3D CAD World

Over 50,000 3D CAD Tips & Tutorials. 3D CAD News by applications and CAD industry news.

CAD Industry News

Quality Information Framework (QIF) for translation and validation to/from CAD

By Leave a Comment

Elysium, a world leader in 3D-geometry handling, interoperability, data translation and quality-checking software, will release a solution for multi-CAD to/from QIF for translation and validation between users. The added capability will be part of the new release of ASFALIS software planned for early 2020.

A Quality Information Framework (QIF) is an XML architecture that defines, organizes, and associates quality information needed in manufacturing systems. With the rising demand for digital data utilization throughout the entire supply chain, and specifically within the measurement-and-inspection stage, QIF was created by DMSC, accredited by ANSI, to address pressing industry requirements.

The new solution will semantically connect the design, manufacturing and inspection phases and streamline design to inspection and quality management workflow. With this capability, users will be able to translate CAD geometry and Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) to QIF and import high-quality data to QIF-supported metrology software and hardware.

In addition, Elysium will offer advanced solutions such as:

* Validation between native CAD data and translated QIF data

* Validation between original QIF data and QIF data after editing

* Translation from edited QIF to CAD

“We’re providing a sensible solution for streamlining the manufacturing process by supporting the QIF lead taken by DMSC, where Elysium has a strong presence,” said Atsuto Soma, CTO at Elysium. “With translation tools between multi-CAD and QIF not yet widely developed in industry, manufacturers throughout the world have high expectations for a forthcoming solution. Elysium has advanced its geometry handling and CAD translation technologies significantly over the years—while continually strengthening genuine partnerships with major CAD vendors. Elysium hopes to better enable manufacturers in their Model-Based Definition and Enterprise (MBD/E) initiatives through its on-going support of QIF translation and validation.”

Elysium
www.elysium-global.com/en/

Comsol Multiphysics Update Includes New Sketching Tool

By Leave a Comment

Comsol is set to release Comsol Multiphysics Version 5.5 in November 2019. In this version, the Design Module offers a new sketching tool for easier creation and more versatile parametric control of geometry models, says Daniel Bertilsson, technology manager for mathematics and computer science at Comsol.

Comsol Multiphysics offers tools for engineering modeling, simulation, application, and deployment. It solves for multiple physical effects at the same time.

The company made the update announcement at its annual Comsol Conference held in October in Boston.

New and updated solvers speed a range of simulations. Two new add-on products, the Porous Media Flow Module and the Metal Processing Module, further expand on the product’s suite of multiphysics tools.

The new sketching tool makes it easier to assign dimensions and constraints to planar drawings for 2D modeling and 3D work planes.

“We’ve carefully integrated the new dimensions and constraints tool in the Model Builder so it becomes a natural part of the Comsol Multiphysics workflow,” Bertilsson says. “The new tools for dimensions and constraints can be used together with model parameters in Comsol to drive the simulation, whether for a single run, parametric sweep, or parametric optimization.”

Acoustics Simulations

Another update—new solver technology for acoustics simulations—is a nod to ultrasound technology becoming increasingly important in a range of applications from process engineering and nondestructive testing to consumer electronics.

Other new functionality—based on the time-explicit discontinuous Galerkin method—enables efficient multicore computation of ultrasound propagation in solids and fluids. This includes realistic materials featuring damping and anisotropy. The method also has low-frequency applications, such as in seismology. The multiphysics capability included in this new functionality can seamlessly combine linear elastic wave propagation in a solid and its transition to a fluid, as an acoustic pressure wave, and back again.

The new elastic wave functionality is available for users of the Structural Mechanics Module, MEMS Module, and Acoustics Module. The fluid-structure acoustics coupling is available in the Acoustics Module.

Porous Media Flow Module

This module gives users within industries such as food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical a range of transport analysis capabilities for porous media, trying, and transport in fractures. The flow modules cover linear and nonlinear flow in saturated and variably saturated media with special options for slow and fast porous media flows. The multisphycis simulation capabilities are extensive, with functionality that includes options for calculating effective thermal properties for multicomponent systems, poroelasticity, and transport of chemical species in solid, liquid, and gas phases.

Other highlights of this upgrade include:

  • Import and export of the 3D printing and additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF.
  • Multiple spectral bands for radiation in participating media
  • Lumped thermal systems equivalent circuits
  • Combined full wave and ray optics simulations
  • Minimum-sized standalone application files with Comsol Compiler
  • Compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulations
  • Editing tools for repair of STL, PLY, and 3MR files

 

Comsol Update Includes New Sketching Tool

By Leave a Comment

Comsol is set to release Comsol Multiphysics Version 5.5 in November 2019. In this version, the Design Module offers a new sketching tool for easier creation and more versatile parametric control of geometry models, says Daniel Bertilsson, technology manager for mathematics and computer science at Comsol.

Comsol Multiphysics offers tools for engineering modeling, simulation, application, and deployment. It solves for multiple physical effects at the same time.

The company made the update announcement at its annual Comsol Conference held in October in Boston.

New and updated solvers speed a range of simulations. Two new add-on products, the Porous Media Flow Module and the Metal Processing Module, further expand on the product’s suite of multiphysics tools.

The new sketching tool makes it easier to assign dimensions and constraints to planar drawings for 2D modeling and 3D work planes.

“We’ve carefully integrated the new dimensions and constraints tool in the Model Builder so it becomes a natural part of the Comsol Multiphysics workflow,” Bertilsson says. “The new tools for dimensions and constraints can be used together with model parameters in Comsol to drive the simulation, whether for a single run, parametric sweep, or parametric optimization.”

Acoustics Simulations

Another update—new solver technology for acoustics simulations—is a nod to ultrasound technology becoming increasingly important in a range of applications from process engineering and nondestructive testing to consumer electronics.

Other new functionality—based on the time-explicit discontinuous Galerkin method—enables efficient multicore computation of ultrasound propagation in solids and fluids. This includes realistic materials featuring damping and anisotropy. The method also has low-frequency applications, such as in seismology. The multiphysics capability included in this new functionality can seamlessly combine linear elastic wave propagation in a solid and its transition to a fluid, as an acoustic pressure wave, and back again.

The new elastic wave functionality is available for users of the Structural Mechanics Module, MEMS Module, and Acoustics Module. The fluid-structure acoustics coupling is available in the Acoustics Module.

Porous Media Flow Module

This module gives users within industries such as food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical a range of transport analysis capabilities for porous media, trying, and transport in fractures. The flow modules cover linear and nonlinear flow in saturated and variably saturated media with special options for slow and fast porous media flows. The multisphycis simulation capabilities are extensive, with functionality that includes options for calculating effective thermal properties for multicomponent systems, poroelasticity, and transport of chemical species in solid, liquid, and gas phases.

Other highlights of this upgrade include:

  • Import and export of the 3D printing and additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF.
  • Multiple spectral bands for radiation in participating media
  • Lumped thermal systems equivalent circuits
  • Combined full wave and ray optics simulations
  • Minimum-sized standalone application files with Comsol Compiler
  • Compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulations
  • Editing tools for repair of STL, PLY, and 3MR files

Wind River offers new release of VxWorks

By Leave a Comment

Wind River announced the latest release of its real-time operating system (RTOS) VxWorks, which has ensured the security, safety, and deterministic performance of embedded applications for more than 30 years. The latest release redefines embedded software development with new capabilities to drive greater business value, innovation, and productivity.

As the industry rapidly transforms with systems moving from automated to autonomous, there’s a demand for a new approach that enables engineers to use today’s mainstream tools and programming languages for innovating. VxWorks empowers developers of all backgrounds with popular programming languages and libraries, along with cloud-based development tools and infrastructures to create mission-critical applications that require the highest levels of security and safety.

The latest release of VxWorks includes:

• Support for C++17, Boost 1.70.0, Python 3.8, and Rust
• LLVM-based infrastructure which enables support for a broad set of modern and productive tools and frameworks
• Open source board support packages (BSPs) such as Raspberry Pi and TI Sitara AM65x for quick prototyping and flexibility of choice
• OpenSSL 1.1.1 for the most up-to-date cryptography libraries

Complementing VxWorks is Wind River Labs, which offers access to VxWorks–compatible new technologies and collaborative software projects, proof-of-concepts, open source integrations, pre-release and experimental software, including ROS 2, OpenCV, and IoT SDKs for public cloud providers to name a few.

Wind River
www.windriver.com
 www.windriver.com/announces/vxworks

Electrical-Thermal Co-Simulation for system analysis

By Leave a Comment

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. introduced Cadence Celsius Thermal Solver, an electrical-thermal co-simulation solution for the full hierarchy of electronic systems from ICs to physical enclosures. Based on a production-proven, massively parallel architecture that delivers up to 10X faster performance than legacy solutions without sacrificing accuracy, the Celsius Thermal Solver seamlessly integrates with Cadence IC, package and PCB implementation platforms. This enables new system analysis and design insights and empowers electrical design teams to detect and mitigate thermal issues early in the design process—reducing electronic system development iterations.

As the electronics industry moves toward smaller, faster, smarter and more complex products with greater power density, time-consuming thermal transient analysis techniques must be deployed together with traditional steady-state analysis to address multiple power profiles and increased heat dissipation. Further complicating the process, traditional simulators require the electronics and enclosures being modeled to be substantially simplified, resulting in reduced accuracy.

The Celsius Thermal Solver uses multi-physics technology to address these challenges. By combining finite element analysis (FEA) for solid structures with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for fluids, the Celsius Thermal Solver provides system analysis in one tool. When using the Celsius Thermal Solver in conjunction with the Clarity 3D Solver, Voltus IC Power Integrity and Sigrity technology for PCB and IC packaging, engineering teams can combine electrical and thermal analysis and simulate the flow of both electricity and heat for a more accurate system-level thermal simulation than legacy tools. In addition, the Celsius Thermal Solver performs both static (steady-state) and dynamic (transient) electrical-thermal co-simulations based on the actual flow of electrical power in advanced 3D structures, providing visibility into real-world system behavior.

By empowering electronics design teams to analyze thermal issues early and share ownership of thermal analysis, the Celsius Thermal Solver reduces design re-spins and enables new analysis and design insights not possible with legacy solutions. In addition, the Celsius Thermal Solver accurately simulates large systems with detailed granularity for any object of interest and is the first solution capable of modeling structures as small as the IC and its power distribution together with structures as large as the chassis.

The Celsius Thermal Solver supports Cadence’s Intelligent System Design strategy. It is built on matrix solver technology that is production proven in the recently announced Clarity 3D Solver and the Voltus IC Power Integrity Solution. Optimized for cloud environments, the Celsius Thermal Solver’s massively parallel architecture delivers up to 10X cycle time improvements compared to legacy solutions with high accuracy and unlimited scalability.

Cadence
www.cadence.com

www.cadence.com/go/celsiusthermalsolver

xNURBS releases NURBS software

By Leave a Comment

xNURBS announces the release of xn kernel and its Rhino/SolidWorks V2.0 applications.

xNURBS’s NURBS technique has unlimited capacities for solving NURBS and generating high-quality surfaces based on energy-minimization method. By playing xNURBS demo videos, e.g., the bottom surface of Jet Ski Hull, and the side surfaces of a mouse, users can judge for themselves.

Blending dozens of edges with one watertight G2 NURBS surface.

 

Key Features:

  • Unlimited capacities for solving NURBS: Its optimization algorithm can solve nearly any NURBS surface in a matter of milliseconds (regardless of how complex the constraints are).
  • High-quality surfaces: Its optimization algorithm uses energy-minimization method to generate smooth NURBS surfaces that satisfy all the constraints.
  • Easy-to-use: it uses one simple UI for all kinds of NURBS modeling.
  • Native CAD surfaces: xNURBS generates native CAD surfaces, i.e., trimmed/untrimmed NURBS surfaces, which can be directly used for any CAD modeling operations.

Watertight Jet Ski Hull: All surfaces are generated by XNurbs with G2 continuity. Image Courtesy of Vladimir Aleksic.

Patching Y Pipeline: Blending the surrounding geometries with one watertight G2 surface.

Car fender: For a demonstration purpose, one edge is set to G1 and all others are set to G0.

For more information, visit www.xnurbs.com

Volume Graphics releases new generation of CT Software

By Leave a Comment

–Volume Graphics announced the latest generation of its software solutions for non-destructive quality assurance with industrial computed tomography (CT): Version 3.3 of VGSTUDIO MAX, VGSTUDIO, VGMETROLOGY, and VGinLINE.

VGSTUDIO MAX software is used for the analysis and visualization of industrial computed tomography (CT) data and covers all requirements related to metrology, defect detection and assessment, material properties, and simulation.

Using the new version, customers can determine the surfaces of multi-material components, export measurement and analysis results to store them centrally in quality-management software, automate inspection processes more flexibly based on text recognition, and translate real CT data into volume meshes for simulation.

To further support their customers, Volume Graphics has also added a Technical Consulting unit that provides professional consulting and evaluation services.

“With version 3.3 of our software solutions, we are once again laying the foundation for customers to make their processes smarter,” says Christof Reinhart, CEO and co-founder of Volume Graphics GmbH.

“For example, using the new data export, metrology data derived with the tremendous measurement capabilities of our software can be seamlessly shared with QA systems, where the values can then be combined and checked over time. More than ever before, this new feature enables customers to better integrate leading-edge CT technology into their existing software landscape. The new export feature is based on the native support of the widely used Q-DAS format, which makes using results in third-party statistical or analysis software especially easy.”

An overview of the innovations in VGSTUDIO MAX 3.3: Multi-material surface determination

–A new mode of the local-adaptive-surface determination enables the simultaneous determination of the surfaces of each material within a volume in one go
–This significantly simplifies the geometric dimensioning and tolerancing of multi-material objects, e.g., the position of metal pins of a connector relative to the plastic housing
–The new mode also facilitates segmentation of multi-material objects

Support of native data export in Q-DAS format

–There is now native support for data export in Q-DAS format for both VGSTUDIO MAX and the VGMETROLOGY metrology solution, as well as the VGinLINE solution for automated CT inspection
–Companies that still work with traditional measurement systems can switch to this comprehensive CT measurement technology without encountering software hurdles or having to forego their established processes for further statistical evaluation
–Export of detailed, CT-based measurement and analysis results (coordinate measurement, nominal/actual comparison, wall thickness analysis, porosity/inclusion analysis, fiber composite material analysis) is now enabled in the common Q-DAS data exchange format

OCR-based automation
–New optical character recognition (OCR) allows customers to read out text in CT scans, such as object identifiers, and store the recognized text in their meta information
–In automated inspection workflows, cavity markers in CT scans of injection molded or cast components can be recognized and the right reference object or the appropriate analysis in VGinLINE jobs can then be selected depending on the respective cavity
–At the same time, the recognized text improves the traceability of the results, since the information about the cavities can be included in the reports

 

Volume meshing for simulations
–With the new Volume Meshing Module, users can create accurate and high-quality tetrahedral volume meshes from their CT scans for use in mechanical, fluid, thermal, electrical, and other FEM simulations in third party software
–This is based directly on the subvoxel-accurate surface determination for scanned parts or material samples consisting of one or more materials
–The individual components of multi-material objects are translated into volume meshes with congruent tetrahedron faces and shared nodes at material interfaces
–The complete workflow from CT scan to volume mesh is covered
–Generated volume meshes can be exported in common .pat and .inp file formats
–Each cell of the generated volume mesh can be loaded with additional information required for simulation, such as fiber orientations, fiber volume fractions, porosity volume fractions, or gray values

Backed by 20 years’ experience in industrial CT, the new Technical Consulting unit analyzes the specific requirements of each customer’s application(s), creates optimal software configurations and general CT hardware specifications, and offers complete evaluations as a contract service

Volume Graphics
www.volumegraphics.com

COMSOL News 2019 success stories: Simulation applications enable collaboration in developing new products

By Leave a Comment

COMSOL Inc. published its annual compilation of customer success stories featured in the latest edition of COMSOL News. This year’s issue features a variety of academic and commercial examples from engineers who push the limits of technology using COMSOL Multiphysics® for innovative modeling, simulation, and application design.

Collaboration is key when designing products that will change our future in unforeseeable ways. In this year’s issue of COMSOL News we find that everyone from students to professionals are working together. Both with each other and their customers to uncover the next development in their design work.

“Every year we feature some of our most innovative customers in COMSOL News. This year’s edition is no exception,” says Bernt Nilsson, Senior VP of Marketing, COMSOL Inc. “What stands out now is the expanding use of simulation, far beyond the R&D departments. Custom simulation applications are taking off. We’re thrilled to report on companies such as Viega who is bringing simulation to their sales team to design cooling and heating systems.”

COMSOL News 2019 features more than a dozen articles discussing a wide variety of projects using multiphysics modeling and simulation applications. Featured topics include: radiant heating and cooling, simulation applications, digital twins, hyperloop pod design, optical antenna design, battery design, and smart cities among others.

Availability
COMSOL News 2019 is available as an online magazine and can be viewed or downloaded in PDF format at: www.comsol.com/offers/comsol-news-2019.

COMSOL

Simcenter 3D accelerates electromagnetics simulation processes

By Leave a Comment

The latest version of Simcenter 3D software includes enhancements for low- and high-frequency electromagnetic solutions to help accelerate electromagnetics simulation processes. This version advances simulation capabilities with increased multidisciplinary integration capabilities, faster CAE process, increased openness and scalability, and enhanced capabilities to integrate with the digital thread.

Including electromagnetic simulation into Simcenter 3D enables engineers to perform electromagnetic simulation faster than with traditional simulation tools and streamline multiphysics workflows between electromagnetic and other physical simulations.

Additional enhancements to Simcenter 3D include:
• Faster CAE Processes: A new immersed boundary method helps engineers spend less time modeling for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. Engineers can also instantaneously compute new configurations for flexible hoses and pipes after a design configuration change.
• Open and Scalable Environment: Engineers can use calculated vibrations from common third-party finite element (FE) solvers, ANSYS and Abaqus, and apply those vibrations as loading in a structural or vibro-acoustic solution in Simcenter 3D, which can lead to a better understanding of how vibrations will impact perceived sound by end-customers.
• Tied to the Digital Thread: An enhanced interface between Simcenter 3D and Simcenter Testlab software helps engineers better collaborate with colleagues in the test group. New capabilities available in Teamcenter Simulation help engineers quickly identify which simulations are impacted after a design change.

Siemens Digital Industries Software
new.siemens.com/global/en/

ThingWorx 8.5 coming in late summer 2019

By Leave a Comment

ThingWorx 8.5 combines new capabilities with domain-specific solutions to serve the digital transformation needs of industrial enterprises worldwide.

Among the new and enhanced capabilities are tools that simplify the composition and deployment of solutions. Customers will be able to configure applications faster and deploy them across multiple sites and geographies. For those who want more readymade solutions, ThingWorx also offers pre-built, pre-configured capabilities for engineering, manufacturing, and service. This latest version of ThingWorx brings enhanced integration with Microsoft Azure IoT and includes additional tools for rolling out solutions at an enterprise scale.

The new ThingWorx Navigate Digital Change Management Application enables internal and external users to actively participate in change management. The series of ThingWorx Navigate Contribute Apps will expand on NavigateView suite, which makes information easily available and facilitates collaboration across the enterprise. Powered by the digital thread, engineers have real-time access to connected product data in ThingWorx to drive the design of next-generation products.

Manufacturing
ThingWorx 8.5 is now compatible with Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk Analytics. Additionally, PTC will be releasing ThingWorx Kepware Edge to provide flexible deployment of reliable and secure connectivity for dispersed equipment.

Service
PTC’s service solution suite enables service organizations to transform from cost centers to profit centers and drive product and service innovation through new IIoT-enabled business models. The service optimization solution allows companies to improve margins by minimizing truck rolls and increasing first time-fix rates. With ThingWorx 8.5, digital
service delivery is enhanced through a deepened integration with Microsoft Azure,
enabling manufacturers to now use the ThingWorx Software Content Management App
with the Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Edge.

PTC
ptc.com