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CONTENTS APRIL 2018 ISSUE NO. 97
8 NEWS Real-time ray tracing in the viewport from AMD and Nvidia, HP launches two new ZBook mobile workstations, Luxion releases KeyShot v7.3 17 18 20 26 32 38 40 44 48
FEATURES Where I work: Sarah Dickens of Kinneir Dufort Visual Design Guide: Lilium Jets COVER STORY Inside CEL’s expanding Robox line-up Robot hands: How Kuka uses 3D printing to build new kit BC Engineering’s point cloud data challenge Granta Design on materials information management Show report: DEVELOP3D Live 2018 A look at AMD’s new hybrid viewport technology Harman gets new cars wired for sound with Comsol
REVIEWS 53 Autodesk Inventor 2019 58 solidThinking Inspire 2018 62 PTC Creo 5 65 DEVELOP3D SERVICES 66 THE LAST WORD This month, Al Dean asks whether topology optimisation tools are being marketed to customers in the right way?
The wood used to produce this magazine comes from Forest Stewardship Council certified well-managed forests, controlled sources and/or recycled material
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NEWS NEWS
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT NEWS
GET READY FOR REAL-TIME RAY TRACING » AMD and Nvidia lay the foundations for real-time ray tracing in the viewport, writes Greg Corke. Model in 3D, flip a switch, then view and spin your model in near real time
N
vidia and AMD have given a glimpse into the future of 3D visualisation, with both firms introducing GPU-accelerated real-time ray tracing technologies last month. At DEVELOP3D Live, AMD unveiled its new hybrid viewport technology, which is designed to allow users of 3D software to view their models in near-photorealistic quality at any point in the design process — without leaving the application viewport. Nvidia used its own GTC event to present Nvidia RTX, a new ‘cinematic quality’ ray trace rendering technology that can deliver ‘photoreal visualisations of massive 3D models in real time.’ The company also launched the Quadro GV100, an ultra-highend GPU based on Nvidia Volta, the only GPU architecture that supports RTX. AMD and Nvidia showed off their respective real-time ray tracing technologies in very different ways. Nvidia’s Star Wars demo at GTC was stunning, showing incredibly smooth, photorealistic ray-traced 3D graphics inside Unreal Engine. However, the graphics power driving this demo was immense, comprising multiple high-end Volta GPUs, which would be out of reach of most design and engineering firms. AMD’s technology demonstration was nowhere near as impressive in terms of visual quality, but it was done using standard workstation hardware, so was more accurate in terms of what typical end users might expect to see. It featured a CAD viewport with a complex engine assembly, alongside a feature tree. Real-time ray tracing has always been the holy grail of rendering. It has historically been slow, taking minutes or hours to render a single frame, so being
able to get results in ‘real time’ promises to have a huge impact on worfklows in product development, design and architecture, as well as movies and games. “If you can see the work you are doing with all the correct lighting and shading and reflections and so on, you can make so many decisions, so much faster,” says Nvidia’s Sandeep Gupte. Current viewports in CAD and other 3D software rely on rasterisation, a rendering method that takes vector data and turns it into pixels (a raster image). It’s very fast, so it means huge models can be rendered instantly and manipulated smoothly, but in order to increase the realism in the viewport it has to fake real-world effects. Ray tracing, on the other hand, delivers physically accurate results by simulating light and calculating how thousands of rays bounce off objects, thousands of times. In order to deliver high-quality visuals at high frame rates AMD and Nvidia are using elements of rasterisation and ray tracing. “We’re giving the raster engine hints, using rays to show where shadows are going to fall. Likewise, reflections and ambient occlusion,” explains AMD’s Marty Johnson. “It’s a way of getting ray tracing techniques into a real-time environment so it doesn’t impact performance. The result is a real-time viewport that has a much closer to photorealistic look and feel [than current viewports].” Nvidia RTX uses deep learning to help predict what an image would look like if fully rendered. The Nvidia RTX OptiX AI denoiser, for example, dramatically reduces the time it takes to render a high-fidelity image by training a neural network to reconstruct the image using fewer rays. And those complex calculations take
place on Volta’s unique Tensor cores. So, when might we see real-time ray tracing available in commercial applications? Nvidia says it has an immediate route in through Nvidia OptiX, the ray trace technology behind Nvidia Iray and other GPU renderers. Nvidia says RTX is supported by more than two dozen design and creative applications, specifically mentioning Chaos Group (V-Ray), Epic Games (Unreal Engine), Dassault Systèmes (Catia and SolidWorks Visualize), Optis and Autodesk. AMD has similar through Radeon ProRender. But for real-time ray tracing to be fully integrated inside the viewport of your 3D modelling application, it will likely need to be worked in with Vulkan, a fast, low-level graphics API that looks destined to replace OpenGL, the current standard for 3D CAD. To help accelerate adoption of this new graphics API, AMD has also released V-EZ, a free toolkit designed to make it a lot easier for software developers to implement Vulkan and write Vulkan code. Nvidia has also announced that RTX will work with Vulkan in the future. You can read more about AMD’s hybrid viewport technology on page 44 and Nvidia’s RTX technology at tinyurl.com/NvidiaRTX
Above: Unreal's stunning real-time ray tracing Star Wars demo is powered by Nvidia's RTX technology for Volta GPUs, available via Microsoft’s DirectX Ray Tracing API (DXR) Below: AMD's hybrid viewport technology delivers near photorealistic results in real time through a graphics engine powered by Vulkan
8 APRIL 2018 DEVELOP3D.COM
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NEWS
HP'S ALUMINIUM 'G5' ZBOOKS BOAST UP TO SIX CPU CORES
Luxion Releases KeyShot v7.3
L
uxion has announced KeyShot 7.3 and with it an all-new KeyShot Viewer, a free, featurerich application to complement design reviews, interactive presentations and visual collaboration. KeyShot 7.3 comes with several other new features and improvements. For KeyShot Pro, users now have the option to ‘Add Multi-Material to the Render Queue'. This adds all sub-material variation as a single render job for output. Along with this, set-up time has been improved for applying Rounded Edges to geometry, turntable animations have been added to top-level models in the scene tree and direct import support has been added for SolidWorks 2018, SketchUp 2018 and NX 12. keyshot.com
H
P is betting big on mobile workstations. This month, it added two new machines to its ZBook line-up: the convertible HP ZBook Studio x360 and the ‘affordable’ HP ZBook 15v. This takes the line-up to eight models, significantly more than other OEMs. In addition, the IT giant has updated all of its current ZBook models, with the new ‘G5’ editions featuring new CNC-machined aluminium alloy chassis, better security, new Intel CPUs (including models with six cores) and Nvidia Quadro Pascal GPUs. The HP ZBook Studio x360 is a convertible mobile workstation. It features a 360-degree hinge that allows the machine to be put into five different modes: laptop, tablet, clamshell, presentation and tent. It features Wacom AES digital pen technology with tilt and 4,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, but is not the first ZBook to do so. It follows on from the HP ZBook x2, a detachable 2-in-1 that we reviewed in the December/January edition.
Like the ZBook x2, the ZBook Studio x360 allows architects or designers to start with a concept sketch, then take their designs all the way into 3D on a single device. On paper, the machine looks very powerful, featuring a choice of new Intel ‘Coffee Lake’ CPUs, up to the six-core Intel Xeon E-2186M (2.9GHz up to 4.6GHz), as well as the Nvidia Quadro P1000 GPU. The machine should offer plenty of performance for mainstream 3D CAD, with the six-core CPU giving a welcome boost for multi-threaded rendering in applications like KeyShot. Starting at $949, the HP ZBook 15v is very much targeted at price-conscious users, such as start-ups or students, who may have previously opted for a standard laptop instead of a mobile workstation. The machine gets its workstation credentials in part due to its certified Nvidia Quadro P600 GPU, which should be powerful enough for entry-level to midrange 3D CAD workflows with applications like SolidWorks, PTC Creo or Revit. Full story @ tinyurl.com/ZBook-G5
The HP ZBook Studio x360 is a convertible mobile workstation with a 360-degree hinge
Raise3D launches next-generation Pro machines
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aise3D has launched its Pro Series of 3D printers, developed with industrialgrade components that step up the capability of the machines to better suit the needs of the professional market. “Even if our N2 printers have been considered among the best for desktop fabrication by Make Magazine and 3D Hubs Community, there was still room for improvement in some features,” said Diogo Quental, CEO of Raise3D. “We carried out a full revision of our N2 series and designed a new printer with the best performance and quality components we could develop or find in the market. Our determination is to have the best possible FFF 3D printer to achieve our vision.” raise3d.com
Artec3D launches first long-range LiDAR 3D scanner
A
rtec 3D has added to its 3D scanning technology portfolio with Artec Ray, a new metrology-grade device able to capture data from large objects up to 110 meters away and produce point clouds with submillimetre accuracy. The new scanner works in two modes. High-quality mode has a range between 1 and 50m (working to 0.7mm ranging error and 0.12mm range noise at 15m) while high-sensitivity mode works between 1 and
110m (working to less than 0.9mm ranging error and 0.25mm range noise at 15m). Interestingly, Ray works in an autonomous mode and has a built-in battery that affords it a four-hour working time away from power. Considering its range and specialism, the Artec Ray is perhaps best-suited to reverse engineering large objects, quality control and inspection tasks, product design and work in the construction and heritage/ conservation industries. artec3d.com
10 APRIL 2018 DEVELOP3D.COM
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Ansys to acquire Optis for autonomous vehicle engineering simulation
A
nsys has announced its intent to acquire optical simulation specialists Optis. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018, with management due to provide further details regarding the transaction and its impact on the 2018 financial outlook after the closing. Optis is headquartered in France and was founded on the idea of providing simulation of light, materials and human vision. Its technology is about as high-end as you can get and typical customers come from the automotive field (including Audi, Ford, Toyota and Ferrari), as well as from aerospace, jewelry and cosmetics. The company has specialised in enabling these types of companies to take digital models and apply true materials to them – not just the ‘fake it and bake it’ type materials typical of rendering systems, but true, measured materials. Optis is also a long-standing proponent
of virtual reality and its tech not only enables the user to see exactly how their product will appear in a range of lighting conditions, but also has begun to include touch and sound simulation into immersive environments. Ansys claims it has created “simulation solutions specifically for autonomous vehicle sensor development” and that the Optis technology will help it here. optis.com | ansys.com
With its acquisition of Optis, Ansys will gain new optical simulation capabilities
ebb3 to deliver VR through the cloud
T
o date, pro-grade VR has needed a powerful local workstation – mainly big desktop machines, sometimes laptops. Most of the time, these sit in the corner of the room, but they can also be strapped to your back. The UK firm Ebb3 is looking to change this with a new, Citrix-based virtualisation service that does all of the heavy graphics processing remotely. It uses a virtual workstation in the cloud, the Ebb3 HighPerformance Virtual Computer (HPVC). The VR headset, either an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, plugs into a small batterypowered computer worn by the user. It runs bespoke software developed exclusively in conjunction with Citrix and communicates with an Nvidia technology-
enabled Cisco UCS platform over WiFi using a special VR protocol. The obvious benefit of this new service is being able to give more users access to professional-grade VR technology, regardless of location, and without a huge capital outlay. However, Ebb3 also highlights how the technology will improve data management, making it easier for users to access design projects regardless of location or device, and enabling multiple users to work together on one project at the same time. Latency can be a big challenge in VR, but Ebb3 says that, in real-world tests, users have reported ‘no noticeable latency’ and that no user has experienced motion sickness. ebb3.com
Renishaw opens new education centre
A
t its new site in South Wales, engineering technology company Renishaw has officially launch its Fabrication Development Centre (FDC), an educational resource for hands-on learning. Here, the aim is to inspire young people and thus grow a pipeline of talent for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers, with schools or groups of young people able use the facility for lessons or workshops, free of charge.
The FDC contains two classrooms, staffed by a qualified teacher and Renishaw’s STEM ambassadors. They are also equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, including 3D printers. The company also launched its education partnership with racecar project Bloodhound SSC. Andy Green OBE, Bloodhound driver and current holder of the World Land Speed Record, opened the new FDC on 28 March at Renishaw’s Miskin facility. renishaw.com
ROUND UP WorldViz has officially launched its Virtual Reality (VR) business collaboration solution Vizible and also introduced VizBox, a portable, all-in-one VR solution. Vizible enables businesses to create immersive presentations, then meet with anyone, anytime, anywhere in VR. It can help communicate complex ideas to prospects, clients and internal teams worldviz.com/vizible
The OnScale Solver-asa-Service platform has launched, providing a new option for those looking to use High Performance Computing (HPC) to solve CAE dilemmas. OnScale states its combination of ‘sophisticated CAE multiphysics solvers’ with the power of cloud HPC onscale.com
Frustum has announced the commercial availability and latest release of its patentpending core technology, TrueSOLID. Included in the new version are enhancements to multi-part assembly optimisation, new optimization modes and kernel-integrated mesostructures (lattices) frustum.com
MachineWorks’ Polygonica software, which is used in Ansys’ Discovery Live software, is to be further used elsewhere across Ansys’ software portfolio, thanks to a new agreement between the two companies ansys.com | polygonica.com
Join Majenta Solutions’ manufacturing and construction experts in Coventry, either in the morning or afternoon of the 3rd or 17th May, in order to learn more from them about the new 2019 Autodesk releases of Inventor, AutoCAD, Vault, Revit and BIM360 majentasolutions.com
DEVELOP3D.COM APRIL 2018 11
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NEWS
CHAOS GROUP LAUNCHES V-RAY FOR UNREAL BETA
ITI acquires MechWorks
I
nternational TechneGroup (ITI) has acquired MechWorks, an Italian product data management vendor that not only offers its own MechWorks PDM system, but also integrations between Siemens PLM Teamcenter and Autodesk's AutoCAD and Inventor. “The MechWorks acquisition is a natural extension for ITI’s portfolio of product data interoperability solutions and confirms our commitment to revenue growth,” stated Tom Gregory, CEO of ITI. ITI is a long-established Siemens PLM development partner, which currently develops the Teamcenter integrations for SolidWorks and Creo, he added. “With the acquisition of MechWorks, we not only add Teamcenter integrations for AutoCAD and Inventor, we gain an international team of industry experts with a loyal customer base and vendor partnerships.” iti-global.com
T
here’s a lot of action in the professional, technical visualisation end of the VR spectrum these days. In recent weeks, we’ve seen Unreal launch its Unreal Studio beta and Unity has linked up with PiXYX for better data import options. This time around, it’s the turn of the Chaos Group, which has launched a beta for the V-Ray for Unreal application set. What’s interesting here is that this will allow those with existing skill sets in the likes of 3ds Max, Maya and such to reuse those skill sets and data in Unreal, in order to generate photorealistic but entirely interactive assets. Model and set up your scene in Max, for example, send it to Unreal – and you’ve instantly got a set of tools that enable you to render out your assets (you can fire off V-Ray renders from inside Unreal Studio) or create interactive content for VR, with very little in the way of data transportation issues, reset-up of lighting, materials and so on. Achieving this today typically requires a lot more rework and duplication of effort. Interestingly, Chaos Group is also stating
PTC launches Creo 5 that V-Ray for Unreal can also be applied to CAD workflows, bringing ‘the power of V-Ray’ to new users. “Transitioning from offline to real-time used to be a lot of work, prohibitively so for most of our users,” said Simeon Balabanov, V-Ray for Unreal product manager at Chaos Group. “As geometry is imported from programs like Solidworks, designers will be able to apply V-Ray lighting and materials to their assets, preparing them for a photorealistic result.” The V-Ray for Unreal beta is open to all artists and designers. chaosgroup.com/beta_forms/unreal
Photorealistic renders can now be set-up in the same enironment as VR assets, saving on duplication of work and transfer of data.
P
TC has started to ship the next release of its flagship Creo product to its user community. The focus for Creo 5 is spread across five key areas. Additive Manufacturing is a big-ticket item with topology optimisation resulting in a skinned sub-D model rather than mesh and integration of Materialise's build processor technology. Creo 5 also sees a new CFD module for fluid flow and thermal simulation introduced. Augmented reality also gets a boost, with new tools to help build and distribute AR assets for design review, without the need for ThingMarks to control scaling. ptc.com
Hackrod signs up with Siemens PLM as software partner
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ackrod and Siemens PLM have announced a partnership to accelerate their shared vision of the democratisation of engineering design and manufacturing in the automotive space. The two companies say they are joining forces to create “the world's first car designed in virtual reality, engineered with AI and 3D-printed, full size, in structural alloy.” The ‘La Bandita’ speedster is intended
to serve as proof-of-concept for an entirely new industrial design to production methodology, with Hackrod’s ‘factory of the future’, powered by the Siemens Digital Innovation Platform, enabling individuals, start-ups and small enterprises to create “the product of their needs or dreams as easily as playing a video game.” This new relationship replaces a technical partnership that Hackrod previously had with Autodesk. hackrod.com | siemens.com/plm
12 APRIL 2018 DEVELOP3D.COM
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STRATASYS SPIN-OFF LOOKS TO REPLACE INJECTION MOULDING WITH STEP
E
volve Additive Solutions, a spin-off of Stratasys’ Selective Toner Electrophotographic Process (STEP) technology, is looking to challenge injection moulding’s place in the manufacturing pipeline. The STEP process combines time-tested 2D imaging technology with proprietary IP developed by Evolve to precisely align incoming layers and sophisticated bonding techniques that create final parts, which it states are ‘fully dense with isotropic properties’ of injection moulding. Having spent nearly 10 years as an incubation project within Stratasys, the technology is billed as being up to 50 times faster than existing additive manufacturing solutions, while using engineering-grade materials. Stratasys suggests that the technology has been designed for automated manufacturing and factory-floor integration, with STEP’s
use of thermoplastics (amorphous and semicrystalline) for volume production making it suitable for applications across multiple industries. A scalable solution, it is said to combine Evolve’s own proprietary technology with the capabilities of electrophotographic imaging. “We are excited to introduce Evolve Additive Solutions and proprietary STEP technology,” said Steve Chillscyzn, Evolve Additive Solutions CEO and co-inventor of STEP. “We believe the STEP technology is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap in the market not yet addressed by additive or traditional manufacturing technologies.” The company claims this is a first-ofits-kind technology, offering an additive method for mass production and designed to deliver the benefits of additive, while handling high-volume production. evolveadditive.com
The STEP technology is claimed to offer the benefits of additive, but in high-volume production environments
Autodesk CAM updates for 2019
T
here has been a comprehensive set of updates across all of Autodesk's key manufacturing products (including PowerMill, FeatureCAM and Netfabb) for the 2019 release cycle. PowerMill sees the introduction of crossover technology from HSM for adaptive clearing combined with new tools for additive manufacturing, particularly focusing on hybrid AM/CNC machine tools. FeatureCAM, meanwhile, gains greater feature recognition capability, control over spot drilling, swiss-type parts and turning toolpaths using bi-directional tooling. NetFabb gains a new latticing tool, a new part orientation module and opens up build simulation to a wider audience. There are also ‘subscriber’ benefits across all systems, such as integration with Autodesk Drive view and markup tools, as well as the potential for integration to Autodesk’s new Fusion Production system. autodesk.com
Solid Edge Portal Beta launches
T
he Solid Edge Portal is a new offering from the mainstream Siemens PLM crew that allows you to upload and share 3D models in a variety of formats. While there are many similar services around, this one is interesting since it provides some inspection, review and markup capabilities, over and above pure viewing and sectioning. It’s based on projects rather than specific sets of data, which means if you share the link for a project with someone else, they can see everything in that project – useful if you have multiple files to share, but not so useful if you only want to share one. siemens.com/plm/portal
Protolabs Europe introduces HP Multi Jet Fusion to offering
P
rotolabs has announced the addition of Multi Jet Fusion to its suite of 3D printing technologies. This productiongrade 3D printing technology, developed by HP, builds fully functional plastic prototypes and parts with accelerated speed, detailed precision, and consistent mechanical properties. Daniel Cohn, general manager of Protolabs Germany, said: “To support our growth trajectory, we are expanding our 3D printing service provision to include
Multi Jet Fusion. With the addition of Multi Jet Fusion, we now have four advanced 3D printing technologies available for our customers to take advantage of, with different advantages to each.” “We piloted Multi Jet Fusion with our US business in 2017. From this, we can verify the benefits of the technology for producing parts with consistent material properties and improved surface finishes, attributes considered difficult to achieve with powderbased 3D printing.” protolabs.com DEVELOP3D.COM APRIL 2018 15
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2018
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PROFILE
WHERE I WORK
SARAH DICKINS PRODUCT DESIGN & INNOVATION CONSULTANT KINNEIR DUFORT, UK
F
or the last five years, I’ve been at Kinneir Dufort, a Bristol-based product design consultancy, working on projects that span the consumer, medical and industrial sectors. What are your weapons of choice? When it comes to mapping out ideas, you can’t beat a good old Post-it note. Illustrator, SolidWorks, KeyShot and Adobe Creative suite are great tools for design visuals. At Kinneir Dufort, our outputs are becoming increasingly more animation/film-based, so I’ll often use Adobe Premiere and After Effects to help bring things to life. What technology/product could you not live without in your workspace? For physical product design, you can’t beat having technical prototyping experts and a workshop on site. We like to get ‘real’ as early as possible, so it’s great to be able to ‘cut and shut’ existing products to create quick models in the early stages, before getting into 3D CAD. What’s missing from your toolset? We’re increasingly dreaming up more organic forms, new textures and surface finishes, so I’d be keen to try Grasshopper for the later design development. That – and an office cat! Is there anything that would make your design process run smoother? Controversially, I don’t think a design process needs to run smoothly. Of course, the client never sees it, but a dash of chaos in every project sometimes gives us the best ideas. There’s nothing worse than a predictable output, right?
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1 Kinneir Dufort’s offices ●
in Bristol
2 Sarah is based in the ●
design team and works closely with the research team and innovation programme leads
3 Sarah at her computer ● 4 Workshopping with ●
colleagues
5 Prototyping workshop ● 6 A shot from inside ●
Kinneir Dufort’s studio
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VISUAL DESIGN GUIDE LILIUM JETS German aviation start-up Lilium is developing an all-electric, vertical take-off and landing, 5-seater passenger jet that will fly at speeds up to 300kph with a flying time of up to an hour
KEEP IT SIMPLE Lilium Jets have been designed to be simple: no gearboxes, no foldable or variable pitch propellers, no water-cooling and no aerodynamic steering flaps. Just tilting electric engines
EASY FIX The engines have just one moving part – the central shaft of the rotor holding both the fan in the front and the magnets of the electric motor, ensuring reliability and low maintenance
POWER POINTS
The electric jet engines work like turbofan jet engines in a regular passenger jet, sucking in air, compressing it and pushing it out the back. However, the compressor fan in the front is a high-performance electric motor, which is quieter and emissions-free
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WINGED WONDER
Hovering is very energy-consuming, as an aircraft must provide thrust equal to its own weight, so an integrated high-lift system increases the lift of the wings even at low speeds to save energy
TAIL-FREE FLIGHT
Differential thrust from multiple engines in cruise flight means that no stabilising tail is necessary. The design ensures a very low drag coefficient in cruise flight, leading to high speeds and range. Energy consumption per seat and kilometre becomes comparable to that of an electric car – but the jet is three times faster
CABIN COMFORTS Once in the jet, passengers can easily store their luggage under their seat or in the storage behind them, while huge panoramic windows provide an almost 360° view
ULTRA-REDUNDANCY The design employs the concept of ‘ultra-redundancy’, using small independent components, so that a single engine failure would not have consequences for the aircraft’s safety or stability, for example, and the plane can still perform a vertical landing even with a loss of multiple engines
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PROFILE
T
oo much choice, too little differentiation. That’s the problem with many 3D printers today, according to Chris Elsworthy, CEO and founder of CEL, the Bristol-based manufacturer of the Robox 3D printer. “There are so many ‘me too’ 3D printers in the world,” he says. “Nearly all competing 3D printers are a regurgitation of the same principles.” In other words, they use similar extrusion processes and similar software. From the start, it was Elsworthy’s intention to build a machine that stood out from the crowd. “When we launched Robox in 2014,” he says, “we felt our machine really offered something completely new.” Designed from the ground up by CEL’s engineers, Robox is a compact system (external dimensions 370 x 340 x 240mm and build area 210 x 150 x 100mm) that works straight out of the box. As a fused filament fabrication (FFF) or fused deposition modelling (FDM) machine, thermoplastic filament purchased either from Robox itself or a third-party supplier is fed from a reel through a heated extruder head. The molten material is then extruded from the nozzle onto a build platform, layer by layer, to create a 3D object. It does this in a very innovative way. “Our dual nozzle system can increase the speed of the printer as it closes off the flow of material and lifts the unused nozzle,” Elsworthy explains. “That, as well as other things, such as the way our extruder monitors the flow of material through it, didn’t exist until Robox launched.” A lot of the innovation that CEL put into its machine is now starting to appear in other brands’ machines. “Whether that is the natural progression of their systems or whether these brands have seen that on our machine, I couldn’t possibly tell, but at the time [we launched Robox], I know that there was nothing like it on the market,” he says.
START OF THE JOURNEY Elsworthy didn’t initially set out to create a 3D printer. A mechanical engineer by trade, he founded CEL in 2007 to bring a range of low-cost power tools to market. This included launching the successful Power8 workshop, a four-piece cordless toolset, which saw him appear on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den. During development of these products, the CEL team relied heavily upon rapid prototyping techniques, mostly through service bureaus. But Elsworthy was always keen to drive down cost as far as possible. “As I didn’t want to spend very much on prototyping, the engineers would work very hard towards finishing a concept in quite a lot of depth, almost making it ready to go to injection moulding,” he recalls. “However, if they made a mistake with a small section early on, that whole prototype would end up being a very expensive waste of time.” Taking the process in-house seemed to be a better option and while searching for a suitable 3D printer in which to invest, Elsworthy was introduced to the team behind the RepRap (replicating rapid prototyper) project. This began at the University of Bath back in 2004, with the aim
When we launched Robox in 2014, we felt our machine really offered something completely new
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THE REEL DEAL » At the peak of the 3D printing hype cycle a few years ago, UK company CEL launched its Robox desktop 3D printer. Tanya Weaver recounts this printer’s journey to market and reports on the new machinery and processes that the company has developed since then
of producing a low-cost, self-replicating desktop additive manufacturing system capable of printing many of its own components. An open source project, RepRap now has hundreds of contributors worldwide. “We assembled the kit machine in our office and I soon noticed that all the engineers were tinkering and modifying it by adding new technologies and features to make it produce the results, rather than using it to get on with the next design job that I wanted them to do,” Elsworthy says with a smile. This got him and his team thinking that there must be other users out there who wanted a reliable, easy-to-use, results-orientated 3D printer, rather than a plaything. So they decided to refine their own design for a 3D printer, with a view to making it a commercial product. Of course, their decision was helped by the fact that, in 2012, 3D printing was very much in the limelight. The technology was featured all over the mainstream press, with stories promising that 3D printers would soon become part of the furniture in the average consumer’s home, chugging away to produce all manner of useful bits and bobs. But the CEL team wanted to produce more than just a 3D printer. Its goal, in fact, was a micro-manufacturing platform – and that meant future-proofing the machine so that further down the line, new features and functions could be added.
CEL’s latest printer is the RoboxPro for building larger parts in a single build
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PROFILE
1 1 RoboxDual ●
introduces the ability to print in two materials at once
This is achieved through the HeadLock system, which allows for different toolheads to be swapped in and out, so the Robox can become a stylus cutter, a light milling head or a paste extruder. “As the machine’s Cartesian action or xyz system is a frame format common to high-end CNC machines and other 3-axis machinery, we can utilise that expensive part for other kinds of processes and tooling. That was one of the grand ideas behind Robox,” Elsworthy explains.
DESIGN FOR MASS MANUFACTURE The intention was aways to design this robot in a box (hence the name Robox) for mass manufacture using injection moulding. By using existing suppliers in the Far East, CEL was aiming for a reliable, repeatable and better-quality product that could be offered at low cost to consumers. Aesthetic would be another point of differentiation for Robox, it was decided. Other printers available at that time often looked like they’d been made in someone’s garage, Elsworthy reckons. “Although I love this aesthetic of nuts and bolts and bits of wire, if you really want to attack a nonengineering user group aggressively, you need to a hide a lot of the tech,” he says. “We created a stainless steel sheet at the bottom that provides dimensional accuracy and the injectionmoulded frame and the cladding is then screwed to it. So even though injection-moulded parts can warp and bend, the mechanical parts of the machine all reference that single steel sheet.” During this process, CEL’s engineers used Creo Parametric to create a complex assembly design as a top-
down skeleton model with fully associative parts that reference that skeleton. If any change was subsequently made to the skeleton, the parts would update automatically. “For example, if your first part is the build volume, you draw a cube the size that you want the printer to be able to print. Then you should be able to go into your skeleton model and adjust the dimensions of that build volume with every part beyond that, automatically updating to be able to produce that build volume,” Elsworthy explains. “You have to be quite careful about structuring your design, but it does mean that your end model is hugely adaptable.”
LAUNCHING THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN With the mechanical aspects of the machine nailed down, CEL decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign in order to help fund Robox’s development, as well as raise awareness of what this small UK company was doing. Launched on 21 November 2013 with a fundraising target of £100,000, the company raised almost three times that amount by the time the campaign closed 30 days later. It was now full steam ahead to deliver the 3D printers – but as Elsworthy admits, although the hardware was sound, he hadn’t taken into account quite how crucial software would be to the whole user experience. In particular, the user interface (UI) needed urgent attention. “The UI is what the customer uses to access your hardware and I think that I personally massively underestimated how important or how much work goes into UI design,” he admits. “We could have made the best 3D printer in the world but without a decent suite
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‘‘ We could have made
the best 3D printer in the world, but without decent software behind it, users would have dismissed it, I think
’’
of software behind it, the user would have immediately dismissed it, I think.” Getting the software up to speed proved to be a steep learning curve for CEL. Whereas previously it had been subcontracting out its software programming, it soon decided to bring this in-house by employing new team members to custom-build the Automaker interface software that now drives Robox. “Automaker is still the part that has taken the most time to engineer, as we’re constantly developing and updating it,” Elsworthy says. Once the machines were delivered to Kickstarter backers, and following the official product launch towards the end of 2014, Robox got a favourable reception, and was praised especially for its user-friendly, plug-and-print operations. The machines have since found their way into design studios and home workshops, as well as in dental surgeries for the use of dental surgical guides and in schools, where it’s favoured not just for being robust, reliable and competitively priced, but also for its primary safety feature – an interlocking mechanism in the door.
NEW ROBOX MACHINES Since then, CEL has continued to innovate and introduce new points of differentiation. In 2017, it launched an upgraded dual-extrusion version of its product, RoboxDual. This enables users to print with two colours or two
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materials simultaneously, while still running the same hardware and software. With its most recent model, the RoboxPro, which came out at the beginning of 2018, the company has moved off the desktop and launched a much bigger box aimed at the prosumer market. With its 300 x 210mm print surface and 400mm build height, RoboxPro allows for much larger parts to be created in a single build. The big change with this machine is that it is manufactured not in the Far East, but in CEL’s Portishead factory near Bristol. That’s due in part to the slump in the value of the pound following the UK’s Brexit vote. “We didn’t want a huge spend upfront on tooling and manufacturing and as this machine would be produced in much lower volumes, the margin wasn’t as sensitive,” says Elsworthy. “We invested in a few CNC machines to cut all the parts ourselves and we’ve built it in a very modular manner. So far we’ve made about 15 machines and, if we wanted, every machine could be slightly different from the last with ongoing development in the process.” Again, Creo was used to design the machine. One of the biggest advantages for Elsworthy is the control CEL now has, not only over the design of the machine, but also how it’s assembled. “That instant feedback loop, from the guy in the factory telling me that a component or certain aspect of assembly is a real pain, to me then changing the design in Creo, and then by the afternoon handing him a new design, is a great asset,” he says. “It also means that I can innovate on the machine in a day. I don’t have to wait a week or a month for a piece of tooling to be changed in the Far East and for DHL to then get it to the UK for us to then assemble on the machine to see results. Now, I can 3D print a part and have a working prototype in a matter of hours.” Aside from building its own machines, CEL is now also working as part of a collaborative research initiative with two companies – Iterate Design + Innovation and Printed Electronics – along with academics from the University of Warwick, in order to produce the next generation of additive manufacturing machines. The group has been awarded two grants from government funding agency InnovateUK and its focus is on combining electrically conductive inks with polymer-based structures, with a view to replacing the need for wiring looms in electro-mechanical product assemblies. CEL may have entered the 3D printer market at the top of the hype cycle and seen many of its competitors fall by the wayside since then, but Elsworthy is satisfied that his company’s machines continue to offer market-leading features and functions. When it comes to innovation, there will be no slacking, he promises. “We are continuing to design new machinery and invent new processes, which will enable 3D printing to move from its well-established prototyping role to full mass manufacturing. There are certainly exciting things round the corner – back to work!” cel-robox.com
2 ● 3 ● 4 Shots taken during the ● development of the original Robox desktop fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printer
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PROFILE
6 OF THE BEST DESKTOP 3D PRINTERS 1 ULTIMAKER 3 ● EXTENDED
6
3 ●
COST: $4,295 PROCESS: FDM BUILD AREA: 223 × 223 × 205MM A dual-material set-up makes this model perfectly suited to pro users, with soluble supports letting them build a wider range of parts. Its nifty Cura software, meanwhile, means setting up a print farm of several of these machines is a breeze. 2 3D SYSTEMS, ●
FABPRO 1000
COST: TBC (SUB-$5,000) PROCESS: SLA (DLP) BUILD AREA: 125 X 70 X 120MM The big-name player makes a return to the desktop market with the FabPro 1000, a resin 3D printer billed as being between two and four times faster than competitors, and able to use a wide range of materials.
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ENVISIONTEC ARIA COST: $6,999 PROCESS: SLA (UV) BUILD AREA: 65 X 40 X 100MM
EnvisionTec’s machines are renowned for their high-detail prints, and this entry-level model doesn’t disappoint, coming ready to print with a choice of four of EnvisionTEC’s most popular materials. 4 LULZBOT TAZ6 ●
COST: $2,500 PROCESS: FDM BUILD AREA: 280 X 280 X 250MM Another printer beloved by workshops and makers around the world, this model comes with a slick v2 Hot End print head, allowing it to produce parts in functional materials including ABS, nylon and polycarbonate. 5 MARKFORGED ● ONYX ONE
6 ZORTRAX M300 ●
COST: £2,550 +VAT PROCESS: FDM BUILD AREA: 300 X 300 X 300MM The Polish firm’s M200 has already proven itself in maker communities, and the M300 goes further still, with a bigger build plate and reliable prints straight out of the box.
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COST: $3,499 PROCESS: FDM BUILD AREA: 320 × 132 × 154MM
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With the same software as costlier professional counterparts, you might be tempted to look upon this Markforged entry-level machine as a mere training tool – if it weren’t for the fact that it also offers the same build quality and is able to print with the company’s tough-as-nails chopped carbon fill material, Onyx.
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Build rate (Twin 700 W) up to 88 cm3/h* Build envelope (L xWxH) 280 x 280 x 365 mm3
Closed powder management with inert gas atmosphere
Patented multi-beam technology with bidirectional powder coating
*depending on material and build part geometry
SLM Solutions Group AG Roggenhorster StraĂ&#x;e 9c | D-23556 LĂźbeck Fon +49 451 16082-0
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PROFILE
E H T
Custom end-effectors are the ‘hands’ that enable Kuka robots to perform specialist tasks
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Designers and engineers at Kuka use 3D printing early and often in their design process, in order to speed up development times for new robots
ROBOT
MAKERS
» At industrial automation company Kuka, 3D printing is helping teams to rapidly develop new robots equipped to carry out specialist tasks for customers and work safely alongside human colleagues
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PROFILE
1 1 Kuka is using ●
3D printers from Makerbot to prototype new robots and their endeffectors
uka is in the business of building sophisticated industrial robots for some of the world’s smartest factories. But when it comes to equipping those robots with the arms and grippers that they need to deftly perform specialist tasks, Kuka turns to equipment from another pioneer of smart factory technology, 3D printer company MakerBot. At the Kuka Development and Technology Center at the company’s global headquarters in Augsburg, Germany, two teams work extensively with 3D printers. The first is the Prototyping Team, which develops new robots; and the second is the Applications Engineering Team, which develops new custom applications. Both use 3D printers early and often in their design processes, with the result that the company’s MakerBot Z18 machine spends 7,000 hours in operation each year. Recently, the use of 3D printers helped Kuka to achieve one of its fastest development cycles yet, with work on the KR 3 Agilus, a smaller scale robot designed to automate work carried out in individual cells on the manufacturing plant floor.
BUILDING THE KR 3 AGILUS Building a six-axis robot capable of performing a wide variety of tasks takes serious planning, testing and precision. At Kuka, that job falls to head of manufacturing engineering Soeren Papsdorf and his team. Having access to an in-house 3D printer with a large build volume allows designers and engineers to print and test designs much earlier in the process than if they outsourced parts, and at significantly lower cost than if they produced metal parts in-house. 28 APRIL 2018 DEVELOP3D.COM
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PROFILE Once a final design begins to take shape, the team prints scale prototypes in order to test design features such as cable routing, a step that might otherwise take weeks. With the rich physical information available from early printed prototypes, designers can make faster and better decisions that shave weeks off total development times. As Kuka’s design for the KR 3 Agilus approached its final form, Papsdorf’s team printed custom tooling and manufacturing set-ups for assembly and testing. By 3D printing manufacturing jigs and fixtures, and creating new iterations of these in-house, another stage in the process is streamlined by side-stepping the back-and-forth that usually goes on between clients and outsourced suppliers. In fact, the team at Kuka credit 3D printing with speeding up the development of the KR 3 Agilus by several weeks. The printers have a 92% success rate, even though some are working on an almost non-stop basis.
Once a ‘‘ robot is
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built, it still needs custommade ‘hands’ in order to carry out specialised tasks
’’
HELPING HANDS But even once a robot is built, it still needs custom end-effectors – in other words, ‘hands’ – in order to carry out specialised tasks. Led by Otmar Honsberg, the Applications Engineering Team is responsible for adapting and equipping robots from Kuka’s growing portfolio to meet the more specific needs of individual customers, from assembling delicate consumer electronics to picking and packing easily damaged food products.
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Take, for example, the Kuka LBR iiwa, a smart robot designed to safely work alongside humans: here, the end-effector must be able to dynamically identify specific objects in containers and move them. Using 3D printing, Honsberg’s team sprinted from early concept exploration to testing prototypes, and eventually decided to use 3D printing to create the hand that would be used in production, cutting down on hardware weight and development time. The result, when paired with a camera and software, is the ItemPiQ solution, used for order picking in warehouses and distribution centres. Once a hand is built, Honsberg’s team is then responsible for implementing the system on the customer’s own premises. Here, 3D printing gives them the ability to further customise and improve end-effectors on-site. According to Honsberg, 3D printing gives his designers and engineers incredible freedom and makes conventional processes seem way too slow by comparison. He reckons that, in some cases, 3D printing saves between two and four weeks and allows a degree of fine-tuning that otherwise would not be possible. As digital technologies grow in sophistication and the ‘Industry 4.0’ concept of smart, connected factories 2 The Kuka KR 3 ● spreads, Kuka’s continued leadership will depend on the Agilus is ideal for small workcells speed at which the company brings new industrial robots and fine control to market. In particular, its customers will increasingly be applications looking for robots that are powerful and precise, but also 3 ● 4 The Applications ● safe to work in close proximity to human colleagues. With Engineering Team at 3D printing, Kuka is well-positioned to meet the challenges Kuka is responsible for adapting and that a new era of smart manufacturing will bring. kuka.com makerbot.com
KUKA’S KR 3 AGILUS AND LBR IIWA
The KR 3 Agilus (below) has a payload of 3kg and is ideal for small workcells, where small components and products are
manufactured. It offers a high degree of accuracy and fidelity for complex and fine-control tasks, such as assembling small components, screw fastening, adhesive bonding, packaging and inspecting. It weighs just 26kg and can be mounted on a ceiling, floor or wall.
The LBR iiwa (right) is described by Kuka as being designed for “human-robot collaboration, or HRC.” As with other collaborative robots, from the likes of Universal Robots or Rethink Robotics, it is intended to work alongside humans, and
equipping robots for specific customer needs
assist them with tasks, rather than be kept behind a safety fence or in a cage. Sensors enable it to avoid collisions and enhance human-centred operations without a great deal of risk. The LBR iiwa is available in two versions, with payload capacities of 7kg and 14kg.
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PROFILE
CONNECTING
InfiPoints allows us to import from our scanning system, or scans provided to us, without any additional tools. Brian Christiano, BC Engineering and Design
Exterior scan of the Curtis Wright hanger at Hamilton-Owens Airport in Columbia, South Carolina
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NG THE DOTS » Turning data held in point clouds into 3D models was once a lengthy and frustrating chore at BC Engineering – but now the team there is letting a software package called InfiPoints from Elysium take the strain
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PROFILE
A
nyone who has ever measured their home in preparation for the delivery of a new piano or sofa can appreciate the challenges involved: how will the item get through the door, squeeze around corners in passageways and scale to the room and its other contents? Now imagine measuring a huge piece of industrial equipment the size of a tractor trailer, which connects to a highway of plumbing and electrical cables. The task of installing it might seem insurmountable. It’s this kind of challenge that Brian Christiano faces all the time in his role as president of BC Engineering and Design, based in Columbia, South Carolina. Except Christiano isn’t measuring domestic furniture. His job is more difficult, the stakes far higher and the customers more demanding when a typical project he might undertake is compared to a run-of-the-mill home makeover. BC Engineering specialises in BIM-based [Building Information Management] services, providing valuable help to clients who are planning, designing and managing industrial construction projects and infrastructure renovations.
RETROFITTING TRIDENT Take, for example, an early BC Engineering project, more than twenty years ago: it involved assisting on the retrofit of Trident submarines – familiar territory for Christiano, who served in the US Navy’s submarine force for more than two decades. On that project, Christiano mapped out the ship’s communications room by manually measuring the various surfaces and then modelling them in 3D space. That in itself was pretty innovative at that time. “Back then, everyone was using 2D design software, and a lot of the work was still being done on spreadsheets and pocket calculators,” he says. “But at one point, I saw a demonstration of 3D solid modelling and finite element analysis software and
1 immediately realised that it was the way of the future.” It wasn’t long before he took the next step, swapping his plumb bob and tape measure for a laser scanner. The company quickly became known for its expertise in virtual modelling and finite element analysis, reverse engineering, machine design and more recently, aerial drone inspection services. The company’s completed project list is now extensive. It has scanned the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, South Carolina’s Litchfield Plantation Home dating back to 1740, the Columbia Canal Power Station and the Curtis Wright Hangar at Owens Field, where Christiano can be found flying his own airplane at weekends. In each of these cases, and hundreds of other projects, he and his team took dozens of images from which building structures were digitally reconstructed.
1 Brian Christiano ●
(left), president of BC Engineering and Design, and Tommy Maddox (right), the company’s engineering team leader
SCANNING A SPACE This is how projects begin, with Christiano and his team scanning a space with a portable 3D laser scanner. Within minutes or hours, depending on the size of that space, a beam of laser light will have been bounced off pretty much every surface and object in it, digitising the exact location of each one. That’s when the hard work begins. For all their high-tech capabilities, laser scanners only provide a point cloud – a massive collection of data that needs to be modified and refined to produce a coherent, 3D model of the scanned structure’s interior and all that it contains. That’s no easy task and even though laser scanning makes it relatively easy to collect millions or even billions of data points that can be used to describe an object in three-dimensional space, efficient processing of that data is vital to the profit margin and client cost associated with a particular project. In BC Engineering’s case, an elaborate workflow developed over the years to turn point clouds into usable 3D models. It started with the export of raw data from the laser
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‘‘
With InfiPoints, all of the available elements are extracted in less than an hour and we can get to detailed modelling right off the bat
’’
scanner, verifying its accuracy and then slicing the point cloud at various locations and extruding the cross-sectional profiles of pipes, beams, walls, and other objects found inside the space. Six separate software packages were required, along with plenty of manual intervention by the CAD operator to determine what was what in the point cloud. Hundreds of hours were spent tying virtual structures together, filling in gaps between architectural members and reconstructing ghostly walls, floors and ceilings. To complicate matters, several of the software packages used were slow, unreliable and prone to crashes, causing vast amounts of rework – not to mention employee frustration. Software upgrades across multiple platforms were difficult, often resulting in incompatibility between different systems. Some improvements were seen when the scanner manufacturer released a software version with ‘smart look-ahead’ capabilities to automate part of the workflow, but the process was still nowhere close to ideal.
TAKING A NEW PATH The situation came to a head when Christiano realised that this cumbersome methodology was causing the company to miss out on new opportunities. “We weren’t necessarily happy with our old way of doing things, but it did get the job done,” he says. “And then a potential client called to ask if we could do a travel-path
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analysis for a large heat exchanger that they were replacing. This meant scanning the equipment and its surroundings and determining the best route for the riggers to take when removing the old exchanger from the space. Long story short, the other company could do it and we couldn’t. That’s when we started evaluating InfiPoints.” InfiPoints is a point cloud utilisation tool from Elysium, a software provider based in Southfield, Michigan. It offers data import, pre-processing and analysis, CAD modelling and a host of other functions that were to prove valuable to BC Engineering and Design. These include ‘fly-through’ capabilities that enable users to take virtual tours of a site before construction begins; automatic mesh generation and feature recognition; noise reduction (for removing people and other moving objects found in the point cloud); and real-time collaboration tools. It also provides the travel path calculations that Christiano and his team needed. “In the case of the power plant job, the heat exchanger was roughly four stories tall and 18 feet in diameter,” Christiano explains. “It was not only a matter of cutting it and removing it, but they had to figure out if the floors needed to be reinforced, how much the cranes had to lift and then model everything on the 35-year old exchanger itself, so a new one could be built to fit the existing space.” If BC Engineering had been using InfiPoints when it bid for that contract, it could have virtually rotated any object, laid it down, twisted and turned it however they needed to, with the software identifying any impingement on a defined clearance envelope. “I’ve since called the owner of that company and told him that, when the next job comes up, we can handle the entire package,” Christiano says. “InfiPoints has brought us to an entirely new playing field.”
STREAMLINING THE SCANS
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It’s not just about additional functionality, though. Infipoints has also dramatically increased efficiency at BC Engineering and for engineering team leader Tommy Maddox and his group, it’s been a game changer. “The automatic feature extraction has been one of the biggest improvements for us,” Maddox says. “Before, you could literally spend weeks, and in some cases months, on the legacy software, modelling each element in space, one at a time. With InfiPoints, all of the available elements are extracted automatically in less than an hour, and we can get to detailed modelling right off the bat. It’s made a nightand-day difference to our throughput.” A recent example of this is BC Engineering’s work on a paper mill project. Because a 10-inch diameter pipe used by the mill had a black matte finish, the laser scanner was unable to pick up certain areas. This resulted in the legacy software being unable to recognize it as pipe, requiring the engineer to manually draw each length.
4 2 Automatic data point registration ● and bundled adjustments of scan positions of this pumping station with piping and supports took only eight minutes in InfiPoints 3 With one of BC Engineering’s legacy ● CAD tools, modelling this power plant feedwater heat exchanger took more than 400 hours 4 InfiPoints extracted the relevant ●
data in 19 minutes, leaving engineers with little more than minor clean-up work to do
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PROFILE I’ve ‘‘ since called
the owner of that company and told him that, when the next job comes up, we can handle the entire package
’’
InfiPoints, however, was able to extract the pipe with ease, as well as the surrounding conduit, railings, electrical boxes, walls and floor, saving the team countless hours of modelling effort. “The pipe in that example cost $500 a foot, so buying the correct amount was a big concern for our customer,” Christiano explains. “The plant was so old and the pipe so corroded that they weren’t sure how much they would need. We went out, spent a couple days scanning the entire plant, and were quickly able to give them accurate numbers. Not only that, but we provided a 3D model with all the valves, flanges and fittings, as well as a 2D pipe layout that they’d never had before.” The client was very pleased with the results, he adds.
WORTH UPSETTING THE APPLE CART As previously mentioned, InfiPoints has allowed the team at BC Engineering to drastically simplify workflows. Six separate software packages have been reduced to two, and in some cases, InfiPoints handles entire jobs on its own. Considering the additional functionality the company has gained, BC Engineering estimates that a further three software packages would have been required to achieve the same range of functionality on the old set-up.
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From an IT perspective, the company no longer needs to manage multiple software packages, labour and software maintenance costs are reduced, training time for each new release is shorter and, best of all, employees are not experiencing work-disrupting computer crashes. “We save time, we save money, we can tackle bigger projects, we have a lot of extra capabilities and we eliminated a huge number of headaches,” says Maddox. “For a while, we were getting eight to ten crashes a day, no matter how much computer hardware you threw at the problem. That’s pretty awful for employee morale, never mind the lost productivity. If you’re doing BIM work like we are, you should definitely be using state-of-the-art software.” Christiano agrees. “InfiPoints allows us to import from our scanning system, or from scans provided to us by others, without any additional tools. We can export to any number of CAD packages. We can do travel paths and fly-through videography and collaborate better with our customers. We were unable to do any of that before. All that, and there are no more surprises. When you’re in business for yourself, you must think long and hard before upsetting the apple cart, but this is one instance where I’m very glad I did.” bcengineeringanddesign.com elysium-global.com
5 With InfiPoint’s ● import/export capabilities, CAD to point cloud and point cloud to CAD comparisons are easily performed
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MISSED A TALK AT DEVELOP3D LIVE? Don't worry
Catch the main stage presentations, plus 100s of other talks from 2012 - 2017 develop3dlive.com/videos See how Mouse McCoy is revolutionising automotive design and manufacture
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PROFILE
MATERIAL MATTER F » Is a focus on materials information the next product lifecycle management trend? Beth Harlen of materials information technology company Granta Design provides some answers
rom creating the most slender, lightweight mobile devices possible, to the use of composites in huge aerospace structures, material-driven product design and engineering is pushing the boundaries of innovation. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, initiatives to digitalise, manage and apply the information that companies hold about engineering materials (for example, metals, plastics and composites) have lagged behind other areas. Take, for example, the management of product design data: this has evolved into product lifecycle management (PLM). But any CAD user looking for their company’s approved material list and associated property data may have experienced problems. Why is this? What is changing? And why should you care?
WHY HAVE MATERIALS LAGGED BEHIND? With materials as one of three core variables in the design of every product, along with shape and manufacturing process, it is difficult to understand why materials information management hasn’t been top of every engineering company’s agenda. Several factors have contributed to its being neglected. For a start, materials information is complex. For any given material, we may have to manage hundreds of properties. Each property may generate many layers of information. It is rich, multi-dimensional and has complicated inter-relationships. Data types required include lists of numerical values; functional, curve, graphical and ‘multi-point’ data; discrete or logical values; relationships; text, documents, notes, and multimedia. To add to the challenge, this data is dynamic – it is liable to change, for example, when further test data becomes available or when substance regulations are updated. Finally, a material definition evolves during the transition from conceptual design to manufacture. What starts off being referred to as a ‘strong, stiff plastic’ in the conceptual design phase ends up being described in more specific terms, such as ‘Du Pont Zytel 70G20HSL in Aurora Red’ by the procurement stage, with many stages in between.
The challenges of managing this full ‘materials information lifecycle’ mean that it is often only partially digitalised (if at all), consigning it to unconnected silos. Not only does this make it difficult to trace and control, it can also lead to costly duplication of tests and simulations. Critically, this information may be unavailable where and when it’s needed, in order to support analysis, decisionmaking or compliance.
NEW DISCIPLINE
So what’s changing? First, expectations and technology around the management of engineering data throughout the product lifecycle have changed enormously in the past decade. Enterprises understand that systematic data management is a ‘must-have’, not just to perform better, but to survive. As part of this evolution, they are investing in PLM systems and looking for connected areas that have been neglected – and they’re discovering materials. In parallel, enterprise materials information management has become an established discipline, with supporting tools and a proven track record, driven initially by industries with intensive needs, such as aerospace. Multi-partner projects such as the Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC), which includes Rolls-Royce, Boeing and Honeywell, have defined and implemented best practice.
1 Materials data ●
in Siemens NX10
2 Materials test ●
data using Granta Design’s system for comprehensive management of materials information, Granta MI
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ALS
Why invest in great simulation, CAD and PLM systems and feed them with inaccurate, incomplete or outdated data? Beth Harlen, Granta Design
In response, commercial toolsets like Granta Design’s Granta MI, a system for comprehensive management of materials information, are now available. The wider PLM ecosystem is also thinking harder about materials. An increasing number of PLM projects include materials information management as a requirement, and PLM vendors are incorporating materials data models and tools. For example, there is Siemen’s Teamcenter IMM module and, with its 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Dassault Systèmes includes a multi-domain materials model, supporting CAD and simulation.
HOW CAN MY COMPANY RESPOND? Every company that uses materials should ask itself: ‘What is my systematic process for managing materials information?’ One of the next questions that flows from this is, ‘Do I need a dedicated system?’ If you use a small number of materials, are interested in a narrow range of properties, have static materials data and don’t need data from external reference sources, then you might tackle the problem with generic tools, such as PLM. If any of these conditions aren’t met, however, it’s likely your organisation could benefit from a system designed for greater depth and breadth of materials data, managing all interrelated data sets (such as engineering property data; descriptions of available grades or processing options; compliance information; rendering and aesthetic
properties; and supplier information). In specifying this ‘gold source’ for company materials data, you’ll want to consider issues such as version control, access control and availability of third-party reference data within the system. A second key question is: ‘How do we get materials data to the people in our company who need it?’ In general, look for an easy-to-use web user interface with the right security and ideally, the ability to plug into company workflows. But this question is quite likely to come down to effective integration with other engineering software. For example, does the system have a means for direct access to materials data needed for simulation from within tools such as Abaqus/ CAE, Ansys Workbench or HyperMesh? Or from CAD environments like Creo, NX or Catia? An interesting trend, as PLM systems improve their handling of materials, is towards synchronisation between PLM and materials information systems. For example, General Motors is using the Granta MI system as its ‘authoring gold source’ for materials information, storing the full complexity of company materials data and its pedigree. The Teamcenter IMM module within its PLM system is used as the ‘consumption gold source’ – the place where design teams find materials data. ‘Catalogues’ of data useful in design and development are defined within the Granta MI database, and these are regularly synchronised with Teamcenter. Crucially, full traceability is maintained so that, at any point, it is possible to find the source of the materials data in PLM and to request further properties.
WHAT’S NEXT?
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Materials information management ensures you have confidence in and control over your data, consistency throughout your organisation and can optimise processes and designs. This can help avoid significant risks and costly mistakes, plus users of CAD/CAE can find what they need, when they need it. Ultimately, it makes sense. Why invest in great simulation, CAD and PLM systems and then feed them with inaccurate, incomplete or outdated data? Materials information management is arriving at the digitalisation party. It’s time to check it out. grantadesign.com
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EVENT REPORT
DEVELOP3D LIVE » This year’s DEVELOP3D LIVE in the UK went off without a hitch and all who braved the weather enjoyed a packed agenda full of learning. Stephen Holmes reports some of the day’s highlights
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enerative design, electric vehicles, automated factories, Virtual Reality: DEVELOP3D LIVE had it all. But along with the buzzwords, there was plenty of substance, too. As well as an intriguing peek into the future, participants also plenty of practical advice on putting new technologies to work today. In short, this was an event with both its feet firmly rooted in the real world and, from the very start, proceedings on the main stage encapsulated this approach. The opening keynote was given by Mike “Mouse” McCoy, CEO, co-founder and creative director of digital industrial start-up Hackrod, which is aiming to redefine the way that vehicles are designed, engineered and manufactured. He began his address with the briefest of looks at the past, back to a time of hot-rodders and a culture of individuals designing and making the things that they wanted to design and make. But he then took off at speed, describing how the company is using generative design to create an entirely new kind of car, capable of crossing what he described as the “Valley of Death”– the chasm between a great idea and real-world manufacture. It’s a place, he noted, where many ambitious product start-ups meet untimely deaths, but Hackrod’s chief technology officer Slade Gardner, formerly of Lockheed Martin’s Skunworks advanced manufacturing division, was on hand to offer evidence that Hackrod is really lining up to clear this canyon. In particular, the Hackrod team announced its latest partnership with Siemens PLM and took the opportunity to showcase some of the results of that collaboration for the first time – in the form of a generatively designed chassis for Hackrod’s car (see picture on p.42). From the same field of future-facing automotive development, meanwhile, Lucid Motors outlined the company’s thrust into the
growing field of electric vehicles and its development work so far. In particular, the company’s use of software from Ansys for multiphysics engineering simulation and analysis was impressive – but the presentation also provided valuable insight into how it is scaling up its operation at speed.
MAIN STAGE PRESENTATIONS The ability to sit in one seat at DEVELOP3D LIVE and have representatives of all the major CAD software companies take to the same stage, one after another, is still unique in this industry. It’s something that we believe makes this event truly special. The vendors know that, too, which is why they choose DEVELOP3D as the venue at which they make big announcements and stage major new product launches. Onshape, for example, announced new moves to shake up the world of data management. PTC launched Creo 5 at the show. After all, where better to get some attention for your products and services than at a show packed with attendees chomping at the bit to learn more about them? Later, Ocado Engineering’s Vipin Pillai gave an eye-opening account of how the online grocery retailer designs and engineers its own automated factories, where over 260,000 orders are picked and packed every week in a digitally monitored process. In short, the message was clear: modern retail, like many other industries, requires a huge range of engineering skills and vision these days. The changing face of design and engineering in the modern world was a theme echoed at the end of the conference, too, by Design Council CEO Sarah Weir, who left attendees with a terrific view of where our industry is going. Her final points about education, talent, quality and equality, ethics and longevity will have provided many attendees with food for thought, long after they left for home.
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VISUALISE THE FUTURE The DEVELOP3D LIVE event crammed in so much this year that it literally burst out of its traditional confines and into new, nearby space on the University of Warwick campus. A new section of the event dedicated to Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and the transformation of visualisation software, for example, took over an entire building, demonstrating the speed at which these technologies are maturing from future-facing luxury pipedream to must-have kit. Seymourpowell wowed the assembled crowd with a live demonstration of its Reality Works VR sketch tool for automotive design. The tool allows designers to put on a head-mounted display and sketch in 3D at full scale, with a view to bridging the collaboration gap designers and modellers. Lightwork Design used the event to launch its new Slipstream immersive VR design review software, taking industry-standard CAD data and automatically optimising it for use in game engines such as Unreal and Unity. Not every activity required a set of goggles, however. For example, Swatchbook focused instead on redefining how we use materials libraries for rendering products – something that sounds simple, yet has huge implications in a wide range of industries.
ELSEWHERE AT THE EVENT The track for hardware start-ups made a great return in 2018, with the Design Council leading the line-up and explaining its Spark initiative. Inspirational tales and sound advice also came from a supporting line-up featuring Naturebytes and CEL Robox. Later in the day, the modern renaissance of data management would be the big topic under discussion in the same room, with execs from OpenBOM, Kenesto, Onshape and DDM all giving their
takes on the latest technologies to benefit from the cloud. Additive manufacturing talks, meanwhile, took place throughout the day, with the practicalities of generative design being brought to the fore by experienced heads from the likes of Croft AM, KSWP and leading software companies on hand to help attendees learn more about the benefits of additive.
NEXT UP FOR DEVELOP3D LIVE Few events fill out a full day with such a sustained buzz as DEVELOP3D LIVE did this year. With its tweaked layout and new themes, the show remained as fresh as ever. Over 40 speakers brought genuine expertise, passion and great ideas to the crowd – and, as with all the best events, the audience was equally clued-up but always eager to learn more. Many attendees, for example, were more than happy to wait around, long after presentations had finished, in order to quiz speakers further and chat with their peers. The networking, in fact, is the part we enjoy most, and there was no shortage of that at this year’s event. There’s nothing like filling an enormous exhibition space with all the latest software and hardware and letting a crowd of designers and engineers get up close and personal with that kit. If the job of the event is to spark ideas and ‘what if? moments, then I think we can safely say that the event was a massive success. And there’ll be more of this to enjoy later in the year, when DEVELOP3D LIVE returns to the US, bringing its full-throttle circus of technology, design and engineering to Boston, Massachusetts. If you’re on that side of the Atlantic on October 2, then I can happily guarantee you now that you most certainly won’t want to miss out. develop3dlive.com | d3dliveusa.com
CATCH UP ON THIS YEAR’S TALKS ON THE DEVELOP3D YOUTUBE CHANNEL Every year, we try to capture as much video content from our DEVELOP3D LIVE events, both in the UK and the USA, and make them available for you to enjoy after the event, whether you missed a session or couldn’t make it at all. This year, we’ve already got the main stage talks up online, so you can enjoy keynotes from Hackrod, Lucid Motors, Ocado Engineering and the Design Council. You’ll also find this year’s presentations from CAD executives from Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks, PTC, Autodesk, Onshape, Altair and Siemens PLM.
In addition, we’re also able to offer presentations and highlights from previous years’ events in both Warwick and Boston, so if you missed Martin Enthed talking about VR and visualisation at Ikea, or Phillip Norman talking robots and non-linear thinking, or Leila Martine from Microsoft UK talking augmented reality, there’s much on which to feast your eyes and ears. We also have a bunch of curated playlists, which aim to bring together some of the best and most informative video content that we’ve found out on the web. youtube.com/c/Develop3dMagazine
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THE FUTURE OF THE 3D GRAPHICS ENGINE?
» Imagine working in 3D CAD and seeing your model in near-photorealistic quality at any stage in the design process – without ever leaving your application viewport. This holy grail of 3D graphics could soon become reality, thanks to a new hybrid viewport technology from AMD, writes Greg Corke
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raphics engines for CAD have changed very little over the years. Models can be displayed in real time, shaded with edges or rendered with realistic materials, lights and shadows using graphics API OpenGL. The effects can be impressive, but if you want photorealism, you need to take the model offline and use a dedicated ray trace renderer. And it can take minutes or hours to deliver a single static image. AMD’s Radeon Pro graphics division is looking to change this with a new hybrid viewport technology that it is offering for free to developers of CAD and other 3D software. The technology aims to deliver on two fronts. First, it is designed to render models in real time, inside the viewport, with a “close to photorealistic look and feel”, according to AMD. “Seeing your design rendered in real time allows you to make decisions in real time,” explains Marty Johnson, director of ISV relationship management for developer programs at the company. Second, it has the potential to dramatically increase 3D graphics performance in all display modes, meaning users can get more out of their graphics hardware and also work with much more complicated 3D models. To do this, AMD has drawn on two different technologies: Vulkan, a low-level graphics API from the same folks that develop OpenGL; and Radeon Rays, a GPU-accelerated ray tracing software that sits at the heart of AMD’s physically-based renderer, Radeon ProRender. Software developers can choose to implement both technologies or either one on its own.
SIMPLIFYING THE RAYS Ray tracing needs huge amounts of compute power and we’re still a long way away from being able to deliver highest quality results in real time using mainstream hardware. This means AMD has had to take some shortcuts when developing its hybrid viewport technology. Instead of simulating light precisely and letting it bounce
off thousands of surfaces to deliver the perfect image, AMD’s technology makes some approximations, as Johnson explains. “We’re using ray tracing in an optimised way,” he says. “Instead of doing it for every pixel, we’re sending a sample set of rays out, and then from that, we produce the whole image. “We’re giving the raster engine hints, using rays to show where shadows are going to fall. Likewise, reflections and ambient occlusion. There’s a whole bunch of different effects you can get there,” he continues. “It’s a way of getting ray tracing techniques into a realtime environment so it doesn’t impact performance. The result is a real-time viewport that has a much closer to photorealistic look and feel [than current viewports].” Photorealism, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, so we asked Johnson to explain how good the viewport quality can be, compared to results from Radeon ProRender and other physically based renderers. “To me, it’s a spectrum,” he explains. “Real-time performance versus ray trace quality. What we’re trying to do is bring real time further up the spectrum. It depends on what features you [the CAD software developer] want to implement. You can push it all the way to full ray tracing in the viewport, if you’ve got enough horsepower. Eventually that’s the end goal, but in the meantime we’re using raster. It’s a continuum.” Each CAD software developer will be able to implement different levels of features, depending on the requirements of its users and the level of performance they want to get out. “Right now, we’re just showing the capabilities of what’s possible. It’s up to the ISVs to adopt this and actually turn it into something real and then all those choices and sliders and switches will be what they decide to put into their user interface,” explains Johnson. “If you had a lower level GPU, you could actually run less demanding features, or if you have a higher end GPU, you could run more,” adds Rob Jamieson, AMD’s industry alliance manager for workstation graphics.
It’s a way of getting ray tracing techniques into a real-time environment so it doesn’t impact performance AMD’s Marty Johnson
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FEATURE
AMD’s hybrid viewport technology will allow CAD users to view models instantly, in close to photorealitic quality
the frequency (GHz) of the CPU. Much of this is down to the way OpenGL works in conjunction with the graphics driver. Every time a 3D model is moved in the viewport, the CAD application has to talk to the driver, and then to the GPU, adding a layer of latency. To get around this bottleneck, AMD developed Mantle, a low-level API that was then donated to the Khronos Group and became the open standard that is now Vulkan. There are two big advantages to Vulkan. The first is that it can reduce CPU overhead by giving CAD software developers more direct control over the GPU. Rather than having to route everything through the graphics driver, the CAD application can talk straight to the hardware, GETTING A GRIP ON VULKAN reducing the layers of complexity. Second, Vulkan code AMD’s hybrid viewport technology is not just about can be multi-threaded, so commands can be split across beautiful visuals and giving the designer the ability to multiple CPU cores, before they are submitted to the GPU. see what things might really look like as early in the Both should mean that CAD software is able to use development process as possible. It should also help GPUs much more efficiently, leading to better viewport improve viewport performance in general, meaning designers are able to work with significantly larger models performance, the ability to handle much bigger CAD models and to load them far faster. on the same graphics hardware. “We’ve been constrained. Customers want to load a whole This is down to a new low-level graphics API called city or want to load a whole car and want to do it in real Vulkan from the Khronos Group, a not-for-profit time,” says Jamieson. “The performance is there [in the consortium of AMD, Nvidia, Intel, Apple and others, GPU], it’s just that the software hasn’t been there to use it.” which is focused on open standards. The downside of Vulkan is that it is more complex. As Khronos Group also develops OpenGL, the graphics the CAD application has to take on some of the work API that dates all the way back to the early 1990s and is that the driver used to do, it makes it harder for software used in virtually all 3D CAD applications. OpenGL has developers to program viewports. In many of the older many benefits, not least that it is mature, relatively easy CAD applications, OpenGL code can be found in lots of to implement, and well understood by 3D CAD software different places, making swapping out the graphics engine developers. However, it contributes to a problem that much more involved. occurs in many CAD applications where the CPU is AMD acknowledges that this is a significant challenge for the bottleneck for 3D performance. This is particularly noticeable when displaying very large models, simply – in software developers and one that has held some back from Vulkan development. However, the company is looking to shaded-with-edges mode, for example. lower barriers to entry by not only offering a helping hand In such CPU-limited workflows it doesn’t matter to the larger CAD vendors, but also providing a free toolkit how much GPU hardware you throw at your datasets. called V-EZ. Performance will not increase, or only increase very little. “V-EZ is a middleware, a programming API on top of The only way to boost frame rates significantly is to increase
Software developers who adopt AMD’s physically based renderer, Radeon ProRender, will also have a direct route into the hybrid viewport technology. In theory, those that have already embedded Radeon ProRender into their application, such as Maxon with Cinema4D, should also have an easier route in. With support for global illumination, true reflections, transparency and refractions, as well as area lighting, Radeon ProRender offers a step up in terms of image quality. However, as the physically based renderer requires thousands of passes for every pixel, best-quality results will take minutes or hours, depending on the GPU hardware.
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DISCOVER THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AT AU LONDON 2018 June 19-20, Tobacco Dock E1W 2SF
TIMES CHANGE, AND SO DOES MANUFACTURING Stay up-to-date with the latest trends, regulations, and technology at Autodesk University 2018 – the annual event dedicated to industry knowledge and networking. Sharpen your skills and prepare for the future with more than 70 workshops and educational events over two days, hosted and curated for you by industry experts.
Register today by visiting www.au.autodesk.com/london Highlights of AU London 2018 include: Designing the Fastest Bicycle in the World Speaker: Barney Townsend Using Industrial Robots to Complete Accurate Manufacturing Applications Speaker: Richard Pedley Manufacturing Parts with the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection Speaker: Peter De Strijker
THE WORLD IS CHANGING. ARE YOU READY?
FEATURE
If one of the major CAD vendors does jump in and give its users a substantial performance and quality advantage over others, there could be a ripple effect
Vulkan that is designed to make it a lot easier for software developers to implement Vulkan and write Vulkan code,” explains Bruno Stefanizzi, senior manager software engineering for AMD Radeon Pro. “We’ve done a lot of the work for them. It means they can write significantly less code – less than half – and still get all the benefits. It means they don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” A good example here is ‘line stipple’, the command used to draw dotted lines in CAD packages, he says. “In OpenGL, there’s a native way to draw those lines but in Vulkan, the software developer would have to program it in. In V-EZ we’ve done that for them. “The same goes for shaders,” he adds. “V-EZ can directly take OpenGL shaders and use them. They are a first-class citizen in V-EZ.” Stefanizzi gave DEVELOP3D a technology demonstration to show the kind of performance one might expect when using V-EZ inside a CAD application. He showed a complex motorcycle assembly in shaded mode, comprising 20 million+ polygons, sectioned through it in real time then exploded all the parts – all fluently inside the viewport. So, when might we see the technology appear in shipping CAD applications? Johnson confirmed that AMD is already talking to some of the largest CAD software developers, although he would not name names. He was, however, upbeat about how the hybrid viewport technology has been received. “The initial impression about what we’re trying to do, and the objectives and the potential for it, is resonating well with everyone we talk to,” he said. “However, there’s a lot of development work, and you have to hit the release cycles [of CAD software], but we’re optimistic.”
Raytraced diffuse Global Illumination
Raytraced refraction and reflection
CONCLUSION
AMD has spent the last few years trying to get its physically-based renderer Radeon ProRender in as many places as possible – and it’s done a pretty good job in the M&E sector. It has plug-ins for SolidWorks, 3ds Max, Maya, and Blender and direct integrations for Rhino and Cinema4D. Others, including Modo, are in the pipeline. The strategy was always to try and head Nvidia off at the OPEN FOR BUSINESS pass and to limit potential damage to AMD GPU sales As AMD’s hybrid viewport is based on open technology, from Iray, Nvidia’s GPU renderer that works only with it is designed to work with all GPUs from AMD, Nvidia or Intel. The basic requirement is that the GPU must support Nvidia GPUs. Introducing Radeon ProRender, a free GPU renderer that works on any GPU hardware, gave Vulkan 1.0. customers options. All users will likely experience a general performance While AMD was always playing catch-up with Nvidia increase over their current hardware when viewing models here, it is now trying to take the initiative. Its new hybrid in simple shaded-with-edges mode and be able to work viewport technology not only promises to deliver better with bigger models. However, those looking to get ‘near photorealistic quality’, as close to real time as possible, will quality visuals in the viewport, but can also help break through CPU bottlenecks, a long-standing 3D CAD issue. likely need a more powerful GPU. From what we have learnt, AMD’s hybrid viewport This is where the CAD software developers need to technology sounds impressive, with potential to offer big make a good call, if they are to support their users most benefits to CAD users. The big question is, will software effectively. Most users will currently have entry-level or developers get sufficient additional incentive to take the mid-range GPUs, so to suddenly ramp up requirements leap into Vulkan and embark on the significant job of dramatically could be met with resistance. Of course, it developing a brand-new graphics engine? If one of the would also be a great opportunity for AMD (and Nvidia) major CAD vendors does jump in and give its users a to sell more powerful GPUs. substantial performance and quality advantage over others, there could be a ripple effect. PAVING THE WAY TO VR Of course, Nvidia is not going to give AMD a free run To date, most design and engineering-focused VR solutions at this. One week after AMD’s announcement, Nvidia have been separate applications that pull CAD data into a unveiled its own real-time ray tracing technology, Nvidia game engine or a high-end visualisation tool. RTX, which only runs on Volta-based GPUs, including By squeezing more performance out of the GPU the the new Quadro GV100. Nvidia RTX is currently hardware, could AMD’s hybrid viewport technology pave compatible with OptiX (the ray trace technology behind the way for CAD software developers to enable VR inside Nvidia Iray and other GPU renderers) and Microsoft the viewport and allow designers to jump in and out of VR DXR (DirectX Ray Tracing), an extension of DirectX 12. to influence the design process? We put this question to However, in the future it will also support Vulkan. Johnson. The wheels have been set in motion and the competition “This is in line with the future of visualisation,” he said. for graphics in 3D CAD just got a lot fiercer. Now, the “I think you will see viewports that support VR directly. software developers have some big decisions to make. Adopting our ray tracing and V-EZ technologies will help drive that transition and we are ready to help ISVs get there.” pro.radeon.com DEVELOP3D.COM APRIL 2018 47
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PROFILE
SCIENTISTS OF SOUND At connected car tech company Harman, engineers rely on mathematical modelling and numerical simulation in order to build the optimum sound systems for specific vehicle models
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oday’s vehicles offer extensive in-car ‘infotainment’ possibilities, from smartphone connectivity to state-ofthe-art interactive displays and video screens. Harman is a market leader in these connected car set-ups and equips around four out of five of the world’s luxury car models with premium audio systems. Each vehicle model requires its own configuration and Harman’s team of acoustic and simulation specialists ensure that different components and the acoustic characteristics of different car models are accounted for in their design processes. Decisions must be made about the optimum placement and orientation of speakers. Factors relating to driver enclosure geometry – such as car doors – will also influence sound quality and must be considered. The team uses physical experiments in conjunction with numerical analysis to accelerate product development by virtually ‘tuning’ their systems before creating a live prototype. This saves time on physical testing, and allows virtual tests to replace in situ listening, so that the team can design products even before final car designs are complete. “We may become involved very early in the car development process, when a vehicle designer has not yet decided what is required from the audio system,” explains Michael Strauss, senior manager of virtual product development (VPD) and tools at Harman. “Or we may only have basic details such as size and volume of the car cabin. Yet frequently, we need to present a concept within a few days, creating a tricky challenge to meet our clients’ requirements and deliver high-quality systems.”
A SIMULATION OPPORTUNITY To provide clients with a response that is both quick and accurate, engineers at Harman turn to mathematical modeling in Comsol Multiphysics software. “We needed capabilities for mechanical, acoustic and electrical simulations in one integrated environment and we wanted a program that would free up the time and effort spent on creating and updating our own tools,” explains François Malbos, principal acoustics engineer at Harman. “The multiphysics approach is one of the most important parts of the virtual product development process,” adds
Michal Bogdanski, simulation engineer and project leader. “We can explore how the acoustic behavior of a loudspeaker relates to any part of a vehicle structure – for example, the stiffness of a door – and then provide door design guidelines to our customer.” In one case, they both measured and simulated the sound pressure levels generated by a loudspeaker in the cabin of a Mercedes-Benz ML car (Figure 2) in order to validate their numerical models and later use them to optimise acoustic equipment. “Car cabin simulations are among the most challenging to run, because they cover many different areas of physics,” explains Strauss. Fortunately, Comsol software offers options to couple together acoustic, mechanical and electrical effects throughout the system. To support company-wide engineering efforts, Strauss’ team established a library of validated models and known solutions, which supports performance predictions for a wide variety of loudspeaker configurations. “We are able to offer everything from a high-level trend analysis to a detailed design examining the performance of a subsystem,” he continues.
ANALYSING PERFORMANCE In one study, engineers at Harman used Comsol to create a simulation of a car cabin’s sound system in order to optimise the speaker acoustics specifically for low-frequency sound waves. They then designed a series of tests to validate the model. Once validated, the model allowed the Harman team to deduce the best loudspeaker set-up for a given car. In validation tests, a loudspeaker was mounted on a rigid enclosure near the driver’s seat of the car. Four sets of microphone arrays throughout the cabin served to measure the average sound pressure levels at each location (see Figure 3). For frequencies below 1 kHz, the loudspeaker was represented as a rigid flat piston tied to a simplified lumped parameter model (LPM) taking into account the voltage at the voice coil terminals and the stiffness of the suspension and speaker membrane surface. The geometry was generated from a manual 3D scan (see Figure 4). Using a post-processing algorithm implemented in Matlab software and an add-on product to Comsol Harman called LiveLink for Matlab, which creates a bidirectional link between the two programmes, the team converted the point cloud created by the scan into a surface mesh of the car cabin (see Figure 1) and created an optimised mesh for studying acoustic pressure waves. The simulation analysed the interaction of the sound waves generated by a speaker with the different materials of the windshield, floor, seats, headrests, steering wheel and other sections (such as the roof, doors and instrument panels), each of which have different absorption properties.
1 Surface mesh of ●
the car cabin
2 Loudspeaker ●
positioning in the vehicle interior
3 Measuring sound ●
pressure level at different locations
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3 DEVELOP3D.COM APRIL 2018 49
PROFILE In addition to accounting for many different materials, the team also defined speaker membrane motion and acceleration, based on the volume of the enclosure using the Livelink for Matlab and developed special Matlab scripts in order to simplify the preprocessing and postprocessing activities. “Everything is fully optimised and automatic, so that we do not have to calculate the acceleration for each case; when one simulation finishes, the next launches,” explains Michal Bogdanski. “This ensures that the whole process is easy and error-free; we simply let the scripts run.” The team also optimised the frequency-dependent absorption coefficients necessary to achieve a strong correlation between the measured and simulated sound pressures. The analysis then provided the sound pressure levels emanating from each microphone array (see Figure 5 and 7).
4 Harman’s 3D scan ●
of the car cabin
5 ● 6 Sound pressure ●
levels for one microphone array... and throughout the cabin
4
8 Comparison ● of measured and simulated BRIR in the frequency domain
IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT These validated simulations are what enable the team at Harman to begin developing a sound system even as the vehicle itself is still being designed. The accurate prediction of the sound pressure field throughout the car cabin allows for optimisation of audio system performance. Equalizers and psychoacoustic effects are also included in the tuning algorithm, allowing for design modifications without the need for a physical prototype. Auralistion, or the production of sound from virtually computed acoustics, is of interest in the pursuit of a top-notch sound system. Using a high-end headphone, engineers at Harman have developed a playback system that allows for listening, evaluation and comparison of audio systems comprising subwoofers, midranges and tweeters, “all based on simulation results and signal processing,” as Malbos puts it. They include the effects of the human head, torso and ear canals on acoustics in predicting Binaural Impulse Responses (BRIRs) – the way in which ears receive a sound. To capture the full 3D sound, BRIRs are computed at various head positions in the azimuth plane. The playback system uses a head position tracker in order to perfectly reproduce the sound experience as the listener would experience it; for example in the driver’s seat or the front passenger seat. (Figure 7 depicts the mesh created using Comsol software that was used in predicting BRIR and Figure 8 shows a comparison between predicted and simulated BRIR.) Auralisation is not without its challenges, since auralisation quality, an inherently subjective measure, must compare to real-world listening. At Harman, the ability to assess an audio system based purely on simulation has increased the quality of product and speed of product development. It also has improved customer responsiveness and lowered the cost of design amendments, fostering a sense of design freedom among the company’s engineers. “The beauty of simulation is that a systems engineer can sit at a desk, put headphones on and begin to tune a system without the car,” says Strauss. “Using simulation, Harman engineers will be able to assess, optimise, predict and subjectively evaluate the performance of a proposed sound system, even though it does not actually exist yet.” harmanvirtualworks.com comsol.com 50 APRIL 2018 DEVELOP3D.COM
7 Mesh created using ● Comsol used for the prediction of binaural impulse responses, or how ears receive a sound
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REVIEWS
1
Autodesk Inventor 2019
Inventor is still Autodesk’s best-selling 3D mechanical design system and each year sees a range of updates and enhancements to its already rich and mature feature set. Al Dean takes a look at what’s coming in the 2019 release
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ext year, Autodesk Inventor will celebrate its twentieth birthday. It’s a milestone anniversary for a product that embodies the company’s move away from building everything on top of AutoCAD, to become the wide-ranging provider we know today. Despite the time that Autodesk has spent developing and promoting its Fusion 360 platform in recent years, the more mature Inventor still gets plenty of attention, with a solid amount of work apparent in every release and subsequent updates – not just bug fixes, but substantial new functions appear over the course of every 12-month release cycle. So what does Autodesk have in store for the Inventor 2019 release? To kick off, there’s the usual work done to make the system more responsive under specific conditions. When it comes to mechanical engineering software, the processes that make the most exacting demands are typically large assembly design, drawing view creation and thirdparty data imports. Activities like these can really push the software, and your hardware, to the limit. One way to make things more efficient is through multi-core processing. With that in
» Product: Inventor 2019 » Supplier: Autodesk Price: £2,112 per year autodesk.com
mind, Autodesk has been adding multicore support to Inventor over the last few releases and this one is no exception, with that support extended to include creating and updating precise views in drawings. There’s also been work done to make handling large assemblies more efficient, both in full mode or when using lightweight geometry representations. Of course, that may mean that users start building even more complex and demanding assemblies with even more detail – but that’s just the way it goes.
USER EXPERIENCE
1 Inventor’s ● performance under the hood has seen some work to help build larger and large assemblies
Moving on from performance to look at some of the more practical aspects of using Inventor, there are a few key changes to the user interface. This has remained pretty much the same for some time now, and follows the ribbon guidelines used by Microsoft Windows applications, but there have been some improvements worth mentioning. For example, the measurement command got some love in the 2018 release, but for 2019, it has been reworked entirely, to provide all features and functions in a single panel. The same is true of the hole command, another feature that was due
some attention. You’ll now find everything you need to define engineering hole features in a single dialogue. It might seem strange to focus on such basic aspects of the software, but the reality is that the way that we use computers and display devices is changing. With higher resolution monitors, it makes sense to have all your options, functions and variables on a single panel, rather than hidden away within various tabs in a dialogue box. On the subject of threaded holes, meanwhile, there are also some new tools to help formalise their use across an organisation, with presets that enable users to dictate how threads are defined, which are available and which are considered best practice. Lastly on the user interface front, there are two configuration options I want to mention. First, you now have much more control over how the system looks like to colour-blind users. I was recently speaking with a friend who works as part of a fourperson design group using Inventor. Since three out of four of its members have colour blindness requirements, this will be of huge benefit to them and to many others. Second, you can now migrate all DEVELOP3D.COM APRIL 2018 53
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
customisations made to the application in previously installed versions into the new one.
MODELLING UPDATES Inventor is both broad in terms of the features it offers and deep in terms of their functionality. These are the main benefits of maturity. But again, there’s always room for improvement, as this release amply demonstrates. On the core modelling front, it’s clear that work has been done on the helix modelling tools. Inventor has always given users a good amount of control over creating helix curves, but the tools are now more interactive and also allow you to create variable radius helices, which is ideal for modelling complex mechanical components, threads or cam forms. Another improvement, a slightly left-field one, is the ability to define an inverted fillet. Whereas a standard fillet will remove material in order to give you by default a tangentially connected transition between two faces, with this new option, it gives you the opposite. That’s useful for all manner of activities, from woodworking to weld preparation to modelling in broaching operations. There’s an interesting addition in the Tube and Pipe extension that allows you to define a sketch entity for a tube, pipe or duct, with a specific length. It’s this kind of addition that will be useful for many users, and not only those modelling up tube and pipe work. There are many instances, for example, where having a flexible connector between two positions, at a specific length, makes huge sense, whether to ensure components are standardised or to assess reach of parts within an assembly (for example, in exhaust work or air intakes, as per our example in
2 Figure 3). There has also been some work done on constraints in tube and pipe design and in particular in defining constraints between existing geometry and references.
ILOGIC RULES For those who haven’t already dug into it, iLogic is Autodesk’s name for rules-based design inside of Inventor. It’s been there for a while now and Autodesk reckons that around one in five users have at least experimented with iLogic. In the last few releases, the company has made the tools easier to adopt, with a view to lowering barriers to entry when it comes to adding intelligence and automation to parts, assemblies and drawings. Examples include the ability to add more feedback when creating rules, such as autocomplete, syntax colouring and capture of a model’s current state as the starting point.
But more advanced functionality has also been included, from external rules and triggers to the ability to add and delete parts, assemblies and constraints, rather than just suppressing them.
2 Inverted fillets are ● a new option, perfect for adding in those weld preparation features
SHARED VIEWS Shared Views is one of two subscription benefits included in this release of Inventor. As Autodesk tries to move more customers away from the traditional annual maintenance model to one based on subscription, it’s clear that incentives for subscription customers, in the form of bonus functionality, will start to appear in the software. In this instance, it’s all about collaboration. In short, Shared Views allows you to upload a lightweight version of a model to Autodesk’s cloud-based model viewer (viewer.autodesk.com) and then share it
WORKFLOW: COLLABORATION USING INVENTOR’S SHARED VIEWS
1 Set up your model as you want your partners to see it ● directly inside Inventor
2 Publish to Autodesk Viewer:ive it a name, and the system ● uploads the data, converts it to a lightweight format
3 Generate unique URL and invite people to review, either ● from the app or sharing the URL via email
4 Collaborators view, comment and markup using the web ● viewer, which requires no installation at all
5 As comments and markup are added, you see any ●
6 You can managed your Shared View insider Inventor, in ●
updates from directly within Inventor
terms of removing data and comments
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Recruitment Opportunity
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
with customers, suppliers, partners and such. This will allow them to view, measure, markup, section and perhaps most importantly, provide traceable feedback on that model. While it’s true you could achieve that simply using the Viewer service on its own, doing it from inside Inventor brings feedback items directly into the Inventor interface. (That said, there’s no way at present to formalise these and document them as a key part of the development of that model.) This isn’t a heavy, closely controlled collaboration process – it’s much lighter and more informal than that. But assuming your organisation is comfortable with sharing such data on the web, in a secure environment, then it will help you conduct quick co-working sessions with others quickly and without too much hassle. Think Dropbox, but with a great level of control and commenting.
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TECH PREVIEW: FUSION & INVENTOR As mentioned at the start, Autodesk has both Inventor and Fusion 360 and while both address the mechanical and industrial design industries, they work from different perspectives and take different approaches. Inventor is a traditional desktop system, Fusion 360 is cloud based. If you’re an Inventor user, chances are you already have access to Fusion 360, have tried it out and maybe even incorporated it into some of your workflows. The issue here is that, with separation between the desktop and the cloud, moving data between the two systems can be tricky. They may share the same underlying technology base, but the reality is that when they do share data, they do it in a disappointingly non-intelligent way. For example, until recently, the only way to use Fusion data in Inventor was to export a STEP file from the former and open it up it in the latter, much as you would do when importing any other file. This has recently been extended using Autodesk’s AnyCAD technology, which allows you to open up a third-party dataset as either a full import or as a reference model. It will maintain a link to the originating file and allow you to factor in any subsequent changes to that data. On top of this, Inventor 2019 sees the release of a desktop connector that enables users to link cloud-resident Fusion 360 data from their desktop Inventor installations, so they can maintain that same link using AnyCAD, but directly to cloud-based data files. If there’s a caveat here, it’s that to do this, you will need to have subscriptions to Fusion 360, Inventor and Fusion Team (the cloud-based data sharing and collaboration platform that Autodesk previously called A360). These are all included in the Product Design Suite and Collection bundles.
MODEL-BASED DESIGN Whether they call it model-based design
4 (MBD), PMI or 3D drawings, CAD vendors are all pushing the ability to include manufacturing documentation in the form GD&T directly on your 3D models, rather than in separate 2D drawings. While this MBD approach has certainly caught on in some industries (particularly automotive and aerospace), it’s still not seen much take-up elsewhere in manufacturing, despite what software vendors claim. The reality is that defining GD&T in a twodimensional drawing is a well-documented, well-understood and well-communicated process. By contrast, MBD is most certainly not, and this challenge is further compounded by software issues. First, defining 3D annotations on a 3D model is a complex business and not an intuitive one in most cases. Second, while most systems will allow you to define that information and store it natively, they do a pretty poor job of allowing you to read in similar data, even using well-established standards such as STEP AP242. In other words, far from disappearing, the 2D drawing is going nowhere for a while. Inventor has gained MBD tools over the
last few releases and the latest release takes these to a new level. For those experimenting with such workflows for the first time, one feature may be particularly useful: this is the visual feedback you get on the status of your part in relation to the tolerance advisor. Unfortunately, there’s no mechanism to read in data from non-native MBD-enabled parts, whether via STEP, JT or anything else.
IN CONCLUSION
3 Tube and pipe ● lengths can be locked to a specific dimensonal value 4 The hole and ● measure commands have been reworked to provide all of your options in a single panel, which is better for today’s larger and higher resolution displays
As I stated at the outset of this review, at almost twenty years old, Inventor has so far avoided the fate of other software packages of similar vintage, which have been superseded, neglected or simply faded into irrelevance. Instead, it’s looking fresh, up-to-date and is keeping pace with new trends. From the reworking of the user interface to improvements that have gone on under the hood, from tweaks to existing tools to the introduction of new ones, there’s plenty in this latest release for users to get their teeth into and much that, over time, they will want to incorporate into their day-to-day workflows. autodesk.com DEVELOP3D.COM APRIL 2018 57
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
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solidThinking Inspire 2018 Topology optimisation is all the rage these days, but Altair’s solidThinking Inspire has long been ahead of the game. With increased interest in the field, Al Dean explores how the latest release might keep it in pole position
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ever before has there been such interest in the subject of topology optimisation. Driven by revitalised additive manufacturing techniques, the decades-old subject has been getting fresh attention, both from new market entrants with new tools and established CAD vendors. Either way, both camps seem to be falling over themselves to introduce these tools in their latest releases. But one vendor in particular has been banging this particular drum for a good decade or more – and that’s solidThinking, along with parent company Altair. But while the company’s high-end tools like OptiStruct have long been used in aerospace, for example, it wasn’t until the release of its Inspire application that things got really interesting. Since its 2013 launch, Inspire has proved itself to be one of the most readily accessible set of topology optimisation tools that we’ve seen and its headstart on the competition means it is now much further down the road than many. Not only does Inspire contain the basics in terms of modelling tools for domain design (as well as healthy import options), but also, in recent releases, we’ve seen the
» Product: Inspire » Supplier: solidThinking Price: On application solidthinking.com
introduction of manufacturing constraints (for draft angle and such), motion simulation (alongside the standard linear static analyses) and PolyNurbs, which allow you to very quickly use a sub-D-like approach to interactively model smooth forms over your optimised mesh forms.
LOAD CASE DEFINITION
1 Inspire now allows ● you to explore the potential for using lattices as part of your optimisation processes
The first update we’ll cover is how you define your load cases. Those that already use topology optimisation will know that basing your processes on a single load case isn’t the wisest of moves. Most products have multiple load cases that need to be accounted for, rather than a single, idealised case. While Inspire has for some time allowed you to define multiple load cases that feed into the optimisation process, these can be time consuming to set up. From the 2018 release onwards, you’ll be able to import load cases and load table values via spreadsheet format (as CSV or XLS files), whether you want to quickly generate those loads, reuse the data from existing FEA studies in other systems or from physical tests. This is done by setting up your loads and constraints and using the ‘loads’ dialogue to import a spreadsheet that populates this
data for you automatically from your given data source. Also on the loading conditions front, there has also been work to make motion simulations more useful in the optimisation process and to allow you to include spot welding contacts between appropriate forms.
OVERHANG CONTROL Before we get onto the big news for this release, it’s also worth noting an addition to the existing manufacturing controls in Inspire. Previously, it was possible to add controls for draft angle control for parts you intended to cast and much more, meaning that the optimisation process could target a much wider spread of manufacturing processes than pure additive manufacturing. This release does the same, but with a focus on additive. As most readers will know, additive manufacturing systems have specific restrictions in what can be built without support structures, referred to as ‘overhang angle’, especially when you’re talking about metals. If you can optimise a part’s form to avoid exceeding this angle in the specified direction, then you’re looking at a part that will be quicker and cheaper to build and will require less post-processing work.
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3 LATTICES & OPTIMISATION The big-ticket addition for this release of Inspire, however, is the introduction of lattice forms as part of the optimisation workflow. While the software has always focused on the removal of material to achieve an optimum solid form, the introduction of latticing takes this a step further. This enables you not only to reduce mass using the brute-force approach of topology optimisation, but also to further optimise your forms using the structural efficiency of lattices where appropriate. The use of lattices fits into the Inspire workflow nicely and if you’ve already tried the system, you’re not looking at a huge change in process. There are two modes in which you can use latticing: either as a
bulk job, where you’re looking to convert the bulk of the mass of your part to a lattice form; or to replace solid material with something more lightweight. The bulk lattice workflow is pretty much as you would expect; you set up your optimisation study with starting domain/ design spaces, keep-out zones and other factors in place, along with the load cases you want to use. Then you define the latticing options. This is done by switching to the lattice mode, then defining your options. Whether you’re working to maximise stiffness or reduce mass, you will get lattice-specific options such as spar or beam length, min/max beam width and percentage fill. The system will then start to work out how to best place your lattice, where it needs
thickness and/or where it can be backed off. If you’re looking to swap out your mix and match your solid geometry with lattice work, you’re looking at a very similar workflow, but using the traditional optimisation tools to find areas where solid geometry/parts can be swapped out for lattice, then working to define those areas as design spaces, then calculating the lattice for those spots. As ever, you’ve got all of the validation tools at your disposal for your results. At any point, you can dive back in, make adjustments, test them virtually and finalise your form.
2 Using topology ● optimisation and PolyNURBS to model up a structural form, then adding lattice where appropriate 2 A bulk latticing on ● a similar part – note how the overhang manufacturing control is also in place in this part
FITTING POLYNURBS SolidThinking introduced PolyNURBS in the 2016 release and these took the DEVELOP3D.COM APRIL 2018 59
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SOFTWARE REVIEW system from providing the user with a pretty rough mesh-based inspiration for design rework (hence the name), to being able to generate smooth and finalised forms. PolyNURBS focuses on a highly interactive method that allows you to select two sections through your mesh model and it’ll automatically create a subdivision surface form between them. You then add further sections to quick add geometry around your mesh. There are tools to quickly snap together joints and you can dive in and adapt each section of the cage built around the form at any point. This doesn’t change hugely in this release. All of the tools are still there. What it does do is address an issue where the PolyNURBS forms don’t fit too closely to your mesh (perhaps where there’s a sharp change in size of mesh, for example). The new ‘fit’ command will do its best to adapt your PolyNURBS skin to your mesh, so you’re ensuring that your optimisation work is carried through the remodelling process.
In terms of workflow, this is a nice addition; it means you can quickly lay out a rough patch of surfaces across your part, then use the ‘fit’ operation to snap that set of surfaces more closely to your optimised mesh geometry.
IN CONCLUSION Inspire is an incredible bit of kit, which has been leading the topology optimisation field for some time. Only now are we seeing some of the CAD vendors start to catch up, with the introduction of their own surface skinning tools. Inspire, however, remains one step ahead, by giving users the chance to re-engineer and tweak results where needed – something that other systems simply don’t do. On top of that, solidThinking has now brought latticing into the equation, which has a huge range of benefits, especially when it comes to the design of specialised components (such as filters or medical implants) that need to be lightweight but structurally effective.
The implementation of latticing in this release is impressive. It allows you to use a combination of topology optimisation and latticing technology where most appropriate. It doesn’t have the fuller set of lattice control forms you’d get in other systems, admittedly. For now, you’re looking at a single lattice cell form to optimise placement and width of lattice beams only. But when it comes to using these types of forms, it’s still early days. Many companies are still working out for themselves how to make them pay, considering the changes required to cost calculations and production processes. What we need to be able to do right now is to experiment before heading into production. While solidthinking Inspire looks like an industrial design tool, it’s backed up with world-leading simulation technology. That means that you’re optimising your products on the most informed inputs, from multiple load cases from previous simulations or physical tests to simulations conducted in the system.
WORKFLOW: MIXING TOPOLOGY OPTIMISATION WITH LATTICE-BASED LIGHTWEIGHTING
1 Import a model into Inspire using a variety of formats, ● from STEP to a range of native file options
2 De-feature the part by removing imprints, rounds and ● holes
3 Define contacts, loading conditions and material ● characteristics
4 Perform a topology optimisation ●
5 Compare results of multiple optimisations and ●
6 Employ PolyNURBS to create the final geometry ●
7 Verify the performance of the final part ●
8 Now you can conduct an optional lattice optimisation ●
9 Run motion analysis to determine loads ●
11 Perform a gauge optimisation ●
12 Manufacturing analysis (stamping or casting) ●
10 Perform a topography optimisation ●
performance against original part
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
1
PTC Creo 5
Creo is almost one-third of a century old, but recent releases of PTC’s flagship design and engineering product have seen new life breathed into the venerable system. Al Dean explores what Creo 5 brings to the game
W
ith its roots in Pro/Engineer and the founding of the parametric, history-based modelling industry, Creo has come a long way since the late 1980s. Over the intervening period, the system has grown in coverage and now encompasses design, engineering, simulation, manufacturing and much more. It has subsumed other technology along the way (CoCreate and its direct modelling capabilities spring to mind), and today, it’s a behemoth of a system. The company behind it, meanwhile, has similarly grown and spread its wings. So what’s coming up in Creo 5? Let’s start by looking at the updates and enhancements that will be broadly applicable for the majority of users, rather than those who fit into more ‘niche’ categories. In terms of user interface, Creo has been pretty consistent over the last few releases, with the majority of changes focused on adding in more modern touches that users have come to expect from their software. Creo is incrementally being modernised, but in a manner that’s manageable for its long-standing and highly experienced user community: it now comes with a full-screen mode backed up by context-aware mini toolbars, box selection and geometry
» Product: Creo 5 » Supplier: PTC Price: On Application www.ptc.com
1 Creo 5 retains ● its familiar user interface, but delivers new widgets that allow you to focus better on the task at hand
regions in sketching (as opposed to fully trimmed sketch geometry). Mini toolbars are also available across a much wider spread of the system’s modules and in both 2D and 3D environments. Additional updates to core modelling tools include changes in the way that the system handles adding drafts to parts that also feature rounds. Rather than trying to wrangle the whole thing, the new operation works in the background, removing rounds. It then applies the draft to the required faces and reapplies the rounds. On this point, it’s also worth noting how Creo has some very interesting options when adding draft to components; specifically, building in drafted faces around a centre or split line. Whereas other systems require you to split faces, Creo’s draft operation has options to use a mid-plane and handles all of those problematic facesplitting operations for you. The last general update I want to cover is the introduction of volume-based helical sweeps. While this works just like a standard sweep feature, the difference here is that rather than sweeping a simple planar profile around the path, in this instance you’re using a geometric lump. It’s a small, rather subtle difference between the two, but the resulting feature is very different and is required for many different purposes,
since volume sweeps are particularly useful for cams for mechanisms and some more complex thread forms (think drill bits).
FREESTYLE, STYLE & ISDX Now let’s dive into an area in which Creo has been strong for many years – the use of industrial design-focused tools for complex shape development. When we say ‘complex shape’, we’re talking about traditional surface modelling, where curvature continuity is essential, form control is paramount and in more recent years, the use of subdivision surface modelling technology has emerged. Creo’s offerings in this area are split across two areas. The Style module (part of the Interactive Surface Design Extension or ISDX toolset) provides traditional surface modelling tools you’ll need, while the Freestyle module brings subdivision modelling tools to the game. Updates to the Style model for this release are minimal; after all, this is a set of tools that has been developed for 20 years or so, and has already reached a certain level of maturity. That said, there’s always room for improvement or adding a little more intelligence. For example, when you build a G3 (curvature continuity) relationship between two faces, the system automatically handles upgrading the curves that also
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define the connecting edges of those faces to the same level of continuity. This is something that would have taken a fair bit of manual work to accomplish previously. Now, when creating new curves, you have the ability to specify a symmetry option, in order to build lighter weight curves spanning a mirror plane. With this comes the option for mirroring curves directly inside Style. On the Sub-D modelling front, the biggest update to Freestyle is the ability to switch to a box mode for editing heavier, more geometrically rich models. This will be familiar to those users who have used other Sub-D tools. It shades the control mesh, giving you a coarse, faceted representation, but what it gives up in resolution, is gives back in interactivity, with much snappier responses to edits and providing greater clarity over the topology of the control mesh.
2
ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING Let’s talk about additive manufacturing for a moment. I think we’ve all seen how 3D CAD vendors have jumped all over the additive manufacturing industry, with a view to pushing new functionality in their software tools. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a major software system released in the last few months that hasn’t referenced topology optimisation in some form or another. As you might expect, Creo 5 is no different in this regard. Where it differs, however, is how the process fits into both the existing design and engineering workflow and Creo’s data structure. While Creo 4 brought us the ability to define lattice structures in our parts, Creo 5 starts to introduce both a new topology optimisation engine and a way to do something useful with the resulting data. First things first, the optimisation process: Creo’s tools are built on the VR&D solver, Genesis. You then step through the familiar process of defining your boundary conditions, keep-in areas, keep-outs and so on, as well as optimisation targets (for minimising mass or displacement or maximising stiffness) and load case (or multiple cases, if you have the higher end module). These are all then used to generate a mesh-based form that solves those criteria. At this point, many topology optimisation tools top out, leaving users with no choice but to use this mesh as the ‘inspiration’ for a reworked solid and surface model. What Creo does differently here is to provide an operation called Geometry Reconstruction. This uses a patch network of Freestyle subdivision surfaces, which is laid over the mesh and snapped into place. There’s no manual remodeling or skinning the model. A simple click and it’s done. Depending on your resulting model, the freestyle model entity will be complex, but it does means that you can integrate it into subsequent operations, whether that’s adding more engineering features, machining stock for post-processing or something else. It’s worth noting that this module is available in two flavours. First, the
3 entry-level flavour (snappily entitled ‘Creo Topology Optimization Extension’) allows you to define both structural and modal analysis types as part of the optimisation process with symmetric, cyclic symmetric and extrusion and filling as manufacturing or form constraints. It also limits the number of load cases used to inform the optimisation process to three. Second, the Extension Plus variant opens up the number of load cases you can define, allowing you to include thermal analysis as an optimisation consideration and giving you a much wider range of constraints such as stamping. Another additive manufacturing-related update for this release is the introduction of technology from Materialise’s range of Build Processors, which specifically target metal-building machines. Essentially, this means that you can design, engineer and test your metal parts in Creo, then also within the system. You can start to explore how to manufacture a part on a machine from the likes of Arcam, EOS, Renishaw, SLM, HP and Concept Laser and lay out your build chambers, generate your supports, experiment with orientation and so on.
INTEGRATED CFD Another brand-new area of functionality is the introduction of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools directly inside Creo. While there’s been a series of add-on tools for CFD work for Creo for a while, this is the first time that PTC has released something official and listed in its price book. The technology it has used is the Simerics’ solver, which while not being one of the big names in CFD, still has a very loyal following. In terms of the Creo implementation, the workflow is pretty standard. You begin by defining the type of study you want to perform, whether it’s of an internal environment (for example, pumps or cooling inside an electronics enclosure) or an external environment (aerodynamics, for example). You then define the types of physics you want to use. From there, you start to define your CFD domain from your CAD model. If you’re running an external study, this will be pretty easy as you’ll have your model ready to go. If you’re running an internal flow study, then you need to generate your fluid volume. Here, having your CAD model inside a powerful modelling system comes in handy, as creating your fluid volume is
2 Creo 5 introduces a ● topology optimisation solver that gives you a wide range of boundary constraints and performance requirements to apply to a starting form, resulting in the familiar mesh 3 The system will ● skin the model using sub-D, Freestyle geometry, in order to give you a more readily usable model
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
pretty much a single button push, once you have your inlets and outlets capped off. Then it’s a case of defining boundary conditions, the inlet, outlet and fluid details, and running your study. You’ll find that the whole process is neatly integrated into the Creo interface, with all of your study requirements managed through the panel to the left-hand side of the UI. Your interaction with results, meanwhile, is just as you would expect. Again, as with the topology optimisation module/extension, the CFD tools in Creo (called Creo Flow Analysis) are modular in nature. The base-level package (at around the $2,000 mark) gives you the basics for flow simulation, heat transfer and turbulence. The middle package adds in particle tracing, radiation, fluid mixing and moving frame simulation, among other features, and costs around $5,000. If you want to dive into the world of cavitation, multiphase CFD and more complex dynamics, then you’ll need to get the Premium package and pay a much higher licence fee.
MODEL-BASED DEFINITION Like other technology vendors focused on the large-enterprise end of the 3D design spectrum, Creo has been gaining 3D GD&T (or PMI) tools for some time now. Creo 4, for example, introduced a new module that guides the user through the standards-based application of annotations to a 3D model. Built in partnership with Sigemtrix, a specialist in this field, the module handles the process neatly and efficiently, allowing to you quickly generate data that conforms to your chosen standard and checking it is fully constrained. Creo 5 extends this work, to allow you to add semantic queries into your model using the GD&T you’ve already defined. So when design changes occur, or you are driving your part in an automated fashion, then it’ll help rip through any GD&T that becomes disassociated with the originating or reference data. This release also sees the start of work to automate the creation of drawing views from 3D PMI-enabled data. This first instance allows you to quickly print or PDF fixed, formalised ‘state views’. While you can’t currently arrange these on a set of drawing sheets, you can see where things are headed.
CREO INTEGRATED CAM It has been a while since PTC talked about Creo-integrated CAM code. As long-term Pro/ Engineer-era users will know, PTC has always had CAM tools available and, over ten years ago, these were boosted with the company’s acquisition of NC Graphics. But with the release of Creo 5, this topic has reemerged as a talking point. In short, there’s a new set of CAM tools available in this release, based on the ModuleWorks CAM engine, and addressing subtractive manufacturing machinery from common or garden 3-axis high-speed machining operations to 3+2 operations. (As yet, there’s no word on simultaneous 5-axis as yet).
4 AUGMENTED REALITY & IOT
IN CONCLUSION
The final subject we’re going to cover is PTC’s work on Augmented Reality (AR) and the Internet of Things (IoT). This has advanced considerably since Creo 4; in that release, for example, the company introduced a set of tools that allowed the user to generate an AR dataset that might be shared with anyone, directly from the application. In Creo 4, this converted your Creo model, allowed you to add in a ‘ThingMark’ that enabled the viewing app to ID the correct dataset (they are cloud-hosted), and gave it scale. While this was a subset of PTC’s Vuforia tools, it proved interesting and easy to use – particularly key for getting folks to try AR as a means for design review. For Creo 5, this work has continued. In the first instance, the capability has changed so you don’t need the Thingmark for scale. Instead, the apps will use spatial tracking and an awareness of surrounding elements to work out how to display your model at the correct, defined scale. This alone is pretty damn impressive. In addition, you also have a greater set of controls over access to the data you create, such as password access control that helps to to enforce who can view your AR data. On the IoT front, Creo 4 saw a bunch of tools introduced that made it possible to link Creo models to IoT data stored in PTC’s Thingworx platform. Creo’s Product Insight Module, for example, allows users to connect to data from a physical product, whether that’s a live one-to-one link or one that uses aggregated data. With further development for Creo 5, you can now build in sensors within your digital model that will match up with sensors in the physical realm and, importantly, use that integration within the simulation environment. So what does that mean? In short, it means that you can not only move your digital model using data from the real world, but also use physical sensors to drive simulation studies. The potential for this is huge, but there are also a few additional tools that we’ve heard about that will make this even more powerful, in the coming months, so stay tuned around June.
A couple of years ago, you might have been forgiven for thinking that the leadership of PTC had all but given up on the core 3D CAD portion of its business. The IoT and service management world was seemingly where its real focus lay. But it transpires that what the company has actually managed to do is to broaden its focus to the brave new world of the IoT, but in a manner that means that 3D design and the data it creates take centre-stage. That strategy seems, in turn, to have had a dramatic knock-on effect on the development resources committed to Creo, as the last few releases of the package have been impressive. Creo 5 doesn’t disappoint, either. The company is clearly serious about additive manufacturing and, considering its position in automotive (in particular, powertrain) and aerospace (particularly the defence end of the spectrum), as well as some of the other transportation industries, it’s no surprise. What’s interesting is how PTC is addressing the whole workflow, from optimisation of form according to function, to allowing you to plan manufacturing inside your design tool, and then onto enabling the machining of optimised forms and post-processing work. This is an aspect that many other vendors have missed entirely. Then there’s the work PTC is doing on bringing digital design and engineering systems together with the physical world, allowing user to not only drive assembly dynamics, but also conduct simulation work using real-world capture data. Again, this is something that few other vendors are doing right now. But consider the impact if you successfully link those two areas up. Imagine an assembly, for example, that is directly linked to variants already out there in the field, an assembly that can use real-world data to drive optimisation routines on key components, adjust those that are underperforming (or indeed, are over-engineered), simulate a new, better form and prepare it for manufacturing. When you think about it, that’s quite something isn’t it?
4 Creo’s new CFD ● module allows you to conduct fluid flow and heat transfer type simulations
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THE LAST WORD
Almost all vendors are introducing topology optimisation tools in their latest releases. Driven by and heavily linked to the metal additive world, Al Dean wonders whether these tools are being marketed in the right way
I
f I think back over the last year or so, one key trend has emerged from the 3D design and CAD industry: the whole market has gone bat-shit crazy for topology optimisation. From my vague recollections, in recent releases from SolidWorks, Solid Edge, NX, Creo and Inventor, we’ve seen topology optimisation tools in some form or another. In fact, the only CAD vendor I can think of that hasn’t yet introduced such tools is Onshape (though partners do offer connections to such tools). What’s interesting is how the vendors are pitching the use of topology optimisation. I’ve seen all the Powerpoint slides on the subject, multiple times, and all but a handful focus on the link between topology optimisation and additive manufacturing. The most common refrain is, “Topology optimisation has been around for a while, but we’ve never been able to manuacture the parts before.” It’s usually accompanied with a photo plucked from a Google Image Search for ‘3D printer’. It’s at that point you know that they’ve not thought their shit through. A slide meant to illustrate the use of complex mathematics and physics calculations to grow parts using lasers and powdered metals is left flacid by an image of a desktop plastics 3D printer. The power of topology optimisation is something that has been around for decades now. Those of us who have been around long enough have seen it come and go, rise and fall. What’s changed is that there’s now an immediately tangible way to pitch it – and it’s one that appears to come from the future. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve heard the phrase “complexity comes for free”. Horseshit. Additive isn’t a complexityfree process. It introduces a set of design rules that is not only process-specific, but is also specific in terms of material, process and design intent. While the additive industry loves to talk
about stepping away from the Design for Manufacture constraints of processes like machining and injection moulding, the reality is that it introduces a whole new set of rules that are undefined, unexplored and unformalised. These rules are going to be very expensive and time-consuming to establish. So when a CAD vendor introduces its latest
to reach an optimum, to manufacture components traditionally. After all, we all design and engineer a wide range components and very few of them are additively manufactured. They’re machined, they’re moulded, they’re cast, they’re stamped. Topology optimisation, with the correct controls, has the ability to reduce their mass and retain their strength and stiffness where needed. Surely that’s good thing for everyone, which benefits a much wider range of products? Of course it is. It’s just as valid, if not more so, to use optimisation techniques to find new forms and functional shapes for less exotic parts, those structural members that could have reduced mass and use less energy to move or to support. Those parts under the hood that are never seen. It’s a less futuristic vision, maybe, but it’s a hell of a lot more impactful on a product’s performance.
This titanium bracket is 30 percent lighter than its conventionally manufactured predecessor. With a little redesign, it could have been machined and offer similar weight savings at a lower cost Image Credit: Airbus
It’s at that point you know they’ve not thought their shit through. A slide meant to illustrate the use of complex mathematics and physics calculations to grow parts using lasers and powdered metals is left flacid by an image of a desktop plastics 3D printer
topology optimisation-related update and tell us, “Complexity is free”, it suggests it may just be jumping on a bandwagon, ticking a box to say, “Yeah, we do topology optimisation too”, rather than thinking through the implications of its words. A much smarter approach might be to pitch these tools and configure them so that users can use the same approach, to remove material from a design space
GET IN TOUCH: Email on al@x3dmedia.com or on the twitter @alistardean — If he never sees an aerospace bracket again, it’ll be too soon.
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