Mathcad Tips

PTC Mathcad Prime 8 has now released!   @CatMcchad a quick interview with PTC Mathcad's product manager, @amcgough, for this blog article about what's new and exciting in Mathcad Prime 8, what new functionality users and veterans will look forward to using, and how the Mathcad team decides what new functionality to put into each release. Much of that is customer-driven, and Andy cited several delivered requests from the Mathcad Ideas board on this very community. Read the interview here: https://www.mathcad.com/en/blogs/why-prime8-andy-mcgough     Andy will also be available next week (March 22 at 10:00 Eastern) for a webinar about what's new in Mathcad Prime 8, featuring demos of the new functionality, plus a live Q&A portion with Andy that yours truly will be moderating. Register for that here (or catch the replay-on-demand after the fact): https://www.mathcad.com/en/resources/webcast/whats-new-mathcad-8   Happy calculating~

Hi all! I'm pleased to announce that while Mathcad Prime 8 is releasing March 2022, we at PTC have just published a blog article letting you all know in advance what is being included! And PTC Community are the first ones to know. Check it out: https://www.mathcad.com/en/blogs/whats-mathcad-prime8   We'll post another announcement when Mathcad Prime 8 is actually released.   In the meantime, we've opened up registration for our accompanying What's New in Mathcad Prime 8 webinar coming March 22, 2022. I plan to moderate it, with Mathcad product manager Andrew McGough demoing the functionality in much more detail. The webinar will end with a live question and answer session.   Mathcad Prime 8 Webinar March 22   (Note that I'm not able to answer your Mathcad Prime 8 questions on this post, but Andy will certainly be able to in that webinar.)   Thanks!

We received an email inquiry which I had forwarded to a Mathcad product manager. I thought it may be useful for others, too, so instead of just emailing the response to the customer, I am posting it here as well.   ------- We need to convert .mcd to .mcdx...We have Prime 6.0.0.0 What do we need and how much does the program cost to do this conversion. ------- The .mcdx file format is Mathcad Prime. The .mcd file format is for earlier versions of the legacy software, later versions of the legacy software use the .xmcd file format.   If this customer uses Mathcad Prime 6.0 there is a converter that comes with the software they can use to convert all .xmcd and most .mcd files to .mcdx - ‘most’ .mcd as we only go back as far as something like legacy Mathcad 7, which was late 90’s I think.   From the Input/Output tab in Mathcad Prime 6.0 they can find an ‘xmcd/mcd converter’ button - clicking that will open the converter. They will need the latest version of Mathcad 15.0 (M050) for that to work, and they can download that currently from the support software download site (Prime 7.0 converter does not need Mathcad 15.0 for the converter to work). -------- Hope this helps! For additional questions, don't hesitate to open a Support ticket!  

PTC Mathcad is an ideal tool for recording the design knowledge for many different engineering problems. As engineering problems get more complex, the design knowledge grows in length and so does the Mathcad worksheet. The longer the Mathcad worksheet, the more regions it contains

Hi Expert,Here is a piecewise continuos function. I can get the two root by root function. But the third root with an error "The function values on the end points must be of opposite signs." How can I set he third and fourth arguments of root function?

Hello everyone,Me and some of my marketing colleagues have been thinking about new ways of doing marketing – but using the tools we already have at hand and many of you are also using today.We want to do something beyond sending you offers by email and we thought there also should

Watch Mathcad for Mechanical Engineers!

On June 27, 2023 (10:00 Eastern), PTC held a Mathcad for Civil Engineers webinar. Check out the now-recorded (formerly live) webinar for opportunities to: Learn what Mathcad is Learn Mathcad use cases for civil and structural engineers Watch Mathcad demos by a guest presenter (Dr. Pat Heffernan, professor of civil engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada) Listen to the Q&A with the presenters and the then-live audience It was a fun time! Here was an excerpt:

  (Made in PTC Mathcad Prime 7)

https://www.engineering.com/story/my-top-3-engineering-nightmares-expert-shares-the-truth-on-software-selection   Anji Seberino, the head of our PTC Mathcad Application Engineer team, recently took some time to interview with engineering.com about her top 3 engineering nightmares accumulated from her own experience as an engineer. From missing units to debugging custom code to trying to reverse engineer IP stored in crazy, inherited spreadsheets, you too have probably faced these issues in your time in the industry when not everyone is using the right software and processes.   Let us know what you think of the interview!

There's more to this Easter egg than meets the eye.  This Easter Egg was created with a Mathcad Prime 6.0 Surface Plot, all within PTC Mathcad.   Download the attached Mathcad Prime file (EE.mcdx), manipulate the surface plot display, and see if you can find the hidden message.    h/t Anji Seberino!

Relive the Magic with MathcadUse the attached worksheet to generate your own fireworks display in Mathcad.

Got a great Mathcad story to share? Interested in showcasing your Mathcad chops? Consider this to be your official invitation to present your expertise to your peers. We have select opportunities for presenters – we’re looking for Mathcad Champions – for a variety of slots. New Mathcad

Labels what you might ask?Labels are a new feature in Mathad Prime 1.0 that allow you to assign different meanings to the same character. A label is a way of designating a math type such as variables, constants and units. A label allows you to format all units, say to a certain look.We

August 20, 2024 Webcast

It's a new, 2024 version of our "Happy Easter!" Easter Egg! What's different from the previous years' eggs is that this one is in Mathcad Prime 9, which allows us to use the "More Colors..." custom colour picker, for a far wider range of designs than before. The attached worksheet predominantly uses PTC's colour palette, which requires use of the custom colour picker... but there are some extra fun (non-PTC), previously unusable colours too, like pure green (0,255,0) and pink.   Happy Easter 2024!

Professor Tetsuro Tokoro (ttokoro on the PTC Community) is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan (IEEJ), and he has dedicated much of his time to teaching and studying electric circuit design for his college students at Japan’s National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Gifu College.   A true man of math, ttokoro finds helping community members solve their problems to be very fun. He seeks out math-based brain teasers and shares them with the Mathcad community to gain the insights of his kind and very intelligent fellow Mathcad users. These include resistor meshes (including in 3D), perfect squared squares, and a puzzle where you must identify the minimum radius on a circle with n number of points where all distances between points must be an integer. Sometimes, he looks for problems on rosettacode.org to solve.   According to ttokoro, many of these problems are unique and won’t be found in a textbook (and many math textbooks in use were written before math software came to the scene) but demonstrate the value of math software. Ttokoro ventures to say that a lot of these problems cannot be solved by hand, or at least it would be unviable to do so, especially for students. Instead, Mathcad and its programming operators must be used to solve these problems.   Montage of resistor meshes and other fun problems ttokoro has introduced   Beginning in 2021, ttokoro has also become a prolific uploader of Japanese PTC Mathcad content on YouTube. Many of these videos share tips or are tie-ins to the puzzles he or others post on the PTC Community, including the Mathcad Community Challenges.   Ttokoro’s best resistor 3D mesh electric circuit. (Each edge is made by one ohm. Find the resistance between Node [0,0,0] and [1,1,2].)   Ttokoro first started using Mathcad with Mathcad 12, and his biggest requests for Mathcad Prime features are transparent colour availability and for the Animation tool to return. You’ll notice that in his brain teasers, as well as in his submissions to the Mathcad Community Challenges, ttokoro likes to show results with plots because it helps convey the meaning better than with math results alone and having more tools to show the results via images helps with that. This sort of thinking carries over to his academic work as well.   Ttokoro wearing his PTC Champion Jacket and PTC Mathcad T- shirt!   Thank you for your enthusiasm for math and contributions to the PTC Community, ttokoro!

PTC has a Mathcad Scripted Control design Working Group for implementing scripted controls in Mathcad Prime 10.

A Mathcad user for 25 years, Professor Valery (‘Val’) Ochkov takes to the mountains when not involved in developing training and educational software for fossil and nuclear power plants.  He’s shown below in the Chimbulak region of Kazakstahn.   Val has long been involved in the Mathcad community! See the photo of the “Mathcad Clock.”       This is from a post back in 2010!  Beyond answering questions, Valery is also known for using math equations to create designs and authoring Mathcad trivia challenges for other community members to participate in. Some of the more entertaining challenges might be the Hare and Snell’s law and the Problem of Cockroach Races.  The Bicycle Post where Valery quizzes the community on how to solve “How many strokes with a bicycle pump need to be done to inflate the tire to 5atm” also inspired engagement. When asked for hobbies that don’t involve hiking boots, Val assured us his hobbies really are writing books and articles about Mathcad.   He’s now deeply interested in using Mathcad for STEM education, the subject of his latest book, 2⁵ Problems for STEM Education 2 (2020). He says collaborations with community members were critical to developing the material.  Way to go Mathcad Community!  Keep Collaborating! Keep engaging and great things like a book is born!            

I'm sharing a recent long-form interview that PTC's CAD/engineering calculations general manager, Brian Thompson, had with engineering.com: https://www.engineering.com/story/video/for-power-mathematics-retire-the-spreadsheet Alongside with the video interview, there is also a written transcript. You don't have to share any of your own information to access it.   For Power Mathematics, Retire the Spreadsheet   Brian talked through a wide variety of topics, including why engineers and research scientists across many various industries choose PTC Mathcad and how those customers use it, the old and painful days of trying to perform complex calculations in spreadsheets, and some glimpses into the future of Mathcad.

Are you making the most of your engineering calculation software? Join a free webcast exploring the fundamentals of data analysis. Presented by Anji Seberino, PTC’s leading Mathcad expert, the online event takes place Thursday, June 25 at 10 am PDT and 1 pm EDT.   REGISTER NOW!   Anji will focus the session on the basic principles of analyzing data in Mathcad. You’ll learn about Interpolating data Filtering data Fitting data to a curve   This webcast is part of the weekly education series for engineers who want to learn more about PTC Mathcad as a powerful alternative for engineering calculations. Visit the registration page to view weekly topics and sign up today to join in.