Technology innovation, service to engineers, defines a true leader in the industry

April 8, 2010, Denver, CO - The CAD Society today announced that Ping Fu, CEO and president of Geomagic, is winner of its 2009 Leadership Award.

The CAD Society Awards acknowledge the contributions made by individuals that have affected and developed the CAD, engineering, manufacturing and architecture software industries. The Leadership award is presented for outstanding technical and business leadership in the CAD industry, and focus and dedication to the needs of CAD users.

Ping Fu co-founded Geomagic and has led its growth from start-up to worldwide leader in 3D scan processing software. Companies using Geomagic software to accelerate reverse engineering and quality inspection include Ford, Harley Davidson, Richard Childress Racing, Timberland, Fisher Price, Pratt & Whitney, NASA, Alcoa Howmet, Danaher and Invisalign.

Under Fu's leadership, Geomagic has earned six patents for streamlining the process of transforming 3D scan data into high-quality parametric CAD models. Most recently, Geomagic pioneered design-intent modeling, which speeds product development by structuring scan data and extracting key engineering features that are required for creating parametric models. The company is also the first to provide direct parametric exchange of models for five leading CAD packages (Autodesk Inventor, CATIA, Pro/ENGINEER, Siemens NX, and SolidWorks).

Before starting Geomagic, Fu was Director of Visualization at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, where she initiated and managed the NCSA Mosaic software project that led to Netscape and Internet Explorer.

Among Fu's awards are Inc. magazine Entrepreneur of the Year, worldwide "Fast 50" executive by Fast Company magazine, and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Carolinas. With her guidance, Geomagic has won numerous awards for product innovation and has been profitable for almost a decade.

"Ping's list of achievements in developing innovative and successful software, as well as inspiring a new generation of engineers with her technology, is unmatched in the industry," said Terry Wohlers, president of Wohlers Associates. "Her tireless drive for design and manufacturing excellence and her performance as a top business leader make her the perfect choice for this award."

The awards will be presented at COFES (Congress On the Future of Engineering Software), April 15-18, 2010 in Scottsdale, AZ. Past winners of this award include Bill McClure and Dan Staples, Carl Bass, Jay Sunyogh, Dana K. "Deke" Smith, Robert McNeel, Tony Affuso, Tom Butta, Jon Hirschtick, and Bernard Charles.

"I am honored and excited to receive this award and thank the CAD Society for recognizing Geomagic's contribution to the industry," says Fu. "I have always believed that design and manufacturing are the backbone of our economy. It has been my passion and dream to change the design and manufacturing paradigm from mass production to mass customization, and CAD plays a major part in that transformation."

About The CAD Society
The CAD Society ( www.cadsociety.org) is a not-for-profit industry association with the goal of fostering community and encouraging open communication among those who make their living within the CAD industry including AEC, mechanical, manufacturing, and GIS. The CAD Society is dedicated to creating an informative community and improving the tools its members employ in order to get their jobs done. This is achieved by providing an open forum of communication, which helps to illuminate the practices of industry vendors. It has been a leader in creating interoperability guidelines that encourage software vendors to develop applications that can openly share data.

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