikin, which now support multiple reach envelopes, including the index and middle finger, thumb, and center of the palm. Creo Manikin allows designers to create more accurate models of human movement and reach, making it easier to design products that are comfortable and easy to use. Additionally, the Manikin libraries are now stored as inseparable assemblies to provide better management and user access.

Enhancing Model-Based Definition and Implementing the Digital Thread
Creo 10 introduces significant updates to Model-Based Definition (MBD) and Digital Thread capabilities, to better create, manage and access real-time product data across the entire product lifecycle.
Enhanced 3D Model Annotations
One of the most significant additions is the ability for users to relate symbols or surface finishes to other annotations in the 3D model. This feature allows designers to create more accurate and detailed models, making it easier to communicate design intent to other stakeholders and downstream activities.
Creo 10 adds the ability for annotations to inherit their annotation plane from the parent during placement. This feature ensures that annotations are placed correctly and in the right location, saving time and improving accuracy. Additionally, any movement of the related parent annotation would also be applied to related symbols, behaving as a group when being assigned to other combination states.
GD&T Advisor Updates
Creo 10 includes improvements to GD&T semantic behaviors, including general profile tolerances and enhanced compliance with detailing standards. These changes make it easier for designers to create accurate and detailed models, ensuring that the design intent is communicated effectively throughout the product lifecycle.
Furthermore, any changes made to GD&T annotations will automatically update the corresponding semantic references of general profile tolerance. Additionally, Creo 10 now supports straightness and profile of Line Geometrical Characteristics for ISO GPS models. Create more accurate and detailed models, ensuring that the design intent is communicated effectively.
Advanced Simulation and Optimization Capabilities
Creo 10 presents a range of new features that enhance and streamline the process of simulation and optimization.
Support for Non-Linear Materials
This includes Neo-Hookean hyperplasticity, linear orthotropic elasticity, and bi-linear plasticity.
Combined Thermal & Structural Analysis
Another key feature is the support for combined thermal and structural analysis. Enable your designers to easily simulate how a product will perform under both thermal and mechanical loads, ensuring that the design is optimized for real-world conditions.
Support for non-linear contact, including new contact types such as frictional and rough, helps to create more accurate simulations of real-world contact.
Expanded Contact Simulation Options
PTC included improvements to Creo Simulation Live, to improve result options for fluids and structures. Furthermore, Creo Flow Analysis and Creo Simulate now have better Animation and Multi-Body Support.
Rotational Symmetry
Allows designers to create more accurate simulations of rotational components.
Point Mass & Remote Loads
Finally, Creo 10 introduces the ability to add Point Mass and Remote Loads to create more accurate simulations of real-world loads.
Creo 10: Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing
With Creo 10’s latest features, manufacturing processes are now more efficient and effortless. One of the most significant additions is the support for additive manufacturing.
New Lattice Types
This enables your designers to create new beam-based lattice types, including rhombic, rhombic+diamond, dodecahedron, and elongated dodecahedron. For formula-driven lattices, Creo 10 supports simulation-based variable wall thickness and highly efficient I-graph-wrapped (IWP) lattice cell. Additionally, Creo 10 supports Auxetic Cells Structures for 3D printing. Auxetic Cell Lattices produce geometry that exhibit a negative Poisson ratio.
High-Speed Milling
High-Speed Milling supports barrel tools for both wall and floor 5-axis finish, reducing tool path time and improving surface finish quality. Additional control for CUTCOM and clearance has been added to Area Turning, making it easier to create accurate and efficient toolpaths for subtractive manufacturing processes.
Get started with Creo 10 Today
Creo 10 is an exciting new release from PTC that brings a plethora of new features to the design table. Whether you’re a designer or an engineer, Creo 10 is a game-changing tool that will help you create complex shapes and designs, manage projects, and improve productivity for more innovative products.
Curious to see how Creo 10’s features compare to other versions of Creo? Check out how Creo is continually enhancing its tools to provide you with the most up to date features for your design process.
To learn more about how Creo 10 can positively impact your business or to experience the new features first-hand, book a free demo now.

The dynamic duo, Bonnie and Clyde, the perfect pair: Formlabs 3D printers and PTC Creo. Combining these two technology leaders advance businesses to their full potential. When you combine Formlabs 3D printers with PTC Creo, you get an unbeatable combination for creating designs, prototypes and final products.
What is PTC Creo?
PTC Creo is a cutting-edge CAD software with an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to design and optimize your 3D models.
With PTC Creo, you can create high-quality 3D models with powerful features for analysis, visualization, and manufacturing. You can also import existing data from other applications or use the built-in tools to convert 2D drawings into 3D models.
This 3D CAD software solution also has options for live simulation tests to minimize prototyping. You can make sure the parts you are printing have been tested for durability before they even reach the physical world.

What are Formlabs 3D Printers?
Outside of the outcome being a cool physical representation of your design, 3D printing is a fast and cost-effective way to prototype your product.
Formlabs printers use stereolithography technology (SLA) to produce high-quality parts with smooth surfaces, sharp details and no visible layers or seams – all while being fast enough for production-level throughputs. And because they’re so precise, they’re ideal for creating prototypes that look just like what customers expect from final products!
By using 3D printing, you can create prototypes that look like the final product and test them before mass production. This allows you to make changes based on user feedback before investing in tooling for manufacturing. This hardware can save you time and money on low-waste prototypes and production and improve product quality.
Combining Formlabs 3D Printing with PTC Creo
PTC Creo is an industry-leading CAD software that allows you to model, design and simulate your products. Formlabs 3D printers are the best way to bring these digital designs into physical form. When you combine PTC Creo with Formlabs 3D printing, you can:
Reduce time-to-market by enabling designers and engineers to iterate more quickly on their designs before committing them to tooling or manufacturing processes.
Improve product quality by being able to prototype complex geometries that would otherwise be difficult or impossible using traditional manufacturing methods.
Increase design accuracy by allowing for greater flexibility in prototyping new concepts without the constraints imposed by traditional manufacturing processes.

Using Formlabs 3D Printers with PTC Creo
Using Formlabs 3D printers have many benefits. It’s an inexpensive and quick way to produce prototypes, which can be used to test or validate your design before investing in expensive tooling.
Some benefits that you will see form Formlabs printers:
You can also use 3D printed parts as production-quality end products to save time and money on manufacturing while maintaining quality control throughout the process.
If you’re already using PTC Creo for your CAD/CAM needs, then combining it with Formlabs 3D printers is a smart move because they both offer powerful toolsets that have easy collaboration.
EAC has partnered with Formlabs since 2016 and we now have almost 50 customers using both Creo software and Formlabs printers.
So if you use either of those products today (or plan on doing so soon), this article will show how easy it is for them to work together!
All-in-one in house design and printing creates a smooth-running production process that will save your business money.
Here are some of the benefits of using Formlabs 3D printers with PTC Creo:
1. Faster Prototyping
When combined with PTC Creo, 3D printing with Formlabs printers is fast and efficient – you can quickly iterate on designs and convert your files to create high-quality prototypes. This means you can get your product to market faster and stay ahead of the competition.
Formlabs printers are faster print times with no visible layering and fewer supports needed to clean off.
Also, Converting PTC Creo files to files that are readable on Formlabs printers takes a few minutes on a free Formlabs converter called Freeform. It’s easy to upload a Creo design file into Freeform to convert it to an STL file and then send it directly to your Formlabs printer. Your prints will be ready to go in no time.
2. Improved Design Accuracy and Customization
Formlabs 3D printers offer high resolution and accurate prints, which means you can create prototypes that look and feel like the final product. This allows you to test your designs more accurately and make changes before committing to manufacturing.
Customization and small-scale production runs, which are great for creating unique products or limited edition runs, are made possible with Formlabs 3D Printers. PTC Creo can help you design and optimize these products to meet your exact specifications with the versatility of tools that it provides.
3. Cost Savings
By using Formlabs 3D printing for prototyping, you can save money on tooling and manufacturing costs. This is especially true with Formlabs printers, which offer high-quality prints at a lower cost than traditional manufacturing methods.
While there are some printers that have direct integrations from PTC Creo, you could be spending $50k-$80k more on printers. Converting PTC Creo files to files that are readable on Formlabs printers takes a few minutes and costs you nothing.
4. Increased Productivity
By combining PTC Creo and Formlabs 3D printers, you can work more efficiently and get more done in less time. PTC Creo’s powerful design tools and Formlabs’ fast printing speeds allow you to create high-quality prototypes and final products quickly and easily.
Conclusion
Taking advantage of the power of PTC Creo 3D CAD software for product design and creation and advanced Formlabs 3D printers for physical production, you get an unbeatable combination for creating prototypes and final products.
In conclusion, combining Formlabs 3D printers with PTC Creo offers numerous benefits that can help you create high-quality prototypes and final products faster, more accurately, and at a lower cost. So, if you’re looking to innovate your product design process, consider using Formlabs printers with PTC Creo.
Reach out to one of our experts to find out which solution would benefit your production process.
The capabilities and functionalities of computer-aided design software determine the achievements of design teams and, ultimately, the profitability of manufacturing companies. From concept design and large assemblies to emerging technologies – PTC Creo will always beat SolidWorks.
1. Concept Design
Within Concept Design, tools that help designers achieve quicker design iterations, reduce design rework, and testing on design concepts early on are vital. SolidWorks struggles with basic foundations to quickly create multiple and complex concept ID and proposal models. While easy revisions of concept models and conceptual design tools (aside from traditional and basic surfacing functions) seem like they should be a standard in CAD design programs, SolidWorks comes up short. The missing capabilities make design iterations like freeform surfacing an impossible task.
Contrary to SolidWorks, PTC’s Creo provides numerous, flexible tools so users can quickly turn ideas into concepts and models into detailed designs. With capabilities like freestyle, designers can quickly and easily create freestyle and parametric combination surfaces. Creo’s concept design tools empower engineers to quickly create 2D conceptual geometry, easily generate proposed concept variations and are seamlessly compatible with other sub-divisional initial surfacing. To minimize prototyping costs and decrease waste, Creo also provides early simulation for shaping initial surfacing.
2. Large Assemblies
Large assemblies are typically fighting three persistent problems: lengthy opening times and lack of memory, large drawings for slow loading, and lagging graphics with sudden crashes. SolidWorks does not provide solutions to those issues, but rather it has performance and stability constraints when loading large assemblies. SolidWorks is slow to respond to full assembly changes and lacks the capabilities for top-down design and concurrent engineering. All of these vulnerabilities lead to slow design processes and an increase in time-to-market – ultimately hindering the bottom line.
PTC Creo is the recognized leader in large assembly management and top-down design. PTC’s CAD solution is the strongest-performing software in loading and working with large assemblies. Multiple people can work on large assemblies and they don’t have to suffer usability and performance scales as the assembly size grows. As engineers make major changes to the assemblies there are predictable outcomes that are easy to fix with flexible tools such as simplified reps, data sharing, and more. The tools in Creo allow large assemblies to be created with ease and confidence in a smooth process as assemblies continue to grow.
3. Robust Modeling Functions
A robust model is defined as a model structure that can easily adapt with minimal negative feedback when changes are made to the design and model. SolidWorks is lacking in adaption for sheet metal, direct editing, multi-body designs, top-down designs, and complex surfacing. SolidWorks struggles with fluidity in progressing from conceptual models to creating robust, detailed models. Robust models need to be able to adjust with scaling. SolidWorks fails to attain that scalability as models change and evolve to create more innovative and complex products. In other words, with SolidWorks there is no assurance that your designs will reach the same efficiency as the model becomes more complex.
Contrary to SolidWorks, Creo is a single, scalable suite of integrated solutions with powerful direct and parametric modeling. As a single source of truth, Creo allows you to design without compromise, regardless of complexity, and achieve full associativity and automatic change propagation. These capabilities open up the opportunity to work on complex models without any interruptions.
4. Late-Stage Design Changes
There’s nothing more frustrating than getting to the end of your design iteration and realizing that you missed something along the way to finish the model. SolidWorks software makes it difficult to make late-stage design changes to complex geometry which often results in having to rework and fix the model geometry. Performance and productivity are impacted by late-design changes that require a recognition of the entire model geometry and all its features. When designers try to move parts and surfaces, these changes could require rebuilding or an import/export of CAD data. This makes it difficult to make changes to dimensions and pattern features, copy geometry, and move complex surfaces. When you can’t easily make late-stage design changes there is a disruption in the workflow – time and money are lost.
PTC Creo helps companies save money by delivering powerful capabilities for late-stage design changes. Functionalities like direct copy/paste geometry, flexible pattern tools, round editing, and the ability to follow geometry upon move are all ways that designers can keep production moving. When designers can move complex geometry and Flexible Modeling intelligently adapts geometry to the given use case, they can be confident in making late-stage design changes without disrupting their workflow. Creo saves teams from headaches, time lost, and missed opportunities.
5. Emerging Technologies
As far as new emerging technologies and the development of existing technologies go, SolidWorks lacks a strong initiative to keep up with the changes. While there have been proposed solutions for emerging technologies, SolidWorks focuses on extending the functionality of traditional capabilities rather than architecting a complete, and well-implemented new solution. Furthermore, their solutions are entry-level or non-existent without smooth workflows and are not fully integrated into the CAD environment. The world of technology is constantly changing and keeping up with the times is vital to bringing success to companies around the world.
PTC has unmatched capabilities in the emerging technologies that are shaping the next evolution of product development. New CAD technologies introduced by PTC are deeply integrated with Creo including generative design, simulation-driven design, augmented reality, smart connected products, and additive manufacturing. By creating compatible integrations for new, emerging technologies, PTC can stay ahead of the game with its CAD software.
From the design concept to late-stage changes, offering the best and newest capabilities is vital to the growth and success of every company. Between SolidWorks and Creo, the functionalities speak for themselves. Offering a wide expanse of tools, PTC Creo will help your designers save themselves from frustrations, shorten the design process, and increase profits year over year.
Want to learn more about how Creo could transform your business? Get in contact with our EAC experts or learn more about Creo’s capabilities here.