LiveWorx 2017: 8 Partners With The Coolest Applications At PTC's Partner Conference

LiveWorx: Partner Applications Live

PTC partners gathered at the company's LiveWorx conference in Boston to demonstrate how they are innovating with IoT and augmented reality.

At its conference, PTC added new features and manufacturing apps to its ThingWorx Internet of Things platform, aimed at better positioning its channel partners to sell into the industrial market. The next generation of ThingWorx is a more comprehensive offering for customers who want to quickly develop, deploy and extend industrial IoT applications, according to the company.

Partners showed how they are taking advantage of ThingWorx, along with PTC's other technologies, like its augmented reality Vuforia platform and its CAD software. Here are eight partners with the coolest applications at LiveWorx.

Bosch Rexroth Smart Factory

Show-goers saw PTC's technology at work through one of the company's partners, Bosch Rexroth. Bosch Rexroth used PTC ThingWorx Navigate to give a demo of its flagship product, CyrtoPac, its hydraulic power system.

Bosch Rexroth used PTC's Creo product to create a digital twin so that operators could remotely view what was happening with CyrtoPac while it was on the field. Through the combination of a digital model and Creo, operators could view data, such as temperature in augmented reality, so that they could find problems in the system quicker.

EAC Product Development Solutions NASCAR Solution

PTC partner EAC showed off how it is using augmented reality and IoT to create a new experience for NASCAR fans. EAC's development team, in collaboration with PTC and Richard Childress Racing, created ThingWorx View experiences for fans, allowing them to interact with a different part of the car using their smartphone and the ThingWorx View app. For instance, users can see the fuel system and how a race car is fueled using an augmented reality concept on their smartphone. The design for the NASCAR solution is still in the prototype phase, according to PTC.

B oston Engineering Robotic Fish

The Navy challenged Boston Engineering to develop an autonomous underwater vehicle that was highly maneuverable and could work in shallow waters.

Boston Engineering created the "Ghost Swimmer" robotic design, and through reverse engineering, the company took points on an actual object – in this case, they were trying to replicate the design of a fish – and imported the point cloud into Creo. After creating a physical structure based on the digital twin of a fish, the company installed sensors and IoT capabilities to their design.

Industrial Network Systems

Industrial Network Systems has been a partner of Kepware (a PTC company) for years – but just last summer the company became a PTC partner to leverage its ThingWorx technology to connect ERP to the shop floor.

Using ThingWorx, INS has deployed analytics tools on industrial floors to help customers achieve business return on investment, enabling operators to better organize data reports through dashboards and scoreboards from the data collected on their connected industrial systems, devices and assets.

INS' solutions enable its customers to monitor edge devices, provide automated predictive modeling, and eventually automatically operationalize and maintain predictive intelligence to end users.

ITC Infotech IoT Retail Applications

PTC system integrator partner ITC Infotech offers the company's ThingWorx platform to enable Internet of Things applications in the connected CPG and retail vertical markets. ITC offers an array of service offerings, including IoT advisory and consulting services like connected things strategy and IoT solutions roadmap development, as well as implementation and integration services, including business system integrations, proof-of-concept development and end-to-end capabilities. With the company's IoT solution, retail stores can develop systems to track material, energy and water use by leveraging SPC Metrics, and provide packaging analytics to track consumption and waste in a packaging system.

Glassbeam IoT Medical Device Solution

Glassbeam has used PTC ThingWorx to leverage its two IoT products: Glassbeam Studio, a data transformation and preparation tool focused on automating the process for converting raw machine log data into actionable information; and Glassbeam Edge, a machine data analytics platform at the edge. Glassbeam worked with VytronUS to help the clinical stage medical device company collect and analyze machine data information from its systems. With the ThingWorx rapid application development IoT platform, Glassbeam helped VytronUS reduce costs and accelerate product time to market.

Optis Virtual Reality Solutions

Optis, a software developer and PTC partner, has creates a light simulation solution based on a physical model inside CAD software. The company's product, SPEOS for Pro/Engineer, enables customers to model, analyze and optimize their lighting systems and product appearance, as well as simulate and optimize solar energy systems.

The company's fully-integrated software renders how a product will be perceived in any lighting conditions, whether day or night – so customers can make decisions about the colors, textures, and surfaces of their products as they design them. For instance, airplane manufacturers would be able to see a visual experience in various lighting environments of their planes while they are designing them and bringing them to market.

Griiip Automotive Engineering

Startup Griiip was at LiveWorx to show how it uses PTC technology to design and manufacture race cars. The company uses IoT and augmented reality to help supply users and consumers with the real time data they need. Griiip uses sensors installed on its G1 race cars to collect, analyze and present data to help engineering, marketing, servicing and sales – as well as race car drivers and viewers.

"In our industry, it is critical to get things done faster, and solutions like Creo Product Insight provide us with the tools to quickly bring to market new and exciting concepts in the world of Motorsport racing," said Tamir Plachinsky, CEO of Griiip, in a statement. "We see huge value in the ability of Creo Product Insight to give our engineers real data from the track to enhance our design process."