View online magazine
CAD gains motion simulation capability
VX Corporation is releasing VX Version 13, which is said to contain an unprecedented number of enhancements to strengthen VX's position in the product design and mould and die markets.
With nearly 1000 customer and market-driven enhancements, most of which provide dramatic productivity gains and new capabilities, Version 13 promises to be one of the most important, innovative releases in VX's history.
Product designers will benefit from a new filleting engine that helps them get more 'style' into products. Product designers will also realise increased productivity gains for adding digital images to products with the enhanced embossing tool that automatically smooth out irregular surfaces.
A new capability for branding and packaging is where text can be made to follow a circle or spline curve, where the text floats above the curve as the curve's profile changes and optionally stretches or shrinks as the curve length changes.
This allows manufacturers to quickly and easily add company and other information to complex-shaped products and containers. Another performance enhancement for designers is the ability to model with real-time analysis, thereby gaining instant feedback on aspects such as curvature and draft angles.
Other features to help product designers visualise new products are a new photorealistic rendering engine that brings an 'industrial design' level of rendering to VX. Likewise, textured objects, also new for Version 13, lets designers get real-time realistic views of products during the design process.
Mechanical designers will benefit from motion simulation, where animations can be created for studying moving parts in assemblies.
Moreover, assembly interference can be visually checked with dynamic clipping offering close-up segmented and internal views of parts and assemblies. In addition, mechanical designers can now get section views on layouts with different hatching options that provide a much better view of assemblies without a lot of manual editing.
Mould designers will now be able to design electrodes faster with the auto-electrode tool that speeds creation and machining of multiple electrodes. Automatic region recognition for picking connected sets of faces speeds electrode design by reducing the number of picks to just a few for complex electrodes with many surfaces.
Enhancements to VX's Quickmill for mould machining include new Smoothflow technology that ensures smooth finishes for reducing polishing time while maximising machine tool efficiency and reducing machine wear and tear. Other CAM enhancements include: Offset3D Feature Aware Machining where tool path motion is automatically adjusted to preserve fine sharp-edged detail; Variable Z Level machining for containment of simple tool paths for better finishes with no wasted motions; and XML output to help streamline shopfloor communication.
Fischer, VX vice president of sales and marketing, states: "VX Version 13 is an astounding release that provides tremendous productivity enhancements and new capabilities to product designers and mould makers. Version 13 is certainly one of the most important and innovative releases in our history."
"