Some of you may “know” me already, but I wanted to let you all know that as part of the ongoing changes to MaplePrimes, I will now be acting as the community manager. My thanks to Tim for his excellent work over the past year, and also to Will and Bryon who will continue to support the site’s technical aspects.

On September 4, I wrote a blog post asking for some suggestions regarding what we should do to update MaplePrimes.  The responses that we got back were varied and very valuable.  Using those suggestions as a foundation, we have mapped out a list of features that we will address in this project.

The Maple 13.01 update is now available.  It includes:

• 3D visualization: Increased speed and memory efficiency
• Language packs: Improved French translations and expanded support for Greek
• JRE Update: Updated JRE corrects many Java-related issues, and results in improvements in printing on Linux, printing international characters, redrawing components, and plotting
• Other enhancements: Areas of improvement include the performance of plots with a large number of data points, curve colors used in drag-and-drop plotting, the display of mathematics in embedded components, and PDF export.

 As usual, single-user customers will automatically be prompted to update to Maple 13.01 though Maple's automatic "check for updates" mechanism, while network users will be notified by email and directed to the download site. An update CD will be available soon for customers who cannot get the update electronically. More information can be found on the Maple 13.01 download page.

So I'm a bit behind on announcing this...but better late than never.  The recipient of the Maple Mentor Award for the first quarter is gulliet.

I apologize for my tardiness, but I will announce the next recipient on time next quarter.

Congratulations!

We are conducting a survey about Maple's user interface, and we want to hear from you.  There are 25 questions and it should take no more then 10-15 minutes to complete.  As a thank you for taking the survey, 5 lucky participants will be chosen at random and will receive a Maplesoft shirt (to be eligible for the shirt, you must fill in the optional contact information).

You can find the survey here.

Thanks in advance!

While marketing material naturally talks about new features in a release, we of course also put considerable effort into investigating and correcting problems with the product. Many of these fixes are in direct response to problems reported on MaplePrimes.  Thank-you. We recognize that reporting these issues takes time, and we really appreciate your help in making our products better.

As a follow up to the original announcement, I thought I’d include a few more details on some of the new features in Maple 13 designed for engineers. For more information, visit the What’s New pages for professionals and for engineering education.

As a follow-up to the original post, I thought I’d mention a few of the additional new features particular to math education. For more information, visit the What’s New section of the website.

Concept Learning Tools: Maple 13 includes new and improved concept learning tools:

With the release of Maple 13, we have also released a major new feature to Maplesoft.com, Online Help:

Every one of Maple's help pages is now available online. With this new feature, you will be able to view the help pages right in your browser and download the source Maple worksheet to interact with in Maple.

We are pleased to announce that we have just released new versions of Maple and MapleSim!

Here are some highlights from the new releases:

Maple 13 includes completely new 3D plot facilities, which are faster and use less memory. Another nice benefit is you can now annotate 3-D plots just like you do 2-D plots, including proper math notation in titles and labels, tickmarks in multiples of pi, and arrows. You can also create fly-through animations, which zoom a virtual camera around your 3-D plots. We’ve put a few examples on our website…take a look.
 
Writing multithreaded applications is now a whole lot easier using a new task-based programming model. You no longer have to worry about synchronization tools – Maple handles that part.  For example, here’s an interactive Mandelbrot application that uses the task-based model to automatically distributes the calculations to all available processors.

And the in small-but-useful category, Maple 13 now includes an Export to PDF option.

For more information on these and many other features, see What’s New in Maple 13.

MapleSim 2 includes a really cool new 3D animation feature for multibody systems. You just define the model, and when you run the simulation, MapleSim automatically creates an animated version of your model so you can really see what is going on.  You can even attach your own STL shape files, so the animations look more realistic…take a look for yourselves!

MapleSim 2 also includes a results manager that lets you keep track of the results of different simulation runs. Previous results can be viewed without having to re-execute the simulation, and are accessible from one session to the next.

For details, see What’s New in MapleSim 2.

Click here to read the full press release.
Click here to see what Maplesoft President & CEO Jim Cooper had to say.
 

Sage has a group on Facebook now. I've just became a fan.

Alec

Maplesoft has launched our brand new Application Center.  Aside from updating the overall look of the Application Center, several new features have been added, such as the ability to post comments on apps.  When you have a minute, head on over and take a look for yourself!

In keeping with our efforts to reach out to the community, we've also created an official LinkedIn group now! Head on over to The Maplesoft Network and get yourself connected to the Maple & MapleSim community!

The MapleSim Connectivity Toolbox is now available. With this toolbox, you can export MapleSim models to Simulink, including rotational, translational, and multibody mechanical systems, thermal models, and electric circuits. It creates Simulink S-Function blocks for fast execution within Simulink and real-time implementation through Real-Time Workshop.

For more information, see

Well, we've officially joined the web 2.0 revolution :) ... Maplesoft now has a page on Facebook.Come check it out and become a fan!

The Facebook page is intended to be a place for our “fans” to gather, share ideas and talk about their Maple experiences. The page will continue to be updated with interesting photos, videos (including a great one of some of our staff trying to work off the Christmas weight gain!...