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Direct Modeling

SolidThinking Introduces Inspire 2014

August 15, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

Engineers and designers are under constant pressure to design innovative products. They are also under the gun to get these new products to market faster than ever. In order to empower them to accomplish these goals, design and simulation software tools are being increasingly used to optimize products early in the conceptual phase of development, when ideas can be vetted and changes can be made easily and at less cost than late-stage design changes.

One such software tool is latest version of SolidThinking’s Inspire software, which enables users to create and investigate structurally efficient concepts quickly and easily, leading to reductions in cost, development time, material consumption, and product weight. SolidThinking Inspire is used by design engineers, product designers, and architects in multiple industries including aerospace, automotive, heavy industry, architecture, and consumer products.

SolidThinking Inspire 2014 software enables design engineers, product designers, and architects to create and investigate structurally efficient concepts quickly and easily, leading to reductions in cost, development time, material consumption, and product weight.
SolidThinking Inspire 2014 software enables design engineers, product designers, and architects to create and investigate structurally efficient concepts quickly and easily, leading to reductions in cost, development time, material consumption, and product weight.

New to Inspire 2014 are geometry simplification tools, linear static analysis, concentrated mass parts, and smoothing options, including the ability to export solid geometry. One focus of this release was increasing the software’s ease of use, making it easier for users to set up models for analysis to validate concepts, and improving the concept development phase.

“With solidThinking Inspire 2014 we focused on enhancing the concept development process by proposing designs that can be rapidly iterated and easily exported to the user’s preferred computer-aided design (CAD) tool,” says Andy Bartels, Program Manager for solidThinking Inspire. “We put a strong emphasis on improving the usability of the software while adding new features like geometry simplification tools for easier model setup and analysis to help users verify their concepts, all directly in the Inspire interface. These new features will allow customers to apply Inspire to a much broader set of design problems.”

To make it easier to visualize the improvements in features in Inspire 2014, the company created a series of videos, which include a tour of the user interface, a comprehensive overview of the latest features, and an overview of how the software fits into the product design process. In addition, customers may access tutorials created specifically for the solidThinking Inspire 2014 release, product demos and an interactive infographic. To watch the videos, click here.

Earlier this year, solidThinking released solidThinking Evolve 2014, which enables industrial designers to develop forms faster, using either a Windows PC or Mac. Evolve captures an initial sketch, then allows exploration of styling alternatives and the visualization of products with high quality renderings generated in real time.

The software combines both the modeling freedom of organic surfaces and the control of parametric solids with its unique ConstructionTree history feature. Evolve releases designers from the constraints of engineering-oriented CAD tools, while allowing the export of digital models required by others in the product development process.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: News Tagged With: cad, Direct Modeling, FEA

PTC Releases Creo Elements/Direct v19.0

June 18, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

Another announcement made at this year’s PTC Live Global event was the release of PTC Creo Elements/Direct 19.0, direct modeling software that now includes productivity enhancements in modeling, drafting, collaboration and data management. As mentioned in the Creo 3.0 blog, the company also unveiled new technology it’s calling Unite technology that better supports multi-CAD environments.

Collaboration seems to remain a tricky task for distributed design teams juggling format in multiple CAD file formats. The Unite technology will enable users to open native CAD files created in other popular CAD formats, and then save, edit and share that data with others. The response from users attending the event was unanimously favorable.

“The new import capabilities in PTC Creo Elements/Direct 19.0, formerly known as CoCreate, will allow us to collaborate more effectively with companies using different CAD tools,” said Nobuaki Sugimoto, mechanical designer, Icom, Inc.

PTC Creo Elements/Direct 19 now offers support for multi-CAD environments, via Unite technology
PTC Creo Elements/Direct 19 now offers support for multi-CAD environments, via Unite technology

Enhancements to Creo Elements/Direct include:

* Support for Multi-CAD Collaboration. Support for direct import of SOLIDWORKS and Autodesk Inventor data enables teams to quickly and easily incorporate design information without the need for additional software. Upward compatibility with PTC Creo is also significantly enhanced.

* Optimized Design Workflows. Higher productivity is enabled through optimized design workflows for a variety of regularly used features, and the introduction of template-based drawing creation significantly reduces redundant effort by enabling the re-use of existing drawings as a starting point.

* New Concept Design Capabilities. Concept design is made easier with the introduction of new 2D and 3D tools including support for the use of 2D images in concept development, a palette of pre-defined 2D shapes and new curve creation commands.

* New Sheet Metal Capabilities. New capabilities in the sheet metal module allow the creation of fully valid, un-foldable sheet metal parts that represent a transition between two parallel profiles.

* Scalable Data Management. Through core infrastructural improvements, PTC Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager delivers greater scalability for large deployments.

For a more extensive list of new enhancements to Creo Elements/Direct 19.0, click here.

Filed Under: Creo, News, PTC/CoCreate Blogs Tagged With: concept design, data management, Direct Modeling, sheet metal design

ANSYS Acquires SpaceClaim

May 5, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

Consolidation through strategic acquisitions is nothing new in the CAD world, though I must admit to being surprised by last week’s announcement that ANSYS, a world leader in simulation technology, had acquired SpaceClaim Corp. for $85 million in cash. The transaction closed on April 30.

SpaceClaim took the “direct” approach to 3D modeling

SpaceClaim introduced direct modeling to the masses with the introduction of SpaceClaim 2007 Professional back in 2007. SpaceClaim, which my colleague Josh Mings referred to as “the company slapping the history out 3D modeling,” was founded in 2005 by industry big-wig Mike Payne, who also helped start up PTC and SolidWorks. The goal was to offer a 3D modeling tool that could be used by more than just CAD experts.

ANSYS and SpaceClaim have partnered up in the past to offer customers ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler as an option to ANSYS customers. These users, who are mostly analysts, work in 3D but didn’t want to become experts in traditional, feature-based CAD systems. With the software, users could create and modify 3D geometry models without needing to learn the complexities of the CAD software.

The functions in SpaceClaim's Prepare tab make it easy to simplify, de-feature and prepare models for analysis in ANSYS Workbench and GAMBIT.
The functions in SpaceClaim’s Prepare tab make it easy to simplify, de-feature and prepare models for analysis in ANSYS Workbench and GAMBIT.

By enabling ANSYS users to create and modify 3D models, simulation can be done upfront in the product development process, where the biggest payoffs (performance, cost and time-to-market) can be realized. The vision of ANSYS has always been to enable companies to leverage the value of computer simulation early in the design process to predict how a product will perform in the real world.

By adding SpaceClaim to its product line, ANSYS customer will have a 3D direct modeling tool for creating new concepts and then performing simulation on those models to iterate and optimize product designs. In addition, because ANSYS has always been an essentially open platform and SpaceClaim’s solutions are also relatively CAD-neutral, users can modify geometries regardless of what system was used to create them.

Benefits of acquisition

* Acceleration of ANSYS’ technological product roadmap and long-time vision for Simulation Driven Product Development. SpaceClaim can help simplify and automate what has traditionally been a time-consuming process of preparing geometry for use in a simulation system, enhancing ease-of-use to help ANSYS accelerate product adoption and the growth of the simulation market overall. The transaction enables ANSYS to accomplish what would have taken the company many years (if ever) to develop alone.
* Enhanced customer offering through complementary technologies. The transaction enablesANSYS to provide its customers with a 3D direct modeling solution to author new concepts and then leverage simulation to iterate on these designs.
* Drives growth through an expanded customer base and cross-selling opportunities. The broad appeal of SpaceClaim’s technology can help ANSYS deliver simulation tools to any engineer in any industry – at the earliest stages of the design cycle – expanding ANSYS’ user base from analysts and expert users to 5 million design and systems engineers.
* Increased innovation. SpaceClaim’s flagship product is SpaceClaim Engineer, 3D direct modeler, and offers UI/UX design for both 3D applications and mobile devices.

Of those proposed benefits, I think the one that stands out as obvious is the fact that acquiring SpaceClaim expands ANSYS’ user base from analysts and expert users to five million design and system engineers. We’ll certainly be watching to see how this shakes and out and will keep you updated on any new product announcements made as a result of this union.

For more information, check out the official press release from ANSYS.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: CAE, News, SpaceClaim, SpaceClaim News Tagged With: ANSYS, Direct Modeling, simulation, SpaceClaim

The Role of Associativity in Direct Modeling

April 1, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

When designers and engineers think about design associativity, they often think about history-based 3D modeling systems. CAD software that deploys a history-based approach to modeling requires engineers to anticipate and define feature constraints, relations and dependencies, which ensures that any design change will update all related downstream geometry. That’s design associativity.

Though they require a lot more work, thought and pre-planning on the part of the user, history-based modeling systems provide users with a methodical, orderly and powerfully automated way to create models. The problems arise, however, when changes have to be made, a rather common occurrence at all stages of development. Even small design changes cause a domino effect so users must carefully consider the impact a change will have to associated parts.

Design associativity is not exclusive to history-based 3D modeling approaches. Image courtesy of PTC.
Design associativity is not exclusive to history-based 3D modeling approaches. Image courtesy of PTC.

Is there associativity in direct modeling?

During The Pros and Cons of 3D Modeling Paradigms webinar, one of the questions asked of our panel of experts was what is the role or definition of associativity in direct modeling? Our panelists each brought a unique perspective to that question, which I thought was worthy of sharing.

Dan Staples, vice president of Solid Edge Product Development, Siemens PLM Software

To me the word associativity with parametrics is the notion that changing one thing changes other things that are associative. Things can be related to one another and things can be dimensionally driven and, therefore, association between the dimension and the faces. The key difference is that it doesn’t cause a linear regeneration of the treetop to bottom. That expensive piece is you edit the first feature and you pay for all subsequent thousand features.

That’s not true in a direct modeling system. However, there is the notion of associativity, meaning that things can happen. Dimensions are edited and faces moved, or Face A is associated with Face B and, therefore, it should move also. That’s associativity by my definition, and it’s perfectly valid in a direct modeling system.

Chad Jackson, principal analyst, Lifecycle Insights

There is probably a finer point here, which is there’s design associativity and there’s deliverable associativity. You might want to have design intent because of intent ripple has a change ripple across multiple parts in the same assembly. You might want to have that. Obviously when you change a part, you want the drawing to update and you want a service assembly animation to update. I think in both of those cases, neither are really limited by direct modeling. I think they are separable.

Brian Thompson, vice president, Creo Product Management, PTC

Maybe another way to look at is when you’re building in a history-based parametric modeling system, every selection that you make of some other geometry to create a dimension or to lay it on the line in a sketch or whatever it may be, it does create a dis-associativity that you as an engineer you have to consider: is that an important thing? Is that aspect important to my design intent? If it is, that can be a very powerful thing and they’re inherent in the design process.

Whereas with direct modeling, I would say that kind of thing is very much put in right at the top of mind of the engineer as they’re working through the direct modeling process. They will put that in into the design as they see fit. It’s something that the design engineer consciously decides; I want to create dis-associativity. It just doesn’t happen as a natural part of the design process, whereas in history-based systems, it very much is ingrained. Selections that you make do in fact create associative references unless you specifically say no I don’t want that. It’s usually the opposite assumption in direct modeling.

If you missed “The Pros and Cons of 3D Modeling Paradigms” webinar, you can still see it here.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, Creo, News, PTC/CoCreate Blogs, Siemens Blogs, Siemens PLM Tagged With: design associativity, Direct Modeling, PTC, Siemens

Kubotek Ships KeyCreator 2014 v12.5 Direct CAD Software

March 12, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

We’ve talked a lot on 3D CAD World about the various 3D modeling paradigms, history-based and direct modeling. Last week, we took a closer look at SpaceClaim’s direct modeling software, SpaceClaim Engineer 2014. Another 3D CAD software that’s known for its direct approach to modeling is Kubotek’s KeyCreator software.

Now a new release of the software, v12.5, is shipping so I thought this might be a good idea to take another look at the software, which employs what the company refers to as a “hybrid” approach to modeling.

KeyCreator is touted to to be very easy to use, and offers users optional integrated modules for CAD, CAM, finite-element analysis (FEA), CAD comparison, and photorealistic rendering–all within a hybrid CAD modeling environment. This means that users can work in 2D, wireframe, 3D and surfacing, all within the same environment.

What’s new?

New features and functionality of this new release of KeyCreator include CAD animation, Direct Dimension Editing Tree, and a wire EDM option for 2- and 2.5-axis milling.

KeyCreator is an easy to use 3D CAD software that enables users to work in 2D, wireframe, 3D, and surfacing--all within the same environment.
KeyCreator is an easy to use 3D CAD software that enables users to work in 2D, wireframe, 3D, and surfacing–all within the same environment.

Let’s look at bit deeper into these:

* CAD animation. This new tool provides another way to visualize or communicate the function and assembly of designs. Standard settings, such as motion speed, camera and timeline control, aid how a design is viewed, while more advanced features depict how designs will interact and/or react with other bodies or conditions. Capabilities, such as collision detection, help users pinpoint problems that result from the motion of designs and quickly diagnose and solve any issues with an assembly model.

* Wire EDM option. The KeyCreator Machinist NC module now offers a Wire EDM option for 2-axis NC milling. The integration of KeyCreator Direct CAD and KeyCreator Machinist takes advantage of many direct editing features and functions, while creating ultra-fast tool path generation. The benefit to users is that they can optimize machining strategies by running multiple tool path options.

* Direct dimensioning editing tree. This new capability further extends the software’s Direct Dimension editing features by allowing users to assign formulas and relationships between dimensions. With basic programming experience, users can configure and save commands to run automated design adjustments, saving time and reducing errors when operations are re-executed later.

Other enhancements to KeyCreator include, interoperability updates, refinement of modeling and visualization tools and other improvements to user-specific options to help users complete tasks to their liking and while meeting their modeling goals.

Sound too good to be true? Well, try it out yourself. A free trial of KeyCreator Direct CAD is available here.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: Kubotek, News Tagged With: animation, Direct Modeling, FEA, NC programming

Taking a Closer Look at SpaceClaim Engineer 2014

February 25, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

Last week Design World hosted a very successful webinar entitled, “The Pros and Cons of 3D Modeling Paradigms,” during which industry experts discussed the benefits and downsides of each modeling paradigm–history-based and direct modeling–and areas of product development each are best suited.

Though most of you already know the basics of each approach, here’s a quick summary. Parametric, feature-based 3D modeling tools provide engineers with a methodical, orderly and powerfully automated way to create complex models, but require engineers to anticipate and define feature constraints, relations and dependencies. Though powerful, these tools often make doing edits difficult, especially when working with models created in different CAD systems.

Direct modeling, on the other hand, enables users to take a more flexible, intuitive approach to creating geometry and doesn’t carry the overhead of history-based dependencies. Users can directly manipulate model geometry without regard to how that geometry was created. To make changes, users simply grab, pull and drag geometry, making direct modeling an easier modeling paradigm to use.

Though both approaches were discussed during the hour-plus webinar, it seemed like the majority of time was used to discuss direct modeling, perhaps in part because it’s the newer of the modeling techniques.

SpaceClaim delivers direct modeling alternative to history-based systems

One company not represented during the webinar that perhaps should have been was SpaceClaim. The company introduced direct modeling to the masses with the introduction of SpaceClaim 2007 Professional back in 2007. SpaceClaim, which my colleague Josh Mings refers to as “the company slapping the history out 3D modeling,” was founded in 2005 by industry big-wig Mike Payne, who also helped start up PTC and SolidWorks.

This brings me (finally) to SpaceClaim Engineer 2014. Rolled out officially in December, the new release touts a 30% improvement in model load times; multi-threading support; live interference detection; and improved drafting using parting surfaces and automatic splits.

This new release also makes some headway in increased interoperability with a Solid Edge translator and on-demand floating translator, AMF export/import from AutoCAD, support for ASME 14.5 (GD&T), and a 3D PDF module.

SpaceClaim Engineer's 3D mechanisms capabilities include gear and tangent placement conditions and are completely integrated with SpaceClaim's direct modeling of parts and assemblies.
SpaceClaim Engineer’s 3D mechanisms capabilities include gear and tangent
placement conditions and are completely integrated with SpaceClaim’s direct
modeling of parts and assemblies.

Here’s a list of the new tools in SpaceClaim Engineer 2014:

* Pinned datums, axes, and points that follow the geometry from which they are defined for semi-parametric functionality
* Web-hosted model viewer

Simulation
* New mass property driving dimensions
* New surface simplification tool
* Support for baffle geometry when transferring to ANSYS Workbench
* Orient and surface fitting for improved modeling with meshes

Sheet Metal
*Unfolding torus forms
* Multi-edge hems
* Sheet metal blends
* Improved edge cleanup during conversion.

Manufacturing
* Move Body and Align
* Create Workpiece
* Unroll tool for flattening developable surfaces
* Angular component measurements for sequential rotations between two faces.

You can find more on SpaceClaim Engineer 2014 here. If you missed the “The Pros and Cons of 3D Modeling Paradigms” webinar, click here to watch it.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, News, SpaceClaim, SpaceClaim News Tagged With: Direct Modeling, SpaceClaim

Autodesk Unveils Fusion 360 V2.0

January 23, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

During a noon-time webinar today, Autodesk unveiled V2 of its Fusion 360, a tool that combines mechanical, industrial and conceptual design into one easy-to-use, cloud-based tool. The company reports that Fusion 360, which is purchased on a monthly subscription basis, now has over 30,000 users.

Getting started in Fusion 360 is relatively simple. Users start by either using direct modeling intuitive push-pull commands to create a shape or can drag and drop an existing model created in any CAD format from their desktop. Pretty simple. When users are working on a design, they can create and add new components to quickly make that design an assembly.

Data management is done in the cloud. Once users start creating geometry, every iteration or change is “saved” and maintained in a version history that sits in the cloud. When users open up an existing design, they can access any iteration of it. Each design and iteration has a visual snapshot so users know what they are opening.

What’s new?

The product was released with direct modeling tools built in, but was noticeably lacking in parametric modeling tools. V2 offers a variation of history-based iterative design as well. With this version, users can still perform direct modeling, but can also capture key commands in a historical, dynamic and editable design timeline.

Here’s how that works: users can start by bringing in a reference image, a sculpt body or start modeling with solid primitives. The timeline captures their commands as they progress; direct manipulations (edit form and patch commands) are not. If users need to make a change to the original sculpt body, they right click on the body creation instance and select edit to make the changes. The design as a whole will update and make the necessary changes.

The new version also touts a revamped version of the dashboard for design collaboration. Design participants no longer have to switch from hub to hub; they are now all organized in their Projects section, and activities in those projects will all show up in their activity stream. Users can also now take advantage of the Rendering as a Service (RaaS) technology, which enables them to see how their design will look in various background environments, and to set custom resolutions for direct download.

Users can also now input text as a sketch, which is then selectable for all profile-consuming commands, such as extrude, revolve, etc. A new joint command, As-Built Joint, gives users the option of joining two components based on their current location, and not their snap points. A Sculpt pipe command has also been added that enables users to define a T-Spline body based on a set of sketch elements or T-Spline edges.

Get more information on Autodesk Fusion 360 here.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: Autocad Blogs, Autodesk, CAD Package, News Tagged With: Autodesk, Direct Modeling

SpaceClaim: Sheet metal design for pirates?

January 25, 2012 By Evan Yares Leave a Comment

Let this be a warning to all CAD vendors: Don’t encourage your application engineers to “be creative and have fun.” You might end up with product videos such as this one:

All seriousness aside, SpaceClaim does have compelling sheet metal tools for people other than pretend pirates. And, unlike some older CAD programs, SpaceClaim is relatively fun to use – probably because it doesn’t make you “walk the plank” to get your job done.

What this video alludes to, without coming right out and saying it, is that SpaceClaim, as a direct modeling CAD system, lets you use whatever existing part geometry you may have, from just about any other CAD system, as a starting point for sheet metal design. So, if someone throws a part file at you, and asks you to turn it into sheet metal, you can get it done with minimum fuss – even if the original CAD file is a mess (as many are.)

In the last few years, SpaceClaim has been starting to make an increasingly large impact on the market, not just because it works well, but also because it doesn’t require users (or the companies they work for) to throw-out their existing CAD tools.

After this video was posted, Blake Courter, a SpaceClaim co-founder, commented on Twitter that this year’s marketing campaign for SpaceClaim “consists entirely of setting up booths at renaissance festivals.” I think he was kidding (though I wouldn’t be surprised to see SpaceClaim at Burning Man later this year.) Until then, you might try visiting their website.

SpaceClaim 

www.spaceclaim.com

Filed Under: Evan Yares, SpaceClaim, SpaceClaim News Tagged With: 3D CAD, Blake Courter, Direct Modeling, Funny, sheet metal, SpaceClaim

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