Community Tip - Want the oppurtunity to discuss enhancements to PTC products? Join a working group! X
What is the relation between Creo and WildFire? Do we still need WildFire for Creo 4.0? If we need, which Wildfire version is compatible for Creo 4.0 M080 and above?
Wildfire or Windchill & Creo 4?
Wildfire is PTC's CAD package name after Pro/Engineer and before Creo. In other words, Creo is the latest name for the CAD package offered by PTC, It replaced Wildfire about 8 years ago.
Windchill is PTC's PLM data management software that works with Wildfire and Creo, but only certain releases of Windchill work with certain releases of Wildfire/Creo.
Creo 4 works with Windchill 10.2 (I think) and newer, 11.0, 11.1 & 11.2.
Creo 6 is the latest release of Creo with Creo 7 scheduled for release this month.
Windchill 11.2 is the latest release with Windchill 12.0 scheduled for Q2 this year.
In a nutshell, Wildfire is the ancestor of Creo.
Long explanation:
Wildfire is the short name for Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire. If you search Pro/ENGINEER in Wikipedia you will find the whole story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTC_Creo_Elements/Pro
Pro/ENGINEER is the pioneer of 3rd generation CAD aka parametric CAD.
Wildfire moniker was introduced back in 2002.
In 2011, the offering was overhauled and rebranded Creo: more than CAD, it was a suite of applications that included CAD.
Hence Creo Parametric addressed CAD; Creo Simulate, simulation; Creo Illustrate, documentation, Creo View, visualization.
On the file format front, it means that all applications of the offering can be leverage seamlessly making data exchange effortless.
There you have it.
Consequently, Creo Parametric 4.0 can open Wildfire 4.0 models thanks to retro-compatibility.
Becareful with remy's word retro-compatibility. It means you can bring models forward to the new CAD, but you cannot bring models backwards to the old CAD. Once they are save in the new CAD (Creo XX) you will no longer be able to open them in the old CAD (Wildfire).