CAD Software Streamlines Modeling Tasks

The 2015 release of Delcam’s PowerShape Pro CAD system includes improvements in direct modeling, surface modeling and reverse engineering, plus support for data from Creaform HandyScan handheld scanners.

The improvements in direct modeling build on the “smart feature manager” and the “smart feature selector” introduced in recent releases. The smart feature manager enables users to identify all the features, such as fillets, slots and bosses, within a solid in a single operation, making analysis of imported data easier and faster, the company says. The smart feature selector then enables multiple similar features to be found and selected using either a specific value or a range of values. Once the particular group has been selected, all the features within it can be edited simultaneously.

The software’s surface modeling capabilities now include dynamic point editing, whereby multiple points, either along a single curve or picked from multiple curves, can be selected and moved, with real-time updating of the model. Styling free-form shapes is easier and faster as a result, and modeling is faster for tasks such as removing undercuts from tooling designs.

PowerShape Pro’s reverse engineering functionality is now a more automated method for capturing cross-sections through a mesh. The software fits lines and fillets to the cross-section where it can, and enables the user able to control the tolerance used. According to Delcam, this method uses the mesh as a guide instead of treating it as exact geometry, with the priority of capturing the design intent rather than ensuring a precise fit to the scan data.