Spatial announces release of 2021 1.0 3D software

Thursday November 12, 2020 Tags: Broomfield, Spatial Corp.

BROOMFIELD -- Spatial Corp, provider of 3D software development toolkits for design, manufacturing, and engineering solutions, and a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, announced the production release of 2021 1.0. 

This release delivers new advances in automatic measurement planning utilizing 3D InterOp, improved robustness for manufacturing workflows for both CGM Modeler and 3D ACIS Modeler, as well as enhanced support for mesh-based data, the company said.

Easy-to-Use, market-leading metrology software enables measurement planning rather than cumbersome and archaic measurement programming, Spatial said.

Using Spatial’s 3D Interop, developers are able to build metrology software that automatically generates measurement plans and preserves design intent by importing PMI (Product Manufacturing Information) from 3D CAD models directly into applications.

3D InterOp imports both semantic PMI (machine-readable) and graphical PMI (human-readable), along with Views, Captures, and links to 3D geometry.

With this release, 3D InterOp supports this functionality for STEP AP 242 and JT, the company said. This is in addition to existing support for PMI in CATIA, NX, Creo, and SOLIDWORKS CAD formats.

Because of 3D InterOp’s native support of regular CAD version updates, developers can focus on CMM/Metrology solutions.

With 2021 1.0, customers can achieve MBE Maturity Index Level 4 by allowing them to export STEP AP 242 models annotated with lightweight, viewable PMI, the company said.

Using 3D InterOp, engineering applications can export graphical PMI linked to 3D geometry with pre-defined views to STEP AP 242 files. This allows collaboration between designers and manufacturing engineers or suppliers; teams can simultaneously develop the product’s design as well as manufacturing methods.

A designer using an application built with 3D InterOp can export a CAD model with PMI to STEP AP 242, delivering explicit dimensions, tolerances, and manufacturing annotations to their peers while protecting their IP.

This STEP model can then be used in a following design-for-manufacturing review with members of teams such as process engineering, quality control or fabrication, to provide early feedback on production concerns or anticipate production requirements about the designed part.

3D InterOp’s selective import ability lets developers optimize data preparation application for handling large CAD models.

In April of this year, Spatial made considerable improvements to CATIA and SOLIDWORKS import. 

For 2021 1.0, further improvements have been added for JT visualization import from large models, increasing performance by as much as double.

With 2021 1.0, CGM’s native feature recognition adds new support for chamfer recognition in addition to robustness improvements for filleted pads, pockets and slots.

Most 3D CAD models designed for machining have chamfers and fillets, and with these new additions developers can use identified features to analyze models for manufacturing time and cost, simplify parts by removing chamfers or fillets when they are not necessary for part function, and fix manufacturability concerns without access to the feature tree.

This release also supports sheet metal cut-out recognition, the company said.

Most feature recognition in CAD and CAM applications fail when features such as holes are more complex than standard configurations such as Bore Holes, Counter Bore Holes and Counter Sunk Holes. With 2021 1.0, CGM’s feature recognition can identify and remove complex, interacting, or otherwise non-standard holes using geometric properties.

Additionally, CGM Modeler’s defeaturing can handle interactive workflows to remove combined features, Spatial said.