DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

The headline update for Geomagic Studio 11 is the introduction of a set of tools designed to bridge the often wide chasm between physical data capture and digital design. Geomagic has been working towards this goal for the last few releases, most notably with the introduction of the Fashion module.

This offers the ability to extract design intent and, with a wide variety of surface fitting tools, reconstruct clean, accurate surfaces which can be read into your workhorse CAD system. This release not only extends these tools further by consolidating commands and workflow and adding new tools, but it also adds another level of intelligence to the process.

The high-level concept is that, by using this set of tools, the physical form of a component can be captured and rebuilt not only as a set of CAD-readable surfaces, but with a reconstructed CAD-native feature tree. This allows users to make much more use of the geometry than would be possible with dumb surfaces. It also means design intent can be added.

An imported polymesh that has all manner of errors within it. The Mesh Doctor runs a series of checks for common problem areas and reports back the results. The system can then automatically fix them or the user can dive in and work on them manually

In its first release, Parametric Exchange interoperates with 3 and 4, Inventor (2009 and 2010) and SolidWorks (2008 and 2009). The workflow is something a little like this and can be followed visually at the bottom of the page: The user begins by working on scanned data within Geomagic. For those unfamiliar with the system, it presents a wealth of tools for working with point cloud data. Separate scans can be registered, data can be cleaned, a watertight polygon mesh can be built and unwanted features removed. The user then dives into the system and inspects the poly-mesh to find fillet radii and all manner of surface types (such as planar surfaces, cylinders, etc).

A guide to the basic Geomagic 11 workflow

The next stage is to start to define each of those to the level of detail required. Initially, open surfaces are created. Fashion now includes all manner of tools for extracting curves and sketches from the point cloud, and editing as required to create “good” curves. The end result is a mixture of untrimmed and trimmed surfaces (and boundary curves) that are ready to be transferred to the CAD system. At any point in the process users can inspect how much that surface-based definition of the part deviates from the scanned data.

In the SolidWorks example shown in Figure 4 when transferred to a CAD system, the API is used to reconstruct the features, surfaces and curves in a logical history tree. It’s worth noting that each entity is contained within the feature browser to the left of the screen - and this works much the same regardless of whether Inventor, SolidWorks or Pro/Engineer is used. The next stage is to use that data to add the final trimming, cuts and splits to create the final watertight model.

Mesh Doctor

Alongside Parametric Exchange, the other big news for the Studio 11 release is the introduction of the Mesh Doctor. When dealing with reverse engineered data, whether coming from a processed point cloud, an imported polymesh or anything else, errors within that data are very common indeed.

The nature of any reverse engineering process - whether using traditional CMM style processes or the increasingly common non-contact scanning devices – means that holes, gaps or other errata appear. This is the main reason that systems such pas Studio exist in the first place.

What Mesh Doctor represents is a persistent set of checks that can be carried out on polygon meshes to ensure users have the best quality data to work with. Mesh Doctor is initially used when opening the dataset and runs a series of checks that look for errors, such as non-manifold or highly creased edges, self intersections, and spikes, or small components and holes that may typically appear.

The system analyses these and presents the user with a list of errors that can be selected, inspected (using the 3D view to zoom into problem areas automatically) and dealt with accordingly. Common problems can be rectified automatically and Studio handles that following a click of a button. In cases where the automated tools can’t be used, Studio enables users to dive in and work with the geometry manually, replacing geometry, filling holes and fixing errors.

The Sculpt Knife tool provides much greater control over manual smoothing where the user paints in smoothing operations interactively on the geometry

Other updates

In terms of the less ‘headline grabbing’ updates there are new tools related to working with new geometry, rather than data generated by scanning hardware. The first, the Mesh Radius Analysis tool, allows the use of curvature analysis to find the radii of either all edges within a part (perhaps a moulding which is typically more filleted than a metallic component) or a specific selected area.

Mesh Radius Analysis gives a reading for each radius found which can then be used when defining proper fillets downstream in a CAD system. This tool is incredibly useful to restore design intent with used or retired components where time has taken its toll, and provides a decent baseline set of data to work with further.

Hole filling is something that every reverse engineering user will be familiar with - mostly because in many cases it can mean major headaches, particularly when working with complex, sculpted surfaces. Studio now includes a Tangent Filling option that fills holes while maintaining the tangency of the surrounding geometry. This is intended as an alternative to the Curvature Filling option which, although incredibly powerful, can sometimes give erratic results, particularly with complex forms.

An interesting update is the Relax Polygon option. Previous versions of the software smoothed out errors with ease, but this could have a rather undesirable effect on edges. The new release provides a Curvature Priority option that ignores areas where high degrees of curvature are found (namely, edges) and these will be locked out from smoothing operations. The tool provides a visualisation of what’s locked and what’s not.

Also on the subject of smoothing, the new Sculpt Knife tool provides much greater control over manual smoothing (where the user paints in smoothing operations interactively on the geometry). This provides control over the width (or to use the painting analogy further, brush sizes) and the amount of offset allowed (or the distance polygon vertices can move to achieve that smoothness away from the original geometry).

Finally, there’s been some cross-pollination from the Fashion module into Studio, with the ability to trim polygons with a curve. This allows the use of a curve to define the boundary of a sub-set of a model, either sketched in manually or using curvature change to drive the creation of the sketch.

Conclusion

By taking a broad look at the process of reverse engineering or the capture of digital data from physical parts, there are two forces at work. There is currently an explosion in the hardware available to capture the raw data. Some are highly complex and accurate, but costly solutions, while others make use of consumer grade electronics to achieve a lower price point, but this often comes at the expense of accuracy. While there’s a boom in reverse engineering hardware, perhaps the most critical part of the process is doing something with that raw data.

It’s in this field that Geomagic has built up its expertise over the last decade, providing tools that allow users to work with raw source data and create usable geometry. With the Studio 11 release, this advances greatly, particularly with the introduction of Parametric Exchange, which allows users to take physical data and create solid, accurate, clean and above all, intelligent CAD models - and by doing so, adding design intent and editability back into the process.

Alongside Parametric Exchange, the other major updates for this release continue much of the good work Geomagic has been putting into the products over the last few years. While all of the tools have been there in some shape or form for a while, the last few releases have seen much consolidation of commands. A good example is the Mesh Doctor. While this doesn’t represent new functionality, it takes existing tools, brings them into a single, persistent dialog and allow users to work on geometry, fixing errors and re-running checks, all from one place. This can only serve to make these processes, which are often time consuming, much more efficient. And you can’t ask for much more than that in my book.

www.geomagic.com

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

www.driveworks.co.ukLet’s start with a question. Why do we use Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools? The number one reason is editability - the ability to dive in and edit geometry, be that a 2D drawing in AutoCAD or a complex 3D model. Before CAD, editing engineering information involved razor blades and a whole lot of scratching, which for those that remember the pain is incentive enough!

The second reason is reuse. By having access to all of your design data in a digital format, you can reuse almost any portion of anything, from blocks and Xrefs in AutoCAD, through to complex sub-assemblies in 3D modelling systems that adapt to their surrounding components.

One of the first steps is to capture dimensions and parameters from an existing SolidWorks assembly

The third reason is related purely to 3D working practices and is the removal of ambiguity. Orthographic drawings are possibly the most complex way to show how a part, assembly or product will look. Yes, they are still heavily used, but the point is that by taking advantage of collision and interference detection tools within 3D, we can ensure that parts fit together, sub-assemblies do not interfere with each other and the whole thing, when built, works.

For me, the fourth and fifth places are tied. Simulation tools allow the performance of a product to be tested, before it comes even close to a physical manifestation. This is incredibly powerful, but despite the marketing claims of vendors, has yet to go mainstream. Tied with simulation is automation, something I’ve been a great advocate of for many years. Modern CAD systems allow incredible levels of intelligence to be built into near fully functionally digital models and if used properly and appropriately can provide huge benefits. This is particularly true when applied to a family of products that are based on the same core design, but adapted to fit customer or user requirements. If the intelligence is built in correctly, simply by tweaking the inputs, huge amounts of time can be saved designing different variations on what are essentially common parts, sub-assemblies or even entire products.

The problem with automation is that it is typically very difficult to manage on anything other than the most basic of components or assembly stacks. What you need, particularly if you’re a SolidWorks user, is DriveWorks.

DriveWorks Solo allows users to capture, drive and automate the creation of drawings

DriveWorks is a British company I’ve come to know well over the last ten years, and I’ve watched it evolve from a one-man company with a bunch of Excel macros into a global company with a much more sophisticated toolset with seats installed in the US, Australia, Europe and many other geographies. While there have been many other design automation vendors within the SolidWorks space, none have achieved the traction of DriveWorks. This was cemented two years ago when DS SolidWorks incorporated DriveWorksXpress into SolidWorks, providing every SolidWorks user with basic design automation tools to experiment with.

Alongside DriveWorksXpress, the company has always had its higher-end, DriveWorks Pro, offering for those looking to push automation further. This allows team wide access to the technology to push design automation tools into the hands of non-expert users, such as those in field sales, or customers through a web-connected server. The problem with DriveWorksXpress and the higher-end offering is that the gap between them has always been quite wide. And this is where DriveWorks Solo fits in.

The underlying concept behind DriveWorks Solo is that it brings the most popular capabilities of the full DriveWorks Pro software to the single seat user. It provides the ability to set-up standardised products and product ranges, with all of the appropriate design inputs, alternatives and variations, and then have the system automatically generate 3D models and drawings for each required variant. However, if you want to open up this automation to a wider audience of non-expert users then you need to buy the Pro version.

The practicalities

Once DriveWorks Solo has been installed as an add-on in SolidWorks, it will appear in the task panel and it’s from here that everything within the system is driven.

The first step is to create a new project and within that project, there can be multiple rules-based products to work with. To begin the automation process, the source model is captured and held within DriveWorks - it’s important to note that although you are working with master data, DriveWorks takes a copy of that data so that the integrity of the master model is maintained.

Once the working model is defined, you then begin to grab dimensions and features from it to use as the basis for the automation. This is most likely to be named dimensions and parameters from the 3D model, but the truth is that DriveWorks has an incredible granular level of access to almost everything within a SolidWorks data-set, meaning it can be easily controlled at the required level of detail.

The next stage is to capture or add custom properties that will be either used as inputs to the design or driven by it. Drawings are next to be captured and it is good to see the level of thought that the team has put into creating an intuitive way of working with sheets, views, annotation text, annotation properties and layers. If you have well laid out drawings based on one model, the chances are they’ll transition well to another variant and 90% of this process can be automated.

The penultimate stage of data capture is to define any features, parts or sub-assemblies which might be swapped out - perhaps different product variants have different actuator sizes to handle greater loads, or maybe different electronics are required for different variants.

The final stage is to define the file format that the data should be translated to on completion, whether that’s a standard 3D CAD format, an eDrawing for sending to a customer, or a PDF.

Form and input design

Now that’s the basics defined, the next step is to define how users will interact with the data and generate each design variant in practice.  This is done using a fairly Windows-standard form creation tool, which gives control over the appearance, behaviour and layout of the form. It allows all the usual field types to be added, such as options, toggles, and drop down lists, as well as tools to add images, labels and guidance messages for users.

Defining the rules

Forms can incorporate many fields and controls including images to help the user make appropriate selections

The final stage is to define how those inputs interact with the data in the form of rules - and of course, the resultant outputs required. DriveWorks Solo has a very rich set of functionality for defining intelligence within a model. A nice touch is the pervasive search facility that allows users to find precise data and to filter out what’s not required. This pays huge dividends, as the potential parameters for a reasonably complex model can be vast (N.B. The DriveWorks team says that some customers have upwards of 14,000 potential rules and variables in some projects).

Some items are filled in automatically (such as file names) or you can dive in and do it manually. The good news is that the DriveWorks team has been working to make this very much a ‘grab, define and run’ type process for rules definition, using intelligence where needed and giving users access to the tools to do more complex work manually.

Tables for look up lists are a snap, allowing manual creation or copying and pasting from Excel to ensure that standard sizes and options are available.

Aside from the really comprehensive Help file and the ability to make comments on the rules – the how and why they are as they are - the Rules Builder also provides feedback as you build rules including a step by step breakdown of what the rule will evaluate to.

The result

Once a project has been set up, creating new variations is simply a matter of filling out the forms. Enter the criteria and hit preview and DriveWorks Solo creates the new variation in SolidWorks immediately showing the results of your work. Any changes can then be made, and the system will then preview again and again to ensure it works, live. Once you are happy with the result, the inputs are finalised to generate the required outputs, all with the correct file names and based on your rules.

A really neat feature is the fact that a DriveWorks Solo project can be deployed in a single file which means it can be passed to others really easily. It strikes me as being a great application for a roving engineer or sales person who wants to go off site with a laptop and configure new products with others.

Conclusion

Once the automation project has been completed new variations can be generated by filling out the requirements on a form

The main aim of any DriveWorks project is to give your team a set of tools that can drive variant-based designs of a product or sub-system in a very automated manner.

By removing a significant amount of time from your design processes and by automating routine tasks, this can give engineers and designers more time to work on more challenging problems, and to identify new areas for innovation to help push your products and your business forward.

But to achieve that, the system needs to be able to handle the definition of that automation environment, as well as being easy to use by a non-expert, rather than a costly consultant. By combining the power of its automation and its very deep knowledge of SolidWorks, the DriveWorks team has created a product that is not only easy to use in terms of creating variants through automation, but also to create the automation projects in the first place and maintain them on an on-going basis.

Automation can be a complex business, but the good news is that complexity is more likely to arise from your geometry and the intelligence you put into it, rather than the enabling automation, which is where you will find the benefits.

There’s been a concerted effort to make sure that the system works in the same way that SolidWorks does. Help is available directly within the interface giving good guidance and examples. Yes, the process requires some thought and planning to achieve a good automation level, but by providing good solid worked examples and pointing its users towards the best way to get something done, it should make it much easier to deploy on the first live project.

At the outset, I asked if DriveWorks can bring automation to the masses. The simple answer is no - automation is not for everyone. However, if your products are modular, designed to order and based on variants, then there is huge potential to transform your business. DriveWorks Solo is easy to use, easy to deploy and easy to adapt as your products change. The only question should be - if you have a need for design automation, why aren’t you using it already?

www.driveworks.co.uk

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

NX is one of those systems that has been around for so long in various guises and names that it does almost everything you could ever imagine. However, while part of its power lies in its long history, this also causes a problem for its developer, Siemens PLM Software.

NX has a huge range of technology and capability, from standard design and engineering led part and assembly design, through to complex surfacing, simulation, electro/mechanical interoperability, machining and NC programming. Over its 20-year history the system has grown massively and with that growth, comes complexity and inconsistency in how users work with the system’s functions. Over the past four or five releases the NX development team has reworked much of the user experience, to present a common and standardised method of interacting with all these tools.

The new adaptive shell command allows users to cut/copy/paste feature geometry from other parts or product models and reuse it while adapting wall thickness to maintain design intent

The big news for the NX 7.0 release is split into two areas, the evolution of Synchronous Technology (ST), Siemens PLM’s direct modelling technology, and the introduction of a new technology called HD3D which is used to solve complex issues relating to buried data and workflow.

Advances in Sync Tech

Synchronous Technology has been the big headline grabber for Siemens PLM over the past 18 months and has brought direct modelling to both NX and Solid Edge. However, unlike Solid Edge the way it has been implemented inside NX means a decision doesn’t have to be made as to whether to take the history or non-history route.

Non-native data is edited. Ribs are cut and pasted then moved…

NX is more refined and flexible than that. Users can still take the extreme decision to completely blow the history away, but they can also choose to use the more freeform modelling tools as part of a history-based modelling methodology. The system will record each edit made, so it’s entirely traceable, repeatable and editable from the history tree.

Synchronous Technology isn’t a panacea for everything. It’s a technology that is best suited to solving specific design problems, or more accurately, geometry creation and editing problems. This could be when working with dumb native data or highly complex feature-based parts where a seemingly small tweak is required but would require a huge amount of rework taking a traditional history-based approach.

....to create a new form without having to worry about the construction history

NX 7.0 introduces a number of seemingly minor features that actually provide great power when it comes to working with problematic or non-native data. There are new tools for reconfiguring geometry and adapting forms with new features. For example, the enhanced ‘Replace Face’ tool enable users to patch together feature forms using the cut/copy/paste workflow introduced in version 6.0. It enables existing features to be grabbed and pasted directly into a new model.

Once inside the new model it’s likely that these features will need to be adapted to match the new part’s form or function requirements and Replace Face does this automatically, maintaining tangency and surface curvature where required.

A feature from another design is pasted into the new model, but needs to be adapted to the new form

Additional tools enable users to quickly create feature patterns and retain the intelligence contained in single features, without necessarily having to store the history. There are similarly flexible modelling tools that allow users to patch in and incorporate design intent, such as shells, plus maintain wall thickness without having to worry about history.

Raising the bar

With the first release of Sync Tech, Siemens PLM made great claims about it being able to intelligently edit non-native data. However, the fact is that it only worked with high quality data, particularly with regards to directly editing features like rounds, fillets and chamfers. With less than perfect models, the chances are that edits would fail, even if the geometry ‘looked’ OK.

The Replace Face tool is used to readapt the underside of the cover to maintain form and create a cohesive whole

NX 7.0 introduces a series of tools that allow users to identify problematic surfaces (such as fillets and blends) and redefine them as more analytical surfaces. This makes editing much easier. The tool inspects the geometry, finds problem surfaces and replaces them with a reconstructed rolling ball blend where possible. It then delivers a report detailing exactly what’s happened, including the number of changed surfaces and what has been changed and what has been replaced.

For those concerned about potential design changes being performed without having a complete understanding of the process, it should be noted that this optimisation process is run to a user-defined tolerance. Within this range the system can jiggle geometry to make it higher quality without sacrificing geometry integrity and form.

HD3D allows users to load up lightweight component models and run visual reports to find all manner of information that would typically be buried in text-based database searches. Here, the model is colour coded by weight using customised ranges

When it comes to editing non-native data, chamfers are a different kettle of fish, despite often being lumped together with fillets/rounds. As such, they are dealt with by tagging them as chamfers manually. This allows users to modify them, so they’re maintained as chamfers when editing connected or seed faces.

Visual reporting

While the Sync Tech updates offer advanced geometry modelling and editing capabilities, the most exciting introduction for this release is that of HD3D or to give it its full title, High Definition 3D. This is a truly elegant solution that is designed to solve very complex issues relating to buried data (both geometric and metadata) and issue resolution workflow. Let’s look at those two very quickly.

A visual report is run on the same assembly, but using supplier metadata as the source for the search. Parts and sub-systems are colour coded and categorised by supplier, enabling users to see exactly where the products are sourced from

Take the average design and engineering organisation for example, that’s fully adopted both 3D design and PLM. Those two technologies have the ability to fully document a product, not only in terms of it’s form and function, but also in terms of the information that relates to its development, manufacture, lifecycle and eventual retirement. In short, that’s a substantial amount of data.

However, the problem is, unless you have a very intimate knowledge of where that data is stored, who created it and what you’re actually looking for, it’s very hard to get an idea of where a product is at.

3D datasets contain the form, and metadata is attached to each part, sub-assembly and sub-system in the shape of documents (text, spreadsheets, PDFs, CAD data etc).  To find both, you typically need to use two different systems. In the case of Siemens PLM, for geometry that’s NX (or a 3D viewing technology) and for metadata Teamcenter. The problem is, despite all of their best intentions, the two products don’t exactly work together.

A complex assembly of a Fiat 500 is loaded and the data stripped back to reveal the power and drive train details. Components are grouped and tagged by sub-system categorisation allowing users to see the stage each department has reached. Note that non-critical geometry is made transparent, providing a clear view, but maintaining context

HD3D provides a framework that’s delivered in both NX and Teamcenter and allows users to take the graphically rich 3D data and gain access to the metadata underneath it. This can then be explored and visualised, and details delved into when needed and filtered to access the exact information required. For example, this could be a peep at where development efforts are being concentrated (by filtering and visualising parts or sub-assemblies under work - in itself derived from change status), what parts are being outsourced, or where costs or weight are found (by filtering for parts within specific cost or mass ranges).

In development of HD3D, Siemens PLM has combined its experience in data manipulation and management (with Teamcenter), lightweight viewing (with the JT format) and large scale visualisation and built a technology.

The system comes with preset searches, but it’s also possible to create custom searches and reports based on a whole range of criteria and these can then be saved for use later. This means individual users can gain an idea of where things are at, in relation to their own focus areas, and then get to work. It’s a combination of some quite complex technologies that have been reworked into a very slick visually led environment.

Tags are used to great effect, to identify search results and give the user very quick access to metadata within a single mouse click

Issue management

When geographically dispersed teams are involved in the development of highly complex products there can be serious issues with workflow. Not in terms of how to store them within a database, but how to ensure that data conforms to company requirements. This relates to geometry quality and compliance with company, customer or international standards.
NX 7.0 includes a new workflow to solve these types of issues, and to do this has made better use of existing technology. Siemens PLM’s NX Check-Mate product has performed just these types of checks for some time, but now this has been integrated into the HD3D environment. Users load up the assembly, run the checks and get back a very visual list of issues that it finds.

The combination of visualisation tools and reporting means issues can be worked through and addressed with ease. For example, this could be small faces that don’t match FEA requirements or PMI formatting issues. It’s all done very interactively and very efficiently.

A Check is run on the component to find areas of concern relating to all manner of things, such as CAE analysis (can it mesh correctly), or Assembly mating (is it fully defined). This can be done visually or inspected. The system presents the results in both a list and using a slider view allows users to browse the errors quickly. Once an error is found it can be inspected, reported on, an issue sent directly from the model interface, and sent into an ECO workflow

Once discovered, these issues can then be integrated into a workflow to resolve them. Issues are identified through automated checks, and the system assigns it to the person or team responsible by issuing a change request handled by Teamcenter.

Conclusion

While there are many other updates to NX 7.0, including a number related to simulation, the three core areas we’ve covered in this article are the crux of this release.
The advancement and refinement of synchronous technology continues and we are starting to see exactly how this history-free approach can be used in real production environments to solve common geometry problems when reliance of history-based modelling breaks down.

For me, this release is all about High Definition 3D or HD3D. Yes, this is an initial release but the promise it holds is phenomenal. What’s most interesting is that none of this technology is new. Check-Mate, JT, Teamcenter and NX are all existing technologies and products that have been combined, rationalised and delivered to create a solution to real engineering problems.

Data burial and retrieval is a constant problem for many organisations. The data is there, but how to get at it is anyone’s guess. By providing a combination of rich visualisation backed up with clean efficient search tools, users can access the required information, almost instantly.

The issue management and resolution tools also take existing tools and redeploy them to create an environment where fundamental bottlenecks can be first identified and then progressed through to resolution in a fully traceable environment.

NX 7.0 is a very impressive release and one that holds many clues as to where Siemens PLM is heading with its flagship product. The good news is that I’m told there’s another release (NX 7.5) on the horizon for early next year - and I can’t wait to see what’s in it.

www.siemens.com/plm

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

As you may have gathered, DEVELOP3D is a big fan of rendering and visualisation. When you have a product in development, being able to create photorealistic renderings of each design variant greatly benefits the process and the product itself.

In order to deliver all these exciting visuals, a highly efficient rendering pipeline is required. Progressive rendering has greatly accelerated the process and users can now make changes to the scene and materials and get immediate feedback. Progressive renderers like HyperShot, Modo, and ShaderLight from ART-VPS all make rendering quicker and easier, which in a professional working environment is absolutely essential.

The final HDR is loaded into the visualisation software (in this instance, HyperShot) and the user then renders away

But one aspect of rendering can still be a big challenge – that of lighting. In traditional rendering systems, each light has to be specifically defined and positioned and the workflow to do this isn’t intuitive at all. Light is the most underrated component of any visualisation project. Get the lighting right and people won’t notice it’s a digital image. Get it wrong and renderings can look horrendous.

Support for High Dynamic Range images (HDRi) in many of today’s rendering tools has meant it’s much easier to get lighting right. HDR images store a much richer depth of information about light intensity than standard digital image files. When used as the basis for rendering, they not only fully describe the lighting of a scene, but also the environment that’s been captured. There are many sources and libraries available online and these provide many options. These are used as the key component in all of the progressive rendering technologies we discussed earlier, as well as appearing in the likes of Rhino, SolidWorks and Pro/Engineer.

Synthetic lights can be created from standard forms or realistic lights can be added from the LightPack library

For those looking for complete perfection, however, there’s still an issue. HDR images are typically captured using specialist hardware from the likes of Spheron (Spheron.com). This hardware set-up captures the scene exactly how it is at the point of capture. And therein lies the problem. When you’ve got your HDR image, either captured directly or downloaded from the web, what happens if it’s not exactly what you want?

One option is to edit HDR images in Photoshop, an application that is used almost everywhere. HDR image editing is supported in the more recent releases of this generic image processing tool but because of the richness of the information HDR images contain it’s not easy. So what dedicated tools are there out there to gain control?

Each light is fully controllable and adaptable to user requirements

The answer comes from Lightmap, a company founded by the team at Protograph, a well-known visualisation outfit that’s been spearheading the use of advanced rendering tools for many years. Realising that it that it didn’t have control over the HDR input it used in its work, Lightmap set about developing a software tool that brings that control back to the user. The result is HDR Light Studio, a relatively new application that has just reached its 1.5 release.

In essence, HDR Light Studio can be used to create custom HDR images. Within a single, easy-to-use standard interface, users have complete control over the colour of the scene and the lighting within it. The initial release provided the ability to choose from a number of standard shaped synthetic lights (circle, hexagon and rectangle) and position these anywhere within a HDR map (a spherical image that covers a 360 degree view).

Users have complete control over the background for HDRs, in terms of lighting and colour

The system adapts each light created to ensure that when used, the light retains the required shape and full control over luminance values according to real world values is provided. Using this basic set of tools, users simply build up the scene, add the required lighting and output the HDR image. There are two standard formats, .HDR and .EXR, so check your system’s documentation to see which it supports. So what’s new for this release?

The big news is the introduction of Light Packs. These are standard libraries of real-world lights, such as windows, bounce sheets, spotlights (with barn-doors on or off), soft-boxes and many other lamps. These can be selected from the library and positioned and adjusted within the scene alongside the generic light types already there. This means true lighting rigs for photo-shoots can be better replicated and users can get exactly what they want.

The preview gives physically accurate lighting and there are a number of guides to ensure lights are positioned correctly

Alongside this, there is now a greater level of control over the synthetic lights. There’s full control over bulb length and position within each and this allows users to replicate other common lighting effects such as soft lozenges and linear graduations. There is greater control over how light falls off towards the outer edges of a light using the outside setting and
this means soft-boxes can be more accurately replicated.

Another interesting feature is the ability to create a Dark light. No, this doesn’t require 15 billion Euros worth of hardware buried under the ground in Switzerland, but instead lets users create a light as usual, but have it remove light from areas of a HDR.

Once the HDR image is ready, it can be rendered out to .HDR or .EXR formats which are supported by HDR-capable software

While this might sound odd, when lighting scenes for highly reflective surfaces (such as chromes, glass, jewellery) it’s very handy to be able to control exact where light doesn’t appear as well as where it does. In practice it gives much better control over reflections, highlights and lowlights.

Once the HDR is in a vaguely usable state, the next stage is to see how it looks in use. HDR Light Studio supports output at a number of resolutions in both .HDR and .EXR format and these are loaded into the chosen rendering software. The workflow is tweak it in HDR Light Studio, then render out the final pass. Some systems, such as HyperShot, are starting to introduce automatic updating of HDRs so that makes the workflow even slicker.

Conclusion

The requirement for realism in visualisation continues to grow, but to achieve the pinnacle, control is needed over everything that goes into the process. This means quality geometry, realistic materials and textures and lighting – the importance of which is overlooked.
HDR Light Studio offers the ability to regain control over light in a simple, easy to understand and use application. It can truly help take images to the next level and should be an essential tool in everyone’s armoury.

Starting at £149 the software is not expensive but we’ve even managed to secure a discount code for you. Entering ‘Develop3DNov09’ into the online order page at http://www.hdrlightstudio.com will get you a cool 10% off the list price. And you can’t say fairer than that, eh?

www.hdrlightstudio.com

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

While not one of the major name players in the CAD world, Delcam has been around since design and manufacturing started to move to 3D. From its inception in the 70s, the company was the first to machine parts from 3D geometry, was adopted by Volkswagen and other major automotive when most CAD/CAM companies weren’t even in existence, and now has one of the broadest ranges of CAD/CAM software in the industry.

Delcam’s product offering covers everything from reverse engineering, design, engineering, manufacturing and NC programming to inspection and metrology. While its company name is founded on its mastery of complex machining, at the heart of its product portfolio is PowerShape. Over the past ten years PowerShape has evolved from a tool designed to overcome common problems associated with handling complex surface-based mould design, into an all encompassing system for conceptualisation, design exploration, engineering design and into the world of production geometry creation.

Automatic surfacing with PowerShape: Start off with a simple geometry set - two circles and a connecting arc

One thing that’s been ever present in PowerShape is its ability to wrangle geometry from a wide variety of sources in order to create production-worthy components. When software is used within the mould and die sector, it gives the code a slightly different perspective, as fixing problems in pre-existing geometry is typically much more complex than creating it from scratch. Because of this, PowerShape has been built on the foundation of a hybrid modelling approach, where both surfaces and solids can co-exist within the same model and use the same creation and editing techniques. Hybrid modellers typically have a much greater depth of functionality with regards to diving in and creating surface geometry in the exact form required.

While PowerShape has this capability at its core, Delcam has built on this over the past four or five years in two key areas. Firstly, it has added history- and feature-based modelling. This is in stark contrast to many mainstream vendors, who have started with solid modelling and then begun to introduce more surface modelling workflows - Delcam has been doing it in reverse.

PowerShape has evolved into an all encompassing system for conceptualisation, design exploration, engineering design and production geometry creation

Secondly, the company has introduced the ability to handle a third modelling technology in the shape of polygon mesh data. This could be from reverse engineering or more artistically-led geometry creation tools, such as its ArtCAM software. To describe this combination of three types of geometry – solids, surfaces and mesh data - Delcam has even invented the term “Tribrid Modelling.”

The end result is a system that can create part geometry from the simplest of prismatic features, from more complex surface-type geometry or, uniquely, integrating both of these with mesh-based geometry. What’s interesting is that not only has the company introduced these new technologies to enhance existing ones, the whole system has been through a complete rework to make the working environment more engaging, modern and easier to understand.

Introduction of Parasolid

The 2010 release sees a couple of fundamental changes in PowerShape. The biggest news is that Delcam has adopted the Parasolid kernel. This gives the system, and inherently the user, several advantages. Firstly, it gets what is probably the most robust modelling kernel on the market. Practically speaking this means quicker geometry creation and a more reliable set of features, particularly when creating fillets and blends.

Automatic surfacing with PowerShape: Select the smaller circle and it produces a planar fill surface

Alongside the functional modelling benefits, Parasolid also brings greater interoperability with supply chain data. Parasolid is at the heart of the majority of CAD software currently on the market so there’s no translation of data when working with the likes of SolidWorks, Solid Edge, and NX. Instead if data is read into PowerShape that has a Parasolid base, then the system simply rips out the Parasolid data and loads it into the session. And of course, PowerShape can pass out native Parasolid geometry to work with these systems too.

Solid Doctor

Working with less than perfect data is often a problem, particularly for those working with complex sculpted shapes. To address this PowerShape 2010 includes a new group of commands called ‘Solid Doctor’. This collects together a number of common fixes for geometry problems, whether that’s adjusting tolerances, removing small or twisted faces, plugging holes and so forth.

Solid Doctor is presented in a small, simple dialog, in which the part is inspected, the errors grouped and fixes suggested. The user works through the most common fixes, the system rechecks the part and moves onwards until there is a watertight model. If serious issues are found, the user can dive in, use PowerShape’s geometry editing tools to fix it manually, and then rerun the checks to validate the work.

Smart Surfacer

Surfacing is a complex business. From first principles, when trying to create sculpted, intricate forms, it’s an inherently more involved workflow than when working with prismatic features. The geometry is more complex, so the creation of it is going to be more complex, right? Traditionally, yes. Surfacing requires that a network of curves is built first, with the precise form of those controlled by not only the shape users want to create, but also how they want to create it.

There are many types of surfaces. Planar surfaces are flat and the simplest. Then there are four sided surfaces, n-sided, bi-rail surfaces, extrudes, lofted surfaces, swept surfaces, blends, flanges, and fillets.  Filleting in itself is a very complex choice depending on the form requirements. When working to corners, the user is trying to merge three or more surfaces that converge on a single point and at this point may want to use different fillets, with different set-back values.

Automatic surfacing with PowerShape: Add in the connecting arc to the selection and it’ll switch to a drive curve, to push the arc around the circle

All in all, it’s an involved and often daunting prospect - particularly for those that have learned their trade using mainstream, solid modelling applications. It’s important that the user has a good idea of the form to be created in advance as this is essential to create curves (often referred to as wires), before actually creating a surface.

PowerShape is one of a select group of products that allows its users to work with intricate geometry, to fix it, and then prepare it for manufacture. This capability is essential to its users as they often need to transform problem third party data into flawless data in order to turn a design into a manufacturable product - something that requires highly efficient tools.

Perhaps the perfect example of this is how PowerShape handles surface creation. Users are often faced with multiple decisions about what curves and types of surfaces they want to create, before they’ve even started to think about creating geometry. Smart Surfacing is designed to take many of these decisions out of their hands - or at least to give a helping hand along the way.

The user starts of by creating a curve network and then invokes the Smart Surfacer command. This presents a simple dialog box. With this active, the next stage is to select the geometry, either from curves or from existing surface edges. The system inspects the selections, looks at the types of surfaces it can create, then presents its choices for the best type of surface that could be created based on that selection.

As more geometry is added to the selection, it re-evaluates the choice and switches the surface type and displays a preview. Users have full control over the form it creates, but the chances are that the system will create the required geometry in the first instance. For those working with less than ideal curve or edge geometry, the dialog also includes a composite curve creation tool, which allows users to merge edges and curves to get close to that four-sided surface ideal.

Conclusion

Some of the things I’ve discussed here aren’t new to PowerShape, but rather extensions and enhancements to tools that have been in the system for some time. In doing this I’ve tried to get across the point that PowerShape is an incredibly rich application for the creation, modification and repair of complex geometry. It always has been and always will be.

Automatic surfacing with PowerShape: Adding in the large circle maintains a Drive Curve, but runs it between the two circles, using the arc as the Drive Curve

The simple fact that users now have the ability to model using surface modelling and solid modelling operations and integrate that alongside triangle-based data only goes to increase that power.

The introduction of the Parasolid modelling kernel should also increase the power of the system. After all, the PLM Components team at Siemens has spent years developing a robust and industry-proven modelling engine and it makes huge sense for Delcam to piggyback on that and integrate it with its existing tools. This means more robust feature creation, faster modelling and much enhanced data translation.

For those with an interest in creating and working with complex forms, then PowerShape is definitely worth further investigation. The good news is that a version of the software is available for anyone to use in the form of PowerSHAPE-e. The only limits of the system are that it can’t export data, uses an encrypted file format that can’t be read by commercial PowerShape licenses and has no rendering. Download it, try it out and see what your CAD system should be able to do. It’s as simple as that.

www.powershape.com

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

Project Management is ubiquitous in every design and manufacturing organisation. After all, time is critical in the delivery of services (design) or products (manufacture). With this in mind it’s strange that time is rarely managed with anything more than the most rudimentary of tools.

While some companies are content to use Excel spreadsheets for project management, there are more intelligent tools available to assist with the process. Microsoft Project is hugely popular amongst our readership, but its desktop/client-based approach does not allow the distribution of vital data to a much wider audience. Microsoft’s Project server technology solves this problem, but some believe this solution is too complex to be truly usable by the small to medium size enterprise.

Team members can give task feedback, either in terms of a degree of completion or working hours, and also work on project discussions

Into this fray comes Inneo, a company that’s been in the world of design technology for the last 25 years, reselling both CoCreate and PTC products in Germany. Inneo has had a range of in-house developed Project Management tools for sometime, but these have suffered from similar problems to Microsoft Project. Prios Work is an entry-level solution designed for small teams, while Prios Enterprise focuses on the large scale organisation, with little in between, until now.

Inneo has now introduced Prios Foundation, a product that sits between these two polar opposites. It takes the ease of use, simplicity and ownership ideology from the lower-end Prios Work but includes the team-based, company wide information distribution ethic from the higher-end Prios Enterprise. So let’s explore further.

The middle ground

Prios Foundation is incredibly easy to use and if your company consistently faces project management delays and problems, then it’s certainly worth further investigation

There are several things to take into account when looking at Prios Foundation. The first thing to note is that the system has been developed specifically with ease-of-use in mind, both in terms of initial set-up and administration, but also in terms of how the user interacts with the system. This is project management like you’ve never seen before.

Inneo has expended a lot of effort on making the system very slick indeed and has done this in a Web browser interface. Dialogs have life to them and the way data is presented is clear, fresh and dynamic. This is exemplified by the turntable UI for selecting common tasks when first loaded up, the way dates are selected, and the way it slides between panes when in use.

While these might seem like small things, when trying to implement a system such as this, it’s not only the buy in of the management team that’s essential for its success, but also that of the users. If it’s easy to use in a dynamic modern environment, then it stands a much better chance of being used.

Resources can be entered into Prios Foundation by role and function

The second important thing to note about Prios Foundation is the fact that it’s built on top of Microsoft’s SharePoint platform. The use of this technology has been growing in the field of design and engineering over the past few years, particularly in terms of Product Data Management (PDM).

Siemens has used SharePoint as the backbone for its Insight product for some time, PTC also entered the market with ProductPoint earlier this year and there are sure to be more to come.

The benefit of using SharePoint as a platform is that many organisations running a Microsoft Server-based IT infrastructure already have it licensed and ready to use. Prios Foundation takes the generic document and collaboration tools in SharePoint and adds to them its Project Management capabilities.

Installation of Prios Foundation is easy and is said to be around the three-day mark including set-up and training. However, the really nice thing is how easy it is to maintain and customise.

As with all good software, it’s template-driven, allowing companies to formalise standard phases and sub-phases within a typical project, then adapt them to each case and roll them out. This is key to getting up and running with projects quickly.

Template design

To create a new Project Template, the first stage is simply a case of defining a series of fields by name and description.

The project creation process step - a project manager is selected

Next up the project team needs to be defined and responsibilities assigned. Here the SharePoint/Windows Server-based nature of the system pays great dividends as these will have typically been defined at a root level of security, so names simply need to be picked from a Window Server user lists added to the project - the system handles the rest in terms of security and access.

Once all of this is done, the next stage is to get into the meat of the task with the definition of the various phases and sub-stages. These are done using a combination of text input and the Gannt chart type interface that’ll be familiar to almost everyone in design or engineering.

Despite the fact that this is running inside a web-browser, everything is dynamic and elements are dragged and dropped into a sequential timeline. Within the Gannt chart dependencies can then be set, milestones placed and responsibilities assigned to each task.

This means everyone has a good solid idea of both where their own responsibilities lie and those of others. Folder and document structures can also be added for essential data required by everyone in the team. That’s pretty much it for project set-up.

The project creation process step - team members are chosen

Once deployed, team members are all given access to the project, receive notifications and at any point, can log-into the system to see what stage the project is at.

One essential thing required to keep project plans up to date is the ability for user to add feedback. Stage feedback, in terms of comments and an estimation of stage completeness, can be added when needed, again using a very simple dialog.

By the same token, those tasked with a higher-level view of the project can quickly gain an understanding of how a project is progressing, find where things have slipped or where bottlenecks are occurring and take action to solve them - by diverting or re-assigning resources as required.

Extending with Web Parts

One of the most interesting benefits of working on top of SharePoint is that there is a rapidly growing marketplace for extensions to the platform. For Prios Foundation this means the ability to connect or add additional functionality. There are standardised extensions for SharePoint for things such as discussions, surveys, and wiki and in SharePoint speak these are referred to as Web Parts.

Of course, for those using an application like ProductPoint from PTC, the interfaces between the two can be integrated, so data can be accessed from the same user interface and swapped between the two environments.

Conclusion

Prios Foundation is a deceptively simple solution to a very complex problem. It accomplishes this by placing an emphasis on making the UI very easy to use and highly engaging, which is always going to help when promoting what many consider a dry subject.

A list of projects can be individually filtered, grouped, or selected

Project management, particularly within smaller organisations, is a time consuming task and something that is often handled alongside other duties. By providing a digital environment that’s connected to all team members, there’s much to gained from greater distribution of information, of automatic notification, of providing everyone with a good idea of how a project is structured, what needs to be done, by whom and by when.

The fact that it’s based on a solid platform that most organisations already have, makes it even more accessible.

In terms of cost, the system is a shade under £7,000 for a five-seat installation. This includes first year maintenance and gets cheaper per license as user numbers are increased.

When put in the context of design, managing workflow and helping things move more efficiently is an essential part of the product development process. After all, through careful organisation and monitoring, bottlenecks can be removed and projects can be delivered more quickly.
In summary, Prios Foundation is incredibly easy to use and if your company consistently faces project management delays and problems, then it’s certainly worth further investigation.

www.inneo.com

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

Simulation software has long been used to validate design requirements after the fact, but Simulia’s portfolio of products now allows simulation to occur at all stages of the design process. The rationale behind this is to explore the design envelope, optimise the product and speed time to market.

While Dassault has all manner of tools available to assist with managing the simulation process, the software we are going to concentrate on this month is Isight, a product that came about as a result of Dassault’s acquisition of Engineous Software a couple of years ago.
Isight is used to build automated design optimisation routines that can be used by all types of users and not just simulation specialists. It can be thought of as a “Software Robot” that creates simulation process workflows using input from a variety of applications, including CAD, CAE or Excel spreadsheets. It allows users to capture the knowledge, intellectual property and best practice used throughout an organisation and this information can then be formalised and standardised into a workflow and made available to whoever needs it.

Inputs from a parameterised model. These can be from a CAD or a CAE model

Best practice workflows

The first step in building a workflow has very little to do with software; it’s all about methodology and putting company and industry best practices into a logical workflow to achieve specific goals. This is not only linear, but also follows iterative processes where an initial result can be tuned to achieve an optimum end-result.

Once the workflow has been established, the process of formalising these into an Isight model begins. This is a called a Simflow and here the user defines all of the inputs and outputs, either using explicit values, inputs from a file or using automation tools to derive the values. For example, this could be an Excel sheet with some material properties varying with temperature or a powerful CAE tool. These then form the parameters of your study.

Result visualisation is a snap using Abaqus

The system works with the majority of simulation products and each has its own software component to enable it to be plugged into Isight. Of course, there’s Abaqus and other Dassault simulation tools, but it also works equally well with other CAE software and there are also components for Ansys, Nastran, and Dyna. A full list of integration options can be found on www.components.simulia.com.
Software components are also available for CAD systems, including Catia, Pro/Engineer, NX and others. And while these can play a role in simulation workflows, it is important to note that Isight can also be used for geometry optimisations and design explorations.

When working with simulation software such as Abaqus, the system can extract all inputs and outputs directly from the analysis model and then organise the parameters in Isight. For those importing parameters from complex analysis models it’s important to know that the system doesn’t yet have filtering tools, so the system presents a full list of parameters as named within the original model. As a result, work done before importing this information helps ensure the driving parameters are clearly named and labelled and will save a lot of time.

To plug in another software tool the user simply adds its component to the Simflow. For example, a calculator or Matlab component may be used to perform a mathematical function on the output of the Abaqus analysis. Alternatively, another analysis stage with Abaqus, or Nastran could be added here too.

Isight offers a very graphical means of building up complex interactions between both functions held within the software and other CAE components. Functions are dragged and dropped into a flow-chart like display, and the user simply double clicks to edit its parameters, inputs and outputs, then routes the data to the next stage.

Exploring the Design Space

The design space is a set of possible options for a specific design. Exploring a design space means evaluating the various design options within a given range of parameters and selecting and optimising with respect to design objectives and constraints. This is the ultimate goal of an Isight study and the exploration can occur using the inbuilt models that are dropped into a Simflow.

Isight brings intelligent design tools into the hands of your design team, while freeing up the expert to solve more complex problems, and discover new areas for improvement

This is done by taking the initial raw inputs and adding experimentation ranges for specific values, whether that’s varying dimensional values, material characteristics, or boundary conditions. Upper, lower and baseline limits can be added, either as explicit values or using a percentage of the baseline. To concentrate on specific values within those ranges a design matrix then needs to be created.

For those with an interest in design of experiments, there are a number of built in statistical models available, including Taguichi and Monte Carlo. They use defined data and parameters to conduct an initial exploration of a design space using a reduced number of iterations to find influencers for your model’s performance.

The next stage is to define the execution options that control the actions that occur when each Abaqus solve is calculated, such as what hardware is used. This is particularly important for those using clusters or networking processing. The user defines the output files (in Abaqus terminology, the ODB file) and exposes the variables that are generated and how they’re handled in terms if tabular or graphical output. The system has a full graphing capability and it’s pretty much a case of selecting the relevant data and the method of representation.

Approximation model

The result of the process is the creation of an approximation model and this is used to analyse and optimise the design. The approximation model can save a great deal of up front time compared to having to analyse each of design case individually, as the user has the ability to add the values considered to be the most influential on the performance of the design and simply run those to find the key influencing factor. Once this has been done, the user can then concentrate on those areas in more depth to fine tune the simulation.

Using slider bars for selected parameters within the approximation model the design can be quickly changed and users can evaluate the impact of that design instantly, focusing on the areas that will help meet the design objectives. As the sliders are moved, the final design space changes on screen in real time. The user is then given the option to continue the study further, and this involves examining each of the parameters individually and conducting explorations on each of them to reach the best solution for the chosen design parameters.

Once this optimised design has been reached a final analysis can then be run back in the analysis software using the output from the approximation model as the input for the simulation to verify and test the design.

With a model in place, and generating solutions to complex design problems, the next stage is to take that workflow and make it available to your design team. This can be done using Simulation Lifecycle Management (SLM), which enables both the sharing of Isight workflows and their execution across distributed computing resources. What’s interesting is that this can be accessed directly by Isight clients or through a web-based interface, and in a managed and traceable manner.

The creation of optimisation Simflows is more involved, as the feedback mechanism has to be built in

There are several major vendors working towards the goal of SLM. After all, as simulation technology use becomes an integral part of the product development process, it makes sense to use additional technology to manage the process and the data that’s derived from it. We do it with CAD data, so why not simulation data? After all, these technologies are used to support and make decisions, and that process, above all, needs to be captured, for traceability and reuse. SLM from Simulia incorporates the Fiper product to distribute Isight workflows across the enterprise environment as well as managing and storing simulation data.

Conclusion

Many organisations are looking closely at knowledge capture and reuse and it’s essential that this is done in an environment that’s both managed and distributed. Workflows used across design teams need to be robust and give good results, but teams also need to get access to them when they need them. The combination of a solid but flexible base in the form of Isight makes the capture and reuse possible, irrespective of the solutions (such as CAD, FEA etc). Then, when teamed with SLM, there is the potential to build an environment where automated design optimisation can truly be used to solve common, but complex, design problems across the whole company.

Isight brings intelligent design tools into the hands of your design team, while freeing up the expert to solve more complex problems, and discover new areas for improvement, rather than repeating the same job. That’s not only going to improve your company’s effectiveness, but also have a greater impact on your products in terms of quality, suitability for purpose and yes, potential innovation into new areas.

www.simulia.com

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

Pro/Engineer was the system that introduced parametric 3D modelling to the market and turned it mainstream. Since the early days it has always had a reputation for being difficult to use. The complex user interface (UI) interaction model was never the easiest to use, and the process of building parametric models of any complexity was never much fun. During the twenty years that the system has been around, the world has changed and parametric modelling has become a whole lot easier or, more accurately, less strict in its requirements.

Since the initial release of Pro/Engineer Wildfire back in 2001, PTC has been working on modernising the software and presenting a less restrictive way of working. The introduction of the dashboard-driven command control made life much easier and presented the command options in a logical manner directly on screen. In the subsequent releases this has been extended deeper and deeper into the application, so now the vast majority of modules and areas within the system are now using the same user interaction methods. During this transition period some commands were still controlled by the menu manager, which seemingly popped up at random.

New pervasive fuzzy search which uses ProductView-based dynamic thumbnails to help make finding data much easier. This is then backed up with tools to make loading large datasets more efficient

For the Wildfire 5.0 release, this transition continues, but the real bulk of UI work is in other areas. For example, the software now uses ProductView technology to give 3D previews that users can interact with and inspect, prior to opening the data in full. There are pervasive fuzzy search tools for quickly locating parts and, depending on the type of data management method deployed (file system, ProductPoint or Windchill Intralink) it searches not only file or part name, but a larger range of metadata and part attributes. This makes finding data much easier.

In terms of user experience the big news for this release is Dynamic Feature Editing. This dramatically reduces the time taken to edit feature-based models by removing much of the recalculation time. It should be made clear that this is an acceleration of the time taken to recalculate a model’s history tree, and not a history-less approach that is being introduced into other systems. This, we have been told, is coming in Wildfire 6.0.

The big news for this release is Dynamic Feature Editing which dramatically reduces the time taken to edit feature-based models by removing much of the recalculation time

In use, Dynamic Feature Editing enables users to grab the feature entity either from the right mouse button menu or the model tree. The sketch can then be edited and as it is dragged it into its new position, the system recalculates the history that follows on from it in real-time. Using the phrase ‘real-time’ may be a little misleading because no matter how quick the workstation is, editing an early stage feature in a typical complex part always means a lag. However, it should only take a matter of seconds, rather than the minutes typically required for standard model regeneration.

When using Dynamic Feature Editing, because the system maintains the history, there’s the distinct possibility that the parameters and inter feature links that add the intelligence to the part may be broken. This is where another key new capability comes in. It’s now possible to break the history within a part, flag up the ‘broken’ features and defer the updates, rather than having to deal with them there and then. This should make life much easier when making dramatic changes to the structure of both parts and inter-linked assemblies.

Another update is the change made to the reuse of User Defined Features (UDF). While the definition stage hasn’t changed, the placement of UDFs has. When starting to place new standardised features, a wireframe preview is shown on screen. This means the initial placement can be seen and all of the placement requirements and inputs are clearly shown as the users locates the feature and adapts it to the new use case.

The system also takes advantage of the new co-ordinate system on surface tools that allows users to place a co-ordinate system onto any surface and then constrain it using drag handles. When used in the context of UDFs, it’s very powerful as the user simply matches up co-ordinate systems. Now, let’s move onto the fun stuff, that of the new modelling tools.

Modelling tools

Pro/Engineer pretty much has everything you could ever need in terms of modelling features and this is one benefit of a system that’s been around for two decades. If it can be modelled, it’s probably possible in Pro/E, whether using feature-based solid modelling or more freeform surfacing. That said, there is still room for improvement and making the system ‘more usable’ rather than ‘more functional’.

Trajectory Rib allows users to define rib features within plastic parts using a basic sketch, with the system constructing the feature, and adding draft and fillets where needed

The first example of this is the new Trajectory Rib feature. This is not a unique feature in the wider CAD world, but its addition to Pro/Engineer Wildfire will make life easier for those developing injection-moulded parts, or zinc castings, where structural support is required. In short, the user sketches out the rib structure in its basic form, using points, lines and arcs, and the system extends those sketch entities and builds the rib around them, all to user defined widths and with fillets/rounds and draft. The clever bit is that it’ll extend the sketch entities so that each rib extends to the boundaries around it.

The second example is Sketch Point Pattern. Unlike structural array tools, this allows users to sketch a series of points and have a feature inserted at each point. While it does nothing new, it means multiple features can be placed at less structured positions as required. The pattern can then be referenced by other features or parts.

Assembly modelling

The updates made to assembly modelling have the core purpose of making life easier, particularly when handling large and complex assemblies. Large assemblies can be loaded as a simplified representation, which means the product structure can be loaded and previewed without loading the actual parts into memory. Then, as and when required for purposes of editing or referencing, the parts will be loaded into memory.

The creation of exploded assembly views is now more intelligent

Also relating to assembly modelling is the ability to restructure an assembly in a more dynamic manner than has traditionally been the case. Sub-assemblies can be created, then parts either dragged and dropped or multiples selected and a right mouse button menu shortcut will create one on the fly. There has also been work done to remove some of the restrictions from previous releases, such as the requirement to retain the first default part at the root level, greater support for simplified representations and the ability to reorganise parts with complex (such as assembly features) or external references.

The workflow when placing parts has also been revamped for this release, providing users with an ‘accessory window’ that previews the part that’s being positioned and ensures it remains persistent, without hijacking the windows of other Pro/E sessions.

The final major assembly modelling update for Wildfire 5.0 is a complete rework of the Explode tools, where users create exploded views of components for assembly drawings and manufacturing instructions. This is now driven entirely from the dashboard and is much more interactive. Parts, or multiple selections, can be dragged and dropped into position, rotated and animated with ease, making the whole process much more slick and efficient.

Detailing & draughting

The draughting and detailing environment has arguably received the biggest revision out of all those in Pro/Engineer. When opening it for the first time, existing users might be a little surprised by what they see - a Microsoft ribbon-based interface. All commands are logically segregated into task-based groups and panels, from Layout (handling sheet creation, drawing view placement and display control), Table (for placing and editing BOMs), Annotate (Dimensions and GD and T), Sketching (for those looking to manually add details), Review (includes inspection and view / mark-up tools as well as drawing comparison functions) and Publish (print and export tools as well as a new precise print preview option).

There is also a ‘tree-based’ explorer for the drawing sheets and views, and below this is a separate area for viewing the assembly tree. This should make selections and filtering much easier.

Sheet Metal & Weldments

While we’ve covered most of the generally applicable updates, there are a number of areas in Wildfire 5.0 that are more specific to workflows and industry tasks. The first we’re going to look at is Sheet Metal and Weldments.

In Wildfire 4 there was a lot of work done on sheet metal, and this release builds on that. There are now new tools to assist with the creation of more intelligent models where design intent is stored and maintained. For example, the new Form Tool follows the work done with UDFs and part placement, and offers a full preview and more intelligent placement of forms within sheet metal components (such as auto rounding of edges). Wall (or Flange) features can now be mirrored and patterned where needed as well.

The weld design tools have been redesigned, using the dashboard to create a logical workflow through which users can work to create welded connections between parts. All of the major weld types are covered (including fillet, groove, plug/slot and spot). Annotation is automatically added and the user can extract all manner of information from the weld definitions such as the process used and consumables).

Machine Design

Moving into machine design, there are a few key updates for this release relating to the design and simulation of mechanisms driven by both belts/pulleys and gears. Belt design is now intelligent, allowing users to define a belt-driven mechanism using anything from the most basic of sketches for layout, to fully featured pulley designs.

Factors such as belt tension and slip can be integrated into the process, so mechanisms can be developed on the basis of functional requirements and limitations. Elsewhere, the gear design tools now allow users to calculate reaction forces based on the teeth angles, rather than basic calculations, so simulation work is much more accurate as a result.

The support of gear types has been expanded, so users can now define pretty much any relationship between components (using the generic gear entity) and have the system drive/simulate them. Finally, Slot Motors can now be created, which will drive a component around a specified slot.

Human factors

Manikin Lite brings human factor-based design to the masses, with more specialised tools available as a cost option

Human Factors and Ergonomics rarely get discussed in the context 3D digital design, which is odd considering one of the key things products need to do is interact well with the user. The reason for this is that the technology that enables the digital validation of a product design against human requirements is still quite niche. The majority of tools in this area are restricted to the world of digital factory and task simulation.

PTC has changed this with the introduction of the Manikin tools. While there’s a full-blown human factors assessment module for into depth studies, Manikin Lite will fulfil the requirements of most users and this is now part of Pro/Engineer Wildfire 5.0. It allows users to place a human form into a product model, then position and manipulate it within or around that model. While the tools are quite rudimentary, providing only a basic western male that can be dragged into position and a number of postures, for a free tool it’s useful indeed. To get into the realms of reach envelopes, vision cones, and geography-specific anthropometrics, an upgrade to the Manikin Analysis Extension module will be required.

Conclusion

Pro/Engineer is a Godzilla amongst 3D design systems and like the legendary Japanese beast, has the ability to floor its competition with a single swipe. Sure, it’s known for being a bit slow, but its power and capability can’t really be argued with. In the last few releases, while this power has been maintained and enhanced, its speed has also being increased. It’s becoming Godzilla, with a jet-pack - truly a scary thought.

The perfect example of this is the work done in Wildfire 5.0 to alleviate some of the major headaches associated with history-based modelling - namely, recalculation times, which now happens in a matter of seconds and how the system handles history and feature failure. These two updates alone should make the upgrade a worthwhile investment for existing users. Of course, if you’re looking at Pro/Engineer with a fresh set of eyes, then that’s how it should be, so the impact will be much less.

One thing that still confuses me is the introduction of the Ribbon-based UI to the draughting environment. PTC has made a lot of effort to move a lot of code to the dashboard-driven UI style and that work is getting towards the point of completion with this release. It then seems rather perverse that the developers would choose to introduce another UI scheme into the mix in the drawing tools. PTC’s response to this is that it is planning to move towards the Ribbon-based UI in forthcoming releases, but retain the Dashboard for command operations.

UI changes aside, Wildfire 5.0 is an impressive release. PTC is addressing many of the core, fundamental issues that many users face, all across the board, from the headline grabbing real-time regeneration, through to seemingly small details such as the curve tweaking tools and greater weldment control. It all works together to help make the system more efficient and the user more productive. Alongside this, there’s a smattering of new tools, such as Manikin Lite, which bring new functionality to the system.

Wildfire 5.0 is a solid release and one that the extensive Pro/Engineer community is going to get many productivity benefits from. And for those looking to move from 2D or another 3D system, Pro/Engineer continues to be one of the most powerful systems available.

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

Over the past year Z Corporation has been revamping and reconfiguring all of its 3D printers. In the high-end, colour ZPrinter 450 and 650 spectrum machines features such as automated powder loading, integrated breakout and post processing stations and powder recycling have been introduced, but now these features are trickling down the product range.

The latest machine to get this treatment is the ZPrinter 350, a brand new low-cost product that caters to the entry-level market and reduces cost by only printing in monochrome.

Parts made in Z Corp’s new ZP150 composite material are less fragile and whiter than previous materials

Like the colour ZPrinter 450, the ZPrinter 350 features a good-sized build chamber of volume of 203 x 254 x 203 mm. The production process is the same as with the other Z Corp machines, but the initial set up of the part in Z Corp’s Z Print is slightly easier because it doesn’t require the user to assign colour. Multiple parts can be built at the same time and as the machine is powder based these can even be placed on multiple levels.

The new ZPrinter 350 features automatic powder recycling, break-out and post processing previously found in the higher-end models

Once the part set up is complete the data is transmitted to the machine over the network. The build begins by first heating the build chamber and then the model is built up layer by layer on the platform. Power is fed in automatically and a complete layer (between 0.089 and 0.102 mm thick) is first spread onto the platform. Next up the areas required for the part are printed with the cartridge fed binding agent which solidifies each layer.

Each subsequent layer is then printed on top of the other until the form of the build is complete. At this stage the automatic powder recycling kicks into action, removing the excess unused powder for reuse later, leaving the completed part/parts.

The next stage is to move the parts over to the post-processing chamber, which sits to the right of the build chamber. Here, an air hose can be used to remove the rest of the powder and the part can be strengthened.

Depending on the geometry of the model, when parts first come out of the build they can be quite fragile. And while the new ZP150 composite powder means that they’re less fragile than before, it is still advisable to to toughen them up to withstand the rigours of inspection and design review. To do this the models can be infiltrated with cyanoacrylate, and while this may sound rather complex, it pretty much involves brushing them over with superglue.

Conclusion

With Z Corp having made a name for itself in colour 3D printing, the obvious question is why go monochrome? The first, and most obvious, reason is to save money. This ZPrinter 350 is not only cheaper than the colour models but has a marginally lower running cost due to the use of a single binder, rather than separate colour ones. But it’s not all down to money, some users simply prefer plain, white prototypes.

The machine dial gives more control over how the printer operates

In relation to the rest of the 3D printing market, the $20,500 price tag is not the cheapest on the market. There are lower cost commercial machines including the Solido and Dimensions’ uPrint, but where the ZPrinter 350 stands out is in its lower cost consumables, impressive throughput and greater build volume.

This coupled with the new high-end features such as powder recycling and integrated post processing makes it an interesting addition to the low-cost 3D printing market.

www.zcorp.com

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

Rendering and visualisation have spread far and wide throughout the product development community. From traditional users within the industrial and automotive design field, it is now found throughout mainstream engineering and design.

The ability to visualise a ‘manufactured’ product, before it has got anywhere near the final design stage, is certainly a powerful tool. Design reviews, management and client presentation, and pre-manufacture marketing are all made more rich, engaging and informative if the product can be visualised photo-realistically. The problem is that photorealistic visualisation has traditionally been a complex, time consuming process, both to set-up the rendered scene, with lights, backdrops, materials and textures, and of course to calculate the images and animations.

New fine tuning controls for areas such as Camera provide the ability to dial in effects such as Depth of Field to achieve maximum realism

HyperShot changed this by combining several technologies into a very slick user interface. Firstly, it uses progressive rendering to stream visual data into the display. This means it starts with a very rough image, and then refines each pass until the final render is complete.

Bunkspeed, the developer of HyperShot, isn’t the first or last to use this technology, but it has been the first to achieve wide recognition. Progressive rendering in HyperShot is highly CPU dependent, but very quick on even the most modest of hardware. On the more powerful machines, particularly those with four or more CPU cores, it delivers near real-time performance at lower resolutions.

HyperShot also takes advantage of High Dynamic Range images (HDRi) to provide both lighting for the scene and scene data if required. HDR images allow the capture of much more information about a scene in comparison to standard digital images. They store a richer set of information about the lighting captured in the scene, in terms of luminance, and this results in richer highlights and shadows that more accurately reflect the real world.

In comparison to many of the standalone rendering systems, HyperShot features an impressive range of data translation tools so transferring 3D product models from workhorse CAD systems is much easier. This is done via plug-ins, including Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks Rhino, and SketchUp, or through a variety of standard formats such as IGES, STEP, or OBJ.

HyperShot runs on both Windows and Mac. With the system being picked up by many involved in both the product development and advertising/marketing industry, the ability to have the system running on both platforms, is essential.

Materials editing is now much more slick

Another major part of HyperShot’s success is the user experience. The first release of HyperShot brought a very slick user interface, or more accurately, lack thereof. By combining simple, but sparsely used dialogs, along with keyboard and mouse shortcuts, users can focus on the image they’re creating, rather than juggling complex dialogs and presets found in many rendering tools.

So how has this all changed for the HyperShot ’10 release and is that magic still there? The interface has undergone some radical rework and while the first release didn’t really have   one to speak of, this release certainly does. The good news is that it still works in the same way, but users are presented with immediate access to all the options and inputs. It feels fresh and modern on both the Mac and Windows and existing users should find it much friendlier and more intuitive. The two key additions are the Palette and the Library and these are worth exploring in more detail.

The Palette

Found in the new Palette, model structure explorer provides control over how scenes are organised. Combined with the new update geometry, it offers a much more efficient workflow when working with 3D CAD data

The Palette is key. Unlike the last release that spread control of the scene across several dialogs, the new palette provides direct access to everything. The Model tab gives access to a full model tree representation of the scene, which is a welcome addition to this release. It also includes scaling and translation tools. The palette also includes materials editing, environment control over the HDR settings, and backplate, camera controls, animation and display settings.

It’s important to note that beneath these very simple dialogs lies a lot of power. Sliders have been added to assist with fine-tuning settings. This is particularly useful for camera control as rather than relying on in-screen adjustments, precise control over distance, twist and azimuth are possible. Depth of Field (DoF) also benefits greatly from the new dialogs as users can set where and how DoF occurs, adding that extra level of realism.

The library

The library is the second major addition to HyperShot ‘10. It collects together all the materials - which are categorised by type, such as plastics, metals, and decals - plus textures, environments, backplates and renders. All come with full, resizable previews, allowing users to see exactly what they are working with. To use a particular asset, simply drag and drop it into position. For environments, grab the HDR file and drag it into the scene. To assign materials, just drag those onto the relevant parts. Remember, HyperShot has always maintained cross-referenced materials, so materials can be auto assigned to other parts that reference it.

Design reviews, presentations and pre-manufacture marketing are all made more rich, engaging and informative if the product can be visualised photo-realistically

Where the Palette and Library come into their own is when used together with material editing and fine-tuning. When dragging and drop standard materials, the system assigns them and the user can then double click the part and edit the materials details in the palette that pops up. To reuse or store that adapted material, the user simply stores it in the appropriate area category.

Maintaining source links

There are a number of key updates for this release related to working with source data. Firstly, the translation tools to read in CAD geometry have been expanded upon, specifically for the Mac version where STEP and IGES are now supported.

As we’ve already mentioned, the Model Tree display is very handy for controlling the scene and organising data. Another huge bonus is the ability to automatically update geometry. When CAD data is imported the link is maintained so, if there’s a change to the CAD model, the HyperShot scene can be automatically updated with the new geometry. Where possible, materials are reassigned, but parts have been added, the user will need to assign new materials - but it’s much quicker than starting again from scratch, which was required previously.

HDR images can also maintain intelligent links. If an HDR image is edited, HyperShot automatically reloads the source file and updates the scene. HDR editing is a relatively new concept, but with the introduction of tools within Photoshop and more specialised software such as HDR Light Studio, it’s becoming more and more common and can be integrated into the workflow more easily.

Other updates

The new Camera grid, switchable between third, halves and quarters provides visual guidance for image composition. It’s a small enhancement, but it’s surprisingly useful

Alongside these big-ticket items, there are a number of updates worth mentioning. Undo works more consistently and across a wider range of actions, rather than just controlling material changes. There are new ground and camera grids available. The ground grid is useful for positioning separate parts in a scene, while the camera grid helps with composition (and it’s displayable as third, quarters or halves).

Another thing that’s been reworked is the render queue. This is much more usable than in previous releases and provides more feedback about what’s queued and what’s underway. And finally, there’s been SpaceMouse support on both PC and Mac platform.

Conclusion

Right from the off, HyperShot has been an impressive tool and one that is attuned to the process of creating imagery, rather than controlling software. The Mac version has been worked on for this release and while you still haven’t got direct read for SolidWorks and Pro/Engineer data, it can be worked around with standard formats and data can be brought in from almost any 3D system to create stunning imagery.

The updates made to both the UI and things like intelligent linking to source files, previews and drag and drop, all work together to make the system more productive. It works as you would expect, and more so than ever before, but retains that ability to focus directly on making jaw dropping images to aid your product development process.

HyperShot ‘10 represents a leap forward for the system. Not only in terms of functionality, but also in relation to user experience and efficiency.

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

A few years back ‘collaboration’ was THE marketing buzzword. Joe collaborated with Jane and Jane collaborated with Jack – all using the latest collaborative design software. Today, while the hype has settled down and CAD software companies have new marketing check boxes to tick, one may argue that the ‘c’ word has never been more relevant.

Restrictions on business travel - for economic or environmental reasons – mean that the ability to collaborate effectively with geographically dispersed colleagues is becoming increasingly important. And while video conferencing and online collaboration tools have been around for over a decade, with its new SkyRoom technology HP thinks it has something special on its hands.

SkyRoom provides a collaborative design environment where users can share desktops and talk face to face with extended design and manufacturing teams using standard PC webcams and microphones. While mainstream tools like Microsoft Meeting and GoToMeeting already offer this type of functionality, HP believes it has the edge when it comes to working with interactive 3D datasets. In order to maintain the smooth appearance of 3D models when they are manipulated on screen, a huge amount of data needs to be sent and it needs to be sent quickly and processed efficiently.

Remote Graphics software

Sending vast amounts of information through the ether to different locations is no trivial task and this is where HP’s Remote Graphics Software (RGS) comes into play. Originally designed to send data back from Mars, the technology uses highly efficient compression algorithms to stream pixel data.

Starting off on the presenter’s machine SkyRoom works by monitoring and updating only changes in screen appearance – not the entire display – then compresses the information before sending it to the participants, where it is decompressed and updated. In this way network traffic is said to be greatly reduced.

HP is currently focusing the technology on local networks but the reach of SkyRoom can also be extended beyond the firewall using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and work on expanding this to any TCP/IP connection is already underway.

Obviously bandwidth is an issue and at 300-400k/sec (up and down), the minimum requirements for SkyRoom are not trivial. As the compression algorithm is multi-threaded, multi core PCs are also required. However, powerful 3D graphics cards are not mandatory in every machine. As SkyRoom only streams 2D pixel data and not 3D vector data, it is only the host workstation that needs a 3D CAD-capable graphics card. The participant’s machines just need a 2D graphics card capable of playing HD video.

SkyRoom’s use of 2D pixel data also has added security benefits. Because intelligent vector-based CAD geometry is never shared, confidential data won’t ‘accidentally’ fall into the wrong hands.

Setting up a collaborative session is incredibly easy to do. The presenter can invite up to three team members from a ‘buddy’ list and once they accept and face-to-face contact has been established the host ‘ring fences’ an area on his or her desktop to share. This could be a simple document or the modelling window in a 3D application. The view inside this ‘bounding box’ is then displayed on each participant’s screen and constantly updated in real time. In demonstrations we have seen over local networks there is no discernible lag and both the 3D model and streamed video are incredibly smooth. However, these were canned demos and we have yet to see this technology in action over VPN.

One of the most attractive things about SkyRoom is that it currently comes free with every new HP workstation. However, SkyRoom is not limited to HP hardware and is compatible with most dual core Windows machines regardless of brand. In this case it is available for purchase for £100 per seat.

Current limitations

While SkyRoom’s beauty is certainly in its simplicity, there are currently some significant limitations when it comes to collaborating effectively. Participants can’t yet take control of the host’s keyboard and mouse, and there are no markup tools available. These omissions are certain to make it hard for participants to discuss specific parts or design elements, and feedback is currently limited to verbal instructions. In addition, as the software can only be used externally using VPN, careful planning will be required to make sure all design, engineering and supply chain participants can be hooked up to the system. 

Conclusion

Ever since HP launched its Remote Graphics Software Software (RGS) it’s been crying out for someone to get their claws into it and turn it into a marketable tool for collaborative design. This has now happened with HP SkyRoom, where up to four participants can collaborate on a design and experience the benefits of a face-to-face meeting, albeit a virtual face-to-face meeting.

While this initial release shows much promise it’s still a way off from being the finished product. Face to face discussions are certainly an important element of collaboration, but SkyRoom currently lacks those all-important tools required to get every participant directly involved with the 3D geometry, though we are told this will be addressed in future releases.

Despite current limitations, SkyRoom is still an interesting technology – and becomes even more so when you consider it comes free with every new HP workstation. At a time where users are looking to get more out of their technology, this is a certainly a major value add for HP in the increasingly competitive workstation sector.

http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article:

Model Manager started out life as a core part of Hewlett Packard’s design solutions. It then moved to CoCreate and is now part of the PTC product range. Despite its many owners, it has always been a very well equipped engineering data management system, but there are certain things that it doesn’t handle well.

When it comes to sharing and controlling information outside of the engineering and design department and routing that data through the rest of the organisation, the system reaches its limits. It is this exact workflow capability that the team at third-party developer, CSI has been working on over the last year and now it has come to fruition with the introduction of the PLMworkflow module for Model Manager.

The visual representation of each step in a workflow can be changed using standard charting methods, adding details, notes and images where required

Building a workflow

To best explain how the system works we are first going to look at how you map an electronic workflow to an existing process. The key concept to understand here is that CSI has developed this tool to allow anyone to carry out this work - without the need for a consultant to be sat in your office charging an astronomical daily rate. As a result, PLMworkflow is geared up to be as simple as putting together a PowerPoint presentation.

The tools are presented as an additional option within the Model Manager control panel, and from here users can create new workflows, as well as import/export and manage existing processes.

Assuming you have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to achieve, workflow creation is a very simple process. Time and effort spent prior to set-up is invaluable, but most organisations already have processes and workflows in place. These include Engineering Change Orders (ECOs), Engineering Change Notifications (ECNs), and Request for Quotation (RFQ). 

To create a new workflow, you simply define the name, description, and revision number. Model Manager uses the concept of packets to define the type of folder, the type of data they contain, and who has access to them. These will typically already be in place inside Model Manager, in which case you simply select the relevant folder (packet) type from a list.

The next step is to define the workflow itself using the system’s schematic interface. The various stages are added to a graphical representation of your process and it’s simply a case of creating a box and filling out the details for each step. Each stage is a separate entity and you can add as much detail as you deem necessary, such as name, description, or instructions.

The rules that add the intelligence and route data between each stage are added next. These define how your task’s status affects the data (shifting it between in work, released, locked etc), how notifications are handled and where decisions are made (for acceptance, rejection or referral).

The system uses the existing access control infrastructure from Model Manager, allowing you to define access, notifications and decisions based on routed groups of users or specific individuals. While many systems’ capabilities end here, PLMworkflow has the added benefit of being able to add notifications to users that need to be kept ‘in the loop’ but do not actively participate in the process. Additional email addresses can also be added if notifications need to be sent to mobile devices or external email accounts.
There is also the ability to add ‘time out’ rules for each step in a workflow. This is not only a mechanism to remind users to take action, but can also be used to automatically escalate problems to other team members or management to ensure that tasks are completed on time.

Routing between stages can be assigned automatically but it is more common to do this manually where more complex workflows can be defined and optional or compulsory parallel tasks added.

Validating a workflow

The next stage is validation and here a series of checks are run to find orphan steps, loopbacks, unreachable nodes, multiple terminators (where workflows end at two points) and circular routes. The system reports on any errors, highlighting the failed step in the graphical workspace. Once the kinks have been ironed out, the status of the workflow is changed to ‘released’ and becomes available to users. It’s interesting to note here that the system manages the revision of workflows in the same manner as documents, ensuring that each change is revision-managed and deployed in a sensible way.

An optional, but advisable stage in the process, is the ability to customise the appearance of your workflows. The visual representation of each step can be changed using standard charting methods, adding details, notes and images where needed. While this might sound trivial for the hardcore data management specialists, when a graphical representation of a workflow diagram matches company standards, then it enforces the idea that people need to use these things, rather than working around them.

Deploying a workflow

Once the workflow has been released, it becomes available to chosen individuals from a new ‘My Workflow Tasks panel’ in Model Manager. To invoke a workflow (such as a change request), the first stage is to create a folder to contain the project information. Here CSI has added a small, but very useful, utility to the system to enable the reuse of standard folder structures and permissions from the interface.

Notifications are handled sensibly, only sending out emails to those that need to be engaged in the current stage

The folder for each project is assigned to a workflow, data is added to kick things off, and then it’s sent to the first stage in the workflow ensuring the data is centralised and available to users throughout the process. One thing to note is that the system handles notifications sensibly, only sending out notifications to those that need to be engaged in the current stage, rather than blasting out a fire-hose of emails, as is typical with some other systems.

While the nature of a workflow will change with each company and process ad infinitum, and your team will work through it as defined, there are a few points worth noting in terms of deployment and usage. The first is that of traceability. From definition of workflows, through the first notification email and subsequent messages, a full audit trail of actions relating to a project are stored. The system presents all of the information about where your team is at in a process, graphically and in more traditional text-based formats. This means that everyone involved is not only aware of their work, but of the work of the team around them. This helps ensure work is carried out on time, but also that team members can see where potential bottlenecks might be stacking up.

The point worthy of note is that the system is instilled with a good dose of common sense, allowing you flexibility as and when required. One of the key concerns with some data management systems is that the major benefit of applying control over processes and data can also work as a disadvantage. A perfect example is the ability to reassign tasks. In other systems, should team members fall sick, be on holiday or become otherwise unable to carry out a task, it becomes a bottleneck in the project. To overcome this, PLMworkflow enables you to reassign tasks to other team members. This seemingly simple feature shows that the system has been developed in conjunction with customers, rather than purely in a software lab.

The Bottom line

Let’s talk turkey. How much does this thing cost? Assuming that you’ve already implemented Model Manager (or the lower cost Drawing Manager) system from CoCreate/PTC, then the costs are simply either £200 per floating license or £4,000 for up to 25 users. Creating and implementing workflows (assuming you have them in place already) is a simple affair and doesn’t require heavy consultancy or training, with the developers envisioning less than one day for install and admin training and an optional two day period for process consulting if required.

Conclusion

PDM is often seen as a complex and perhaps confusing technology to adopt. Perhaps the best way is to look at it though is a way of enabling clarity and transparency. In these days of fewer resources, fewer staff and more work than ever, it is essential that organisations find ways to work more efficiently and with less error. A key part to this has to be gaining control of your data and ensuring that everyone involved in the development of a product or customer project is able to gain access to the information they need, when they need it. Another essential element is that management, at whatever level, is able to gain an instant up to date overview of a projects status. PLMworkflow builds these tools directly into the Model Manager interface, at a pretty reasonable cost.

CSI also has a range of other tools available to extend Model Manager to work with both other CAD systems (including SolidWorks, Solid Edge, Inventor and AutoCAD) and to enable the management of non-CAD related tools (using the PLManydocs application) and PLMreplicator for managing multi-site/multi-server installations.
There’s a school of thought that says tough economic times are a good time to invest in new technology to make your working practices more efficient and to find ways to enable your team to work together in a more intelligent manner. This is countered with the scarcity of funding for new acquisitions. What PLMworkflow (and the other CSI tools) offer for the Model Manager community is the ability to add some impressive business tools that can make working process more intelligent and transparent, without having to reinvest in a complete new infrastructure – and that’s worth its weight in gold.

www.csi-europe.com

Enjoyed this article?

Subscribe to DEVELOP3D for free!

Register now for your free subscription^* to the printed edition of
DEVELOP3D and gain access to PDF versions of all our back issues.

Subscriptions free to UK residents. International subscriptions available for purchase.

Comments on this article: