Enables Data Prep for Digital Dentistry & Sheet Metal Manufacturing, Improves PMI Exchange, Simplifies ACIS Multi-Threading, and more
Spatial Corp, the leading 3D software development toolkit provider for design, manufacturing, and engineering solutions, and a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, announces today the production release of 2022 1.0. This release delivers new advances in modeling and data preparation for Digital Dentistry; automatic unbending of sheet metal; automatic mid-surface sheet bodies generation for FE workflows; easy-to-implement parallelization; import of large-scale models into CGM-based applications; import of new tolerance modifiers; and meshing support for a mix of elements in boundary layer meshing.
Modeling and Data Preparation for Digital Dentistry: CGM Polyhedra Enables Easy Undercut Filling and Tooth Cap Generation
New in 2022 1.0, CGM Polyhedra introduces the ability to create a smooth blend between the boundaries of two meshes and the ability to sweep polyline profiles with a draft angle.
Tessellated models composed of meshes are ubiquitous in modern workflows across various industries. For example, consider the dental industry, which largely consists of organic anatomical shapes, unlike precise solid-geometry normally seen in traditional engineering design and manufacturing applications.
CGM Polyhedra has robust tools to both heal and modify mesh-geometry, including new functionality to fill gaps between meshes and create/modify meshes by sweeping polylines with draft-angles. This new functionality, in conjunction with existing healing functionality in CGM Polyhedra, allows Digital Dentistry application developers to easily develop workflows such as:
- Fill open regions in the form of irregular holes that may be a result of poor upstream scanning in tessellated models of jaws.
- Fill concave undercut regions between the tooth and the jaw with poly extrude and sweeps.
- Smoothly join the tessellated model of a crown (tooth-cap) with the tessellated model of a root (tooth-root) by filling the region between the boundaries of the two meshes.
Overall, the three digital dental workflows are simplified with new functionality in CGM Polyhedra. Further, the new healing and modeling functionalities in CGM Polyhedra are applicable for industries beyond Dental. For specific details about the new features for CGM Polyhedra and example workflows featuring these new functionalities, visit Spatial.com.
Unbending of Sheet-Metal Parts with Even More Speed: Automatic Unbending
In 2022 1.0, CGM Modeler introduces a new operator to automatically detect cylindrical bends and automatically unbend them in 3D models. As a result, and when combined with existing operators in CGM Modeler, software developers can enable robust and efficient automation in sheet-metal manufacturing applications.
Often sheet metal is the obvious choice for a myriad of industrial uses. An important step in fabricating sheet-metal parts is the ability to virtually reverse the manufacturing process to unbend digital sheet-metal parts and lay the original sheet-metal design flat. Then, features can be removed, and the exact size of the sheet-metal blank can be determined and optimally nested within standard sheets for automatic cutting.
Sheet-metal parts can now be automatically unfolded with CGM Modeler. The selected flat-planar face can be inputted into the new automatic unbend operator in CGM Modeler, which will automatically traverse the part, detect all bends, and unfold each bend. Once the original design has been unfolded, the exact size of the sheet-metal blank can be determined. Afterward, the end-user can select the material, and fabrication costs can be determined. Finally, the sheet-metal part can be fabricated and delivered to the customer.
The entire virtual workflow for importing sheet-metal parts and unbending such parts can be implemented into any CAD-CAM software application with Spatial’s powerful CGM Modeler.
For specific details about the new features for CGM Modeler, as well as an example workflow featuring these new functionalities, visit Spatial.com.
Obtain Finite-Element Results Faster: Creation of Mid-Surface Sheet-Bodies with the 3D ACIS Modeler
In its latest release, the 3D ACIS Modeler introduces the capability to extract sheet-bodies at the mid-surface between faces of solid bodies with the new function api_make_mid_sheet_body.
A good example is a finite-element (FE) workflow in a computer-aided engineering (CAE) application. The new ability of the 3D ACIS modeler to easily and quickly extract the mid-surface between opposite faces of thin-walled geometries greatly simplifies FE-workflows.
Instead of a series of manual modeling operations to extract the mid-surface for each pair of opposite faces, the CAE-application activates an ACIS-enabled workflow to extract the mid-surfaces. The resulting sheet-body can then be meshed with structural shell elements, using Spatial’s 3D Precise Mesh, resulting in a mesh to which appropriate boundary conditions and loads can be applied and a solution ultimately obtained. All without time-intensive manual modeling operations to extract the mid-surfaces.
For specific details about the new features for the 3D ACIS Modeler, as well as an example workflow featuring these new functionalities, visit Spatial.com.
Easy-to-Implement Parallelization in the 3D ACIS Modeler: Quickly Multi-Thread Your ACIS Workflows
In 2022 1.0, 3D ACIS Modeler introduces a new “helper” function, api_process_mt, which greatly simplifies the implementation of multi-threaded, largely independent workflows involving ACIS data and functions.
While parallelization of patterns seems straightforward in theory, up until now, it has been quite difficult to implement in ACIS-enabled applications because of the relationships between geometric and topological entities in solid models and the need to track modeling steps in history streams.
For example, consider an ACIS-dependent workflow that entails the subtraction of a half-space in a model with a large number of bodies. Subtraction for a single body requires about ten lines of code without multi-threading. And for multiple bodies, with the new helper function api_process_mt, only ten additional lines of code are needed for subtraction in a multi-threaded manner.
The new helper function api_process_mt in the 3D ACIS Modeler can be used to quickly parallelize many common ACIS-dependent workflows via multi-threading without resorting to the ACIS Thread Manager. An excellent example of using api_process_mt to multi-thread an ACIS-dependent workflow is Spatial’s own implementation of the new function api_n_body_clash in the 3D ACIS Modeler to detect clashes among multiple bodies.
With multi-threading, api_n_body_clash is significantly more performant than api_body_clash. Moreover, api_n_body_clash is more versatile than api_body_clash in that it detects clashes among more than just two bodies.
For specific details about the new helper functions for 3D ACIS Modeler and how they can be implemented, visit Spatial.com.
From Smaller to Larger with 3D InterOp: Import of Large-Scale Models into CGM-Based Applications
Large-scale models are typically associated with BIM-centric applications, which consume data for landscapes/terrains and buildings, whose dimensions range far outside dimensions for traditional CAD applications. New for 2022 1.0, 3D InterOp allows the import of large-scale models with dimensions ranging from 1-100km into CGM-enabled applications. Such capability extends the capability of CGM Modeler (CGM) from traditional mechanical-design workflows to architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) workflows in the field of building-information management (BIM).
Furthermore, 3D InterOp offers the import of small-scale models with dimensions down to 10µm into CGM-enabled applications. This additional capability for small-scale models extends CGM into the semiconductor, electronics, and precision electro-mechanical industries. 3D models can now contain features ranging in dimensions of several mm to a few meters for fixtures in rooms to many kilometers for the terrain – all enabled with large-scale functionality in 3D InterOp for CGM-enabled applications.
For specific details about these features, as well as an example workflow featuring these new functionalities, visit Spatial.com.
Enable Industry 4.0 with 3D InterOp: Import of Tolerance Modifiers
In addition to tolerance modifiers for material conditions, free states, and tangent planes, new in 2022 1.0, 3D InterOp now supports the import of common-zone (CZ) and unequal-zone (UZ) modifiers embedded in digital CAD models embedded in CATIA V5/V6, including both graphical (human-viewable) and semantic (machine-readable) data. Furthermore, 3D InterOp now allows the import of more than two modifiers per feature control frame.
3D InterOp’s ability to import a range of geometric and dimensional tolerancing (GD&T) modifiers optimizes manufacturing and measurement processes with tolerance data that simultaneously controls the size, form, orientation, and location in one notation for both graphical and semantic workflows.
For example, the CZ modifier allows the application of the same tolerance and ultimately manufacturing process to different surfaces of a part. Similarly, the UZ modifier provides manufacturing options by providing a non-uniform way to apply tolerances resulting in an almost unlimited variety of shapes and conditions.
Overall, the import and downstream use of tolerance-modifiers in digital applications supports both design and manufacturing flexibility and ultimately reduces fabrication costs.
For specific details about these features, as well as examples featuring these new functionalities, visit Spatial.com.
3D Precise Mesh Extends CFD Workflows: Automatic and Robust Boundary-Layers
The generation of meshes continues to be a time-consuming task in workflows for computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Hybrid CFD in Spatial’s 3D Precise Mesh streamlines meshing tasks with a one-step, automatic and robust CFD Hybrid mesh generation technology, including the management of boundary-layer mesh-generation, all controlled by user-defined parameters and functions.
New in 2022 1.0, 3D Precise Mesh now offers new functionality for Hybrid CFD in its quest to streamline the meshing of models for CFD analyses. In particular, Hybrid CFD now supports the mix of prismatic and hexahedral*** elements in boundary layers, automatically referencing input surfaces from CAD geometry, and managing collisions, imprinting, smooth-blending, and adaptation features according to user-defined requirements. Additionally, in this release, 3D Precise Mesh keeps enhancing its capabilities for seamless meshing workflows, either for CFD and any other CAE workflows, by enhancing the management of discrete inputs of CAD geometry to generate quad-dominant surface meshes as well as second-order surface and volume meshes.
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