In my last post, I discussed some of the new features that will be available in Mathcad Prime 3.0 having to do with documentation and presentation. In this post I will be exploring some more of the new functionality of Mathcad Prime 3.0 that Mark Walker, Director of Product Management for Mathcad, shared with me.
Walker explained that in addition to getting a lot of user requests on documentation and presentation, the Mathcad team also received typical feature requests. Here are some more of the feature-level updates that the Mathcad team is actively developing for Mathcad Prime 3.0:
- Improved conversation for legacy worksheets: Many of these planned features had their roots in earlier versions of Mathcad. Whatever features introduced in this release will be easy to convert from previous constructs in customers’ legacy worksheets.
- Improved plot composition: A “complete” plot is a unique combination of graphical display elements, live math, text, markers, and more. User feedback has proven that currently available plot capabilities do not cover the breadth of elements that users need to add to create such “complete” presentations. However, the currently available architecture would not have been an effective foundation to add more sub-elements. With this planned work, plot titles, axis labels, and more will be intuitively added and controlled, freely positioned, and intelligently manipulated – all while remaining grouped in a way that doesn’t hinder the use of neighboring whitespace in the worksheet.
- Improved plotting power: Plots will be able to handle much larger data sets than ever before, matching recent improvements in matrix calculations and management that were afforded by Mathcad Prime 2.0’s current support of 64bit operating systems.
- Region “anchor point” control: This new concept for Mathcad will allow users to control the anchor points of their regions in a worksheet, making the best use of its white space and producing more readable presentations. Specifically, this would allow a plot’s anchor point to be placed at the bottom of the graph, allowing equations that influence it to be placed immediately next to it, rather than several lines above it. Similarly, this would allow text regions to be placed along the right margin of a header, and ensure that it only “grows” to the left as content is added or the region is resized. Several common requests are anticipated to be addressed by this freedom to control any region’s anchor point within the worksheet.
- Global definition operator: This feature is also planned for return in Mathcad Prime 3.0, allowing freedom of definition anywhere in the worksheet. This becomes especially useful when creating concise summaries or evaluating changes in a specific area of the worksheet when it is influenced by variables that may have been defined several pages before. By using a global definition operator instead, they can be defined and manipulated quickly and precisely within the area of interest in the worksheet.
It is evident that a lot of hard work is going into the development and creation of Mathcad Prime 3.0, keeping in mind the needs of current and future Mathcad users and the needs of engineers of all disciplines, students, teachers, and people of all industries and disciplines. Come back to the blog often to learn the latest news surrounding the development of Mathcad Prime 3.0 and further posts about Mathcad Prime 3.0 integration with Creo and Integrity.
Another improvement would include “wrap-around” for long equations. Should receive a high priority in this update. Unfortunately they are just cut-off during printing.
Unfortunately, this is not planned for Prime 3.0. We understand the need, and will be reconsidering this for the next release.
There are actually two cases that we are considering to help with such readability issues. The first is wrapping at appropriate operators within long expressions, as John requests. The second, actually perhaps more common case, is at the definition operator – most notably for function definitions. Often times, functions are defined with several arguments, each of which can itself be lengthy. In such cases, users would like to wrap the definition of the function (which itself is often a long program) to be right underneath the function name.
For example, see the image here (image 1): http://communities.ptc.com/photoAlbums/1290
Would be better presented like this: (image 2) http://communities.ptc.com/photoAlbums/1290
So, stay tuned, both of these are being considered soon!
Something that IS planned for Prime 3.0 is to allow for control of math region formatting (as in, font face, size, color, etc). This allows all math regions to be made smaller relative to the page, of course. This can also help in edge cases where an individual expression is just slightly too wide to fit the page, allowing the user to reduce the font size slightly for that one region to make it fit. While the differences can’t be too drastic in order to maintain a clean presentation, there are cases where this “tweak” will fit the bill.
will we be able to have a background highlight for items that are input?
so this is the roadmap and not work that is already done since you haven’t posted any images.
Hi there and thanks for your comment. All the items listed above are actually already in development and in implementation of different stages. So, although there are no pictures in this post, the work is certainly in the process of being done. As we get closer to completing Mathcad Prime 3.0 we will definitely have more blog posts on different features and include images for you all to see.
1. When will Prime bring back the image/picture tool?
2. Ditto re: scriptable components?
3. and same re: 2D plots with two Y-axes?
Thank you for your comments. We place tremendous value on the opinions, input and direct feedback from our loyal Mathcad users. Please be assured that the issues you raised are currently being considered for future releases of Mathcad. While the majority of critical updates for Mathcad Prime 3.0 have been finalized, all of the points in question will be addressed in Mathcad Prime 4.0.
I assume then that v15 will be fully supported until Prime X.0 does everything that v15 does? This appears to years down the road now?
This is all a bit disappointing. Let’s see if I can convey it this way: Which would an engineer rather have – a tool that did everything he/she needed but didn’t necessarily look particularly pretty, or a tool that didn’t do what he/she needed, but enabled the solution to some other problem with a fancy user interface and displayed the results really nicely? Since the whole Prime effort started, you’ve been focussing far too much on the latter.
Hello Richard,
We are working on mutiple aspects of Mathcad. Many users use Mathcad as a documenting tool, so being able to prepare professional looking documents using math formatting, text formatting, and professional looking plots is important to them. Many companies need Mathcad to standardize what they are doing so templates are important to them.
Other users need the functionality of Mathcad and don’t care what their worksheets look like. Mathcad Prime includes all the functions from both Mathcad 15 and the Extension packs (except for Wavelets) as well a number of new functions. We’ve improved the processing power of a number of functions, added new Knitro solvers, and added multithreading and support for 64-bit platforms.
Mona
Mona,
In all honesty, I truly believe that the VAST majority of long-term Mathcad users are FAR more interested in the “math” part of “Mathcad” than the “cad” (i.e. presentation) capabilities. Yes, great presentation is nice (important even), but until it can do the “math” bit properly …
My company is currently evaluating whether to migrate from 14 to Prime – and the answer from the significant majority of current users is an overwhelming “no”, because so many of our existing worksheets simply won’t port across smoothly (or at all). Maybe we could migrate most of them to Prime if we were prepared to expend enough effort – maybe. But where is the VALUE for us in doing that? If you’ve got a 50-year old hammer that still drives nails as well as it did when it was brand new, are you going to buy a new hammer just because the head is shinier?
Perhaps you’re selling lots of new licences to people who don’t have a history with Mathcad, but have you conducted a proper survey of your existing users to see what version they’re running?
Hello Mona,
it appears we’re talking at cross purposes here. It is not the case that one doesn’t need either or – Mathcad has to perform the maths and it has to make it presentable which is the raison d’etre when choosing a tool that allows natural scripting of equations.
Raiko
To elaborate my previous post,
I have prepared a short document that is typical for my daily work. In it sections are highlighted that show what and why I do need. I.e. controls, mixed text and math regions, embedded graphics etc. I don’t know how to attach it to this blog but maybe you can send me a link.
Raiko
Quick clarification of Mona’s comments (it seems they may have been misunderstood) – PTC Mathcad Prime includes all the functions of PTC Mathcad 15.0, as well as the functions from Extension packs (except Wavelets). This means that on the Functions tab in Prime 3.0 you have access to all the Insert->Function options from 15.0, plus the extension pack functions (except Wavelets).
Prime 3.0 will include specific functionality such as Math Formatting, Templates, Global Definition and Math in Text (among other updates). These have been added and updated in Prime 3.0 to enhance those functionality areas beyond their use in 15.0. With the addition of these and other updates, conversion fidelity from 15.0 to Prime 3.0 will also be greatly enhanced.
“Functions”? Maybe – I’ll have to take your word on that. There are numerous function names in the Mathcad 15 list which I don’t see listed under the same heading in Mathcad Prime 2’s function list, but I assume they’ve been mapped to new function names / syntax in Prime 2, or else they’ve bee moved under a new heading.
But “Functionality”? NO WAY! Just browse the comments in this thread and numerous others) to see what long-time Mathcad users are missing. (“Advanced” graph formatting options, full support of OLE “cut and paste” from other applications, etc …)
But the biggest short-coming of all for me is the lack of backward and forward compatibility. If I create a simple Mathcad Prime worksheet, I can’t share it with a colleague or client who is on 15 or earlier. And even worse – virtually ALL of my “non-trivial” legacy worksheets fail to convert into Prime format. Yes, I am sure that, given time, I could probably convert most to run on Prime (maybe some of these are simple issues with incorrect mapping / changed syntax of otherwise equivalent functions, but some of the errors are far from simple to resolve) – but why would I bother? Mathcad is a PRODUCTIVITY tool – where is the enhanced “productivity” in spending many hours to convert numerous “legacy” worksheets to a new format, so that I can get the same answer (with a bit of extra
“eye candy”) as I do with the previous release? This is an absolute deal-breaker for me.
While my company has upgraded all of our licences to Prime (with a co-install of 15), there is simply no compelling reason for any of the regular users to “migrate”. Every one of us has a dual-installation; all of us have had a look at Prime (generally with quite positive initial responses to presentation and formatting, etc) – and every single one of us has quickly found a “fatal flaw” which rules it incompatible with our actual NEEDS.
Imagine the uproar if Microsoft released an update of MS-Office which couldn’t read / write Office 2000 – 2013 files …
“PTC Mathcad Prime includes all the functions of PTC Mathcad 15.0”
“PTC Mathcad Prime 3 will include all the functions of PTC Mathcad 15.0” (Fixed it for you!)
I certainly hope so!
For several years, I have taught engineering freshmen how to use Mathcad (12-15) to make nicely formatted solutions to engineering problems.
(Side note: A nicely formatted solution is one that complies with certain conventions that help others to understand it. Nice formatting is less about smooth fonts or the aesthetic look of a solution, and more about how clearly ideas and methods are expressed. “What the worksheets look like” might refer to the inherent capability of the software to comply with certain conventions, in which case it is very important. But “what it looks like” may alternatively refer to font choice or smoothness, or other aesthetic considerations, in which case I care a whole lot less. This may help clarify what Richard was talking about.)
As a professor, I cringe at the thought of just teaching someone to use a piece of software, because software platforms come and go. What doesn’t come and go are the fundamental duties that engineers perform. Proper communication of problem solutions is one duty of an engineer that I think is important and lasting. In the past, Mathcad has been a helpful tool toward that end.
The direction that Mathcad has taken with prime x.0 has made it more difficult to focus on the fundamental task of making an understandable document. There are two features in particular that the old Mathcad could do, that I used frequently, that the new cannot. First, the old Mathcad had a lot of flexibility and capability in how plots were formatted. For instance, I find it appalling that there is no way to add a label to a vertical axis such that the text is oriented parallel with the axis. Second, I frequently place a math region inside of a text region when I need to emphasize some numerical result or input parameter within a sentence. I have not found a way to do this with the new Mathcad.
There are other issues as well. There is an investment that many of us have made in creating sheets for various purposes. Effectively we are now forced to choose between staying current with the software or being able to use our old worksheets. There has to be an effective conversion process, or the switch to the new will be a very hard sell for me.
When it comes right down to it, I feel like prime 1.0 was an alpha version and 2.0 might be a beta. I am wondering how many more versions are going to come out before there is really one that is worthy of being called 1.0. As soon as the real 1.0 comes out, I’m in, until then, I’ll stick with 15 or earlier.
Well said, Michael. If these alpha and beta versions were free it is one thing, but PTC is expecting us to pay for less functionality. That’s the part I’m just not understanding.
Not having “wrap-around” for long equations makes Prime 2 very difficult to use, and not fixing such an obvious error in Prime 3 is beyond understanding.
I couldn’t agree more. If the documentation aspect of Mathcad is of importance, then it would seem that a wrap-around feature would be one of the more important features. Now I guess I’ll need to create additional dummy variables – and therefore break up the longer equations – just so they’re all visible in the printed result. I would ask the folks at PTC to at least consider bringing this much needed feature back.
One remark more. Functions like “wraping” and explicit are important in most cases for students, to present their work faster than in Word where even typing equ’s is far longer than in Prime (nothing said about calcs). Im just graduating Master in Civil Engineering. If I had Prime with only these two functions during my 5 years studies It woludn’t be so time consuming. Have a look at Autodesk politics. Their put so much attention on students by free software etc. We are used to them for designing as for Word in calcs (at least in Poland). Implement this functions as soon as possible to achieve big group of future users, Please!
Anna, would be interesting to include more operations like a:
1) a command for deleting rows/columns of a matrix
2) another for puting a matrix inside another one…but not a “nested” matrix; only raplacing the elements in the destination matrix.
3) I love the “IF” statement, but Im sure that the a “CASE” would be excelent for large if/then code.
4) In the actual Prime 2 only rasterized images are suported. Now is time to include vector images (svg, eps), because printed PDF with rasterized contents have an incredible size and low quality (and are slow and non smooth).
5) thanks!
Please Anna, let me know your opinion about that 😉
Best regards,
Francisco Chávez
Any news on getting subscript to work by pressing the dot key on keyboard as it were in Mathcad 15? This makes typing equations a lot faster.
We understand that this change is not sitting well with some users. However, the “subscript” feature in Mathcad Prime 2.0 works differently and allows more flexibility than in Mathcad 15.0
– Users can have variables of the form: H2O, where only “2” is subscripted.
– “.” can be used in variable names explicitly, as in “a.b.c”, and
– Entering subscripts in variable names is WYSIWYG
While typing CTRL+- instead of . takes some getting used to, we believe the overall change is for the better.
You have adopted the “Word” shortcut. The problem with even Word is that it totally ignores the idea of “speed typing’. Rapid data entry is becoming more and more challenging because while in the days when everything was so “text” driven developers actually understood the advantage of making data entry rapid. I don’t have any problem changing of the functionality, but did you consider a keystrok that does not require you to stretch beyond the home keys for a function that is so often used. One way around this is to allow for custom short-cuts. I know that could be a whole set of code to write, but ON THE OTHER HAND AT LEAST THIS FUNCITONALITY IS ACTUALLY IN PRIME unlike so much else that is not in spite of Mona Zeftel above trying to mislead us all into thinking that Prime “has all the funcitonality of …” PLEASE. What fairy tale land are you PTC folks living in?
1) When will MathCAD Prime allow addition of gridlines to plots?
2) When will Prime allow addition of titles to plots?
3) When will Prime support the symbolic equal (symbolic solver)?
4) Why does INFINITY randomly disappear from the Math Symbols and from the Ctl-Sht-Z hotkey?
Thanks.
1&2- Plot gridlines and titles are being planned for an upcoming release, most likely Mathcad Prime 4.0.
3- Mathcad Prime 2.0 already supports the use of symbolics, however not yet symbolic solve (within a solve block). Is that what you’re referring to? If not, can you please provide an example on communities: http://communities.ptc.com/community/mathcad Outside of a solve block, symbolic solving can be accomplished and numerically evaluated, also as of Prime 2.0, of course. For example: http://communities.ptc.com/photos/3151
4- Can you provide an example of this mysterious infinity disappearance? It sounds like a defect because that certainly isnt intended. If you can provide an example here: http://communities.ptc.com/community/mathcad we will look into it and let you know!
Hi Anna.
Thanks for the prompt response. I certainly look forward to drastic improvement in the Prime direction that MathCAD is heading. I have used and loved MathCAD for 15 years now. To clarify:
3) I have Prime 1.0 and cannot do symbolic algebraic manipulations such as expand, collect and simplify as I could in pre-Prime versions with the Ctl+. (Ctl Period). Is this not available in Prime 1.0? Is it available in Prime 2.0?
4) I do not know what else to say about Infinity disappearing. Sometimes when I wish to evaluate integrals to infinity, Ctl-Shft-Z simply doesn’t work, and when I try to just insert it from the Math Symbols Pulldown, Infinity is no longer present there either. Again, I am using Prime 1.0.
5) Also, last night while trying to print a report for my grad class, the graphs were not printing the same as they were displayed and were plotting incorrectly. A little more specifically, I calculated over an x range from 0 to 20 and yet plotted over an x range of 0 to 7 and while this displayed correctly, when I printed the report, it showed the x axis as going from 0 to 7 but was clearly plotting y values for an x range of 0 to 20. VERY BAD JOOJOO. Was this a known bug of Prime 1.0 and is it fixed in Prime 2?
6) I miss the ability to hide regions. Is this available in Prime 2.0?
7) The manor in which Prime 1.o DISABLES evaluation is quite unappealing as compared to MathCAD 10-15. Is there plans to makes this less obtrusive and make it blend more natural with documents. Disabled evaluations in Prime 1.0 look like errors and not intentional disabled evaluations of equations.
8) Can I still buy a copy of 15.0? How?
Thanks greatly.
Charles
Sr RF Design Engineer and Computational Emag PhD Student
3) Yes. The symbolic evaluation (including expand, collect, simplify, explicit, etc.) is available in Mathcad Prime 2.0
4) Infinity symbol (∞) is available in Mathcad Prime 2.0. It is under Math/Symbols and Math/Constants. The shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+Z.
5) Without a specific worksheet, I can’t tell for sure, but I would believe that something that severe was fixed. Given the resolved issues with infinity, and the general fixed defects and capability improvements that have been added to Prime 2.0, I would encourage you to try it and see if the issues you are experiencing have been resolved.
6) Yes Mathcad Prime 2.0 has a functionality component called collapsible areas which lets you hide/ minimize regions.
7) We have designed “disable region” look and feel, so that it is clear to the user that the region is not being synchronized with the changes in the document – specifically by graying out any disabled content. I would be interested more specifically, what disabled regions are used for (e.g. just something that is occasionally evaluated, or other purpose).
8) If you download Mathcad Prime 2.0, Mathcad 15.0 is complimentary/ included.
Hi Anna.
Again, thanks for your responses.
MathCAD Prime 1 does not support highlighting a region as do non-Prime versions of MathCAD. Does Prime 2.0 support this? If not, when will Prime support HIGHLIGHTING A REGION?
We are trying to convince our company to move to MathCad for standardizing their design processes. The main reason the ease of documenting the calculation process in an easily understandable format easing the checking of the calculations. It does not seem to make sense to start on MathCad to shift to Prime x.0 somewhere in future. However, there are two main issues that is complicating our effort and supporting the reluctance of sticking to Excel for the ease of the calculations.
1. There are a number of sheets developed by individuals in MathCad 15 already which do not convert to Prime 2.0. Will this be sorted in Prime 3?
2. In engineering you often have to select appropriate variations which was easy using list boxes or radio buttons in MathCad15. Will Prime 3 support this? If not, the functionality of the calculations far outweigh the appearance even if the improved appearance would be nice to have.
Barend: Features developed for PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 will greatly improve the conversion fidelity for Mathcad 15.0 (and older) worksheets. However, I would need see the exact list of features to give you more precise answers. If you want, contact me through communities.ptc.com (can’t list my e-mail here, but you can guess it :)) and I can help you more directly with conversion quality assessment.
The so called “user controls” (drop-downs, sliders, etc. are on the roadmap for a follow-up release, but, unfortunately, not in Prime 3.0.
Any reason why you haven’t just opted for a LaTeX typesetting feature? You are obviously inspired by it with the font chosen. This would also allow for referencing section headings, equation numberings etc., and a table of contents, which has always been a major drawback of Mathcad.
I do, however, understand if your going for a more WYSIWYG interface for the less TeX-savvy customers, but at least let the user be able to customize his own shortcuts and macros. It was always extremely annoying for instance, that Mathcad uses “.” for subscript while the standard for every other CAS (and LaTeX) is an underscore.
Hi Anna, good morning :).
Short question: what about the use of vector images instead of rasterized?. That’s because the excel module is shown as ugly raster image when is printed in PDF (and some plots too), and also the possibility to embedded images in the document in formats like SVG or EPS.
Thanks a lot, hope you can answer me!
Hmm this is a little tricky to answer. Could you post an example on the PTC Mathcad Community page? http://communities.ptc.com/community/mathcad An example would help.
The issue with rendering the Excel Component within Mathcad is more of an Excel issue than it is Mathcad. It is a product of the OLE technology behind the integration. I wish we had more robust and WPF friendly way to integrate with Excel. Most likely in future versions of Excel..
On the more general issue if including vector images in Mathcad, this is something we can look into. It would allow augmenting your document with high-quality images.
As for ‘printing’, saving to XPS generally gives better results (in Mathcad) than saving to PDF. There is a free XPS viewer is available from Microsoft.
I’m really disappointed to read that (web) controls will not be implemented in Prime 3.0. I Have a lot of standard engineering calculations that rely on them. I guess I will have to use v14/v15 until then… Is there any info on a release date of Prime with control functionality?
I wanted to introduce Mathcad for several engineers at my new employer, but i’m a little reluctant because of this shortcoming. Control functionality greatly improves the ‘shareability’ of standard sheets.
True, the web controls are not in Prime 3.0, but are one of the top features we are planning for a follow-up release. I don’t have the dates yet… We hear quite a few customers that are used to version 14.0 and 15.0 asking for web controls and would complement the templates quote well. There are few simple workarounds, though. Not as elegant, but workable. You can contact me directly if want more info (can’t post the e-mail here, because of spam, but you can guess it).
Jakov
I would like to have more information on workoround for the web controls.
Thanks
Forced Upgrade.
I got an email from PTC telling me I have until the end oh March to upgrade my (many) licenses of 15 for $500, or pay $1500 for a license of Prime (which is not a functional as 15) in the future. Why would I do that? especially when there is no clear path of future implementations.
Hi Nathan – You bring up a great point that could use some clarification. The Single User Upgrade email you received from PTC is regarding our Single User product, activated by a product code typically starting with the letter ‘J’, that did not include Global Support (maintenance) when originally sold. We stopped selling this type of license with the Mathcad 14.0 version. Since you and your company own Mathcad 15.0, it means that you purchased (or upgraded to) Individual licenses that included one year of Global Support. If your Global Support contract is still active, you are entitled to Prime 2.0 at no further charge – you do not have to pay to upgrade. If your Global Support contract is no longer active, it is a simple matter to renew and become eligible for all its benefits, including major upgrades.
The Single User Upgrade path is for those users who have Mathcad 14.0 or earlier Single User and would like to upgrade to any version Mathcad 15.0 – Prime 2.0 (including Prime 3.0 when released this summer). The Mathcad team can quickly determine what version and license type a user has – for more information, please reach out to mathcadsales@ptc.com.
It just feels like that even paying support, I am funding your development for a product I am already happy with (version 15). Since PTC took over in 2006 they want me to keep paying for mathcad, but instead of improving you have taken many steps backward. My users know and love 15, and the few I have had try prime 2 just laugh, and say if this is the future of mathcad its time to find something else.
I sure would like to be able cut drawings from some other application and paste them into MathCAD. At the moment (Prime 2.0) I can make text, image file or math regions but none of them will accept a simple paste from another application such as a drawing from Visio or a schematic from OrCAD, not to say anything about what I don’t know like Solidworks, AutoCAD, etc. Since these are the things I want to use MathCAD to analyze it sure would be nice if I could paste in the original drawings.
Thanks for the comment. If you are looking for static snapshot of a drawing, you should be able to paste it _provided_ that the other application puts it on the clipboard as image. Not all applications do. Try taking a screenshot of the drawing, or look for options to ‘paste as image’ in the drawing application.
If you are looking for more functional embedding of drawings, that’s another story…
“Functional embedding of drawings”, Another story”: Ya, I know. That is my complaint. Every other Windows app I use has an “Edit” menu with full clipboard Cut, Copy, Paste capability. Why not MathCAD. If PTC can’t even get basic software engineering for windows 101 right, what hope is there?.
Once you end up picking the location, the file will probably be saved.
Indeed, many children develop anxiety over math problems and something thing that can be done to help him overcome
it really is to let them practice in worksheets –
but try to make it fun and creative as well.
You can gather different items such as food, resources
and in game currency named clams.
Is there setting “grid lines” in X-Y plots? If not, how can I simulate them?