Sewickley, PA-- Simio, a developer of 3D object-oriented simulation software, has awarded a $9,900 grant to Stanford University, a Stanford, CA-based private research university. Stanford is regularly recognized as one of the leading universities in the world. It is now one of over a 100 universities worldwide to join Simio's academic program, which offers 3D modeling software to schools at no charge. Simio Academic Edition is fully capable software with no model size limits and includes discrete and continuous modeling, object library development, and 3D animation.

"The faculty at Stanford is committed to providing the best environment for their students to learn simulation," said Dr. Dennis Pegden, founder and CEO of Simio. "We are honored to provide them with the best software available to teach their students."

Students in Stanford's Multidisciplinary Design and Analysis class will use Simio to test the use of multidisciplinary software applications in integrated decision making processes.

"We are interested in the use of Simio for crowd simulations in transit stations," Stanford assistant professor John Haymaker, AIA, said. "Our students will test different station configurations to understand the tradeoffs between crowd management and issues like first cost and energy consumption."

Students at the school will be able to model systems using intelligent objects and the software's direct connection to Google's 3D Warehouse.

The intelligent objects are built by modelers and then may be reused in multiple modeling projects. These objects can be stored in libraries and easily shared. Simio's connection to Google's 3D Warehouse gives access to a free online library of thousands of graphic objects - providing students with the ability to solve real-world problems in visually-rich environments.