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MSC pivots business model so engineers can continue innovating anytime and anywhere during COVID-19

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MSC Software Corporation (MSC), a global leader in Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) simulation software and services and part of Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division, has announced that it will provide its customers with free offline licensing and remote access options to help them remain productive while working from home as COVID-19 closes customers offices globally.

In the past, remote working has posed a challenge for the manufacturing industry, with many of its tools and processes being rooted in old-fashioned workflows. The COVID-19 mitigation measures, which have led to vast swaths of the engineering workforce forced out of the factories and offices, have driven the need for a more flexible, distributed mode of operations.

Computer-Aided Engineering and simulation tools can support this evolution, and MSC’s customer-centric move to flip their licensing model to allow for use in the home is proof in point.
Roger Assaker, Chief Customer Engagement Officer of MSC Software, said: “We are adapting to the needs of our customers, and are also adding a helping hand to support their business continuity so they can continue to design, engineer and perform virtual testing outside their place of work. We are facilitating the access to our software, knowledge base and support to enable the creation of even more value with our tools, helping companies to maintain productivity and innovation when many manufacturing lines are down.

“We appreciate that these are very challenging times for many of our customers, and we can guarantee that we will be supporting them to the best of our ability, every step of the way.”

The offering from MSC Software includes:
• Extension of licences for work-from-home support or alternative access options for MSC Software CAE solutions
• Free access to online learning for MSC Software solutions

Hexagon | MSC Software
mscsoftware.com

2020 updates for CAM Software

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DP Technology announced a comprehensive product update, called ESPRIT 2020, for their computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software. Among the most significant developments are updates to the software’s computer-aided design (CAD) interfaces and new or improved solutions for specific machine tools.

ESPRIT 2020 features plentiful updates for Swiss-type machining. This technique is defined by its small, often intricate parts. Medical devices, such as bone screws, are typically manufactured on Swiss-type machines. ESPRIT’s 2020 update introduces or enhances support for 200 different Swiss-type machine models, including:

● Citizen D25, which features three channels, 3x Y-axis, 3x Z-axis, B-axis front and back
● Star SV 38R, which features three channels and a B-axis
● Tsugami SS38, a chucker-convertible sliding headstock lathe with B-axis
● Tornos machines
● Seamless integration of laser cutting operations for Tsugami and Citizen
● Willemin-Macodel MT series machines
The 2020 update also includes updated support for the latest CAD software, including:
● SolidWorks 2020
● SolidEdge 2020
● PTC Creo 6
● NX 1847

Additionally, ESPRIT 2020 expands mill-turn support to the following machines:
● Index G200 and G220, featuring two and three turrets and a disk turret mounted on a B-axis
● Miyano BNE 51 MSY, featuring three X-axes and three Z-axes
● Traub TNX, featuring simultaneous independent machining with up to four tool carriers
● CMZ TTL, featuring two turrets and two spindles
Enhanced profile threading and probing capabilities round out the product release.

ESPRIT
www.espritcam.com

Import any PCB to any MCAD using ZofzPCB 3D Gerber Viewer

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If you need to import an electronic design from production files (Gerbers, drills, ipc-356 test point netlist) to any MCAD, you can use ZofzPCB.com new feature: STEP file export.

A screenshot of eDrawings Viewer, courtesy of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation.

ZofzPCB loads Gerber files automatically, converts the board outline drawing into the bare PCB solid and PCB tracks into optimally constructed faces. Using IPC-356 bare board test point file, ZofzPCB can recreate footprint information and, with little help of the user, construct component 3D models, on the fly.

The resulting STEP AP214 file is constructed as an assembly tree, containing additional information like component designators and, if a BOM file is also loaded, component names/values.

STEP file export was the most often requested feature, by the ZofzPCB users.

ZofzPCB
www.zofzpcb.com

How to use Inventor CAM to create 2D milling toolpaths

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ASCENT- Center for Technical Knowledge announced the release of Autodesk Inventor 2020: Introduction to 2D Milling, its newest title available in print and eBook formats for students and instructors, and in ProductivityNOW for self-paced eLearning. The hands-on, practice-intensive content teaches key skills and knowledge required to take the 3D model, set it up in the CAM environment, and assign the toolpaths needed to generate the code required by 2D milling machines.

“ASCENT’s Inventor curriculum has benefited countless design professionals over many years,” says Paul Burden director of product development, ASCENT. “With Inventor CAM now available in the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection, users have an integrated solution for CNC programmers and designers to work together in one software platform. This new ASCENT learning content provides the foundational skills to help those in need of CNC programming that may not have traditional design skills, to successfully use Inventor CAM to create 2D Milling CNC machine code. By combining theory and practice-intensive learning content, students are able to quickly advance their skillset and recognize the benefits of the integrated design and CAM tools.”

Highlights of topics covered in this introductory guide to Inventor’s integrated CAM solution include:

  • Locate, modify and create tools in the Tool Library
  • Set up machining operations using Inventor CAM
  • Create a Face, 2D Adaptive, 2D Pocket, 2D Contour, and Drill toolpath using the Inventor CAM interface
  • Use the Simulation option to visualize toolpaths

ASCENT
www.ascented.com

Elysium Extends its 3DExperience Partnership with Dassault Systèmes

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Elysium Extends its 3DExperience Partnership with Dassault Systèmes

Elysium, a solution for CAD interoperability has integrated its suite of software with the  Dassault Systèmes 3DExperience platform to support model-based definition and model-based enterprise (MBD and MBE). The integration will help users transfer their compliance-checked data in multi-CAD environments.

Many companies are moving toward the MBD workflow.

MBD calls upon 3D models, 3D product management information, and associated metadata within the 3D CAD software to define individual components and product assemblies. The types of information included are geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, component-level materials, assembly-level bills of material, engineering configurations, and design intent. MBD differs from other methods used to define components and assemblies, which have historically required accompanying 2D engineering drawings to provide this type of information.

It can be useful in additive manufacturing, where parts go straight from the computer to the printer.

The MBD workflow uses the 3D CAD model as what some in the industry term the “single source of truth” for product and process data. All relevant users can share the 3D model with anyone involved in the design and manufacturing process, and it will contain all the information they need to build it.

So all the “truth” needs to be incorporated into the model and the workflow.

One of the biggest obstacles for these companies is shared data. Elysium’s CAD interoperability solutions expand a company’s use of and sharing of 3D data; streamlining a variety of processes that leverage CAD from design to manufacturing.

The Elysium and Dassault Systèmes integration also ensures that customized quality checks, geometry, and product manufacturing information, attribute validation, and geometry simplification, which happens automatically within the 3Dexperience platform to create streamlined workflows.

This enhanced functionality is equally applicable to outside CAD and engineering data that can now be brought into the platform as tested, compliant data used for master models and derivates shared by original equipment manufacturers and their suppliers in collaborative development.

“Many 3DExperience users have been working to streamline digital data and improve productivity and throughput across product development,” says Atsuto Soma, chief technology officer at Elysium. “The increasing reliance on MBD/MBE to achieve these gains requires seamless interoperability of digital product data between systems.

The integrated systems enable a more unified product-data sharing ecosystem than was possible before. Elysium is moving toward supporting at a complete 3D data-based workflow for global manufacturers.

“We hope to become an essential partner for the industry’s success in enterprise-wide MBD,” Soma says.

The Elysium solution developed for Dassault Systèmes users and its counterparts includes data checking and healing, complies with more than 70 quality and best-practice standards, supports data migration to new software versions, offers change-configuration analysis. To develop the master and derivative models used in supply chains it transfers data and then prepares it in most major CAD vendor formats.

The solution also includes 3D PDF reporting capabilities, optimizations such as geometry simplification, and the organization and review of data comprised of PMI and attributes sent to downstream manufacturing systems. In addition, Elysium will support data import from Dassault Systèmes’ 3DXML format.

 

 

Dassault Systèmes Pledges a Virtual Twin of the Human Body

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Dassault Systèmes plans to make a virtual twin of the human body in the coming years, says Bernard Charlès, the company’s vice chairman and chief executive officer. The plan fits in with the company’s overall vision to help cure patients and help them live longer.

“In 1989, we created the first virtual twin of a giant airplane, the Boeing 777,” Charlès says. “Today we’re capable of applying the knowledge and know-how we acquired in the non-organic world to the living world, extending our focus from things to life. The virtual twin experience of the human body will enable us to invent new ways of representing life by understanding and representing the invisible and make a lasting contribution to  benefit all.”

A virtual twin experience of the human body created with the engineering software company’s 3DExperience platform will integrate modeling, simulation, information intelligence and collaboration, he says. It brings together biosciences, material sciences and information sciences to project the data from an object into a complete living virtual model that can be fully configured and simulated.

“By combining art, science and technology, it makes it possible to understand the invisible to represent the visible. Industry, researchers, physicians and even patients can visualize, test, understand and predict what cannot be seen—from the way drugs affect a disease to surgical outcomes—before a patient is treated,” Charlès adds.

To achieve this strategy, Dassault Systèmes will focus on developing its leadership in life sciences and healthcare. It will also work to further develop leadership in two other sectors: manufacturing industries and infrastructure and cities, he says.

These sectors share similar development processes and sustainability needs in their efforts to improve quality of life, whether through more affordable and precise therapies, optimized infrastructures, or better use of the environment, Charlès says.

At Dassault Systèmes 3DExperience World event held earlier this month in Nashville, Mike Schultz, a Paralympic gold and silver medalist, spoke about his use of SolidWorks computer-aided design modeling tools to continue perfecting the design of a prosthetic leg, knee, and foot. He originally designed the prosthetic leg after he lost his leg above the knee in a 2008 snowmobile racing accident.

He went on to found BioDapt, a company that designs and manufactures high-performance, lower-limb prosthetic components used for action sports and

BioDapt makes high-performance, lower-limb prosthetic components used for action sports and similar activities.

similar activities. The goal is to manufacture the highest quality and highly versatile components that allow amputees to participate in sports and activities. This equipment can be and is used by many elite adaptive athletes as well as by the average person who wants to get out and be active, Schultz says.

Schultz is the creator of the Moto Knee and the Versa Foot.

“I wanted to get back to doing the activities I loved—mainly motocross and snowmobile racing—but I soon found there was nothing that would really allow me to ride the way I did before my amputation,” he says.

“With my knowledge and experience of fabrication, the experience of tuning suspension on my race equipment and my unwillingness to compromise I set out to create what I needed. After nearly two years of development I have come up with a knee unit that is versatile enough to handle many different action sports and has helped me win multiple ESPN X Games medals ain the adaptive motocross and snocross events,”  Schultz adds.

Matt Carney, a biomechatronics graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also spoke at 3DExperience World. He is working to connect cybernetic interfaces to the human body; enabling direct control of robotics limbs. Carney says he is focused on the future of prosthetics and on eventually creating full biological capabilities in artificial limbs.

Dassault Systèmes Expands 3DExperience Works and Partners with Xometry

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Dassault Systèmes announced three new 3DExperience Works commercial software offerings: standard, professional, and premium, at the company’s 3DExperience World conference this week. Gian Paolo Bassi, Dassault Systèmes company’s chief executive officer announced the expansion.

The engineering software maker also announced a new partnership with Xometry, a company that makes an on-demand manufacturing software, including additive manufacturing. The partnership will give SolidWorks and Catia users swift access manufacturing price quotes via the Xometry software. They’ll be able to get those quotes right on their design screen without the need to switch between software systems, Bassi says.

Xometry is Dassault Systèmes’ Make Marketplace’s first prime partner—a new category of partner that provides best-in-class buying experiences to users of Make Marketplace, Dassault Systèmes’ on-demand manufacturing service, Bassi says.

The 3DExperience Works expansion now offers standard, professional and versions and feature SolidWorks computer-aided design standard, professional and premium applications installed from, licensed from, and updated in the 3DExperience platform using data stored in the platform.

The connection means SolidWorks users can still use the SolidWorks desktop application they’re familiar with, while they also get the benefits of the 3DExperience digital platform. These include improved collaboration, embedded data management, automatic software updates, and access to current project data. In other words, SolidWorks users will have the CAD software and the platform access in one place on their desktop.

SolidWorks users to select from dozens of other 3DExperience Works applications to the ones they need for their tasks.

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The scaled software also includes 3D Creator and 3D Sculptor, design applications that run in any browser.

“Customers want to do more than just design. They want to have a life-like experience of the products they make,” Bassi says. “This requires better design, simulation, governance, management, and manufacturing and—most important—collaboration within the entire value chain.

“We want to provide customers with more options that make sense for their business. That’s why we’ve made it easy for them to take advantage of and explore 3Dexperience Works platform,” he adds. “On the platform, everything and everyone involved in the concept, design, simulate, manufacture, sales, and service processes are connected and integrated in one continuous loop.”

SolidWorks customers can continue to buy the standalone SolidWorks desktop version. Dassault Systèmes also plans similar releases for its education and startups packages.

The Xometry partnership will allow engineers to get Xometry price quotes on their screen, in the context of their design, and click to have it manufactured while—at the same time—having the option to get instant or manual quotes from other Make Marketplace suppliers.

“Customers can order high-quality additive manufacturing or CNC machining parts in one click, at the right price, with Xometry’s instant quoting capabilities,” says Sébastien Massart, head of corporate strategy at Dassault Systèmes. “This is all part of our vision to reduce the friction that customers face going from design to manufacturing.”

The new prime partnership category in which Xometry is placed recognizes qualified service providers that have industrial-grade quality certifications and production capacities, he says. Dassault Systèmes plans to add other prime partners to its 3DExperience Marketplace ecosystem.

New Tool Bridges 2D and 3D Graphics

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Canvas GFX, Inc, a provider of technical illustration software has released a new product, Canvas X3 CADComposer, which it describes as a bridge between three-dimensional and two-dimensional illustration. It enhances the core Canvas X3 software with the capability to import and edit 3D CAD files. No need to switch between 2D and 3D software.

The CADComposer now provides an integrated design environment so users can combine all 2D and 3D graphical elements and apply high-end effects within a single document, said Patricia Hume, chief executive officer of Canvas GFX, which makes the tool.

With the tool, technical illustrators can import 40 different 3D file types into the Canvas environment, then position, explode, enhance, and annotate these models for use in a variety of 2D assets. Canvas X3 imports all metadata attached to each model, allowing illustrators to document and reference individual model parts for a range of outputs, including a bill of materials.

By giving illustrators the ability to handle 3D models and metadata directly, Canvas X3 CADComposer frees CAD engineers from having to supply many model views for downstream use, which saves them time and allows them to prioritize other activity. It gives technical illustrators and graphic designers the capability to manipulate 3D CAD models without the need for expensive CAD software.

This allows users to use their source CAD files to produce assembly diagrams, maintenance manuals, repair guides, product sheets, marketing material, and more.

The tool can import a great array of 3D CAD, vector, and raster file formats and export many image and vector formats. Users can work with 0.035-micron accuracy. They can show, hide, or ghost any part in their assembly to better focus the viewer. They can also change colors of assemblies to highlight parts within them.

CAD objects can be edited and re-edited as many times as needed. Users can update documents with new versions or changed views by double-clicking an object. Any rendering can be undone.

They can also automatically label parts in their illustration with CAD metadata to quickly create a bill of materials from CAD data that lists all the parts of the assembly. They can intuitively move parts along their axes for exploded views to help viewers understand how multiple components interconnect.

This is the first Canvas product to build on the firm’s partnership with Dassault Systèmes’s subsidiary Spatial.

Canvas GFX looked to Spatial Corp., a provider of 3D software development toolkits for design, manufacturing, and engineering solutions, for enabling technology for 3D import and model visualization. The engineering team at Canvas GFX selected 3D InterOp, a 3D CAD data translation software development toolkit from Spatial, Hume said.

“3D InterOp enables Canvas X3 users to work with imported 3D data as easily as if it were created natively in the Canvas GFX tool. The result is improved workflow efficiency and enhanced user experience,” added said Vivekan Iyengar, vice president of research and development at Spatial.

Canvas GFX and Spatial Corp announced their partnership in May 2019.

 

 

Create a minimal packaging envelope automatically

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The latest version of the German-French software company CoreTechnologie GmbH (CT) 3D_Evolution Simplifier software includes the Simplifier–a fully automatic calculation of the smallest sphere diameter that surrounds a part or an assembly. With this function, the Simplifier enables a time-saving and automated calculation of optimal packaging.

In addition to the diameter calculation according to DIN EN ISO 8062-1, minimal packaging dimensions can be calculated in the form of a box and output as a CAD model of any major format. The determination of the smallest possible packaging dimensions, i.e. the smallest possible space, is used, for example, to optimize logistics costs and to minimize the cost of materials for packaging individual parts or assemblies with a complex shape. This process can now be carried out automatically in seconds.

The 3D_Evolution Simplifier software is used for fast and automatic data simplification as well as for the conversion of CAD models of all common formats such as Catia, NX, Solidworks, Creo, Inventor, Step, JT and more. The creation of an envelope geometry helps designers work smoothly and quickly with extensive and detailed 3D original data in CAD, VR and simulation systems. In terms of data quality, the tool enables the conversion of perfect solid models through data analysis and correction functions. In addition to protecting the know-how by creating the envelope models, the technology reduces the file size as well as the elements that have to be displayed.

CoreTechnologie
www.coretechnologie.com

Leading 3D Printing Company Appoints New CEO

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Stratasys Ltd., a maker of additive manufacturing and 3D printing technology, has appointed a new chief executive officer.

Yoav Zeif will take the helm in middle February, with current Interim Chief Executive Officer Elchanan Jaglom continuing as chairman.

Based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Stratasys, Inc. manufactures rapid prototyping machines that produce physical models from computer designs using fused deposition modeling technology.

At Netafim, a micro-irrigation company, Zeif was president of the americas division and head of product offering and chief commercial officer. He was also senior vice president of products and marketing at Makhteshim (now Adama Ltd.), a global crop-protection company. Since 2018, he’s been a partner in the New York office of McKinsey & Company.

“Stratasys has led the expansion of the 3-D printing industry for more than three decades, but the potential impact of this transformative technology across all industries is just beginning,” Jaglom says. “Yoav brings the strong combination of leadership and global operational experience to fuel our next stage of growth. We are confident that as CEO he will advance our offering and further our vision to reshape the world of design, prototyping and manufacturing.”

Last year, Stratasys introduced its F120 printer, an industrial-grade 3D printer.

Although engineers and designers have benefited greatly from the introduction of computer-aided design, they still need a physical copy in order to check the viability of their ideas, Jaglom says. Designers would spend time making models by hand. With the introduction of rapid prototyping machines, such as those made by Stratasys, CAD designs could be turned into a prototype in a matter of hours, available in a variety of materials.

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology relies on a high-speed robotic arm and an extruding head, in effect a glue gun, to spray melted thermoplastic filament. Relying on CAD coding, the gun moves over a platform, plotting small dots of plastic to create a model from the bottom up in a thermally controlled modeling chamber.

Although Stratasys continues to make high-end products, the company has enjoyed success with 3-D printers that cost less than $25,000, making the technology available to a much wider range of customers, including schools. Because the machines require no special venting or chemical post-processing they are also suitable for office use, Jaglom says.

With Zeif’s responsibility spanning dozens of global geographies and multiple lines of business, Zeif delivered growth rates significantly higher than the surrounding market, Jaglom says.

Stratasys pioneered and continues to power the additive manufacturing landscape, enabling companies across virtually all industries to build and improve their businesses through 3D printing technology,” Zeif says. “In particular, thanks to its outstanding innovations and application engineering, it is clear that Stratasys is poised not only to reshape product development and prototyping but also to transform supply chains and manufacturing through efficiency and personalization.”

Stratasys was founded by the husband and wife team of Scott Crump and Lisa Crump. In 1988, Crump decided to make a toy frog for his young daughter using a glue gun loaded with a mixture of polyethylene and candle wax. His idea was to create the shape layer by layer. He then thought of a way to automate the process, spent $10,000 on digital-plotting equipment, and devoted weekend hours to the project.

The couple founded the company in 1988 and in 1989 he patented FDM technology.