Jack 9.

0
Release Notes and Installation Guide

Copyright © 2017 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. All rights
reserved.
Copyright
Copyright Notice and Terms of Use

Copyright © 2017 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. All rights
reserved.

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Manufacturer is Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc., 10824 Hope Street Cypress, California USA
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Contents

Copyright ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Release Summary............................................................................................................................ 3
New Features in v9.0 ...................................................................................................................... 4
Arm Strength Evaluation (Arm Force Field) .............................................................................. 4
Updated Whole Body and Hand Posture Libraries ..................................................................... 5
Task Simulation Builder - Force Profile Task ............................................................................ 6
Auto Backup ............................................................................................................................... 7
Motion Capture Toolkit - Enhancements .................................................................................... 7
PRs and fixes................................................................................................................................... 9
Jack ............................................................................................................................................. 9
TSB ............................................................................................................................................. 9
Jack v9.0 known Issues ................................................................................................................. 10
New Hardware Requirements ....................................................................................................... 10
Specific Platform Notes ................................................................................................................ 10
Windows versions supported .................................................................................................... 10
Miscellaneous Notes (Licensing) .............................................................................................. 10
Installation Guide ...................................................................................................................... 11
Installing on Windows .............................................................................................................. 11
Student and Trial Versions............................................................................................................ 11
Support and Feedback ................................................................................................................... 12
Product Support Websites ......................................................................................................... 12
Scripting References ................................................................................................................. 12
Python: .................................................................................................................................. 12
Tcl/Tk: ................................................................................................................................... 13

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Release Summary
Jack v9.0 is a full release of the Jack product that includes numerous powerful enhancements.

To help speed posturing, the posture libraries for both the whole body and hands have been
updated to be more relevant for typical seated and standing assessments. New default v9.0 figure
variants are introduced to enable the whole body postures.

The Task Simulation Builder (TSB) system has been enhanced with a new Force Profile solver
which allows simulation of exertion tasks where the force magnitude changes over time. Force
profiles can be either manually defined, or read via a file.

The Task Analysis Toolkit (TAT) has been expanded with a new arm strength assessment tool.
Based on the work of LaDelfa and Potvin (2017), the new strength model holistically analyzes
the exertion situation to evaluate arm strength capability.

Also with version 9.0, an autosave mechanism is available. Based on customer developed
functionality, automatic backup of environment (.env) files at pre-determined intervals can now
be optionally enabled.

For users of the Motion Capture functionality, several significant enhancements are available in
version 9.0. Whole body auto scaling has been re-implemented, allowing for better first time
scaling of the Jack figure to the data, and a broader list of anthropometric dimensions can now be
supplied to further improve the match between the subject and Jack avatar. Hand posture trackers
are also better supported through a revised interface mechanism. Support for the Noitom
(Perception Neuron) tracker has been added.

Included with the Jack 9.0 installer are these separately licensed add-on application toolkits:

 Occupant Packaging Toolkit (OPT) for version 9.0

 Task Analysis Toolkit (TAT) for version 9.0
 Motion Capture Toolkit for version 9.0

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New Features in v9.0

Arm Strength Evaluation (Arm Force Field)

Strength capability assessment is a central component of a comprehensive ergonomic evaluation,

helping to identify musculoskeletal overexertion injury risks, as well as providing guidance on
such things as assembly force limits. Jack version 9.0 introduces a new arm strength evaluation
tool, based on research of LaDelfa and Potvin (2017), to provide additional insight for strength
related assessments. In contrast to models based on the strength of isolated muscle groups, the
Arm Force Field approach holistically evaluates the functional exertion, considering hand
location, force direction, anthropometry and gravity. Laboratory studies of typical standing
exertions observed in manufacturing were considered in the model development. Specifically,
the tool allows you to:

 Calculate the maximum hand exertion capability in any direction

 Calculate the population percent capable for a particular exertion scenario
 Optionally consider exertion frequency and duration when computing the maximum
capability

Notes:
 The Arm Strength Evaluation model is implemented as an Excel macro, and requires
access to your Microsoft Excel installation for execution.
 Background references and model usage instructions are provided in the documentation.

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Updated Whole Body and Hand Posture Libraries

To speed the posturing of the figure for analysis, it is often helpful to start with a posture close to
the desired one. For Jack v9.0 the whole body and hand posture libraries have been enhanced.
The whole body postures now have eleven new postures relevant for typical seated and standing
assessments. For the hands, the posture library has been revised to include more relevant hand
exertion poses.

Note: The new full body postures are enabled only for the new v9.0 figure variants. For new
installs, these figures are set as the default. If you are updating from an earlier version of Jack,
the .jkrc file in your HOME directory will need to be deleted prior to starting Jack v9.0.
Alternatively, you can manually set these figures as default in the Edit -> System Defaults, UI
tab.

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Task Simulation Builder - Force Profile Task

For version 9.0, a new task type to help analyze manual force exertions has been added.
Expanding on the concepts of the Apply Force task, the Force Profile task allows you to now
model scenarios where the magnitude of the exertion force changes throughout the task, such as
when opening a vehicle hood, or seating a part during assembly. Force magnitudes can be either
manually entered, or, if force sensor readings are available, read from a file. As with the Apply
Force task, force directions are defined either locally or globally on the object and repositioning
of the object is supported in the Force Profile task. Specifically, this new Force Profile task
allows you to:

 Define force magnitudes at specific times during the exertion using via postures. Forces
are automatically interpolated between readings.
 Optionally read in a data file containing time and force magnitude values, useful when
actual force sensor readings are available.
 Preview the motion, easily scroll via a slider, and edit individual via poses if desired.

An example of how to use this valuable functionality has been added to the TSB tutorial.

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Auto Backup

With Jack v9.0, an Auto Backup functionality is now available. When Auto Backup is enabled,
an environment file containing the scene configuration will be written to your Jack Home
directory at specified time intervals. If you wish to revert to an earlier state of the Jack scene, a
backed up .env file can be loaded directly from the File  Auto Backup menu.
The frequency at which files are saved can be selected using the Auto Backup  Options. The
number of backup files to keep can also be specified.
This feature can be very helpful when doing iterative posturing or scene set up and you wish to
revert to a previous scene configuration.

Motion Capture Toolkit - Enhancements

For users of the Motion Capture functionality, several enhancements have been added to v9.0.

 Whole body auto scaling has been re-implemented, allowing for better first time scaling
of the Jack figure to the data

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 Anthropometric dimensions can now be supplied to further improve the match between
the subject and Jack avatar.
 Support for the Noitom (Perception Neuron) tracker has been added.

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PRs and fixes

Jack

 Jack: Joint angle driven reach zones from the waist now work properly. (PR 7858525)
 Jack: The support polygon drawn during pelvis manipulation is now drawn correctly
when the figure is at a non-zero elevation. (PR 8850386)
 Jack: Problems with the comfort solids reach zone method on some 64-bit workstation
configurations have been fixed. (PR 8993981)
 Jack: The OWAS watchdog display will now update as expected during figure
manipulation. (PR 9033300)

TSB

 TSB: Problems where the human "Set Initial State" dialog could unintentionally set a
hand to be grasping more than one object have been resolved. (PR 8973905)
 TSB: Object Detach task is now allowed when object is also being grasped by human.
(PR 7848278)
 TSB: Situations where the human's legs could display undesired movement during seated
Get/Touch/Put/Position tasks have been resolved. (PR 7857678, 8335455)
 TSB: Improved the handling of figures where the root site is far away from the actual
geometry. (PRs 7782090, 7782034, 7822553)
 TSB: The ability for the simulation engine to handle more complex task structures with
branches has been improved. (PR 7922978)
 TSB: Resimulating the human Get task after the human or object has been moved by the
user has improved, and the movement of objects in the other hand has been corrected.
(PR 7934252)
 TSB: Problems solving seated human Apply Force tasks have been resolved. (PR
7934282)
 TSB: Some situations where the human's hand(s) can drift off an object during a walk or
reach have been improved. (PRs 7668186, 7945633)
 TSB: During a standing human Put task, the ability of the human to reach to a goal
location successfully with limited hand movement is improved. (PR 7944361)
 TSB: Problems where the human was sinking during walking and reaching have been
improved. (PR 6447489)
 TSB: An issue in the "Report Ergonomics Metrics" output where a Pose task could be
listed with the wrong load values has been resolved. (PR 8820298)
 TSB: Problems re-solving a Put task where a user originally defined a walk path, but that
walk path is no longer necessary, have been resolved. (PR 8343908)
 TSB: An issue using older, segmented female figures with "Report Ergonomics Metrics"
has been fixed. (PR 8973984)
 TSB: Objects not directly involved in a human Apply Force task now move properly. (PR
8977769)

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  TSB: Using system default mass units of ‘gram’ now works with "Report Ergonomics
Metrics". (PR 9027174)

Jack v9.0 known Issues

Braced Posturing Limitations:

Braced posturing forces are not available in TSB. When using braced posturing to define
a posture for the Apply Force or Force Profile tasks within the Task Simulation Builder,
the bracing and hand forces will not transfer into TSB. Only forces computed as part of
the TSB simulation are utilized for ergonomic assessments.

Task Analysis Toolkit:

Images in TAT Reporter Add-on Module are not enabled. The inclusion of images in the
TAT Reporter Reports is non-functional in version v9.0. The selection button to include
images has been disabled.

New Hardware Requirements

There are no new hardware requirements with Jack v9.0, although some graphics features
may not work if the graphics card does not support OpenGL v3.0 or higher.

Specific Platform Notes

Windows versions supported

Win7 and Win10 64 bit are the officially supported windows platforms.

NVidia graphics cards may demonstrate problems generating anti-aliased screen capture
images with the resulting output images having no antialiasing applied. This can be corrected
by going in to the advanced graphics settings of the driver and setting "Buffer Flipping
Mode" to "Use block transfer". Be sure to quit Jack and restart after making this change. This
is a persistent setting and will only need to be done once.

Miscellaneous Notes (Licensing)

Jack 9.0 uses the FlexLM based Siemens PLM Common Licensing system to simplify
licensing and provide maximum compatibility with other Siemens PLM Software tools. A
new license file will be required when upgrading from version 8.4 or earlier of Jack. You will
receive a new license file via an email from Siemens PLM. This email will automatically be

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 sent to the contact listed with your purchase information in our database. If you do not
receive a license, please contact your account representative. Alternatively, if you have your
sold-to number, you can call 800-995-0000 to verify that the information in our records is
correct. If the records are correct, you can also request a license by sending a message to
[email protected] .

A license server is required to be installed for the licensing - this can be either remote or
running on your local workstation. The Jack 9.0 installer will give you the option to install
(or update) a license server on your workstation at the end of the installation process; just
check the "Install local license server" box to run the Siemens PLM Common Licensing
installation tool. The $JK/license/license.dat file is used to configure Jack's licensing.
By default, the license file assumes the license server is on the local workstation. A remote
server can be specified by editing this file and replacing "localhost" with the license server's
hostname. An alternative method of specifying the license server is to define the
JACK_LICENSE_SERVER environment variable - this should use a "port@hostname" format
(e.g. [email protected]).

Full documentation on installing and using the Common Licensing system is provided as part
of the Jack 9.0 installation. You can access the documentation under the Jack start menu
folder by clicking on the "Licensing Manual" link, or you can directly open
$JK\license\SPLMLicensing_user_guide.pdf

Installation Guide

The Jack distribution will allow you to install Jack and any add-on toolkits you have licensed
using a convenient installation utility. It will also set up shortcuts/links to start Jack and assist
in setting up your license file. Instructions on using this new procedure are below.

Installing on Windows

To install:

 Double-click on jack90-win64-inst.exe
 Use the wizard to install Jack and/or any toolkits.
 A start menu group will be created for all users with shortcuts to the Jack application
and documentation.

Student and Trial Versions

Student and Trial versions of the Jack software are available along with a user forum site.
Access to these can be found here:

 Jack Trial Version: www.plm.automation.siemens.com/store/en-us/jack/

 Jack Student Version: www.siemens.com/plm/jack-student

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  Jack User Forum Site: www.siemens.com/plm/community/tecnomatix

Support and Feedback

Product Support Websites

Global Technical Access Center (GTAC) is your focal point for post-sale software support.
The center provides application software support through telephone and electronic access.

You can access the GTAC support site here:

www.siemens.com/plm/support

You can also download the latest version of the application, or any patches, from the GTAC
product download site here:

https://download.industrysoftware.automation.siemens.com/download.php

Click on “Product Downloads” and scroll down to the Jack section.

A webkey is required to access these sites. There is a link on the sites above that will allow
you to create a webkey account. You will need your sold-to id in order to set up your
webkey.

If you have any questions or comments, contact the representative who sold you the software,
or you can contact Siemens PLM Global Technical Assistance by phone:

GTAC (Global Technical Access Center)

800-955-0000 (USA and Canada)
714-952-5444

Scripting References

Python:

o Python homepage: http://www.python.org

o Python v2.7.13 documentation: http://docs.python.org/release/2.7.13/
o Books: http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonBooks
o License: http://docs.python.org/release/2.7.13/license.html

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Tcl/Tk:

o Tcl/Tk homepage: http://tcl.tk

o Tcl/Tk v8.5.x documentation: http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5
o Books: http://www.tcl.tk/doc/
o License: http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/license.html
o Tix License: http://tix.sourceforge.net/dist/current/license.terms

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