VX Corporation launches VX 2009

Paul Boughton

VX Corporation recently unveiled VX 2009 at its worldwide reseller conference. VX is inviting CAD/CAM users to try what is claimed to be the only fully expandable CAD/CAM product on the market that has a built-in 3D learning system, known as Show-n-Tell.

These integrated 3D Books allow users to learn CAD/CAM at their own pace, on their own schedule. This fully expandable approach allows users to grow the software as their needs change while having instant access to learning tools. 

Show-n-Tell, launched in September 2008, now includes 10 new additional 3D tutorial books for healing, mould and die design, and 2-3 axis machining, which are available in several languages. In addition to reducing training costs, Show-n-Tell tutorials make it easier to adapt to VX applications. Furthermore, on-line chat and web meeting help is available in conjunction with Show-n-Tell.

The authoring tools have been enhanced to make it easier for users to create design review and assembly instruction documents directly in VX. New 3D ballooning and text tools allow users to choose font, colour and border style, and lock balloons to screen locations or directly to a model. These new text tools enhance the on-screen instructions in the 3D tutorials, improving the overall learning experience.

The release of VX Innovator and the new 3D Machinist products completes the product line, making VX fully expandable. Users can start at any point and add functionality to meet their growth needs. For instance, even customers on a small budget can get started with VX Innovator and grow into advanced surfacing, digital model reconstruction, and mould and die design and machining. This means they can meet their expanding design and manufacturing needs as their business grows. Customers will also be glad to learn that VX Innovator has floating-license support. VX Innovator is the useful for product and mechanism design, detailing, design review and quoting.

VX 2009 also introduces new interface enhancements and improved reliability. Users can now enjoy better predictability, the ability to constrain lines and arc/circle tangents to splines, and new options for 2D linkages with the newly added D-Cubed 2D constraint manager in VX sketcher.

Patterning in VX 2009 has been upgraded with a new dynamic preview option that shows the result, so changes can be made more quickly and on-the-fly.

The VX Overdrive engine has been enhanced to handle more extreme geometry conditions. For example, the draft command supports changes in draft angle that can cause complete faces to be removed. The simplify command now supports more complex cases and can now clean up shape intersections. Filleting continues to be improved, handling even more fillet cases than the previous releases.

It is now even easier for users to add purchased parts to assemblies from their common suppliers. All VX 2009 products include a direct interface to the Traceparts and Cadregister libraries, with complete bill-of-materials support. Traceparts, in particular, lets users insert parts from thousands of suppliers directly into a VX assembly from the internet, without requiring a separate download. It is said to be almost the same as having the library reside on the local system.

The combination of the improvements and enhancements contributes to a shortened learning curve and increased design productivity.

VX 2009 also speeds 2D drawing creation, with improved editing of section and detail views. Users have total control over formatting of BOM, hole and electrode tables and their associative balloon layouts. Balloons can be rapidly organised with automatic or manual sorting. Manual edits are retained even when details are regenerated. The new 'balloon dimension' stretches the border to match the text length. Automatic drawing layouts have improved view scaling, so less manual interaction is required.

New thumbnail images for each CAM parameter help explain settings, so that changes to machining operations are more easily understood and are especially helpful for new users or those who are upgrading from legacy CAM products.

The VX Quickmill high-speed milling engine found in 3D Machinist and the End-to-End products has been refined for better performance and reliability. Quickmill users will appreciate a 20-30 per cent improvement in overall calculation times, which is particularly noticeable when machining large and complex parts.

For more information, visit www.vx.com

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